The Big Burn (16 page)

In Wallace, the women in Mrs. Marston's kitchen ignored the increasing winds as long as they could. Finally, after one especially strong blast delivered a hot ember right to the back stoop, Mrs. Marston put down her long-handled stirring spoon. "My heart," she announced, "is not in tomatoes."

Lizbeth and Celia burst out in laughter that threatened to turn hysterical. Then they helped put the canning things away.

Having skipped lunch, now they ate a late afternoon meal of ham sandwiches and rice pudding. Then Lizbeth said, "I'm going downtown. Would you like to go with me?"

"I believe I had better remain here," Mrs. Marston said.

"I may walk down in a bit," Celia answered. "You go on now, if you want"

The shortest way from Mrs. Marston's to the business district was down a long, steep flight of wood steps built onto the hillside. It was a good thing they had handrails—otherwise the wind might have blown Lizbeth right off them.

The fire threat seemed to have brought everyone out into the streets. People watered awnings, watered roofs, and huddled in groups, staring toward Placer Creek. The smoke rising up in the southern sky was incredible: a huge, angry, churning thundercloud of black.

Lizbeth hadn't been able to see the smoke cloud from the boardinghouse, where the hillside cut off the view. Now that she could, she was shocked.

And from down here she could see, too, the flames of backfires that ringed the city like some sprawling medieval wall thrown up against marauding hordes.

She found the Forest Service office crowded with people looking for information. She recognized several townswomen, probably with husbands or sons out fighting to keep the wildfires from their homes.

"No, Supervisor Weigle hasn't returned," a harried-looking official was saying. Someone handed him a slip of paper. He read it and then said, "I can tell you the soldiers are pulling in from Placer Creek. The fires have forced their retreat"

"But what about the homesteads?" Lizbeth asked. "And the regular fire crews?"

"Miss," the man said, "I just don't know." He raised his voice. "Folks, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to give us working room. I'll post any word I get"

As Lizbeth was leaving she saw Mr. Polson motion to her. "I remember you coming in here with Jarrett Logan," he said. "I thought you'd like to know that he's nowhere near Placer Creek." He frowned. "But that's where your place is, isn't it? I wish I could give you good news."

"Thank you," she said. "I did know about Jarrett—his brother mentioned it."

"Jarrett's probably all right," Mr. Polson said. "There's plenty of fire activity along the St. Joe, but as far as we know none poses special problems today."

"I see," Lizbeth said. "Thank you again. Oh! And can you please tell me about Ranger Logan?"

"He's in the mountains west of here. I don't think you need to worry especially about him either. To be honest, the Placer Creek area and Wallace itself are our big concerns today."

Outside, Lizbeth saw an automobile pass by and heard a man say, "There goes the mayor again."

"Earning his pay," his companion answered.

"We better be glad he is," the first man said. "We've got an emergency brewing."

A policeman approached the pair. "All able-bodied men are to assemble at the courthouse," he told them. "We're going to start a new round of backfires to protect the town's flanks."

***

Lizbeth didn't keep track of how long she walked, listening in on conversations being shouted over stronger and stronger winds. Talking seemed to be the one thing everybody wanted to do. Even the people holding hoses, fighting to direct streams of water onto buildings, talked while they worked.

She heard folks contending that everyone was getting stirred up over nothing. They said that the hills around might bum, but the fires wouldn't come into town. Not when Wallace had a fire chief who knew what he was doing, all the town's men available to be firefighters, and endless water from the river.

Others said they really should go home to pack. They'd heard evacuation trains were being made up. Why, they asked, was that being done, if Wallace wasn't in danger?

Lizbeth hurried to the train depots and found that at both the Northern Pacific and the OR & N, crews were linking up odd assortments of railroad cars.

She saw people piling goods along the depot walls—suitcases and trunks, bulging pillow slips, and quilt bundles like one Lizbeth had put together.

"Just in case," one woman told her.

