The Year of the Fire

By Tom White

The year is 1960. Bill Pengallen, a young college student, has taken on a summer job working on a fire suppression crew for the U.S. Forest Service in the California mountain town of Truckee, where he meets and becomes friends with Mike Cameron, a pre-Med student. It is the third dries summer in the area's history, the forest is a tinderbox. An Interstate highway is being thrust through the area, fire danger threatens the livelihood of ranchers and loggers. Tension rides high. Violence threatens to break out at any time, and then the area is swept by one of the most disastrous forest fires in California history to that time.

The fire changes the lives of everyone involved--some temporarily, others permanently. This is the story of the events leading up to and involving that monumental event, the time of the fire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887631240

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

1

Sierra Nevada

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

2

The Time of the Fire

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

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42

About the Author

cover.jpg

The Year of the Fire

Tom White

Copyright © 2023 Tom White

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88763-123-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88763-124-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

For the memory of my father

The words of Agur, the Son of Jakeh:

"There are three things that are never satisfied—yea, Four:

The Grave

The Barren Womb

The Earth that is not filled with Water

And the Fire that sayeth not: ‘It is enough.'"

A memory in the form of a novel.

Though based on actual incidents, The Time of the Fire is predominantly a work of fiction.

Since it is set in 1960, I have, as far as possible, adhered to the then standard Forest Service practice of fighting wildfires at the time.

Some liberties have been taken with the terrain of the Tahoe-Truckee area for the purposes of fiction. For the most part, I do not think that either natives to the area or cartographers will have trouble placing the general geography of the area. For others not familiar with the Eastern slope of the California Sierra Nevada mountains, let me just say that it's all there, if occasionally slightly juxtaposed.

Acknowledgments

There are a great many people to thank for help and inspiration in the writing of this novel. First and foremost, my late father, Lloyd White, who instilled a passion and respect for the mountains in my mind as a child. Had he not taken me with him in his Forest Service pickup every chance he got, I might have grown up a mountain boy immune to the call of the mountains. Even now, changed as the Sierra are, they still beckon to me, and I still try to answer their call.

1

Sierra Nevada

1

Truckee, California

June 1960

After the summer was over, I would remember that I knew five things about Michael Cameron. He saved my life three times, I would learn to love him as only friends can love each other, and he would betray me.

I'd almost forgotten that in how we met, he may have saved my life once again. And I'll never forget how we met.

I left my home town of Nevada City—firmly ensconced in the foothills of Northern California, despite its name—that morning. Dad told me that with all of the freeway construction over the Hill, (a folksy misnomer for that exhausting stretch of granitic High Sierra from the foothills east to summit), it would probably take me well over two hours to land in Truckee, a railroading town just east of Donner Pass, and headquarters for my summer job with the Forest Service.

He wanted me to be at the Ranger Station there by noon to sign in, but he also forgot that his wiry eighteen-year old son drove like a maniac, having spent all Spring souping up a '53 eight-banger Merc to his amusement and the consternation of Mom, who thought it was the original hot rod from hell. Passing trucks on upgrades and scaring the bejesus out of tourists in their station wagons, I made it over the terrifying granite backbone of Donner Summit to Truckee in a little over an hour.

Which meant that I had time for coffee. I was an incurable coffee drinker, an hour without it gave me the Screaming Zonkers, and a friend in Junior College had once remarked that my wiry metabolism was probably due to the amount of caffeine in my blood.

I found myself with an hour to kill in downtown Truckee, gulping coffee at the local downtown diner, served by a waitress that looked like Shelly Winters fresh out of a Universal western, when a rather huge, dangerous man sitting next to me turned and said:

I ain't votin' for no fuckin' Catholic.

I blinked. Huh?

Kennedy, The burly man looked like Godzilla, ready to do some real-estate revamping on Tokyo. Everytime he has to make a fuckin' decision, he'll have to phone the fuckin' Pope. Right?

