“Why would I go through all that effort? Over.” I release the button on the side of the handset and toss it on the folded towel laying on the table as I go back to stocking my shelves. I reach down and grab a couple more cans from my wagon, trying not to feel alarmed by the weakness I feel in my thumbs and the exhaustion I feel in my forearms.
I was told that I would have an electric winch so I wouldn’t have to lift my wagon up into my fire lookout tower. I was told that the hook should be loosely connected to a ring at the bottom of the tower, on the inside of one of the legs, right at eye level. I was told that I should only have to clip the sling together under my wagon with the hook from the winch, and then once I climbed to the working level, I’d just have to fire up the generator, push the button with the up arrow, and wait for the machines to handle the weight.
I was told that the Forest Service had seen fit to replace the wire cable in the winch with synthetic rope so I wouldn’t have to risk hurting my hands if the winch was broken.
I’m still not sure if the winch is broken or not, but I know the generator is out of gas. I brought some gas with me, but I left it at the bottom of the tower in the wagon. I’m pissed off about it; you’re supposed to leave some in the tank for the next guy. That was actually in the course work; “Leave some in the tank for the next guy.” It wasn’t some unwritten rule, it was actually three pages in a PowerPoint presentation and a test question.
Still, some of the guys ruck in with their own hunting rifles, and some of them will use up their gas hoisting bucks and bores up into the tower. I guess that’s the type of guy who was here last season.
So, before I could power on the CB radio and check in, before I could fire up the generator, before I could get the up and down buttons on the winch to work, I had to pull my wagon seventy-five feet up into the belly of my fire lookout tower. Now I’m ignoring the dirty sweat trail draining down the back of my neck, and the raspy wind blowing in and out of my lungs as they try to catch a breath, and I’m restocking my shelves and unloading my wagon.
“It seems like a lot of effort right now, Bill, but you’re going to be out there all by yourself for three months at least,” Joel’s voice carries on his part of the conversation through the tiny speaker in my handset as I get back to stacking cans in my skinny pantry, “Before you know it, it’ll just be something to do to pass the time. Over.”
He’s my section leader, and he’s in another tower, one about fifteen miles away and accessible by road. It’s at the southern tip of a small range of wooded hills that runs north and south in the middle of a sea of prairie grass. He gets a truck if he needs to resupply, and he can still get a couple of FM stations, but he’s also got to monitor five radios at the same time; one for each of his three watchers, one for the Regional Command Net, and one for communicating with air assets if needed.
I grab my handset from the table and key the mic. “I know I’m going to be bored,” I clarify, “I get that. Why would that make me unbolt my storm shutters, though? That’s what I don’t understand. Over.” The handset lands back on the towel on the table.
I grab a few packs of lantern mantles next; away from the fuel, away from the sink, beneath the food. The course work focused a lot on Field Hygiene. There were the parts that focused on making sure to bathe and do laundry, but there were parts I didn’t expect, too. We had to spend a few days learning where to stock our goods. You always put the food above the counter, for instance. It’s bad enough to find out you punched a whole in a bottle of dish soap, but it’s even worse when the soap drains into your oatmeal. So, the lantern mantles go beneath the food, they have to stay away from the fuel for fire safety, and they have to stay away from the sink because they are supposed to burn eventually.
“Because you can use the storm shutters to line the handrails on your Widow’s Walk. Over,” Joel answers back as I close the drawer farthest from the sink. I turn back to the table, looking expectantly to the handset as I reach for it.
I have no idea what Joel is trying to say. The Widow’s Walk is just the catwalk around the outside of my tower. It’s basically my porch. He’s telling me that, even though the guy who was here before me left the generator empty three months ago, it could have been worse. He’s telling me that some of the guys have taken the storm shutters off of their towers, and he’s telling me that they used the shutters to line the handrail that runs around the perimeter of the tower’s “porch”.
“And what would that do for me? Over.” I ask, some boredom in my voice.
