Her Montana Man

by Laurie Paige

  “Yes.”

  They ran to his SUV and took off. Driving up Main Street, Chelsea could see the ominous red line of fire moving down the mountain toward the valley.

  Pierce muttered a harsh expletive. “We need to call out the volunteers,” he told her. “The whole town will have to help with this one.” He stopped at the park. “There’s Kelly. I’ll see you later.” He touched her arm. “Take care.”

  “You, too.” On an impulse she didn’t question, she leaned toward him. They kissed briefly but deeply. She leaped out and raced toward the library where Kelly directed operations for a field hospital. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, stopping beside her friend.

  “You’re here. Good.” Kelly pointed behind them. “We’re setting up an emergency first-aid station. The hospital in Whitehorn is sending all the ambulances they can spare. The worst cases will be taken there. We’re using the basement of the library as an infirmary. We’ll assess damage and treat for smoke inhalation and minor burns. Can you carry these?”

  Chelsea helped Kelly carry supplies from her car into the makeshift infirmary. Several cots were already set up along one wall. Partitioned off from the room by screens, an examining area was being prepared by several women. She recognized Pierce’s mother, Mrs. Dalton, and Louise Holmes, stacking towels on a table.

  “Everything is disinfected,” Mrs. Dalton called out.

  “Here,” Kelly said, handing several surgical packs to Chelsea. “I’d rather do this at the office, but there’s no place to put anyone when we finish.”

  Chelsea observed her friend with admiration. Kelly gave orders like a general, her manner calm, efficient and sure. “You seem to have done this previously,” she commented, preparing a tray next to an examining table.

  “A couple of times,” Kelly admitted, laying out her own instruments at a second table. “Also, I’ve lived through several fires in the area. None has ever reached the town.”

  “I’m praying it won’t this time. Knock on wood,” Louise voiced the old superstition and knocked on her own head.

  “There’s always a first time,” Kelly said, worry flashing through her eyes, then she was all brisk motion as she finished the setup and handed Chelsea a surgical gown.

  Chelsea eyed the table as she fastened the gown. “Are we expecting other medical personnel?”

  “Nope. We’re it on the front line. The doctors in Whitehorn will be needed at the hospital. We’ll mostly do screening and first aid.”

  “It’s been a while since I did an emergency room rotation,” she reminded her friend. It had probably been five years since she’d examined a living body.

  Kelly glanced her way with an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. It’ll come back to you. I’ll be here if you want a second opinion.”

  A siren rent the air, the noise so loud it was impossible to speak for a minute.

  “The emergency call for volunteers,” Kelly told her. “Everyone is needed.”

  Thirty minutes later the local volunteers, Jim and Pierce among them, brought in the first victims of the fire. Six firefighters had been trapped by a crown fire while digging a fire line. Two of them were unconscious.

  Chelsea knew a crown fire jumped from treetop to treetop and could create its own gale-force winds as it burned. It moved with terrifying speed. She pulled on gloves and bent over the man placed on her table.

  While she automatically checked his vital signs, she noted how young he was. No more than twenty at the most. “Oxygen,” she said.

  Someone handed her the mask and turned on the tank. Her eyes met Pierce’s. She smiled her thanks and clipped the mask into place, then peeled the soot-covered shirt open. His chest was red but not blistered. His pulse and blood pressure were good. His eyes responded to light. After a few breaths, he coughed and opened his eyes.

  “Am I in heaven?” he asked, and gave her a cheeky grin.

  “The library basement,” Pierce informed him.

  The men laughed while Chelsea continued the examination. She smoothed an antibiotic ointment on the reddened skin and dressed it. “Okay…rest, lots of water, aspirin for pain,” she prescribed.

  “Doc, we got a guy who needs help,” a man called out. He led another young man into the examining area.

  She winced when she saw his arm. His shirt was burned away and the skin was one giant blister from wrist to elbow. She peeled her gloves, pulled on a clean pair and picked up a scalpel. “Put him here,” she ordered.

