The Big Burn (12 page)

"It will be going on toward the middle of the night anyway," Celia said. She hesitated, threw a quick glance at Lizbeth, and then said, "If you'd like, you can take a blanket out to the horse shelter and sleep there."

"Thank you," Jarrett said again, "but I've got to report for work early in the morning." He frowned. "I hate leaving you two, though. Coming here, we passed fire crews going to the west fork or heading up the divide. Don't you think—?"

Lizbeth interrupted him. "I'll tell Celia what Mis. Marston said, but we're not going to change our minds about staying. I think your fire fighting is important, however discouraging it seems to you right now, and I think what we're doing is just as important. To us anyway."

She couldn't tell if he agreed, but at least he didn't say she was being foolish. She liked that about him, that he gave her credit for being able to think for herself.

"Jarrett, if you are really returning to Wallace tonight, you better get going," Celia said. "By the way, though ... have you heard any news of your brother?"

"Just that he's been hurrying from one job to another," Jarrett told her. "I don't expect to see him soon, but if I do I'll say you asked after him."

***

Lizbeth walked Jarrett to the edge of the clearing. "I think Celia could be sweet on your brother, if they got to know each other," she said. "But I guess that won't happen until the fire danger is over."

"I guess not," Jarrett said. "A lot's waiting on that."

"Do you think the fires will get much worse?"

"They could. Everyone says the next week will tell."

Lizbeth felt a quiver of uneasiness. "I wish you didn't have to go back on the fireline. I'm afraid for you."

"I'll be all right," Jarrett said. "I survived both today's fight
and
your landlady, didn't I? Anyway, you're the one I worry about. I wish you and your aunt would do like Mrs. Marston said."

Lizbeth didn't answer.
So he doesn't believe we're doing right, staying on to protect what we can.
She wished she herself felt as sure as she was trying to sound.

She'd thought he might kiss her good-bye—a little kiss anyway. That was something else she'd never done, been kissed. But he didn't.

They parted with a hand squeeze and troubled disagreement between them.

"What was that about Mrs. Marston?" Celia asked as soon as Lizbeth returned to the cabin.

"She thinks we're fools to stay here and risk being burned up."

"And I suppose she put it just that way?" Celia laughed, expecting that her niece would laugh with her. Celia never ceased to be amazed at the way their landlady spoke her mind. It amused and shocked her and sometimes made her envious. What would it be like to be so certain of things?

Lizbeth said, "Ought we to consider it, Cel? Mrs. Marston invited us to be her guests—no rent, and you wouldn't have to cook for boarders."

Her niece's unexpected question disquieted Celia. She felt herself being pushed into a corner. First Samuel Logan and now Mrs. Marston was demanding she surrender the plan she'd clung to these past years. And leaving
would
be the same as admitting defeat, whether fire swept through the place or not. Stung that Lizbeth didn't understand, Celia demanded, "And you, too? Do you think we ought to give up?"

"Not give up, Cel," Lizbeth answered. "Just not confuse wanting to keep our place with wanting to stay alive."

"You're being melodramatic."

"No. I'm just wondering what makes you so sure you know better than everyone else what we should do. Are you just too proud to admit you're wrong?"

"That's enough, Lizbeth," Celia said, her voice sharp. "You go stay in town if you wish. I don't need you here anyway, and I'd just as soon you be safe."

"Don't be silly," Lizbeth said. "I'm not going without you." She pulled on her work apron. "I'll put the animals away for the night."

"You haven't eaten supper," Celia said.

"I'm not hungry." Lizbeth headed out the door. "But maybe Mrs. Marston is right about us being fools."

***

Celia put the uneaten meal away. She hadn't been hungry either.

Why does what I say so often come out sounding different from what I mean?

Of course she wanted her niece safe in town, but Lizbeth would never go, not after the way Celia had put it.

And why can't
I admit I'm not sure at all about what we should do?

She wished she had some way to bring Tom Whitcomb back to life long enough to end things properly with him. It wasn't right, how he'd left her with this place and his ideas to carry out. It was like he'd left her with a test she had to pass over and over, with every decision she made.