Uh— I began. Next to him, another large lump of a man giggled. I peered at them. Uh, I—

I swigged coffee that tasted as if it had been originally brewed in the Paleozoic Era and had been simmering ever since. I swallowed, smiled at Godzilla. Chipmunk. At least that's what Dad called it, it was a grin that showed all of my teeth, and they were straight and bright, courtesy of visits to the dentist every six months like a good little Pepsodent ad.

Uh, I'm too young to vote— I began.

Fuck, Godzilla muttered, You got a brain, haven't you, kid? So who you want, Nixon, or that goddam Mackeral-snapper?

The waitress walked back down the counter, coffeepot at the ready. I held up my mug, it was half-gone and I knew I needed some more. Jake, don't be bothering the kid, she smiled.

You a fuckin' Catholic? Jake ignored her, stared at me. His voice sounded ugly, I had the feeling he'd been drinking since early morning and not coffee. Jake was about three of me.

Uh—no, I looked at my coffee, sniffing it. I'm an Episcopalian.

Same fuckin' thing—

I opened my mouth to object, and that was when I met Mike.

I didn't see him, I heard him. He was in back of me, and his voice was young, deep and crisp.

Actually, Episcopalians, are probably the purest Protestants around, my friend.

I whirled around on the stool. I will probably always remember that first sight of Mike, he sparkled. He was dressed in tan chino slacks and a Madras shirt, he looked as if he'd pressed his clothing just prior to coming into the restaurant. He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, his bright blond hair was cut short, he looked like a Nordic Skiier out of uniform.

He sat next to me at the counter, ordered tea, leaned past me, and looked at Jake the Godzilla with a smile that seemed both civilized and slightly dangerous.

Jake glared at him, I wondered how I could possibly slide off the stool and make a run for my Merc.

Whaddaya mean Protestant?

Mike smiled. Shelly brought the tea, she was staring at Mike as if she'd suddenly gone all liquid, someplace. Non-Catholic. That's what I mean. What's your religious affiliation?

Jake muttered, I could feel the tightness from his large body like a coiled snake. Aff—where'd you learn such big words, kid?

The same place I learned to crush a windpipe with the flat of my hand, came the soft answer. Mike's voice had changed, it wafted by me like the cold of a bad day on an ice-pond. I glanced, Jake caught it, Ted his partner caught it, clapped Jake on the shoulder.

Ah—we're gonna be late for shift, Jake, Ted giggled. Ted didn't sound exactly gifted.

Jake, Godzilla, stood up. He glared at both of us, muttered Fuckin' kids, as he and Ted left the restaurant, hoping perhaps that his parting shot had saved his face.

Mike turned to me, introduced himself. Michael Cameron.

I saw his extended hand, grasped it, thankfully. Bill Pengallen.

Mike smiled. "Pengallen—I'd say your forefathers came from Cornwall. Accent grave on the first syllable. I was surprised that he'd recognized it. I'm Scot, if it matters, though I think a lot of Vikings got into the stew. So, do you live here here in Truckee?"

Up here for a summer job.

Me too, Mike grinned.

Shelley wended her way up the counter, having overheard us. Hope it's not on the freeway job, you two. That guy that just left, Jake, he's the construction foreman up on Donner Ridge. And he's a mean sonofabitch.

Mike smiled at her, I watched her, it seemed to enter her like a seduction. Forest Service. Fire crew. I am up here to save your woodlands from idiot tourists like myself.

I laughed. God, me, too!

Mike turned to me. Good. I hope we'll get along.

I finished my coffee, he finished his tea, we walked out onto the main street of Truckee. It was early, the sky over Truckee and the surrounding granite peaks was morning-clear, a deep High Sierra blue that looked rich and cold, no matter what the temperature. Across Truckee's main street, railroad tracks shimmered as a freight train roared through, exhaust erupting from diesel locomotives beginning the climb west to the Summit.

Thanks for the help, I said, I mean with that ape.

He was a dumbshit, Mike's voice was matter-of-fact. Where's your car?

I was leaning against it, Mike looked at it, appraisingly. Hot rod. '53 Merc under all the customizing, right?

I grinned. He pointed down two cars from mine. Not quite hot-rod.

