The Banker, page 8
But driving was tense now. She actually was grateful for the cows. She could follow them — carefully, because they could decide to detour off where her truck couldn’t follow — but it was if they were breaking trail through the smoke for her.
More cows joined. Great, she had a lead cow and other cows knew to follow her. She would head to the barn — wherever that was. She giggled.
Smoke was seeping into the cab of the truck. She opened a bottle of water and drank as much of it as she could, then soused the bandana with the remainder. She put the bandana back around her mouth and nose.
And it was hot. Getting hotter too. She wondered if the fire was behind her or had it somehow gotten around her and she was headed into an arm of it. Wasn’t that a cheerful thought?
And God, she was tired. Really tired. She grimly held on to the steering wheel as the truck grinded along. It did need new shocks. And new brakes. Swallowed. Please God, don’t make me have to stop suddenly.
At least she didn’t have to worry about the clutch. She was in first gear and likely to stay that way.
She could see other animals running along the side of the road — animals that could move faster than her herd of cows. She shook her head — she had a herd of cows with her. She laughed. Elk, deer, a big cat — a cougar, she thought — wild eyed and running downhill, fleeing the fire.
She stretched out her back muscles trying to get them to relax. She had to slide down in the seat to reach the pedals. It was an awkward position, because her right leg stretched out to reach the gas pedal while her left was firmly anchored to the floor to brace herself. And if she had to brake? She had to shift that position, to get her left leg to the clutch, and her right to the brake. Although worse case, she just stand on the brake and stall it out.
It didn’t get easier when she had to focus this intently on the road.
She reached the paved road with a sigh of relief. The cows scattered, and she eased her way through them, heading downhill. Always downhill.
Why was the smoke so dense, she worried. Had the fire circled around the firefighters? She didn’t know. Why hadn’t she met any firefighters heading out in their trucks? A couple had come in while she waited at Carl’s HQ, but she’d seen none since she left. That wasn’t right.
Unless there was another perimeter established? She wished she knew what the shape of the fire looked like. Well she would soon. Another hour and she’d be back at the station. She could get an update on the situation. Take over dispatch.
If she wasn’t so god-damned tired.
She glanced at her phone. No bars.
It was 7 p.m.
Chapter 11
Benjamin Blessing called his brother at 8 p.m. “We’ve got a problem,” he said. “I’m at the station, and Marilee hasn’t made it back yet.”
Jacob wanted to swear. He didn’t, but he wanted to. “When was she expected?”
“No clue, really,” he said. “James says he thought 5 p.m. but that might have been optimistic.”
“She’s three hours late?” Jacob closed his eyes and said a brief prayer. Since he was refraining from swearing out loud maybe the good Lord would hear his prayer instead. “What do we know about the fire?”
“It shifted. You know that. So we deployed men to the new front but left Carl and his men in place. Marilee is coming down through the center of the new arm of the fire.”
“Can we send someone out?” Jacob tried to think it through. He’d go, but he was too exhausted. And he was needed here.
“I volunteered, but the chief says no. He needs every man available on the fire lines. And either she can make it down in that truck or no one can make it through. Which makes sense, but it sits hard.”
Jacob agreed. The fire chief was probably right. She was in a big truck designed for fire work. If only he felt better about the brakes.
“Anyway I thought you would want to know. I’m heading out on the next team.”
“How bad is it?” Jacob asked. “I haven’t seen a map.”
“If we can get air support this evening? That would be good. The other good news is the shift in wind means Colfax probably won’t need to evacuate,” Benjamin said.
“That is good news,” Jacob agreed. “I’m going to have to take a break soon. We’ve got a good firebreak built. Trent Williams is surprisingly effective at running a crew of macho college boys.”
Benjamin laughed. “Good to know.” He hesitated. “Jacob, there’s a rumor among the men that Marilee might be pregnant, and that she shouldn’t have gone out. She’s probably more vulnerable to the smoke.”
“Understood,” Jacob said. What else could he say?
