The Big Burn (20 page)

"They're not, madam," Mr. Blakeney answered shortly He told Jarrett, "Get your father," and he disappeared into the milling people crowded six feet deep along the platform. "Order, please," Jarrett heard him call. "In turn, now—women and children only for now. No need to push. No need to push."

Jarrett heard the woman tell her dog, "Don't you worry. We'll just go to a different car." She headed farther up the platform, going in the same direction Jarrett went, and he saw her try to push ahead of others closer to the train.

A voice that sounded familiar said, "Ma'am, you have to step back and wait where it's safe." Jarrett turned and saw the speaker was Seth Brown.

"I will step and wait where I wish," the woman told him. "And I will not have any colored boy giving me orders. Now, move out of my way."

Jarrett watched Seth set his feet wider apart and angle his rifle across his chest The woman raised her handbag, and for a moment Jarrett wondered if she was going to hit Seth with it but then a white officer stepped between the two. "Ma'am," he said, "you will follow whatever orders my troops give."

Before moving she called Seth a name Jarrett wouldn't have thought a lady would say.

And then other people shoved by, and when Jarrett next saw Seth he'd moved out of talking range.

The train was about ready to leave. Up and down the line, soldiers were loading on buckets of water and slamming shut windows. They pushed aboard the last of the women, with no more time to do it nicely but just getting them on however they could.

Mr. Blakeney hurried by and then veered back to Jarrett. "Logan!" he said again. "Where's your
father?
"

"I'll go check the house," Jarrett said, following as Mr. Blakeney started on. "But I was just wondering—have you had any news from Wallace?"

Mr. Blakeney briefly turned back. "The talk is, Wallace burned up. If you had people there, I'm sorry."

Jarrett felt sick deep in the pit of his stomach.

A whole town gone?
Jarrett thought.
That's not possible, is it?

But it must be, or Avery wouldn't be evacuating against the possibility of its happening here.

What about the people up there—Lizbeth and her aunt, Mrs. Marston in her hillside boarding house? And where was Samuel? Was there an evacuation train for all of them?

Jarrett spotted a Forest Service man and hurried over to ask if it was true that Wallace had been destroyed.

"I don't know," the man answered. "We're getting telegraphs in from there, so something's still standing."

"And Placer Creek?"

A bystander overheard the question and answered, "What I heard is Placer Creek is where the Wallace fire came
from.
"

"Look," Jarrett told the Forest Service officer, "I'm a firefighter already hired on. Is there a crew going up to help out? I'll join it."

"Are you crazy? Nobody can get through the fires between here and there, and if anybody needs help, it's us, right here."

Abel caught Seth's arm. "You with me? Because I got the clothes."

"I told you, no."

"I didn't hear it. Anyway, why not? I heard that woman not taking your orders. You want to die taking care of things for the likes of her?"

"We're not gonna die," Seth said.

"No? Then why you think all the town folk are leaving this place? Next thing you know, Avery is gonna be deserted. It's gonna be just G Company and the fires."

"Some other men will stay," Seth said, trying to convince himself.

"Yeah. Fools!"

Seth looked toward the mountains. People kept coming down out of them, some in awful shape. Seth had seen one just like what Jarrett Logan told about, a man who had a smell and a sound.

"You saw the women's train go," Abel said. "It barely got out without catching fire. There's only gonna be one more train, and then we won't get another chance."

Seth drew in a deep breath. "Where you got those clothes?"

Jarrett found Pop lying close to the kitchen stove, stunned but conscious. His leg was twisted under him, and blood from a scalp wound trickled down his face.

"Pop!" Kneeling, Jarrett gently moved Pop's hair back from the cut. At least it didn't appear deep. "What happened? Did you fall?"

"Surprised a looter," Pop mumbled. "Got away." Then he seemed to register who was talking to him. "Jarrett?"

"Yeah, it's me. Is your leg broken?"

Pop frowned at the question. "Don't know," he said. "I don't think so." He shook his head as though trying to clear his mind. "Jarrett?" he said again. "How did you get here?"