I gasped. It was an MG, Classic. It was bright red, I'd never seen a red quite like that before on a car. It looked like a combination of lipstick and fresh blood.

Where's the Ranger Station? Mike asked.

On the hill, over there, I pointed to a road that cut up through a thick-treed ridge above the town.

Shall we race? Mike's grin sparkled.

You'd kill me, I glanced at the MG.

Mike laughed. Wouldn't want to do that, we just met.

2

Mike followed me to the Ranger Station, nestled in a grove of pine and east-side fir on the ridge above Truckee. We walked into the office, the dispatcher, a short, middle-aged woman with a hairdo that reminded me of Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen came over to the counter, glanced at both Mike and myself, said that the campfire permits were fifty-cents this summer and not to camp anywhere but in marked Forest Service campgrounds, it was the third dry winter up here and that open fires were permitted only in designated campgrounds—

Uh—, I began.

Mike broke in, We're the new crew-members.

Estelle Ludvig peered at me, My God, and her voice had a vague German accent. You're Jim's boy? You look like him, but damn, you're little—I'll get Dan.

Mike gave me a questioning look as Dan Phelps walked down the hall to the office.

Dan was Dad's best friend, he was the Ranger on the Truckee District. He'd been Forest Service as long as Dad had, they'd both started in 1938. Dad was the Tahoe Forest Engineer, Dan had been District Ranger in Truckee as long as I could remember. He was tall, taut, stringy-muscular, sandy-gray hair, bright pale-blue eyes. That I was a new employee was due to a bit of nepotism, a phone call from Dad, but it beat mowing lawns, which I'd done the past two summers.

You're still wiry, Dan signed me in with a warm grin and a handshake. Mike stood by a plaster relief map of the Truckee District that hung on the wall. I watched him run a long finger up and down the slopes of peaks and meadows.

Dan told me they'd just finished building a new Bay for the tanker, Dad would probably be up to inspect it. He glanced at Mike, whose finger was water-skiing on Lake Tahoe.

I followed the glance. That's Mike. Mike Cochran—

Cameron, Mike corrected me, as his finger skimmed the plaster lake. A virgin.

Dan looked at me, Quite a year you picked, Bill. They're slamming this new Interstate through here, we'll have the usual harebrained tourists, Hobart Mills just opened up a new stand of timber for the summer, University of California just reactivated their research center at Sagehen Creek, and we've had a damned dry winter, our third. Hope you don't miss weekends, your standby day is Monday, day off Tuesday. He looked at Mike. You'll be standby Tuesday, off Wednesday.

Mike and I signed in.

If you have to work on your day off, it's double-time. If we have a busy summer, you kids will get rich. I've seen it happen.

Mike and I walked out of the Ranger's Office. I looked up the gravelled quad to the crew barracks-cookhouse next to the new tanker barn. Across from it, near the horse corrals, was an old Mack Truck cookhouse that dated back to the CCC days of the ‘thirties, a big house on wheels. It was dark green, the old Forest Service color before they'd started using light-green and gray in '58. It looked like something out of history, and in a warm way, something I remembered out of my childhood. I didn't know then, how important that truck would become during the summer.

Mike paused at his MG. His smile was cynical. Get rich?

It can happen, I answered, From what Dad told me.

I wonder, Mike smiled. I'm a city boy, Bill— he stopped a moment, looked at me. Bill—I look at you and that name doesn't fit. Would ‘Willy' do? You look more like a Willy to me. His smile was mesmerizing. Let's try it, if you don't like it, tell me.

I thought about it. It didn't seem bad, I'd never had a nickname before, and besides, the way he spoke it, it seemed kind of comfortable. Willy. I turned it over in my brain.

Yah, it's okay, I said.

So how rich are we going to get, we GS-2's, base pay per annum of $4,120, of which we will only collect one quarter, since we are only here for three months? I think it works out to about a dollar and forty cents an hour—

I stood by the Merc. I made seventy-five cents an hour the last two summers mowing lawns.

Mike slid behind the wheel of his MG. You must live very simply, he said, turning the key. The MG roared, he peeled dust up to the barracks.

