Fires in the Wilderness Read online

  It was a cold day for late April. Snow and rain spit from the sky as we assembled on the parade ground. We shivered in the early morning hours. After a flag-raising ceremony, morning exercises, and breakfast, the beach workers attended to their pots and pans. The rest of us had the day off to relax. As I explored Camp Custer, I spotted Big Mike O’Shea pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with rocks. Last night’s smirk was replaced with a strained grimace as he worked behind the heavy wheelbarrow.

  This was the first time I really took a good look at Mike O’Shea. He was three or four inches taller than me, maybe six feet, with broad shoulders and long thick arms. His head was square like a cinder block. He wore his carrot-orange hair cut close. Freckles dotted his face. The thing that caught my attention was the hard look he had in his eyes and the scowl he wore on his face. If his prediction that he and I would have it out one day was correct, he would be a handful. Still, I was less afraid of him than I was of losing the job that would keep my family alive.

  As I watched him push the heavy wheelbarrow around, I understood what it meant to volunteer to be a truck driver. In the army, as in the Civilian Conservation Corps, driving a truck and pushing a wheelbarrow were often one and the same. It was just like a beach worker was a dishwasher. We learned quickly that our army leaders would twist words to make volunteering for extra work sound like fun.

  Mike had worked up a good sweat driving his truck in the cool morning air. He grunted with strain as he pushed his load. Despite my promise to Squint that I would steer clear of trouble, I couldn’t resist poking fun at him. “Look,” I said laughing and pointing at Mike O’Shea and his one-wheeled truck. “Is that truck a Ford or a Chevrolet?”

  The army enlisted man who was supervising the work glared at me. “Unless you want to join your friend, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  Big Mike wiped the sweat from his brow and spit. “He ain’t no friend of mine.”

  Chapter 7

  Training

  The next three weeks were consumed by daily exercises, classes, and job training. The military had all of us CCC boys going from sun-up to sun-down and later. We were all fingerprinted and issued serial numbers. The disk on the chain around my neck read: CC6-104377.

  Though there was little time for anything else, my brother was on my mind every day and night. I worried about him. To be honest, I also worried about myself. Squint was older and bigger than me. He had always been my hero and protector—the only person I could turn to in good times and bad. I counted on him as he did me. We had been a team ever since we were little. Now the team was separated. Growing up would be harder without him.

  Big Mike was a constant problem. He was a cloud of trouble that seemed to follow me around Camp Custer, no matter where I went. He continued to go out of his way each day to make life a little more miserable for me and my friends. I wasn’t all that concerned about him pushing me around. I could take care of myself. I was more worried about holding down my temper and keeping my job in the CCC. The military officers made it clear that they didn’t want any trouble. Fighting could be used as grounds for dismissal. I vowed to keep my promise to Squint: to keep my job and keep my nose clean. That promise would prove to be a hard one to keep.

  Morning seemed to come earlier and earlier each day at Custer. Most of us had never experienced formal exercises like sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, jumping jacks, and stretching exercises. We’d spent some time running around the neighborhood back home, but never two miles or more at a stretch. Our leaders told us we’d have to be in good shape for the work ahead.

  Most days, after breakfast, army sergeants gave us work training. We learned how to sharpen and handle axes, picks, crosscut saws, and shovels. They taught us how to use tools we’d never seen or heard of before: mattocks, fire rakes, and grub hoes. Then we were split into teams and given jobs that put those tools to work.

  Pick, Yasku, and I were on a team with several other guys. Stosh was assigned to a group of boys from Detroit. Yasku was the first on our team to volunteer to demonstrate how to use an axe. At one time, he’d helped his father split and deliver wood to earn money. As he stepped up to the tree, he bragged about his skills as a woodsman.

