The crew grids the gentle south facing slope of their mountain, where the incandescent bones of lost cattle scattered by time and scavengers glow among the downed trees and rotting logs. They amble downhill in the fading light with 10 yards spacing between each other, scanning the ground below, the ground in front, and the darkening canopy of douglas fir and ponderosa pine for smoke from embers that might’ve floated over the ridge from the afternoon's blow-up.
A ground-wind flows downhill past their legs and into the draws as the humidity slowly rises and the temperature begins to drop. They climb over logs the diameter of refrigerators, trudge through dense weaves of fallen branches, using their hand tools to knock down dry low hanging branches in their path. A crew member yells out “hold” and everyone stands in place while the area is checked for signs of fire. They continue searching, scanning the floor for smoke, ancient arrowheads, elk sheds, or skulls; trophies of summers walking through smoke, long hikes and hours of swinging tools against dirt and rocks, digging miles of fireline, felling trees, and cutting thickets of brush with high powered chainsaws. Their depleted bodies fusing to the cold ground moments after zipping their sleeping bags. They wake up before dawn to continue the story. They are young and invincible.
Their summers are punctuated by sightings of black bears, skittish coyotes, cougars, rattlesnake dens, and enormous bull elks with the antlers the width of small cars. Their days are suffocated by the perfume of pine terpenes, smoke, sweat, spilt beer, and gasoline. They relish morning’s bouquet of bacon and eggs in mountain town diners, cans of tobacco for the long days, cigarettes for the evening’s rest, and craft beer in small town breweries on days off.
The boredom of driving hundreds of miles across the western United States is the price. They become desensitized to vistas of geological theater most humans will never see, awesome and patient hydrology cutting earth and stone for millenia, flower covered meadows surrounded by heavy timber in Colorado, rolling yellowed grasslands of Wyoming, fiery sunsets in the deserts of Nevada, layers upon layers of colored earth in the Dinosaur graveyards of eastern Oregon, and the taste of morning’s first cup of coffee, all suppressed by waves of loneliness, the longing for loved ones, and the simmering irritability of spending every waking moment with the same people for 14 days, 21 if they were lucky.
The pay was worth the trouble when out on assignment but a trickle when they stayed on forest unless lightning struck within their jurisdiction, a campfire went unchecked in visitor campgrounds, or an unextinguished cigarette flew out a car window, igniting the roadside grasses. One season’s pay carried them through the offseason when the weather was too wet and cold for fire. Most of them returned to their cities until the following summer, others stayed behind to work fuel reduction projects, clearing areas of thick vegetation and burning their piles on cold overcast days when the snow ceased to fall, the wind was absent, and every step felt colder the last.
_____________________
In the last days of October, when the end of fire season in eastern Oregon was signaled by mornings of frozen highways and tamaracks changing color, yellow and rust orange, imitating deciduous forests of the northeast, accenting the dark green canopy of dense conifers, the remaining firefighters spent the week prepping fire line for an early winter prescribed burn. They widened the line using hand tools, trimming overgrown brush with chainsaws, removing downed tree limbs, and felling dead trees that could fall across the line and ruin the burn project . They took long lunch breaks under the shaded edge of the treeline. They faced the downhill slope of tall yellow grass that rolled into the creek that lay like a serpent along the valley floor, twisting and turning, filling deep pools at each bend where wild rainbow trout congregated in the shade of the cold water before moving on to the next bend. They busted each other’s balls, discussed resolved and unresolved drama, gossiped about people who’d left, announced plans for their furlow, and enjoyed each other’s company without spoiling the evening with sentiment, understanding that they might not see each other again.
On the last evening, Jeremiah slept on the couch of his Forest Service dorm. He surrendered his keys and equipment earlier that day, sold his pickup truck to a couple from Mexico who’d moved to town for work at the ski resort, and organized his trekking pack with essentials. In the morning he hitched a ride to the nearest town with Charlie, one of the last firefighters in the dorm. They sat by the window of the diner and ate while the morning sun warmed their faces. They talked about books they read, fires they worked, and women they should’ve been with if it weren’t for braver men.