Celia knew it was a foolish test, but what would it say about her if she abandoned it? That she'd been fool enough to marry a man who didn't know how to provide for her?

She grimaced, thinking back on the one time she'd tried to explain that to Lizbeth.

"So provide for yourself," Lizbeth had said. "Or let me. We're not hothouse flowers needing to be taken care of."

"You wouldn't know a hothouse flower if you saw one," Celia had retorted. "I doubt there's a hothouse in all Idaho."

As though that had anything to do with the price of apples,
Celia thought, remembering. But at least the comment had been so ridiculous it had set them both laughing.

She took out her small stack of magazines and began searching for a picture that might make a good watercolor. Lately she'd been less and less interested in drawings of women playing croquet on clipped lawns, and tonight she could hardly even stand to look at them. Impatient, she put the magazines down and stepped to the door to see if Lizbeth needed a hand.

Her niece signaled that she was almost done with the chores, and Celia started to go back inside. And then she halted, distracted by a whiff of pine coming through the pervading smell of smoke. It made her think of Samuel Logan's scrapbooks. Maybe he didn't know as much about drawing as she did, but he certainly cared more about his subjects. It showed in every line of his work.

Since seeing his drawings, Celia had started to observe more closely the woods she lived in. She'd found that her trees took on a whole different look when she studied how they were made instead of calculating only their value as cut timber.

Abruptly, Lizbeth's question came back to her
Are you just too proud to admit you're wrong? Not too proud,
Celia thought.
Too scared.

Seth got twenty-four hours' sentry duty, not for fighting but for losing. "Teach you to pick your battles," Sarge said, "and to know when you're gonna need help. Get your rifle."

"But that ain't right," Seth said. "That boy was getting beat up, and..."

"And you with him. You should'a known two can't fight three."

I expected it to be even, Abel pitching in with me,
Seth thought, but he didn't say it. There had to be a good reason for Abel not backing him up.

Anyway, even without Abel, Seth's uniform should have counted for something. That's what Seth's father used to say.
Most people respect a uniform, even if they don't like the person in it.

Seth swallowed down bile, not knowing who he was angriest at, Sarge or those men—or his father, for promising the army would be different from what it was. He got his weapon and reported back.

Sarge glanced at his pocket watch and said, "You're on in ten," and returned to a stack of papers he was going through.

Seth waited, the unjustness of the whole thing gnawing at his insides, until finally he blurted out, "How come you don't go after others like this?"

"Like Abel?" Sarge said without looking up from what he was reading. "I've seen lots like him. Good-enough soldiers as long as it suits them to be. I want men I can count on."

"I don't understand," Seth said.

"Abel's not worth my trouble. You are." Sarge glanced down at his ankle, his face expressionless. "Now, you go on."

***

Seth began the first of the dozens of times he was supposed to walk the camp's perimeter, eyes roving while his face and body pointed straight ahead. When he got around to the darkest side, Abel slipped up next to him. It was the first time since the fight that Seth had seen him.

"Where were you?" Seth demanded. "I almost got pounded into nothing."

"I ran for help," Abel said. "That was just good sense. Only, that girl beat me to it."

"You could have told Sarge how it was."

"And done what good, besides maybe get us
both
guard duty? Buddy, I'll make it up to you."

"I don't need you making up nothing."

They were approaching a lighted comer, and Abel stepped back into shadows. "Catch you next round," he said.

***

When Seth returned to the dark stretch, Abel rejoined him. "It's not me you ought to be mad at," he said. "It's the army. Once you and me are on the outside, we won't have to put up with none of this."

"Who said I want out? Anyway, I got two years to go," Seth told him.

"You think that matters?" Abel laughed softly. "You and me decide we want out, then we get out."

"I already said that ain't what I'm after," Seth said. But he couldn't stop himself from asking, "How?"

Abel laughed again. "Thought that would get you. I got plans."

"What plans?"

"In time, buddy. In time."

