By Russ Farrell
We had ridden up the mountain
In the morning clear and still
To find a mighty wind a-raging
At the summit of the hill.
So that nice October morning
We laid our saws away
And headed for the valley
Till a safer falling day.
At nine o’clock she told me…
Me a-standing at our door,
“The town of Forks is burning,
Miles of forest are no more.
Men they’re going to need and many,
You had better eat and go.”
But I waited for I reasoned
In the evenings, fires will slow.
Sometime later came an old friend
From that logging town afire
With his family and belongings
Till they couldn’t be piled no higher.
They’d been sent out by officials
“Cause the water must be saved
So its power could be centered At the vortex of the blaze
We drove to Forks at sundown,
The winds ‘most died away’,
We passed through miles of forest land
Aglow like noon of day.
And as the darkness settled in
We walked into that town,
Saw logging sheds still smoking,
Black and twisted on the ground.
Saw Houses down to ashes,
Sid, named them one by one.
“This was Fred’s, and that was Jason’s…”
Then he took out on the run!
For across the street still standing
Loomed his house with shingles black,
For his home was where the men of Forks
Had turned the blazes back.
Where they faced the wild and raging fire
With puny stream and spray,
Had yielded to it house by house,
Fought, lost, been backed away.
Where the torrid wind, as if to prayer,
For one long moment, settled down,
Those men of Forks drenched down the flames
And saved their logging town.