NOT SO LONELY THE LIFE OF THE FIRE WATCHER

BY JO JEFFERS Not So Lonely

the life of the fire watcher

Doing a story on lookouts was Billie Wilkerson's idea. One summer's day in 1966, I got tired of town and headed for the mountains. Where I stopped was Lake Mountain, between Vernon and McNary. Just above McConnick Spring, where watercress grows crisp in the cool water, a dirt road wound steeply up the mountain. At the end of the road was a 60-foot steel tower. Beside it was a one room cabin.

A tall, slim man with a wrinkled smile came out of the door of the cabin. I saw that he had been a cowboy. The man squinted at me and spoke. It was good to have someone really see you when he looked at you.

"Got tired of town," I said.

"Well, I don't blame you for that," he said. "Come on in and have some coffee. Some of the people that come up here are too scared to get out of the car."

A window of the tower opened and a woman smiled out of it. The man and woman had the kind of faces that I appreciated. I thought, "They've worked hard all their lives, don't have much, never will, and don't give a damn."

Wilkerson was their name. They had lived around Clifton most of their lives. Clark was a retired cattleman and smokechaser. His wife, Billie, worked on the tower. It was their first summer at Lake Mountain, but they had worked in other forests for many years.

Clark warmed the coffee on the wood stove. We talked without explanations, with the ease you have with some people and cannot acquire with others. We talked about trading for corriente cattle in Mexico, his border days, and of trailing cattle up over the Coronado Trail before roads and trucks. I listened and learned. He asked me if I had ever heard the song, "The Crooked Trail to Holbrook," and I said no, but I wished I had. His father had once been captain of the Texas Rangers. He and his brothers had all been cowpunchers. He was tough and true, with a tough, true person's impatience with superfluity.

I climbed 63 steps to the top of the tower. On the upper landing, the wind reached out and grabbed at me. Billie opened the trap door and let me in. "Did you get spooked climbing up?" she asked.

"No, but I can't say that I enjoyed it," I said.

The room was about 7 feet square. In the center was a pedestal screwed to the floor for the fire finder. Billie showed me how it worked. You could spot a smoke through a rotating site and get the degrees from the reading on the azimuth circle around it. We sat on rickety chairs and talked about Indian ruins, ranching, Arizona history, animals, and fire-watching.

While we talked, Billie glanced out over the mountains, picking up her binoculars now and then. Before we knew it, a couple of hours had passed. I told her I sometimes wrote stories for ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

"Why don't you do one on lookouts?" she asked.

The more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed. I could write about what I understood, and I could understand anyone who liked to take care of living things — livestock, wild creatures, plants, or a whole forest.

I did not need to ask Billie Wilkerson if she got lonely or bored. I knew she didn't. I knew I wouldn't. Cramped, maybe, or stiff on cold days, tired from long hours of eye-strain, but not lonely, not bored.

A radio sat grumbling in the corner. On a shelf was a daily log book, pencils and pens, salt and pepper, a washrag, hand lotion, a notebook, and binoculars. On the floor was a Butternut coffee can for a purpose which seemed obvious for anyone who stays in a tower 60 feet off the ground all day.

Across the northern horizon was a long streak of wind-blown dust which was the Little Colorado River Valley and the Navajo Reservation beyond. I could see Woodruff Butte, like a black pyramid, and Chevelon Butte, south of Winslow. To the northwest, the 3-pointed top of San Francisco Peaks jutted up from the flatness 100 miles away. Across the west lay the long, rounded contours of the Mogollon Rim. In the south, smoke rose and drifted from the lumber mill at McNary. Behind it, the rugged ridges and canyons of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation layered to the horizon. To the southeast was Baldy, proud, snow-capped. On the east were Cerro Gordo and Green's Peak, dwarfing the small bumps of mountains around them. Yellow-green patches of aspen were bright against the dark pines.

“Do you and Clark see much game?” I asked Billie.

