The Banker, page 6
But perhaps not. She didn’t know how innocent a German Baptist boy might be.
She was a frequent Sunday dinner guest at the Blessings. But they didn’t talk religion, they talked climate change, economics, and farming. And sometimes education. Deborah Blessing was the school teacher for the K-8 grade school the community ran. The kids then went to Pullman to high school as a transition to the secular world of the university. Although many of the kids went to Northwest Nazarene down in Nampa, which could hardly be considered a secular university. But some came to the University of Idaho. She knew Jacob had actually gone to University of Washington.
She liked being there. There was a serenity to how they lived that appealed to her, although she wasn’t interested in joining the church or adopting the lifestyle. And it was pretty much an all or nothing commitment. But Sunday dinner? With excellent conversation? She looked forward to the invites all winter.
So Mark was a godsend. A reliable young man who accepted her authority as his boss, and worked hard. What more could she ask?
It wasn’t his fault that Bethany had wormed her way into her heart. Still, she had committed to working Sundays, and last Sunday had been fun. Marilee was pretty sure that Bethany knew she was pregnant, but she didn’t say anything. And she apparently hadn’t told her father either. She appreciated all of that. It felt good to get back into the saddle, and to ride with someone who liked riding as much as she did. They’d gone riding to check the water tanks.
They were holding, Marilee thought with relief. It was the third week of September. They were going to make it through another drought year. The natural springs of the ranch had been one of the things that drew the original Dupont to the area. And they had been key to the success of the ranch over the century and a half since then. Deep springs, tapped for the stock tanks, that so far had never run dry. Knock on wood.
But she’d be glad when they got some rain.
Marilee got the warning text from the volunteer fire department with a beeping alarm at 1 p.m. that Friday. She looked at Mark Blessing who looked back at her with alarm. She swallowed hard. There was only one sender who had that alarm: the fire department.
She looked at the message: This is not a drill. Fire in the Palouse Plateau management area. 50 miles due west. 0 percent contained. Planes will scramble from La Grande. ETA unknown. Area homesteads under evac notice level 3. Colfax is at warning level 2. Scrambling all volunteers. Repeat all volunteer firefighters.
She showed him the text. “Call your father, ask him to come here,” she said. “I’ve got to go to the station. Too many firefighters are working during the day. Your father will know what to do.”
He nodded, and pulled out his own phone.
Marilee looked around the farmyard and hoped it would still be here when she got back.
Her stuff was in the truck; she kept it there, behind the driver’s seat. Boots, bibbed coveralls, jacket, hard-hat, gloves. All waiting just in case. She sent a message back to dispatch: On my way.
She turned around the truck, and headed down the road to the station. She was grim. It couldn’t be drier. There were fires all over the Pacific Northwest. It seemed like half the region was up in flames. Resources to fight this one would be limited. She swallowed hard, and focused on the tasks ahead, not the big picture. Nothing she could do about that.
She pulled into the parking lot of the small cement structure. She was one of the closest. And one of the few who weren’t holding down a day job in town. Still she wasn’t the first one there. James had beaten her. Of course, he would. She smiled fondly as she climbed out of the truck. He’d been old when she was a child. He didn’t live far away; he had a old trailer on a bit of property he owned, or leased, she wasn’t sure which. And he lived by the police radio and ham radio set up he had there.
“What do we know?” she asked as she pulled open the door. The building had a small office, a larger meeting room, two locker rooms, and the garage that housed two firetrucks, one for firefighters and their gear and hoses, and the second an old pumper truck meant to carry water. Hoses did no one any good where there were no hydrants unless you carried your water with you. And where they were going, there wasn’t going to be anything.
“It’s fast,” he said tersely. He was usually a garrulous old man who talked when he had a chance because he lived alone too much. Marilee could relate. But today he was on task — the man he’d been thirty years ago. “Lightning strike. Fifty miles out. They’ve called the planes in from La Grande, but a lot can happen in the four hours it will take before they’re here.”