"Long story, Pop," Jarrett answered. "That looter—was it Hilly, that brakeman you fired? Because..." Jarrett trailed off, realizing that wasn't what mattered right then. "Look, can you stand up? You can lean on me. We need to get you down to the station before the last evacuation train leaves."

"Tully. That was him," Pop said. Then, seeming to grasp what else Jarrett had said, he struggled upright. "Avery's being evacuated? Help me get my uniform on."

"You're dressed fine," Jarrett told him.

"I'll be needed to work. I must be in uniform."

"Pop! You're hurt."

"My jacket, then. Is all in order at the depot?"

"No, but there's soldiers to keep the lid on."

Pop looked aghast. "Soldiers directing passengers? That's not right. Those soldiers are here to fight fires, not take over railroad jobs."

"Pop, the worry is the town will burn. Now, put your weight on my shoulders while I pull you up. We really do have to make the train out."

Pop groaned as he stood. "Are you going with me? I still don't understand what you're doing here." Anger reddened his face. "I thought I told you not to come back."

"It's a good thing I did," Jarrett said. He got the fireplace poker. "Here, use this for a cane and put your arm over my shoulders."

"I knew you'd show up, tail between your legs. Couldn't handle things on your own, could you?"

Jarrett shook his head.
Poor Pop.

***

As he hurried his father to the train depot, Jarrett said, "I found Samuel. He's with the Forest Service. Got a ranger station near Wallace." Pop didn't react.

"He asked after you."

Pop, his face impassive, grunted. It was his only answer.

***

They reached the station as the men's train was almost done boarding. Jarrett got his father into a car, and a soldier saw Pop's injuries and made people move over to give him a seat.

"Bye, Pop," Jarrett said. "Good luck."

"Aren't you coming with me? I asked you before, and you didn't say different."

"I can't, Pop," Jarrett answered. "But once things get back to normal, I'll come visit. Maybe bring Samuel, too."

"You needn't, neither one of you. I told you..."

"Yeah, Pop, we
do
need."

Pop folded his arms across his chest in a way that warded off a handshake, and hugging him was inconceivable to Jarrett.

***

Mr. Blakeney happened by as Jarrett jumped from the train steps. "Why are you getting off?" he asked. "If the fires come this way, there'll be no saving the town and not the people left in it either."

"What about the soldiers?"

"They're still needed here. We'll get them out when we have to." Mr. Blakeney looked impatient "I can't stand here arguing, but you ought to get on the train, Jarrett" He hurried away.

Jarrett wished he had more time to think. He felt overwhelmed by all that was going on and by how much he didn't know. It didn't make sense that the soldiers were needed but other firefighters weren't. And hadn't that Forest Service man said Avery could use help, if any place could?

It would be so much simpler if Samuel or Elway was here to tell him what he should do. Jarrett had left Avery to start with because he'd understood his duty wrong once, leaving a job he'd been trusted with. He didn't want to get it wrong a second time.

He heard a passenger shout, "Where's this train going?" and an army officer call back, "Missoula, Montana!"

Out of Idaho altogether,
Jarrett thought
I'd be leaving more than my job.

He walked along the line of cars and spotted the Reeses and Lao Li inside one of them. The train was jammed full by now, but still more men pushed to get on while soldiers fought to keep order.

He saw Angio and Vito crammed up against windows in a forward car.

Soldiers hurried up and down the platform, trying to find space for the men still scrambling to board.

Then a warning whistle blew, and the train started vibrating. Men who hadn't made it into one of the cars now climbed on wherever they could. They clung to handholds on the engine; crammed into the tender. Some even climbed onto the train car roofs, where they clung to whatever they could.

The train began moving with Jarrett still standing on the platform. Well, this was where his wish to battle the forest fires had come from. It would be as good a place as any to see the job through. He watched the windows of the passing cars, ready to wave when his crew and the Reeses went by.