“Once in a while deer and elk water down at McCormick Springs,” she said. “A bear's been coming around about three times a week. On my day off, we drive the pickup into McNary, fill our water cans, get our mail and buy groceries. We always get a watermelon and put the rind out for the bear. Early in the morning, he ambles up to camp, sits in the sun, eats his watermelon, and goes back to his own camp.”

Of course, not all lookouts are like Billie Wilkerson. Neither are they crazy old coots who sit laughing and talking to themselves. Some are students, or teachers wanting a summer job in a quiet place. Some are people born to the mountains, who would rather stay in their own country than work for more money in a city office. Some lack formal education, but with their eyes and ears tuned to the outdoors.

With the August rains, fire season was over. Wilkersons left to go back to Clifton. The winter passed mildly. Spring came and I was still thinking about Billie Wilkerson's idea. I went down to the Lakeside Ranger Station, applied for a job as relief lookout and got it. John Chambers, the district ranger, grinned and said, “Another crazy one.” Roy Sauve, a teacher who had been a lookout once, told me, “To stay on a tower all day you have to have a very creative intellect or else be stupid.” I wondered which category he thought I fitted and then decided he was wrong, to save myself the trouble of wondering.

I'd lived around cattle people a long time. Most of the old rugged individualists resented the Forest Service or anyone else telling them how many head of cattle they could run on their allotments... resented anyone interfering with what they considered their business and the privileges they had earned. In my Cowbelle cookbook, the stew cowboys call a “Sonofabitch” is referred to as “Forest Supervisor Stew.” I knew the supervisor in Holbrook and didn't think he fit the description. Then I remembered a character in Utah known the country round as “Swearin' Aaron,” who used to call a young Forest Service employee “one of them book-readin' s.o.b.'s.” Now I was going to work as a federal employee. The government was suddenly people like me instead of some imposing outside force.

A new way, a gentler way, has come to the White Mountains. The old ways had been good ways. The people had been strong-headed as mules and tough as boot heels. They had survived. Those ranchers and homesteaders had withstood hardships we can't imagine. Now the really tough ones of quality are memories, like so many battered, sweat-stained ten x beaver hats hanging on dark closet walls. Those times passed, not because they were bad times, but because they were so good that our country grew and prospered and the population expanded and a conservation program became necessary.

National Forests have been established for more than half a century. They have stood serene, alone, the home of wild creatures. In the past ten years, 100 percent more people have visited them, about 150 million a year. The Forest Service spends about 26 million dollars a year to maintain them. Enough picnic tables and campsites exist to accommodate 425,000 people at one time, and still that is not enough.

America has 151 National Forests containing 186 million acres of land. From them, the federal government receives 100 million dollars a year from timber sales, grazing fees, power and land use permits and recreation permits. The objective of the National Forest system has always been to serve the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the long run. The present and potential use of all resources and the present and potential needs of our people are evaluated and put into policies which respond to the changing needs of the American people.

The symbol of the National Forest is a multiple-use tree. Each branch symbolizes a forest resource — water, timber, forage, wildlife and recreation. The trunk represents America and its people. Multiple-use management is complex because all resources are interdependent. Pure water is necessary for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. Tree planting and harvesting improve wildlife habitat and forage for livestock. Logging and recreation enterprises create jobs and help the local economies. Fresh air, open space, and beautiful scenery are more rare and more important than ever.

Sitgreaves, with 745,000 acres, is the smallest National Forest in the Southwest. Over 7,000 feet high, it follows the edge of the Mogollon Rim. It contains part of the greatest pure stand of Ponderosa pine in the world. It was named for Capt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves, a U. S. topographical engineer who led the first scientific expedition across Arizona in the 1850s.

