Vato Maldito by John "Bubbles" Gallegos, edited by Raoul Vehill

After being transferred to Susanville, I was trained as a firefighter for eighteen months. While in there, I met a few friends I had known in Colorado. When my training in forestry conservation was over, I was again transferred to a firefighting camp, about 50 miles from Reno Nevada. The camp was situated high in the mountains, in the cascades between Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta, two dormant volcanoes.

The Lava rich soil of that area is the source of the gigantic pine trees which grow in those mountains, some of them soaring well above 200 feet high. The nearest city to our camp was Red Bluff California, through which flows the mighty Sacramento River. In this entire world, I doubt one can find a

more beautiful land.

The crew I worked on mostly worked in camp, making heavy picnic tables which were spread throughout the mountain parks of California. The temperature that summer in 1964 often climbed well above 100 degrees. Our crew would work from 7am to 4pm. We were often called on to go on fire attack, wherever the call came from. We would work until the fire was quelled. Sometimes it would last a day or two.

If a fire lasted more than two weeks, by law, we were given a 3 day rest, then taken back to the fire line. It was brutal work, sixteen hours a day, 4pm to 8am daily. When the fire would finally end, we returned to camp exhausted, and allowed to rest three days before returning to work. We were paid 50 cents a day when we worked in camp, 50 cents an hour on the fire line. Enough to buy cigarettes, shampoo and stuff.

In one particular fire, in the Napa Sonoma wine region, I became separated from my crew and trapped by smoke and fire on a steep canyon wall. One moment, I was working side by side with my fellow crew members, trying to scrape a firebreak with hand tools. In what seemed like an instant, I was alone, fire blazing all around me.

The only way I could go was up the canyon wall. I climbed the steep slope til I came to a rock wall. There was nowhere I could go. The fire was all around me, licking my clothes and body. I was becoming weak from breathing the thick smoke. My back against the cliff, I could not see the top of it through the dense smoke, But I could hear my crew talking above me.

"Where's John?" I heard someone ask.

"He was cut off by the fire. He's still down there."

I hollered, "Hey you guys, I'm down here below you. I can't see you, but I can hear you. Throw we a rope or something?"

"We can't get back to the truck for a rope. We're cut off by the fire."

I placed my McLoud, the tool I was using, against the face of the cliff, and climbed atop it. I found a few handholds and climbed another 10 feet or so. My clothes were already on fire. I couldn't have gone back down if I had wanted, I found another handhold and climbed a few more feet. Then I looked up, trying to see through the thick smoke. I knew in my heart I was a dead man, but I found another handhold and climbed some more. Suddenly, I saw the buckle of a canteen belt swinging a few inches from my face.

"I got the belt!" I hollered, and was pulled to safety atop the cliff.

My rescuers doused out my burning clothing with canteen water.

"That was close," I said, thanking my saviors.

"That was nothing. It happens all the time," someone said.

But to me it was as if my Guardian Angel had reached through the smoke to rescue me. I just knew I was going to die that night and had already accepted the fact. My clothes were on fire and I couldn't see in any direction. It seemed a miracle to me.

About a week later, my boss pulled me from working on making cement benches and awarded me the job supervising the warehouse. The inmate who had had the job was paroled and I was given the position, surveying equipment and tools, keeping records of what material went out and what came in. Compared to firefighting, cement finishing and rescue work, it was gravy.

There were 120 men in the camp, four crews for the fires, one crew of six for in camp, office, laundry, cook, and me in the warehouse. I felt like I had won the lottery. I was taken to Susanville in June 1964, to meet the Parole Board. A Parole Board member set me back a year, because I had a silent robbery, in fact about a dozen. In prison vernacular a silent beef means charges which I wasn't charged with for lack of evidence, but considered guilty of by the system. I was returned to camp after meeting the Parole Board.

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