Washika (12 page)

“Hey, you guys!” Jean-Louis waved at them. “Take a break, eh!”

The two boys dropped their hoses and walked over to where the pump was. Jean-Louis offered them filtered cigarettes from a pack. The man had made himself comfortable. Resting against a large round log, he had placed several pieces of split log to form a backrest. On the ground just in front of the backrest, was a thick layer of jack pine branches. These he had covered with a length of brown canvas. By the log was a cardboard box partly covered with branches and next to the box was a thermos bottle. The pump operator stood up when they arrived. He unfolded the brown canvas he had been sitting on and spread it out along the log.

“Here,” he said. “Sit down here while it's still dry.”

He opened the thermos and filled the plastic cup. He took a drink and, without swallowing, spit it out on the ashes.

“
Sacrament
!” he swore. “Want some?”

“No thanks,” Henri answered. “You've been here a long time?”

“Forever!” Jean-Louis chuckled at his own little joke. “Sometimes, it seems that way.”

“Not much action here, eh?” Henri continued. St-Jean, it seemed to Henri, was being especially quiet.

“Mosquitoes are pretty bad.”

“How about when there's wind? Fire must get pretty bad then.”

“Oh, you bet. When the wind shifts, the flames roar and you see it jump from the tops of the trees and you run like hell.”

“Did that ever happen? You had to run?”

“No. I've been sitting here a long time. So far, nothing like that.”

“Where's Alphonse?” St-Jean spoke up for the first time. He had been thinking about Marie-Josée lying in the back of his father's station wagon. He remembered the trouble he had undoing the clasp of her bra and how she had ripped away three buttons trying to get his shirt off. He was not sure if she was a virgin that night. He only knew that he was and that when he dropped her off two streets before her house, he no longer was.

The pump operator smiled. The man was about thirty-five years old and seemed to be intelligent enough. But, sometimes, he would laugh suddenly as if he had been thinking of something that was very funny. He would stop, just as suddenly, look at Henri and St-Jean, and then grin and poke at the ashes with a stick.

“Where is your foreman?” St-Jean asked.

“He's gone for a walk,” the man answered. “And your boss too. They went up over there to check.”

The man pointed towards the eastern slope of the hill, where the burned out section ended and the almost blue sky began.

“What about the two guys we replaced?” Henri said.

“Them too.”

“I thought they were going to eat.”

“So did they,” the man said. “So did they! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Henri got up off the log. He walked away from the pump and standing with his back to St-Jean and the pump operator he pissed on the ashes. It had stopped raining and he saw the sun beginning to show between two, thick white clouds.

 

 

Later in the afternoon, the sky was clear and it was very warm. The students who had gone over the easterly crest were spread out in groups of three and four among the charred tree trunks on the burned-out section of the hill. They worked steadily. They broke through the charred humus of the forest floor and then they shoveled out the yellow sand. They went at it two at a time, until they were tired and then two other students took over. They dug and shovelled until there was a mound of yellow sand all around them and only their hard hats and shoulders could be seen above ground.

It had started with an idea. The students were tired and bored with the whole business. All they wanted to do was lie in the sun and get as far away as they could from the black, dead world of ashes and burned trees. But, there was not a single green, unburned piece of ground anywhere. Every inch of ground, every felled tree, even the rocks that could be found, were covered in black soot. François Gauthier had an idea. With his shovel, he marked out a circle in the ashes about three feet in diameter. He dug inside the mark, removing the burned needles and humus until he had a perfect circle of yellow sand. He sat in the circle on the sand, with his knees raised and his chest resting against them. He rested in the sun and was very happy with himself. He said nothing to the others. He was content to sit there, warm and dry and happy in the sun, until someone or something forced him to do otherwise.

The others were quick to recognize the worth of François' idea. But they could not let it alone. They seemed compelled to modify his plan somewhat. Together, in groups of three or four, they dug holes in the ground large enough to sit in with their knees tucked up and their backs resting against the walls. When they finished digging and sat down in the holes, they were disappointed. Sitting in the holes, with only their hats showing above ground, was uncomfortable. The sand slid down the mounds onto their necks and inside their shirts when they leaned their backs against the walls. The earth was damp on the bottom of the holes and they had to place their gloves beneath them just so as to keep their buttocks dry. It was cool and damp where they sat hidden from the rays of the sun. They came out often to take the stiffness from their legs and to warm themselves in the sun. At such times, they could see François sitting on his circle of warm, yellow sand, with his knees pulled up and his chest resting against them. His hard hat was pulled down low over his eyes and they guessed that he was sleeping. Some swore they could hear him snoring.

It was boring. After the digging it was boring and dull and the only diversion was when they came out of a hole to stretch and warm themselves in the sun. Suddenly, they heard a sound coming from the west. It was the steady drone of an engine that grew louder and louder. Then, it was above them. All of the students stood up in their holes. They waved at the yellow aircraft with their hard hats and yelled, “Over here! Over here!” The large, twin-engine water bomber circled in low and dipped its wings. The students cheered, realizing that the pilot had seen them. They were excited about seeing the CL-215 and how the pilot had recognized them as part of the firefighting crew. They watched the plane as it flew eastward and disappeared behind a ridge of tall jack pine. The boys returned to their holes then and waited for the day to pass.

It was close to sunset when Alphonse arrived. The boys in the trenches could not see the sun from where they were and they were cold and bored again. Alphonse stood by one of the holes and looked down at the boys inside. Henri and St-Jean stood behind him.