Ranchers and homesteaders fought back against marauding bands of Apaches and held their ground here. In the 1880s, the giant Hashknife outfit moved in with 33,000 head of Texas Longhorns. For 15 years, the land was overgrazed and abused. It is only now recovering. Along the edge of the Rim is the old military supply road from Camp Verde to Fort Apache. In nameless graves along the Rim Road lie the bones of cattle and sheep men killed in the Pleasant Valley Wars of the 1880s. Summer rains have washed clean the bloodstains of cowboys, sheepherders, homesteaders, Indians and soldiers. The forest remains, a living thing, a sacred thing, not a green spot on a map. Always the forest has been associated with the water which gives life to an arid land. To the Indians, the mountains are the home of the deities who bring rain and healing and life.

Over 50 million board feet of timber are cut annually on Sitgreaves. The timber is sold to private operators by competitive bid. Mature trees are cut selectively. Healthy young trees remain as the basis of a new crop, a watershed cover, and a protection from soil erosion. Small and deformed trees are cut for pulpwood which is used in the paper mill near Snowflake. A fourth of the forest revenue goes back to the counties to help pay for roads and schools, saving taxpayers part of their burden.

About 4,500 head of cattle and 17,000 sheep graze under paid permits. Mule deer, elk, antelope, bear, lion, coyotes, and small animals thrive in our forest. Even the jaguar makes an appearance now and then. Thousands of people come to the high country every year. They come to fish, boat, swim, golf, and breathe clean air.

All these resources are in danger from fire much of the year. Sitgreaves averages 185 fires annually. Most of them are caused by lightning, but the most destructive are man-made. Man-made fires are usually closer to high-value timber, well-developed areas, and usually occur in the driest season, from April through July. Good old Man.

If it weren't for Smokey the Bear, the loss from fire would be inestimably greater. Not until Pearl Harbor did the nation become really alarmed about the danger of forest fires. The U. S. Forest Service lost many men to the armed forces. Equipment was scarce. Timber was needed more than ever. Military authorities feared fire from sabotage and bombing. The only solution was to wake people up to their problem. The Forest Service appealed to the newly-formed Wartime Advertising Council, which had been organized to put the forces of private advertising behind the war effort. After the war, the name was changed to the Advertising Council, Inc. Business leaders poured their efforts and money into peacetime campaigns — highway safety, better schools, cancer, religion, civil defense, Red Cross, and forest fire prevention. Now, the advertising industry provides the American people with an annual gift of 260 million dollars' worth of public service.

Using proven advertising methods, (the best attention-getters are animals and children), Foote, Cone & Belding plus the Advertising Council, created an animal character who is as familiar and lovable as any Walt Disney creation. He is a friendly little bear in Levi's and a ranger hat. His name is Smokey. My daughter Paula came home from school one day with the latest grade school joke: "What's Smokey the Bear's middle name?" Answer: "The." The U. S. Criminal Code protects his name and character. About 30 Smokey products have been licensed, including a teddy bear Smokey, wallets, belts, T-shirts, jeans, hats, etc. Smokey is an honorary Girl Scout, Boy Scout, Camp Fire Girl, and 4-H Club member.

The effectiveness of Smokey's program is recorded statistically. In the 5 years prior to World War II, the U. S. averaged 210,000 forest fires a year. 30,000,000 acres (as much as the area of New York State) were burned. From 1961 to 1965, the U. S. averaged 121,000 fires, with 4,000,000 acres burned. The fire weather was extremely bad during this period. The human use of the forests had risen by 100 percent.

Today, almost everyone in America knows the story of Smokey the Bear. On a hot May day in the Lincoln National Forest of New Mexico, some careless person either flipped a lighted match into the brush or left his campfire burning. The tiny spark became a roaring fire near Capitan Mountain. A lookout spotted the smoke. Fire crews made their way into the inaccessible area. Bulldozers plowed up a wide fire line, but the wind blew the flames across it. Birds and animals panicked, trying to escape the flames. Some made it to safety. The fire spread faster than they could run. Ranchers, soldiers, local people — all joined the firelines. A 40-mile-per-hour wind fanned the fire into an area where 24 men were trapped. They lay on a rockslide, face down, with wet handkerchiefs over their faces. If one man's clothes caught fire, his comrade put it out. For an hour they lay trapped. Then the fire passed them. Somehow, all of them had survived. When they looked up, they saw a badly burned bear cub clinging pathetically to a charred tree. They helped him down, and carried him carefully out of the devastated forest.