“You have my number. I’ll come get you. Whatever you need, you let me know. Don’t hesitate.”
“I’ll be alright, I’ll make it as far as I can, hitch it, probably get a bus at some point.”
Jeremiah walked west along the two-lane highway that brought him down from the mountains, splitting the valley of yellow cow pastures and agricultural fields of squash and potatoes, connecting hamlets in 10 mile intervals. The road lay parallel to a wide shallow river running cold and clear over mosaics of red, orange, green, and blue stones and boulders. His pack took shape, molding over his shoulders and collarbones, fusing to his waist, balancing his steps on loose gravel, over culverts, and mounds of red ants. Friendly vehicles slowed and gave him space while others accelerated, sucking him into vacuums of exhaust and noise, waking him from his trance for a moment until they became a reliable rhythm.
At dusk he reached a state recreation area along the highway where he set down his pack for the first time since breakfast and bedded down by the river out of sight from travelers and state troopers. In the morning, the first diner he entered asked him to leave. The next diner added “we don’t serve hitchhikers''. He settled for a scorching hot microwave burrito with a frozen center from the gas station with a lime green dinosaur sculpture on its curbside lawn. A mile down the road he saw another backpacker far ahead, by noon he was close enough to see the sweat stained blue hat. The man heard Jerimiah’s footsteps and glanced over.
“Mind if I keep pace with you?” Jeremiah didn’t want to overtake him or follow too close.
“That’s fine”
“Where are you headed?”
“LA”
“Me too. I’m Jeremiah.”
“Sam, nice to meet you.”
They put one foot in front of the other as the day warmed and their boots softened. The road crossed the river and bore west through cliffs of rectangular purple and black basalt pillars holding back the earth from collapsing onto the road and the shallow stream below. They walked in silence for hours, past the entrance of a state park where the bones of dinosaurs are exhumed and the hills are painted shades of red, orange, and turquoise by the minerals leached from the ancient ground below. They walked uphill and downhill and around blind bends where angry tractor trailers birthed from rock thundered past them, vanishing from sight, dragging their hot exhaust to cities, towns, and suburbs to deliver essential rations and tomorrow’s trash.
The men found a large culvert where a dry arroyo descending from the mountain crossed under the highway and flowed downhill into the desert valley miles below where the sun dragged the last of its burning light west as evening's cold shadows swallowed boulders, dead volcanoes, arroyos of dark green riparian, stands of juniper trees, prairies of sage, and the dens of hungry coyotes, unleashing the appetite of a million mice and those who eat mice. They settled under the highway, shared dried food, and made small talk. The man was from Detroit, 54 years old. He’d pulled his retirement to travel west and see by foot the country he’d traversed thousands of times during his trucking career. Jeremiah told him about his summer job, the fires he worked, and the states he’d visited while traffic above them died and the night’s cold air began funneling down the arroyo and into the culvert, forcing the men to move their fireless camp to a flat area above highway where an inversion belt held some of the day’s warmer air.
In the morning they smoked cigarettes and drank freeze dried coffee with water boiled in Jeremiah’s handheld camping stove. A bright rim of white light burned the edges of the eastern horizon, igniting their atmospheric dome, erasing the stars, covering the men the rest of the day as they continued west into another forest.
In the late morning they hitched a ride with a young couple who daringly squeezed the hitchhikers and their foul odors into the back seat of their Subaru. They stopped for lunch in Prineville where conversation became a polite interrogation. Sam focused on the beautiful weather and the small town fare they were enjoying, then left to use the lavatory and picked up the bill without anyone noticing.
The men thanked the couple for the lift and lumbered west under their packs. The day was bright and warm. Cool breezes brushed the scent of fall across their faces. They stopped at an old motel at the edge of town where they booked separate rooms. Sam showered and slept. Jeremiah collapsed onto the creaky mattress in his filthy clothes and woke up in the dark 10 hours later, it was close to midnight. He pushed open the curtains and looked across the parking lot to Sam’s room, 3rd door from the reception office. The lights were off.