“Hey, hey,” Alphonse said, nodding his head in disapproval, “a nice bunch you are.”

Alphonse did not approve of them hiding like that and not working. They were not getting any work done but they were not unhappy. There was that, at least. Later, they would get some work done.

“All right,” Alphonse said,” Fill up the holes. As soon as you're finished, we'll head back to the road. The caboose should be there by now. We'll be eating at Camp 15.”

“We're not staying there, are we?” Morrow wanted to know. “We're going back to Washika, aren't we?”

“Yes, later,” Alphonse replied.

A
fter the boys had filled in the holes, Alphonse and the crew went back along the trail, following the canvas hose in the almost dark. It was dark when they reached the road. They saw the fire, and the old man and the driver standing by it, almost exactly as they had left them. They both had cups of tea and the old man had a pipe dangling from a corner of his mouth. The students noticed the pipe and they wondered how he did that. They had noticed earlier that day that the old man did not have any teeth. As they came closer to the fire they could hear him speaking. They had never heard him speak before.

“
Oui sacrament
!” he said. “You can be sure of that.”

The caboose driver laughed and tossed the rest of the tea in his cup towards the fire. He turned and looked back as Alphonse arrived.

“Yes sir,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Alphonse greeted the man. He nodded towards the old man who acknowledged the gesture with a short wave of his pipe. The old man added water to the pail suspended over the fire. Beyond the fire, it was dark. From where he stood, Alphonse could just make out the reflections of the fire on the door of the truck.

“Ready to head back?” Alphonse said to the driver.

“Sure thing. No problem at all.”

“What about the shovels? The truck's gone.”

“Leave them here for tonight,” the old man spoke up. “Just pile them right up here.” The old man pointed to the cord of firewood behind him. Folded over the wood was a thick tarpaulin similar to the one the students had seen on the truck rack. “Just cover it all with the tarp,” the old man added.

The students rushed to the woodpile and deposited the shovels and grub hoes, leaning them against the wood. When they had finished, they covered the tools and the wood with the tarpaulin.

“Anyway,” Alphonse said to no one in particular, “there's no guarantee we'll be back here tomorrow.”

“Ha!” the old man laughed, showing his bare, toothless gums. “There's no guarantee of anything around here. With that gang in charge here, we could all be dead in the morning.”

The driver laughed, and as the old man smiled at Alphonse saliva dripped down from the corner of his mouth where the pipe was.

“I'm an old man,” he continued. “I'm an old dried up thing and I've been around a long time and I've seen lots of them guys, them guys from the head office.
Calis
! Do I ever know about them.”

Alphonse laughed along with the others, but not too much. In his heart he knew that the old man was right. The man had the knowledge of years and his age allowed him to speak out without fear. Alphonse, however, was a foreman. He wore the hard hat of his rank. He had his job to think of, and his wife and his children. And then, there were the students. They respected him, he knew that. And he always wanted to be good to them. On the drive, that was easy. He was in charge, miles away from the camp, out on the Cabonga where no one could see them, and they worked well. Some days they did not do very much, that was true. But there were other days when all of the students did excellent work. It would all balance out in the end. But here, it was different. Here, many were in charge and considered themselves beyond reproach. Not all of them believed as he did, that all things happen for a reason, that a balance is almost always reached one way or another.

The driver offered his cup to one of the students and each, in turn, dipped it into the pail and passed it on to the next student. Finally, Henri filled the cup and offered it to Alphonse.

“How long to Camp 15?” Alphonse spoke to the driver.

“An hour, hour and a half,” the man answered.

“Guess we'd better get going then.”

“Yes sir. No problem.”

Alphonse turned to the old man.

“Are you staying?” he asked.

“All depends.”

Alphonse looked at him, at his tired old eyes and the deep lines stretching over his brown skin.

“All depends,” the old man repeated. “All depends on you.”

“How's that?”

“How's that, you say? You're the last truck out of here tonight. Think they'd send someone out just for me? Ha!”

“No problem,” Alphonse replied. “Get on with us.”

“No favours, eh? I don't want no favours me.”

“It's no problem at all. There's room for the three of us in the truck.”

“Na, na, na!” the old man waved his pipe back and forth in front of his face. “I'll sit in the caboose like everybody else. Na, na,
sacrament
. I'm too old now to start that kind of stuff.”

Alphonse looked at the man once again, and as their eyes met across the fire both men smiled. He was at least seventy-five years old. He was tall, probably as tall as François Gauthier if he would hold his back straight, which he never did. He was tall and very thin and his long-legged trousers were held up tight to his crotch with police suspenders that made his legs look longer than they were. The old man had spent many years of his life in the sun and it showed on his hands and his face. The skin, brown and lined, was taut on his face and around his cheekbones and his long nose curved like the beak of a falcon. His name was Frederick Garneau. Alphonse stared at the man and realized what a good time the old man was having there. It was not true that they had left him behind. He had probably refused several rides back to camp. And he probably did not dislike the bosses, at least not all of them, as much as he said he did. He was an old man who had come to spend his last days where he belonged and to poke fun at the younger men as they struggled to learn some of the things he had known for years. Alphonse wondered if the old man, in his wisdom, was aware that somewhere in the head office there was someone who understood and had given the okay for a man of Frederick's age to be there, in the bush, working on a forest fire.