by Jack Riggs
At the end of the dirt road, I turn right onto hardtop snaking back through the mountains until I hit Highway 107 and leave Cashiers. I head out of the mountains toward a low country that is boiling hot and dry, fire beginning to eat up the land. Partee seemed worried when I talked to him on the phone, so I find myself accelerating, pushing the truck a little harder than I should coming down out of the mountains.
I go through Walhalla, think about finding Clay so I can drag his ass back to Garden City Beach just to make him work as hard as I'm going to work when I get back down there. But instead, I push straight through, find the line of least resistance, drive roads that take me through small hamlets and towns, two- lane highways that are off the Sunday tourist routes so I can get home fast.
I start seeing the smoke several hours later outside Ben-nettsville. It tricks the eye, towering into the sky like giant thun-derheads. I don't smell it until I'm outside Florence, the late sun a soft white spot that is covered by a layer of smoke, the smell of campfire hovering in the dead air. It's hot, the heat oppressive even while I'm sitting at a stoplight. I can feel the smoke scratching at my eyes by the time I reach Galivants Ferry crossing the Little Pee Dee River. It's early evening by the time I'm in Aynor sitting in summer traffic. I stop for gas, call the station, and Lori answers. “What you doing there this late?” I say.
“They got us all on extra duty until they figure it out,” she says. “It's not looking good. There're new fires breaking out all over the place.”
“I see the smoke,” I say. “It's pretty thick up this way.”
“And you're not even in it yet, Peck,” Lori says, with tears in her voice.
“I'll be there in about an hour,” I say. “I'm coming straight down.”
There's a pause on the other end of the line, Lori talking off the phone and then back to me. “I hate to tell you this, Peck, to add more to what's already there. But I need for you to go somewhere else first.”
“Where?” I ask.
“Over to see Pops. He's had some sort of accident. That's all I know because they wouldn't tell me anything else. They've been trying to reach you since yesterday.”
“I'll go there first then,” I tell her. “If anything happens, if we're called in, you call the home, let them know so I can get the information when I arrive. Got that?”
“Okay” she says. “And Peck?”
“Yeah.”
“I'm sorry about having to tell you all this. God, it's insane around here right now.”
“We need rain, Lori. That's all it is. We just need some goddamn rain. I'll see you soon.”
In Conway it feels like I'm in dirty clouds. I pull into the Kingston's parking lot. Inside, Margaret tells me Pops has been transferred to the hospital in Myrtle Beach. “We moved him when he was stricken,” she says, her face worried.
Everybody's coughing because of the air outside. The windows are closed, fans on in the hall and in the rooms, but there's still smoke in here. I'm glad Pops has been moved. The Myrtle Beach hospital will be better for him, the ocean breeze keeping the smoke from settling in. J.D. reminds me every day about the trauma center, says it's the best in the low country, so I'm hoping everything else is just as good.
Margaret follows me into Pops's room. His chair is there, empty, his crutches too. “Should I take these to him?” I ask.
“You can if you want,” she says. “I don't know if he's able to walk or not, Mr. Peck. They couldn't tell at the time if he was having a stroke or something to do with his insulin.” She points to a space beside his chair, says, “We found him right there on the floor, got him cared for as fast as we could.” I thank Margaret for her kindness, then gather Pops's robe, his crutches, and the picture of Mom before heading down to Myrtle Beach.
If there is a disaster coming, you wouldn't know it by the tourists. The smell of smoke is everywhere. The light filtering through paints the sky in streaks of orange and red. Land is being lost, maybe lives too, but the season down here goes on. Nothing gets in the way of a good time. Near Myrtle Beach, the air clears a bit and I am able to roll down my window, let the air from the beaches fill in around me. I need to get ready to be a fireman again.
When I arrive at the hospital, I find Pops in intensive care, a new ICU that's just been built on. There's nothing much in the room but machines and a bed. The temperature's kept so low that I shiver when I enter. I've got five minutes, that's all they're giving me. The doctors won't allow anything more.