Yes, I do, I muttered. Always have. Sorry for you, Doctor Wierd.

*****

I'd grown up a Forest Service Brat, Dad was always taking me into the mountains the summers I was a boy. He did it because he wanted to, I went because I loved it. I got to know a lot of forest due to Dad. He'd point things out to me: The reason it takes you to get so long to the Summit travelling East, and then you drop suddenly out into the desert, is because the Sierra is a long, tilted geologic block that rose that way, it's still rising, it's the youngest major mountain range on the continent. Timber grows thicker up here in the north, we get more snow during the winter. Down around Yosemite and Mount Whitney, it's drier, higher. Tallest peak around here is only about nine thousand, down south, they average twelve to fourteen. Take you down there, sometime, have to pack in, though, no roads. I like it better up here, greener. Bigger trees, thicker, easier to get to, lets a man make his mark. Only problem, it's getting too easy for a man to make his mark up around here. Guess you have to take the bad with the good, but I prefer it up here, prefer the Northern Sierra.

One time: I was twelve. Dad and I were in the backcountry, north of Truckee, east of Hobart Mills, bouncing around in his dark-green Chevy Forest Service pickup. We were driving down a dirt road that paralleled a logging railroad track. I was watching for a train, dad was pointing out that a certain type of East-side Ponderosa grew best in this rolling country because the soil was a shallow, rich pumice-base from million-year old volcanic activity. I was listening to him with my ears, my eyes were on the railroad track, hoping to see a noisy hump-backed Shay-geared locomotive trundle down the track with a long string of log-loaded flatcars, when he spied a smoke up ahead. He steered the Chevy off the road, through the sage to a clump of trees. His hand went to the radio, called into the Ranger Station. That was the day I saw my first wildfire. That was the day he taught me how to hit a fire with no water. It wasn't very big, but it was burning through sage, hot and smoky. We hopped out of the cab, he opened the toolbox, brought out two shovels, handed me one. I heard the hiss of the brush burning, the pungent smoke reminded me a little of spaghetti sauce.

Follow me and do what I do. Dad's shovel bit into the dirt on the perimiter of the fire, he slammed it into the flames, I did the same. My first shots went wild, but after a while, my aim smashed dirt that knocked down the orange heat, replacing it with white smoke. I got a feeling of sheer exhilaration as I walked behind dad, the dirt from my shovel flattening the fire. By the time the tanker arrived, the crew hopping off with their line-building tools, the hose running out, the first blast of detergent-thickened water hissing into the blaze, I realized that I'd helped. I was twelve, but I really felt like a man, like I'd made my mark.

That was the first time I realized how lucky I was that Dad was who he was, did what he did.

When I grew older, I thought about making it my career. I even talked to Dad about it, one night when I was fifteen. It was December, a little before Christmas. We'd just trimmed the tree, Mom remembered something she forgot at the store, and I was assembling my Lionel train around the base of the tree. Dad was sitting on the couch.

As I finished the circle of track, screwed the wires into the transformer, I turned to him. Dad, what if I decided to go to work for the Forest Service like you?

He was silent a long time. Dad could do that and get away with it, he had a way of holding the answer to a question that made me realize that he was mulling over all the possiblities. His answers were usually brief, succinct and very much to the point.

What about college?

I thought I'd major in Forestry.

I thought you liked History.

I do.

Stick with it, then.

Oh.

Oh what, Bill?

I just—nothing— He slid off the couch, in back of me as I sat in front of the electric train I'd just circled around the base of the Christmas tree. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, rested his chin on the top of my head.

I just want to be like you, I finished. I thought I was either going to cough or cry, I didn't know which.

Dad nuzzled the top of my head with his chin. Be you, instead. Not, Be better, not: Be more, just: Be you, instead.

And set me on my own road.

And at eighteen, I realized that I needed to make enough money to put myself through the other three years of College, my major was California History, the best school for that was the University of California at Berkeley, and I'd be on my own.

So Dad phoned Dan in Truckee, and four minutes after he dialed the Ranger Station, I had the job set up for the summer.

