Free Dirt Work by Christine Byl Page B

her chosen boulder with the toe of my boot. It didn’t budge. Reba dug around the edges with the pick mattock until she exposed a corner enough to ram the tip of the rock bar beneath. She pushed the bar downward and forced the rock up and out of its bed. Though the tool was self-explanatory, its mechanical principles obvious to any dummy, there were little tricks, smarter ways of use. Through trial and error, I learned to reef a rock upward with hardly any effort, jam rocks beneath it to hold it at an apex, and reposition. You could move a rock forward by sliding the bar under the front corner and rowing it along. You could jack a boulder up high so that it would flip over and move itself. You tried to choose a rock uphill of your work site: one flip could start a fast tumble and all you had to do was step out of the way. I grew fond of the rock bar. I was small and it was elegant. Together, we approximated strength, which I coveted more than a milkshake on day six of a hitch.
    Of course, the rock bar amplified the potential of people much stronger than I, so their advantage remained. In Max’s hands, the rock bar looked like a kitchen utensil. The same tool that I had to heft with two hands he’d curl in his fingers like a stray toothpick. I could not imagine what it would be like to be that powerful. At six-foot-three and a lean 210 pounds, Max never needed help. In his fifteenth season working trails, he knew how to do everything. He intimidated me from afar, his mythic quality buoyed by dogged stoicism. But before long, I realized Max was shy and a little awkward, kinder than he seemed when I first saw him tossing tools into the trucks. He took trailwork very seriously, could lose his temper in an unpredictable flash, but he was also humble, and the slightest teasing would make him blush. I tried to make Max smile with pointed ribbing, or by telling stories full of loony details, my hands like frenzied birds.
    We worked for weeks one summer on the Highline Trail, Glacier’s crown jewel carved out of bedrock, and Max ran the seventy-pound rock drill, harnessed by ropes perpendicular to the granite walls, his forearms as big around as my thighs. I hammered away at hard-to-reach cracks with the tip of the rock bar and shoveled shards of busted rock off the side of the trail. At lunch break, buoyed by the crew’s high spirits and the panoramic view, I planted the rock bar on its end, bent my lips to its handle like a floor mic, and belted out “I Love Rocks and Rolls,” tweaking the lyrics for a trails verse, swinging my hips to make Joan Jett proud, and out of the corner of my eye I was pleased to see Max shaking his head, a loose smile on his face. We all have our strengths.
    Glacier lilies bloom where snow just left, as allusive as if winter trailed a scent on its exit. Avalanche lilies, as they’re called, flood couloirs and runout zones where late snow lingers. Bears churn up the ground in spring, focused on lily roots. Native people prize them in soup or raw. Unlike summer-lingering fireweed or dogged larkspur, these spiky yellow lilies blow through fast, following snowline as it creeps upward, melting. Sometimes they poke through patches of slush. In June down low, in August at high elevation, one week snow, one week blooms, next week gone. Here’s to you, glacier lily, you cusp flower, winter’s bright shadow.
    What tourists say to a traildog: Digging for gold? Wish I were young again! Who’d you kill? Do you pick up after the horses? Find what you’re looking for yet? What a commute! Where’s your ranger hat? Well isn’t that nice, you’re cleaning up the forest. Are you on the chain gang? What did you do to deserve this work? Thank you for your efforts. Nice office! Seen any bears? Doing time?
    A woman on a trail crew is like a dog in a swimming pool. Even if it can swim, when it jumps in, it gets noticed. The simple fact of showing up for work female