The Big Burn (7 page)

This time, while Jarrett cut fireline, Samuel brought down the snag itself, since it was spawning new blazes faster than they could put them out.

They worked furiously, and soon Jarrett was gulping for breath through the dry handkerchief Samuel had made him tie over his mouth and nose. Smoke hurt his eyes, and salty sweat stung his body. It stuck his clothes to him and made his hands and tool handles slippery.

Finally, though, Samuel said to stop—they had it.

Plodding back to the ranger station, Jarrett had all he could do just to keep upright.

As they went inside the wall phone sounded the two long rings that meant a call for Samuel rather than for someone else along the telephone line. Jarrett, dropping into the nearest chair, watched his brother close his eyes in weariness as he answered.

After listening a moment, Samuel said, "Sure. I'll get on it."

He put the earpiece into its hanger on the side of the telephone box. "Report of another smoke," he told Jarrett. "Probably one I can handle myself. Why don't you get some sleep?"

Sleep would feel so good,
Jarrett thought. Then he got to his feet, because there was no way he would give up before his brother did. "It'll go faster with the two of us."

Sunlight streamed down through the skylight, warming the batch of dough Celia was kneading.

Whenever did Lizbeth grow up enough to start thinking about boys?
Celia wondered, as she lifted the far side of the dough and pulled it toward her and then leaned into it with the heels of her hands. Or
may be she just wants a friend.
Celia spun the dough a quarter turn and lifted again. The question had been bothering her better than a week now, popping up when she least expected it.

She hoped her niece wouldn't fall for someone like Tom Whitcomb.

Not that all men had faults like Tom's. That Ranger Logan, for instance. He seemed bound to duty just as sure as Tom Whitcomb never even saw his. She'd wager Samuel Logan, however tired he might have been, had spent the night out meeting that electric storm head-on. Just as she and Lizbeth had walked their own place at dawn to be sure they had nothing burning.

Through the door open to the morning breeze, Celia could see Lizbeth replacing a broken rail at the corral. What kind of work was that for a young girl to be doing? And she never complained, except when Celia didn't let her take on even more.

Celia couldn't remember once in the last four years that Lizbeth had asked for a thing besides wire or nails or plant starts. Never once, until making that one comment last week about Jarrett Logan and his brother—"I bet they don't come back"—had Lizbeth let on that she missed other young people.

Celia kneaded the dough until it felt elastic with yeast coming to life. She covered it with a rucked towel and set it aside to rise. Then she walked out to where Lizbeth was working.

"I owe Dora Crane a letter," she said. "I was thinking that if I got to it one day soon, then we might drive it down to the mail drop. We could stop by the ranger station and leave a pie to make up for how ungracious I was to the ranger and Jarrett."

"If you want," Lizbeth answered, her voice stiff. Then she flung her arms around Celia so hard that Celia had to catch hold of a corral post to keep from being knocked off her feet. "Thank you!"

"Of course," Celia warned, "they might be away. Ranger Logan himself said this summer's keeping him busy."

In the summer 1910, rangers who were used to working in isolation suddenly found their forests filling with strangers.

With new fires breaking out daily through July and older ones stubbornly resisting control, the Forest Service's District One had no choice but to hire more and more men to fight them. By the end of the month, there were almost three thousand firefighters scattered across the district's several forests, one of which was the Coeur d'Alene.

District One Chief Forester W.B. Greeley would later say, "It was a case of hiring anyone we could get. We cleaned out Skid Road in Spokane and Butte. A lot of temporaries were bums and hoboes. In a bad fire year, the temporary is the weakest link in the chain.
"

He would also praise the help given by logging-camp crews and miners, just as Forest Service people would be quick to say good words about the efforts of homesteaders and townspeople, railroaders and others with a tie to the woods. But the truth was, the temporary fire-fighting force was a mixed and untrained lot.

Many of the men who went out to firelines had no experience with fires. Many spoke little English. Some were drifters who signed up under false names and lied about their hometowns. They went into the burning forests wearing the clothes they'd been recruited in, and the ones wearing street shoes or snug wool suits would regret that.

