Rescuing the Rancher

by Claire McEwen

  There she went again, using her offbeat humor to keep things calm. “To answer your question, the plan is to hold this line for as long as we can, to keep the backfire where we want it. Keep chasing after any embers. But pretty soon the real fire is going to catch up. Do you feel the difference in the wind? A big fire makes its own weather.”

  He wanted to know more. “And when it gets here...”

  Her mouth thinned into a frown. “I think at that point we should cede our ground. Get down to the house and focus on saving that. Remember, our goal was to slow the fire and send the brunt of it around us. After that, we just try to save what we can and survive. We’re never going to stop it entirely.”

  He’d known it. He’d expected her to say it. But it echoed in his ears and shot adrenaline through his body. This was it. And he could be upset and worried, or he could put one foot in front of the other and fight like hell.

  He knew a little bit about that. He’d been trudging forward in a fog as thick as this smoke for years now.

  He turned away in time to see an ember sail past him. He followed it and slammed it with the flat end of his ax before it could catch. When he turned around, there were flames between him and Jade. She had her back turned, putting out a different flare-up. “Jade, watch out!”

  She turned to look and ran backward with the hose. She trained it on the new flames and he did the same with his pump. But it was Jade who put out the flames, calmly moving the hose back and forth between one spot fire and another, steam rising and blending with the smoke.

  Farther along the firebreak, a bush flared. Aidan stumbled over the plowed earth and used his pump to put it out. Moments later, another bush caught, then a swath of grass behind it. The smoke and the night turned the world black, except where the orange glow from the flames lit it up. In this whack-a-mole world, Aidan ran from one fire to the next, throwing dirt, dumping water, switching out his pump at the truck and dashing back toward the firebreak to stop another ember from becoming something more.

  Adrenaline made his breathing uneven and he worked to slow it, to steady himself so he wasn’t gulping in the thick smoke. He glanced at Jade but she was yards away, digging up dirt to stop yet another patch of flame.

  Across the firebreak the flames still roared. Shouldn’t they die down soon? So when the main fire hit, there’d be nothing but ash in front of it? Aidan looked again. Maybe the flames did seem a little smaller. Or maybe that was his wishful thinking. Or lack of oxygen in all this smoke.

  Aidan’s pump was out of water again. He had one pack left. He dashed for the truck, switched backpacks and started back, only to see the grass flare up to the left of the driveway, between the firebreak and his house. “Jade, bring the hose!”

  She didn’t hear him as she continued to put out a spot fire that raced a few feet ahead of her through the grass. Maybe she couldn’t hear him because the fire was suddenly a whole lot louder, roaring in Aidan’s ears like a furious giant. The sky brightened behind the firebreak, flashing orange and red. The main fire was almost here, but it wasn’t the only thing turning the evening into day. There were flames visible on the ridge to the right. The ridge that separated his ranch from Nellie’s. Regret stabbed him as he realized her ranch was likely destroyed already. Her buildings and pastures were the fuel that had those flames rising and falling, shimmering and flickering.

  Like Jade had said, the fire could come from any direction. Now it was coming at them from two sides.

  Aidan froze. He hadn’t imagined this. He felt cornered. Trapped.

  Jade must have seen the new fire, too, because she came running and shoved the hose into his hand. “Bring this back to your house. Start spraying everything down. I’ll get the truck.” Then she was gone, running to collect their tools. As he wrestled the hose along the bumpy driveway, she loaded the pickup and jumped in, revving the engine as she turned around.

  Aidan stumbled down the driveway with the backpack pump flopping awkwardly on his back. The hose coil trailed behind him, a giant snake at his heels. Once in his yard, he headed for the side of the house closest to the fire. Maybe the flames up on Nellie’s ridge would stay on the northeast path that the wind had been taking all day. If that happened, they could miss the house. They might even miss his barn.

  Or they might run right down the side of the hill and take everything he owned with them.

  Aidan turned the hose on the house, wishing he had a real fire hose instead of this measly garden hose. Jade pulled the truck into the driveway and jumped out. She ran for the place where they’d joined the two hoses together before, and started twisting. It only took a moment for Aidan to realize what she was doing. He ran to help, arriving just in time to get sprayed with water as she separated the two hoses.

  “Oof.” The water was cold on his chest, paralyzing his lungs and causing the fabric of his T-shirt to cling.

  “Just trying to cool you off a little.” Jade’s smile was brief and grim. “Take your hose and find another faucet. That way we can both try to save this place. Once it gets bad, we’ll retreat down to the barn and spray that.”

  “It’s not bad now?” Flames meandered toward them through the grass and bushes, as more embers sailed in and ignited the dry hillside above his house.

  “It’s not perfect, that’s for sure.”

  His harsh laugh surprised them both. “You have a talent for understatement.” He turned away and ran toward the other corner of the house, and the faucet there, the hose trailing behind him.

  Once his hose was hooked up, Aidan sprayed water over the walls and roof, conscious of the growing fire at the top of his property. It was hard to say if Jade’s backfire had helped or not. Hopefully it would slow the coming fire, but by jumping the firebreak like this, it was putting a lot of pressure on them. Still, if this hillside burned now, maybe it would help slow the main blaze when it came.

