Set Me Alight (4 page)

“Good job, kid. Now keep the ember alive! Blow on it, but gently. You need to give it some oxygen, but overdo it and all of that work will have been for nothing.”

“At least the end result will be something I'm used to, then.”

“Stop joking around, kid. Once that kindling is lit, get it over to the fire I built over there. Good, good, now keep fanning that fire and we can finally feel the cold from the day melt from our bones.”

I wouldn't say it was 'warm' that night, but a sense of accomplishment, no matter how meager, can certainly go a long way to thawing the ice and aches from your body. It was the first time in as long as I could remember that I didn't wake up in the middle of the night shivering. Morning came, and I actually felt refreshed, not groggy, filled with regret, and endlessly spewing self-deprecating nonsense. I'd like to think this is how everyone else felt when they woke up, but from what I had seen, this feeling was relegated to freaks like Paul and those that can afford to live behind bricks and drink bottled water. I knew the feeling wouldn't last long, so I tried to relish it while I could.

“Good morning, Pete. How ya feeling?”

“Great, Paul. I've never felt better.”

“Your tone seemed to lack that bite it normally has. Are you sure you're ok?”

“Don't act so concerned. Yes, I actually do feel great. What's the plan for the day?”

“Do you know how to fish?”

“No.”

“Are you willing to sit on your ass for a few hours with nothing to entertain you but watching the water ripple from the wind?”

“Beats rubbing two sticks together all day.”

“Good. I brought two poles, they're over there by my bag. Get them and meet me by the creek.”

Either fishing really is that simple, or Paul was just as ignorant about it as I was. We just sat near the edge of the creek for a few hours. There were a few bites, but only Paul was able to reel a fish in. I only had two chances at it myself, and failed both times. No matter, I enjoyed myself enough just sitting in the sun.

“Hey, Paul, I've never really asked you this before, but how long have you been in Montana?”

“I've lived in this same town my whole life. A lot has changed over the years. Helena was never much, but it hasn't always been the depressing hell hole it you see it as today. I feel like it started going downhill ever since the mines opened.”

“Didn't you say that your brother started up the mining operation?”

“He didn't really 'start it up'. He was one of the original speculators who got the big companies to come in and start mining. He was smart, though. Before he told anyone what he thought was under the dirt, he started buying up huge lots of vacant, and at the time, extremely cheap, land.”

“And then he sold it all to the mining companies for some fat stacks of cash.”

“He did better than that. He sold the land for stakes in the mines and the companies. He bore none of their startup costs, and had a piece of all of their profits. It was getting disgusting how rich he was becoming.”

“Are you still in touch with him? Or does he hole himself up in those McMansion communities like all of the other rich folk?”

“He died several years ago. He had a bit of a falling out with the mining companies. He was still making money off them, but it seemed that as time went on they tried keeping him at arm's length. He was a mining engineer by education, so he was actually helping them plan out the mines at the beginning. Before he died, they wanted nothing to do with him. They even barred him from entering any of their facilities.”

“Piss off the wrong people? Or did he just go crazy?”

“A little of both, if I had to guess. He kept telling me he was 'onto something', but would never get specific. He mumble something about 'what they're doing to our water.' That was the closest I ever got to a full explanation. He didn't have a wife or kids or anything, so I inherited everything he had when he died. I don’t know what legal loophole the mining companies used, but they were able to seize all of the money he’d made off them. The only thing I got were boxes and boxes of documents he saved that are sitting in storage. I always figured I'd wait until I retire to go through them, see if I can piece together what exactly he was rambling about.”

“Good luck with that. No one retires these days. Once you're unfit to perform your job, they start you digging a hole to lie down in.”

“Hate to say it, but you're right.”

