The Big Burn (15 page)

"I'm okay. I wish Pa was."

"I think once he gets his sight back he'll get better," Jarrett told him, trying to sound reassuring.

"I got a baby brother, but he's with my ma," Henry volunteered. "They went to Spokane to be safe, but Pa said I was old enough to stay and help him keep our place from burning up." He paused. "It burned up anyway."

"I'm sorry," Jarrett said.

"Yeah, me, too."

After a moment the boy rolled over, and Jarrett turned to thinking about his options. From where he lay he could see a good-sized blackened area studded with partly burned trees halfway up a steep hillside. If he took everyone up there, they'd be visible to a search party and probably safer than here. Jarrett remembered Samuel saying that fires don't usually waste their time on old bums.

Before they set off he'd drop down to the gulch bottom and fill their water bottles, assuming he found a creek down there. He again wished he knew if they were above the gully he and Rolling Joe had pulled water from the day before. If so, they must be well to one side or the other of the spot, because Jarrett didn't recognize any of the surrounding terrain.

Seth's day began at 5:15
A.M.,
when the bugler sounded reveille. He delayed a moment getting up, wishing he could put off going back to the woods. But the army's morning routine moved along just as sure in the field as it did in garrison on a regular post. He had to assemble with the others at 5:30, make mess call at 6:00, line up for sick call at 7:15 if he wanted salve for his blisters.

There was a different bugle call for each thing, different notes and different rhythms, and sometimes Seth thought how he was probably waking up to the same sounds soldiers were waking up to all over. The sounds his father probably had woken up to at all those posts he'd been on and countries he'd gone to. Seth liked thinking on that better than he liked thinking about the day in front of him.

Drill call was at 8:00
A.M.
and another assembly at 8:10. Ten minutes after that he shouldered his mattock and again headed to the fires that threatened the rail line. The fires were hard to get to, tucked away as they were in a confusing canyon of deep ravines and steep, rocky faces. Even from a distance he could see the fires were flaming higher than they had the day before. The smoke churned thicker, clogging his head; a stiff wind ground gritty ash into his eyes and plastered his flannel shirt against his arms.

He set to work where he was told, but it took all his willpower to hack at the fire trench when he saw glowing brands roll down on it Especially when one of them ricocheted up, searing his fingers with a sharp bite of pain. And no matter how hard he tried not to think about the danger around him, there was no ignoring the bright streamers that flared at the edge of his vision.

One time, startled by a tree torching so close that the sudden brightness almost blinded him, he did turn and start to run away. Then, ashamed, he continued on to a large boulder and stood facing it, hoping anybody who'd noticed would think he'd left to relieve himself.

Returning to the fireline, he saw he hadn't fooled Abel.

"Had enough of this yet, buddy?" Abel asked.

"Of fire? I hope never to see another one," Seth answered, trying to sound tougher than he felt.

"Of the army!" Abel said. He grinned. "Ain't this wind great? Just a little more wind, buddy. Just a little more fire..."

A corporal overheard and demanded, "What's that?"

Abel answered, "I was saying we need more fire to show our stuff."

The corporal, looking uncertain, hesitated before replying, "Don't wish it In fact, just don't talk at all."

After he was out of earshot, Seth told Abel, "You didn't fool him."

Abel shrugged. "So what? You think he's gonna trouble his self over us? I keep telling you, buddy, ain't nobody in this outfit gonna matter to us once we're gone, or do one thing about our going."

***

The winds blew harder and the fire whipped more wildly as the morning and then the early afternoon wore on. And more and more Seth felt like somebody else was slamming down the pick end of his mattock. Someone else smashing blazing chunks of wood into smaller pieces of fire that could be beat out. Because it didn't make sense that a body feeling as sick and scared-weak as his could be doing all that work.

He kept expecting that somebody would make out how frightened he was and call it out so everyone would know. Except, he realized, the fire was making so much noise that not everyone would hear.

And then, just when he didn't see how he could hang on another minute, word passed down that they were going back to town. The fires had become too dangerous to keep fighting.

Abel threw Seth a mocking smile. "What'd I tell you? The army gives up easy."