"No doubt about it," a man said, gesturing toward the south. "Once Placer Creek goes, we're next"

Jarrett pounded out another of the small fires that had flared up in the burned area where he'd brought everyone. At least this appeared to be the last of them.

Hours before, he'd begun wishing he'd done something different with his men. Maybe taken them all down to the creek, where he'd filled their canteens. From there they might have worked their way to the St. Joe River.

He'd discarded that idea because he'd been afraid it would leave a search party wandering needlessly. But the crew foreman must not have sent one out Surely searchers would already have found them.

And now it was too late in the day to start such a hike, especially with Mr. Reese like he was.

Jarrett went over to where Rolling Joe was dividing up a hunk of cheese Henry had pulled from his carpetbag and offered for all to share. "I think things are safe for the time being," Jarrett said. "Will you be all right keeping everybody here while I try to find our camp?" Rolling Joe nodded. "I believe so. Do you think you will have success?"

"I just hope the light holds up a few hours so I can give it a good try," Jarrett answered. Although it was still afternoon, the day had turned as dark as at dusk.

***

Unencumbered by the others, Jarrett moved swiftly up the mountain. He followed the burn as long as he could, cutting across openings where only undergrowth had been destroyed. Then, when he came on a section where whole trees had burned and fallen, he struck out into the green forest.

The ridgeline he was aiming for turned out not to be a main ridge at all, but just a rim that had blocked his view of higher land behind it. He thought he could make out a sharp peak poking through the blanketing smoke and considered trying to get to it.

Then he reconsidered. The peak, if that's what it was, appeared far away, and already he'd picked up enough altitude that much of the smoke lay below him. A ponderosa towered close by, reminding him of Samuel's lookout tree.

Jarrett began climbing branch to branch, wondering, as he did, where a faint singing sound came from. He scrambled up eighty, maybe a hundred feet—until limbs started to bend alarmingly under his weight. Then, with one arm wrapped around the tree trunk, he leaned out as far as he could and pulled boughs away from his face.

For a moment he was caught spellbound by the beauty of the scene in front of him. Far into the distance the tops of mountain ranges rose above the smoky haze that hid valley bottoms. From up here he could even see the sun, a blood-colored ball in a dirty pink-and-yellow sky.

From so high up he could hear that odd singing sound more clearly. Or maybe, he thought, the sound wasn't so much like singing as like water tumbling over rocks and splattering into a pool.

A sudden charge of wind threw Jarrett off balance, and he had to cling with both arms to keep from falling. Then, taking a more determined hold on the tree trunk, he leaned out for another look.

Something on fire fell in front of him—a brand at least a foot long dropping through the tree.

Where had it come from? Jarrett had barely thought the question when the odd, soft noises he'd been hearing loudened into a sound more like the rush of river rapids. An instant later the noise became a waterfall-like roar so loud Jarrett could feel its force.

And then, out there in the distance, the pink spread from sky to ground, became a pink-and-red-and-bronze mass of color billowing up in the southwest and running toward him. Sticks appeared to be tumbling through the air before it.

Then Jarrett realized they were too far away to be sticks.
My god,
he thought,
those are trees.

He plunged down from his perch, slipping limb to limb with just enough hold to keep from free-falling. As he descended he caught more glimpses of that pink hell of fire coming at him. It seemed to be jumping ahead of itself, sending great gobs of flame flying through the air, setting afire trees that were great distances apart.

The wind hit again just as Jarrett reached the ground. Wind so hard it threw him from his feet.

The men! The kid!
He had to warn them. Sheltered as they were, they wouldn't know what was coming.

He almost flew down the mountain, the wind pushing on his back.

As he ran he planned what to do. They could dig burrows to lie down in, use what was left of their water to wet down their clothes.