We stayed out in those woods until spring was halfway over. I quickly lost my elated state, but I never sunk back down to where I was before. Paul was at least half right. It wasn't the hardest work of my life. I had certainly put in much more effort into my self-loathing and regret before, but it was still damn hard. I'd like to say I learned a lot, but I still didn't know shit about fighting a forest fire. I hoped that all that really mattered when you were caught in an arbor hellfire was the ability to construct a lean-to from branches and a fraying rope.

Chapter 3

The summer had started out slow. At least that was what Paul told me. It’s not like I had the slightest inkling of what was normal or not. According to Paul, twenty years ago I would have been going through what he called ‘Fire Science’ school. Learning about what exactly is happening at a chemical level when a fire is going and crap like that. You need a fuel, oxygen, and heat or something, what else was there for me to learn? Take away one and the fire should stop, right? If there was anything I was missing, it didn't seem like Paul or anyone else was trying to teach me, so I guess any of my future fuck ups in ‘Fire Science’ were on them. 'Them' being Paul, as no one else there knew a damned thing about anything. It always feels great to find someone to pass the blame to.

Since Paul and I came back from our little Crusoe hovel, we had been focused on doing ‘preventative’ fire work. I thought it would be complicated, but all we were doing was clearing some trails. They're called ‘fire breaks’ or ‘fire lines’ according to Paul. At that point in the season, the ‘team’ we had there was all of five people. Paul, myself, and three vagabonds who couldn't tell fire from water. Makes me think that all the so called training Paul put me through was just an exercise in sadomasochism if those were the other guys who we were be working with.

Anyway, thankfully we got quite a bit of help from the mining companies to make those fire breaks. They used them as dirt roads to haul their waste to and from sites. Most of the work was simple, just clearing off the already created trails. If it was just our team of five, it would take us centuries to complete. Thank God the mining companies had a bunch of brain-dead bodies they could throw at the work.

There wasn’t a whole lot else we could do as far as preventative work was concerned. We didn't have the manpower or resources to have kept a controlled burn under control. The mining companies had an incentive to help us with the fire breaks, but they got nothing out of helping us light some underbrush on fire. Paul would often take me on me trips to inspect the water tanks. There were these giant steel water tanks sporadically placed throughout the wilderness. Most of them had begun to rust and leak, but Paul still insisted on following the proper protocol of inspecting and reporting on every single one. I think 80% of them failed our inspections. Last year Paul said it was at 78%. So, we did the work to inspect them and report on them, but never took any action to try and fix the situation. Not much more you could expect from government work. The best Paul had been able to do in the past years was haul up some empty oil drums and leave them open to collect rain water. Even he admitted they would be next to useless in the event of an actual fire, but it made him feel like he was doing something.

“What’s the plan for today, Paul?”

“We’re going to continue doing the one thing you love most in the world, Form #0289, Seasonal Inspection of Fire Prevention Water Tanks.”

“The only form I’ll ever love is my death certificate.”

“These are the moments you should cherish, kid. We get to go on a hike through the beautiful Montana wilderness, write down a few words and check a couple of boxes, and then go home. Worst part of the day is having to see the landscape ruined by a decrepit steel tank for a few brief moments. Though, if you like, we can join the miners in ripping up brush, digging up some dirt, and laying down gravel from sunrise to sunset.”

“You know, Paul, I'm not always complaining. Believe it or not, I've changed somewhat since we first met.”

“And, believe it or not, an old man like me can still have a sense of humor, albeit a rather lame one.”

“Goes well with your lame body.”

“Alright, enough of that. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about for a while now, and since we have no one but each other to keep us company for the next few hours I figured I might as well bring it up. I've been going through my brother's stuff lately. All those boxes he left me.”

“Yeah, find anything out yet?”

“Not really. There's thousands of documents he left behind. 99% of which I can't make head or tail of. A lot of them seem like company ledgers. You know, what they spent their money on. I'm no accountant, and neither was my brother, so it beats me what he was doing hoarding all that.”

“Anything else interesting?”

