If he needed firewood, he went and got it. It was his custom for over ten years. He lived quietly by himself on a few acres in Macdoel. He housed a few mares, and if the neighbors' stock came to his land, fuck it, he wasn't eating the yard.

         He'd wake up before dawn to cuss the cold, cuss the embers left in the stove for being so weak. He knew kindling must be administered before he would sit comfly in his chair. If it were a Sunday he would listen to and often chime in on gospel songs that echoed from the radio. Then he'd cuss the faggots that forced their ways into his home via commercial break. 

       Klamath Falls was "too far," Yreka was "way too fucking far." So unless he had business with the folks at Social Security, every clerk at every convenience store between the two towns would find him amongst their graces. 

        He had mannerisms indicative of a man that had lived through excessively harsh times. When the firewood stock began to dwindle, the strain crept in. He'd start to cuss more, questioning whether the fire needed another log.  He'd start taking mental inventory of how many bags of beans he possessed. He knew every shred of meat that he froze and every can good he stored. He lived accordingly to a man that was aware of how quickly the land he lived in could take a life. And it was justified.

        At the ripe age of 76, he left home alone one clear sunny day in late February. Searching for firewood, traveling up Mount Hebron to almost 4,300 feet altitude he found his prize. There was about six inches of snow on the ground, but the temperature was nearing 42° farenheit and he wouldn't need to freeze while he worked.

     He wedged into a lodgepole pine and reckoned it to fall to the southeast and so conducted his business accordingly. He worked through the tree with his chinsaw, making sure to cut just enough so that he'd be able to remove his piece without hesitance. The most novice mistake a lumberjack could make was to sink his saw into a tree at an angle so that it required help to unwedge. 

      Right about the time he'd completed his wedge a violent and surprising gust came from the east and the tree tangled amongst the split. The wedge he'd created was consumed as if were a wedge of potato at a county fair closing time. It all happened a bit more quickly than he was prepared for and the tree fell to the west and caught him spellbound as he looked up at the massive beast. 

       It was like a lightning strike, when his body reverberated off the rocky ground. He kept his eyes closed until he had mentally prepared himself for what was to come when he opened them. The tree had fallen across the full length of his body, straddled between his legs and pinning his right shoulder to the forest floor. 

         Amazingly he remained quite calm. It felt like overbearing electricity running up and down his body, and as time went on this escelated to a sharp pain. He dug his feet into the ground and shifted to the left and right to try to move the trunk more to his left side, but he felt he only succeeded in moving the tree further to his right. It pinned him further. The sun was right above and shined directly in his eyes. 

    He first started to reason with the earth the way his reclusive ego had granted.

         "OH FOR FUCKS SAKE," he screamed into the void, hoping it would be heard.

        It was only 15 minutes before his pleads took a different tone.

         "HHHHEELLLLLLPPPP!"

      "FOR FUUUUCKKKS SAAAAKKE! HEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPP!"

        The words echoed across the valley but if anybody heard, nobody reacted.

      Now his voice had grown hoarse and there was a fire in the back of his throat. There was only white disrupted by the shooting of obscure wood that sporadically branched out of the ice.

Finally,  the same fire that found its way into his throat stimulated the fire of his conscious and he turned his face to the right and started lapping at the snow. He recieved a semi-sweet half mouthful of ice cold water every few minutes. 

      But as was custom, and was according to the conditions before determined by him to make this venture, the snow began to melt. He never stopped yelling, he never stopped reaching for the snow until a quarter hour after it was out of his reach.

      He was found four days later by the only commuter that passed this high towards the peak of Mount Hebron. They brought his pickup off the mountain and it ran well. He wouldve preferred dying over watching somebody else drive his truck. So there wasn't any real friction there.