by Ken Hoover
I first met Vernados during that summer of fire, when it seemed like the whole forest was burning. He’d come from the deep woods, where ancient things emerge now and then. We were cutting roads through the forest, which meant we were a fire crew. This was back in 1925 when men, not machines, did all the work, and we were on our way to the biggest blaze yet. Started at Black Springs, they said, and the wind was herding it toward the small town of Mena, a good twenty miles from our base camp. Our foreman, Cornelius Bell decided it was quicker to take the Big Fork-Athens trail, accessible only on foot, so we left the mules with a nearby farmer, and set out that morning. If we hiked all day and through the night, we could reach the fire by tomorrow and help other road crews contain it. Maybe even save the town.
The sky was cloudless, the air hot and humid. Our heavy packs were filled with food and not much else, and we carried our own tools. Hiram, Bram, and my older brother, Tyson, carried double-bit axes and shovels, and Bell carried his big ol’ sledgehammer. I carried a potato hook and a hoe. Didn’t seem right for me to complain about my aching back and shoulders.
To get me through the suffering, I thought of Mary’s lips, so soft and warm they tasted like summer. She made me feel like I could rip trees from the ground and crush boulders with my bare hands. And here I was, a-going to fight the biggest fire I’d ever see, to save her hometown.
We hiked all day, stopping only for water breaks. To keep our minds off the strain, Bram told stories about his nine children, while Bell and Tyson told jokes so racy we burst out laughing.
“Mercy,” muttered Hiram, pious as ever. He went to town every Sunday to preach. If God is going to smite someone, might as well be me, he’d said more than once while cradling a stick of dynamite.
Early that evening, when we came to a small clearing beside a creek, Bell gave us fifteen minutes to fill our canteens and eat chow. I dropped my gear and collapsed on the green bank, breathing hard. My limps were leaden. I could barely lift the canteen to my lips. I took several small pulls, letting the tin-flavored water seep into my mouth and down my throat, and then I just stared at the scenery.
The path behind us was a dark tunnel through the greenery, made darker by the setting sun. Pines, hardwood, and mixed-oak arched over the road while wildflowers and thick grasses carpeted the forest floor. The trail was being swallowed right up. I could see it happening. And for a moment I felt myself sinking into the grasses and underbrush, and I felt the heartbeat of the ancient woods, thrumming beneath me, around me, a living, breathing thing, and it was watching me.
I instinctively froze, rabbit-like. I’d known that paralyzing fear only once before, the kind that rushes through you like brushfire. I was six when I saw the burned man. His skeletal face was tilted upward in a silent scream of black muscle, tendons, and teeth. My father, kneeling beside the corpse in the chair, turned to glare at me for disobeying him, anger flaring in his eyes like fire.
None of the road crew seemed to notice what I was feeling, and it loosened up my nerves enough to let me swivel my eyes.
That was when I saw the stranger for the first time. I stifled a scream. I didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, close enough to strangle me. He was well over six-foot, a giant layered head-to-boot in furs and skins, with a face like an old bird’s nest. Bits of leaves and pine needles in his thick brown beard. A string of bear claws clattered around his neck. His fierce blue eyes reminded me of open skies and distant mountain peaks. He looked like a piece of the forest had come to life and separated itself.
“I am Vernados,” he said, and his gruff, accented voice made everyone flinch. “I have come.”
“Jesus!” said Bram.
“Language,” said Hiram sharply.
Only Bell, our foreman, remained unmoved. He was a formidable man, square-jawed with a moustache as thick as an old brush. With his slate-colored eyes, he gave Vernados the same assayer’s look he’d given me when I’d first sought him out. I’d heard he was softer when it came to hiring hands. Even heard he took colored men when he worked roads to the east. I’d had to prove myself to get hired on. But when a man like Vernados showed up, you didn’t turn him away. We all knew it.
“Know your way ‘round a fire?” asked Bell.
“Aye. I have fought many.”
“How about cuttin’ roads?”
“I will learn,” he said, holding up two massive fists. From each dangled a hare by its ears. “I brought meat. Fresh. You cook.”
Our regular meals consisted of beans and prunes and not much else, so I could already smell the smoked meat, bringing the carnivore up from the pit of my stomach, snarling. The others around me had the same look.
“Well, gentlemen. Break is extended,” Bell announced. “We leave when the meat is gone. This may be the last time we eat properly for several days.”
We hooted and cheered, and we all cleared a space for a campfire near the water while Vernados skinned the hares. Soon, we had those hares roasting over a makeshift spit and Vernados let the furs cure on the rocks.