An instant later a large brown blur of fur barreled between them, knocking Abel off his feet in its frantic charge down the burning mountain. Abel let out a shout of surprise that sounded a lot like fear. "What was that?"

Seth, his gaze following the terrified animal, said, "Looks like you got knocked down by a bear."

Then Seth started laughing, feeling like he might never stop, and pretty soon all the startled men around him were laughing, too. All except Abel anyway.

They got back to camp with Abel still acting like his nose was out of joint, and as soon as the company was dismissed he stalked off to town.

Left alone, Seth paced the length of the army camp on its narrow site between the St. Joe River and a mountainside that ran almost to the water's edge. What space the little line of conical-roofed tents didn't take up, railroad tracks did.

He didn't like how it was only four o'clock in the afternoon and already dark as late evening. This was more of the fire's doing, and the wind's, blowing in smoke so thick it hid the hills across the river.

Watching a train go by, he saw a conductor lighting lanterns inside a passenger car.

It made him think of Jarrett Logan. Hadn't Jarrett said his father was a conductor down here? Seth was glad he wasn't Jarrett, out fighting a fire someplace without even an army camp to retreat to.

Celia and Lizbeth had slept in their old room at Mrs. Marston's boardinghouse, and now Lizbeth awoke still exhausted and in turmoil over whispered arguments that had lasted into the night.

Celia seemed determined to leave Idaho, whether their place had burned or not. "I must have been crazy to risk our lives that way," she said. "Greed for the tree money—I don't know what else to put my behavior to, and I won't remain in a place that makes me that way."

Lizbeth had tried to reason. "Cel, you're not greedy, and, besides, a place can't make you
be
any special way."

"A homestead made Dora Crane bitter. Anyway, even if you're right about that, I won't keep you in a place that can put you in danger so fast. Lizbeth, don't argue. My mind is made up."

"First thing tomorrow," Lizbeth had said, "I'll walk down to see if the Forest Service knows what happened. Maybe the fire went around us, and our trees are all still standing. Then you'd reconsider, wouldn't you?" "Didn't you hear what I just said?" Celia asked. "I'm not reconsidering anything except which day we leave."

***

The Forest Service office had no news to give Lizbeth, although one of the women employees did say that Supervisor Weigle intended to ride up Placer Creek to inspect the fire situation for himself. "So you might want to come back this afternoon," she suggested.

On returning to the boardinghouse, Lizbeth shared a late breakfast with Mrs. Marston. Just tea and toast, which was fine with Lizbeth. She didn't want to eat up all Mrs. Marston's food when there wasn't any rent or board money coming in to buy more. The boarders were all still out in the woods fighting fires.

As though Mis. Maiston could read Lizbeth's thoughts, she opened a jar of applesauce and said, "I can feed my own." She dished some out and sprinkled cinnamon on top. "Your starving won't help anybody."

Lizbeth looked at her in surprise, and the old woman gave a little laugh. "Well, maybe you aren't exactly my own," she said, "but you and your aunt are as close to family as I've got. I reckoned that long as you were living on your own place, getting along, that didn't need saying. But now ... well, you just tuck it in the back of your mind."

Lizbeth nodded and reached over to squeeze a bony, veined hand.

"Now," Mrs. Marston said, pulling back, "no need to go sentimental." But Lizbeth was sure her eyes misted.

And Lizbeth's eyes teared up in response, or at least she thought that was the reason. Then the next thing she knew, all the tears she hadn't cried the night before spilled out in a torrent. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'd like to know what about!" Mrs. Marston said. "Making a foolish old woman go softhearted? Or do you aim to claim responsibility for the wildfires?"

"No," Lizbeth said, giggling and then sobbing again. "It's just ... coming in yesterday, we left so much fire behind, getting worse. I can't bear to think of our place burning. Not just of us losing it, but of
its
being lost."

She doubted she was making sense, but Mrs. Marston nodded.

Lizbeth went on. "And Jarrett and Ranger Logan are out somewhere, along with lots of others, at least
trying
to do some good, and I can't help. And Celia..."

