Texas Dad (Fatherhood)

by Roz Denny Fox

  She ran to the barn. The two horses obviously sensed that something was amiss. They whickered and shifted restlessly in their stalls. Yesterday she had seen Zoey take lead ropes from a wall hook. Locating them, she grabbed two and looped one around the neck of each horse before leading the horses outside. The pinto snorted and his nostrils flared. J.J. wasn’t sure how far it was down to Turkey Creek. She’d gone there a couple of times in the past to make out with Mack. That was long ago, but thankfully landscapes didn’t change.

  Only people did.

  The stream was closer than she remembered. She considered wading across it to tie the animals to saplings on the other side. She was worried that if the fire reached this point and sparks jumped the creek, the horses might still be lost. Trusting that Mack could track them if they bolted, she freed the pair slapped their rumps so they’d cross the stream, and raced back to the barn. The cow and her calf were harder to budge. J.J. tugged and pulled and even cursed the heifer. Finally, she scooped up the gangling calf and jogged down to the stream, hoping the mother would follow. She did. Relieved, J.J. left them both at the water’s edge.

  Panic rose when she thought about everything that might be lost. Mack’s family history was here. That spurred her to hurry and unlatch the chicken coop. She propped it open with a rock. If the fire didn’t reach the ranch, Mack might hate her for releasing all his livestock. So be it.

  Zoey was standing nervously next to the pickup. J.J. hauled two hoses out of the barn and asked, “Do you know where we can connect these?”

  “There’s a faucet next to the front porch at the house, and... Oh, there’s another...a tall pipe out by the corral. I tried calling Daddy, but he didn’t answer. Where’s Erma?”

  “I haven’t been back to the house. Would you go see if she’s ready and help wheel her out? I’ll connect these. Then if you and Erma begin soaking the buildings and the grass by the barn, I’ll grab more stuff from the house. Things like the family pictures hanging in the hall, and the laptop—”

  “I didn’t pack my photo album,” Zoey broke in. “Or the picture of my mom. It’s on my nightstand.” Tears spilled over her freckles.

  “Sweetie, run and get them now. And any important mementos you can carry. Listen. Sirens. If they make a fire break between us and the fire, we’ll probably do all of this preparation for nothing.”

  “I hope so.” Zoey ran back to the house and J.J. uncoiled both hoses. She stretched them out full length and tightened their connectors to the faucets, giving each an extra wrench. Her head spun because there was so much to do.

  Erma had wheeled herself to the patio and had managed, however awkwardly, to drag her suitcase along.

  “Let me carry that. Erma, why didn’t you wait for me or Zoey? You’ll hurt your hip again. Here, take this hose. I’ll turn on the water and you spray as much of this side of the house and the surrounding ground as you can.”

  Picking up the suitcase, J.J. detoured by the front of the house. After turning on the faucet, she set the suitcase in the pickup bed next to Zoey’s bag.

  “Erma, I’m going in to rescue Mack’s family pictures. You mentioned his laptop. Can you think of anything else I need to grab for him?”

  “He has a checkbook and ledger in his middle desk drawer. His clothes would be in his bedroom. If you can, grab a few things out of his closet. It’s good of you to think about his family photographs.”

  J.J. took off for the house again at a run. In no time she returned, her arms piled high with photo albums and frames, and Mack’s jeans and shirts flapping from hangers. Over her shoulder was draped an old crocheted bedspread she’d spotted on a quilt rack in Mack’s bedroom. He had a couple of photographs on his wall, but she’d been too weighed down to grab them.

  “I’d forgotten all about the bedspread,” Erma shouted over to J.J. “Mack will appreciate you saving it. It’s one of few things he has left that belonged to his mother.”

  Zoey staggered out of the house, bowed under the weight of her treasures. J.J. noticed a couple of stuffed animals, red boots, some books and a photo album. Helping the girl put her load into the pickup, J.J. caught sight of an eight-by-ten framed photo of Faith Adams—well, Faith Bannerman. But the photo was premarriage. Faith wore a cap and gown. Judging by how young she looked, J.J. guessed it was her high school graduation picture. Taking care to cushion the glass frame between Zoey’s stuffed toys, J.J. wondered how she’d missed finding Mack and Faith’s wedding pictures. There hadn’t been any among the family portraits in the hall or the wedding photo albums.