***

As Jarrett gasped out news of what he'd seen, the others stared at him more puzzled than alarmed. "A crown fire, more than that coming at us! We've got to dig..." Thunderous wind cut off his words. Jarrett staggered back as the gale hit him, and the men around him swayed and whipped about like saplings. He saw Mr. Reese scream, but the sound of the scream got buried in the wind's roar. "We've got to dig burrows," Jarrett shouted. "
Burrows.
"

Henry, eyes wide and mouth open, pointed to the high end of the burn. Jarrett spun and saw it was all on fire again, the unburned tops of the trees ablaze and flames tearing along the ground.

They'd never survive where they were. Fighting not to panic, he thought of Elway's saying,
You can handle what you have to.

With fire above and on both sides, all he could do was try to get them to shelter in the gulch bottom and hope the shallow water running through it would save them. Samuel had said,
Whatever you do, don't get trapped in some gully.
But sure death lay everywhere else.

"This way," he shouted, and pulling Mr. Reese behind him, he plunged down slope, turning just long enough to see that the others were following. They tore along, running, tumbling. Somehow the little group stayed together as Vito or Angio, Henry or Rolling Joe helped with Mr. Reese.

Down and down they went, dodging as a tree rolled past, its roots scything through the air and its huge trunk snapping into pieces the smaller trees it hit. Fire chased at their heels.

Jarrett saw Angio yell when flying embers set his shirt afire. He saw Vito throw Angio to the ground and smother the flames. Then the two men were on their feet again, running.

Finally they reached the sheer rockslide that Jarrett had walked around when he'd gotten water that morning. The creek hugged its base, and beyond it the gulch widened somewhat. Wedging up the mountainside opposite, a blackened V studded with small trees showed where fire had burned some other year.

They ran down and around the stony expanse and threw themselves into the water. Jarrett lay there for a moment before forcing himself back on his feet. He pulled and yelled at the others to get up, and then he led them, stumbling and terrified, to a position directly beneath the slide. "Lie down as close to the rocks and as deep in the water as you can get," he shouted, although he knew no one could hear.

He took off his wet shirt and went from person to person to show them all that they should do the same, so they'd have something to shield their faces with.

Rolling Joe was taking care of Mr. Reese, and Angio and Vito had found water deep enough that they could lie with just their faces breaking the surface, their foreheads and eyes molded by wet flannel. Angio had Henry by the hand and was checking that the boy's face was protected. By now, Jarrett could hear the roar of the fire itself as it rushed into the narrow canyon.

A punch of wind knocked him down and almost tore his shirt from his hands. He pulled it over his head and wiggled into the creek bed.

The fire's noise bouncing off canyon walls made a din too loud for the water covering Jarrett's ears to muffle. He shut his eyes and then reopened them, and through the coarse weave of cloth he saw the air turn orange.

Samuel Logan urged Thistle up a rise, hoping to get a better idea of what was going on. The wind was picking up unbelievably fast, blowing first one way and then another, and before the forest had blocked his view, he'd seen a mushrooming smoke column darken the fearsome mustard sky.

He wasn't used to Thistle balking or to Boone sticking close to the horse's legs. His animals' behavior added to the urgency he felt.

Then they broke above the tree line. Thistle crested the hill, and Samuel got his first look at a wave of fire that appeared as wide as the horizon. It was sweeping toward him, a towering, curling overhang of flame. He had never seen anything like it. Never
imagined
anything like it.

Kicking Thistle into a run back down the rough forest trail, Samuel raced to the crew he'd taken over. He reached his men just as Hank Sickles walked into camp.

"Headquarters says I'm yours to command, want me or not," Hank began, but then his grin faded at the desperate expression on Samuel's face.

Quickly Samuel described the inferno bearing down on their camp. "I'm going to set backfires above a rock outcropping I spotted and hope that slows the fire down long enough to let us get out. Right now, the rest of you wet down your clothes and blankets, take your canteens, and run. I'll catch up."

Most rushed to obey, but Hank shook his head. "I'm going with you. You'll need help."

Samuel locked eyes with his good friend. "I stand a chance up there," he said, "and some luck with the backfires might just buy a chance for these men. But not if they got to make it out alone. There's not a woodsman among them."

He watched Hank start to argue and then think better of it.