  We stood back as Yasku put all he had into his first swing. The axe head struck at an angle. Rather than taking a bite into the wood, the sharp blade made a ringing sound as it glanced off the tree trunk. The handle twisted, and Yasku lost his grip. The axe flew end-over-end, and headed straight for a group of guys who were horsing around. At the last possible moment they saw it coming. The handle struck one fella in the knee with a loud thawack! Another guy jumped straight up in the air as the blade swept beneath his legs before skidding harmlessly across the ground.

  The sergeant who was supervising the training went into a rage. Yasku hung his head as the sergeant ranted. The guys who had nearly been struck stared him down as the sergeant tore into them for not paying attention. Tool training was cancelled for the rest of the week. Instead, we took classes in safety and first aid. Somehow, though, we managed to survive tool training with a few cuts and bruises, but no broken bones, lost fingers, or toes.

  Another part of our training involved setting up, taking down, and folding tents. We first practiced on what were called umbrella tents. No one needed to explain why they were called umbrellas. When they were set up right, they took on the appearance of an umbrella that was about half open. Like almost all the gear and equipment in the CCC, they were army leftovers. Once we were sent to our permanent camp, we would live in tents until barracks could be constructed.

  The first task in setting up the tent was to unfold it and lay the canvas flat on the ground. My job was to raise the center pole. The old canvas was heavy and stunk of mold and mildew. I crawled underneath, feeling for the hole that would be the resting place for the center pole. Once I inserted the pole, I raised the tent as far as I could; then my job was to hold it in place. When the tent pole stood tall and proud, lines would be pegged into the ground to give the tent its shape and stability.

  Umbrella tents were fairly easy to put up. Once we could handle them, we moved on to the larger tents that would be required for our camp. Mess tents were like circus tents. The size and weight of the canvas of these tents were hard to believe. Setting up the bigger tents required teamwork and muscle. Umbrella tents were secured with stakes or pegs that could be driven into the ground with single–bladed axes or hammers. For mess tents, ten–pound sledge hammers were used to drive the huge stakes down into the earth.

  In the afternoons and evenings at Camp Custer we took classes in fire fighting, construction, road building, and stringing telephone lines. We learned that the CCC would be stringing phone lines so that wildfires could be reported back to our base camp from remote areas. Back home only one of the neighbors on our entire block had a telephone. Now we were going to put up telephone lines in the wilderness.

  Some guys decided that they wanted to be cooks and bakers. Camp Custer offered cooking classes for them. Some CCC enrollees learned how to operate heavy equipment like bulldozers and tractors. Others were trained for office jobs. They took typing classes and learned how to manage an office.

  The days flew by. We hit the sack each night tired and sore. The combination of hard work and good food made changes in us. The skinny cats were putting muscle and meat on their bones.

  Just like the sergeant told us on our first day at Camp Custer, a rumor went around that our work assignment would take us to the far north. That information meant little to us city boys—other than the lingering doubts about the monsters and ghosts prowling that area. When you’ve never been more than a few blocks from home, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan might just as well be the moon.

  Little did we know that we would be heading for a place that looked like no place we’d ever seen. We were headed for the wilderness.

  Chapter 8

  North Bound

  May 1934

  We left for the Upper Peninsula once our tra
ining was completed. We boarded a train that took us from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo. There we transferred to the Northland Express train that would take us up to Mackinaw City. The guys and I sat in seats as far away from Mike O’Shea as we could. As we chatted with those around us, we learned that some of the other fellas had their fill of Mike and his pushy ways. As the train rolled north, we made friends and swapped stories of home.

  The train screeched to a stop at the station in Grand Rapids. Though the station wasn’t more than a few blocks from home, we weren’t allowed to get off the train. It would have been nice to say goodbye one more time and to check up on Squint to make sure he was all right. In Grand Rapids, we took on more passengers before striking out for Comstock Park, Howard City, Big Rapids, and parts north. Stosh and Yasku were snoring like lumberjacks while Pick and I played a few hands of cards as the train bumped along the rough tracks.