“Brother, you are a miracle,” said Hiram.
“Amen to that,” said Bram.
I sat beside my brother on a large rock. With a glare reminiscent of our father, Tyson slid over just a bit to make room for me.
“Where did they come from?” I asked.
“The nearest valley,” said Vernados.
“No, I mean how’d you catch ‘em? I ain’t been able to get a hunnert feet.”
“You couldn’t catch a cold,” said Tyson, elbowing me in the bicep a little too hard.
Modestly, Vernados shrugged his shoulders then held up his huge palms.
Bell grinned wide and barked a laugh. “Ya see that? With his goddamn bare hands. Ain’t that somethin’?”
While the meat cooked, we made introductions and explained where we’d come from and where we were going. But when questions were asked of him, Vernados only gave vague answers. By the time the meat was cooked, we’d learned little about him.
He showed us his necklace, four curved claws as smooth and black as onyx, resting on his hairy chest. Beneath, I caught a glimpse of a huge pink scar as wide as a finger.
“Nasty scar you got there,” I said.
“Old wound from old enemy.” He dismissed it with a gesture, as if it was unworthy of discussion.
“Anyone ever say you talk funny?”
“Many times,” he said, flashing his canines, “but never twice.” He looked right at me again, and I couldn’t help but look away.
At last we ate. I don’t remember it. I may have blacked out from sheer euphoria. By then, the sun had set. Beyond the firelight, everything was dark.
During a long silence, Bram said, “My stomach’s so used to prunes and beans, I probably won’t shit for days.”
“Forgive him,” said Hiram, looking up at Heaven.
We laughed so hard we doubled over. Tyson used the moment of distraction to push me off the edge of the rock, and I tumbled toward the water. My hand slapped the water with a loud splash.
Somewhere in the trees, we heard a burst of wings through leaves. Vernados stiffened suddenly, eyes alert to every movement in the trees or underbrush, ears attuned to every rustle. I swear if he had hackles, they would’ve bristled like porcupine quills. He raised his bearded chin and sniffed the air.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Is nothing. Is far away.”
Yet Vernados couldn’t sit still after that, and he soon drifted away from the camp. In the dappled light of a half-moon, I could just make him out, standing in the middle of the trail. I joined him, chomping my last cut of meat, and asked him where he was from. Seemed neighborly enough.
He considered his response carefully. “I have come from the west.”
“Been as far as Tulsa,” I boasted. “So what brings you here?”
“Fire,” he said.
“Been close to a thousand this season. Got family around here?”
“You talk very much,” he said.
I grinned wide. “That’s why they call me Squirrel.” I pointed to his necklace. “Ain’t seen no bars ‘round here. Think we scared ‘em off with the road work and the fires and all. How many you killed?”
“I do not count.”
“You don’t carry no rifle. No knife, either.”
“I have no use for them.”
I laughed. “What—just what God gave you?”
He grunted, like he was trying out a laugh for the first time, uncomfortable in his own skin. He shifted his gaze to the dark woods.
“What do you see out there?” I asked.
“I will know when I find it. But now I wait. Crickets, frogs, birds—they are good sounds. Silence is a warning.”
“What’re you scared of?”
“I fear nothing!” he snarled. “But I watch, and I listen, so I am ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To fight,” he growled. “Do you know why the woods burn so much?”
“Dry winter and spring, I reckon.”
“No, there are good rains, sinking into the trees and earth. Just this morning there was a heavy mist and dew.” As if to illustrate, he stomped a moccasin boot in the mud.
“You mean someone did this on purpose?”
“It is why I have come. In the west, there were fires like these, and now they are here. Every spring, they begin anew.”
“You’re following someone?”
“For as long as I can remember,” said Vernados. “It is my duty, my sacrifice.”
When I asked him if he’d ever wanted to settle down, have a family, he gave me a grave shake of his head.
“Once,” he said. “Long ago. Her hair shined like silver.”
A great sadness filled his voice. I’d never heard true love before, not from my father, who beat us whenever his anger took over. Not from my mother, the dutiful, obedient wife. Not from Mary, the girl I wanted to impress.
“Dammit, Squirrel!” shouted Tyson. “C’mon, we’re packin’ up!”
I shrank at his voice. Vernados must have noticed it, because he cocked his head at me, then toward the camp. “Who is this?”
“My brother, Tyson.”
Vernados breathed in deep, nose pointed at me. “I smell fear in you. You fear your brother?”