I just called in a favor, Dad told me. Dan's my best friend, don't you dare screw it up, son.

I remembered that, even through meeting the Crew Foreman, Bob St. Croix, who was from Portland, Maine, about twenty-five and thickset, and looked like a bear.

The Junior Pengallen, right? and I realized I'd just been burdened with yet another nickname. He yelled back down the hall toward the kitchen. Jock! Get your Wop ass in here, we got the first two of the virgins! He turned back to me. Jock Garlandi, the Tanker operator. The Cook hasn't arrived yet, all Jock knows how to cook is bacon and eggs.

The four of us sat around the long table in the dining room, as Jock Garlandi slammed down the platters. The only difference between the bacon and the eggs was that the bacon was long and thin, otherwise, it was all the same color. There was canned orange juice and coffee, the latter smelling as if it was even older than the stuff Shelley Winters had been pouring down at the restaurant in Truckee. But what the Hhell, after the whole of that day, I had the Screaming Zonkers again, anyway. Bad.

Jock Garlandi, the tank truck operator, was a self-proclaimed Forest Service bum. Which meant that during the off-fire season in the Sierra, he hired himself down to the Southwest, where fire-season went on all year. Both he and the foreman seemed to be somewhere between twenty and thirty, I never did learn how old they were, that summer. But I did learn from their experience.

Goddam, I get tired of cactus, Jock muttered, between mouthfuls of crunchy eggs and rock-hard bacon. I was glad I had good teeth, the meal would have been instant disaster for anyone with even moderate dental problems. Like to get up here during the summer. Besides, it's closer to Nevada, and they've got—whoo-eee!—legalized Prostitution!

Jock, who was tall, muscular, black-haired and handsome in a way that only Americans of Italian ancestry seem to be able to achieve, was fully, thoroughly and religiously dedicated to the exercise of what he informed us, was one of the world's most spectacular and overactive penises.

I save it up during the winter, he said between mouthfuls, Then I'm up here, and whammo! Man, I am out there to Carson City and the girls at Mustang—shit, they just fuckin' wait for me and old Jocko Junior—

I was all eyes and ears, listening to him. Wow, I thought. This guy goes for it! My own sexual life, on the other hand—not to make a bad pun—had up to then been a frustrating series of almosts, not-quites and damn-nears.

Mike was silent, listening to Jock's cock-tales. Then finally he leaned back in his chair. Jock, the girls. Are they clean?

Sure, Jock scraped a couple more eggs onto his plate. Nevada examines them once a week or so—

Are they into anal sex? Mike inquired, a smile playing about his face.

Jock screwed up his handsome Italian face. Aint that what homos do?

Probably, but it's quite popular with women from southern climates. Mike said, France, Italy—Mexico— then he related a particular episode he had experienced with a Mexican whore in Tijuana. He was graphic to a point just short of pornography, and while I listened, I watched Jock's chewing slow, then stop. Jock swallowed, it didn't look as if it were going down easily. I looked at Bob, he just stared back at me as if to say, Where did you find this guy? and after Mike was finished, there was a kind of appetite-killed silence around the dining table.

Jock broke it. That's fuckin' disgusting, his voice cracked.

Mike smiled. Actually, she wouldn't even take my money. She said it was the most intense sexual experience of her life. He looked at his watch, then. Can we leave the—ah—compound, after dark?

Bob told him it was okay, his voice sounded a little hollow. Mike looked at me, asked me if I wanted to go with him, I said, uh, no, I was kind of tired, and he smiled his dazzling smile at all of us and left.

After he was gone, Bob looked at me. Where'd you find him?

I said I'd just met him.

Wierd fucker, man, Jock said, staring at his plate.

I said nothing. I figured that in order to erase Mike's story from both my mind and my crotch, I'd better spend the rest of the evening with my favorite author Bernard deVoto. I was halfway through ‘Year of Decision,' and right then, I was glad I hadn't finished it.

