If you're going thru hell...

His August of house-sitting for a girlfriend’s rich, West Vancouver, parents had dwindled with that relationship. Christine was starting to feel sorry for him and that didn’t help the old self esteem much. He found it harder and harder to be “fun to be with”. Although, Amos mused, he never did perform well under pressure.

The last of his Worker’s Compensation claims paid for one last Physio treatment. He’d twisted his back pretty good throwing boxes of tree seedlings around on the tree-planting crew that spring. Painkillers had gotten him through the rest of the ten week planting season. In the mountains, living in tents, a crazy instant community had formed among the treeplanters. They shared the same food, weather, and work. The different social scenes they came from didn’t seem to matter up there.

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Turns out the crew played just as hard as it worked. On the way to their third block, they came down out of the mountains like bees and swarmed the only pub in a little valley town. Avola had a gas station and a post office and not much else. Except – there was a great little picturesque log pub. Not fancy but far from a dive. It had a warm and inviting character, a good rockin sound track, and was almost empty on a Tuesday evening.
The crew knew each other pretty well by this time and were really letting loose and crazy. Ten days of pushing themselves to their physical limits required a response of pushing themselves to their alcoholic limits. The twenty of them managed to clean out the bar’s fridges and kegs, and were working on the booze when the owner showed up and cut them all off. It was in the fun and hilarity of that night that Christine and Amos had fallen together as a couple.
The thin mountain air; the stunning views from their hillside workplaces; the tough conditions and hard work, made Amos feel very alive, and very happy. He was not a great planter. The ground was a long way down and he lacked an athlete’s trained inner push. His natural inclination was to find a way around the pain and meet up with those who had a talent for suffering on the other side.
No, Amos had more of a talent for fun. He could make people laugh – not as a joke-teller or clown, but with timely little bits of wit thrown into a day that made things roll along; poking the fire to make it burn a little brighter. He wouldn’t often take the lead, but he would go along with anything, or anyone, for a ride and a laugh.

He was especially attracted to anyone who would laugh at his sense of fun and Christine’s laugh was strong and light. It gushed out of her clear and tumbling like a mountain stream. She found Amos fun to be with and he was more fun when she was with him.

It was on the first day of the third block that Amos wrenched his back. He was helping Bill throw boxes of seedlings into the back of the pick-up when he felt that familiar sharp twinge about a handspan above his tailbone. Amos had injured himself this way before. Two summers ago he’d done a number on his back swinging bags of concrete for a pool company. He limped through the rest of the day. Every bend to plant a tree was accentuated with a searing stab of pain in his left lower back.

The next day he went to town and picked up pain-killers and muscle-relaxants at the clinic. When, at the end of that plant, the pills had failed to free him from the pain, he and Bill agreed on a plan to get him through the rest of the short tree-planting season.

The crew’s productivity was good but the government inspector was finding a high percentage of rejects – seedlings with exposed roots, roots not planted straight down deep enough but with a bend, trees planted too close together. Bill would keep Amos on the crew as a tree-checker doing quality control for fifty bucks a day. Amos realized that he wasn’t going to make the bundle of cash for his first year of law school in Ottawa like he’d planned, but, what else was he going to do? He was having the time of his life with this mountain family – take away the sweat and toil and it would be like getting paid to camp and hike in the mountains.

Amos soon found that he enjoyed telling others what to do and how to do it. He did his best to not be an asshole - use his humour and diplomatic easy ways to encourage them along. He’d approach the planters with a big smile if it was a beautiful morning - or a sympathetic grunt and complaint if it was raining. His approach was to make a common enemy of the Ministry of Natural Resources Checker. He’d point out their mistakes through her eyes.
Verna was a local girl; a mountain woman; earth mother. Even though he demonized her a bit to the crew, he actually felt honoured to be following around the mountainside quizzing her about life in the Rockies. She was so healthy and so mature. Verna wasn’t a decade older than Amos but she seemed to belong in the natural beauty that still felt like living in a postcard to him. She was a mountain lioness to his city alleycat.

To the crew, Amos was so obviously afraid of coming across like a picky, power-tripping, jerk that they ended up wanting to help him out. They slowed, sacrificing speed (money) to plant more carefully. Poorly planted trees would look bad on him –not to mention the fines their company would get hit with from the Ministry - and he sought out their help in a needy, little brother, kind of way. It was surprising and a little disarming. For such a big, strong, smart and happy guy, Amos’ watery eyes were always searching you out for approval.

One night it happened that the crew’s women found themselves alone in the mess tent and conversation turned to Amos. Christine wasn’t there so they started in about the couple – how good they seemed together but - Amos’ bad boy eastside rough patches were a strange mix for a rich girl West Van debutante like Christine. Darlene laughed “Oh, that Amos can adapt and swim in most waters. He just might be able to pull it off.”