If then, Marilee thought. There were bigger fires that were sucking down all the resources the feds and the state could throw at them.
“Wind?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Headed this way, Marilee,” he said.
There were a couple of other men there now. James was looking at the map. “Here,” he said, and he pointed to an area. He’d been the fire chief once, decades ago. “We’ve got to establish our response here.”
Marilee looked around the men who were gathering in the room. They were pulling on jackets and pants, shouldering their gear, grabbing hard hats. Enough men for the main truck to head out.
“Who can we expect to help?” she asked, still studying the map. Studying where the fire was, and what direction it was moving in. Toward Dupont Ranch, she feared. It was going to come down the ranch.
“Most resources are headed toward Colfax,” James said, nodding toward the radio he’d been listening to. “Rightly so. Lewiston-Clarkston is heading in from the south though.”
“Tractors,” someone said. “We need a phone tree. Tractors and firebreaks wherever we can.”
James nodded. “I’ll get that started,” he promised. “But we’re short a driver. George called in, he can’t make it. He got bucked off a horse yesterday and broke his ankle. Can’t drive that thing with a broken ankle.”
Men snorted. Not many could drive that beast with two good ankles. Modern trucks were a hell of a lot easier to drive.
Marilee swallowed. She looked around the men who were there. Carl would drive the big rig. But she was the only one who could drive the old beast — it was just like wheat truck she’d learned to drive on, she told herself, and then repeated it for the others. “Just like that old wheat truck,” she said. The older men chuckled. They’d seen her drive it for her dad.
“Marilee? Are you sure?” Carl said worried. “I can head out, and someone is likely to show up if we wait a bit.”
Her usual duty station was right here. Coordinating the men, dispatching them, monitoring the radio. There was no one who knew the land better, who could mobilize people and resources better.
She mentally went down the roster, and she shook her head. “Next driver is probably an hour behind,” she said. “No, it’s going to have to be me. I’ll take it out, and by the time I get back, someone else will be here to drive it. James can organize things here.”
There were two issues that had Carl worried, she knew. One was the sheer muscle strength that old pumper would require to drive. No power steering. No nothing. And two, she was short. She’d practically have to drive it standing up. She should know. She’d driven their old wheat truck that way a couple of seasons, before her dad finally broke down and bought a newer one.
There were 70 miles. Bad roads. And then 70 miles back. If they could get back. She’d known of crews who had to fight their way out. And of course, the one thing none of them did know: she was 14 weeks pregnant. She weighed the factors.
And there was Dupont Ranch. She couldn’t ask for a better person than Jacob Blessing to take on the defense of the ranch. But still, it was her ranch, her place to defend. And it would be a rally point for a lot of the small homesteads and ranches. If the fire forced them out, they’d go there. It was the plan. If the fire came down the draw, Dupont Ranch was what stood between the fire and Pullman.
Evacuating Colfax was one thing. Population 3000. Pullman? 30,000 people plus another 30,000 students?
Which gave her an idea. She sent a text to her friends. All of them, her squad, her breakfast companions, her department colleagues, all of them: Fire headed toward Dupont Ranch. See if you can rally students. We need muscle to build fire breaks. Dupont Ranch will be the headquarters.
Bring drinking water.
“All right,” she said to Carl. “Let’s go. You lead, I’ll follow.”
Jacob Blessing’s brother-in-law, David Ram, swung up in the cab with her. “Show me how it’s done,” he said tersely. “And Jacob said to tell you, he’s at the ranch. He and Mark will coordinate everything there.”
She swallowed hard and turned the engine over. As other volunteers showed up, they’d come up behind them in their trucks. She paused, rolled down the window and tossed James the keys to her rig. It would go anywhere.
“In case someone needs it,” she said. James nodded and saluted her.
She backed out of the station and followed Carl out.
It was 1:30 p.m.
