The Big Burn (23 page)

Jarrett left the hospital an hour later, sent off by the Irish nurse, who asked if he'd never heard that sick men need sleep. "And don't you know there's others besides your brother wanting to know you're still breathing?"

***

Jarrett saw Lizbeth give him one quick, disbelieving look, and then she hurtled herself at him, stopping just short of a collision. She put her hand out to shake his, withdrew it, and instead gave him a shy hug. "You're alive!" she said.

"Well, yes."

He hoped his neck hadn't turned as dark red as it felt. There were several people watching. From across the street, Mr. Poison caught Jarrett's eye, grinned, and waved.

"We didn't know what to think," Lizbeth said. "We didn't know where you were, and then first one place and then another seemed the wrong place to be, and..." She broke off. "Where
have
you been?"

"Avery."

"In a
town\
And you couldn't let your brother know you weren't dead? Haven't you ever heard of telegrams?" "Well, yeah," Jarrett said, "but..."

A man interrupted. "Lad, just kiss her and say you're sorry."

And Jarrett astounded himself by doing just that.

Quick though the kiss was, the crowd at the storefront laughed and applauded. Lizbeth, red-faced, pulled him away. "Jarrett! How could you?"

"I'm sorry," he said. Then he saw that she wasn't really mad. "I mean, I'm sorry I didn't send a telegram, anyway."

***

Friday morning they walked around Wallace, both the destroyed section and the part that had been saved, and Jarrett listened as Lizbeth told about the evacuation trains and the bucket lines.

Jarrett stayed mostly silent as they toured, just once saying, "Burned towns and burned forests look different, but they're both awful sad." They were watching a man pace off the length of a bared foundation. "Though I guess the town will rebuild pretty fast."

"I guess," Lizbeth agreed, as they halted in respect to a funeral procession. "I don't know about all the families, though. People are saying that between Idaho and Montana, the count of those killed is going to be huge."

They walked by the army camp, where Jarrett recognized Seth's sergeant working at a table in the shade of a tree. "Lizbeth," Jarrett said, "would you mind waiting here a minute?"

"Of course not," she said.

Jarrett told the sergeant, "I wanted to say thanks. For what the army's done here, I mean. I don't know if you remember me, Jarrett Logan, but—"

"Oh, I remember," the other interrupted.

"Anyway, that's the other reason I came over," Jarrett said. "It was my fight that got Seth Brown in trouble with you. I can't undo that, but I thought maybe you'd want to know we were together in Avery the day it almost burned up, and..."

The sergeant interrupted again. "Hope you two made a better showing there than you did here."

"That's what I'm saying. I think we did our part, and I didn't see anybody working harder than Seth. Or doing anymore to save things either."

"Of course you didn't," the sargeant said. "Private Brown's a good soldier. Probably one day he'll be wearing sergeant stripes himself. He just don't know it yet."

"Are you going to tell him?"

The sergeant made a noise somewhere between laughter and a snort. "And have it go to his head?"

When Jarrett returned to Lizbeth, she asked, "What was that all about?"

"I tried to do Seth a good turn to make up some for the trouble I caused him," Jarrett answered. "But I think I ended up sounding like I was trying to tell the sergeant how to do his job."

"Did he want to hear?"

"Nope."

***

At noontime they returned to Mrs. Marston's so Lizbeth could make sure that the families staying there had lunch.

Then they put together sandwiches for themselves, and Lizbeth cut the last wedge of a chocolate cake she'd baked. "Would you like to eat in the dining room with the others or take this out back?" she asked.

"Let's go outside," Jarrett said. He wanted her to himself awhile longer.

They spread a red-checkered tablecloth on the back lawn and set out the sandwiches and cake, along with sliced tomatoes and bread-and-butter pickles.

"This is the best I've eaten in more than a month," Jarrett said. "Better than before that, too, since I never learned to make cakes. This is really good."

"Celia's baking is better," Lizbeth told him, but Jarrett could see she was pleased.

They took their time eating and telling each other about what they had done and seen.

