The Birth of the Semi-Incredible Hulk and Marshal Sparky the Dick

Instead of hooking-up again we motored down the river trying to make a little time; the rumble in our tummy's egging us on. Em and I were in front and that is when we saw the strange animal attempting to cross the river. Shortly after that we came to a field, so we slowed up to allow the others to catch us.

"General," I said pointing with my paddle, "is that the field?"
He squinted, surveying the shoreline. "Is there a down tree?" He yelled back.
"Nope."
"Keep going then." Back in the water went our paddles.

It is amazing how fast people can really travel on a river if they have a decent current and keep a steady pace with paddle strokes. The shoreline zips by as the tinkling sound of the canoe's ripple compliments the sounds of nature. Within fifteen minutes of our decision to camp the field with the fallen tree came into view, a welcome site if there ever was one.

We selected a nice spot along the shore to dock our canoe. There was a small little hump of land that served a a nice stop-block to wedge our canoe into so Em could climb out and then steady the canoe as I did the same. The Mule and James went about fifty feet downstream from us and Ducking and the General came to rest about fifty feet upstream. As soon as I got out of the canoe, Em and I grabbed the front and pulled it as far out of the water as we could. We got about a fourth of it out of the water when we stopped to peel back the tarp and take a what we could of the gear out of the canoe to lighten the load; then we repeated the process. We did that until the canoe was light enough to pull all the way out of the water. Then a roar broke the tranquil sounds of nature.

The roar came from James. I turned just in time to hear him say something about "unloading"the canoe and see him try to heave a beer and liquor laden cooler almost to the shore. Missed it by that much. I looked at Em and she at me, we then turned to Duckie and the General, all four of us just shrugged our shoulders and went about unpacking our gear. This was the annual Mule and (the now newly dubbed) Semi-Incredible Hulk fight. It has happened every year since he first started coming on the trip. It is almost like tradition. There's the blow-out, the cool-down period, the make-up then everybody is happy and the party continues. It just wouldn't feel like a canoe trip if it didn't happen. Although this year it did seem to come a little earlier than usual. Usually the "argument" happens at the Doons.

After the Fight and Fire

With a good chunk of our gear already out of the canoe I grabbed myself another cold one and headed to have a little chat with the General as to where to set up camp. I had also grabbed the shovel from our canoe, the one brought along to dig up the bottle of Windsor, to use to dig our a fire-pit. The entire field was covered in long, dried out and crunchy dead grass. The General and I walked over to the fallen tree.

"I remember sitting on that tree and cooking breakfast," I said.
"Yep, and we had my big tarp stretched out over to there to provide the shade," the General reminisced. I turned around to survey a spot to dig the pit, picking one about halfway between the fallen tree and the wood line I stuck the shovel into the soft earth.
"Sure is fucking dry," I commented as I just left the shovel and took a swig from my beer.
"Yep," the General replied. "Good you have the shovel. A fire could get out of hand real quick. Let me see your lighter." I handed my blaze orange camo lighter to the General, he bent down and flicked my Bic. Instantly a tiny fire sprung to life in the dead, dry grass. I knew the General was going to burn an area to create the fire pit. Then something we didn't expect to happen, but should have having just had a conversation about it, the little fire began to spread...and quickly. I pulled the shovel from the ground and handed it to the General. He took the flat side of the blade an attempted to squelch the fire, to our horror the fire did not die, but rather spread. What was only moments ago the size of a quarter was now the size of a large dinner plate. Another swipe of the shovel blade and the fire then became the size of a trashcan lid.

"Ah," I said with a touch of terror in my voice, "I think we are going to need some water!" I yelled over to Em. "Grab the water jug!" By now the fire had grown to and area the size of our tent and getting larger by the second. The General and I began to stamp at the fire, but it only seemed to spread it. Em got there with the water and the General tried to dose the flames with the water. On one hand he did prevent the fire from spreading towards our canoes and gear, but on the other hand the other side of the fire continued to lick greedy lips at the fresh fuel and feast. When the water in the jug ran out the our gear was safe, but the fire had by then tripled in size. It was quickly approaching some low lying pine branches from a tree near the fallen one, which is an oak by the way, and they caught. A jet of black smoke shot into the sky as the snap, crackle and pop of the pine needles succumbing to the flames sounded in the air. I said a little prayer to myself, "Please Lord don't let that tree catch completely". No sooner had I finished my little prayer when the flames died out and the tree stood with a few smoldering branches, the fire, however, continued to devour the dead grass as it moved on.

Everyone was using whatever they could to put the fire out. James, or Semi-Hulk as I will refer to him for now had grabbed our green tarp in the process of coming to help fight the fire and tried to use it to smother the flames. It make have aided us if it had been a blanket, and a wet one at that, nevertheless, the only thing that happened was he helped to spread the fire and melt the tarp. I still commend him for the effort. Sometimes it is tough to think clearly when in a panic.