  “Make sure you spray the ground all around the house, too,” Jade yelled. The smoke was so thick, she was barely visible in the murky, black air. Aidan kept spraying, alternating between the roof, the side and the back of the house, and the ground around. The fire on the hillside, their backfire gone astray, was getting closer, the flames almost as tall as he was as they found more fuel to consume. Aidan watched with uneasiness churning in his stomach. They were playing a game of chicken here. How long until Jade gave up?

  Suddenly she emerged from the thick smoke, just a few yards away. “We need to go,” she told him. “It’s too close!”

  This was it. They had to cede ground to the fire just like she’d said. Aidan looked up at his house, an angular shadow looming over them, backlit by the eerie orange glow. His feet felt rooted to the ground. This had been his home for so long now.

  “Aidan, there’s not much time.” Jade took the hose from his hands. “I’m going to shut this off now. We’ve got to take the hoses with us. Mine is already in the truck.

  He followed her to the faucet and waited while she turned off the water and unscrewed the hose. Looking up at his beautiful old farmhouse with its wide plank siding, the carved porch railing, the gabled windows on the second story, he felt tears come and swallowed hard. This home had stood here since the early 1900s. It had seen families raised, joy, love and, lately, so much pain. Aidan closed his eyes, envisioning Colby’s room one last time. The blue walls he’d painted with such care, his son’s bed, the toys, the books. The ache in his heart threatened to split open his chest as he wished Godspeed to whatever energy or love was still there.

  Jade’s gentle touch on his arm brought him back. “We have to go,” she reminded him. Her voice was quiet, but he could hear the urgency behind it.

  He nodded. She was right. They had to focus on the barn now. On saving the animals. Still, it was hard to walk away, knowing that despite their efforts his house might soon be ashes.

  “Aidan.” Jade’s voice held an edge of command n
ow. “We need to move.”

  The glow behind the house was rising, the wildfire lighting up the night with its horrific power. He knew in his heart the house couldn’t possibly survive it. Maybe they wouldn’t either. The thought brought no fear for himself. At least, then, he could be with his son.

  But Jade wasn’t part of that mourning. Jade was caught up in this mess because she’d driven back here one more time, to try to save his sorry skin. He couldn’t let her suffer for that choice. “If it burns, it burns,” he said aloud, more in defiance of the approaching fire than to Jade. “Let’s go.”

  He squared his shoulders and followed Jade’s shadowy form as she ran along the side of the house and back to the truck.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JADE GUIDED HER truck through the smoky darkness and tried to plot her next move. She’d been studying for her fire captain’s exam, had gone through scenario after scenario in her textbooks, but her lessons had never taught her what to do when stranded on a burning ranch with a confusing, cranky and probably grieving rancher who was now going to lose pretty much everything he hadn’t lost already.

  The main thing at this point was simply to stay alive, but she really wanted to save his barn. She’d lost hope of saving the house. The fire was going to come at it too strong. She should have set her backfire sooner, though honestly, even if she had, she didn’t know if she would have been able to keep it from jumping the firebreak. They’d needed more than just the two of them to keep it under control.

  If they got really lucky, maybe the fire would pass over the house. They’d wetted it down so well. But it was an old building, the wood weathered and dry inside. Plus, there were too many places for embers to lodge and start burning. Spaces between the boards on the siding, between the porch floorboards, between the decorative shingles over the front door.

  But sometimes in fires there were miracles. The one house that ended up unscathed, when the rest of the block burned. The people and animals who managed to survive. Hopefully they’d get a miracle or two here tonight.

  At least the barn might not require a miracle to make it through. It had a metal roof and a lot of defensible space since Aidan had put gravel all around it. Bless him and his desire to keep things less muddy in the winter. As long as the pump held up and they could wet the building down, Jade was pretty confident they could save it. Unless the fire came down the hill behind the well house.

  Jade glanced out her side window. “Up there on the ridge, where it’s burning now, that’s where you rode off to get the sheep today, right?”

  He grimaced. “Yup. It’s my friend Nellie’s ranch.”

  Jade remembered the quaint outbuildings and the sweet farmhouse she’d circled, banging on the windows, trying to see if anyone was home. “I drove out there to evacuate her, but she was already gone. The place was deserted.”

  “I got her out as soon as I saw the fire. I was going to go into town today, but when I got to the part of the road that overlooks the valley I could see the smoke. So I went to Nellie’s and helped load up her llamas and mules.”

  Jade navigated the truck carefully around behind the barn. There wasn’t room under the carport, but she parked right up close to it, hoping the barn would shelter the vehicle from the flames. Aidan’s truck was there, too. “And then you risked your own life to go get her sheep.”

  He glared at her, his inner grump on display. “Don’t paint me as some kind of hero. Nellie has been really good to me. Like a mom. I wasn’t going to let her sheep die up there. That’s all.”

  When he got all huffy like this, she couldn’t resist poking at him. “So you saved her, and saved her sheep, but you don’t want anyone to notice it?”