GAIL TREMONT WAS JUST heading into the rehearsal class, when she got Marilee’s text and blanched.
“What?” Jake Abbott said. He was standing in the back of the room. He stiffened up when he was seated, and so he waited until the last minute.
“There’s fire,” she said. “Marilee says it’s headed toward the ranch. It must be bad — she’s asking for student volunteers.”
She could almost see Jake shift from easy-going college student and playwright to the Marine he’d been before injuries had sent him home from Afghanistan on a stretcher. It was his play they were putting on this fall — a play about Afghanistan that had won the Other Voices competition. He might have taken less fire in Afghanistan than he was getting over this play.
“Put the word out,” he said. “Convoy from the northwest parking lot. I need a map. Who’s my contact?”
Gail thought about that. She didn’t know the answers, but she figured the wildfire management program would be a good place to start. She got a text from Angie. She was on the move. She’d stopped at Albertsons and bought out their water, and she’d stop at Safeway too.
Good girl, she thought, and made a mental note to reimburse her for the costs. Angie’s money was tight, really tight.
She looked at her phone again. “Rebecca says she’s bringing the experts — she doesn’t say who — to the parking lot.”
“Good enough,” Jake said. He looked around the room. “Anyone know anything about fighting a fire?”
People looked at each other and shook their heads. “No, but I know how to keep hungry men fed,” Becca Stanford said. Becca was one of the most competent people Gail knew — she was the graduate TA for Other Voices and for the production class. People nodded at that.
“Let’s move, people,” Jake said. And he was out the door, Gail following his lead. She might be the professor, but she knew a real leader when she saw one.
Rebecca Jones, another one of Marilee’s squad as locals teased them, was conferring with an older, gray-haired man in bibbed coveralls in the parking lot when her lot showed up. He had a map spread across the hood of a battered jeep that looked like military surplus. WWII military surplus, Gail thought with an eyeroll. Jake went over to join them, and Gail turned to organize people.
Ron Carroll, from her department, pulled in. “I heard on the radio,” he said. “It’s a bad one. Too remote. It’s going to be huge before they can get the resources in there.”
Gail nodded. A native New Yorker, the distances that Westerners dealt with boggled her mind. Marilee owned 9 square miles — a third of the size of Manhattan! And there was a lot more land between her and the Cascade Range. If she was hearing things right, that was where there fire was.
“You going with?” she asked him. He nodded. “I called ROTC,” he said. “They’re calling up everyone. So is WSU.”
“Lot of bodies, no brains,” Jake said, overhearing him. “We got any brains out there?”
The older man with the map, Anderson, Gail thought, something Anderson, Laird Anderson? looked up. “Some good people run that volunteer fire department,” he said. “They’ll already have a crew on their way. Those ranchers know what they’re up against. But there’s a lot of grunt work to fighting a fire.”
“There is,” Jake agreed.
ROTC pulled into the parking lot with a bus. The wildfire department had its own bus.
“Load them up,” Anderson said.
Gail went after her vehicle. “Marilee said bring water. Angie Gregory is ahead of us, she hit Albertsons and Safeway,” she told Anderson. He nodded.
“Grab Bimart, Kmart and Walmart,” he suggested. “She’s probably got enough beef to feed all of us and not even blink.”
“If not in the freezer, then on the hoof,” Jake said. “I’ll ride with you, Gail.”
It was 2:15 p.m.
BETHANY WILLIAMS SAW the text as she headed to soccer practice. She doubted Marilee had meant to send it to her — it looked like a group send to her entire directory. She stopped, read it again.
“What’s going on?” her coach asked her.
“Fire out past the Dupont Ranch,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
“What?” her coach said. “You can’t go out there — not if there’s a fire.”
“I work there, Coach,” she said. “I got to go.”
