Fire on the Wind

"Fire!" The loggers grabbed shovels and scrambled toward the smoke as the cry wailed through Gales Creek canyon. "Fire!" The log boss's son fought his way down over crisscrossed slash, his heart pounding. What the hell. Last log they were dragging must have shot sparks. Damn. Of all the lousy, rotten breaks.... But it wasn't so big yet. Don't panic. Still campfire size and they were right on it, good men. They'd lick this quick. Come on, come on. Sweat stung his eyes as he shoveled. The blaze became a bonfire. "Trail the upper side!" he yelled, and nobody hacked at the fire line more furiously than he, for this Crossett-Western contract had been their little outfit's big break, the one they'd hoped might mean enough work to ride out the Depression. Raw-throated, he shouted directions to the crew against the fire's gathering roar. Under his breath he cursed the flames, cursed the so-and-so who was late with the official shutdown order. Cursed himself too. He'd worked the woods since he was fourteen. Didn't need some fancy forester toy to know dynamite weather, and hadn't he had a gut hunch they ought to be shutting down? The fire crackled through tinder-dry needles, spreading low along the ground. A hopeless fuel box, a cutover like this. Sparks were popping out, igniting splinters right and left. Six guys just couldn't cover it. "Keep it away from those engines!" They'd scraped pennies for every haywire chunk of equipment they owned. If they lost it all now.... Squinting through smoke toward the draw, he saw help coming, thank God. Alarm must have sounded down at the mill. At the railroad tracks, men were jumping off a couple of gas-powered speeder cars, huffing up the steep slope with their tools. Looked like forty or so. That was more like it. Maybe they'd whip this thing yet. The men threw themselves at the fire, each knowing now was the time to fight, now when a crew had a chance. If the fire got away, there'd be plenty of time later to sit on their butts and hash over the what-ifs. NO, if they were ever going to stop it by the power of sweat and blood, shovels and axes, they had to give their best to stop it now.