Barb nodded, she wondered out loud if the others had noticed how much of a chameleon Amos was?
“What do you mean?” they asked digging for the goods, leaning in, curiosity peaked.
“Well, I first noticed it when he started talking to Claude with a French accent.” Barb smiled as eyes widened and heads slowly started nodding. “Then I started watching him a little closer.” Barb was a doing her Doctoral work in Languages and Semiotics. “He can change his diction, his vocabulary, even adjust his dialect to fit yours.”
“Wow, what a phony!” scoffed Olga.
“It’s actually a highly developed social talent.” explained Barb “he uses it to put you at ease and make you feel comfortable. He makes you feel at home - like you’re talking to a family member. I don’t think he even realizes that he’s doing it. It’s kind of endearing.”
There was a moment of thoughtful silence in the circle.

“Of course,” Barb continued, “he could also use it to con you and suck you in.” The hairs on the women’s necks raised in unison as spines stiffened and they pulled back from the huddle.
“Will he use his powers for good or for evil?” Barb teased them and with a “hmmphh” or two the subject shifted and they carried on dissecting the crew’s interplay, intercourses, and social evolutions. It was a dirty job – but – as Bill liked to say - someone had to do it.



The season was coming to an end with the arrival of July’s blistering heat. There were no more misty mornings where the crew woke up and ate their breakfast in the midst of a soggy mountain hugging cloud. The curtain of mist was pulled back and the sun was with them from the time they first threw back their tent flaps to the time the crawled back in dirty and weary and a little richer. This was their last block. And it turned out to be the worst. Instead of the jungle-gym tangle of left behind scrub trees to climb over and through, this block had been burned clear.

A controlled Ministry burn had left a blanket of black ash an inch thick over the whole clear cut. By midday, the sun would take the surface temperature up over 100 degrees. Even in early morning, the ground was throwing off a low heat.

This meant that the ash would fry the tree seedlings before they’d get a chance to start growing. So, the planters would have to scrape away a 12 inch circle clear of the ash. They’d get an extra 2 cents per tree for their trouble but it slowed their progress considerably. The heat of the sun would suck the strength and sweat out of them as if with a straw. It seemed an especially cruel way to end a physically grueling season.

Amos was truly happy that he wasn’t planting. Even though he was gonna end the season with only a third of what the others had made, he’d loved the time spent with this mountain ragtag family. His back still stung with every step but the pain seemed worth the pleasure. As sorry as he was that their mountaintop high was coming to an end, he was also really looking forward to traveling down to the coast with Christine and Chuck and Hannah. Christine had invited them to stay at her parent’s condo at Whistler. She said they could probably also visit the summer cottage on the Sunshine Coast if it wasn’t being used by her parent’s friends already.

Bill had him carrying extra water from the camp up to the crews. On his third run of the morning, Bill pointed him up over a ridge towards the east side of the block where he’d find Barb’s team planting. He put the jugs into empty tree bags, slung them over his shoulders wincing with the extra weight, and started his ascent.
At least there were no fallen trees to climb over with this burned block. The ash crunched under his boots like gravel and sent up little puffs of black dust with every step. The sun was heavy on his back and neck like a hot hand pressing down. The tree bags bounced and tugged with every step. He put his chin down and leaned into his trudging Sisyphus task.

He broached the ridge and discovered a further obstacle. A thicket of black burnt trees lay in a little gulch between him and slope ahead. They’d been scorched of their foliage but not incinerated. The fire must have swept up across the gulch, leaping it for better fuel on the other side. He could make out the crew up, almost at the top of the clear cut, another half mile up. The thicket ran all across the mountain’s ridge maybe thirty, forty yards deep. He could try to walk around it – although it stretched right into the forest with no end in sight. Or, he could push his way through. Extend his suffering in long walk around, or intensify it with a quick push through.
He pushed forward. There was no obvious path through. The short, thick, poles stood dense together like burnt stakes in the ground. Their branches were brittle and broke off easily as Amos forced his way. There was just enough room to get your body past each pair of stakes, then you’d have to sidestep and push ahead through the next space. No straight rows like the tree planters left behind – this was Nature’s chaotic maze.
Sadistic Scientists couldn’t have come up with a more cruel psychological game to put rats through. Amos pushed his way forward into the test. The charred branch stubs scratched at his exposed arms and face. With every step they’d catch at his sweat drenched T-shirt and pants causing him to have to stop and unhook himself from their clutches. The tree bags of water would also get caught on a branch behind him and he’d have to spin around and tug them free. About halfway through the thicket, Amos began to stop stopping.

