trees.” Strain shaved and dressed in his Nomex fireline clothes: yellow long-sleeved shirt, green pants, logging boots. Horton had boiled water and handed him a cup and a packet of MRE instant coffee.
Horton dropped the tailgate, clicked his tongue, and Festus jumped in. Town dogs ran over to sniff him as he bent over to lock the front hubs. They crossed a cattle guard that separated private prairie from the Forest Service. Dirty snowdrifts capped the northsides of the rolling hills. The blackened pine covered the small mountains like so much Smokey Bear propaganda. He came to the fork. The road became steep and rutted in mud and snow. He levered the transfer case into four-low. In Strains rearview mirror, just wind and grasshoppers.
“Why didn’t they salvage-log this?” Strain asked. “There was a lot of good timber left.”
“Just not cost effective. The mill in Crook closed years ago. Here’s your fire.” They passed a deserted campground. The wind kicked up ash and snow, salt and pepper, so that he kept the windows rolled up and had to use the windshield washer periodically. Grasshoppers hugged the wiper blades for the duration of the arcing. Picnic tables were charred and splintered. A blackened latrine. I like it here, Strain thought. Now browning and dormant, the Indian grasses had sprung up, fertilized by the rich ash. Mule deer grazed on the bluestem, poa, beargrass, and snowberry. “You’re just two years too late,” Horton said.
This is the way it ought to be
, Strain wrote on the situation report.
They kept driving westward into Montana, the small prairie town of Ekalaka you could drive all the way to on the two-track, to lay in the Thanksgiving supplies. “What do you think of rib-eye for Thanksgiving?” Strain asked. “Holidays stopped meaning much to me just before my second divorce. I’m not one for farm turkey when I can have a good steak.”
“You bet. Let’s get a box of stuffing though. I love my Thanksgiving stuffing. And a pie. We’ll get a frozen pum’kin pie.”
They bought all the amenities they could find in the Ekalaka IGA, which weren’t many, but they did get the Wild Turkey and the range-fed rib-eyes. “Cash or charge?” asked the lady in horn-rim glasses at the grocery.
“Government voucher,” Strain said. The lady looked up over herglasses when she saw who the voucher belonged to. You guys look like bait fishermen, she was thinking, where did you steal this from?
“Hello, Horton,” a man in a bloody apron said. The counter lady seemed relieved. Horton greeted the butcher shortly and they stepped onto Main Street to the jingle of the doorbells.
At the truck Horton squinted toward him. “Now, I’m cynical, Strain, read too many of these espionage novels, but maybe they want you out for good.”
“That’s real possible,” Strain said and climbed in. They drove into a stiff headwind. Pronghorn and cattle. “Unless a man’s got oil wells mixed in with his cattle, he’d need a ranch the size of Delaware to scratch out a living on these scablands,” Horton said. The soil had been beaten by a hundred and twenty years of overgrazing and drought. “Rain never followed the plow to Harding County. It’s cursed. Rains down in the Black Hills. Even up to the North Dakota prairie. Won’t rain here because we’re cursed. And they send me, a hydrologist, out here on the taxpayer’s dollar. When I kick the bucket, throw me in the river.” The next twenty miles were silent save for the wind and tires on asphalt.
Horton spoke as they dropped out of the burn and neared the cottonwoods that signaled the river that saved Crook’s cavalry from dehydration a hundred and twenty years ago. “Maybe this is some sort of suicide mission. They’re trying by wrecking your home life. Make you choose. Fight fire and make your wife crazy, or love your wife. I made the wrong goddamned choice. At least the world will freeze over before the realtors get out here.” They were
Horton dropped the tailgate, clicked his tongue, and Festus jumped in. Town dogs ran over to sniff him as he bent over to lock the front hubs. They crossed a cattle guard that separated private prairie from the Forest Service. Dirty snowdrifts capped the northsides of the rolling hills. The blackened pine covered the small mountains like so much Smokey Bear propaganda. He came to the fork. The road became steep and rutted in mud and snow. He levered the transfer case into four-low. In Strains rearview mirror, just wind and grasshoppers.
“Why didn’t they salvage-log this?” Strain asked. “There was a lot of good timber left.”
“Just not cost effective. The mill in Crook closed years ago. Here’s your fire.” They passed a deserted campground. The wind kicked up ash and snow, salt and pepper, so that he kept the windows rolled up and had to use the windshield washer periodically. Grasshoppers hugged the wiper blades for the duration of the arcing. Picnic tables were charred and splintered. A blackened latrine. I like it here, Strain thought. Now browning and dormant, the Indian grasses had sprung up, fertilized by the rich ash. Mule deer grazed on the bluestem, poa, beargrass, and snowberry. “You’re just two years too late,” Horton said.
This is the way it ought to be
, Strain wrote on the situation report.
They kept driving westward into Montana, the small prairie town of Ekalaka you could drive all the way to on the two-track, to lay in the Thanksgiving supplies. “What do you think of rib-eye for Thanksgiving?” Strain asked. “Holidays stopped meaning much to me just before my second divorce. I’m not one for farm turkey when I can have a good steak.”
“You bet. Let’s get a box of stuffing though. I love my Thanksgiving stuffing. And a pie. We’ll get a frozen pum’kin pie.”
They bought all the amenities they could find in the Ekalaka IGA, which weren’t many, but they did get the Wild Turkey and the range-fed rib-eyes. “Cash or charge?” asked the lady in horn-rim glasses at the grocery.
“Government voucher,” Strain said. The lady looked up over herglasses when she saw who the voucher belonged to. You guys look like bait fishermen, she was thinking, where did you steal this from?
“Hello, Horton,” a man in a bloody apron said. The counter lady seemed relieved. Horton greeted the butcher shortly and they stepped onto Main Street to the jingle of the doorbells.
At the truck Horton squinted toward him. “Now, I’m cynical, Strain, read too many of these espionage novels, but maybe they want you out for good.”
“That’s real possible,” Strain said and climbed in. They drove into a stiff headwind. Pronghorn and cattle. “Unless a man’s got oil wells mixed in with his cattle, he’d need a ranch the size of Delaware to scratch out a living on these scablands,” Horton said. The soil had been beaten by a hundred and twenty years of overgrazing and drought. “Rain never followed the plow to Harding County. It’s cursed. Rains down in the Black Hills. Even up to the North Dakota prairie. Won’t rain here because we’re cursed. And they send me, a hydrologist, out here on the taxpayer’s dollar. When I kick the bucket, throw me in the river.” The next twenty miles were silent save for the wind and tires on asphalt.
Horton spoke as they dropped out of the burn and neared the cottonwoods that signaled the river that saved Crook’s cavalry from dehydration a hundred and twenty years ago. “Maybe this is some sort of suicide mission. They’re trying by wrecking your home life. Make you choose. Fight fire and make your wife crazy, or love your wife. I made the wrong goddamned choice. At least the world will freeze over before the realtors get out here.” They were
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