Canyon Creek slashed a jagged and dangerous line through the thick blanket of Ponderosa pines. The bank on the north side of the creek was almost vertical, a sheer rock wall with few out-croppings running parallel to the fast-flowing water. This was the side from which the fire was approaching. The slope on the opposing side was gentler, about sixty degrees, but still a good test even for an experienced climber. The gorge ran for almost six miles, and access in from either end was through dense bush, thick with thorns. With the exception of a foolhardy few, this section of Canyon Creek was seldom visited.
Billy Buchanan had ventured into the gorge twice over the past six years, both times to estimate the timber potential on the southern edge. Both times he had found the outing dangerous. His past experiences stayed fresh in his memory as he expedited supplies for the crew. Time was scarce, and once the men were in, they wouldn’t be coming out until the trees were cleared. He checked the lists on the table in front of him for adequate supplies of food, water, fuel, tents, generators, and chain saws, complete with spare parts. Once he was satisfied the crew would be properly outfitted, he signed off on the list.
The process of acquiring the gear and moving it to the helicopters began. He took one last glance at the map before he rolled it up.
Once dropped into the chasm by chopper, his crew’s job would be to hand-slash an additional thirty feet to create an eighty-foot-wide firebreak. This would entail removing almost every tree from the southern edge of the water to the start of the incline that defined the river bank. Billy had two pumps being dropped in six hours after the team, to spray down the recently cut timber and the underbrush. In theory, the idea was to stop the fire when it hit the cliffs on the northern side and not allow the flames to advance up the other bank. With the creek bed devoid of fuel for the fire, the line should hold, deflecting the fire east and west and containing its advance.
In theory, anyway.
Billy rolled up the map and slipped an elastic on to keep it from unraveling. It was a forestry map, 1 to 50,000 scale, and showed every cut line, service road, and goat path that crisscrossed through the forest. Like an American Express card to a logger: Don’t leave home without it. At two o’clock, he found his crew suited up and ready. Chris Stevens, his lead hand for the task, approached him as he slipped on a pair of steel-toed work boots.
“The guys are champin’ at the bit, Billy,” he said. “They want to get cutting before dark.” Chris Stevens was a graduate student in forestry, working on his master’s in conservation. He was mid-twenties, athletic, and well liked by everyone at the mill. Billy had decided on Chris for lead hand over any one of the three foremen who were heading into the gorge, mostly to keep from ruffling any feathers. So far, it seemed to be working.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve got lights and a generator coming in before sundown, but it’ll be a lot slower once we lose the natural light. The chopper’s ready, so let’s get it loaded. Pick seven men to come with me. You wait for the second trip.”
“Eight men max for each trip?” Chris asked, nodding his head at the company’s Bell 412 helicopter, sitting on the far side of the clearing.
“That baby can usually manage fifteen, but we’re taking in a lot of gear with us on each trip, so that cuts the number down to eight or nine.”
“That’s only two trips to get the entire crew in, Billy. That’s not bad.” He headed over to the group of men waiting for the go-ahead, and as he pointed at them, the men moved quickly to where the chopper was sitting, its blades just starting to turn. They loaded gear as they entered, and within a couple of minutes, the Bell 412 was airborne and moving over the treetops toward Canyon Creek.
Gordon Buchanan pulled up in his truck, killed the engine, and jumped out. “Everything okay, Chris?” he asked, moving toward his brother at his usual fast gait.
“No problem, Gordon. Billy just left with the first crew. Chopper will be back soon to pick up the rest of us.”
Gordon hung around the clearing, checking the piles of gear stacked near the tree line. He ticked off a checklist, concentrating on the fuel and food. At this point, any downtime could spell disaster. The crews, working toward each other from each end of the target zone, had to get firebreak cut inside forty hours or not bother. It was going to be tight. The thumping of the chopper’s rotors cut through the afternoon air, and once the wheels hit the ground the crew was ferrying supplies aboard. Gordon shouted a few words of encouragement to Chris and his men as they boarded the craft, watched it depart, then headed back to the main office.
The fate of the mill was in their hands.
Billy wiped the sweat from his brow and lowered his aching body onto one of the many stumps dotting the south side of the creek. Thirty hours and the two crews were within earshot of each other. They would have the firebreak cut inside the deadline with no problem. And there was good news from the weather forecasters. The winds were abating and rain was on the horizon. The fire was slowing, and if the rain fell, it would stall the flames in their tracks. He took a long draft of cold water and replaced the bottle on his hip.
“Billy?” It was Chris on the walkie-talkie.
“Go ahead, Chris.”
“We’re moving our pump forward another two hundred yards. We’ve soaked the hell out of the first thousand yards of underbrush. Even if a few burning spars come crashing down the slope, I don’t think anything will ignite.”
“Excellent work, Chris.”
“We’ve got this thing beat, Billy,” he said. There was pride at a job well done in his voice.
“I think you’re right. Gordon called about an hour ago. The fire’s at least twelve hours from reaching us. It’s slowing.”
“We’ll reach each other in less than eight,” he said. “We’ve got another load of logs ready to go. Send the chopper over when you’re done with it.”
“Roger that,” Billy said. He signed off and looked over to where the helicopter was hovering over a horizontal stack of logs, preparing to lift them out of the gorge and fly them back to the mill. Leaving the cut trees on the ground was senseless, as the fire could ignite them almost as easily lying prone on the ground as when they were upright. The logger on the ground gave the thumbs-up, and the pilot took the machine straight up until the logs cleared the surrounding treetops, then angled off toward the mill. Billy started back toward where his crew was cutting, some hundred feet distant.
