Doug Allyn - v108 n03-04_1996-09-10

I found that whiskey was a powerful remedy for cleansing the throat, but I guess I wasn’t the only one. All my usual sources in this state were overwhelmed with demand. I had to make a run north to Idaho to stock up.

When the smokejumpers were killed, the headlines were big even up north. One of the boys was a local kid who lived on a ranch just outside of Samaria where I went to replace my stock. Driving up to the general store I noticed the door was draped in black bunting. The kid’s stepdad shopped there, the owner told me, and he wanted folks to remember that they had lost one of their own. I looked at the fly-specked display windows and the dust coating the cans and thought that in a small community each life helps shore up the barricade against the wilderness. Lose enough pieces and the barricade crumbles. I shivered and high-tailed it back to town.

And now, a year later, this grim-faced man sat in my office, another casualty of the big blowup at Hardscrabble Creek. His name was Harold Torvilson and he had an ugly gleam in his eye.

“Mr. Traveler, I want you to bring my son’s murderer to justice,” he said, sliding a newspaper clipping across the surface of my desk.

The clipping’s headline read, “Forest Ranger Saves Life by Setting Fire.” I looked up at Torvilson.

“Go ahead, read it,” he urged at my questioning glance.

The article was about the blowup at Hardscrabble and how this guy, James Ferguson, the crew boss, had set a fire right where he was standing and then lain down in the hot ashes. Evidently the fire he set burned off enough fuel that the big fire that was just behind it roared right past him. It was a hungry fire, consuming everything in its path, including Ferguson’s crew.

“They were just boys, you know. My Donny’d just turned eighteen.” For the first time I thought I caught just a trace of emotion in his voice, but there was some inner fire stoking him that had dried up all the tears.

“I don’t understand,” I said, handing him back the clipping. It was worn and crumpled like he’d squeezed it in his fist.

“I used to be a smokejumper, before I broke my leg. Broke it in so many pieces the quacks never could get it right. They wanted to give me a desk job, but I wouldn’t have it.” The limp had been noticeable when he’d come in. Evidently he was too proud to use a cane.

“I know fires,” he continued. “The fire Ferguson set, that’s the one that killed them. He saved his own hide and killed my boy. My Donny could run, he could run like the wind. If Ferguson hadn’t set that fire where he did, Donny would have made it to safety. They found his body the farthest out.” He said it with a kind of pride, as if “last one dead” was better than just plain dead.

I shifted some in my chair. It was hard to feel comfortable in the same room with this man. He had that ability to be perfectly still in a world full of winks and nods and other small motions that most of us indulge in when we’re carrying on a conversation. Among my acquaintances, only my Indian friends can be that still.

“The police don’t like outsiders messing in their affairs, Mr. Torvilson.” I didn’t try a smile; it would have been wasted.

“This isn’t a police matter,” he replied. The words came out, but we weren’t really having a conversation.

“Murder usually is,” I insisted.

“Not this one. They’re too stupid and pigheaded to see what’s as plain as the nose on their faces.” He hesitated a minute, but I could tell he was going to come out with it.

“Besides,” setting his teeth he spat out his words like they were giving him indigestion, “it happened on federal territory.”

Neither one of us said anything for a spell, and I looked out my office window at the Wasatch Mountains east of the city. They were federal territory.

“It’s still a police matter,” I finally answered. “We don’t call them Federal Police, but you should be talking to the FBI.”

“Nobody thinks a crime was committed. The Forest Service is investigating. The Forest Service, can you beat that? They’re scrambling to cover their hides. That’s what they’re doing.”

“And what is it they’re covering up?” I asked softly. For all his stillness I figured his pot was on the boil.

“How he was murdered. How they all were murdered,” he intoned. “In the fire. Last year.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do. You say that the Forest Service is investigating. Surely they’ll be in a position to tell if this Ferguson did anything wrong.”

“They’ll try to cover it up, mark my words. But if they think there’s someone looking over their shoulder, there’s a better chance maybe...” His voice trailed off and his eyes got kind of blank. Whatever he was seeing, it sure wasn’t me. Then he roused himself, hunching up a little, and it seemed to me he sort of shrunk until he was just a tired old man grieving for his kid. “I’m just asking you to keep them honest, Mr. Traveler. That’s all.”

Well, I guess he got to me after all. I had a young boy and I’d nearly lost him once. “I don’t know if I can be of any real help, but I tell you what I’ll do. Give me three days. I’ll nose around a bit. If it looks like I can make any contribution to this mess, I’ll let you know. And if I can’t, I’ll let you know that too and we’ll call it quits. Deal?”

He nodded his assent and pulled out his checkbook, but I stopped him. “This is a handshake deal,” I said and held out my mitt.

“Handshake deal,” he replied and took my hand. He braced his shoulders and stoked up the fires some. I think I liked him better the other way.

I took some particulars and he gave me a couple of names. Then he walked out of the office ramrod straight. You could barely notice the limp.

I called Anson Horne, Salt Lake City’s chief of police. Not that Anson’s a good buddy of mine, but he’s honest as the day is long and we knew more things about one another than casual acquaintances had any right.

“We know about Torvilson,” Horne’s deep voice rolled out of the receiver end of the phone. If I’d held it out about two feet I would’ve been able to hear him just as good. Anson was in your force-of-nature category, nothing stopped him. “Lay off of this one, Martin. Your client is barking up the wrong tree.”

“Why, because my client is wrong or because you want me to?”

“Your client is a damn fool, and you’re an even bigger one,” he replied and hung up on me. Now I’ve never known Anson to swear, him being in the Church and all, so I must have upset him some. Or more likely, Torvilson had rubbed him raw. It was clear that Anson didn’t take the charges of murder seriously.

I took off for the county library and spent a dull afternoon reading. The phone was ringing as I got back. It was Anson.

“I got a couple of bottles of near beer that could be cooling in the creek,” he growled. This was as close to an apology as I was going to get.

“See you in ten,” I replied and hung up.

When I got there I was surprised to see that Horne wasn’t alone. The other man was short and stocky, but he filled out his police uniform a lot better than Anson did. His sandy complexion looked a lot healthier than Anson’s, too.

“This is Red Hadley,” Anson said.

Somehow I didn’t think that the sandy hair was red enough for the nickname, but it might have faded with age. Probably he had a quick temper, most carrot-tops do. I wondered what he was doing here.

We shook hands. “Glad to meet you. Thought I knew most of the boys in blue around here.”

“Red’s from up north,” Anson interjected. “He signed on with us right after Christmas.”