Pops has all these wires running out of him, a catheter, an I V, and a tube in his nose. He's breathing hard, a nurse volunteering that if he can't keep it up on his own, they're going to put him on a respirator. It's hard to recognize the body lying here as my father. He's so bloated now. I walk over, stand at his bed listening to the machines around him. I watch his heart beat, his pulse, listen to him struggle to breathe. “Hey Pops,” I say. “How you doing?”
They've removed his teeth, his mouth drawn down into a desperate frown. He's not moving, his eyes closed like he'd rather just sleep, his skin chalky. I push loose strands of hair off his forehead, stroke his cheek. Pops was a big man years ago. His life has worn him down, whittled away at his body until what remains in this bed is only a small part of who he was. He could have taken better care of himself, but he lived like he wanted, did what he could, what he had to do. I'm proud of him for that. I lean down, whisper in his ear. “Be strong, Pops. Do what you can. I'll see you soon.” I take his hand in mine, kiss it, and then lay it underneath the sheet. I don't want him to be cold. I ask a nurse, “Is he cold? It's so cold in here.”
She comes over to his bed, looks at the machines, touches his forehead with her hand, feels his arms. “He's all right,” she says. “When you're fighting like he is, the body is better off in a cool environment. He's doing okay.”
I kiss Pops on the forehead, his skin like a thin layer of paper. I put the picture of Mom on the small table beside his bed, the crutches in the corner, hand the robe to the nurse. A doctor who looks younger than me explains what the stroke has done to Pops, a bleeding stroke that has paralyzed his left side. He says his chances aren't good, too many complications going on between the stroke and his diabetes, that he might be blind when he wakes up—if he wakes up. “He hasn't lost the will yet,” he says, “but I don't know how much strength he has left. There's just nothing else we can do. It's going to be up to him now.”
I tell him to let Pops decide, not to go to any extremes over this. “He would want to go when he's ready,” I tell him. The doctor agrees. I explain where I'm headed, how he should call Lori if things take a turn, and then leave without looking back at Pops's room. I didn't say good- bye to him, not a real good- bye. I just couldn't do that. He has the right to fight, if he wants to. I want to give him that much. It's the least I can do.
I head back out, wanting to stop at home before I report in to the station. I work the surface streets to get to Highway 17, make the marsh in good time, and find the house quiet, untouched since Kelly and I left on Friday. It's Sunday evening now, just two days later, but it's hard to get my hands around everything going on—Pops sick, Cassie pregnant, and a fire burning up the low country, the likes unseen in years down here. I go inside, drop off bags and gather some extra clothes, two uniforms from the closet. I pull out a knapsack and canteen, a compass I've used when Kelly and I have gone camping. It's all I need to bring. I'll depend on Strachen to provide the rest.
I make the station by seven-thirty The Quonset is all lit up, the Pirsch gone. I worry I've missed the call, that my crew is already out in some field fighting fire, and then I see J.D. still inside working on his supplies. I pull around back, park, and get out. J.D. smiles when he sees me. “About time,” he says.
“You know,” I say when I walk up to shake his hand. “I leave you for a couple of days and the whole county goes to shit.”
“Lesson learned, then,” he says. “Never take a vacation again.”
“Or just never come
back,” I say, smiling.
We walk back into the Quonset. J.D.'s lugging his EMT packs. “You got to come back,” he says. “You don't know how to do anything else.”
“Give me time, rookie, I could learn.”
J.D. laughs at that.
“You got everything you need here?” I ask.
“I'm not sure I need any of it at all in a wildfire.”
“Never know what's going to be out there,” I say. “Just keep it portable. It's got to go on your back when we get there. It's going to be mostly burns and cuts and broken bones, so pack accordingly.”
Partee pulls up in the Pirsch, having filled its tank off a nearby hydrant. He smiles big. “Welcome back, Chief.”
