My name is Dodge, but then you know that It's written on the chart there at the foot end of the bed They think I'm blind, I can't read it I've read it every word, and every word it says is death So, Confession - is that the reason that you came Get it off my chest before I check out of the game Since you mention it, well there's thirteen things I'll name Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters August 'Forty-Nine, north Montana The hottest day on record, the forest tinder dry Lightning strikes in the mountains I was crew chief at the jump base, I prepared the boys to fly Pick the drop zone, C-47 comes in low Feel the tap upon your leg that tells you go See the circle of the fire down below Fifteen of us dropped above the cold Missouri waters Gauged the fire, I'd seen bigger So I ordered them to sidehill and we'd fight it from below We'd have our backs to the river We'd have it licked by morning even if we took it slow But the fire crowned, jumped the valley just ahead There was no way down, headed for the ridge instead Too big to fight it, we'd have to fight that slope instead Flames one step behind above the cold Missouri waters Sky had turned red, smoke was boiling Two hundred yards to safety, death was fifty yards behind I don't know why I just thought it I struck a match to waist high grass running out of time Tried to tell them, Step into this fire I set We can't make it, this is the only chance you'll get But they cursed me, ran for the rocks above instead I lay face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters And when I rose, like the phoenix In that world reduced to ashes there were none but two survived I stayed that night and one day after Carried bodies to the river, wonder how I stayed alive Thirteen stations of the cross to mark to their fall I've had my say, I'll confess to nothing more I'll join them now, because they left me long before Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri shore NOTE: This song is inspired by Norman MacLean's book 'Young Men and Fire' about the Mann Gulch fire, August 1949. When reading I kept coming back to the image of Dodge, who survived the inferno, dying of Hodgkin's disease. Fate, which had saved him at 33, took him at 38. (Notes James Keelaghan, 'A Recent Future')