In 5 days, over 17,000 acres of timber were burned. Hundreds of animals were dead. Ugly black snags stood where tall trees had grown. No grass remained. Streams were thick with debris and dead fish. The little cub's wounds were treated by veterinarians. He was fed baby food, petted, and cared for until he was well. The rangers named him "Smokey." Since his home had been destroyed, he was sent to Washington, D.C., to become the symbol of forest fire prevention for the whole nation. He posed for posters which were sent everywhere. He made personal appearances on radio and television. School children learned his story through movies, talks, coloring books, story books, comic books, songs and records. They repeat at home Smokey's words of caution: "Please be careful. Remember: only you can prevent forest fires."

lookout vigilance helps pre

Each forest fire has a number and a name. The authorities in the regional office in Albuquerque must wonder about some of the Individual Fire Reports sent in by the Lakeside District. They are carefully documented and coded. One stated: Fire No. 4; Name of Fire Gallo; Size Class A; General Cause Recreation; Specific Cause Warming fire; Class of People Drunk Indian.

Every able-bodied person in the Forest Service is responsible during a fire. Wives and relatives are often called in to help. In an emergency, manpower may be recruited from local businesses, the fire departments, jails, or other districts.

Every day the fire danger is computed, recorded, and sent to the Weather Bureau in Phoenix. Fire danger depends on the fuel, moisture, wind and temperature conditions. Dead leaves, brush, dry grass, and pine needles are fast-burning. Big trees, stumps, and logs are slow-burning. Fire spreads faster in a high wind because it gets more oxygen and the wind directs flames to more fuel. The probability of fire decreases at night because the night air is moister. During the day, the sun-warmed air draws moisture from the fuel. At night, the fuel draws moisture from the air. Fires burn slower at night and are more easily controlled. Fuels preheated by the sun burn faster. That is why most lookouts go on duty about 8 a.m. and stay until 7 or 8 p.m.

The 7 National Forests in Arizona have 64 fire lookouts: 8 in Apache; 13 in Coconino; 12 in Coronado; 9 in Kaibab; 6 in Prescott; 10 in Tonto; 9 in Sitgreaves. They vary in construction from wooden cabins on the ground to wooden towers, to steel towers. They are anywhere from 12 to 110 feet high. Some are manned by couples, some by single men, some by women. They may be reached by automobile, jeep, pack horse, or foot. Nearly all of them make a good day's outing for families who like that sort of thing.

The Missoulian newspaper of Missoula, Montana, recently carried an article dramatically headlined: "Women Fire Lookouts Tame Mountain Peaks." In one forest ranger's bold generalization, "Women, as a general rule, make better lookouts than men. They seem to be more observant, hold their interest quite well in what can be a monotonous job, are more meticulous in record-keeping and keep their quarters in much better condition." These women included a college queen with her cat and guitar, a motorcycling "swinger," school teachers, grandmothers, and housewives. Doris Babcock baked sugar cookies daily for the chipmunks who came running when she called, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty." One woman fed hotcakes to the chipmunks who grew as big as marmots.

Frank Malone, the fire control officer, explained my job to me. His face was Scotch-Irish and as freckled as a turkey egg. He had the loose walk of a cowboy and the cat-quick hazel eyes of a man born to the Southwest. His great-grand-father had been Robert Burns' personal tailor in Scotland. He had been a cowboy and had broke horses before joining the Forest Service.

