Rescuing the Rancher

by Claire McEwen

  At least he’d mowed the grass around that upper well pretty recently, since it was so close to his house. There was one thing to be thankful for. That pump should make it through the fire as long as the batteries did.

  Thank goodness the battery shed had a metal roof and noncombustible shingles on the walls. Aidan had told her he had lithium-ion batteries inside, which were supposed to be nonflammable. Maybe she’d been too hard on him for not being more prepared. He’d certainly taken precautions to keep his power source going. But not every precaution. Without this power that upper well wouldn’t work. Without water on the upper end of the ranch, the fire would rage through the rest of the property at its hottest. And their chances for survival would plummet.

  The bushes behind her shook and shivered in the wind, which was gusting now, lifting her hair, shoving at her legs, blowing dust and debris into her face. The smoke in the sky had changed from a thick haze on the horizon to clouds piled upon clouds, towering over the ranch. Pretty soon they’d get ash falling, and maybe even some embers. She needed to ask if Aidan had an extra bandanna she could tie around her face. Then maybe she could avoid breathing the worst of it.

  Jade started as the water from the hose sputtered, then trickled, then stopped. She turned toward the pasture, where the spigot was, and squinted through the smoky air. “Aidan? Turn the water back on!” There was no answer, just the rushing sounds of the buffeting wind. And another noise, so distant it would be out of earshot if she didn’t know what to listen for. A faint roar, a low rumble. It was the fire, probably starting to make its way up the ridge.

  Jade dropped the hose and ran for the spigot, checking as she went to see if there were any kinks in the hose that were blocking the flow of the water. Nope. No such luck.

  Aidan had said he was going to start setting up more irrigation around the pasture where the sheep were, to create an extra barrier of water between the livestock and the fire. Jade shaded her eyes, as if it would help her see through the brown, soupy air, and called again. “Aidan?”

  At the faucet, Jade knelt and unscrewed the hose. Then she turned the faucet handle. Nothing. She turned it off. Turned it on again. Nothing. “Oh no,” she breathed. Was it the water pump batteries? Had they damaged them somehow when they were clearing the area around the battery shed? But that made no sense. This faucet was connected to a different pump.

  Looking up, she saw Aidan’s tall form emerging from the smoke. “I was putting Chip in a stall in the barn, so he won’t go mess with Thor and Odin. What’s going on?”

  “There’s no water.”

  “What?” He tried the faucet himself. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Do you think it’s the power? Or the pump?” Jade glanced at the darkening horizon. “We really need to get the water running.” Her heart was speeding, tripping, like a wild thing in her chest. They had to have water. Now.

  “Let’s try the pump first.” He started for the barn, and Jade ran to follow him. They jogged past the entrance to the barn and stopped the base of the hill on the other side. Aidan led her to a small cinderblock building and Jade saw, to her relief, that it, too, had a metal roof.

  “This is the well house.” Aidan pointed to the solar panels next to it. “And its power source.”

  “Where’s the battery?”

  “Inside. Conduit runs underground to connect them. I hope that’s not the problem. We don’t have time to dig.”

  Jade crossed her fingers, hoping the same thing. “Once we get the water going, we should spray around these panels. You don’t want them damaged. Where’s your weed trimmer?”

  “In with the tools in the barn. We can take care of that in a minute. Let’s find out what’s going on.” Aidan pulled open the door to the small building. Inside was a mostly empty room with a pressure tank in one corner and a series of batteries in the other.

  “There’s a spring way down deep below here. I even get enough water to feed the pond through a pipe that runs around the edge of the barn. And I pump water up this hill, so as it comes down it gives me water pressure for this part of the ranch.” He knelt by the pump. “This smoke is making everything so dark. Hit that switch by the door.”

  Jade flipped the light switch and a single bare bulb came on.

  “Well, at least we’ve got power.” Aidan looked visibly relieved. “It’s got to be something with the pump.” He got down on all fours to look more closely at the machinery.

  “Here.” Jade pulled out the flashlight she always wore on her belt and angled it to give him more light.

  Aidan glanced up at her with an almost-admiring look. “You’re useful to have around on a day like this.”

  That was probably as close to a compliment he’d ever give her. Jade peered over his shoulder, trying to discern the various components of the pump. “We’ll see. This is a complication we didn’t need.”

  Aidan flipped a switch on the pump. Nothing happened. He sat back on his heels and stared thoughtfully at the faulty system.

  Jade tried to stay calm and wait for him to figure it out, but she could almost feel the fire breathing down their necks, and here they were without water. If they couldn’t wet things down, everything around them would burn all at once and the air temperature might rise to a level they couldn’t survive. She pulled in a shaky breath and let it out. Don’t think about that. She forced herself to focus on the pump.

  “Let me borrow that flashlight,” Aidan finally said. She handed it to him, and he used the handle to rap sharply on a tube below the switch. There was a whirring sound as the pump came on.

  “You fixed it.” Jade’s knees were shaky with relief. “Thank goodness.”

  “Not really,” Aidan said. “There’s got to be a problem with the wiring in the switch. It’s likely to turn back off again at any time if we don’t figure out what’s wrong.” He handed her back the flashlight. “See that breaker on the wall? Cut the power.”