“We fight sometimes. Don’t care for it none, but it happens.”
“It is the way of things,” he agreed.
“Weren’t always like that. There was a time when he took care of me.”
Truth was, when we were younger, he’d always steered me away from my father’s violence. After I’d seen the charred man, Tyson had squeezed my shoulders and steered me out of the burned house.
“What changed?” he asked.
I told him about the first time I saw Mary. Tyson and I had gone into town for supplies, and there she was behind the counter of the dry goods store. Her beauty infected even the most virtuous of men. Made them believe she loved them right back because of something they saw in her radiant smile, or felt in an innocent touch on the arm, or just the way she paid attention to them when they spoke, staring so intently they couldn’t help but look away every few seconds, like they had to come up for air. In the time I’d known her, I caught myself many a time standing like a fool, dreaming of our lives together.
When Tyson had caught me gawking at her, he told me I could never have her. But I knew I was going to kiss her one day. A year later, at a cousin’s wedding, she and I got to talking. Even danced a song or two. I kissed her after a song ended, right there in front of everyone.
Later, I ducked out to piss behind the barn. Tyson leaned against the wall, with the same drunken, hateful glare as our father. “Someone like you doesn’t deserve someone like her,” he said, then punched me so hard the world went white.
He left me crumpled in the dirt, pressing my shirt against my bloody nose, wondering what kind of whippin’ my father was going to give me for ripping my only Sunday shirt. But mostly, I wished my own brother dead that night, like I had my father many nights before, and I despised myself for thinking it. Ain’t supposed to hate your own family. But you never forget the helplessness of being beaten. Revenge lurks deep inside you, like a savage animal.
Vernados took it all in, watching, listening, sniffing the air. When I finished, he nodded eagerly. “A cub must prove itself,” he said. “You must defeat him to win this Mary.” He pounded me on the shoulder and smiled through his thick beard as if he had imparted some divine wisdom on me.
“Don’t like fightin’ my own brother.”
“Then you will lose her,” he said. “Animals and men are different. Animals you can know by their bodies, the way their back arches, hackles raise, lips curl. A man can hide his true feelings behind his face, but his eyes reveal his secrets. One day, you will know a killer by the murderous fire in his eyes. Or you will know love in a woman. Your eyes say your brother is stronger.”
Tired but dutiful, we trudged through the night without complaint. Bell wanted to make up the time we had lost eating supper. Unlike the rest of us, Vernados actually seemed to enjoy the hiking, eyes alert to every movement in the trees or underbrush, ears attuned to every rustle, and it was damned hard to keep up with him. Whereas the rest of us stumbled through the dark, he moved with an effortless silence.
I daydreamed about saving Mary’s hometown from burning, saving her house, her family, and her. I wondered if the town had evacuated yet, or if they were oblivious to the danger. Back then, Mena was a railroad town. The Kansas City Southern, I believe it was, ran through there. For many of the villages nearby, Mena was a big place, and people came from all over for supplies on the thoroughfare of DeQueen Street. Not far beyond that was the train depot.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t notice Tyson until he shouldered past me. I tripped over a rock and fell hard, skinning the palm of one hand and banging my elbow against a hard tree root. My tools scattered. As I picked myself up, I saw Bell give me a disappointed head shake before continuing through the thick underbrush. Tyson chuckled to himself.
Vernados helped me to my feet, then gathered my tools in one enormous hand. We walked briskly to catch up. He growled deeply, like thunder rumbling high in the mountains.
“Go on,” he said. “Fight.”
“Won’t help none,” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“You are strong enough. Fight.”
With Vernados behind me, I felt empowered. Tyson didn’t seem all that tough now. Taller, yes, but nearly as skinny. And so I shoved him in the back. He stumbled, then whirled to face me, red-faced with anger. And I saw my father’s face in his. I froze.
“Fight for your woman,” said Vernados.
Tyson laughed uneasily. “Woman? This is about Mary?”
“Don’t say her name,” I growled, feeling foolish for saying the words yet helpless to stop them. Something flared inside me. I needed to let it out or it would consume me.
He shook his head dismissively. “Told you before. You don’t deserve her.”
“And you do?”
“Never said that.”
I clenched my shaking hands. “All those times you beat on me. Embarrassed me in front of her. Why, if not to win her for yourself? Why?”
Pity filled his eyes. “It was for your own good, Brother. And hers.”
To this day, I don’t remember throwing the punch, only standing with clenched fists over Tyson, who was sprawled on the ground. I wanted to kick him until he was unrecognizable, but I saw Bell coming back to see what all the commotion was about.