“It would let you go pants-free,” Joel answers back immediately, an old guy’s chuckle carrying the words. I’m about to answer back that he’s being a creep, but I think he expects it. He keeps his mic keyed and explains, “Every time you do laundry, you’re going to have to haul that shit up and down that tower. Even if you’ve got gas, it’s a pain in the ass. So, some guys figure they have to do less laundry if they don’t make the laundry dirty in the first place.”
I stare at the handset for a moment. Joel’s crazy. Joel’s a creepy old son-of-a-bitch. But, Joel sounds like he might just be a crazy, creepy, old, genius; I fucking hate laundry. A thought occurs to me, “So, why would they line the handrail with the storm shutters? Over.”
“Because,” he chuckles back, “You’re standing on the only man made structure for miles, and it’s the tallest thing for just as many miles.” I hear a click as his mic keys off for a split second. He hasn’t said “over”, so he’s not done speaking. The clicks of the mic keying off and on, those are the CB radio version of the word “uhm”; it’s the sound of Joel thinking before he speaks again. When the mic clicks back on, he continues, “Do you really think nothing is watching you? Over.”
A cold shake hits me as I hear those words. I try to think of something to say, some witty comeback to make it sound like that thought hadn’t just left me feeling like I was being observed by aliens. Nothing comes to mind.
“This is some rookie hazing shit, isn’t it?” I incredulously ask, thinking that there’s no way guys go months just wearing their shirt to work every day out here. We’re each fitted with four of the standard forestry service uniforms; dark green pants and yellow, long sleeve, shirts. We’re the type of people who wear that every day, heat be damned. How could anybody with that mindset go months leaving his bits to the elements? I had let the mic click without saying over, meaning I was the one looking for words now. “You’re just trying to get a picture of me hanging low for some wall of shame or something, aren’t you? Over.”
A sound booms across the hills outside. I can’t even think of what it is at first, it’s a sound too loud to echo. It’s the sound of a man howling like a beast in a bear trap. It’s the sound of a demon screaming in terror. It silences everything else.
I grab my binoculars from the table. The old timers and the PowerPoint presentations and the coursework all said to always know where your glasses are, and mine are the other thing lying on that towel I keep dropping the handset on. I wrap the lanyard around my hand as I run for the door.
I need to see what’s screaming, or what’s howling, or whatever the hell that noise is. I’ve only opened the door, none of the storm shutters on the windows. I remind myself of that as I run out the door; the door is on one side of the tower, the north side, so the noise could be coming from any side.
My eyes catch something, though, as soon as I make it out the door. There’s a wooded area just below a west facing promontory at the end of the ridgeline on my horizon. I see something there, in the gap between the trees and that promontory. I couldn’t even throw a guess at the distance, but it’s far; what I saw could just as easily be a mote of dust, but I don’t think it is.
I figure that whatever I’ve seen, if it’s really there, is going to run through those woods. It looked like it was running in my direction, so I point my binoculars at a pond I see between me and the near side of those woods. Whatever it is, it’s going to break out of the woods right in front of that pond.
I get halfway through wondering how long I’m going to be waiting when I’m almost proven right; in the reflection of the pond water, I see something stop just before the edge of the trees. It stands tall and ragged on two legs, its skin is hairless and weathered, and its every muscle is straining in every motion from beneath dead gray skin.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
I know exactly what this is.
Dianne is screaming at me from the other side of last night; “They only get dangerous when they lock eyes with you.”
I remember the words as my vision locks on to the burning reflections of its eyes. Part of my mind thinks loudly and ignorantly, “Oh, those two things that look like reflecting pools of burning crude-oil, those dead and starving eyes that I can damn near see my reflection in through these binoculars and that dead still pond, those are the eyes she told me would only get dangerous if I ever locked eyes with them.”
That same part of my mind speaks again a moment later, only saying a short and embarrassed “oh”, as that part of my mind catches up to the realization made by every other part I could think with.
I’m staring into the reflections of the eyes of a Wendigo.