How He Fell

The fire roars like an engine, tearing up pines, leaping, spitting embers onto my face. I’m choking on smoke. Sweat burns out of every pore.

“Hit, go! Hit, go!” I’m chanting, in unison. Every beat in sync with a blow from my Pulaski. Biting into the ground, tearing at roots and digging at stumps. My ribcage is pounding, my arms are as heavy as logs.

To my right is the squad boss, Buck. Wood chips streaming from his chainsaw, his body contorting as vines snap and saplings fall — cutting a tunnel through the forest.

“Pick it up, Hoss!”

A few embers on the other side of the tunnel catch. Cruz pops out of the line and attacks a spot with his hoe. Then a plane screeches overhead and fire retardant splatters on my back and neck. The flames sputter for a moment, then come back louder.

“We’re getting out of here,” Buck shouts over the scream of his chainsaw.

The chanting stops. “Withdraw! Withdraw! Withdraw!” echoes down the line. We start running back down the tunnel before the instructions make it to the end. The fire follows close behind me, grasping.

We burst into a clearing at the crest of the ridge, the fire slamming the tunnel shut behind us. We chuck our saws and tools into the beds of the trucks and head out.

After an hour and a half we roll up to the main camp: rows of pickup trucks, the occasional bulldozer and fire engine, corrugated buildings beyond them, and on the outskirts, a village of tents.

We fall into line and march through camp in silence, heads bowed, the smell of melted cheese and ground meat thickening as we join the mess line.

“You did good today, rookie,” Buck says softly from behind me.

I turn and look into his blue-gray eyes, smile, then grab a tray of macaroni and green beans and find a spot at a table. Buck sits across from me, working his shoulder in slow circles. He flashes me that grin of his, orange as today’s sky — front tooth missing.

“Getting old ain’t for pussies, that’s for sure.”

Cruz plops down next to me. His hoodie reeks of smoke. The sleeve near me is still warm, drawing my eyes to a new patch: “Miller Fire” on the outline of a horse, the same one that’s on my t-shirt.

“Buck, you need to start drinking water,” Cruz says. “You’re looking slow out there.”

Buck smirks and takes a sip from a paper cup. The liquid’s blue, it smells like Gatorade.

“We’ll see about that when we’re back out. I’ve seen the way you handle a saw.”

I’m about to dig into my food when I notice my hands. They’re black, dirt under every nail. I start to get up. My stomach growls, and I plop back down and start eating.

Two days later we’re back in the timber.

The chainsaw whines as it bites into the wood. It's a Sequoia. It takes me thirty seconds to walk over from one end to where Buck is working. I saddle up next to him and look up, my eyes can’t find the crown. To my left Cruz is clearing brush with his own little saw.

Then my eyes come back down to Buck’s arms — thick as my thighs — working that massive chainsaw. He’s still moving gracefully even though we’ve been working on this tree for hours. Dust sprays from the cut. I take a deep breath and let the smell linger in my lungs, like sweet damp soil.

I pull out a plastic wedge and tap it into the kerf with the poll of my sledgehammer. Then I pound it deeper. The wood creaks. Buck takes a few steps and starts making a back cut.

“Set one more there,” Buck says between saw bursts, “then get ready to hightail it.”

I smack in another wedge. The trunk groans, cracks, and begins to lean. Slowly at first, then faster. The three of us snatch up our tools and start scrambling away, moving at a pace between a sprint and a jog. The trunk thunders as it splinters and spits branch-sized shards. The canopy blows a gust of wind at us as the tree falls.

Then it crashes to the ground in an explosion. Pinecones fall like rain, dry needles dense in the air, obstructing my vision. The earth echoes a deep rumble.

We’re both still jogging when Buck slows to a walk. “That tree must’ve been a thousand years old.”

He stops. “We’re far enough.” I turn around and see the Sequoia, eyes still searching for the crown. My heartbeat slows. We're both quiet for a while. Then my sledge drops into the dirt. I stick my hands in my pockets and close my eyes. Cruz starts up his saw again in the distance.

“Pick up your sledge, kid.”

I bend down, backpack shifting on my hips, and pick up the hammer. I squeeze my hands around the handle.

“Why’d we have to drop that one?”

He takes a long look at me.

“Anything big enough to crown we need to drop. Them’s the orders.”

I nod and we make our way to the next tree, this time a Ponderosa pine. Buck spits the stub of his cigarette into his palm, then sticks another into the gap in his front teeth.

The sun is at its peak in the sky, sweat stinging my eyes, even while I’m in the shade. I’m lying on my backpack, helmet tipped over my face for cover. Buck is on the radio talking with command. The fire’s too active to work right now.

I’m memorizing the wind table in my pocket guide, the pages worn and smudged with ash. Cruz crouches down next to me.

“What’s four squared-squared?”

“Two fifty-si—” I cut myself short, still looking at the page.

Cruz snorts.

Buck takes his finger off the radio. “Leave the rookie alone,” he calls over. “He belongs here just like the rest of us misfits.”

I grab my canteen from my pack and take a long swig. Cruz chuckles and walks off.

A few hours later we’re marching along a ridge, a valley with a meandering river to our right, a column of dark smoke peeking over the horizon to our left. Buck leads with his eyes on a map and compass; I’m behind him with Cruz.

“Look at how beautiful all of this is,” Cruz says to me. “Guy like you, I figure you’d believe that this just all appeared one day. Science and shit.”

I glance at him, then back at the trail.

