“Yeah.” I kept walking.
Behind me I heard him say, “That’s good. Hey, if I don’t see you again, good luck.”
I stopped and turned around. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“I need to be on the road by nine so I can get back to L.A. before my shift ends.”
I didn’t know what to do. He was a rival, and technically I should try to maintain my exclusivity on this story. After all, the midnight briefing didn’t have to go out live. I could record it and send my tape down the mountain.
“But I’m glad you got your sound bite.” He looked back down at the graphic novel, then turned a page. “They shouldn’t be playing favorites. That sort of thing is no good.” He sounded as if he meant it. When I didn’t say anything, he glanced up. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Don’t go back to L.A.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
“But why?”
I hesitated one final time. “There’s going to be a briefing at midnight and I can’t go live. It’s important that someone is here to get the story out, even if it’s not me.”
“That’s weird. They don’t usually do briefings at midnight.”
“It’s special.” I was close to losing all patience with him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Tonight isn’t like other nights and you’re going to want to be here for it. Don’t go back to L.A.” I turned and left before he asked me another question.
I found Bell waiting for me back at the media trailer. “Egan was in first aid earlier.” She replaced her walkie-talkie in the pouch on her chest. “So now he’s probably getting something to eat.” She started for the main set of buildings where the classrooms were.
I followed. “First aid? Is he injured?” This story just got better and better.
“Don’t worry. Nothing serious.”
It’s possible I was a little disappointed. I mean, I didn’t want him to die or have serious problems, but a nice superficial injury— maybe his arm in a sling or a bandage on his head—would be the cherry on top of my heroic, grief-stricken sundae. He’s brave, he’s heartbroken, and he’s got a heroic injury. Viewers would send us fan mail for a guy like that.
On our way to Egan, we passed a dirt lot where rows of blue Porta Potties had been set up. Bright lights ran off generators here, but farther out individual camping tents dotted the dark landscape. There were probably men inside trying to sleep in the few hours they had free.
Bell walked quickly, despite her limp, and soon we’d reached the elementary-school classrooms. The rooms were laid out in a simple U-shape with an outdoor courtyard. We stayed outside the U and approached the cafeteria from the rear, where the Dumpsters were. A single halogen lamp above the back door lit a group of young Conservation Corps members unloading pallets of food and water from a semitruck.
We entered the kitchen and passed men in aprons opening crates of apples. The school’s multipurpose room buzzed with conversation and radio traffic. Long cafeteria tables had built-in benches on each side where clusters of different personnel ate and relaxed with their comrades.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Bell crossed the room and spoke with a man standing by a table full of coffee urns. Above them, HOME OF THE BRONCOS was painted over a horse logo.
I took a closer look around the room. Most everyone wore casual clothing marked with the logos of their various fire departments or government agencies. But at a nearby table, a small group of firefighters appeared to have come straight from the fire fight. They’d lowered the top portion of their yellow coveralls, revealing navy-blue shirts. Even from a distance, they reeked of the fire. The smell was sharper and more pungent than what was already in the air, probably because it was mixed with the kind of sweat marathon runners experience.
Bell returned. “Egan was here, but left. He’s expected back soon. We can wait for him.” She gestured to a table stacked with box lunches. “Would you like something to eat?”
I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the time. It was already 8:50. “I can’t wait. I have to send video back for the eleven.”
She considered for a moment. “We can ask the minister who volunteers with Team Eighteen.” She started to walk. “Father Tom might know where he is.”
I followed her to where an older man with gray hair drank coffee with a group of younger men.
She introduced herself and explained we were looking for Egan.
“I tried talking to him about his sister.” Father Tom looked down into his coffee. “There’s history there, I think. The bad kind. He wants to lose himself in work.”
“Do you know where he is now?” Bell asked. “I heard something about replacing a piece of equipment?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. He’s over now having a chain saw fixed. Several of us offered to go for him, but he insisted on doing it himself.” Father Tom shook his head. “Right now all he wants is to catch the first ride back to his crew.”
Bell began to step away. “Thanks for your help.”
We exited through the front door and emerged in the courtyard. People crossed back and forth between classrooms carrying papers or talking into walkie-talkies. It was odd to see uniformed emergency personnel among the bike racks and STUDENT OF THE MONTH signs.
We walked back toward the gym, but this time on the front side of the campus. We passed the camp’s makeshift commissary, where anyone could purchase necessities and even custom-made T-shirts commemorating the fire. On the far end of the parked vehicles was a small truck with a GORDON AND SONS logo. Outside, two sets of pallets were covered in chain saws. One set had the sign READY FOR PICK UP.
Bell popped her head inside the open side door of the truck. “Senior Firefighter Egan?”
I heard a voice answer from inside, then Bell climbed the small steps and entered the truck. I followed, still carrying my equipment, but stopped on the top step.
Inside, work counters ran down each wall with cabinets above and below. Several large reels contained different sizes of chain spun up like thread on a spool. A man in a thick apron sat on a stool working at one of the counters. Sitting on another stool was a US Forest Service Hotshot.