3

Since Bob liked the sheen of my Merc, he assigned me the somewhat dubious honor of polishing the newly arrived '59 Ford Fire-tanker, a huge gray and green monstrosity with enough gears, levers, guages and whatnots to send any decent mad scientist from a Universal ‘Thirties horror movie into Terminal Orgasm.

I was perched on the high running-board, polishing the hood when the other two crew members arrived. They were both my age, eighteen. Pat, who had dark brown hair, was about my size, which meant short and wiry, his buddy Cory was a huge red-head with a broad freckled face and a body like a friendly ape.

Cory looked at me, then the tanker.

Man, that's a big mother. He turned to Pat. Isn't it? Pat grinned as if he'd been patient with Cory for years. Yes, Cory, it's a big mother.

Cory stood back, I noticed he moved quite gracefully for someone built as if he should be wearing fur. In fact Cory didn't really walk, he feinted with his feet as if he were sidestepping large and dangerous flying objects.

Pat did the introduction for the two of them. Pat French, Cory Peters, Truckee locals, just graduated from High School. Cory had landed a football scholarship to University of Nevada in the Fall, Pat was a Music Major, same place. Cory continued to stare at the tanker.

Man, that's a big mother, he murmured.

Cory's been tackled a lot, Pat explained.

Later, Mike would offer the opinion that Pat and Cory seemed to share some sort of invisible umbilical cord. But what Mike forgot, was that Pat and Cory fit in immediately.

Something Mike didn't seem to care about.

Training

Our first week at the Ranger Station on the tree-clogged ridge above Truckee, that roaring railroad-logging town on the East Slope of the Sierra, was spent in fire-training, lectures, demonstrations. Every morning we trudged up the hill above the Ranger Station to a place that had been trailed, re-trailed and over-trailed by generations of virgin young summer fire-fighters learning how to scrape line around the perimiter of a supposed blaze. We learned about the fire-tools, learned to become comfortable with them, were eventually assigned a specific one according to our ability.

Cory, the linebacker, whose deft footwork made him our lead man, got the Pulaski, a fearsome combination of axe and slender hoe that looked like a Medieval armorer's nightmare. He used the hoe end to scratch fire-line, the axe blade to chop down anything in his way. With the size of his arms, it usually took just one swing.

Pat ended up on the McLeod: Pronounced Macloud, a garden-hoe with a rake growing out of the other end of the blade. With the rake, Pat pulled needles and ground-growth out of the line, widening it, looking like a short, slender, brown-haired thresher at work in a Midwest grain-field. And God grant Eternal Peace to any root that dared to stick up within striking distance of the wide, razor-honed blade on the hoe end.

Shovel. Mike and me. Not just A shovel, but a shovel whose blade-end was sharpened to scalpel's edge, and when swiped into dirt, flung it like Jimmy Cagney with a machine-gun into the path of our pretend fires.

We used muscles we never thought we had. We were out on our fictional fireline at least two hours a day, sometimes the whole day, and that was just the first week. We dulled the edges of shovels, axes, Pulaski's and McLeods, then spent the afternoons resharpening them. Four guys in jeans and dark-green shirts, goggles and gloves, bent over our grinders, files.

Pat remarked one time, By the time we hit a real fire, these things are going to be the size of teaspoons.

There's more where they came from, Bob, our Foreman walked over to me. How are you with an axe, Junior?

Pretty good, I eyed the shovel I was filing, sent the file-blade up the edge, watched the little curls are up and break. Too much curl, I was dulling. Just the right curl of steel—little silvery sand-like wisps falling from the edge into the spoon—I was just right. I always filled the spoon of the shovel with silvery sand, on a rivalry with Mike to see who could hone the shovel the best, the sharpest.

How about you take it on along with the shovel, then? We'll probably need a good axeman this summer.

Pat swiped at the McLeod with his file, grinned over at me. Jack the Ripper.

Cory finished honing his Pulaski. Jack the Raper?

Ripper, Cory, Pat amended. I was always surprised at the patience with which Pat treated Cory, who I realized, had been tackled a lot on the Highschool gridiron. Ripper.

Cory looked at Pat for a moment, cognizance waiting, then turned back to the blade of his Pulaski. Oh.