"Celia what?" her aunt asked, coming into the kitchen. She looked as though she hadn't slept well either.

"I was going to say," Lizbeth answered, picking her words carefully, "that you and I need to find something useful to occupy ourselves with while we wait for news. There probably won't be any coming in before afternoon."

"
Occupy
yourselves! You can help me can tomatoes," Mrs. Marston said. "I got two boughten basketsful that are spoiling while we natter over what can't be helped."

***

Neither Lizbeth nor Celia brought up the previous night's argument directly, but it was the unspoken current that ran beneath the on-again, off-again talk of the next few hours. Working into the early afternoon, they cut stem ends and bad spots from tomatoes while Mrs. Marston did the stove-and-jar work. After a while they had ranks of sparkling, newly filled jars cooling on tea towels. It seemed to Lizbeth that the labor had calmed her aunt. Or maybe the thought of all the tomato mush, stewed tomatoes, tomato soup, and tomato-and-beef casseroles that she'd be making for Mrs. Marston's boarders come winter had just plain numbed her.

Come winter! We won't even be here!
The thought stabbed through Lizbeth.

They worked with all the windows open, but the oppressive air of the hot day bore down inside the small kitchen. Mrs. Marston wavered at her post over the canning kettle. "Perhaps we ought to stop for lemonade," she said. "We might take it to the porch..."

She broke off as a puzzling, faint noise started up outside. The branches of a lilac bush by the back door brushed the screen and an instant later hit it again, harder. And then wind rushed through the yard, making Mrs. Marston's garden plants arch over, spring back, and arch over again. Green leaves tore away from her maple tree. Warm wind coming in the open window wrapped the tea towels around the filled jars, and it blew a paring knife right off the table.

"My word," Mrs. Marston said. "That was some gust."

Celia, going to the back door, said, "Dear god, it is getting so
dark
"

Fire always gives off heat and light, but it never does so twice in quite the same way.

A given amount of fuel—a tree, a wood door, a leather harness, a gallon of oil—can produce only a finite amount of heat. The variables are time and temperature. The fuel can burn either hot and fast, or less hot but for longer.

Think of climbing a mountain. Maybe you hike at a steady pace, your face sweaty and your legs tired but with your heart pumping only slightly faster than it usually does. You get to the top in two hours. You've expended a moderate level of energy over a relatively long period. Burned perhaps six hundred calories.

Or maybe you jog up that mountain, faceflaming, heart working hard, calf muscles straining. You reach the top in half the time while having burned about the same six hundred calories. You just burned them faster, hotter, and with more show.

A wildfire, too, can climb a mountain either slowly or fast.

It can take hours or days to creep up a slope of pine duff and brush. Burning like that, the fire doesn't give out enough heat to cause the forest canopy above to burst into flame.

Or, pushed by wind, the wildfire can pick up speed until it covers that same slope in minutes, tearing along at 1500 or 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a fire throws its furnace blast up and out, no longer earthbound but able to ignite a crown fire that can fly across treetops.
It's a fire blowing up, and it throws off superheated air that races upward.

Down below, other air rushes in to replace the air tearing skyward. And still more air is drawn into motion by the gulping of the fire itself, as it reaches for the oxygen it needs to stay alive.

Now the fire is no longer only driven by wind. Now the fire is creating its own.

***

Firefighters went into the afternoon of August 20, 1910, with no warning that strong winds were about to fan the hundreds of fires burning on the Idaho panhandle and in neighboring forests. The firefighters were too isolated, and weather forecasting too primitive.

But a fast-moving cold front was coming toward them from the west. Along its leading edge, dense, cool air wedged itself under the warmer air it met. It sent the warmer air spiraling upward in turbulent currents that fought and joined one another and that whipped up other winds spawned by other, weaker fronts. From Washington's dry Palouse, the winds roiled and grew and sped ahead toward the Coeur d'Alene.

The firefighters—and drifters and townspeople, settlers and miners, railroad workers and loggers—went about their Saturday activities worried by fire danger but unaware they were in the path of swiftly traveling winds. Not knowing that when the winds hit they would blow those hundreds of fires together, and the fires would turn the winds into a gale.