“There's also a lot of safety reports for the mining sites. Those are a bit weird. There will be multiple reports for the same site, none of which say the same thing. One will say there were no safety concerns, one will say the equipment is all malfunctioning, another saying workers aren't looked after and monitored, and other such stuff like that. Some are signed by the site managers, some are not. Some of them aren't dated either, so it’s hard to tell if they're conflicting reports or just from different time periods.

“There are also some mine output reports as well. It appears they have two separate reports for waste and what they're mining for. They seem to be mostly looking for metals, such as silver and copper and lead. That much I had already assumed. They seem to be looking for some other heavy metals as well. Stuff I didn't think was in these hills.”

“Like what?”

“I'm no expert, but the stuff they call 'rare earth' metals and minerals. The stuff they use in those fancy electronics.”

“They're mining that stuff here? I thought that was all in China or Africa or whatever underdeveloped regions the corporations are all exploiting nowadays.”

“I'm not sure to be honest. The output reports seem to be indicating the mines here aren't producing that much, if anything at all. The copper and silver mines still trickle, but nothing seems to be coming out of the rare earth stuff. Then again, I'm not sure if I'm exactly reading it correctly.”

“So they're just continuing to mine this place without getting anything out of it? What's the point?”

“I'm not sure. The waste reports don't make much sense either. They don't go into detail about what the waste was, just how much of it they were removing. They don't list any destinations either. It just says it's being taken 'off-site'.”

“Is that all he left you? A whole bunch of corporate documents and reports? What a nice inheritance to look forward to.”

“There are also a bunch of personal notes he left. They're completely disorganized, though. Half of them are on scraps of paper. I have no idea how to reconcile them. Right now it’s just inane babbling to me. I'm trying to correlate all the notes together myself, but I’m not having much luck.”

“Isn't that what one of the new guys, Jim, used to do before he got laid off? Correlated huge pieces of data? He called it 'data mining' or something similar.”

“Yes, and I already talked to him about it. Unfortunately, he's only capable of doing it with software, and since everything I have is a hard-copy document, he isn't going to be much help, at least not in the foreseeable future. Plus, it’s not like any of us have access to computers or anything even if I did have this all electronically.”

“You can never come out on top these days, I guess.”

“Your pessimism grows on me a little more every day, kid. Soon enough I'll be talking about the inevitable slow death of the universe and the futile nature of human existence.”

“I can't wait. We'll finally have something we can relate on, and we'll make sure to never talk to each other about it. Respect for each other's misery and all.”

We finally arrived to the first water tank. Like most of the others, it was in shoddy condition. Rust had eaten holes through the tank, and a few animals seemed to have crawled inside to die. I like to think they made a conscious decision to crawl in there to meet their end. It’s a much nicer thought than what I presume is the reality of the situation. A little critter comes along merely looking for some shelter from the elements, or scavenging for food or something like that, only to get stuck inside with no hope of ever getting out. If the critter was lucky, a previous animal would have already died inside and spoiled the water, quickening their demise after drinking it. Otherwise, depending on the critter, they could be in there for a month before finally starving to death. What a way to go. Anyway, the tank was still somewhat useful. It was three quarters of the way full with water, most likely from whatever snow melted on top of it. Fortunate for us the holes were all on the top of the tank, so it wasn't leaking out too much. While Paul was performing a much more thorough inspection of the tank than I could care to do myself, I noticed what looked like smoke in the distance.

“Hey Paul, does that look concerning to you? Looks like a bunch of smoke rolling over that hill.”

“Shit, kid, looks like we have a fire on our hands. Time to test your mettle, kid. First we've got to get our asses back to the HQ to organize.”