“Look at how complex, how carefully made all of this is. The needles on the trees, the winding river. Even the smoke in the sky.” He pauses. “It speaks to you. God had to have made all of this.”

I keep my eyes fixed on the yellow helmet in front of me.

“What do you think, smart guy?” A moment of quiet, pine needles crunching underfoot.

“Don’t need to know who made it to know it’s beautiful.”

Cruz loses his pace for a moment.

Then a voice crackles from Buck’s radio. The map crumples in his fingers. “Get moving!” I relay the message down the line, and we start jogging, tools in hand.

The ground on the path is powdery red, picked clean of any vegetation. As we move it kicks dust into the air; it sticks to my nose and the edges of my lips. We jog until my legs ache and my boots feel heavy, heels scraping against the dirt.

Finally, we stop, a ways down the ridge.

Buck pulls the ripcord on his chainsaw, it sputters. He pulls it again. It whirrs.

“Start cutting!”

My body slips back into that familiar rhythm, tools falling in harmony across the line, hacking and cutting the ground. Cruz is with Buck and the other sawyers ahead, felling saplings and carving branches.

Then Buck groans, his knee buckles and he begins to lean — he hits the ground hard. The chainsaw tumbles out of his hand.

I drop my Pulaski and run over. “Are you okay, Buck?”

“I’m, I’m alright.” He gets onto one knee and pushes himself up, takes a few steps toward his chainsaw, and topples over again. I throw his arm around my shoulder and start helping him up.

“Get the fuck off me!”

I take a step back. He wobbles back up to his feet, still breathing heavily. I unclip the canteen from my hip, crack the lid, and hold it out to him.

He grabs it and takes two big gulps. He stops and spits a mouthful of water onto the ground.

“Get back in line,” he shouts.

I snatch the canteen out of his hand. He’s bent over, still panting. I turn and walk away. Behind me, branches snap, then another crash.

Cruz is already there, kneeling next to him. We look at each other. Buck tries to push himself up again. “Come on, boss,” Cruz says quietly.

“Don’t—” Buck starts. We hoist him up between us, his arms over our shoulders.

I haven’t thought about that day for a while. I can’t stop looking at my hands as I drive; the nails are trimmed to the quick, perfectly clean. I’m on a highway in the back country, the final push before California. A pine air freshener hangs from my rearview mirror. I pass a welcome sign and start shifting my weight around in my seat. I adjust my rearview, and my hands go back to the steering wheel and tense up again.

I pull over in a fast food parking lot, pull out my phone, tap out a text, and a few minutes later I receive a set of GPS coordinates. I read it over a few times, waiting for the song on the radio to finish, and then I head out.

I’m sitting at a fire across from him, his trailer home behind us, we’re flanked by the husk of a pickup and a toilet with flowers growing out of the bowl. There are two big buckets of mushrooms next to the two of us, mostly morelles, some oysters. He drops a pad of butter onto the skillet followed by a big handful of mushrooms.

“We had a pretty good haul out there today, huh, Buck.”

He flashes that grin of his again. “When you’ve been hunting as long as I have, you know just where to look.”

“Yeah, the morelles especially. It’s weird going back to the spots we worked. The trees still burnt up like matchsticks. But like you said, there were so many morelles.”

“Yep, give it two years and they grow like weeds in the burn scars,” he says.

We’re both looking at the fire, my stomach grumbling, the smell of mushrooms drifting between us on the breeze.

“How’re you holding up?”

He keeps looking into the fire. I begin to see the light reflect off the damp in his eyes. Then he stirs the mushrooms.

“What’s Cruz up to now that I’m not around to keep him in line?”

I smile. “Oh boy, after you left he couldn’t keep his nose clean. But it didn’t seem to bother anybody much, even when he was on the job.”

Buck laughs, “he never was one to keep his nose clean! Between you and me kid, after jobs, I would get into my fair share of trouble with him. I wish you could’ve come too.”

“Oh, I’ve heard some of your tall tales. But I never could bring myself to get a fake ID though, felt dishonest.”

He grins, sunlight shining through the gap in his teeth. “You always were like that.”

There’s a pop from the mushrooms in the skillet. Buck picks up a branch and pokes at the fire. My gaze drifts to the ground again.

“What happened to you. Up there at the ridge. We don’t have to talk about it b—” He interrupts.

“Do you believe in God, Hoss?”

I rub my hands together, like I’m trying to get pine sap off them.

“I don’t know, Buck. If I’m being honest, I probably don’t.” My eyes go from the ground to the campfire. “Though I felt something when we dropped that Sequoia.”

“I’ve cut a lot of ‘em down. But I still remember that one, too.”

He grabs the skillet and pours the mushrooms into two bowls. He hands me one followed by a crooked fork, still not looking at me. As I reach out, I notice his arms are as thin as saplings. Then he puts the other bowl in his lap.

“Can I ask you a favor?” His eyes come up to mine, tears dripping into his bowl. “Would you pray for me?”

I’m choking on smoke from the fire now. I wipe the water from my eyes, and I start looking everywhere but his face: the trailer, his flowers, my fork.

“Yeah, of course, Buck.” I press my hands together, trying a few different shapes before settling on one. “God,” I sputter, “Buck did a good job out there.” My throat goes tight. “He, he…”

“Thank you,” Buck says, wiping his nose with his sleeve. He pulls a loose cigarette from his jacket, sticks the tip in the fire, and slips it into its usual spot in his teeth.

I shovel a few mushrooms into my mouth. They taste like butter and smoke and earth.