by Reiss Susan
What would I find if I peeled them back? But who am I kidding? This man won’t let just anyone into the private areas of his life. He had to live with the whims of nature on the farms. He’d try to control what he could.
I dropped my hands in my lap, declaring the end of my guessing game. “Whoever she is, Stephani was very nice to me today. I appreciated her help and the research she’s doing for me. That’s all I care about.”
TJ seemed ready to move on as well. “At least your timing was good.” He pointed off to the northwest. “It looks like we dodged a storm. See the line of dark clouds? They’re heavy with rain. We could use some, but I think the harvest will be okay, might even be a little late this year.”
I powered my window down and took a deep breath through my nose. “Oh yes, I can smell the rain.”
“Not bad, for a city girl,” he said with a touch of admiration in his voice. “Hear the rumble?”
I listened hard and heard a roll of thunder in the distance. “Are you sure it’s not coming this way?”
He pointed at the tall pines. “Look at the tops of the trees. They show the wind is blowing away from us. Still, we have to be careful with a thunderstorm. The Weather Service is always warning that lightning can strike the ground from as far away as fifteen miles from the center of the storm."
A shudder ran through me. “That’s scary.”
"Yes, it is. It all comes down to respecting Mother Nature. She always has a surprise waiting for us. We have to anticipate and be aware."
“And not do anything stupid,” I added.
He chuckled. “I think that’s what I said.”
It was my turn to laugh as he turned on a flattened grassy area leading into a cornfield.
“We’re going to stop here for a few minutes, okay?”
“Sure, fine,” I said, looking around, trying to figure out what interested him here and coming up without a clue.
I released my seat belt and moved into a more comfortable position. Ghost followed him as he got out of the truck. The dog was so quiet that I kept forgetting he was riding along with us in the back seat of the cab. TJ leaned over to inspect the cornstalks. The plants were drying out with their leaves turning brown at the bottom.
I heard a rustling sound and looked around. TJ had disappeared. Without moving my aching leg too much, I tried to spot him, but he was nowhere in sight. I called out, but there was no answer.
Abandoned in a cornfield, now that’s novel, I thought.
All the talk about the surprises Mother Nature dishes out made me uneasy. Or maybe I was tired. Whatever the reason, I knew I’d feel better when TJ reappeared. I twisted around a bit and peered out the back window to the main road. In the distance, something caught my eye.
“Oh!” I jumped when he opened the door. “Ow!”
Ghost jumped to his place in the back and leaned his head toward me.
“Are you okay?” TJ asked, his voice full of concern.
I was embarrassed that almost everything I did showed how vulnerable I was. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m fine. Just tired, I guess.”
He put the truck in gear and started backing out to the shoulder of the road.
“It looks like someone’s having a barbeque nearby and the grill has gotten out of control a little.”
“A barbeque? Where?” He touched the brakes and looked around.
I pointed back through the rear window. “Over there, toward the storm clouds. Do you see it?”
He stabbed the accelerator and swung the truck toward it. “That’s smoke.”
“Yes, that’s what I said,” I stammered, surprised by his extreme reaction. “Somebody must be—”
“That’s not a barbeque! That’s one of Johnny’s fields! It’s on fire.”
Chapter Fifteen
“About nine O. C. last night we discovered a fire at Doctor Matthews. I immediately took the hands and ran over. We succeeded in the saving three chests of Carpenter tools, but very little other properties. All his farm buildings were burned down together with his crop of wheat, eating corn, farming implements, my treasure and deliveries, all his wool and about $200 worth of materials versus new building.” August 1, 1864
—The Willis Family Journals 1847-1951
Edited and Annotated by James Dawson
With tires spinning, we took off down the road toward the smoke. I braced myself as we sped around corners. Finally, he pulled over by a field where the smoke was getting thick. For a better view, he jumped up on the truck, uttered an oath, and yanked his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.
“I hope I’ve got cell service out here.” He punched three numbers and mumbled, “Come on! Come on!” Then in full voice, he said, “Yes! Get me Fire. There’s a fire in Johnny Sutherland’s cornfield on…”
The details blended into the background as I watched the smoke growing thicker and spreading over the field. I wondered how a person calls for an emergency response to a cornfield. Does it have an address like a house? How did TJ know this was Johnny's field? There was so much to learn about living in the country.
The excitement and anxiety of finding a fire in a field were infectious. It wasn't about a whimsical curl of smoke from a barbecue. Orange flames were starting to lick the tops of the cornstalks. Black smoke that rose from the center of the field was getting thicker. To me, wildfires happened out West. The East Coast always seemed too built up, too urban, for this kind of thing to happen.
“TJ, look!” I pointed toward the flames that were no longer licking the plants. They were consuming them.
"Yes, I see it." He jumped back in the driver's seat and drove the truck down the road so we were upwind and pulled over on the shoulder.
“We’ll be okay here for a bit.” He patted my hand to comfort me and maybe to reassure himself.
We sat in silent fascination, watching the flames spread from the middle of the field. Smoke billowed and darkened the area. The fire department wouldn't need an address. The smoke would lead them right to the fire.