Mike smiled. Jack the Ripper used a knife, Pat. Or possibly a scalpel.

Pat grinned back. You'd know, Doc.

I looked from one to the other. Tall, blond Mike, short, slender Pat. Mike's smile sparkled, and was a little dangerous. You're right, Pat. I'd know.

Pat turned back to the McLeod.

I glanced at Mike. The look in his eyes was as if he'd stepped back from all of us, again. Mike was always doing that, part of me felt that he was an arrogant pain in the ass, yet another part of me felt that he was trying to reach out and didn't quite know how.

Like the lecture on Crownfire.

Dan explained it to us, how fire could whip through timber, from tree to tree-crown, exploding whole acres in seconds like a napalm blast. How the oxygen was sucked up into the fire and any living creature caught in a Crownfire was dead. Instantly. No mark. No burns. Just dead, gone. Blotto.

We heard stories of forests decimated by crownfire, grass still green, bushes untouched, animals sprawled dead under the trees, unburned, surprised looks in their wide, brown mammalian eyes, the air sucked out of their lungs, replaced with nothing. And the trees. Limbs bare, strip ped, burned. Atomized.

Crownfire.

Afterward, Mike asked me if what he had heard was true.

Believe it, I said.

Have you ever seen one?

No, but Dad has. He told me about them. Believe it.

He smiled. Coming from you, I do, Willy.

I felt oddly complimented, because I had been watching him during the lecture. He had again, stood apart, taking it all in.

And that was Mike in a nutshell, as the ubiquitous They are prone to say. He stood apart.

Always.

During the training sessions, he was part of the team, he was good. But after, he distanced himself, removed himself. Usually physically, just by a step, a gesture, but always apart. Separate, as if he clicked off into a private portion of himself.

We worked eight to five on a normal day. Then from five to seven, we had what was called ‘Standby.' We had to be ready for anything that might happen after-hours and if anything did, we worked those two hours at half-pay. Standby was our torture session. After seven, assuming the TBI—Timber Burning Index—a sort of Forest Service report on the weather, a gauging of fire danger that was arrived at by tests on fuel both scientific and, I suspected, the help of a crystal ball—we were on our own, as long as the Ranger's Office knew where we were going. At seven, promptly, I heard Mike's MG revving. Most nights, the rest of us hung around the barracks, talking, reading, just relaxing.

Not Mike.

Seven o'clock, Mike was gone, MG zinging out of the parking lot.

Probably to try and find some chick like that Tijuana whore, Jock remarked, one evening, as he lay on his bunk reading a copy of ‘Playboy.' Man, that is sick, I mean. Sick.

I was into the final third of deVoto. I was concentrating on John Sutter's mill at Coloma, anxious for the gold to show up in the millrace so that the Anglo-Saxons could discover California and I could get swept up in Historical Inevitability and question why we ever joined the Union anyway, since America always needed us more than we ever needed them—

Yah? Cory sat on his bunk, massaging his muscular, football-tight calves through his jeans. Whatcha talking about, Jock?

Doctor Wierd, Jock shrugged. Doctor Wierd is into anal sex. He turned the ‘Playboy' up, unfolding Miss June.

Oh, Cory said, still massaging his thighs. I smiled. Cory didn't even know what Jock was talking about.

Pat grinned from his bunk. He was staring into a mirror, doing what looked like tooth exercises.

I liked Pat. If there was supposed to be a Court Jester among young men forced together for a summer, he was it. Then I turned back to deVoto. California, 1848. Coloma.

I read about the glimmer in the millrace. Drew my legs up so that the book was resting against my jean-clad thighs.

Hey, Junior, Bob called from his bunk. Whatcha reading?

I put the book down. James Marshall just discovered gold,

Too bad, Bob St. Croix muttered, He hadn't, wouldn't be all those goddam tourists out here, today.

And then the siren went off. We bounded off our bunks.

*****

That was the evening I fell in love. Helplessly, hopelessly, incredibly and instantly in love.

The fire was at Sagehen, to the north. Along the Creek where the University of California had just reactivated its botanical research station. The way