The Bushmen

The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as I watched the flames devour the forest faster than a man could run. The fire was outflanking us and was burning faster than we could dig a hand line. If it got behind us, our escape route would be gone. There would be no place to go. Our fire shelters would be worthless. We would be dead in a matter of minutes. An hour earlier, this fire was just your typical forest fire; in the last 20 minutes, it had transformed into a full-scale conflagration. My perceived invincibility as a young, tough forest firefighter came to an end that day.In 1966, the first type 1 hotshot fire crew was established in Washington state. History records the crew as being vulgar rogues where drinking, carousing, and hell raising were their calling cards. Like most hotshot crews, The Bushmen played hard. They worked even harder. I moved to the small town of Entiat, Washington in the spring of 1968. A move that would change my life forever. A story of friendships made and lost and traditions upheld. Numeral Mountain stands guard at the confluence of the Columbia and Entiat Rivers. Every summer, seniors climb that mountain to paint their graduating number on it, some standing on a 6-to-12 inch ledge, 200 plus feet above the swirling waters of the Entiat River. A tradition that is over a hundred years old and one I’m proud to say I took part in. It was optional to risk life and limb in the name of tradition.Everyone who lived within a fifty-mile radius of that town knew who The Bushmen were. It was a crew that old firedogs still tell tales about around the campfires to this day. I knew from the start that I wanted to be a member of that crew someday. My career with the US Forest Service began in the summer of 1971. My dream of becoming a member of that famous crew happened during the summer of 1974. When I left the crew after the summer of 1977, I held the position of head sawyer and team leader and was voted one of three outstanding performers on the crew. My proudest moment.Fighting forest fires on a type 1 hotshot crew is physically and mentally demanding. It requires stamina, discipline, courage, and dedication. A lifestyle that was not for the faint of heart. It was a dangerous, dirty, sometimes thankless job that I found myself addicted to with each passing summer. The Bushmen is an emotional, action-packed story of what it was like growing up in the small, close-knit community of Entiat, Washington, located halfway between Wenatchee and Chelan, along the beautiful Columbia River. Of lifelong friendships made and lost, because of tragic circumstances nobody could have ever predicted. How some of those lost friendships and life’s blows put me on a collision course with reckless living that included alcohol, drugs, and bad decisions. As the old cliché goes. Being part of something bigger than myself was the only thing that snapped me out of a life headed nowhere fast.