He kills the truck's engine, climbs down out of the cab, tossing me the keys. “I'm officially giving you this place back,” he says. “I don't need to be chief no more.”
“Not sure I want it either,” I say. “What's the latest news?”
Partee tells me that Roddy and Johnny Cash are already gone. Surfside called in all the volunteers to go fight so that online firemen could stay in their stations. “But it ain't getting no better,” he says. “Strachen wants the chiefs to meet Tuesday morning. He'll tell us then who's going, said be ready to leave right from there, so I figured that gives us tonight and tomorrow to get all our equipment packed and ready to go.”
Lori comes out with fresh coffee, smiles when she sees me. “How's Pops?” she asks.
I take the hot brew from her hands. “Not good,” I tell her. The news seems to work on everyone. “I'll keep checking in for you,” she says. “Let you know if anything changes on that front.”
“I'd appreciate that, Lori, thanks.” I follow her back to the office so I can see the latest reports, the news on inland fires. She's standing there looking at me, the radio popping off in the background behind us. “How's Cassie?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. “She's pregnant.” When I look at her, Lori's watching the boys through the window, her cup of coffee held in both hands like she's trying to get warm. “Says it's probably mine.”
“That's good then, right?” she says.
We look at each other for a long moment, no words, but I know she's thinking about the shit Cassie's putting me through, how she could do a lot better given the chance.
“Yeah, it's okay” I say.
She smiles then, looks down at her coffee. “You sure about that?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.” J.D. sticks his head into the door, tells me he needs Lori for a moment if I'm finished with her. He looks at me, then at Lori, then back to me, says, “But I can come back in a minute if you want.”
“No,” Lori says, “we're done here,” then pushes past J.D. to get out of the room.
J.D. looks at me. “You ready, Chief?”
“Ready for rain,” I say. “Tonight, lots of it.”
J.D. leans his shoulder hard on the door frame, his head tucked down to his chest like he's trying to remember something. When he looks up there's a big smile on his face. “ ‘Thy fate is the common fate of all, into each life some rain must fall’ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”
I smile, give him one better: “I want rain as thick as fog, gully washers, cats and dogs. Author unknown.”
He pops the frame of the door like a high five, laughs out loud, and then leaves the office. I watch him through the window walking quickly toward the Pirsch, Lori following close behind. He needs to do something about that girl before I do. I'll talk to J.D. about that when all of this is over. He needs to know what's right there in front of that big nose of his.
Partee's figured right about the time it will take to get our supplies ready, air tanks filled, everything in backpacks. We take off the truck what we won't need, all the water rescue equipment, my surfboard, the inflatable raft. I look in the office for any notes or manuals we might have that will tell us what to expect in a wildfire. To be honest, I haven't been in a fire like this before.
I can tell you how to fight a structural fire, how to ventilate it, open up a building so the heat and smoke can escape. I can show you how to fog the nozzle, get down on all fours and crawl through hot black water to face a fire, not walk away into cooler air, but face it straight on, get to the source and hit that son- of- a- bitch with everything you've got. I can do that with confidence, tell the fire it's not going to win because I've been there many times before. I've punched out ceilings and walls, opened doors to find fire waiting for me, its fingers leaping out to grab hold and do me harm. I know the kind of fire that consumes buildings and houses, mobile homes and cars.
But in my time as a fireman, I have never been in a wildfire like the one burning out of control in Horry and Georgetown counties right now. I can't really tell you about its nature except to say it burns as hot and is as full of surprises as any other. By Tuesday morning, Partee, J.D., and I are going to go fight that fire because that's what we do. Pops always said that the measure of a man is made by the dangers he faces straight on in life, how he conducts himself in the face of unknown odds. There's just no way to know what we'll get until we arrive on scene and put our feet on the ground. We'll just have to wait and see.