He hung up the call and went to find Jake Abbott. They were both going into the barn, he decided. He called Trent to see how he was doing. Another hour or two, he was told. Jacob didn’t tell him about Marilee.
He did tell Jake. Jake was silent for a bit. “I can’t go after her,” he said at last. “She’d have to rescue me if I tried. But I know who can. One of Marilee’s friends from the breakfast club is an EMT. When I came out with you, he was setting up a first aid station at the barn. Ben Johnson. Seems like a good guy.”
“He may be needed here,” Jacob said.
Jake shrugged. “I have enough first aid training to run his station. I can sit there, tell people to drink water, and send the worst into the hospital. And if someone feeds me, I’m good.”
Jacob laughed. He liked this young man. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see how bad of a nightmare it is down there.”
All in all it wasn’t all that bad, Jacob found to his surprise. The women had things organized. They’d opened up all the rooms of the ranch house — and there were quite a few. And they’d found bedding to sack down the kids in the hay loft — it hadn’t seen hay in decades, but the loft was there. The kids were delighted to be in the barn with the horses.
And Bethany Williams kept food coming out of the kitchen. He was impressed. He had suspected his son had a crush on her. It probably wouldn’t survive — marrying outside the community didn’t work well — but at least he had good judgment.
He conferred with Jake Abbott and Ben Johnson. Well, he listened to the two of them confer.
Ben was hesitant to leave. “As much as I hate to say it, the chief is right. If she can’t make it out in that old truck, the chances are slim that anyone can make it to her — even in that jeep she uses.”
Jacob hesitated. “There’s a rumor she’s pregnant. Does that change your calculations?”
Ben winced. “She hasn’t said a word about it.” Jake shook his head.
“Is Trent Williams the father?” Ben asked. “Does he know?”
“I doubt it,” Jacob said. “I can’t imagine him out there building a firebreak if the mother of his child is fighting on a fire line. And I haven’t told him this piece either.”
Ben grimaced. “Not going to be me who does either.” He considered that. “Jake if you truly think you can babysit this, I’m going to go over to the fire station. I’m still not sure anyone should go out after her, but it won’t hurt for someone like me to be there when she makes it in.”
Jacob nodded. That seemed smart. “Good,” he said. “I’m going to find something to eat, and then see what information someone can give me about what needs to be done next.”
“Get some sleep, man,” Jake said. “Put someone else out there for the next six hours and find some place to sleep. We’ve just begun and you’re going to need to pace yourself here.”
Jacob hesitated and nodded. It was good advice, he admitted. “And when are you planning to do the same?”
Jake grinned. “Send someone down with food?” he asked, avoiding the rest of the question.
Jacob found that all he had to do was knock on the door to the kitchen, and someone handed him food. Beef stew. Biscuits. And pie. He grinned. “Good job, ladies,” he said. “Can someone take a plate of food down to the first aid station? Jake Abbott’s spelling Ben down there.”
A tall slender woman nodded and dished up a plate. The theater prof, he thought. Gail something? She headed toward the barn.
Jacob found a spot at the big kitchen table. There were probably a dozen people eating, or lingering over the pie. A woman sat down next to him.
“I’m Angie Gregory,” she said. “Don’t know if you remember me. How is it out there?”
He looked at her, decided he did remember her — part of Marilee’s squad. “We’re making good progress,” he said. “What have you heard from the station?”
“Still no air support,” she said. “We’ve got a hundred men out there.” She hesitated. “But no Marilee. Should we be worried?”
Jacob blew out a deep breath of air. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m worried. But nothing to do about it. Ben Johnson went over to the station. He’ll be there if he’s needed. But consensus seems to be that if she can’t make it out, no one is going to be able to reach her.”
Angie frowned and tapped her fingers on the table. “She’s....,” she began.
He nodded. “So I heard.”
She considered that and nodded. “You need to sleep,” she said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
It was 9:30 p.m.