It occurred to me that the qualifications of a lookout match some of the qualifications of a cowboy. He must have good eyesight, good health, interest in his job, the ability to work and live alone in isolated areas, to know the country, and to think coolly in emergencies. I wondered if the day would come when a cowboy would have to fill out application blanks, take a physical exam, and swear a loyalty oath. The swearing should come easy, I thought.

The lookouts in our district go on duty at 8 or 9 a.m. and check in with the code 10-8, which means that their radios are on. If you leave the tower for any reason, you should say "10-7 for 5 minutes" or however long it takes you, and the whole district immediately knows what you have in mind.

The dispatcher in the office checks your radio reception and notes which men are on duty and their locations. When I started work late in April, the fire danger was already high. Lakeside District had 2 men in a pickup with a 50 gallon water pumper to patrol the Lakeside area; 2 men with a 200 gallon pumper and 2 men with a plow mounted on a tilt-bed truck in the Lake Mountain area; a 200 gallon trailer pumper at the Ranger Station. All of them worked clearing brush, mending fences, piling slash, fixing roads, etc. when they weren't smoke-chasing. Seven men to protect 160,448 acres of timber. 24,200 acres of this land was valued at over $2,000 per acre.

Kathy Raide broke me in on the use of the fire finder, radio, and orientation points. She had worked on towers for many years. Kathy was as bright-eyed and timid as a bird. She knew every foot of the area she watched. Kathy was at times startlingly whimsical. When Ab Ellsworth, a long-time smoke-chaser, called in for his radio check one day, very little came through but static. "Ab, you're nothing but a little squelch," she told him. "If I didn't know you better, Kathy, I'd be mad," Ab answered.

The Show Low, Lakeside, and Pinetop areas are heavily timbered. Cabins, houses, and businesses are scattered among the pines. It seemed next to impossible for me to differentiate between chimney smoke, trash burning, road dust, and a real fire. If any doubt existed, we were to report the smoke.

Kathy explained the terms to me. A legitimate smoke is one from a sawmill, burning debris, or authorized campfires. An illegitimate smoke is one not authorized, or out of control. A false smoke is something which looks like smoke under certain light and weather conditions. It could be road dust, patches of dead trees, or "waterdogs," the heavy mist that rises from the ground after a rain.

A lookout is expected to describe smoke by size, color, and character. The Osborne fire finder is his basic tool. It measures the degrees to a smoke, like a compass. It must be leveled every day and oriented to the degree of certain fixed landmarks. The fire finder is on a map of the country, with the lookout tower in the center of the map. The horizontal angle is called an azimuth.

serve our forested heritage

After sighting a smoke, you read the location in degrees and minutes and try to estimate the distance from the tower. If only one lookout can see a smoke, the distance is very important. With 2 or 3, a cross-reading may be taken. After the reading, you find the legal description (township, range, section) on another map and try to determine if the fire is on National Forest land. The next step is to radio the dispatcher. You give the azimuth reading, the legal and local description, describe the smoke, and hope for the best. All this must be done as quickly and accurately as possible. The most important factor in the suppression of fire is time. One fire that burned 1,500 acres was reported by 5 lookouts within 3 minutes.

Anyone who still thinks a lookout has nothing to do but sit and whittle all day, keep reading. The Fireman's Guide says a lookout must make extensive observations at 15-minute intervals during daylight hours. The entire country should be divided into sections and each section must be scanned thoroughly, back and forth, from the tower to the horizon. Areas of high hazard must be more thoroughly scanned. Under normal conditions, a lookout is allowed about 5 minutes to spot a fire, pin it down, and report it. In extreme fire danger, he must do the best he can in 2 minutes.

Over at Lake Mountain, Billie Wilkerson helped me get oriented to the country. I had taken the back roads this time, going out the Lakeside-Vernon road, then cutting across Marshall Mountain in order to know the area better. I spent the afternoon memorizing the names of mountains, streams, springs, and roads. Billie made me locate them on the fire finder and showed me how to watch for dust to see where the roads were.