  “You’re going to fix it now?” Jade regretted the panic that sharpened her voice. She needed to stay calm to keep him calm. Except that he was too calm. As if he didn’t even care that a wildfire was coming their way.

  The glance he gave her was edged in sarcasm. “You want to run out of water in the middle of this fight?”

  Of course she didn’t. Jade tried to stand patiently while Aidan unscrewed the cover on the switch with a screwdriver he pulled out of his pocket. Carefully, he extracted two wires and started poking at the metal contacts in the switch with the end of the screwdriver.

  Jade gaped at him. This couldn’t be the solution. “What are you doing?”

  “The contacts are corroded. The switch needs to be replaced, but we don’t have time for that now. Normally I’d use a nail file to get the corrosion off, but this will have to do.” He chipped at the switch some more, scraping the tip of the screwdriver back and forth on the tiny metal plates like he had all the time in the world.

  Their fate was dependent on this? Scraping corrosion off a damaged switch? Jade’s frustration boiled over. “Why are so many things on this ranch in disrepair? Isn’t maintaining your pump kind of crucial when you’re living out in these drought-ridden hills?”

  Aidan didn’t look up but she saw his shoulders rise and his back stiffen. “I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. It’s just, being a firefighter, we’re always working on our equipment. It’s part of our way of life—making sure parts are replaced before they get too old, testing everything to make sure it’s in top condition. We can’t show up at a fire and have things go wrong. People are relying on us.”

  Aidan squinted at the switch. Apparently he wasn’t satisfied, because he began scraping with the screwdriver again. “Well, that’s where we’re different. There’s just me out here. No one else relies on me.”

  “Your animals do. Your sheep
, your dogs, all those cattle I saw getting trucked out of here earlier today.”

  He snapped the wires back into the contacts. “That should do it.” He put the cover on the switch and began screwing it in. Only then did he speak. “Is part of your duty as a firefighter to criticize the folks you’re trying to save? Because it seems like you should save your oxygen for other things. Like breathing.”

  Jade froze, stunned. He was rude, but he was right. She shouldn’t be giving him such a hard time. It was her own fear that had her nagging at him. Yes, he should have been more prepared. But she knew better than to antagonize someone who she’d have to rely on to survive. And there was no point in lecturing. He’d made his choices, and she had to live with that. Size up the incident. Evaluate conditions. Develop a plan. There was nothing in her firefighting manuals that mentioned berating the victim. But something about this man got under her skin and made her forget how to behave.

  Aidan flipped the switch, and the pump purred to life. “Looks like we’re set. Why don’t you finish watering down the battery shed, and I’ll cut the weeds around the solar panel here? Then we can get the extra irrigation set up around the pasture, so the livestock have a better chance at surviving this thing.”

  Jade glanced around, suddenly overwhelmed by how much they had to do in so little time. Out the door, she could see that the afternoon had become evening. Or was that the smoke? She glanced at her watch. It was only five o’clock. The sun set around six thirty in the fall, so this was smoke, getting thicker now that the fire was closing in. “How long will the irrigation take? You have to think about what you want to save, Aidan.”

  He led the way out the door of the well house, and Jade shut it behind her. “Let’s get the animals set first. Then we’ll see what else we can salvage.”

  Outside, flecks of ash wafted down on them like tiny flakes of desolate snow. “Let’s hurry,” Jade said. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”

  At the barn, they parted ways. Jade jogged to where she’d left the hose, got the water running and climbed the slope to the battery shed to spray it all down some more. When she was sure the ground was soaked, she dragged the hose back down to the pasture.

  Aidan caught up to her at the barn, weed trimmer in hand. “The weeds are gone and I watered all around the panels,” he said. “Assuming the switch holds up, that lower well should be okay.”

  “And after the fire—” Jade began.

  He held up a hand to stop her. “I’ll replace the switches, check them more often, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “You know, your local fire department offers inspections for free.” Jade followed him behind the barn to the graveled carport area where they’d parked the tractor. “Once you get everything set up after the fire, you could have someone out here just to check that you’re prepared for the next one.”

  “As long as they don’t send you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jade put her hands to her hips, but Aidan didn’t notice her indignation. He’d knelt down and was busy hitching a small trailer to an ATV.

  “Just that I think I’ve already had an earful of your opinions on my choices.”

  “Safety precautions shouldn’t be choices,” Jade countered. “They’re no-brainers. Just plain common sense, so you’re prepared for situations like this.”

  Aidan straightened, and only then did Jade see that he was laughing at her. “See what I mean? Would you want to have you following you around, criticizing you while you tried to do your job?”

  She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or if she was furious. “So I take my job seriously. So what?” Her dad had been the Shelter Creek fire chief for years. Her brothers had followed in his footsteps in one way or another, and Jade had, too. Only she’d learned early on that she had to work about ten times harder to get the credit and admiration that her brothers received so easily. If that made her pushy, or earnest, or whatever it was about her that Aidan was dismissing here, well so be it.

  Only it stung a little.