  In the dim glow from the light above the carport, she could see that he’d pressed his lips into a thin line she was starting to recognize. He did that when he was trying not to smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

  “Okay, then. Now that we have that straight, let’s water down the barn. And let’s pay special attention to the side that faces Nellie’s property. I think we’re going to have fire running down that slope.”

  They got out of the truck and got the tools from the back. “Let’s lean these on the wall just inside the barn,” Jade said. “That way we know where they are and we can grab them easily if we need them.”

  “Want me to refill the backpack pumps?”

  “Absolutely. We can put those near the entrance of the barn, too.” She held up the hoses they’d brought from the house. “Where should I attach these?”

  “I’ve already got a hose on the west side of the barn. It’s where I wash the horses. And there’s another here.” Aidan turned on one of the headlamps he’d brought and shined it on a faucet at the side of the carport. “So let’s bring these hoses to the front of the barn. There are faucets on both front corners.”

  “I know I’ve been critical of some of your ranching habits,” Jade told him. “But you have great plumbing on this property.”

  He burst out laughing, a rich sound in the bleak night. “No one has ever told me that before.”

  “Glad I could be the first.”

  They walked side by side to the front of the barn. Jade hugged the coils of hose and Aidan carried their pickaxes and shovels. Jade hated to sour the mood, but she needed to make sure they had their plans in place. “Our goal right now is to get the barn, and everything around it, as wet as possible. But if the fire comes racing down that hill too fast or too high, we have to have a backup plan. I think at that point we should get in the pasture with the sheep.”

  She could see Aidan frown in the dim glare of the headlamp he carried. “Thor and Odin are going to be riled up. They might not be hospitable to you or Chip. And definitely not Elliott.”

  “We can drive a truck in there if we need to, and the animals and I can stay in the cab. You’ve got sprinklers on in there. It’s our safest bet, I think.”

  He nodded. “So that’s plan B?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do firefighters always make this many plans? Or is that just you?”

  She smiled nervously, noting the fiery wall growing at that top of the ranch. It looked like the main fire had caught up with their backfire. She squinted, trying to see if it was going to veer around the ranch, or jump right over the fire line and come straight at them. “We make lots of plans. Especially nowadays when fires are burning hotter than ever. We can’t predict what’s going to happen. So we try to have a plan for every situation.”

  “Is there a plan C?”

  “The pond.”

  He glanced at her in alarm. “We get in the water. With Chip and the cat.”

  “Yup.”

  He was silent for a moment, as if taking it in. “Okay, then.”

  They’d reached the front of the barn and Aidan went inside to put the tools down. He must have flipped a switch, because a floodlight in front of the barn came on. It was sheer relief to have it. The sky was fully dark now, which made the orange flames heading their way even more terrifying.

  With the light on, it was easier to find the faucets Aidan had mentioned, at the front corners of the barn. As soon as Jade got the hoses attached, she went to the east side of the structure, near the steep hillside. She sprayed the barn wall, starting with the eaves and working her way down. Three deer came bounding down the hill and ran right past her, through the pool of light in front of the barn, their hooves clattering on the gravel.

  Aidan came out from behind the barn with the backpack pumps and stopped abruptly when the deer ran right in front of him. They disappeared into the darkness beyond the barn, and Jade said a little prayer for them. It was hard to think about all the animals that would be affected by this fire.

  She moved along the front of the barn, soaking the wood. “Aidan,” she called. “Can you close the barn doors? I need to spray them off.”

/>   He set the pumps down and went to close the doors. Jade kept the hose moving, trying to soak every inch of the wood. Up the driveway, clouds of red and orange flames suddenly billowed into the air. It took a moment for Jade to realize what caused the flare up. Aidan’s house was burning.

  Words failed her. She looked over at him, horrified. He’d seen it, too. He’d stopped filling the pumps and was standing, staring, letting the water from his hose run onto the ground. This was awful, but they needed those pumps filled.

  “Aidan.” She dragged her hose over to where he stood, continuing to spray off the barn while she spoke to him. “You have to let it go. We have to keep our focus on fighting this fire right here at the barn. You want to save it, don’t you?”

  It took a moment, but eventually her words seemed to reach him. He nodded once and picked up the hose again. When he knelt to fill the pump, he turned his back to her.

  Jade pulled her hose around to the far side of the barn, to give Aidan some space. Her heart was breaking for him, but she was more resolved than ever to save this barn, no matter what.

  * * *

  AIDAN SPRAYED DOWN the western wall of his barn and watched the ravenous flames devour his house. Sparks exploded, fire billowed and it was hard to know if the tears on his face were sorrow for what he was losing, or relief that his house, with so much grief inside it, was well and truly gone. He was grateful that Jade was giving him space. He didn’t need her witnessing the barrage of emotions washing through him.

  In a weird way, he was grateful they had a long night of firefighting in front of them. The task he was doing now, and the ones ahead, were the things keeping him sane. Without the structure they provided, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Was it possible for someone to feel much all at once?

  A sudden loud hissing sound jolted him out of his thoughts, and he stumbled a few paces back when he saw a huge spire of flame shoot up in a column near his burning house. He’d never seen or heard anything like it before, but he was pretty sure he knew what it was.