The following morning he knocked on Sam’s door several times and waited about 10 minutes before walking into the reception office to turn in his keys.
“Your friend left”, the receptionist announced.
“I figured.”
Jeremiah continued on 97 towards Bend. His body acclimated to his heavy ruck, cradled comfortably by his shoulders and hips, a fit similar to working the fireline. He reached Bend by late evening, following the highway’s wide shoulders and bike paths that ran parallel. He slept in a thicket of riparian on the shores of the Deschutes for a few hours before a policeman’s boot tapped his back and shoulders.
“You can’t sleep here.”
“Gimme a second”
They asked for his ID and questioned him under bright beams while he stuffed his sleeping bag away and slung his pack. They were doing their job, he told himself. They could’ve robbed and beat him, killed him and urinated on his body, or any combination of horrors that men committed to strangers in the dead of night when no one is watching. They had power and soon they were four. Their voices conferred and one gave back his ID. A voice told him to move on, keep walking, another told him to get a job. He thanked them and continued down the highway to an all-night diner where he ate apple pie and drank bitter coffee until daybreak.
The next few days were cold with cloudless skies, morning frost, and brilliant light piercing through the pines, warming his body while he trudged along. He shared cigarettes and fast food with bums outside gas stations and traded lies with drunks at a small brewery. He hitched a short ride with college students who disagreed with the smell of his unwashed body. In the long stretches between towns he camped in the woods off the highway where thickets of dried lodgepole pine and the dark canopies of ponderosas hid his tent. He ate well, snacking sparingly on his rations and sampling small town diners that allowed his kind to sit in corners far from the main crowds. There was no shortage of biscuits, bacon, eggs, burnt coffee, and awkward stares from clean people with nice cars.
On the 8th day of his journey he paid for a camping spot on the shores of a large lake just north of Klamath Falls. He lit a fire. The sun had just dipped behind the mountains across the lake when he noticed two campfires along the shore come to life, one far to his left and the other across the water. Orion and Taurus lit up above him and a fiddle was played.
That night he dreamt of floating from the ground. He asked those standing nearby if they could see him ascending past their heads, but no one responded or bothered to look. Everything grew smaller as he lifted past the pines and leafless branches of Ash and Poplar trees. He felt a cool wind brush his cheeks and push him away like a balloon. He came back to the ground and asked if anyone saw him, again no one answered. He pushed off, this time controlling his flight and hovered just above the trees where he could see the roofs of thousands of homes and an intricate net of electric cables suspended by poles at equal distance, vanishing into the horizon where an oasis of metal and glass skyscrapers stood against the bright sky. Behind him were more roofs, thousands. He looked down and the people had gone about their day. He continued upward until everything below was unrecognizable and his vision captured the darkness of space and the billions of stars burning close and far.
On a tree limb above his head, a large bird held the limp body of a squirrel. It scanned the ground below, observing Jeremiah with his left eye, then right eye, then left again, staring intently before spreading its wings and bounding into the air and across the lake without making a sound. Jeremiah reached the town of Klamath Falls just before noon. The manager of the Waffle Hut asked him to leave. She offered to serve him a take-out order. He smiled and took the hint. He went across the road to the motel to shower, shave, change, and returned to take a different booth. A glass of water and cup of coffee placed before him, he waited for his meal and saw the familiar face of a black man with a speckled beard across the restaurant. The man walked over.
“May I?” gesturing to the empty seat.
“Absolutely”, Jeremiah stood up to greet him, they shook hands.
“Here we are.”
“God it’s good to see you. What happened?”
“I went to a hospital.”
“Why?”
“I’m sick, kid.”
“With what?”
“Just sick, don’t have long.”
“What does that mean? Is it cancer? How long you been sick?”
“A while.”
“Should you even be out here?”
“Sure. It’s not gonna happen anytime soon, I hope.”
