Fires in the Wilderness (9 page)

T
he weekend came and went without a word from Mike, Lieutenant Campbell, or Captain Mason. We waited on pins and needles. It was like we were hunkered down for an explosion that never came. At roll call on Monday morning, Captain Mason called Stosh's name as usual. This time Stosh shouted “Here!” and his name was given a check mark on the clipboard. It was a reply that hadn't been heard in camp since early in the week before, yet no one commented on his return. Still, we waited for some kind of response or speech about going AWOL. There was nothing, not a peep.

After we were issued our shovels from the tool shed, we headed for the pit just like any other day. Mike never said a word, good or bad. We walked in silence for fear of breaking the spell. We waited for an outburst that didn't come—at least, not yet.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a land of extremes. The weather had taken a dramatic turn for the better. The previous week had felt like the return of fall. Today it was like spring had been skipped altogether; the northland was suddenly immersed in full-blown summer. We got rid of our hats and shirts as we labored under the hot sun.

The work crew kept up a good pace, even after a cloud of bugs showed up. Early summer is black fly season in the U.P.—and black flies are sneaky and nasty. They land softly and like to nibble people behind the ears, at the hairline, and where clothing fits snugly against the body. After black flies finish feeding on human flesh, they often leave a trail.

I noticed blood running down the back of Yasku's neck. “Did ya cut yourself?” I asked.

“Naw, don't think so,” Yasku responded. He reached back to scratch behind his ear and came away with blood on his fingertips. The trail down his neck came from a small red bump that was beginning to swell. It was the same kind of bug bite that had covered Stosh's head and arms when he spent days in the swamps of northern Michigan. The pit was bad enough. Now the bugs were making matters much worse.

At midday, Mike arrived on the beat-up supply truck that was delivering lunch. The old rattletrap pulled away after dropping off its cargo and passenger. I tried not to pay any attention to Mike as we ate our sandwiches. He sat on a stump, pulled out a pocket knife, and began cutting an apple. Mike carefully sliced it and balanced each piece on the blade as he ate. When he finished, he studied the core for a moment. Without warning he reached back and threw it with all the power he had. The juicy core hit me on the side of the head.

I lost my temper and closed the distance between him and me. Before I could throw myself into a fight, Pick and Yasku grabbed me. Stosh shrank back, afraid to get involved. I kicked and screamed, struggling against my friends. The weeks and months of abuse had come to a boil. Mike needed to be taught a lesson, and I was mad enough to teach it.

“Calm down,” Yasku shouted in Polish as he shook me in his grip.

“C'mon, Polack,” Mike said taunting me with his arms at his side. “Stop talking that pig Latin with your buddies and hit me. I know you want to. So, go ahead.”

Pick turned me roughly toward him. “Don't do it, Jarek. He's looking for an excuse to fight.”

“That's it,” Yasku said. “He only wants to get you kicked out of the CCC.”

Yasku's words got through to me. It made sense. Mike wanted to get into a fight so he could report me for misconduct or for punching a superior. I straightened up and relaxed my arms. Yasku and Pick loosened their grip.

“It's time to get back to work, boys,” I said to my friends. We all picked up our shovels and headed back down into the pit.

Mike leaned hard against the truck as we loaded gravel into it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. Then he sauntered down into the pit and spoke to me so no one else could hear. “Too bad, Polack! You missed your chance. You see, I want to stomp you like a bug, but if I hit you first . . . well, let's just say I like my job and I want to keep it. You went behind my back again, and you're gonna pay dearly. I don't know when, and I don't know where, but one day I will beat the daylights out of you.”

I gripped my shovel hard, knuckles whitened under the pressure. Mike laughed and climbed the side of the pit. Before leaving, he turned. “Oh, I almost forgot why I came here.” He waited until we all stopped working to hear his announcement. “Campeau, report for KP once you get back to camp. Sokolowski, join your pal this evening and for the rest of the week.”