***

As soon as Seth's relief took over walking the sentry round, the white boy from the fight appeared. He must have been waiting, Seth figured.

"You're the soldier who helped me today, right?" the boy asked. "I want to thank you."

"Wasn't nothing," Seth answered.

"It was to me! You get hurt bad?"

"No. Look, I got to report back."

"Then I'll get going," the boy said. "I just came by now because I've got to leave early tomorrow for a fire camp." He held out his hand. "I'm Jarrett Logan."

Seth hesitated and then, hoping he was doing right, he completed the handshake. "Seth Brown," he said.

"Nice to meet you," Jarrett said. "Thanks again." He started to leave.

"Wait," Seth said. "You said you're going back to a fire camp? You're a firefighter?"

"Yeah."

"Because, I was wondering what it's like, stopping a forest fire."

"You don't stop them," Jarrett answered. "You just try to keep them from running away. And as for what it's like—it's not been too bad for me, but I haven't been at it long. For some others, though..." He shuddered. "It's not something you ever want to see, how somebody who's been burned looks."

Seth was astounded to see tears well up in the boy's eyes.

"Or how he smells or what he sounds like—" Jarrett broke off. "I shouldn't have said that. Most times, fire fighting is no worse than other kinds of hard work. Just hotter."

"I can handle hot," Seth said.

"Then I reckon you'll be okay. You know what fire you're going on?"

"They said I Company's staying here, and G Company—that's mine—is going down to some railroad town."

"Avery, then," Jarrett said, remembering what Mr. Polson had told him. "That's a division town on the Milwaukee."

"You know it?"

"I used to live there, and my father still does. He's a train conductor."

"Mine was a soldier," Seth said. "Look, I really best be getting back before someone comes after me."

"Good luck down in Avery, if that's where you go," Jarrett said. "I hear the fires all along the St. Joe are heating up, so I know you're needed."

Jarrett found Mr. Polson already at work when he got to the Forest Service office at 7
A.M.,
after sleeping under a baggage cart at one of the railroad stations. Jarrett told him about the threats from Tully's friend, about what Tully might do. "I don't know the man's whole name, just
Tully,
but he was the same one who..."

"I know him," Mr. Polson said. He put a reassuring hand on Jarrett's arm. "I'd guess that was bluff yesterday, but I'll send word down to the Avery sheriff so someone can warn your father and keep an eye on his place. And I'll warn Samuel when he returns."

"You want me to go check on the Cool Spring Station?"

"You're needed more on the firelines." Mr. Polson hesitated. "But no one would blame you for going down to Avery to make sure things there are okay."

Jarrett thought,
And Pop would think I was using the threats as an excuse to go home. He'd laugh in my face, before slamming the door on me.

The force of the anger surging through Jarrett surprised him, since he'd hardly thought about Pop the last few weeks. He'd been too busy.

"Thanks," he told Mr. Polson, "but I want to see the fire season through, now I'm this far in it" He waited while Mr. Polson studied him.

Then the Forest Service man told him, "Well, like I said, you're needed." He went over to the wall map, where he indicated one of many pins clustered along the drainages feeding the St. Joe River. "Now, this is where you're going to deliver that equipment."

Samuel checked the supplies he'd packed into his saddlebags. He hated to again be leaving his territory to someone else's care while he helped with fire crews farther out. Maybe one good thing that would come of this summer's wildfires would be the Forest Service getting money to hire more rangers.

Anyone with half a mind could see they were needed, along with a lot more firefighters who actually knew what they were doing.

He worried about the woods being full of men who had no idea how a wildfire might act or how fast one could move. Men who had no idea that the only thing completely sure about any fire was that it was unpredictable.

"Want to see if we forgot anything in the cabin?" he said to Boone.

Inside, Samuel telephoned headquarters to report that he was on his way but planned a short detour by the mail drop and to check on a couple of homesteaders. He fastened the pie-chest door securely so he wouldn't come back to mouse-eaten cornmeal. He squared his stack of scrapbooks.