Or at least some more of it There were some parts Jarrett doubted he'd ever tell anyone. What it was like when he and Seth had lain shaking in terror under a piece of canvas, both of them expecting to die. How he'd sat guard with Rolling Joe—Lao Li—in the hours after the blowup, cold despite all the fires still burning around them.

A picture came into Jarrett's mind of him and Elway tending Benny on the train to Wallace.

"What's the matter?" Lizbeth asked. "You look sad."

"I was thinking about a friend, an old guy named Elway. He's missing from a crew that's still finding its dead."

"I'm sorry," Lizbeth said.

They were quiet awhile, and then Jarrett asked, "Have you and your aunt decided what you're going to do?"

"About whether we're going to stay out here, you mean?"

Jarrett nodded.

Lizbeth smiled. "We're planning to. Mrs. Marston will need us, and Celia's talking about training to be a nurse. Though ... I don't know ... I'm trying to talk her into completing the patent on her homestead. I expect that with the fires and all, the government will give us some leeway on this year's requirements, and if it turns out Celia and Samuel..." Lizbeth stopped, her face tingeing to pink.

"Will be needing a place to live?" Jarrett finished, grinning. "I doubt Samuel's injuries will let him return to rangering anytime soon, but he probably knows enough about growing things to make your place productive, if anybody can."

"They're sweet together, aren't they?" Lizbeth said, a comment Jarrett had no idea how to respond to.

Then she asked, "What about you? What are your plans?"

Jarrett hesitated before gesturing toward the black hills in the distance. "I'm not sure exactly, but I want to help do something about the forests if I can. They'll take years of work to restore."

"You say that like you've been making plans," Lizbeth said.

"I've started to. I want to stay in Wallace this year and finish up high school. And earn some money, too, for college. Samuel and I talked about it some last evening. He says if I want to be a ranger, I ought to do it right. Study forestry in a classroom instead of learning it mistake by mistake."

"I'll like doing our senior year together," Lizbeth told him. "And then..."

A butterfly flitted in front of them, and its yellow markings reminded Jarrett to tell Lizbeth about seeing a canary on his walk into Wallace. "I thought maybe, when you're ready, we'd go to your place and find out if Billie's waiting to be rescued."

"We should go soon, then," Lizbeth said, "although I hate thinking what it's going to be like up there." She paused. "Jarrett, do you think we'll ever see things looking the way they used to? The forests so pretty and green, I mean?"

Jarrett thought about the miles and miles of mammoth trees he'd seen burned to black trunks and charred limbs. Ponderos as and white pines that had probably taken a hundred, maybe two hundred, years to grow so big. "I guess we'll see woods full of new trees, and that will be pretty," he said. "But, no, it won't be the same. Not any more than any of us will ever be the same."

She studied him a moment. "Jarrett, has anybody said they're proud of you?"

He laughed. "Not unless you count Seth and me bragging on ourselves."

"Because
I
am. What you did out there—the fire fighting and all—it mattered. And you didn't shy away from any of it. As long as I know you, I'm not ever going to forget that"

Jarrett, his throat unexpectedly tightening, paused before he answered. Then he settled for saying, "I hope that will be a long time."

Breakfast was done and G Company was folding up its tents when Sarge came looking for Seth. "I want you to walk me up in the hills," he said. He started off without waiting for an answer.

Sarge had only got to Avery the night before. He'd hitched a ride with a pack train so he could rejoin his company for the trip back to Spokane, to their garrison at Fort George Wright.

Seth had heard an officer tell him, "You could have met up with us there."

"I wanted to see where my men have been, sir," Sarge had answered.

Now Seth gave a worried look toward all the gear still to be stowed away. One of his tent mates told him, "It's okay, Brown. We got it."

And another of the guys joked, "Brown, only you could catch Sarge's eye this fast." He said it the way a friend would.

Seth hurried after the sergeant, who moved pretty good despite still favoring his ankle. "Do you want to go someplace special?"

"Where did you work most?" Sarge asked.

"I guess on the fireline we cut to protect the railroad," Seth said. "But that's out a piece and not easy going."