After we returned from another day in the pit, we reported for KP. Stosh and I were fortunate enough to get the firewood detail as our duty. Cook stoves and dishwater were heated with wood fires. Each evening, piles of wood were cut, split, and stacked for the following day. It wasn't the worst of the jobs and it was better than scrubbing pots and doing dishes, but it was humiliating pulling KP detail along with all the goof-offs in camp.

After supper that night, Yasku and I scratched our bug bites and played cards on my bunk. Just before lights-out, Pick and Ben came roaring into the tent. They fell onto their cots and pulled pillows over their faces to muffle their laughter. Once their beds stopped shaking, they looked at each other and started laughing all over again.

“What's so funny?” I asked out of curiosity.

Pick spoke just above a whisper, “Mike had a visitor tonight.”

“A visitor, really? Who was it?” asked Yasku, slapping a card on top of mine.

“That visitor was a skunk,” Ben chuckled. “Mike O'Shea and everything he owns stink to high heaven. Now nobody, but nobody, wants to get near him. The best thing is no one, not even Mike, has a clue as to how that friendly little skunk happened to find its way in there.”

“You should've seen him trying to shoo that skunk out of his tent,” Pick snorted. “The most wonderful part of the story is that only Ben and I know how the little stinker got in there in the first place.”

A
s the summer wore on, an army crew came around and built real wooden barracks at Camp Polack Lake. The black tarpaper that covered the exterior of the buildings was far from beautiful. The inside was as plain and simple as a cardboard box with a couple of windows. Still, the barracks had comfortable beds and gave us shelter from rain and bugs. It was a welcome change from tent life.

In addition to the barracks, Polack Lake now had a recreation hall with a meager library and an infirmary for treating illnesses and wounds. Quarters were also constructed for officers, the forester, and the local experienced men who were hired to help us CCC boys learn different jobs. Polack Lake was no longer a campsite. It was a community.

Life in the wilderness had fallen into a routine of getting up early, flag raising, morning exercises, policing the grounds, breakfast, inspection, roll call, grabbing tools, walking to work, shoveling gravel, then returning for dinner, followed by a few hours of free time before sleep. To fill the evening hours, classes were offered in the rec hall. Despite Mike's opposition, I signed up to take motor vehicle operations. The schooling helped keep my dream of being a truck driver alive. The routine continued until the early morning hours of one hot, hazy July day.

During calisthenics, five deer broke through the brush that grew around our camp. The deer scurried past our formation, bouncing and zigzagging off to the far side of the parade grounds. It was a beautiful, graceful sight. We took it as a good sign. Before the day was over, we would learn otherwise.

Andy Timmons had been nicknamed King Kong because he could climb faster and higher than anyone at camp, so he was our fire ranger. Each day he watched the forest from atop a 140-foot tower at the top of a hill a couple of miles west of the lake. Most of the guys in camp envied him because his job was so easy. All he had to do was stay awake and keep a lookout.

King Kong climbed the ladder to the top of the fire tower right after breakfast that particular July morning. There was a gray haze out to the west, but that wasn't uncommon. Low-lying fog and storm clouds often presented themselves as gray lines on the horizon. From atop his tower, he saw a parade of animals—deer, possum, skunk, and raccoon. It wasn't uncommon for him to see wildlife from his perch, but today was different. He'd never seen the woods so alive with life. Animals seemed to be running with purpose. What had gotten into them?

After a time, he carefully studied the horizon with his binoculars. He lowered them slowly and rubbed his eyes. Then he raised them a second time to make sure of what he was seeing. King Kong couldn't believe his eyes. Hands shaking, he cranked the generator on the telephone in the tower.

“Captain,” he said nervously, “we've got a wildfire.”

King Kong put down the phone and took another look at the fire through his binoculars. Then he checked the windsock that inflated in the breeze above his head before picking up the phone once again.

“Yes sir, the fire is west-southwest at 240 degrees. I'd estimate that it's eight to ten miles away. Wind speed is ten to fifteen miles per hour out of the southwest. Yes, that's right. Oh, and sir, it looks like it's moving fast.”

