Fire Camp

[Steven Hunley]

Fire Camp
By
Steven Hunley

Camp Morena was no joke. The work was hard work and for that they fed you better than in county. There was no fence, and if you wanted to you could always take a late-night hike back to civilization. Most of the men didn’t though. They were low-risk prisoners. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
The daily routine was this:
You’d wake up and go eat. Because you were working they’d feed you pretty good. That was a plus. Plus being out in the open was good too, even if you were on a work crew. Even if it was one hundred and two in the shade. It beat county that’s for sure. Then the crew formed up and you would put on work clothes and boots and jump on a green forestry bus, which was run by a ranger from the Department of Forestry. The corrections officers would stay behind in the camp. Then you’d go out and work on a road, or practice cutting line to get in shape if there was a fire. They were plenty of fires.
But before the fires there was the time they worked on the international firebreak. As they wound up the mountain behind Mount San Miguel they could see the buildings of San Diego below. The paved road took about an hour to get there. After that was a fire road that was dirt. That took longer as it wound up and around. When they reached the top they got out and grabbed their tools. Then, when their canteens were filled, they started to work cutting brush. That’s when the sun baked them good and the sweat started to run down their dust-covered faces leaving lines like small rivers. After a while,
“When are we getting a break?” Carlos said to Dude.
“Right before lunch… maybe.”
The crew kept working. More sweat was required.
“It’s hot,” one said.
“No ****.” said another. Cussing is common among men working, or working men either one.
Dude looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk circling in the thermals looking for food. White puffs of cumulus appeared over the mountains to the south. They were Mexican clouds. Carlos took a time out and leaned on his Pulaski, a cutting tool. He looked down at San Diego.
“Look there,” he said grinning, “Fun City.”
“I’ll be there in a month,” Dude replied.
“Me too.”
“We should meet and have a few beers.”
“Yeah Homie, that would be good. We’ll do that.”
Of course they were both lying. It was what they did to pass the time. They made plans on how they’d meet when they were on the “outs”. They had plenty of time to pass.
The buss horn sounded announcing lunch. They let their tools lie where they were in the dirt.
When the forestry ranger did the count, two men were missing. Two Mexicans. You could see Mexico from the firebreak. That’s why they called it the international firebreak. It split the land between the two countries. Dude remembered at breakfast that the two Mexicans, who had been sitting together, were laughing when the assignment was announced. And when the canteens were being filled, they were careful to get their fill. Obviously they had taken a hike. He knew the ranger had figured it out too when Dude heard him say the word,
“****.”
The ranger went into the bus and got on the radio to the camp. An exercise in futility was what it was. There was no way the correctional officers could do anything about it. The paved highway was an hour away, and the dirt road another. They had taken a hike home. But what was worse, they’d taken upon themselves the responsibility to release themselves from custody. I guess they figured today was their release date. You know Mexicans can’t count. The last thing Dude heard the ranger say when he got out of the truck was,
“Damn Mexicans. They got no respect for the law.”
The only thing Dude could think of was that line Alfredo Bedoya gave Humphrey Bogart in the movie “Treasure of Sierra Madre”.
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t need to show you any stinking badges!”
Maybe the Mexicans had seen the movie too. That night there was no desert after dinner. Go figure.





“

[dizzydoll]

The imagination is a marvelous part of our lives, you have an excellent one. btw what does this mean?


"

in the middle of nowhere. lol. I enjoyed reading this.
I see there is a troublesome movie coming out your way called Machete, have you heard about it?

[hillwalker]

Another brilliant piece SH - indeed it does remind one of those gritty film noirs set in inhospitable locations: 'The Wages of Fear' or 'I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' perhaps.

What I like about your style is how subtly you bring the story to life. Sneak in little comments to stir the reader's imagination - like 'They were Mexican clouds'. No more detail is necessary at that point - we immediately get the broader picture.

Really excellent

[kittypaws]

Yep, there is that drawing in, yearning thing you do so well again!

Enjoyed it very much Steven.