  “Zoey, I need you to turn on the water to the hose I connected by the corral. Wet the ground between the corral and barn. That entire area is dry grass. I’ll go move your dad’s pickup to the highway. Back soon.”

  “Did you try calling my dad? Shouldn’t we leave now, too?”

  “I’m pretty sure he and Benny are headed home by now. I think he’d want us to do everything possible to save the ranch before we go.”

  “But he’d ride faster if he knew we’re in trouble.”

  “I’ll phone as soon as I move his pickup. Come to think of it...I don’t have his cell number.”

  Zoey rattled it off, and J.J. hoped she got it right over the roar of the pickup motor. She crossed the highway and parked in a pull-out on the opposite side. The fire would have to jump two lanes of asphalt to reach Mack’s pickup, she thought as she pocketed his keys. Returning at a run, she called the number Zoey had given her. Mack’s phone rang twice, then cut off. She tried a second time but it went straight to voice mail. When she attempted to leave a message all she got was static.

  By now she felt grimy. Somehow she’d scratched the underside of one arm and also had a bloody gash on her right knee. She waved at Zoey and Erma, then darted into her room. J.J. contemplated whether it’d be smart to trade the shorts she wore for jeans. But that would mean tugging off her boots—precious time better spent helping wet the house and barn. She haphazardly tossed a few clothes in her bag and carried it and her camera bag outside. Turning her rented SUV around, she gauged how far away to leave it so she could still wheel Erma over the bumpy terrain, load everyone and scoot out to the highway if it seemed they’d lose the battle to the encroaching blaze.

  For the first time she smelled smoke. Her stomach tensed. The gray line had moved closer and billowed higher. Now she could actually see red-orange flames licking along the ground amid the acrid odor driven toward them on the hot breeze.

  “Erma, how are you holding up?” J.J. yelled, choking a little on the taste of smoke.

  “I’m okay,” Erma said into the crook of her arm. “Look over there! La Mesa’s fire trucks are pumping water, and our neighbors are trying to beat out the flames with soaked gunnysacks, just like I told you. There’s nothing there but dry grass, but I can’t tell if they’re making headway.”

  “Me, either. We’ll do what we can, but we need to give ourselves time to make tracks out of here no matter what.”

  “You won’t get an argument out of me. Right now I think the barn is in the most worrisome spot. I wish this danged hose was longer. I have more water pressure than Zoey does coming out of that well.”

  “I didn’t see any other hoses in the barn. But I brought buckets. I’ll go fill them at the creek. If I saturate the ground around the small corral, maybe the rails won’t catch fire. We’ll have to hope that and Zoey’s efforts will stop the flames short of the barn.”

  “Jilly, dear, don’t be killing yourself hauling water. It’s not far down to the creek, but it’s all uphill coming back.”

  J.J. heard the slight wheeze in Erma’s voice and feared the smoke was getting to the older woman. She debated loading everyone up right now. But the line of fire moving steadily toward Mack’s barn seemed to be getting ahead of the people fighting it.

  Dashing back to the kitchen, J.J. wet
three dish towels and hurried outside again. She tied one around Erma’s nose and mouth and the second around Zoey’s face, taking the third for herself.

  “Did you get Daddy on his cell?”

  J.J. shook her head. “I tried twice, kiddo.” She hated to see how Zoey’s shoulders slumped.

  It dawned on her that the pool was much closer than Turkey Creek, so she took her buckets there. In spite of how the flagstone hurt her knees when she dropped down, she filled both buckets and ran as quickly as she could to the corral. She dumped the water on the yellowed grass around the posts most in danger from the approaching fire. She repeated the process several times until her back and arms ached and her legs shook, threatening to give out.

  The last time she passed Zoey, who was still valiantly spraying water on the lower part of the barn and the ground between it and the corral, the girl slipped the towel off her mouth. “J.J., I’m hot and tired. Can we please get out of here?”