The hike out was a nice leisurely two hours. Now Paul had us running back. We left all the inspection forms at the tank. We were planning on getting to half a dozen more today. We also left behind everything else we brought, water, snacks, nice picnicking equipment, you know, the usual leisurely hiking stuff. The forestry office was all downhill from there, so we were able to move fast. I just had to deal with the constant pounding on my knees and ankles. We weren't taking the trail run easy. My joints felt like they were going to turn into mush. Every step was a near miss for a catastrophic twisted ankle. I'm not sure how Paul was doing it. I was struggling just trying to keep up with the old man, and the whole time he was shouting back to me what we needed to do when we got to HQ. Not like it mattered, as I was in no condition to take in any information other than what was on the ground immediately in front of me, and I wasn't doing too great of a job at that either. I stumbled all over the place, ran into stuck up rocks and tree roots. I had no idea how long it was going to take us to run back, but it felt like I'd been through all the circles of hell and returned. One thing Paul forgot to do was get my ass in shape. By the time we stopped running I thought my lungs were going to explode.

“Patti, are Jim, Tim, and Slim here?”

“No, Paul, they're with one of the mining teams.”

“Are we able to get a hold of them?”

“Not that I'm aware of. I can try to contact the mining companies and go from there. What's going on?”

“Pete and I saw some smoke just east of the Missouri River and Lake Helena. Have you received any reports from the fire watch stations?”

“I don't think we have any stations manned around there. I don't recall hearing anything over the radio.”

“Shit. Alright, Pete, we're going to have to try and take care of this ourselves. If this is where I think it is, we're not going to be able to get there by car.”

“How are we going to get there, then?”

“We've got a dirt bike.”

The thing looked older than Paul was. It was sitting in some storage area and looked like it hadn't been used in years. Paul claimed he used it all the previous season, but I wasn't about to believe him as it was covered in what looked like an inch-thick coating of dust. The bike had no gas, and the oil had to be changed. None of which we had there in the office building or storage shed. We tied it to the roof of the Forestry car with what little rope we had at our disposal, and drove it to the nearest gas station. Paul wasn't exactly taking the drive easy, making every turn a chance to sling the bike off the roof into oncoming traffic. The mechanic there didn't look too optimistic at the idea of it starting up, but after a few tries, Paul somehow got it going.

“Hop on the back and hold on tight, kid, we need to blitz on over there. I can see the smoke from town now.”

“Riding bitch. I've been doing it all through life, no more humiliation in doing it now.”

Truth be told, I'd never ridden a motorcycle before, riding bitch or otherwise. On the run earlier my joints took a beating. Once we went off the road on the bike, my ass was taking one. I couldn't tell if the suspension was too stiff or too soft, but whatever it was, it didn't seem to be doing anything as Paul was racing over every bump and log in the way. There wasn't anything on the bike to hold onto, and there wasn't even a seat for a second person, just a small metal bar for me to try and balance on. I was just clinging onto Paul for dear life. I'm sure I was doing nothing but hurting our ability to stay upright. My instinct was to writhe around failing, trying to keep myself balanced, and Paul would yell back to stay still and let him do the work. I don't know what riding an ATV is like either, but I desperately wished we had four solid wheels to sit on instead of these flimsy two we were trying to stay balanced and upright with. Every turn brought images running through my mind of us sliding out of control and our skin being ripped off as we skid across the ground until we slammed against a tree, snapping our backs in two.

We made it to a shallow, narrow part of the river, giving us something easier to cross. It was still too deep for the bike, so we left that near the river bank. At its deepest, the water got up to our waists.

“Pete, the river will be our anchor point, however useful it may be.”

“What the hell is an anchor point, Paul?”

“Did you read any of those books I gave you? It's our base of operations during the fire. It shouldn't be able to reach us while we're near the water, so if everything goes tits up, head for the river.”

“Whatever you say.”

I was then able to see the fire, not just the smoke. The heat shimmer off of the fire was mesmerizing, like I was looking at some sort of apparition of a fire god trying to enter the mortal realm. Even at that distance from the fire, as soon as we got out of the river I began to feel its heat. A nice soothing warmth after the chill of the river. I felt relief from the heat, before images of my body shooting up in flames raced through my mind.