Chapter 12
The cows veered off at a driveway. Headed to their barn. Marilee was relieved to see them go. She worried if they were safe out here, but she could hardly drive them all the way back to the fire station. She grinned briefly at the image of showing up at the station with a herd of cows.
She coughed. Coughed until it hurt. That was not good. She re-soaked her bandana.
She glanced up the driveway, trying to see the barn. She frowned. There were lights on down there? Surely everyone had evacuated from around here?
She hesitated. If there were still people down there, she needed to check it out. Her brain felt sluggish but she thought that was sound reasoning. Right? She turned onto the driveway and followed the cows down to their barn. It won’t take long, she told herself.
She was trying to place whose farm this was, but she was coming up empty. She was disoriented by the smoke — she wasn’t really sure where she was, to be honest. She pulled into the workyard in front of the barn. The cows were milling around, bellowing at each other. Well, she wasn’t going to feed them.
She saw someone come to the door of the house, however, and she shut the engine of the truck off. She crawled out and stretched.
“Hello?” she called to the person and walked toward them. It was a woman and some children. She couldn’t tell how many. What the hell?
“We’re stuck,” the woman said, her voice quavering a bit. “Tom took the truck to build a firebreak to the north of us, but he hasn’t come back. And I can’t get the car to start.”
Marilee got close enough to look at the woman. She looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t put a name to her.
“I’m Marilee Dupont,” she said.
The woman nodded. “I recognize you. I’m Jackie Davis,” she said. “I’m worried about Tom. But the smoke and the heat? I’m worried about the kids too.”
Marilee smiled at the two she could see. She thought there might be a couple more hidden behind their mother. Wasn’t much she could do about Tom Davis, she thought. But she’d get his family out to safety.
“Get in the truck,” she said. “I’m headed back to the fire station. You’ll be safe there. The fire must have changed direction a bit.”
She stopped. She didn’t want to say anything to scare the kids about their father. Jackie met her eyes, and she nodded. She knew. Tom was likely in trouble. Marilee tried to think of anything she could do for him besides get his family safe and send help.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll send help out for Tom and his firebreak.”
There were more kids. Four total, plus Jackie, in the truck cab. It was really crowded, but Marilee turned the truck around and headed back out to the road.
The kids were quiet, too quiet, and wide-eyed. Scared. Marilee smiled at them. “This is Babe,” she said, patting the steering wheel. “She’s been fighting fires for 40 years, maybe more. She’ll get us back to the fire station safely. Kind of like your cows and the barn.”
She spun them a tale of herding cows with a fire truck and being chased by the smoke, and the littlest ones were giggling. Even the oldest, a boy, who was more aware of the danger they were in, cracked a smile.
It was going well until they ran into a place where the fire had come through and jumped the road. Now there was fire on both sides, and burning tumbleweeds were wheeling across the road.
Marilee came to a stop. She tried to see how far the fire breakthrough extended but she couldn’t. Too much smoke, and it was getting dark. She had a headache. Her sinuses burned. How late was it, anyway?
She glanced at her phone. It was 8:30 p.m. So the darkness was more a function of smoke than losing daylight. She looked at the road ahead, and wondered how good were the truck’s tires. Probably about the same as its brakes, she thought glumly.
“We’re going through,” Marilee said out loud. Her voice was hoarse. She swallowed, and then drank more water because her throat hurt to even swallow. Smoke inhalation, she thought. It was getting to her. Probably had been for some time. She swallowed again.
She put the truck in gear and eased it forward.
The fire must have blown through 10 minutes or so ago, she thought. She would have been right in it if she hadn’t gone to check out the farm lights. But even without actual fire, the road was a hot mess. The road here was going through plains country, so it had been a grass fire primarily. She was grateful to be down below the tree line. But still.
She kept moving. Slowly, as she peered through the windshield looking for the road. Dark scorched earth on both sides of the road.
And then suddenly they were past the scorch marks. And maybe it was her imagination, but it felt like the smoke was less. She was almost dizzy with relief.