Jeremiah didn’t prod further. The waitress brought Jeremiah’s order and asked if Sam wanted anything else. The men made plans to travel west to the coast and take the Pacific Coast Highway to travel along the ocean. In the morning they trekked west under overcast skies. The days were colder and sporadic rain showers forced them under highway overpasses for hours at a time. On the third night they deployed their tents deep inside the forest when a downpour sealed them in their damp stench until morning. Sam groaned in the cold for a few hours before snoring. Thuds of elk scampering through their camp woke Jeremiah in the morning when light glistened and steamed off of everything wet. Jeremiah lit his stove, boiling water for their instant oats and coffee.
“Does your body hurt?” Jeremiah asked.
“Not right now.”
“I heard you. You take anything?”
“I have some prescriptions. I mostly rely on THC gummies.”
“Are you stoned right now?”
“Damn straight.”
They waded uphill out of a thicket of wet ferns and back onto the highway where an Oregon State Police cruiser was parked on the shoulder about 30 yards away. The men moved behind a large tree before an officer stepped out from the brush, zipping his pants. Sounds of radio chatter mixed with the birds and a lone oncoming tractor trailer moving slowly uphill. The officer stopped at his car door, waved to the tractor’s driver as it passed. The officer turned and looked in their direction, staring intently, scanning the forest. He waited for the sound of the vehicle to disappear around the bend.
“Anyone there?” He hollered.
“He’s telepathic?” Jeremiah whispered to Sam.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“What do we do?”
Sam put a finger to his lips and signaled Jeremiah to quiet. The radio chatter and squelch grew louder. The officer looked frightened.
“I know you’re there.”
Sam began to sink into the ferns, Jeremiah followed. The officer lit the overhead blue and red lights on his cruiser, talked into his radio, and began walking in their direction, his right hand on his hip, holding a pistol in its holster. He was halfway to their location when three cow elks thundered uphill past the men and across the highway, quickly veering away from the tiny man with a gun and his flashing lights, dodging an oncoming pick-up truck, and disappeared into the forest above. The officer bent over, hands on his knees. He caught his breath, laughed and talked to himself, then mounted his vehicle and continued his morning mountain patrol.
“Why were we hiding?” Jeremiah asked.
“Don’t know. Seemed like the thing to do, worked out.”
At a highway rest stop the men convinced the driver of a tractor trailer from Mexico to give them a ride to Ashland, $40 dollars each. The driver only spoke spanish. Jeremiah conversed with him for the duration of the ride. They traded jokes and morsels of personal information. He was from central Mexico and lives in Tucson with his wife and American born children. Sam slept until Ashland where they split another motel room. They walked to the nearby Fred Meyers and picked up toiletries and clothing detergent. Sam bought a pair of board shorts.
“Getting beach ready?”
“Yep. They’re only $5 too.”
They did laundry, showered, shaved and put on their best attire. Sam was determined to have a glass of wine and eat pasta at a bougie Italian restaurant in quaint downtown Ashland where he met his wife decades ago during a furlough from a 21 day fire assignment in the Siskiyou National Forest. Jeremiah didn’t know Sam had also worked the fire lines. Sam told him about her frizzy black hair, cinnamon skin, and wide toothy smile. They were the only black people in the restaurant. Probably the only black people in town, he added. She was at the bar waiting for a friend. The friend eventually arrived after they’d finished a glass of wine. They ate pasta and drank more wine. Her friend left and they walked up and down the boulevard, eventually dancing at a wedding reception where tipsy patrons were convinced they knew them from somewhere. The air smelled of jasmine and magnolia flowers. She passed away two years ago.
The interstate to Medford was wide and busy the next morning. They took backroads, hiking through the morning’s cold air past frost covered agricultural fields resting from a long summer. The day lit fall colors and brought a balmy Indian summer. On a long uphill stretch Sam struggled to walk and stopped several times before sitting under a large oak at the edge of a field.
“Kid, I need to stop for a while.”
“Shit, man. You need to go to a hospital?”
“No, I’m not to that point, just tired, dizzy.”
Jeremiah reached into Sam’s pack, pulled out a Nalgene bottle of water, and handed it to his friend, “I’ll get us a ride.”