They worked for twenty-five cents an hour with board, thirty if they provided their own food. For some the regular work was a godsend. For more than a few, it was an invitation to devilment.

Boone, brave again now that the lightning storm was over, accompanied Jarrett and Samuel when they set out for the smoke Samuel had been called to check on.

They had to climb halfway up a mountain to get to it, and Jarrett's aching legs felt more rubbery with every step. When they finally reached a smoldering log and small ground fire that seemed to be the source of the smoke, Samuel asked Jarrett what he thought they should do if the blaze got away.

Jarrett, cross and weary, snapped, "I don't know! You tell mel"

"And be to blame when what you don't know gets someone killed?"

"No! I've just had it with lessons for now," Jarrett said. Then, shamed by the disappointed expression on Samuel's face, he added, "Look, I want to learn all this stuff, but no more right now. Can't we just get done here?"

This last fire proved to be more stubborn than either of the ones they'd handled during the night, and they sawed and chopped and stooped over their shovels for several hours. The day's rising heat made the fire burn hotter, and it turned fighting the fire into miserable, broiling work. Jarrett got so thirsty he drank his last quart of water all in one wonderful moment, and then the liquid slogging around inside him, along with the sun beating down, made him want to vomit. And then he was desperately thirsty again long before Samuel declared, "That's enough. Let's pack up."

***

They were bushwhacking down the side of a steep slope, looking for a trail out, when something caught Boone's attention. His ears pricked forward, and his neck hair bristled.

"What's wrong, boy?" Samuel asked.

Boone whined softly and then dived down a game path that branched off at a sharp angle. He looked back once, saw Jarrett and Samuel were following, and went on.

Jarrett heard men's voices and then pleased-sounding, distinct words. "She ought to run up that face."

"Boone!" Samuel said softly, and the dog came instantly to his side.

"Jarrett, you stay here," Samuel ordered. "Boone, come."

Jarrett watched them make their way quietly toward the voices, and then, once they were out of sight, he waited impatiently to hear what was going on. Finally, when he couldn't stand the waiting anymore, he worked his way down to where he could see.

Directly below him, near a tree with a black scar, two men fanned a flame in a small pile of tinder. They were so intent on what they were doing that they didn't notice Samuel approaching until he was almost on them.

"Want to tell me what you're up to?" he said, a hand rest ing on the handle of his pistol. Boone, teeth bared, circled and growled.

"Nothing," the smaller of the two men mumbled, rising. "Honest Making a cooking fire."

"Where's your food?"

The other man slowly got to his feet "What if we said we ain't got none?" he asked. Only then did he raise his head to look directly at Samuel.

Jarrett saw recognition flicker across his brother's face. "Why aren't you on a fire crew? Didn't the Forest Service take you on?"

"I didn't like the job they offered," the man said. He waved a hand, and Jarrett noticed it was missing fingers. "They wanted to send me off on some fire that was to hell and gone."

"And so you decided to create a more convenient one?"

The smaller man said, "You got it wrong, Ranger. We was putting it out" He stamped on the tiny flames now licking from tinder into kindling. "Wasn't we, Tully?"

The one he'd called Tully ignored him. "What are you gonna do about it, Ranger?" Tully said. "Give me another Logan to get even with?"

"What I'm going to do," Samuel said, drawing his gun, "is haul you two before the sheriff in Wallace. You're under arrest."

"Not me," Tully said, turning his back on the pistol and starting away. Boone growled and looked to Samuel for direction.

Off to one side, on the uphill slope, the other man grabbed a rock and raised it to bring down on Samuel's head.

"Watch out!" Jarrett yelled, and he plunged down to help his brother. He saw the men below him look up, and he heard Samuel yell, "Jarrett, get back."

Then his foot caught on a tree root. He plummeted forward, and things got confused. There were shouts and sounds of running. Then Samuel was standing over him, whistling to.

Boone. "Let 'em go, boy."

***

The walk back to the ranger station was strained.

"I'm sorry," Jarrett said. "I didn't mean to get in the way."

"I gave you an order," Samuel said. "I told you to stay where you were."

"The guy was going to hit you with a rock."