“My biggest worry,” I said, “is whether or not I'll be able to see a smoke.”

“Don't worry,” said Billie. “You'll be able to spot them. A real smoke is just like a rattlesnake. You'd know it whether you'd ever seen one before or not.”

“You turned in one yesterday, didn't you?” I asked.

“Yes. Some man out in the Country Club had cleaned out the fireplace of his new home, put the hot ashes into a cardboard box, left it on his front porch in all that wind, and had gone to town to get fire insurance.”

Billie had worked on towers since 1953. She and Clark were a lookout-smokechaser combination at Rose Peak in the Clifton District of the Apache National Forest. They had to go into Springerville for groceries and supplies. Billie remembers the queasy feeling of slipping over icy roads down into the Blue with a load of dynamite and caps. The old truck carried a sign on the back stating: DANGER.

One of the worst fires they ever saw began with a storm. For 3 days Billie had watched the areas hit by lightning and nothing had happened. They were completely out of supplies, so she took a good check, then started into town 40 miles away. On the way in, she met a truckload of men and equipment. “Better turn back,” they said, “a smoke just blew up.” She turned around and headed back. Clark had been fighting the 30-acre smoke by himself. He had tied his mule to a tree and gone to find the head of the fire. In the meantime, the fire had circled the mountain and surrounded them. He was nearly trapped, but managed to get out. Too few men arrived too late. The fire burned for 11 days and nights. Eight hundred men were called in to work on the fire, including 3 crews of New Mexico Indians who are considered among the best fire fighters in the country. Before it was over, 6,000 acres of timber were burned.

Billie said, "You can't imagine how fast a fire can get out of control until something like that happens. Since the McNary burn in 1956, this Lakeside crew jumps like a bunch of June bugs. Last week when I turned in that smoke near Brushy, they were at it faster than turpentined cats."

She warned me about staying away from the radio during thunderstorms. Once she called in to report a storm and felt electricity go through her. "As well as I like to talk," she said, "that's one time I keep my mouth shut." She told me about a young lookout and his buddy, both over 6 feet tall, who were up in the tower during a bad storm. Balls of fire started bouncing around the tower. When it was over, they were both roosting on the 12-inch-square, insulated, glass-legged stool.

One of a lookout's duties is storm-watching. In the summer, when thunderheads start building up in the southeast, you watch them with mixed hope and apprehension. You want rain as much as any rancher. Rain that comes steady and strong, softening the brittle brush, crisp grass and leaves, the pine needles and dampens the powdered earth. Rain that fills the tanks, nourishes the springs, pours in bright ribbons down over the rocks and surges into the rivers. Rain that spreads a pine-fresh scent over the wide rolling mountains and washes them clean of dust.

You are afraid, too, of the flashing strikes of lightning that spear down from the clouds like silver javelins. Deadly lightning that threatens the life of the forest. More than half of the fires on our forest are started by lightning. A lookout tries to determine where the ground strikes hit, records them, and waits. Gradually, the forest dries out. Two or 3 days later, a thin trail of smoke may curl upward from a smoldering stump or tree. In a few minutes, sparks fly, the wind fans them, and a fire begins. These latent fires are called "sleepers."

The area around Lake Mountain is thick with logging slash. Lightning, a cigarette, a smoldering campfire could send the whole country up in flames when it is dry. Frank Malone told us, "If a fire ever gets started in that thinning area on a bad day, that's all."

For millions of years, lightning fires were nature's way of thinning and improving the forest. Saplings and brush would be burned out so that grass would grow and the wild animals would thrive again. But nature's time is not man's time. People and cities surround the forests. Nothing is wasted. Grass, water, timber and natural beauty must be used and preserved.