I don't know how I ended up with it, but I had my small utility tote in my hand and was dipping water out of the river to fight the flames. I had tried to use the water jug, but it proved too slow in the filling process to be effective. I think Duckie and the Mule had grabbed the mess kit tote, dumped the contents and were using that for the fight. I recall Em asking if she should call 911, but in my eternal optimism I said no. I had a slight hope that we could get the situation under control and no one had to get in trouble for the damage being caused. However, within thirty seconds reality finally set in and I new we had a snowball's chance in hell of containing the fire. By now the fire had consumed and area the size of a baseball diamond infield an only getting bigger...oh how fucked we were.

This was our trail of water, showing where we were trying to fight the blaze.

"Call 911," I said in a defeated voice. "There is nothing we can do." I hung my head. In a selfish way I was happy that I hadn't started the fire, but I was feeling really bad for my uncle whom I love dearly. Again I prayed to the Good Lord to just let the fire consume the grass, don't let it serve as a catalyst for a forest fire.

We continued to fight the fire the best we could as the General made the call for help. At one point I had to stop fighting to grab the map so he could tell the operator the name of the road that crossed the last bridge we went under, it was County Road 42. I gave him the information and went back to fighting the fire, a futile attempt if there ever was one. Before long I stopped and dropped to my knees, sweating and panting from lack of breath. The fire had now grown to half the size of a football field, showing now signs of slowing and getting closer and close to the tree line. My God, what have we done.

We made our way back over the scorched earth towards our canoes. Gear from emptied totes littered the sea of dead grass. I righted my cooler and started to refill it with its emptied contents, trying to save as much of the ice as I could. The rest of the crew just stood in amazement at the power of the fire. Having finished refilling my cooler I cracked open a fresh beer and stared into the smoke filled sky.

"There's a plane," someone from the group yelled and pointed towards the south. Five minutes had passed, maybe a little more, in any case, I was impressed by the response time. The plane had to be the spotter because it began to circle our location. The fire had grown to the size of a football field and was now creeping into the treeline. I noticed that it had gone through several clumps of smaller trees that dotted the field, but hadn't burned much more than the dead stuff that was less than three feet high, so this added a glimmer of hope that the forest itself may not catch.

Still in a bit of shock from the events that were transpiring I did something that may or may not have been one of my greatest decisions of my life. I made the choice to take a meander through the burned area and check out where the fire was going. The field had a peninsula of trees that came out to a little past the fallen oak, and then curved back around to the north. I could see the fire through the trees as it moved that direction. I wanted to see how far the field went and what was back there. Off I went on my investigation.

As I rounded the peninsula I say to terror, and relief, that the fire was headed towards a swamp. Swamps had water, but because of our late spring, this one also had a lot of dead grass. At least the water may slow its progress. Then a movement caught my eye.

Focusing on the movement I saw that it was a tiny fawn, not much bigger than a large cat. It had hunkered down in between some trees which the fire was quickly closing in on. I surveyed the landscape for the mother, but didn't see anything but fire and more fire. Looking back at the fawn the fire was mere feet away. Then I did something stupidly heroic. I took off at a dead run for the fawn. Jumping the flames I landed next to the clump of trees, scooped up the fawn in my right arm, my left still held my beer, and took off through the woods back towards the canoes. The fawn began to bleat for its mother.

The grove area where at all started

By this time everyone was getting a little excited at my disappearance, especially Em and my sister. They had been calling for me to come back since I had first saw the fawn, but my concentration on the rescue prevented me from responding. I didn't want the little guy to burn up because of our lack of common sense. Nevertheless, as I made my way through the trees I called back that I was OK.

I emerged from the woods, with the fawn still bleating, to wide-eyed looks from the group. Duckie came up and snatched the fawn from my arms and asked where I had got it. I quickly relayed the story as I petted the little guy. I could tell from the way the spots lined up that it was a male. He continued to bleat for his mother, but seemed to relax a little in my sister's arms, almost like he knew that he was no safe from the flames.

The wind then shifted and the fire stated to move towards the peninsula, which was back towards the river where our gear and canoes were landed. The General suggested that we get out shit loaded back into the canoes just in case we had to make a quick getaway back onto the river. Without tying our gear in, or worrying about how the shit was balanced, we stuffed our gear back into the canoes, praying we didn't have to launch.

Suddenly the sound of a boat motor started to drown out the crackling fire as a john-boat with two people, a male and a female, came roaring down the river. They docked their boat between ours and Semi-Hulk's, then got out. Being from the area I instantly recognized the gal, but was a little unsure who the dude was, but I had an idea. The gal was wearing enough make-up to make Tammy Fay Baker jealous and the dude was easily twenty years her senior. In light of that we will call them Make-Up Girl and Sugar Daddy.

They started up with questions that we all expected. What happened? Who is in charge? What were we doing on private property? The General started to explain everything and even showed them our shovel and ax when the didn't believe that we had the tools to make a fire pit and contain a camp fire. Then Make-Up Girl asked where we were from. Duckie and I didn't say anything, however, when the General said he was from down south she commented that if figures people from the urban area of the state would come up an act like we owned the place. Most of us took that as an insult because we never intended for the fire to happen and that when we do this trip we take the utmost care in making sure that we leave a place in better condition that we found it, always have, always will.