[caliecarter]

The firefighters in this bootcamp site (http://www.troubledteens.com/) are amazing! hour after hour, that is hard a work and long shifts. People should try this.

[Steven Hunley]

The above was a chapter from an unpublishable novella I labeled Under Cover of Darkness. Many good shorts came from it. The companion chapter about actually fighting a fire came next. These men were convicted criminals, usually for minor offenses,and rather than sit in county jail for months, they chose to do "fire camp"or "road camp" time instead. In San Diego County it gets hot in the summer, over 100 degrees. On top of that there are fires.


The stories took little imagination. They were lived rather than imagined.

The Honey Bee Fire
by

Steven Hunley

And then there were the fires. The fires they were no joke. On a Sunday, on a visiting Sunday, Dude was getting ready for a visit. So were the other men. They were in good moods, all of them. There was extra laughter heard around the camp and extra smiles upon most faces. Many looked forward to seeing girlfriends, or lovers, or wives, same thing. Dude was sure to see his old man and was satisfied with this.

The day was hot and a typical summer Sunday. A light breeze was coming from the south-east over the brown dry hills. Dude watched as great white cumulus clouds built up over the mountains in the distance. They were fierce in their size and their whiteness, unusually fierce.

That’s when the alarm went off. There would be no visits today.

The men had been trained what to do. They put down what they were doing and went back to the dorms. They put on their work clothes and socks and boots and laced them. Buckling the web belts and filling up their canteens was next. They were sure to need their canteens. They tied their kerchiefs around their necks, then put on their yellow helmets and something else that was yellow that they usually never wore when just cutting line. This thing was the real-deal. It was their no-max, a flame-retardant suit. I don’t say flame-proof you understand, just flame retardant. The men knew the difference.

They loaded into the buses and looked out the windows to see where they would go. For some it was their first fire. Others talked among themselves nervously. No one dared talked to the ranger in charge. The ranger sat and studied a map he had unfolded on his lap. He must know the map. He saw there were no roads were they were going.

Some men of course just looked out the windows and said nothing. Other men had nothing to say. Still others that said nothing were lost in thought, but most men talked.

The bus drove on and on. Finally they were so close there was the smell of acrid smoke in the air. Soot, soot was in the air too. The men in the bus began to talk of what they would do to this fire. Others spoke in hushed tones of what it might do to them. The men who never spoke were silent.

The bus left the paved road and onto dirt. The sun, the brightness began to dim. Not because it was late, because of the thick smoke, the now impenetrable smoke.

Then the bus stopped.

The men got out. The air was thick with smoke and hard to breath. It began to barbeque their lungs. Many men took their canteens and soaked their kerchiefs in the water and placed them over their nose to make breathing easier. It seemed like a good idea so Dude did the same.

Dude had learned to do what the old-timer survivors did.

Two more rangers approached their ranger from out of nowhere and told him what was needed.

They pointed to the place where the smoke was the thickest. Dude looked over. It was dark. Darkness in the middle of day. When he turned to see where the sun was, it was still on the horizon but its bright yellow had changed to pumpkin, like a ferocious orange glowing jack-o-lantern, no longer yellow.

The ranger gave his orders and the men followed.

“Come with me,” he said.

So they lined up as they had been trained to line up. First there were the men with the axes, then the men with the Pulaskis, then the men with the Mclouds, then the men at the end with their shovels. The criminals were good strong men and willing and would do the job required. They followed him toward the smoke.

Then they saw the fire. On their eyes they could have had the goggles they gave them in camp. Plastic goggles. But they were scratched with use. Seeing through the scratches and the smoke was impossible. No men wore them even though their eyes stung and watered. If you wore the goggles you weren’t a man. So no men wore the goggles.

“Start here,” said the ranger, “and keep working till you get to there.” He pointed up the hill.

It was a simple task cutting brush was, simple but hard. The hill was a big hill, maybe two thousand feet. There was fire on the hill and the men knew it. They could see its’ traces. It leapt before them like a fiery dangerous dancer.