  Between hands, I studied Yasku as he slept. His mouth hung open as he snored and slobbered on himself. He wore his hair cut short. His thin, hollow cheeks made his long nose seem even longer.

  None of us had had easy lives. Yasku’s was worst of all. His father died a few years after he returned from the war. The mustard gas that eventually took him was a terrible weapon. Then, when Yasku’s mother passed, he was left to raise his brothers and sisters. Though he had help from an aunt who lived nearby, Yasku was the man of the house. He left school after the fifth grade to take a job in a foundry in downtown Grand Rapids. Yasku couldn’t read or write very well, but none of us ever mentioned it in conversation. We all pitched in to help him with letters to and from home.

  As the train rocked over the rails, Yasku bounced around in his seat. I couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t the smartest fellow I’d ever met, but, he had a big heart. Yasku was the kind of friend that could make you smile, no matter what.

  Small towns, deserted farms, and rough countryside passed outside our passenger car. Wherever the rails took us, we saw just how the Depression had taken hold. Much of the farmland that once grew corn, wheat, and soybeans had been repossessed by the banks. Now weeds and tall brush were taking over the once-bountiful farms. Fence lines were broken down. Farmhouses and barns once full of energy and activity were now empty and without life.

  The thick pine forests of the north we had heard about as school children were nowhere to be found. Instead, we saw reduced to mile after mile of ugly stumps and scrub brush. Tree limbs from cut timber were left in drying piles on the ground. During our orientation, we were told that our job would be to help conserve our forests and state. To my view, there wasn’t much left to be saved.

  The view outside the window didn’t change much as we rolled north. Occasionally we would see families walking alongside the tracks. Children followed their parents quietly. Sometimes babies were carted along in wobbly wagons. Sad looks on tired faces told the whole story. Work was hard, if not impossible, to find. People were hungry. Many were broken down just like the farmhouses alongside the tracks. It was hurtful to look out the window. It was easier just to close my eyes.

  I heard the screeching sounds just before feeling the shock of the brakes. When the train’s brakes grabbed, CCC boys and duffle bags went flying forward, rolling toward the engine as its wheels dug into the tracks. Train cars racked against each other as the locomotive ground to a halt. Yasku smacked into the seat next to me and split his lip. Blood was everywhere. After the long screeching halt, Lieutenant Campbell rushed through the car. “Everybody out,” he said. “Help get the cows off the tracks. And, watch out for cow pies.”

  Cows? Cow pies?

  “Wow,” Pick said. “The closest I’ve ever been to a real cow was a piece of bacon.”

  Stosh screwed up his face and said, “Bacon don’t come from cows. It comes from pigs.”

  “Well,” Pick said, “pigs live by cows, don’t they? You know, they live by cows in barns.”

  Even Yasku laughed, his upper teeth outlined in the red of blood. “Oww-w,” he said, holding his mouth. “It hurts to laugh.” I handed him a clean handkerchief and he pressed it to his split lip.

  We climbed down out of the train car and headed in the direction of the locomotive. None of us had a clue as to what a cow pie was, but we didn’t want to ask anyone about it. The engine hissed as clouds of steam escaped from its boiler. Up ahead the engineer blew the whistle and rang the bell. Before long we were at the head of the train, standing by a herd of big, smelly cows.

  We were amazed at their size. Their thick, white hides were splotched with large black spots. Coarse hairs covered their bodies and long tails with a swatch of hair on the end swished back and forth. The cows mooed gently, but they stubbornly held their positions. Stosh, Pick, and I pushed at the backside of one of them, keeping away from strong back legs. Yasku tried talking to it.

  “Come on, cow,” Yasku said in Polish. “You ain’t safe here on the railroad tracks. Go home, cow, go home.” That didn’t work. So he tried something else. “Do you want some nice cheese?” Yasku asked, pretending to hold some cheese in front of the cow’s nose.