  Pierce helped the firefighter onto the table. He held a basin per her instructions while she drained the blister, then covered it in a special burn cloth that would keep it sterile and help it heal. She gave the firefighter a shot to ease the pain. “Take him to one of the cots. He’ll be asleep in a minute.”

  Pierce and the other man took the victim to the opposite side of the room. Mrs. Dalton appeared. “I’m trained in first aid. Who needs help?”

  “Chelsea,” Kelly answered from the next table, putting ointment on a burned hand. “My nurse is here with me.”

  Chelsea spotted the woman at Kelly’s table. Mrs. Dalton stepped up, gave her a smile and waited for orders.

  “Next,” Chelsea said.

  Before the next man could step up, two firemen brought in a third young man. Blood pumped steadily out of the injured person’s leg near the ankle.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Slipped and cut himself with the fire ax,” a fireman explained. “Looks bad.”

  “Lay him on the table,” Chelsea said, changing gloves automatically. “Kelly, I think I’ll need some assistance.”

  Kelly gave instructions to her nurse, then joined Chelsea. She reached for a sterile pack. “I’ll administer the anesthetic. You do the repair. You were always better at that sort of thing than I was,” she argued when Chelsea frowned and started to protest.

  Chelsea reviewed what needed to be done, then concentrated on doing it to the best of her ability. She found her skills were intact. Her hands were steady, almost moving by instinct as she found the end of the artery and clamped it, then fished out the other end.

  Together, as if they were back in medical school, the two woman worked to stem the loss of blood. With the artery no longer pumping blood into the wound, they cleaned the painful slit and bound it, making the patient ready for transportation. In a few minutes they signaled the medical attendants who were on standby.

  With siren wailing in the smoky darkness, the driver and paramedic took the firefighter to the hospital in Whitehorn for a permanent repair.

  Mrs. Dalton wiped down the table with disinfectant, put the used items in a covered metal bin and prepared for the next victim of the fire. Kelly and Chelsea stripped their gloves, slipped into fresh surgical gowns, sprayed disinfectant on their hands and arms, put on fresh gloves and were ready for business again at each table in less than two minutes.

  Other people—male and female, smoke jumpers and volunteers—were brought to them. Dawn broke, but the smoke kept the sky dark. The fire burned steadily along the crest of a ridge, but the firefighters managed to keep it from roaring down upon the town.

  At noon, a hand touched her shoulder. “Break time,” Pierce murmured. “You need food.” He let her finish with a bandage, then led her off.

  Her assistant had changed a couple of times. The pregnant waitress was helping now. She shooed Chelsea off and cleaned the table and straightened the instrument tray. Chelsea had lost count of the number of wounds, mostly minor, she’d treated.

  It wasn’t until she sat down at a picnic table in the park that she realized how tired she was. Jim and Kelly were already there. Two teenagers hurried over with box lunches from the Calico Café and asked what they would like to drink. The girls brought over large containers of iced tea.

  Chelsea pulled thirstily on the straw. When she glanced up, she noticed the men’s clothing was covered in soot. They’d washed their faces and hands, but the black was embedded around their nails and in the
knuckles. They looked beat. Pierce had several small red places on one hand.

  “What have you two been doing?” she asked.

  “Trying to hold a position,” Jim said. “We’ve been beating out stray fires that ignite behind the fire line. Embers are blowing everywhere.”

  “Are we winning or losing?” Kelly wanted to know.

  “Winning. For now.” Pierce opened his lunch box, noticed that Chelsea’s was still closed and switched his box for hers. “Eat. You’ve been working for eight solid hours.”

  The aroma of corned beef tempted her appetite. She picked up a sandwich half. “It’s like war, isn’t it? I never realized, but fighting a fire is a battle.”

  “We’ll win,” Pierce told her. “We have to.”

  Their glances met and held. She saw the determination in him and the certainty of victory, also the knowledge that victory came with a price, a price the whole community would have to pay. He, as mayor, would bear the brunt of it, for he would have to encourage and comfort the residents through the disaster if they couldn’t save the town.