“What’s the hold-up?” he shouted.
“Is nothing,” said Vernados, waving dismissively. “We will follow.”
With a nod, Bell turned and continued up the mountain.
I looked down at Tyson. “Didn’t want to fight you in the first place, dammit,” I said, trembling with anger. Blood pumped through me so fast my limbs buzzed.
“Don’t you see?” he wheezed, holding his stomach. “You’re just like pa.”
Vernados was right. You can know a man by his eyes, and I saw truth in Tyson’s. It surprised me, and I faltered. “I will never be like him,” I said.
“Good,” said Tyson with a strange smile. “Maybe we’re getting’ somewhere.”
Frustrated, I snatched my tools from Vernados. “Satisfied?” I asked.
He swept his blue eyes over me and down at Tyson, who was still gasping like a fish. “No,” he said, more firmly now, the wildness in his eyes emerging. He hauled Tyson to his feet, shook him by the shoulders. “You are brothers! A pack protects its own, draws strength from each other. This matter between you is settled, yes? Honor regained. You can be strong again, yes?”
“I guess,” said Tyson.
With a laugh, Vernados caught up to me, looking quite pleased with himself.
“A pack protects its own?” I repeated. “Thought you were gonna help. After today, Tyson’ll really let me have it.”
Vernados snorted. “It is settled. You beat him with one punch.”
A sheepish grin crept across my face. “Did,” I said.
“Now this Mary will respect your strength and courage.”
I wasn’t so sure, but said nothing. “Is that how you got your woman?”
“Aye. It has always been the way.”
“You’re a strange, frightening man.”
“And you have a big mouth for a man so little.”
We laughed like old friends, like brothers.
Soon enough, Tyson stomped past, his face pinched with brooding anger. I didn’t hate him anymore, only felt pity and guilt, so it was easier to pretend he wasn’t there at all. I reflected on Tyson’s words, which offended me to the core. After all, Tyson was more like our father than me, yet I had beaten him with one punch. What other violence was I capable of?
At the top of the hill, Vernados got that hunter’s look again. “The fire is close,” he said.
We stopped for water at the top of the next mountain, where a lookout tower stood. I was breathing heavy in the thin air, and my limbs were numb. Everyone else was sweat-stained and grateful for a short reprieve. Only Vernados seemed unaffected, pacing back and forth, holding his necklace in one hand.
“What significance those claws hold for you?” asked Hiram, sitting against a tree trunk, sipping from his canteen.
With a heavy sigh, Vernados pulled the necklace off his neck and fanned the dark claws in his hand, like they were playing cards. “Sometimes, when a bear wakes in the spring, it is like fire, mad with hunger, killing everything in its path. It must be killed to save innocent lives. I take no joy in it.”
“You a God-fearing man?” asked Hiram.
“There are many gods, whether we believe in them or not. Some were here already. Others were brought here, like mine and yours. These claws remind me of my sacrifice, like your little crucifix.” He jabbed a large finger at Hiram’s chest, rumbling with laughter.
We all laughed. If I’d known that would be our last moment of joy before the fight for our lives, I would’ve savored it, soaked it up like oxygen. What I realize now is that Vernados had avoided the subject, keeping his secrets buried deep.
I followed him up the ladder through the trapdoor and into the small sheltered lookout. I was unprepared for what lay before me. From that vantage, you could see that everything beyond the next mountain was a pale haze, like the whole world behind it was nothing but smoke and ash. Flames danced along the ridge, flashing as new trees were consumed. I felt the heat on my face, even from miles away.
“We’re close to that firebug of yours, ain’t we?” I asked.
Vernados gave the slightest of nods. His blue eyes slid back to the landscape, his nose slightly raised.
“Are you chasin’ fires, or are you a bar-hunter?” I demanded. “What are we getting’ into? What’re you not tellin’ us?”
With a defeated sigh, he spoke in a quiet, patient voice. “Once there were many of us, but now I am the last. For a long time I have followed my enemy. Always in the mountains in the spring. I have fought it many times, but never won. When I defeat it, the fires will stop.”
“A bar?” I said. “The hell you talkin’ about?”
“My old enemy. He will be waiting in the heart of the fire.”
He told me the name, but I’ve forgotten it over the years. It sounded German, I remember that. Maybe Indian.
“Bears run from fire,” I said, “same as everythin’ else.”
“Not this one. This bear has eyes like a man. He fears nothing and brings only death.”