  Pick, Stosh, and I laughed so hard that we fell away from the cow and held our sides. “Cows don’t eat cheese, you knucklehead,” I said. “Cheese is made from cows’ milk.”

  “Really?” Yasku asked. His fat lip made the word sound funny.

  His response was so serious and so stupid, we fell to our knees in laughter. Strangely enough, the cow started walking off. “Maybe cows understand Polish,” Yasku said through his fat lip.

  “Sure,” Pick said, “and maybe she likes cheese.”

  By the time the animal had cleared the tracks, it was heading downhill at a brisk pace. Here and there, other groups of CCC boys were making slow progress with the cows.

  As we worked on another, we heard a burst of laughter from behind us. Mike O’Shea stood at the center of a circle of guys. In his hand he held a long, thick branch. O’Shea took the club and beat the backside of a cow with it. The poor animal reared up and trotted off, bawling as it ran. The cow’s reaction caused another burst of laughter.

  “What a jerk,” I said.

  Pick took me by the shoulder and turned me away from Big Mike. “Pay no attention.”

  Other guys took to using clubs on the cows. Before long, the tracks were cleared, and we were back aboard. As the Northland Express continued climbing to the top of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, guys shared cow stories. One of the fellas in our train car discovered what a cow pie was when he slipped and fell into one. Though he changed his clothes, the foul smell stayed with us the rest of the trip. Everybody had a good laugh over the cow pie. Still, I was sickened by Mike O’Shea’s cruelty. There was no need for him to beat on those cows.

  He and I would have it out some day.

  Chapter 9

  Beyond the Waters

  May 1934

  We were weary and restless by the time the train pulled in to Mackinaw City late in the day. The blue water ahead was a beautiful sight. Waves crashed ashore as gulls swooped and soared in the sky above us. As we stepped out of the railroad car and onto the train platform, we shuddered in the cold breeze that came off the big water. We were issued vouchers that could be used to buy supper, then we were free to explore Mackinaw City until lights out.

  Stosh and I took a walk down to the docks to see the ferry boats and to look out at the sliver of land across the distance of water, the Upper Peninsula. We headed back to the hotel as the sun went down across the Straits and the evening temperature dropped. Fishing boats moored offshore bobbed in the rough water. Even the large ferries rolled in the waves.

  The night was spent in a cheap hotel in town, six boys in a room. In the morning, our railroad cars would be switched over to another line and transported across the lake on a huge boat called a railroad ferry. Near the docks, railroad tracks formed a spider web of main lines, crossings, and sidings. The tracks would feed railcars into and out of the gaping mouths of the car ferries.

  Befo
re lights-out, there were rumors going around about railroad car ferries and the dark waters that separated the two peninsulas of Michigan. In the lobby of our hotel, an old-timer was spinning tales about the lakes and those who crossed them. He wore the checkered flannels of a woodsman. From what I could see, he had just a few teeth in his mouth. While he talked, he chewed on the stem of an old corncob pipe.

  He told the story of the S.S. Milwaukee, a car ferry that went to the bottom of Lake Michigan with all hands on board in October of ’29. “When the lake got rough, the boat tossed stem to stern,” he remembered. “The railcars deep inside the steel hull broke free. They rattled around loose in the hold, smashing and crashing.”

  The old-timer paused and looked around at the wide eyes staring back at him. Most of the CCC boys were scared stiff. He knocked gray ash from his pipe. “With no warning, the boat capsized and slipped beneath the cold, cold waves. They didn’t have a chance, them boys on the Milwaukee. Bodies and life jackets from the railroad car ferry washed up on Michigan beaches for miles around. To this very day,” the old-timer concluded, “you can hear them poor souls calling in the wind on nights like tonight.”

  A howling gust came off the lake. The wind shook the shutters and banged at the windows of the old hotel. Pick nearly jumped out of his skin with fright.

  We all hit the sack that night with unsettled thoughts. First it was the sergeant’s tall tales back at Camp Custer; now this old-timer was getting us all worked up.