“The closest fire station is St. Michaels.” Anxiety made TJ’s voice raspy. “I hope they’re not out on another call. They need to get here now. It will take Easton longer to respond.”
At first, the siren wail was faint, like something imagined, conjured up from a real desire for the trucks to come. It grew louder as the fire started to growl.
“They’re coming! I can hear the sirens.” And the single sound became sirens from more than one emergency vehicle. My relief was so intense, a tear leaked out of my eye and ran down my cheek. As the sirens grew louder, I noticed that I was rubbing the thigh of my right leg. Not to relieve pain, because it didn’t hurt, at least not any more than usual. It was a nervous movement, my hand moving back and forth. Back and forth. As the sirens got closer, the motion got faster and the pressure on my leg grew. I froze.
Oh no! It was happening.
A flashback. The fire, the danger, triggered it. Post-Traumatic Stress had kicked in. The therapist, the one for my head, had warned me about it. Knowing what was happening didn’t make it any less scary.
I didn't remember anything of the accident—from the moment of impact to the moment I woke up blinded by red, white and blue lights, strapped to a gurney, drowning in pain—my brain harbored the memory. A trigger might be seeing a car accident or a disabled vehicle off to the side of the road. Or hearing sirens.
I was reacting to the sirens. The therapist told me what to do, how to hold on to what was happening in the present. Somehow, I forced myself to stop rubbing my leg. I leaned back to get more comfortable. Then I closed my eyes and started to breathe. Deeply. Slowly. I concentrated on the air, drawing it in, blowing it out. I felt my muscles begin to release their tight grip. The sirens were louder. People were coming to handle the danger. I didn't have to do anything. When the bright red, shiny trucks pulled up, their emergency lights flashing, all the activity distracted me from my buried memories.
The trucks stopped on the road bordering the f
ield, leaving an opening as a gateway into the field. A bull of a truck roared down the road, turned to the gateway, and plowed into the cornfield. Its high bumper smashed cornstalks as the truck moved relentlessly toward the fire. A light mist settled on the windshield. An emergency crew was firing a hefty stream of water around the flames to create a soggy barrier. It wasn't long before the roiling smoke seemed to ease.
TJ came over and leaned against his open door. He shot me a look filled with questions. Instead, I asked him what was happening.
"That's a brush truck," he explained. "They'll drive in a circle around the fire, knocking down plants and laying a blanket of water. That will help keep the flames from spreading." He hiked himself up on the truck's running board, wet his finger then held it high above his head. "But the wind's picking up. They need to hurry to focus in on the flames and knock it all out."
We watched and waited, along with others standing next to their trucks parked along the road. So many people had been drawn to the field by the smoke and the radio calls. An emergency radio crackled and a crew by a pumper truck moved around to prepare for action. The massive brush truck lumbered out of the field and took on another load of water so it could go back to work.
The adrenaline rush of the first discovery of the fire was bleeding off. I began to think about getting home.
TJ took off his cap and smoothed his hair back. “I think it’s going to be all right. They’re getting it under control. These guys train for this kind of thing.”
"Guys?" I pointed to a woman, as thin as a wisp in a turnout coat that almost engulfed her.
TJ nodded. “Point taken, but I bet she’d think it was a compliment to be called one of the guys.”
He was probably right. But something was wrong. I hadn’t known him very long, but I half expected him to have a snappy comeback about the whole female-in-a-male-dominated-job thing. Something was bothering him, so I waited quietly to find out what it was.
He took off his cap again and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He raised his chin. "The wind is freshening, probably from that thunderstorm. It's changing direction, too." He checked the shape of his hat’s brim. "It will be okay if they can knock it down," he said more to himself than to me. "There's something about this field…" He whacked his hat against his arm, then put it on again and pulled it down tight. "But I'll be darned if I can remember." He leaned against the door and crossed his arms while he watched the action in the field.
A truck flew up the road and careened to the gateway into the field, fishtailing and gouging tracks in the soil. He stopped and a man got out yelling and waving his arms. He ran to a knot of firefighters.
TJ straightened up. “That’s Johnny. This is his field. Something’s wrong.” He unfolded his arms. “That’s it! The shed in those trees. It’s got chemicals in it.” TJ ran toward the firefighters.
I couldn't hear what Johnny was saying, but it didn't look good. His arms flew around. He pointed to the trees and back to the fire in the middle of the cornfield and back again. The firefighters' heads swiveled around as they followed his gestures until everyone's attention settled on a place at the far side of the field.
The firefighting unit scrambled in controlled chaos. Three men hustled together to consult. Someone picked up a microphone. Radios crackled. Crew members, wearing heavy turnout coats and protective helmets, scrambled back to their trucks. One truck stayed in place, ready to replenish the brush truck with gallons of water. Others jockeyed around in a coordinated maneuver to move toward the trees where Johnny was pointing.
I was so distracted by all the activity that I didn’t see a puff of thick smoke until it engulfed the truck. In the backseat, Ghost coughed and sneezed. The wind had changed. I reached over and flipped the ignition key to Accessory. I wanted to close the windows, but Ghost kept poking his head outside and straining for air. I didn’t want to strangle him with the power window. I tried to talk to him, but he ignored me. Then I remembered one of TJ’s commands.