  “Never mind.” Maybe he sensed her confusion, because he cut her some slack. “You know what you’re doing, so that’s something.” Aidan pointed to a pile of hose, attached to curious round black disks with sprinkler heads inside. “Irrigation,” he said. “Let’s load it up.”

  “Lift from beneath?” When he nodded, Jade crouched down and got her hands under the coiled mass. Aidan crouched on the other side. “On three,” she said, and counted off. Staggering under the surprising weight of the tubing, Jade managed to hold up her end and help him dump it into the cart.

  “One more.” They got the next pile loaded on top of the first, so the cart was heaped with hose. Aidan jumped on the ATV. “Hop on,” he commanded, and Jade swung her leg over the seat behind him. There were handles by her legs and she gripped them tight. Aidan guided the ATV carefully out of the carport, and they bumped along toward the pasture. The air was thick in Jade’s lungs, sticky on her skin, scratchy in her throat.

  “This is like living inside a barbecue,” Aidan said.

  “Yup. And our job is to keep from getting roasted.”

  Aidan glanced over his shoulder at her. “Ew.”

  “Firefighter humor. Sorry.” This irrigation better not take too long. They hadn’t even gotten the most basic firefighting supplies together. They hadn’t made a plan, let alone the backup plans they would need if things went really wrong.

  But looking at the pasture, Jade could see that Aidan was actually right about this. If they could get these extra sprinklers around the fence line, it would create a buffer zone between the animals and the flames. Without it, the huge flock of sheep would all have to huddle beneath the sprinklers in the center, and they might not all be protected. Or worse, they might panic, with the fire so close.

  Not that the sheep seemed worried now. They were still eating peacefully. The dogs were getting more restless, though. Thor and Odin were pacing the outskirts of the flock, tuned to the distant roaring of the fire.

  Aidan parked the ATV and hopped off. Jade followed. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m going to attach one end of this hose to the wagon and start driving. I need you to make sure it doesn’t tangle as it unwinds. It’s tricky because the sprinkler heads can get caught on the hose if you’re not careful.”

  “Got it.”

  They lifted the pile of hose out, and Aidan tied the end of the hose to a bar at the back of the ATV’s wagon. “I’m going to go slow. If it gets really tangled up, yell for me to stop.” He jumped on the ATV and started driving away, the hose following him.

  Each disk was attached to the hose several yards apart. The black plastic buffer was like a small tire around each sprinkler head, keeping them from getting ruined as they bumped along the ground. Jade shook out a piece of hose that had looped around one of the sprinklers, but the system unfurled without further mishap. It was obvious what she had to do next. She ran along the hose, which now lay on the outside of the pasture fence, and flipped the sprinkler heads over if they’d been turned upside down.

  Aidan untied the hose from the ATV and drove back to where they’d started. Jade jogged to meet him.

  “Now we’ll pull this other hose in the opposite direction,” he said. “Then the pasture will be surrounded by sprinklers.”

  Jade glanced north again, grateful that she didn’t see any flames. “We have to hurry.”

  It only took a few minutes to get the other line of sprinklers in place. Aidan used a double nozzle to connect both hoses to a spigot near the pasture gate, and turned it on. The irrigation system hissed to life and fountains of misty water rose around the fence line.

  Jade’s heart leapt at the sight. “We did it!” She raised her hand for a high five and, after a moment’s hesitation, Aidan slapped her palm with his. But there was no more time to celebrate.

  “I think this is the best we can d
o for the sheep,” he said. “I just need to get Payday out of the barn and put him out here, too, and then we’ll be set.” He shot her a worried glance. “How much time do you think we have left?”

  “It’s hard to say.” Jade lifted her fingers to assess the wind speed. “The, wind seems to be dying down a little. We might have an hour. Maybe a little more? But you never know. Fire can run, which means part of it might make its way down a gully or a dip in the land. If that happens, it could show up here at any moment.”

  “Let’s go, then.” Aidan got back on the ATV, and Jade climbed on behind. They drove quickly back to the barn, now that they didn’t have to worry about the teetering pile of irrigation line.

  “I’ll get Payday,” Aidan said. “He might not appreciate being in with the sheep but he’ll hopefully stay there where he’s safe.”

  “There’s only so much you can do, Aidan. Remember that, if things get out of hand around here.”

  He didn’t answer. Just jumped off the ATV and led the way into the barn.

  “I’ll check on Elliott,” Jade said. “I wish I could let the poor cat out of his crate to go to the bathroom and move around, but if I do he’ll probably run away.”

  “Move him to the tack room.” Aidan pointed to a door at the far end of the barn. “He can move around in there. There’s no way out.” He pointed to a couple metal bowls by the wall. “Give him one of those. There’s food in them for the barn cats. Pile some straw in a corner. Maybe he’ll use it for a litter box.”

  He disappeared into a stall. Jade went to a bale of straw near the first stall and broke off a chunk for Elliott. The tack room was quiet, smelling of leather and horse. Saddles were stacked on wooden racks and bridles hung from the walls. She found a corner and piled the straw there. When she went to get the cat, Aidan was leading the beautiful tan horse Jade had seen him riding earlier today through the barn. He was talking to his four-legged buddy, and Jade overheard his words.