  Skidding to a stop, J.J. took note of Zoey’s red-rimmed eyes and figured her own must look as bad. A fire truck lumbered through the pasture that led to the creek, and J.J. heard the empty pumper sucking up creek water.

  Nodding, unable to speak through the thickening smoke mixed with tears that clogged her throat, she set down her buckets and propped Zoey’s still-running hose through one handle so it would continue to spray the barn planks after they left. Looping an arm around Zoey’s shoulders, they hastened to Erma.

  “We have to go,” J.J. said. She turned off Erma’s hose because the people fighting the blaze had pretty much stamped out the fire headed for the house. The corral and barn still sat in its path. J.J. was afraid that if the barn caught, flying embers could ignite the house. She banished her fear. “We gave it our best shot,” she said, her voice little more than a rasp as she took the handles of Erma’s wheelchair with smoke-blackened hands, and the three of them hustled to the SUV.

  Zoey climbed into the backseat and buckled in. She buried her face in the wet towel while J.J. boosted Erma into the passenger seat, collapsed the wheelchair and tossed it into the back. She slid behind the steering wheel, noticing how filthy her bare legs were, but just before she closed the door, she heard a dog barking.

  “It’s Jiggs!” Zoey dropped her towel and released the catch on her seat belt. “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home,” she shouted, flinging open the back door.

  “Wait,” J.J. implored, but it was too late. Zoey had already burst out of the truck, falling to her knees in the gravel parking strip to greet the collie.

  Mack and Benny must have galloped their horses around the pool and across the patio. They bore down on the SUV. Mack was first to dismount, and was nearly bowled over by Zoey, who’d scrambled up and launched herself at him with arms widespread.

  “You’re covered in soot. What the hell?” He met J.J.’s eyes with fury as he lifted Zoey back into the SUV. “I gave you credit for having good sense, Jill. I need to help fight this fire. Do you suppose you could manage to get my family out of imminent danger? Oh, and take Jiggs and our horses.” He snapped his fingers until the dog bounded in next to Zoey. Gathering the reins of his and Benny’s lathered horses, Mack tied them to J.J.’s back bumper. “And where’s my pickup?”

  J.J. stabbed a finger toward the main road where the rear of his pickup was barely visible. Her throat was so parched she had no voice left to defend herself. He slammed both open doors of her SUV and she jumped. Mack clearly expected her to follow his imperious order, because he turned away and ran to help Benny unroll a long, fat blue hose from the pool’s pump to the corral. Within seconds J.J. saw water gush out of the hose to flood the whole interior of the small corral. She put the SUV into gear and realized how much her palms hurt from being rubbed nearly raw by the bucket handles—she’d lost track of how many heavy buckets of water she’d carried from the pool to the corral.

  “They’re using the pool’s back-flush system,” she whispered to Erma. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She underwent a coughing fit that slowed their departure.

  Erma patted her back. “Mack doesn’t know what you’ve done, Jill. Put yourself in his shoes. Grass fires burned out two ranches earlier this spring. I’m sure he and Benny saw the fire from a ways out. They’d know the ranch is in its path. Fear drove them to ride hard. Look how sweaty those horses are.”

  “Yeah,” Zoey said from the backseat. “Daddy sometimes yells at me if he’s afraid I’d get hurt doing something. He always says he’s sorry and he doesn’t stay mad, because he loves me.”

  J.J. drove to the main highway and parked. She was shaking too hard to go farther, and she didn’t want to drag the plodding horses.

  “Are you all right?” Erma asked in a low voice.

  J.J. scrubbed a trembling hand over her face. “Belated reaction to a crisis. Or possibly from Jiggs’s cold nose in my ear,” she said, trying to make light of her wooziness as she reached back to nudge the dog away.

  “Jiggs wants to go with my dad,” Zoey said, trying to tug the animal onto her lap. “He’s supposed to be my dog, but he likes being with my dad best.”

  “That’s because he was born to herd,” Erma said. “Your father is generally out with the cattle.”

  “Dad says it’s because I never get up in time to feed Jiggs, and the person who feeds a dog becomes his best friend.”