In a stern voice, I gave him an order. “Come. Now.”
Surprised, he swung his head in my direction and moved toward me. I reached over the driver’s seat and hit the control buttons to close all the windows. Then I shut off the outside circulation and turned up the air-conditioning. At least we could breathe while we waited. Ghost left big nose prints on the window glass as he followed TJ's movements outside.
In the field, smoke was churning up in clouds again. Flames blazed above the stalks, heading toward the road. Toward us.
A firefighter got TJ's attention, pointed to the woods then to the road. His message was clear. Get out! In a second, TJ started running toward me. I pulled my seatbelt, ready. He leaped into his seat, released the brake, and we took off at breakneck speed.
“What’s wrong? Where are we going?” I asked as we charged down the road.
He coughed some smoke out of his lungs. His face was wet with flecks of ash caught in beads of sweat. His hazel-green eyes flashed with urgency. “We’re getting away, as far away as possible.”
"What happened?" I looked in the big outside rearview mirror but couldn't see anything but smoke rising from the field we'd just left.
He coughed again. “You saw the madman in the truck?” I nodded. “That was Johnny. He farms that field. He told the firefighters about a small building on the far edge that he uses for storage.”
“Are they scrambling to protect the building?”
“They are scrambling,” TJ said in a grave tone, “to protect all of us. There’s ammonium nitrate stored inside that building. It’s fertilizer used on the farm.”
I thought of the bright blue liquid fertilizer I used on my houseplants when I remembered to feed them. Then my brain started to make connections. Fertilizer. Farm fertilizer. My throat tightened. “No, you don’t mean…like Oklahoma City?”
TJ nodded his head slowly.
Oklahoma City. Bomb.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, if the flames reach that building…all that will be left is a deep crater.”
I looked in the rearview mirror again, but couldn’t tell what was happening.
“They told us to get out,” he explained. “They’ll evacuate anybody else close by,”
“Are they evacuating, too?”
A sad smile appeared on his face. "Of course not. Their job is to run toward the danger, not away from it. They'll get in there and, I suspect, water down the building to keep it from heating up or igniting from the sparks flying around. And they’ll keep working to put out the fire in the field."
TJ turned the wheel, pulled over to the shoulder, and stopped. Fire truck after fire truck screamed toward us, lights and sirens flaring. The noise was piercing. I crouched in my seat and covered my ears. In a moment, TJ touched my arm and I realized they were gone.
“Didn’t I tell you? Always racing toward the danger.” He glanced up the road. “Here comes another one.”
I covered my ears again and watched an ambulance streak by.
“Does that mean someone’s hurt?” I asked, my voice quaking.
“No. These crews live the motto, Be prepared… just in case.” He checked the road in both directions and pulled out.
“Don’t you need to stay?” I asked.
“No. These people know what they’re doing. They don’t need a novice getting in the way, no matter how good my intentions might be.”
"Will they be okay? I mean, with the chemicals and everything, things could get out of hand…" I didn't want to think about the possibilities.
"No, everything will be fine." He paused for a moment, thinking, then added. "Unless, of course, we hear a big boom." He glanced my way. "Hey, don't worry about it. I heard them calling in an additional alarm. These aren't city boys. They deal with farms and farm chemicals all the time. Don't worry."
He looked at me again, a little longer this time. “You’re pale, Emma.”
"Probably because I'm late for my pain pill, I'm hurting, but
not much." The last thing I wanted him to know about was the PTSD attack. These last hours of being treated like a normal human being were exquisite.
“What do you say I take you home?” he said.
I nodded and started the slow breathing exercise again so the flashbacks and all didn’t start again.
As we rolled along, past field after field, I began to wonder. “TJ, whatever made you go over to those fields? I mean, they’re not on our way home.”
“It’s all part of my job.”
“As a handyman?” I was confused.
“No, I only worked as a handyman for Jack.” He winked at me. “I do custom planting and harvesting. Johnny is one of my clients.”
“Custom? How does that work? I thought a farmer planted the seeds and harvested the crop.” I felt like a real city girl.
“You’re right, in theory. When you’re farming hundreds of acres, you need big machines to do those things efficiently. Not everybody can afford or wants to spend the money on the combines and all. It's expensive. That's where I come in. I have the equipment and experience. They pay me to work in their fields and get the job done, whatever the season. My crew and I will start harvesting around the 15th of September if all goes the way I expect weather-wise."
Things were starting to fall into place. “Is that why you read the Farmers’ Almanac?”
“One reason. It’s right more often than those slick meteorologists with the big hair and heavy makeup on TV. And there’s lots of useful information and ads in there, too.”
Now that I thought about it, all the clues were there at the beginning. “So, you work for the farmers and take care of me?”
He shrugged. “Pretty much, when I’m not taking care of my own fields.”
“Where are your fields?” I asked.
“I rent certain fields around the county from landowners who don’t want to farm them. That’s in addition to farming my own.”
“And where are your fields?”
“All around you and the Cottage.”