The young man walked out to the highway. A few minutes passed before the first car zoomed by, then another a few minutes after. His outstretched thumb louvered a dark blue dust covered Toyota Corolla with a cracked windshield. Jeremiah ran up to the car and spoke with the driver. Sam was waking from his nap.
“Just the two of you?” Asked the driver.
“Yeah, my friend’s over there,” Jeremiah pointed back towards the tree.
“How far?”
“We’re heading to the coast but you can drop us off in Grants Pass, we just need to get out of the sticks”.
“I just need some gas money. Cool?”
“Yeah man, we got you. Let me get our stuff.”
The driver popped the trunk. Jeremiah helped his friend off the ground and carried both packs to the car. Sam climbed into the back seat amongst the refuse of empty cigarette boxes, fast food containers, empty styrofoam cups, and an old acoustic guitar with a capo above the 3rd fret. Jeremiah took the passenger seat and the car departed with all four windows down into the rolling hills of yellow grass broken up by dark green draws stuffed with riparian, oaks, and juniper. The driver smoked one cigarette after another and kept the hip-hop station at a low volume.
“You’re a musician?” Jeremiah broke the silence
“Yep.”
“What do you play?”
“Blues mostly.”
“Country?”
“Blues, bro. Blues”
“Muddy Waters? Mississippi Delta- ”
The driver’s yellow eyes told Jeremiah to stop asking questions.
They pulled into a gas station on the outskirts of Medford. The driver gestured to Jeremiah for cash. Jeremiah looked to the back seat at a sleeping Sam then took out his bill fold and gave the driver his only $20. The driver took the note and held out his hand again. A tinge of fear dripped into Jeremiah’s veins. He stepped out of the car, took off his right boot and pulled out another $20. The driver took the bill and held out his hand again. Jeremiah pulled out another $20.
“Good boy”
The driver went into the gas station. Jeremiah looked back at Sam who was wide awake.
“You ok?” Asked Sam.
Jeremiah stuffed his lower lip with tobacco to calm his nerves. “I’m alright.”
A few minutes later the driver returned to the car with a carton of cigarettes, a fountain drink, and a large bottle in a brown paper sack, the breeze pasting his faded blue t-shirt to his tall lean frame. He fueled the car, stuck his head in the car window, and stared down his hostages. Jeremiah opened his door, “I need to piss”.
“What about you?” The driver addressed Sam.
“I’m good.” Sam witnessed part of the shakedown when they stopped, understanding the driver would leave them stranded if he stepped out.
The driver finished fueling, took his seat at the wheel, sucked down half his soda and dumped the rest out the window. He poured his beer into the empty cup, took a swig from the bottle while he waited for the foam to subside, then poured in the rest. He opened his door and set the empty bottle on the concrete. Jeremiah jogged out to the car with a large fountain drink in hand.
They drove through Jacksonville and headed southwest on Highway 238 through dense pine forests, past wineries, and mountain side eateries, following the clear and shallow waters of Poorman’s Creek until it joined the deeper Applegate River rolling steadily on their left then on their right when the highway crossed over. The highway eventually turned northwest through wide valleys towards Grants Pass.
Their driver chain smoked his cheap cigarettes, the smoke stinging Sam’s eyes momentarily then blowing away. The temperature dropping drastically in the shadows, warming in the sunlight. The car slalomed around bends, zoomed past tractor trailers, narrowly missing cyclists in their expensive bright spandex and equally expensive bicycles. Jeremiah squeezed his cup into the cupholder behind the driver’s drink. The driver’s eyes fixed on the cups.
“Don’t touch my beer.”
Jeremiah put up his hands, “sorry, man”.
The driver took his cup, sucked down half, belched, and put it back. Sam tapped the driver on his shoulders and asked him to pull over. Sam made his way down the roadside embankment and into the brush to relieve himself. The driver wasn’t as discreet. He walked a few feet away from the car and watered a cluster of lodgepole saplings. Jeremiah stayed in the car and finished his drink, popped open the lid and tossed a few ice chips in his mouth.