In the sea of cut trees, a solitary stump stuck up three or four feet higher than the rest. Billy knew that additional height might cause problems for the crew lifting the logs out of the ravine. He picked his way through the wet underbrush and, once he reached it, threw his feller pants on the ground next to the stump. The thick material was designed to protect his legs, but it was one simple cut, like ten thousand before, and he wanted to get back to the crew. He pulled the cord on the chain saw and it barked to life. He set the blade against the stump and pulled the trigger with his index finger.
The saw was loose in his right hand, the thirty-inch blade tight to the wood and perpendicular to his left leg. The second the clutch kicked in and the blade began to spin, the teeth kicked off the bark and flew back into his leg. Billy’s immediate reaction was to release the clutch, but he wasn’t quick enough. The blade slashed into his flesh, tearing into the muscle and tendons just below his knee. He screamed with pain as the blade embedded in his bone and stopped. He dropped to the ground, blood flowing freely from the wound.
Within seconds the entire crew was around him, two men ripping open a first-aid kit and Chris on the walkie-talkie to the mill, calling for the chopper. It took about thirty seconds for Chris to get Gordon.
“How bad is it?” Gordon asked, taking the walkie-talkie from the front-office employee who had answered the call.
“He’s cut right to the bone. We’ve taken the blade out and I’ve got a couple of guys working on the bleeding. It looks pretty bad, Gordon.”
“The chopper’s dumping that load of logs in the yard. It’ll be airborne again inside two minutes. Six to seven minutes out once it’s in the air.”
Chris did the math. Less than ten minutes for the helicopter to arrive, another couple to load Billy, and a fifteen-minute ride to the hospital. Under half an hour. “He’ll be okay if the blade didn’t hit an artery.”
“Is the blood spurting?” Gordon asked, knowing that a severed artery pumped blood like a crimped garden hose.
Chris looked at the cut. The blood was flowing quickly, but not spurting. “No, but he’s bleeding badly.”
“Get a tourniquet on it,” Gordon said, relieved. “It’s not great, but it’ll stop the flow. I’ll call it in to the hospital and have them get some blood ready.”
“The guys are getting one in place, Gordon. I’ll keep this line open.”
Gordon turned to the employee who had initially taken the call. “Get the emergency ward at the hospital on the line. Tell them they’ve got an emergency coming in and they’ll need A-positive blood.” He returned to the walkie-talkie. “Is the tourniquet on yet?”
“Just pulling it tight, Gordon.”
Gordon could hear voices, indecipherable but panicked.
“What’s going on, Chris?”
A few moments of background noise. Chris said, “They can’t get it to stop, it’s pouring out. The cut is too close to the knee to get the tourniquet tight.”
Gordon fought the panic in his chest. “Christ, you’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
“We’re trying,” Chris yelled back. There was desperation in his voice. There was more background noise, raised voices, men shouting. Chris’s voice came over the air, but he wasn’t talking to Gordon. “Pull it tighter, for Christ’s sake,” he screamed. “Keep him conscious! Don’t let him pass out.”
“Chris,” Gordon said. “Chris!”
More noise, pandemonium as the men, well trained in first aid, fought to stop the bleeding. Gordon slammed the walkie-talkie on the table and ran from the room, shattering the glass in the door as he banged through it and into the late-afternoon sun. He sprinted to the helicopter, which had just finished dropping a load of logs, and jumped in beside the pilot. Seconds later they rose above the trees and banked toward Canyon Creek. He glanced at his watch. Hang on, Billy, we’re coming.
The clearing materialized as they crested the treetops next to the creek, and Gordon could immediately see the swath of forest the two crews had cleared over the past thirty hours. He pointed at the group of men huddled over Billy and the pilot nodded, gently setting the craft down only fifteen yards from the group. Gordon leapt from the open door and weaved through the sea of tree trunks. The odor of pine sap was strong in his nostrils. He reached the group and knelt down at his brother’s side.
The wound was still bleeding. The loggers had secured the tourniquet immediately below the knee joint and cinched it tight. But although the flow was slowed, the blood was not coagulating. And Billy had already lost too much blood to lose any more. Gordon pointed to the chopper, then he and three other men hoisted Billy’s unconscious body into the air and staggered through the stumps to the waiting craft. They slid Billy in the back, and once he was in beside him, Gordon gave the pilot the thumbs-up. They were airborne in seconds.
Gordon turned his attention to his brother’s leg. The wound was gaping, but not as severe as he had imagined. The tourniquet was well placed and tight, but it was the refusal of Billy’s blood to coagulate that was the problem. Gordon slipped Billy’s wrist into his hand and felt for a pulse. Almost nonexistent. He looked down at his brother’s face, white as fresh-fallen Montana snow. He looked at the blood pooling and felt tears welling up in his eyes. Billy had lost too much blood. They were still at least twelve minutes to the hospital, plus time to get him from the chopper to emergency. There wasn’t time. And then he realized.
He was watching his brother die.
Gordon cradled Billy’s head in his arms and felt the tears let loose. They spilled down his cheeks onto his brother’s face. He gently brushed them off as he felt Billy’s body stiffen, then go limp. He brushed Billy’s hair back from his forehead. His body was still warm.
“Oh God, Billy,” he said softly. “Oh my God, what have you done?”