Trucks gathered us up from our work sites around camp. Though we'd been given some training in how to fight a wildfire and we'd had some practice drills, this was the real thing. The trucks rumbled down gravel roads and two-lane ruts. Old vehicles were pushed to their limits. Guided by the compass heading that King Kong had given, we traveled the twisting roads up ridges and down valleys. It was easy to tell that we were getting close to the fire; the smoke was nearly suffocating.

Stosh, Pick, Yasku, and I were assigned a portion of the line that was near the south end of the fire. Handkerchiefs covered our faces. The work was both simple and hard. Axes, picks, grub hoes, and shovels were used to cut a line in the ground that we hoped the fire would not cross. Our backs supplied the energy.

To create a break, we had to clear all brush, timber, and grass in the path of the fire. If we could get the work done in time, we would use drip torches to light a backfire, which could eliminate some of the fire's fuel and widen the break we were making. This way, we could actually fight fire with fire. The hope was that with some luck, we could stop the wildfire in its tracks.

That day we learned that a wildfire is a living, breathing beast—a creature with a mind of its own. We strained to cut the fire line. The beast was a couple of miles off when we started working. As it charged toward us, it threw off smoke and heat. Sweat poured down our backs and off our brows. Soot and ash covered us from head to toe. As it approached, the roar was deafening.

We did the best we could to stay ahead of it. As the beast drew near, flames licked at the margins of the line. When the wind kicked up, it roared at us, spewing fire and flaming embers. We fell back to escape the heat, fighting as we retreated. Our focus was on the ground immediately ahead, furiously clearing anything that would feed it.

We couldn't stop the creature. The fire easily jumped the line we made and was overtaking us.

“R
un for it!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. My voice was barely heard over the roar.

It was move or die. I tapped each guy on the shoulder to get their attention. We dropped our tools and picked our way through slashings, stumps, brush piles, and fallen timber to make our escape.

The beast clawed at our heels as we struggled to keep ahead of it. Lungs were bursting as we ran. Barbs and branches tore at our skin. Eventually we found our way to the rim of a valley. There was a small stream that flowed down below.

“This way! The stream has to lead somewhere!” I called out. Looking back, I saw that more guys had fallen in behind us and were running for their very lives.

Stosh made an attempt to go down into the valley, but it was clogged with downed trees and heaped with dead branches and thorn bushes. We quickly picked up a deer trail that followed the general direction of the valley floor. The group pushed forward. Our mouths were dry and our legs were so tired they felt like stumps. Each person took a turn in the lead, breaking the trail and looking for any way of escape. The beast roared behind us without letup, snapping and growling in anger.

The deer trail took a sudden turn away from the stream and up a rise. As we topped the hill, a small lake stretched out before us. We stumbled down the hill toward the safety of the water. Yasku and Pick stayed behind to help some of the guys who had fallen back. One was coughing uncontrollably, another had a bum leg.

One by one, we fell into the water. One by one, we started screaming. The spring-fed lake was ice cold. Our bodies were being cooked by a wildfire; our legs were freezing in a lake. We stood shivering in the water as the beast approached. It took time, but we adjusted to the water temperature. We were glad to be alive.

I took a head count. There were twenty-two of us in the lake, but we weren't alone. Animals of all varieties joined us—deer, raccoon, opossum, skunk. For the moment, we were all safe in our common refuge, man and animal. The beast growled. As it approached, we went deeper and deeper into the water. The wildfire surrounded the small lake, then swept off.

Eventually we emerged from the icy water. Lips were blue and teeth chattered uncontrollably. Beneath our feet, the ground was hot. Everything within eyesight was burned black. Here and there, skeletons of scrub brush, scraggly hardwood trees, stumps, and deadfalls flickered with small fires. Smoke hung low to the ground. Nightfall was near at hand. That day felt like it had come and gone in only a few moments, a few breaths. Wet clothes and the chill that swept over us at sundown made the night seem much longer.

I checked on each of the guys from time to time. It was hard to recognize anyone in the dark. The job was harder still because our faces were covered in soot and ash. One of the guys stayed awake the entire night. It was only when he spoke that I recognized it was Ben.