“What did I fucking tell you?” The driver took his seat.
“It’s just ice.”
“Don’t gaslight me, motherfucker.”
Sam came back to the car and handed the driver a $20, told him he forgot to pitch in. The car rolled onto the asphalt and picked up speed, traveling faster than before, then pulled into another gas station. Their driver slammed his door and went inside.
“We need to ditch this guy, kid.” Sam told his friend.
“Grants Pass is just a half hour up the road. We’ll be alright.” Jeremiah spat out his tobacco and put a fresh plug between his lower lip and his gums.
The man returned with another beer. He filled his styrofoam cup, drank the last ounces before tossing the can into the garbage. They proceeded northwest, moving faster around bends. He changed radio stations. The Grateful Dead came on and he turned up the volume. Ripple played and the car felt colder.
“You’re taking advantage of me.” He spoke into the rear view mirror. “ I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m stupid? I went to college, motherfucker” He glanced over at the kid. “You’re laughing at me.”
Jeremiah reached for his cup. The driver dug into his lidless center console, pulled a box cutter and slammed into Jeremiah’s hand.
“I warned you, motherfucker”. His voice growled, “Don’t,” he stabbed, “Touch,” swinging down again, “My,” He swung again, “Fucking Beer.”
The driver abruptly stopped swinging his weapon. Jeremiah’s left hand and thigh were covered in bright red blood, warm, sticky and dripping all over the seat. Jeremiah was dazed. Sam’s face was between them. Sam had plunged his hunting knife into the driver’s rib cage and held it in place.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen”, Sam spoke calmly. “You’re gonna pull over and let us out. You’re gonna drive away and you never saw us.” The driver kept his foot on the gas, increasing speed. Sam twisted the knife, scraping the driver's ribs. “Pull over.” The driver complies, slowing down and putting the car in park, dust blew in through the windows.
“Pop the trunk. Son, go back there, grab our bags.” Sam says while keeping pressure on the knife.
Jeremiah’s adrenaline took hold and he sprinted to the trunk, slung one over his shoulder, carrying the other with his right hand, and ran into the woods. Sam pulled the knife and stepped out. The driver sped off. The men ran down the embankment to the stream below.
“Take off your clothes, kid.” The young man carefully peeled off his clothes. The dripping of his gored hand slowed and the stains on his jacket and pants darkened and hardened.
“Get in the creek and wash off.” Jeremiah stepped into the cold ankle deep water. He waded to a knee deep eddy a few feet downstream. Crouching, the wounds on his thigh bled a little more. He sank his left hand in the stream, coloring the current pink. The cold water numbed the throbbing. He started to shiver then submerged himself in the pool for a few seconds, his body immediately warmed.
“First Aid kit, you got one?”
“Yeah, top lid.”
Sam pulled out a neoprene sack and emptied out its contents, medical tape, antibacterial ointments, alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, medicine bottles, a collapsible aluminum splint, triangular bandages, large trauma bandages, emergency blanket, and a tourniquet .
“You take this EMT stuff seriously, huh?”
Jeremiah nodded and walked his skinny brown body onto the pine needle duff. Sam squirted an entire tiny bottle of hand sanitizer on the kid’s hand. The kid grit his teeth in pain. Sam smothered the lacerations with antibiotic ointment, covered them with gauze, and wrapped the kids hand with a trauma bandage. Sam went to Jeremiah's pack and pulled out a fresh set of clothes. He brought back everything except pants.
“You got any extra trousers.” Asked Sam.
Jeremiah shook his head. Sam went to his pack and pulled out the bright colored board shorts he bought at the Fred Meyers and tossed them to his friend. Sam dug a hole far above the opposite embankment and buried the knife and the kid’s bloody clothes. A few hours later on the darkened highway, a white Sprinter van picked up a pair of hitchhikers lumbering along the shoulder, an old black guy and a skinny young guy in board shorts with a bandaged left hand, and drove them to the Grants Pass Valley Care Center for all their troubles.