No, she thought, she was just dizzy. And it was smoke, not relief, that made her that way.
“Are you OK?” Jackie Davis asked, worry in her voice.
“OK, enough,” Marilee reassured her. She hoped she was anyway. She picked up some speed.
The smoke continued to thin. Marilee could actually look around and get her bearings. She was about 10 miles out, she realized. She glanced at her phone. She had cell service. To hell with the laws, she grabbed her phone with one hand and steered with the other.
She called the station. “I’m almost in,” she told James when he picked up. “I’ve got the Davis family with me. But Tom Davis is out building a fire break somewhere, and he needs backup.”
“Good to hear your voice, Marilee,” James said sincerely. She could hear voices in the background. They all sound relieved. Well she’d been out of contact for hours. “We’ve got ROTC crews here, I’ll send one out that way.”
“With an experienced crew boss, I hope,” she said dryly. “I’m not going to go rescue them.”
She put down the phone, and started coughing again. Jackie opened a water bottle and handed it to her. Marilee nodded her thanks.
“Help on the way to your husband,” she said, when the coughing stopped. She had a headache.
“Thank you,” Jackie said.
Marilee nodded. She grimly focused on her driving. She was only going 25, but she didn’t think she had the energy to shift it higher. Going 25 was going to have to do.
Her chest hurt. She felt like she couldn’t get enough oxygen, and she was taking more breaths. Slow it down, take deep breaths instead, she told herself. Ironic that her symptom were getting worse now that they were actually almost free of the smoke.
Her heart was pounding so fast, it seemed like it must be audible to everyone in the truck. She slowed down a bit. Her eyesight was narrowing to a tunnel, with black edges. Breathe, she told herself. Slowly, deeply.
“Are you OK?” Jackie asked again.
Marilee nodded. She was pretty sure that was a lie. “Almost there,” she said hoarsely.
When she saw the cinderblock station she could have cried with relief. She was back. Safe. She hoped she was safe. Her head hurt.
She pulled into the drive, and let the truck roll to a stop. Jackie climbed out and helped her children down. Marilee thought she should open the door. But she was too tired. She coughed again. She felt lightheaded. Was she going to black out?
Her door opened. “Marilee?” someone said. She knew the voice. Why couldn’t she remember his name? She started to say something. And then the tunnel vision narrowed to nothing, and she blacked out.
Ben Johnson caught Marilee in his arms as she tumbled out of the truck.
He carried her to a cot inside the fire station. He checked her vital signs, and he frowned. “Going to run her into the hospital,” he said tersely. “She’s been in the smoke for hours?”
James nodded. “Go,” he said. “I’ll manage dispatch. La Grande says planes are on their way. Forty minutes.”
Ben just nodded, more focused on his patient than on fire control. “Call Blessing and let him know we’ve got her,” he said.
He picked her up — it was easy to forget how small she was, he thought — and carried her to his car. He put her in the front seat and buckled her in. She didn’t rouse.
Not good, he thought grimly, and he headed to the hospital in Pullman as fast as he dared.
It was 10 p.m.
Chapter 13
Jacob roused to his phone. It was 10 p.m. — he’d been asleep only a few hours.
“Sorry, Jacob,” a voice said. “It’s James. Marilee made it out of the fire — picked up the Davis family on her way. Jackie Davis said it was pretty harrowing. Anyway, Ben Johnson, the EMT guy? He took Marilee to the hospital. She passed out. Smoke, he thinks. Said to let you know.”
“Thanks,” Jacob said hoarsely, and he cleared his throat. “Any news about the fire?”
“We’ve got it contained 40 percent,” James said. He sounded tired. Someone should spell the old man, Jacob thought. Normally it would be Marilee at this task. He’d have to give some thought as to who could step up and do the job. Not many. And most were probably on a fire line or doing a back trench. Maybe he could. He didn’t really have the gift to keep so many strands woven together though.