Coach Wilson looked at her and then at the other members of the soccer teams — boys and girls — who were crowding around them. Cathy Crane nodded. “I’m going too,” she said. “They’ll need all the hands they can get, Coach. Food, caring for the folks who have to evacuate, livestock that will be moved out of the hills. You know how it is.”
Stan Wilson knew. He looked around the faces of the teenagers around him and sighed. Years of coaching had taught him the stubborn expressions of a bunch of young idealists when he saw them. “OK,” he said. “But you need to send your parents texts to get permission. I’ll take my van for those who want to help.”
“I’ve got my Subaru,” Bethany said. She sent her father a text, but she didn’t ask for permission. Cathy followed her, and a couple of the guys filled the back seats. “She says we need to bring drinking water.”
Cathy nodded. “Power goes out, the pump at the well is out. We can stop at the places in Pullman. Anyone ahead of us will get the stores here.”
Bethany hoped she still had credit on her card from clothes shopping.
It was 2:40 p.m.
“THERE’S FIRE,” MARTHA Calhoun interrupted a meeting between Benjamin Crane and Trent Williams. “It’s bad.”
“Where?” Benjamin asked, looking up.
“Out past Dupont Ranch,” she answered. “Up on the plateau. Lightening strike. Everyone’s getting called up. Andy called to let me know. He’s headed out.”
Andy was her husband, Trent knew. Must be a volunteer for one of the area departments.
His phone pinged that he had a text from Bethany. He closed his eyes, dreading what it would say. He called her back. She didn’t pick up. “Bethany, you cannot go out there,” he said into her voice mail. “Damn it.”
He put away his phone. “I’m going out,” he said. He sighed. “Bethany’s already on her way.”
It was 3 p.m.
Chapter 9
When Trent pulled into the parking area at Marilee’s, he looked at the small Subaru parked there and rolled his eyes. Of course, she’d disregarded his orders.
The place was a madhouse. Dozens of vehicles, a couple of farm trucks that looked like they held a family worth of possessions — evacuees? He thought troubled. Already?
Children chased each other, and dogs chased them. He heard a pig squeal, and chickens? Did he hear chickens? Someone was herding dairy cows out through the workyard to the pasture beyond.
Grimly, he made his way to the back door of the house. Bethany was in the kitchen.
“I thought I told you to stay home,” he said.
She glared at him. “I work here, Dad,” she said. “And this is my kitchen.”
He saw a couple amused smiles on the other women’s faces but no one disputed her claim. “We’ll have a conversation about this,” he said. “Later. Where’s Marilee? Who can put me to work?”
“Where do you think she is?” said a male voice he recognized. Trent turned toward Jacob Blessing. “She’s on the fire lines, of course.”
“Where do you need me?” Trent asked him.
“You got any clothes better suited for fighting fire?” Jacob asked.
“Somewhere,” he said. Looking down at his suit and dress shoes. “Bethany?”
“They’re in a box in the hall closet,” Angie Gregory told him. She didn’t look up from the onions she was dicing. Didn’t meet his eyes. It hurt. He liked Angie. And the others. He shelved it.
“Change and meet me down by the barn,” Jacob said.
“What does he mean she’s on the fire lines?” Trent asked, as he went in search of the clothes he’d left behind.
“She a volunteer firefighter,” Angie said. She still wasn’t looking at him. “Usually she runs the radio, dispatches folks. But apparently, they needed a driver, and she took the pumper truck — is that a thing? — out to the fire. Jacob can tell you better than we can.”
Trent swallowed hard, his mouth dry with fear. He found the box, and stripped there in the hallway, and pulled on jeans, boots, a long sleeved shirt. The gloves Marilee had loaned him were in the box, and so was a cowboy hat. He grabbed them too.
Jacob looked tired. He grunted when he saw him. “Better,” he said. “We’re building a fire break on the west edge of the ranch. Come with me.”
“Angie said Marilee went out on the fire line? What the hell?” Trent demanded as he got into Jacob’s pickup. A couple of young men were loading pallets of water into the back.