When Sarge just raised his eyebrows, Seth led off.

And it
was
a hard hike over and around obstacles, and things looked so different, Seth wasn't even sure he had the way right. Finally, though, they reached a spot he thought looked familiar. He reached out a hand to help Sarge up a steep section of makeshift trail gouged into the hillside. A muddy pile of rocks and earth and burned tree limbs lay below: more of the hillside, washed down by the rains since the blowup.

"There's not much to see," Seth said. "I think our fireline is under all that."

"I can see enough." Sarge shook his head and paused. "First time I ever had to let my men go off without me," he said, his voice troubled.

Seth, not knowing what to answer, wished he had something better to show the sarge. "If you want to walk back into Avery, there's more to see," he suggested. "We didn't do much good here in the woods."

"I heard about the firefight in town," Sarge told him. "Heard about you, in particular. That friend of yours—white boy named Jarrett?—he came by to see me in Wallace and said a bit about what it was like here."

Seth's face went hot as he waited to hear what was coming. Had Sarge found out about his running away?

"Anyway," Sarge said, "I understand you did a good job. The officers said so, too. Thought I'd pass it along."

Seth swallowed hard before he spoke. "Thank you, Sarge."

He wished again he had something interesting to show. And then he noticed a couple of landmarks and realized just where they were. "You see that bank up there?" he said. "A bear came down it one day, ran right between me and Abel, and..." Seth's voice trailed off.

"Gone and good riddance," Sarge said. "Though you ever tell anybody I said that and I'll have you digging latrines across the whole state of Washington."

"Yes, Sarge." Seth started laughing. "Sarge, you should've seen Abel, flat on his back and not knowing what hit him."

Seth could remember it all so clearly, the flames and the barreling, terrified animal. How hot it had been. How noisy, with all that wind and fire.

Not like the silence now. There wasn't even a breeze blowing through tree branches to listen to.

Just the
tap-tap
of a bird pecking at a charred, split-open pinecone.

Something whizzed by Seth's ear, and he turned, startled. "What was that?"

"Beetle," Sarge said, pointing to an insect speeding from one burned tree trunk to another.

It picked one to settle on and began exploring the thick, blackened bark.

"I wonder how he got here," Seth said. "Two days ago you could go out in the woods and not find one living thing."

"I guess he flew in, same as that bird," Sarge said. "Must be some reason why." He watched it a moment before telling.

Seth he was ready to start back.

***

They were almost to camp when the notes of a bugle call reached them. "Sounds like the colors being struck," Seth said.

"That it does," Sarge agreed. "Time to take our flag and go home."

In Placer Canyon the following summer, soft-petaled spikes of fireweed brushed a purple smudge across the floor of the scoured forest. Pale green willow shoots waved above a silty stream. The colors broke the bleakness of the blackened snags that poked into the sky and the pencil-like timber that lay every which way on exposed hillsides.

From all directions there came sound—much of it chewing, grinding—a noise like you make when you clinch your teeth and suck air between your tongue and the insides of your cheeks.

It was the sound of countless larvae eating their way through wood of burned pines. The larvae had hatched from eggs laid in the fall by beetles evolved to thrive behind fire. They'd begin moving into the Big Burn while flames still flickered across the smoldering land.

Other sounds—sharp taps—were made by black-backed woodpeckers digging for the beetle larvae to feed on. More and more of the woodpeckers were coming into the canyon. They would stay for four or five years, while the larvae population remained high, and then move on to another, newer burn.

Sticks snapped under the hooves of a browsing deer and her fawn. The doe, head down, nudged away cinders to nibble at green plants that thrust up among them.

And a large, mostly gray bird looked up to call out a grating
kraaa.
Then it went back to work, pecking at a pinecone.

It was a Clark's nutcracker, and it was harvesting ponderosa
seeds, storing them in a pouch under its tongue. Once it gathered several—as many as 150 seeds could fit in the pouch—it would search out a bare patch of ground and bury them there to be food for the next nesting season.

Only, when the bird returned to retrieve them in March or April, it would almost certainly miss a few.