I looked at him hard, but he meant every word. Some people are unshakable in their belief, and you know there’s no turning ‘em. All you can do is nod and let the river run its course inside ‘em.
I absorbed this knowledge, accepted it. “So you’re going into the fire to fight this thing?”
“It is my sacrifice alone.”
“You ain’t alone.”
“This is personal.”
“Like my fight with Tyson?”
He grunted, staring at the landscape.
He’d said he was the last, and I wondered about the others. I imagined a woman with glowing, silver hair. It was hard to picture a woman like that, paired with this strange mountain man.
I let him be, and we stood in silence. Wish I had a picture of that moment, just the two of us together, staring across the burning land.
Soon Bell and the others joined us in the tower. Tyson clapped my shoulders, using me for support, the same way he had steered me out of that burnt house so long ago.
Bram let out a low whistle of admiration and fear.
“Hell on earth,” said Hiram, taking in the vastness of the fire.
“This bastard will take the whole range,” said Bell. “Flood your bellies and fill your canteens. You got two minutes. It’s time to earn that buck seventy-five per day.”
“With no overtime,” added Bram.
“Vernados,” said Bell. “In the shed down yonder I saw two axe with your name on ‘em. It’s time to use more than your hands.”
While the rest of us climbed down, Vernados lingered, fiddling those bear claws. When he caught up, he loped alongside us with a patient, predatory confidence, two-bit axes gripped comfortably in each hand.
The forest, I noticed, was silent. No insects, no birds. Everything had better sense than we did. Our feet tread on the damp pine needles, occasionally snapping a branch underfoot.
It took us another few hours, but we finally met up with other crews who were already clearing the trees away from the river that snaked through the valley. Above us, smoke bleached the sky. Ash drifted down like snow.
Bell spied an old friend named Frank, and shook his hand forcefully. “Don’t you sombitches have this fire contained yet?”
“Sure,” laughed Frank. “Got it pinned between two rivers.”
A hundred men worked the line. We jumped right in, clearing trees and underbrush in an effort to keep the fire from a-leaping across the water to the next mountain. Horses and mules hauled away the debris. Trees were felled and the forest was raked away so all that was left on either side of the river was bare, damp earth, like flesh peeled away from an open wound. We worked all evening and into the night.
And then the fire came.
The Ouachita Mountain Range, unlike most in the U.S., runs east to west. The north-facing slopes have more shade, moisture, hardwood trees, and the soil is rich in nutrients. That’s why some locals refer to the whole range as Rich Mountain. We take great pride in our mountains, lush valleys, and clear springs. So it was painful to see the trees along the river smothered in glowing smoke, knowing they were the last living monuments on that side of the mountain. Knowing everything behind them was dead.
The first flames appeared, then more flashes downriver, blazing the dark beds of leaves and pine needles, crackling and popping, boring into the trunks and exploding in the knots. Clouds of fire, a hundred feet high, consumed the tree line. We fell back across the river, spreading out as far as we could, an insignificant army against a great conqueror, ducking away from the heat that felt like it would melt our faces, praying we wouldn’t have to run.
But the river and earth held. The mountain, however, was ruined. In place of magnificent pines and red oak, skeleton trees stood smoldering, glowing red in places as if bleeding. Most had toppled, taking others with them, a crosshatched mess along the mountain. Shrubs and bushes protruded from the ground like bony hands.
Embers glowed deep in the fissures of blackened trunks. The night sky was tinged with hellfire.
We attacked the fire line. I wished Mary could have seen me. I raked the ground, exposing pockets of fire that lurked in the smoldering beds of leaves and needles, and Tyson shoveled dirt behind me. Together, we smothered the ground until it was no longer a threat.
By dawn, we were both exhausted. Tyson had to lean on his shovel for support every so often. Nearby, Vernados chopped down burnt trees so they wouldn’t fall and risk sparking new fires, and Bell smashed fallen logs in loud bone-splitting cracks with his sledgehammer, releasing the heat within. Hiram and Bram shoveled in dirt and sand to kill the heat for good. The air sparkled with embers and ash.
“Don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” Tyson confessed. He was hanging on his shovel like it was an old friend. A bandana covered his face, fluttering with his labored breath. His eyes were red from the smoke or fatigue or both.
“Been drinkin’ enough water?” I asked. Fighting fire sucked the water right out of you if you weren’t careful, and we’d been at it for ‘bout twelve hours.
“Reckon not,” he muttered.