A fury had got hold of him. Like a bear swarmed with bees, he began thrashing at his attackers, throwing his weight forward against the branches, no longer caring about the tears at his clothes and flesh. The heat had toasted the patience right out of him. He was in a senseless place, he’d passed beyond reason and care and an animal fury had taken his mind and was driving his body against care of self or soul. Control was somewhere ahead of him and instinct took from him the option of stopping. To stop would be to resign himself to hell’s eternity there. “If you’re going through hell – keep going” was the voice in him – human or animal or holy – he couldn’t tell. Nor could he stop to wonder what he’d done to deserve this. His purpose had never been so focused.

“If there is a hell” he muttered through clenched growling teeth “I must be in it now.” By uttering this complaint, he now felt the attention of the spirit world upon him. He’d named it and by the power of word, had called forth the presence – at least in the presence of his own mind - the angels and demons that were taking bets on him. Did he have the guts to keep it together? Or, would he lose it? Would his soul let slip his mind’s grip? Let his sense evaporate - sucked like so many drops of sweat up into the sun’s thirsty atmosphere – dropped into dust and ash at his feet?

The voices asking these questions, stopped him in his tracks. Amos took a deep breath. There was something sweet in that breath - different from the hot panting breaths he’d been sucking. Attention paid now - Amos thought he could hear the rustle of a falling stream. He took six careful steps and stopped again. The sound was like a drink. He could feel the cool sound touch his mind and find his cerebral cortex. It trickled down his spine and found his balls slowly filling gut with calm and hope.
The hope of relief transformed him and he shook off the burdens of skin and muscle. This renewed strength hurried him on. It wasn’t the mad dash that had driven him before. He was still catching more scratches than he would have with a slower, steady pace, but the growing sound of water tumbling over rocks and into his ears drew him with calm instead of the panic driven into him by the heat.

The last few yards of the thicket, when he could see clear ground ahead, he started kicking over the poles in his way – snappin them off with the force of his whole weight in each kick. “Get the fuck out of my way” his boots were telling those trees. Clearing the thicket – finally – fuck! - he peeled the tree bags and his slimy torn shirt and boots and socks and pants off his trembling limbs. He stepped into the stream; into water that had started the day as snow. The stream grabbed his feet and the sensation was pure toe to head orgasm. He turned facing down the mountain, looking back at his torture-test and dropped his naked butt down onto a rock only twelve inches under water. It pushed the hot breath right out of him. He let it out in a crazed laugh-yelp-hoot of victory. He lay back, up into the stream, across sharp wet rocks as if it were a cool green lawn. The ice-water tumbled over his shoulders and swept away the last of the heat and hurt. He tilted his head back into the tumble and the freezing water filled his ears and eye sockets and open mouth. He lifted his head and spat it out – a newborn spitting embiotic fluid from its lungs.
And that was how Barb and Mike and Renee found him. Naked as a baby, giggling with a shameless wide grin on his silly face. They’d heard his holler from the midst of the thicket and had quickly trundled down to see what’d happened.

“What are you laughing at?” it was Barb’s voice full of delight at this sight of Amos finally vulnerable and free. Amos pulled himself up to his elbows. “You all look like fried shit.” They had big grins on their faces – apparently they found his naked near-corpse amusing. He climbed to his feet and after splashing them all - up onto the bank beside Barb. He reached over to the tree bags by his discarded boots and pulled out the bottles of water.
“I brought you guys some water” he explained – waiting for his hero’s welcome. Mike stepped forward grabbing the offered bottle. He twisted off the lid, took a sip, and turned it upside down at arm’s length. Amos’ jaw dropped with the falling water. Mike stepped over to the stream, and filled it up. Then, he lifted it high to his mouth and poured it down his throat letting it splash down his neck and chest and lifting the last of it up over his head for an ice-cold shower. Barb was killing herself laughing. Mike looked over chuckling at Amos’s sorry expression “Thanks for the drink man. We found this stream on our way up this morning.”

There was one final crew party but it was subdued. Members of the crew had already started to drift off to their next destinations. Some hoped to get on with fire-fighting crews deeper in the interior. Others were heading back east to Ontario. Amos knew that if he was going to pull together enough cash for a school year, he should be doing the same - heading home and looking for more work fast. But he wasn’t ready to head back to Ontario yet.
He hadn’t come this far without making it all the way west – as far as he could go. There was more adventure in the trip yet – he knew it. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to find on the coast. He knew that he was running from his future as much as he was running for it. But he didn’t let that voice talk much. It could be shut up with beers and plans for the next day’s road trip.