Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hunter
It’s a long walk, and there isn’t all that much to talk about. Plus, we’re walking single file, so it’s hard to hear or be heard. It’s not long before we all just lapse into silence.
Eaglevale is in the saddle of a hill. The Quartzite river runs to the south of the mountain, right below the steep, rocky slopes. Right now, the fire is burning hard to the west, on the north side of the river, and to the south, across the river from Eaglevale.
If it weren’t for the river, Eaglevale would already be fucked, but all that water makes a perfect, natural firebreak. We find a wide, gravel beach on the north side and set up our base station. It’ll be uncomfortable for sleeping, but the gravel makes it a relatively safe zone. Rock doesn’t burn.
Across the river, the blackened spikes of former pine trees poke up into the smoky sky like they’re trying to point upward. Every time the wind runs through the valley, ash swirls up from the burned area across the river from us.
We call that area the black, for obvious reasons. It’s ugly and unsettling, but it’s the safest place to be, since there’s no more fuel to burn. The lush, overgrown forest, full of trees and undergrowth is the most dangerous. That’s the sort of terrain that goes up in seconds.
Once we’re set up, Porter gathers us along the riverbank.
“Everyone good?” he asks.
“Hell yeah!” we all shout, because we’re all crazy people who can’t wait to get to work.
You have to be a little crazy to take this job in the first place.
Porter allows himself one smile.
“Good, because I’m gonna work the shit out of you guys,” he says.
We cheer again.
“Our primary goal here is to keep Eaglevale from burning to the ground,” he says, pointing vaguely in the direction of the town, somewhere up the hill.
“Right now, the fire to the west of here on the north side of the Quartzite is our main objective while we keep an eye on the area across the river.”
The Saturn Fire is big, hot, and incredibly dangerous.
Most fires move along at the ground level, because that’s where most of the dry, dead material is: leaves, fallen trees and branches, undergrowth, et cetera.
But this fire is large enough and hot enough that it’s spreading through the crowns of trees — the living top part.
Crown fires are even more unpredictable and therefore even more dangerous than a normal fire. Every so often we can hear a faraway crack as a living tree gets so hot that its sap boils instantly and the whole tree explodes.
Porter’s still got a big laminated map of the area, and he lays it out on the ground, holding it down with river rocks. Because this fire is off the ground, we need to fell a wide swath of trees before we can start the back burn.
And because fire travels uphill almost unimaginably fast, the burn needs to be on flat land, before the Saturn fire gets there. That means we start now.
“Any questions?” Porter shouts.
No one has any.
“Then it’s time to move out,” he says.
We take turns at all the jobs. Taking down full-size trees, even though we’ve got chainsaws, is exhausting, backbreaking work, and it’s even more so because I started the day with a three-hour fully loaded hike.
I chainsaw for a while, then Silas takes over, handing me a GPS and a can of orange paint. Then I mark trees for removal, making sure we’re keeping the break the right shape and width, and he cuts them down.
Around lunch, we go on lookout for an hour and watch the fire from a high, rocky outcropping. We report in every fifteen minutes, but miraculously, the Saturn Fire seems like it may have stalled, or at least, like it might have slowed, both to the west and across the river.
The dry, hot winds from the west have stopped blowing, so the fire doesn’t have that force driving it forward any more. It’s still destructive and dangerous, and we can still hear trees exploding every once in a while.
But it seems like we might be getting the upper hand, like Eaglevale and Coldwater are being evacuated for nothing.
At least, I hope so.
“Casden, Dewar, take a break,” Porter says. We’re standing on either side of the fire break, carefully lighting fallen trees and tree stumps on fire, then watching the fire as it burns itself out, making sure there are no embers remaining.
It’s hot, hard work, but everything here is hot, hard work.
“I’m fine,” I say, and Silas agrees with me, nodding assent from across a blackened, charred log.
“Guys, I said go take a dinner break,” Porter repeats, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
I look down and stomp out an ember, my heavy boot crushing it into the charred black earth.
Fucking asshole, I think. Giving orders all day while I sweat my balls off.
Silas shrugs.
“Okay,” he says, and gives me a look.
I glare at Porter, but he doesn’t take the bait.
Fuck it. I’m hungry anyway. We eat more MREs, because that’s all the food that’s here, and talk a little about what we’re doing when fire season ends. I mention that I’m moving to Lodgepole, where my girlfriend lives, and he says again that Clementine is cool. That’s about it.
We go back to the fire break, and we burn until it’s past dark, when Porter comes back and orders us to take the first four-hour sleep shift.
I don’t bother setting up a tent, just lay out my foam pad on the gravel beach by the river and crawl into my sleeping bag with my clothes in a pile next to me. Even though there’s something poking into my back, I fall asleep almost instantly, thinking I wonder what Clementine is doing.