Then Make-Up Girl noticed that Duckie was holding the fawn. She asked, "what the hell is that?" as she pointed at my sister. Duckie tried to tell the story of how I saved the fawn, but the bitch tried to make it out like we had kidnapped the deer and we were trying to take it as a pet. In hindsight I wished I would have said, "the fawn was going to be our supper, why do you think we started a fire. Fawns are tender and taste a lot like veil." Then she took out a pen and paper to take down the licence numbers on the canoe and saying that we were all fugitives and had probably stole the canoes from someone up-river. I thought to myself, "yeah right lady. We lugged four hundred pounds of gear through the woods to steal some canoes and a deer all because we were from the cities."

We were thinking that the land we were on was Sugar Daddy's, but learned that it was their neighbors. He had said something to Em and she said something back, then he said that if the land had been his he would have hung her. This really made my hackles stand up on end. I could understand why they were upset, who wouldn't be, however, we didn't run from the fire, we stuck around and called in for help, we had attempted to fight it, basically we were taking responsibility for our actions and didn't justify their insults. I then looked at Sugar Daddy and said, "dude I'd cut your fucking throat before you even got a chance to tie the noose." Looking back it was a dumb thing to say, but I was getting pissed at their false assumptions. All of us are good people that made a dumb choice...shit happens.

Another shot of that grove, you can see where we did stop it

About that time a firefighter dressed in yellow came walking through the smoke that smudged our surroundings. Instantly Make-Up Girl ran to him followed by Sugar Daddy and the General. I'm unsure as to what was said, but when Make-Up Girl walked away, she looked even more pissed off than before. I later learned she tried to get the General arrested by the fireman, but he said that he was only their to fight the fire and there wasn't anything he could do to take the General into custody. The General talked a little more with the firefighter, I'm sure he was just filling him in on the facts of the situation, which was the most important topic at the moment. Then the General rejoined us, walking up to Sugar Daddy and Make-Up Girl, who were still ranting about the fawn and the rest of us being the scum of society.

The General tried to reason a little longer with them, but his words were falling on deaf ears. The he noticed that they didn't have any life jackets in their boat or a visible fire extinguisher, as per the law in our great state, so he took down their boat information. This really pissed them off so they got back into the boat and took off upstream. We waved as they sped by, we were all happy to see them leave. They didn't need to add to the stress we were all under.

Shortly after Sugar Daddy and his woman left, the helicopter showed up. Below it hung a basket that looked to hold at least a hundred gallons or more. It swooped right down between the shorelines and dipped the bucket into the brown flowing waters, kicking up a mixture spray of wind and water; the sound of the engine reverberated back and forth against trees, making it sound louder than an AC/DC concert...then the pilot hit the gas. I had to hold my hat on my head as the accelerated force of the wind and water slammed into me. We watched as the helicopter climbed into the air, forcing the full bucket out of the water.

The Helicopter scooping water from the river

We couldn't see where it dropped that first load; my only guess is that it was where the worst part of the fire burned. Then it came back for another dip. Over and over we watched in amazement as the helicopter came in to take more salvation from the river that has given us, as well as many others, so much enjoyment over the years. Little by little, which was probably more like yards, the fire was extinguished by the two pilots, who's concentration never wavered. They kept the fire from coming through the peninsula, which kept us from having to do an emergency launch.

When the fire was close to being out, the General got a call from the local Conservation Office. He instructed us to proceed up stream to the bridge where we could meet him. Back to our canoe's we went. We preped them for launch; which basically meant that we launched them as they were, poorly packed. Yet we stopped along the shore less than a hundred feet from where we had originally landed; the General had gotten another call saying that we should stay put and Bob, the Conservation Officer, would come to us.

We stayed in the canoes because an all terrain vehicle on a track pulled up to the river with four or five fireman to fill the water tanks. The machine looked to be brand new, there was hardly a sign of wear and tear, and the firemen looked to be in good spirits. While dedicated to their job, their demeanor sort of told us that the fire was under control and they didn't have a major incedent on their hands. We breather a collective sigh of relief.

After ten minutes or so we decided to rel-and the canoes and wait for Bob on the shore. Our wait wasn't long when he showed up with a fireman at his side.

The General answered all of Bob's questions, even the one about the fawn. He agreed that I probably shouldn't have gone through the flames as a risk to my own safety, but he wasn't upset either. He was very cordial about the whole thing and was glad that we had shone some backbone and took responsibility for what had happened. He informed us that we had burned fifteen and a half acres of grass land and that the forest was for the most part safe.

Bob left us with a warning, but also said that this isn't going to be over; we still have to deal with the person that own's the land. As I learn more about the repercusions of our actions, I will update.

Crazy Joe in the charred field

Sometime during the corse of events I said we needed to give the General a new nickname. I suggested Smokey The Dick, but someone suggested we call him Fire Marshal Dick. We finally setteled on Sparky The Fire Marshal.

Even though we were happy that the fire didn't consume any of the major forest, we still held heavy hearts. Unsure of what to do we did the only thing we knew, we climbed back into our canoes and kicked off back into the river and headed down stream.

To Be Continued...until then I will remain...Crazy Joe