Our area was mostly contained. Soon, we would migrate. “Just a bit longer,” I said. “Why don’t you go rest for a spell? Go down to the river and get some water in you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You heard ‘im!” shouted Bell. “Ain’t gonna do us any favors if you dry up.” He dropped his sledgehammer and helped Tyson toward the river.
I turned back to my work, and then saw a tree falling toward Tyson and Bell, flames flickering along its burnt trunk.
“Tree!” someone shouted. Bell tackled Tyson to the ground, covering him.
For a moment, all I could do was watch the beauty of it, the slow toppling black trunk, flames fluttering like silk ribbons of yellow and orange and red. Then I stepped in front of it, swinging the sledgehammer upward, and the trunk exploded into a thousand shards of orange and yellow glass, and the bulk of it shifted slightly and slammed into the ground in a splash of flame at my feet.
Sparks ricocheted off my helmet, stinging my neck like hornets. Thick, choking smoke settled over me.
Bell rolled off Tyson and looked me over, his face set in a grim charcoal-smeared mask. He patted my sleeves as if they were on fire, then yanked the sledgehammer from my fists. I didn’t remember picking it up. With a wink, he smashed the burning tree with vengeance. Vernados and Bram joined him, working different sections of the large trunk.
Sluggishly, I went to the river. I filled my canteen and drank slowly. The river water was warm and tasted of ash, but everything did anyhow. I poured water over my head and neck.
“You okay?” asked Tyson, wading in beside me.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Brother, that was the most amazin’ thing I ever saw!”
“You’d have done the same,” I said, wondering if it was true.
He turned back to the fire, staring up and down the river, taking in the expansiveness of the blaze.
“Ain’t been this tired on a fire since throwing water into Mr. Spencer’s living room. It was just you, me, and Pa. Remember?”
“Do.”
An uneasy chuckle escaped from him. “Strange thing to end up burnin’ to death in your own house.”
“Damn shame,” I said. “He was always nice enough, even though he chased us off his property. Remember the time he came at us with a rake?”
I let myself laugh a little. Mr. Spencer had burst out of his corn field, brandishing an old rake. Scared us so terrible we screamed. When we were far enough away to feel safe, we could still hear the old man a-cackling to himself.
“Bastard sliced open my calf with that rake. Tore my pant leg,” Tyson said, laughing hard, and leaning on me for support. After a while, his smile withered and he spoke with a distant sadness. “Pa whipped me later for that. Not for pestering Mr. Spencer, but for rippin’ my pants.”
The crewmen just about had that trunk taken care of, but it was still popping and hissing inside. I felt guilty again. Every time he’d gotten whipped, I’d been grateful it wasn’t me. I shouldn’t have punched him before. He’d suffered enough.
“You ever wonder why Mr. Spencer was sittin’ in that chair when we found him?” he asked.
“No.” My memory had only latched onto the strange details. The blackness of the dead man’s teeth. The smell of burning pine. A half-melted ashtray on an armrest. Flames a-reaching out the window. The squeak of the water pump as I tried to fill the buckets. My father, squatting next to the dead man, turning to glare at me, his eyes ablaze with rage.
“It always nagged at me,” he went on. “Any time I asked Pa about it, he cuffed me. Said there ain’t no use goin’ to the past. You think that’s true, Brother? Is there any use for it?”
“Hope we learn from it,” I said. “Mend our mistakes and all.”
“Maybe so. Got a lot of regrets, I tell you what.”
“We all do,” I said.
“Past few years, I’ve learned a thing or two about fires. I go back to that night a lot. You know, Mr. Spencer had taken his savings out of the bank that morning and was planning to move to Hot Springs. We found him in his bedroom, right, but he was sitting in a chair from the kitchen. I always wondered about that. Could be he needed a place to sit was all, or didn’t have enough room in that small kitchen for that chair. But there was something else. His wrists and ankles had burned to the bone faster than the rest of him. That night, I asked Pa about that. You know what he said?”
Behind me, I heard the forest dying. It sparked and crackled and wheezed. “What?” I asked.
“He said I wasn’t supposed to notice.”
I thought of my father’s eyes, dark and glinting like a knife’s edge. “Jesus,” I said, considering the implications, and knowing them to be true.
“Then you came in. I had to get you out.”
“You herded me out by the shoulders. Told me I was too young to see such things, that everything would be okay. What would he have done to me?”
Tyson shrugged. “Never gave him much of a chance. After that, I let him take it out on me, instead of you or Ma. Figured I could handle it better.”