"Boone wouldn't have let him."

"You could have gone after them. You had your pistol, and Boone to help. And I would have helped."

Samuel didn't reply.

Jarrett thought for a moment. "I still don't get it. Why were they starting a fire on purpose?"

"My guess is they wanted to get hired to put it out," Samuel said. "They probably thought working a fire this close to Wallace would be easier than working one miles into the wilderness."

"But you knew who they were? You recognized the one."

"Tully. I met him once," Samuel answered. Then he added, "Of course, they might have had intentions other than making jobs for themselves. There's been talk of vagrants starting fires as cover for looting remote cabins." Jarrett felt a chill. He could imagine men like those two doing that. Tully, with his missing fingers and vicious-sounding voice. The other man, smaller and cockeyed, more of a coward but ready to bring a rock down on Samuel's head.

***

After supper the brothers sat on the ranger station porch cleaning soot from tools. Jarrett was still trying to make sense of the afternoon.

"Samuel, what did that one man, Tully, mean about having another Logan to get even with?" he asked.

"Just talk," Samuel answered. "He begrudges a run-in he had with Pop."

"What will you do about him?"

"Now that you've stopped me from arresting him and his friend for arson?" Samuel's cold voice told Jarrett he wasn't making a joke. "Not much besides seeing headquarters knows not to hire them on, and I doubt they'd apply there again anyway."

"You could tell the sheriff."

"I'll mention it, but he's got his hands full, too, this season. Most likely Tully and his friend will disappear into the crowds of strangers in town and in the woods, and they may or may not cause more mischief. My guess is they will."

A long silence followed as Jarrett considered the implications. Then he said, "Things would have gone different today if I wasn't your brother. You wouldn't have told a regular helper to stay where he'd be safe. And if you had and he'd done something as dumb as ignoring your orders and then falling down that hill, you wouldn't have left those men alone while you went to see to him."

Samuel shrugged. "I don't know that."

"Anyway," Jarrett said, "I've been thinking for a while now I ought to get on a fire crew the way I set out to do. I'll put that new roof on the springhouse like you asked, but then I'll head on up to Wallace."

"You don't have to go. Just, if you stay around, obey my orders."

"I really want to get out on a big fire anyway," Jarrett said.

"You'll have to obey orders anyplace you go."

"That's not the point," Jarrett said.

Samuel studied him. "No, it's not. You had it right before. I did act differently today because you're my brother, and I might again." He stood. "So maybe it's just as well you do go."

Jarrett searched his brother's face for some hint that Samuel regretted how things had turned out, but if Samuel had any feelings one way or the other, he was keeping them to himself.

Jarrett entered Coeur d'Alene Forest headquarters in downtown Wallace behind two other men also seeking fire-fighting jobs. He got a quick impression of a house turned into an office, the fancy wallpaper above dark wood paneling now a place to hang notices and a calendar. He was surprised to see two women working at stations just inside the door, one at a typewriting machine. She glanced at Jarrett and the other newcomers and waved them farther inside. "You'll want to see Mr. Polson," she said.

Mr. Polson, in a suit and glasses, his hair neatly combed, sat at a scarred wooden desk.

One of the men who'd come in with Jarrett asked, "You still got work?"

A smile flitted across Mr. Polson's face. "Some. You know where we can hire an army?" The man responded with a blank look, and Mr. Polson sighed and picked up his pen. "Name?"

"Joe Sullivan." Sullivan nodded toward the other man. "That's Frank Naylor. We're together."

"Hometown?"

Sullivan shrugged. "All over."

"Vagrant," Mr. Polson said, and wrote it down.

Naylor said he didn't know what town to call home, since he'd been in the Montana State Prison so long.

The Forest Service man handed them slips of paper. "Take these to a hardware store, get yourselves each a shovel, and report back here for your orders. Pay's twenty-five cents..." He looked up hopefully. "Don't suppose either one of you is a cook?...No, I didn't think so. So, twenty-five cents an hour, and the government will pay for your transportation to fires and back here when you're discharged. You work at your own risk. No alcohol or disruptive behavior while on duty. Glad to have you. Next?"