They knew if they cut line, and if the line was clean enough and wide enough, that it might save them from the fire. There was no water around, the no-maxes were useless, and they all knew it. Running was useless. So they began to cut line.

The men at the head of the line stepped into the brush first. Swinging their axes, swinging their Pulaskis, they cut the first of the line. Each one had 6 inches or more. The bushes and small trees, the Manzanita and chaparral, began to fall. The men with the Mclouds followed along and cut another 6 inches each, the man behind him six inches and so on. The men in the rear scraped what was left, leaving only the mineral soil behind. If it was just mineral soil it wouldn’t burn. That’s what the ranger called it in training, mineral soil.

The line got wider, and longer, and the men extended it as they climbed up the mountain. Maybe you would call it a mountain. Whatever it was, no matter how big or how stubborn it was, they cut it and scraped it and dug it till only the mineral soil remained. Sometime they were close to the fire. Sometimes real close. If the brush they cut was burning, it was thrown back into the fire. Never was it thrown into the green brush on their right.

“Never throw into the green,” is what they had been told.

If they did it would start that brush burning and they would be surrounded. They didn’t want that, so they’d toss the burning brush to the left at all costs. A mistake from right to left could cost them their lives, so they were careful. Sweating and cutting and cursing and scraping they worked their way up the hill, one step, or six inches at a time, one step forward, six inches to the side. Cinders were falling like raindrops of fire. Black smoke billowed. Some men coughed. Others would take a second and drink from their canteens or splash water on their faces blackened by the work. But only a second, as the line had to keep moving. It was marvelously deadly and dangerous work.

Dude had never seen anything like it. The team depended on each other. All of these criminals doing dangerous work. He had never seen men work so hard together, almost as if their lives depended upon it. Maybe because they did.

When they took a break and he was leaning on his Pulaski he saw the main part of the fire down below. It extended for hundreds of yards. Although the brush was only six or eight feet high the flames were higher, sometimes ten feet, sometimes twice that. There was no way you could jump over.

Sometimes they came upon a burnt carcass. Most were rabbits but sometimes there was a deer. Some of the bodies were black and still burning. Other creatures would lie there dead, overcome by the smoke. The men had no time to think of dead burning bodies. Dead burning bodies made no difference to them. Their thirst was for life so they kept extending and widening the line.

There was no way you get around the flames and he knew the wind was driving the direction of the fire, he could feel it driving the flames onward, and if the wind changed there was no way he could out-run it. Nobody could. Then he remembered what the ranger told them.

“There’s no more dangerous job in the state of California.”

Now he understood why.

They started that afternoon. When they stopped at two o’clock in the morning they were at the top of the hill. They fell exhausted wherever they were and fell asleep, between the rocks and boulders or wherever they could find an open spot. A rock for your pillow, some dirt for your bed. For this work the State of California paid them ninety-nine cents a day. You can believe me when I say that on that mountain top, surrounded by ten thousand acres of burnt brush, now snoring with faces blackened with soot, every one of them believed he had earned at least one dollar.

They all fell asleep and had the same dream. The dream was of steak and eggs they would eat that morning when they came down from the mountain. In California when you fight a fire they feed you good. So the men would dream of steak and eggs.

The Forestry Department names all their fires. They named this one the Honey Bee Fire. It was given this name because a man was smoking wild honey bees out of a tree to steal their honey. A bee stung his hand, he dropped the smoker and it started the fire. One bee, one man, one sting…then ten thousand acres… then the criminal-clowns in black-face on top of the mountain sleeping like ballerinas in singed tutus, exhausted after dancing the Firebird. The payment for their performance?

Ninety-nine cents. It was some kind of bad joke.

And then there were the fires. The fires they were no joke.


©Steven Hunley 2011

[Buh4Bee]

This is such good writing. I always wish you good luck in the publishing process. I have read half of this already, but reading the ending, I was truly awestruck (Mr. Jersea suggested that word).

[Delta40]

You really are a natural Steve and yes, I hope you get published some time too!