When you're not fire-watching, keeping records, or house-cleaning, you notice other things. In April, the forest is waking slowly from winter, warming itself in the clear spring sunlight. Patches of snow stick to Green's Peak, Cerro Gordo, Mt. Baldy and McKay's Peak. The Bluejays scold at the intruders who fly in to set up camp for the summer. Then the west winds come blowing in. They treat the forest rough, slap her around and drain her of all the winter's snow-moisture. Around the first of May, you notice that the aspen groves on Wishbone are pale green. Weeds begin to push up in the warm places under trees. Later still, wild irises bloom thick and fragrant in the meadows. Toward the end of May, the cautious oaks leave out. "You can plant your garden when the oak leaves are as big as squirrels' ears." Eula Merrill told me it was an old saying in the White Mountains.

Carl Haywood, a forestry student at A.S.U., spent the summer of 1963 at Lake Mountain. He told me about the day he backed out the door of the cabin, his arms loaded with binoculars, lunch, thermos, and notebook. Something behind him said "Woof." He turned to face a hungry bear on his front porch.

The bear had a yearling cub. One day the cub ventured into camp by himself and started nosing around the chipmunk's food. A rock wall next to the cabin is a sort of chipmunk boarding house. The bear cub picked up an apple. That did it. A mother chipmunk with a litter of babies to feed jumped out, bit him on the nose, barked and chased him up a tree. The cub clung there, shaking, until the chipmunk went home. He decided it was safe to come down, but couldn't remember how. He turned himself around a few times, then started down head first, lost his grip, and tumbled into a woodpile at the bottom of the tree.

Carl saw a lot of animals that summer. A doe with twin fawns would come to the cabin for handouts. He fed a flock of wild turkeys every day as if they were chickens. One evening, he was taking a walk down the mountain and happened onto a big bull elk dozing behind a fallen log. The elk got up, stretched, looked at Carl, and slowly walked away. Carl followed him carefully. The elk would turn and snort, objecting to the invasion of his privacy, then go on down the path.

Carl told me about sleeping in the tower to watch a night storm. One minute the night would be coal black; the next minute, the whole tower would glow with light. He was witnessing the phenomenon, often seen by sailors on the old schooners, called St. Elmo's lightning.

My first day of work was April 28th. The fire danger was already in the high stage after an open winter. A 30-mile-per-hour wind rocked the tower. Billie had warned me to dress warmly, but I still spent the morning hunting sunny spots, like an old cat with rheumatism.

I sat in one of the ice cream parlor chairs and shook with the wind, wondering why I had always liked wind when nobody else did. I remembered it sweeping over the Nebraska sand hills at my grandmother's, and over the flat plowed farms of Kansas when I was a girl, and later, rolling endless clouds of red dirt across the ranching country around Holbrook. Up there in the tower I thought, "The wind she blows, and no one can stop her. No scientist in a sterilized laboratory, no book of rules and regulations, no amount of money or power, not even love can put her down."

I looked down below and saw my shepherd dogs wandering from one comfortable place to another place that looked more comfortable, then getting up to bark at skunks in the bushes. A minute later I heard Billie shouting, "Dog! Dog!" When I looked down, there was old Bess, whose vanity would not allow her to believe she was stiff and clumsy and 13 years old, determined to climb the 60-foot tower in all that wind. I held my breath and felt sick. Brave old thing, slipping and sliding up the steps, leaning over to look down, teetering in the gusts of wind. I spanked her and sent her back down. She gave me a sour look and went back to her chipmunk-watching and skunk-barking.

I was drinking cold coffee and eating a bruised banana when I looked up and saw a white smoke billow up in the west. I almost swallowed my tongue. I got an azimuth reading, tripped over the pedestal, got hit on the head with the overhead map when I tried to get it down, forgot all my radio procedure, and never thought to log the time of discovery.

The smoke rose and spread. I yelled out the window as loud as I could. Frank and Billie ran out of the cabin. As it turned out, I hadn't been too smooth. My reading was right, but I was 4 miles off on the distance. Somebody was burning trash in an old cinder pit, so no harm was done.