All that time, he’d been protecting us, and I’d taken it for granted. I opened and closed my mouth. There were a hundred things I wanted to say and do, but none of it seemed appropriate. Not there, not then.
“Ready to get back to it?” asked Tyson.
As I picked up my potato hook, the ground shook, followed closely by grumbling thunder. Could’ve been a tree falling, or a boulder splittin’ in the heat, but I knew better.
“The hell?” said Tyson, squinting up at the pale sky.
Everyone else seemed just as confused. All except Vernados. His eyes were precisely aimed, his body leaning slightly forward as if being magnetically pulled. His teeth gleamed in the morning light.
He shot uphill at full speed, as if he hadn’t hiked a dozen miles or been chopping trees for over thirteen hours straight, and all the while his eyes were pointed up at something I couldn’t see and couldn’t understand.
Maybe that’s why I followed him.
An eerie haze had settled in the woods, filled with motes of ash. Wisps of smoke rose from the blackened ground and along the trunks of scorched trees. Flames licked the remains of a once-great forest, consuming every last bit of life from it. Heat wrinkled the air, blurred my vision. My mouth and throat were filled with soot, despite my bandana. Ahead, Vernados appeared through dark clouds of ash, stirred by his boots, not slowing down.
A dead branch snapped behind me and I knew it was Bell, knew the others weren’t far behind him, and we just ran, changing directions, synchronized to each other like a pack.
The ground rumbled again, followed by a tremendous roar, like something ancient had risen from the earth. You’d think that would’ve stopped us in our tracks, but we just kept running. Not a lick of sense between us.
At the top of a crest, Vernados stood with his axes held loosely. His head swiveled slowly, searching the smoke-filled landscape before him. Below was a steep ravine. On the other side was a dead landscape, filled with the blackened ruins of ancient trees. I followed his gaze to the top of the mountain. Thought I saw something move up there, like a boulder, but couldn’t find it again when I tried.
“Turn back,” said Vernados.
I shook my head, speaking for the group. “We’re with you.”
“What’re we looking for?” asked Bell, hefting his sledgehammer onto his shoulder.
Vernados grunted. “Not looking. Waiting.”
The ground shook again, but this time there was a rhythm to it, deliberate, like a heartbeat in the earth. And then we saw it lumbering down the mountain, a hulking mass of burning black fur. The great bear stopped directly across the ravine from us and rose to its full height, twice that of Vernados, one great paw ending in curved black claws, the other missing all but one. Flames danced along the bear’s broad shoulders and back. It sniffed the air and roared, its maw lined with black teeth, its eyes like heated coal. Fire erupted all around it, an extension of its anger. The air smelled of ash and brimstone.
Vernados dropped his axe and shook free of his leather coat, letting it fall to the ashen ground with a whump.
“Don’t,” I said. A sharp pain pulsed through my head, clouding my vision and hearing.
Vernados kicked off his boots, let his pants slide to his ankles.
There he stood, naked as the day he was born, completely unarmed. Without another word, he strode fearlessly down the ravine. The bear’s attention turned to him, and I felt a tremendous weight lift from me, the pressure gone. Now all that power was focused on Vernados, but he didn’t seem to notice, tromping downhill until he disappeared at the bottom. A moment later, an enormous brown wolf loped uphill. Vernados. Green grass sprouted from beneath his paws, pushing through the soot. Wildflowers bloomed in his tracks.
The black bear retreated, as if granting the newcomer space to meet it. Fire rippled from its paws, coiling along the dead ground.
As I started after Vernados, Bell grabbed my arm.
I shook him off. “This is his fight. As long as the trees have stood, it’s been his,” I explained. As the words slipped through my gritted teeth, I realized the truth in them. “But he doesn’t have to fight it alone. Not anymore. We can help end this.”
Bell nodded in understanding, in belief. He let his gaze fall upon each of us. “If any man wants to leave, I won’t call it cowardice. Bram, you have a family to consider.”
No one moved. Not even Bram.
I ran down the ravine, even though it could be my last moment, even though I might never see Mary again. The others followed me. I heard Hiram praying.
At the top of the ravine, the creatures faced each other. The wolf’s eyes, Vernados’ eyes, were the crystalline blue of ice and snow. His ears were folded back, his teeth bared. He stood on a patch of green wild grass that was spreading like water. Undergrowth drowned the gray ash of the forest floor. Bark plated the trunks of dead trees like armor, kneading into slender budded branches. Other trees sprang from the ground anew, rising and spreading their branches.