  Dry as her throat was, J.J. had to laugh—if not at the truth of Zoey’s claim, at the strange normalcy of this conversation when they weren’t so far removed from danger.

  “Listen,” Zoey exclaimed, unbuckling her seat belt to slide over to J.J.’s side of the vehicle. “Maybe they almost have the fire out. There’s only trails of smoke out past the barn. Out where the fire trucks are. The people who came in pickups and helped are talking to Benny and my dad. There’s Brandy’s dad. He must’ve left work to help. Brandy’s mom and dad are the best.” She had her face pressed to the car window.

  J.J. scanned the area beyond the pool, but she didn’t recognize anyone but Mack and Benny. Thanks to the short rise on which she’d parked, they had a panoramic view of huddled men in dirty jeans and wet boots, some in plaid shirts, some shirtless, standing near the hose J.J. had left twined through one bucket. The men took turns washing off in the spray. For some reason, that irked J.J. Maybe because the three of them were here, covered in grime, their hair stiff from smoke and sweat, or maybe because the area was suffering the worst drought in years, and the men seemed to be cavorting in the water as if Mack’s ranch had an endless supply.

  But why should she care? It wasn’t her ranch.

  Mack kept looking and gesturing toward the SUV. She hoped she wasn’t the topic of conversation. On second thought, why would it matter if he bad-mouthed her to other ranchers? She wouldn’t be here once her job was done.

  “Is it okay if Jiggs and I go down there?” Zoey asked.

  That request caused J.J. a momentary panic. On the one hand, now that Mack had returned she wasn’t in charge of his daughter, but on the other, shouldn’t she still keep Zoey safe? “It’s probably better if you and Jiggs wait here until your dad gives us the all clear, okay? See, the men are still filling buckets with water. Looks like they’re going to walk the line of fire. I imagine they’ll check for hot spots. There may still be embers. You don’t want Jiggs to burn his paws.”

  Zoey petted the panting dog. “Fine. If I had his leash we could go, though. We could wait in the corral. Benny shut off the pool pump, but I bet the ground in the corral will stay wet all afternoon.”

  “No doubt.” Personally, J.J. was glad to see things winding down. She was less jittery and her stomach had relaxed.

  Erma shifted up on her good hip.

  J.J. offered an expression of sympathy. “You’ve been a trouper, Erma. This ordeal can’t have been easy. Oh, I believe the fire trucks are leaving. With the smoke dissipating,” she added,
“you can see the charred ground. Man, that fire must have traveled a huge distance. The ranch dodged a bullet, but not by much.”

  “What bullet?” Zoey piped up from the backseat.

  “It’s a figure of speech,” Erma said. “It means we’re lucky the ranch didn’t burn down.”

  Silence descended, each of them withdrawing into themselves to contemplate the fire that they’d survived—that they’d diverted together.

  Jiggs was the first to notice someone approaching the SUV. The dog bounded from side to side of the backseat, smacking his nose on the windows, filling the car with excited yips.

  “Hang on to Jiggs,” J.J. said, slowly cracking her door ajar and craning her neck to identify the arrival who was silhouetted against the sinking sun.

  Mack grasped the door, widening the gap. His broad shoulders blocked the sun and for a drawn-out moment his gaze fused with J.J.’s. Then appearing somewhat shamefaced, he tilted his chin down and rubbed the back of his neck. The brim of his straw hat covered his guilty expression. “I, um, owe you an apology, Jill.”

  “You think?” she murmured.

  “Yeah. Neighbors who helped fight the fire said you spotted the smoke early and phoned the dispatcher. The fire started on free-range. It might have gone unnoticed until it had too much of a head start. A couple of the men said you ladies worked like crazy to wet the house and the barn and corral.”

  Zoey jumped out of the car along with Jiggs. Mack caught her around her waist and took hold of the dog’s collar. “So, now you think I may have some sense?” she snapped.

  Mack straightened abruptly. “You want me to grovel?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She faced front, flexing her sore hands. “Sometimes saying you’re sorry after being hurtful isn’t enough, Mack.”