Cassie
ON MONDAY MORNING, I get motivated. All the pantry drawers are emptied, my hand sliding across the bottom of each, feeling for evidence of a deed. I look in the cabinets, take out Momma's china, dishes and bowls that are as mismatched as we are against someone like John Boyd. They are cracked and chipped, some that she brought with her when she was married, tin plates like out of some pioneer movie, many that were given to her over the years by members of the church, cups and bowls, pans and baking dishes. There is nothing in the cabinets, nothing stuffed at the back of a drawer or in the pantry. I have pulled all the canned goods out, looked behind the refrigerator. Nothing.
Momma is in the living room going through drawers and finding my father's hand- scribbled notes for sermons he preached without writing anything down. A note or two was all it ever took to get him started, then the hand of God would take over and my father could preach all day. Sometimes after the sermon he would not remember what he said, the words coming out of him like he was in a trance. Sundays wore him out, his hikes up to Whiteside in the early morning and then preaching way past noon. He would come home exhausted and sleep all afternoon, only to rise for an early dinner and then lead Vespers until late in the evening. My father was a man of God, good or bad, but he also took care of his family, and so I know that deed is here, if we can just find it in time.
“Parker?” Momma says, like my father might be somewhere in the house. When I hear this, I worry. I walk into the living room and find her standing in front of the bookcase. It's as much a mess in here as in the kitchen, papers strewn everywhere, cushions out of chairs and the loveseat. Momma's looking into her hand like what she holds is a precious jewel. “Parker?” she says again as if she's calling for him to come see this too. She's holding my father's small tarnished cross, sees me looking at it in her fingers, the chain broken at the clasp.
“Where did you find it?” I ask.
“It was in the small chest on the shelf next to Parker's Bible,” she says. “I had forgotten all about it.”
“Of all things for you to find right now,” I say.
Momma's face warms. “It's a sign, Cassie. Parker's here with us.”
I come over, hug Momma tight, her small frame fragile in my arms. “Tell him not to be angry,” I say. “Tell him that I need him to love me this time.”
My careless words pull her away. She looks at me with tears in her eyes. “Cassie, your father always loved you. What happened back then broke his heart. Don't ever think he didn't love you.” I kiss her on the forehead, touch the cross held tight in her fingers.
“Maybe Parker can help us,” she says, her voice quiet, calm.
“That would be nice, Momma,” I say. “Just tell him to point to where the deed is.”
She laughs at me, then, “You tell him,”
she says. “He never listened to a word I said.” We both can laugh at that, and when I raise my arms, ready to summon my father's spirit, Momma is horrified. “Cassie, no,” she says, embarrassed by my mockery, “now stop that.”
We give up on the living room for now, start in on the hall closet just as a car drives up to the house. It's John Boyd. “What does he want?” I ask.
“His chain saw, no doubt,” Momma says, rubbing the cross between her fingers. We watch John Boyd get out of his car and walk toward the door. “Come on,” she says, pulling me toward the front porch. “He doesn't need to see any of this. He doesn't need to know what we're trying to find.”
We meet him on the front steps. It is noon, lunchtime, the air warm, the high light flat and full on Momma's front yard. It shadows John Boyd's face, makes him look like the monster I think he is as he puts a foot on the bottom step, his hat in his hand, face cocked upward to smile at Momma. “Hey Mavis,” John Boyd says. He looks at me then, dragging his smile along. “Hey Cassie, looks like Peck did some good work over here.”
“It took him awhile,” I say.
“Well, it don't look like he needed any more help from me than that chain saw.” John Boyd nods at the saw and his gas and oil sitting on the steps beside his foot.
“No,” I say. “He finished up and got out of here early yesterday afternoon.”
“I've been reading about those fires in the low country,” he says. “We're blessed up here this year. Lots of rain, so we won't have to go through that. I hope he's safe, Cassie. I know you probably worry.”
“All the time,” I tell him.
“Do you ever get used to it,” he asks, “the danger like that?”
I don't like talking about something so personal with this man. I don't want to show him my feelings. He's the enemy now, and I just want him to go away so we can get back to work. “It wears on you,” I say, offering nothing more.