Nose to the sky, Vernados filled the valley with a lonely howl that spoke of an eternity of service to the forest. Never settling down in one place, never having a family. There was great pain and loss in the voice, but also a relentless sense of purpose.
A cool breeze passed over me, like wind blown over snowy peaks, and the air around us became clear again. I breathed oxygen in deep.
The wolf leveled his blue eyes, then ran at the bear. We charged with him, shouting, weapons raised. Fire trailed from the bear’s mouth as it rose to its full height, hanging for a moment before dropping with all of its weight. The earth shook. A blast of fire exploded under each paw and sent us staggering. The fresh grass beneath us dissolved like dynamite wicks.
The wolf sidestepped and gnashed at the bear’s flaming tail, drawing its attention. As it made a lazy circle, Bell drove his sledgehammer into its muscular flank. Impossibly quick, the bear lifted him into the air with a massive swipe of claw and flame. Bell crashed to the ground, his sledgehammer thudding beside him. Like stirred coals, the bear’s eyes came alive at the sight of prey on the ground, but just as it opened its mouth to devour Bell, Tyson clanged its nose with a shovel, and Bram hacked its ribs with an axe, distracting it just long enough for Hiram to pull Bell to safety.
The bear pointed its head upward and groaned, and I saw Vernados on its back, jaws clamped on its fiery neck. Where tooth met fur, frost spread like vines and spider webs. The bear shook violently, showering sparks all around us, but Vernados would not let go. Then, in desperation, the bear back-smashed into a tree trunk, and Vernados fell, dazed. Vulnerable.
We formed a semicircle, shouting and brandishing our weapons, forcing the bear to face us instead. Even Bell had pulled himself to his feet somehow, landing a solid blow to the beast’s ribs. As the sledgehammer sank into burning fur, the haft exploded in flame, and Bell had to abandon it. Inspired by his effort, I swiped the bear with my potato hook. Iron tines tore into its fur, releasing liquid fire. The bear roared, whirling to face me, and the power of its devilish gaze crumpled me. Saliva hissed like acid, droplets flaring at my feet. It sniffed at me, its growl low and deep as an avalanche. Its maw opened wide, and flames poured from it, reaching toward me. My left cheek sizzled and blistered. I smelled burning hair and meat. I touched my ear to shield it and flesh clung to my fingers like melted cheese.
Then, in a brown blur, Vernados tore out the bear’s throat.
Fire and wind erupted all around me, blowing me back in a swirl of ash and flame. For a long time, I knew nothing but the roaring pain of my face. I wondered if Mary would admire the wound, the vicious scar of man’s work, or abhor me for it.
At last, the red and orange heat of the world seemed to blow away like autumn leaves, and I found myself on a snowy peak. All around me, pine trees bristled beneath weighted snow. Steam plumed from my cheeks and hands. A white wolf, with golden eyes and an elegant snout, approached me. I instinctively submitted, lowering myself into the snow. Her black nose sniffed my boot, my leg, my crotch, and I flinched as she made her way up to my ruined face and licked my cheek with a broad, soft tongue, as cold as snow.
I awoke on my back, headfirst down a slope covered with bright green grass and yellow wildflowers. Overhead, pine needles splintered the sunlight. The cool breeze smelled of honeysuckle.
Nearby, Bell was waking the others, who were groaning and stirring in the tall grass. Our clothes were scorched. Bram favored an arm. My face was numb, my ankle was sprained, and my back was sore from the fall. Blood ran down Hiram’s face, but it didn’t stop him plucking a pine needle from the nearest tree and sticking it in his mouth. He marveled at the green forest around us.
“A miracle,” he said.
I went to my brother. A branch—more of stick, really—protruded from his side at a shallow angle.
“Pull,” he said, grimacing, one-eyed from the pain.
I shouldered against him, grabbing the branch with both hands, and yanked. Blood leaked down the side of his pants, but the wound itself wasn’t bad. Bell and I bandaged it up with cloth torn from my shirt. As I pressed the cloth hard to his wound, I found him staring at me.
“Your face,” he said.
I touched my cheek with blood-stained fingers. I felt a smooth patch of healed scars.
Together, the five of us plodded to the top of the ravine. The only sign of the battleground was a patch of scorched earth, standing defiant against the new greenery all around it.
I didn’t tell them about the white wolf. Some secrets you hold onto. I know she and Vernados are together on that snowy peak, just like me and Mary will be together again someday. She has passed on now, and so has the rest of the crew. Although I made something of myself, a career in the Service and four generations of family, Vernados deserves his legacy. His story is legend, and I am the only one left to tell it.