  She touched his cheek lightly. “We will,” she murmured, needing to encourage and comfort him.

  He caught her hand as she withdrew, and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Hold that thought,” he said with a smile, and closed her fingers around the kiss.

  Across the table Kelly looked on with approval.

  Chelsea felt an incredible sense of oneness with them, these friends who made her feel needed and wanted. It was something she didn’t recall ever experiencing in her whole life. It would be so hard to leave….

  The rest period didn’t last nearly long enough. Holt, as dirty as Pierce and Jim, ran into the park, stopped near their table and shouted, “We need all hands. The fire has breached the line. All hands, on the double.”

  The picnic area was emptied of all but women who had young children with them, older people and the teenage girls who started cleaning the vacated tables. Kelly grimaced and stood. “Ready?”

  Chelsea nodded. They returned to the makeshift field hospital where Kelly’s nurse and a retired practical nurse worked over some new patients. She and Kelly pitched in and helped finish up. After cleaning the area and restocking their supplies, they sat down and waited.

  Two fire trucks from Whitehorn blasted into town. The fire chief directed them to the north side where the fire, visible to the whole town, burned steadily down the mountain. They could hear booms, like cannons going off, coming from the inferno.

  She wondered where Pierce and Jim were, but didn’t let herself dwell on their safety.

  Holt stopped by and said they were evacuating families who lived between the fire and the town. One old man, a recluse who lived up in the woods, couldn’t be found. His cabin had burned to the ground. Worry cut deep lines in the deputy’s brow.

  Kelly put some soothing salve on his face where tiny red burns indicated how close he’d been to the flying debris. Ash was now thick in the air, settling on hair and clothing like a shroud.

  “Where do you think the guys are?” Kelly murmured after Holt bounded off again.

  “In the thick of things.”

  Kelly sighed. “That’s what I figured. Look, here comes our next patients.”

  Chelsea went outside to help unload the walking wounded. One of them was the fire chief’s assistant. Blood oozed from a scalp wound where he’d been hit by a flying limb from an exploding tree.

  “There’ll be more,” the fireman said. “The fire jumped again, trapping these men. A rescue party got all but one out. We’re trying to clear an opening for the two who went in to rescue the guy we couldn’t find.”

  “Who are the trapped men?” Kelly asked.

  The fireman shrugged. “Could be anyone. We have more than a thousand men on the fire lines.”

  Chelsea and Kelly glanced at each other, then went to work on the new patients. For the rest of the afternoon they were on their feet, examining, making snap decisions, treating the injured or sending them to Whitehorn. When the Whitehorn hospital was full, the forest service chief called in helicopters and transported emergency cases to Billings.

  A lull came at sunset. The sky turned an awesome red, backlighting the trees that still stood sentinel along the western horizon. To the north, the blaze dimmed, then flared, dimmed, then flared, as the firefighters won and lost ground during the long afternoon and evening.

  Someone had brought in lawn chairs. Chelsea and the medical team sank wearily into them when the last patient was treated. “Are we winning?” Kelly asked, watching the fiery tongues lick the sky as the sun disappeared.

  No one had an answer.

  Chelsea wondered about the two men who had gone back to rescue another. Had they gotten the man and returned? Who were they? Meeting her friend’s eyes, she knew Kelly was wondering the same thing.

  At midnight the fire chief reported the fire was contained. A cheer went up from those who worked behind the lines, making sandwiches and coffee and tending to the weary warriors who stumbled back to town for rest and food, then headed out again to face the enemy.

  By dawn there were pockets of heavy smoke but no evidence of flames on the hillside. Helicopters with water tanks dropped hoses into the lake, slurped up water and flew off to release it on the smoldering ruins of the forest.

  “I wonder where the guys are,” Kelly said as the sun came over the eastern hills.

  Chelsea wondered, too. She and Kelly had slept on cots for a few hours, taking turns being on call. Chelsea recalled being awakened only once for a case that required stitches. A female firefighter had fallen and gashed her scalp on a rock. The young woman had returned to duty as soon as she was patched up.