He got a brief glance of a black face almost hidden under a workman's cap. Jarrett wouldn't have realized that it was Seth if Seth's eyes hadn't happened to meet his. Jarrett saw a flash of recognition in them and then a look of shame.

As the evacuation train gathered speed, Seth closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. He wished he could keep them closed until he was a thousand miles away from anybody who knew who he was. And not just because Abel had said they needed to get away from people who'd recognize them for soldiers.

Used-to-be soldiers,
Seth thought. Soldiers slipping away from where they were needed. He was glad Sarge couldn't see him. Glad his dead father could never know.

Deserters.
Seth tried out the word silently. It tasted bitter even rolling around in his mouth unsaid.

He wondered if Jarrett had realized what he was doing. Probably, Seth guessed. What other reason was there for a soldier to be hiding away out of uniform?

He felt the train swerve into the turn up the North Fork canyon, and the babble of voices in the crowded car got louder. Then someone yelled just as sudden brightness showed through Seth's eyelids. His eyes jerked open, and he saw flames leaping from a deep gulch on his side of the train. Out the windows on the opposite side, he saw long fingers of fire reaching out from the hillside, seeming to come right at him.

I didn't get away. I got in worse!
Seth fought back panic. He wanted Abel to tell him it was going to be all right. That they'd be through the fire soon, and safe.

Only, Abel was in another car, keeping away from Seth like he'd said he would, so people wouldn't remember them together.

The train plunged into the blackness of a tunnel and then out again into light. And then from underneath came the shriek of wheels braking to a stop.

Someone rammed down a window and leaned out to look. "Tree across the tracks!" he shouted.

A conductor pushed open the door. "I'll need men to clear the tracks," he announced.

He sounds like Sarge giving out work,
Seth thought
Just as calm.

"You, boy," a man said, prodding Seth. "You look strong. Lean to it."

Seth was closest to the conductor. He couldn't
not
get up without calling attention to himself.

At least he didn't have to take on the work alone. A dozen men piled out with him. They got the tree shoved aside in less than a minute and began the scramble back aboard. Seth, toward the rear of the huddle, swung his gaze across the burning hills hoping to see some end to the flames. Maybe they did give out up ahead, which was what they were all counting on.

And then movement on the bank above him caught Seth's eye. He was almost into the car now, turning to grasp the grip bar and pull himself aboard.
It must be an animal,
he thought, looking back.
Another bear, maybe, running from the fire.

Except the skittering figure was too small and the wrong color—not a fur color but bright blue.

Seth's heart pounded hard as he realized he was watching a little girl scramble toward the train. "Wait!" he yelled, as a woman appeared behind the girl. She was carrying a smaller child, and as Seth watched, she tripped and the child went flying from her arms.

Seth ran to the spot he'd seen the child land. "Go on!" he shouted to the woman. "I've got this one!"

He heard the train start to move behind him and realized that the engineer didn't know what was going on. Seth grabbed up the child—a little boy—and turned and ran with him, reaching the moving car just as the woman and the girl were pulled aboard. Seth, trotting alongside, handed the child up to reaching hands that swung him to safety. Seth saw the woman take him, but she was looking down at Seth.
Thank you.
He couldn't hear her words, but he saw her mouth form them.

And then that car was sliding past and the next approaching. Men stood at its door waiting to haul Seth aboard.

Seth started to run, matching his speed to the train's and trying to gauge the right moment to jump for those hands. If he missed, he wouldn't get to try again.

I won't get another chance.
The scared, fleeting thought that the train might go without him turned upside down.
If I make it, I won't get another chance.

Seth's steps slowed, and when the waiting men reached for him he shook his head and watched them pass on by.

He glimpsed Abel looking out a window, his face distorted with anger, his mouth saying, "
Fooll
"

Avery seemed to have become a ghost town. Almost all the residents had left, and now soldiers patrolled the streets and checked buildings for people who couldn't account for themselves. The soldiers couldn't protect places outside town, though, and Jarrett was sure that some homes and mines in the hills would be looted before they burned.