A Day and a Night in Montana

Karl Brauneis was a smokejumper from 1977 to 1979. He made 50 jumps, his last on the Beaverhead just before he moved to Bonners Ferry and worked on the Bonners Ferry Ranger District as a forester from 1979 to 1988. 

By Karl Brauneis

Karl Brauneis

The men stood in line. There were 38 of them. Yesterday there were 46. But today there were only 38. They wore cotton jeans and shirts of khaki or blue. Like most of them, he wore the shrink to fit 501s. They all wore hardhats. The mid-morning sun warmed their backs as it filtered through the pine forest. Before them lay a line of tools.

A squad leader yelled to grab a tool and report to the foreman who stood at the end of the trees. They all moved. He looked at the tools. He knew which one to pick. There it was. A more slim handled Pulaski. He picked it up. It felt like his old 30-30 Winchester. The tool was balanced and a bit weight forward like the octagon barrel rifle. It felt perfect in his hand. Some Pulaskis had a wider handle. He didn’t like those.

The men reported with their tools. A few had selected shovels. The foreman yelled at them to go back and get a real tool. The squad leaders berated the shovel men. They returned with Pulaskis.

They lined out and began to dig. They cut through the bear grass. It was tough to dig and sometimes the tool bounced off. He swung again and again. There was a rhythm to it as the men pushed along peeling the earth away. They never quit except for a few short breaks.

As night approached the squad leaders broke out the head lamps. They were bulky and the cord to the battery pack in the back always got in the way. The lights turned on and they dug away. It was nice to get in the timber where the digging was easier. But soon they were back in the bear grass. The squad leaders walked along the line and he could see, no, feel their lights shinning on him at times. He heard one leader call out a man and tell him he was through. He had to keep working, keep working, keep working. He swung the Pulaski and repeated it over and over again in his mind and in his hands.

It must have been after midnight. Yes, sometime after midnight. The sky to the east was still dark but there was a sense of dawn. Was it the birds? If only it would rise. Yes, think about the sun rising. That’s what he would do. Think about the sunrise. “The Sun Also Rises.” The stories. But now he could barely hold the tool. His hands were frozen in a clasp around the handle and he seemed to be losing his grip. Hold on he thought. Hold on for daylight.

A squad leader walked up the line. To each man he said, “you can quit now, or I can tape your hands to the Pulaski.” A few quit. Tape my hands he told the squad leader and he did. He remembered the athletic tape from college. The trainer used the same technique to tape his shins. Once it got so bad the coach had him take two weeks off to recover. Now, the tape gave him the added strength to hold the tool. It was the “Never Quit” tape that athletes know so well and it worked.

The sun rose and it was early morning. They stopped to eat and the squad leader cut the tape and the tool from his hands. It felt good but his hands remained like a claw. He worked to stretch them out as he ate.

A row of orange packs lay next to the men. Each pack weighed 100 pounds. They finished eating and went to the packs. He sat down and put one on but could not get up. The squad leader laughed and said, “Put the pack on, then roll over on to your stomach and do a push up to get up.” It worked and he got up. The squad leader looked at him. He looked bigger than life. There seemed to be a twinkle in his eye. He would be the same squad leader who told him it was a good day to die before his first jump. He knew they would all jump. It was the twinkle in the eye of the squad leader that said they would. It was the squad leader who jumped first. The rest followed. But that hadn’t happened yet.

They all stood up. Another foreman with a 100 pound pack on yelled “Follow me” as he crashed through the woods. They followed. No one could stay with the foreman but they kept each other in sight.

Three miles later they came out on a road. It was level and it felt good to his feet and legs. It felt good to stand on flat ground again. A squad leader said the bus was up the road. Sweat poured down his face to sting his eyes as he started up the grade. He worked with a sleeve to wipe the sweat away and to see. Soon, the yellow bus appeared and a foreman stood there with a stop watch. “You made it,” he said as he placed his pack with the others and boarded the bus. It felt good to sit on the padded seat next to the open window. Others were there and soon more of the men arrived.

A few did not make the time limit but they made it out. The foreman wrote each of them a warning. Three warnings and you were out. That would be their first and hopefully their last.

The men were all on the bus now. There was a little chatter and talk as the bus started up and drove down the dirt road. He was on the sunny side of the bus and soon fell asleep.