  “People show such remarkable courage when it’s needed,” she said. “We can be petty and mean, but we’re good when it comes to emergencies.”

  Kelly nodded, her eyes on the northern horizon. “I don’t feel good,” she said.

  Chelsea was on her feet at once. She’d worried about Kelly and the baby at spare moments. “Are you in pain? Are you having cramps or backaches?”

  “I’m okay. I didn’t mean me. I meant…” She stopped and inhaled deeply, slowly, as if she sought control.

  “Jim and Pierce,” Chelsea said, sinking into the chair once more. “I know. I’m worried, too. We haven’t seen them in hours.”

  “Have you noticed how well they work together?” Kelly looked at her. “Just the way we did yesterday and last night. Rumor isn’t large, but it and the county could support a family clinic—”

  Chelsea held up her hand. “Please. I can’t think right now. I’m too beat.” She managed a smile.

  Kelly smiled, too. “I know. That’s why I thought I’d tackle you now, while you’re too tired to argue. I think we’d make a wonderful team, you and I. Brenner and Dalton, the Montana miracle workers.”

  Chelsea tried to think this through. “Dalton?” she finally had to ask.

  “You. You and Pierce will marry,” her friend announced.

  “Don’t…don’t make plans that will only end in disappointment,” Chelsea advised, an ache settling deep inside her.

  Kelly gave her a disapproving frown, but said nothing more as two grandmotherly women brought them plates of ham and eggs and fresh biscuits. “Mmm,” she said, biting into one of the biscuits, “these are from the diner. They make the best hot breads and pastries of anyone.”

  Chelsea was almost too weary to pick up the fork. She got down a few bites, then set the food aside. Where was Jim? Where was Pierce?

  Volunteers were streaming back into town, sharing hugs and kisses with their families and friends, telling of their close calls and encounters with the demon fire, their mood cheerful and relieved after the tension of the past twenty-four hours.

  Chelsea checked her watch as she realized only a bit more than a full day had passed since she and Pierce had been awakened by the smoke.

  A day. A lifetime.

  “Where are they?” Kelly mu
rmured, sipping from a steaming mug of coffee, her eyes on the horizon.

  “They’ll be here soon.” Chelsea wondered if Kelly believed her. She didn’t know if she believed herself. “They will,” she insisted.

  Two hours later a field truck pulled into the library parking lot. “Casualties,” the forest service medic called out to them, as Chelsea and Kelly stood at the basement door.

  “Oh, God,” Kelly said. She rushed forward.

  Chelsea grabbed her arm. “They’ll need us here.”

  Two stretchers were brought in. Jim and Pierce lay on them, their bodies limp and unconscious, their faces so blackened they were almost unrecognizable. Oxygen tubes were clipped to their nostrils.

  “They crawled into a hole under a boulder,” one of the medics explained. “I don’t think they’re injured, but the smoke nearly got them.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Chelsea said. “You sit down.”

  Kelly, her eyes stricken, shook her head. “I’ll help.”

  But Chelsea, after a quick checkup, knew the signs weren’t good. Kelly didn’t need to be attending her husband or her brother if…if…

  No, no, no, her heart cried.

  “Let’s get them to Billings,” Chelsea said. “Are the helicopters back yet?”

  “Not yet,” the nurse reported. “I’ll call.”

  A long ten minutes passed. The two men breathed in shallow gasps, the sound loud in the silent infirmary. A medical evacuation chopper arrived.

  “Come on,” Chelsea said to her friend. “Everything’s done here. We’ll go with them.”

  The two men were strapped onto the stretchers mounted on the landing gear while the two women rode inside with the pilot. Chelsea called in a report to the emergency medical staff who waited in Billings. The EMT swung into action as soon as they arrived.

  Resuscitators were hooked up to relieve the stress on the men’s bodies. A precise mix of oxygen and air flowed into their lungs. Medicine administered through the steady drip of fluid into their veins stimulated the uneven heartbeats, which soon smoothed out into regular spikes on the heart rate monitors. Their rooms were side by side in the critical care unit, per Kelly’s request.