Members of these hand crews are the frontline men in the war against a wildfire. They frequently work in remote areas, eating and sleeping in the field when they can. They perform the back-breaking physical labor of cutting down trees and digging lines that create firebreaks. My worst day as a shooter is probably a normal day for them—and I’d had some bad days.
This one wore the usual dark green pants and yellow shirt that was their uniform. His hair was dark with sweat and dirt, as were his shirt and pants.
Bell introduced herself and explained who I was and what I wanted. “You’d be doing us a favor by talking to Miss Hawkins,” she told him. “But if you’re at all uncomfortable, please say no. We’re not trying to pressure you.”
He crossed his arms. He had a large, powerful build, and his muscles strained his shirtsleeves. His face looked older than his body, but either way he had to be the dead woman’s older brother. “What I want is to get back to my crew, but they say I’ll have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest. If I do the interview, will you find me a ride back tonight?”
Bell shook her head. “I don’t have control over that.” “But you can make calls and ask around for me,” he said. “If you wanted to, you could probably make something happen.”
She glanced at me.
He dropped his arms. “You don’t realize how bad it is out there. Every time we lay down a line, the fire spots embers right over it, and we’re running out of time. I can’t afford to sit around here twiddling my thumbs.”
I fell hard into shooter love. This guy was an old-school hero and was going to be phenomenal on camera. “You can make some calls,” I insisted to Bell.
She looked from me to Egan. “I can try.”
He stood. “Then I’ll do it.”
We went outside. I told h
im the light would be best if he sat on a masonry fence bordering the parking lot. Truthfully, the bright lights flooding the parking lot were the same everywhere, but by putting him at the fence, I was able to frame an American flag into the background of my shot.
I set up my sticks and attached the camera. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I heard you were in first aid earlier. I don’t want to bother you if you’re injured.” Actually, his being injured would only make me want to bother him more.
“Blisters,” he replied. “Occupational hazard.”
Blisters, though extremely painful and potentially serious, would probably sound mundane on the air. “Oh.”
Bell mistook my disappointment for concern. “Blisters are a real problem for the men. If they’re not treated, they can go septic.”
“Poison oak is the worst,” Egan said. “I had that real bad, last year.” He paused. “I mean, it’s the worst except for stuff that’ll kill you.”
I set a white balance on the camera. “Have you had some close calls?”
“Everybody has close calls.” Egan gestured to the east where the fire was. “Right now we got a couple cougars displaced by the fire and stalking the crews.”
Bell rushed to jump in. “But Fish and Game went over this afternoon. They’ll take care of it. Nobody is taking any chances.”
I made one last check of my camera settings. “So in addition to fighting the fire, you have to worry about getting mauled to death by a cougar?”
He shrugged in a manly, bearing-his-burden-stoically kind of way. “It’s all part of the job.”
My hand shook with excitement as I attached the clip mic to his shirt. This was going to be award-winning stuff. This was going to be legend. When a guy this heroic opened up about his grief and pain, the hearts of viewers all over Bakersfield were going to break.
“While we’re doing the interview, don’t look directly into the camera.” I couldn’t wait to hit record. “You can just talk to me, like we’re having a conversation.”
He nodded.
I hit the button. “Please say and spell your name for me.”
He did, and I was about to ask my first question, but a large truck started nearby. I patiently waited for it to leave so we’d have a clean audio track. By patiently, I mean I wanted to kill someone. Finally, it rumbled away.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for waiting.”
He nodded.
I felt like a gambler who knows, absolutely, that the slot machine is about to show her three sevens. All I had to do was reach up and pull the handle. “Can you tell me a little about your sister?”
I leaned forward slightly in anticipation. If he started crying, I might win an Emmy.
“She was kind of a whore. You know, trashy and flaky and nobody you’d want to know. Happened after our mother died. She was okay before that.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then, when I could speak, I had no idea what to say.
“Got in with a bad crowd in high school,” he continued. “Started drinking and doing who knows what else. Never would settle down with one man.”
“Okay,” I said, stalling for time. “Why don’t you talk a little bit about how her death makes you feel?”
“On one level it’s a relief to know she’s not going to be a problem for Dad anymore, but mostly I’m angry.”
“Angry at who? Is there someone you blame for her death?”
“I blame her.” His voice rose and his previously handsome face distorted with anger. “I got pulled away from my crew. Those men are more family to me than she ever was. Now I’m not there to watch their backs and carry my share of the load. Jess couldn’t even die without hurting other people.” He paused. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“It sounded like you were groaning or something.”
“Why don’t you talk a little bit about your family background?” I said. “Where did you both grow up?”
“Over in Tilly Heights, but my dad sold his land over there when the Starbucks crowd started moving in. Bought a mobile home on this side of the lake.”
“Does he know about the tragedy?”
Egan nodded. “I called him in Bakersfield. He evacuated the day before yesterday and went to stay with my aunt.”
“Why didn’t your sister go with him?”
“She lived down in L.A.” Egan shrugged. “I figure she came up here yesterday to check on Dad, not realizing he was already gone.”
I cheered for a moment, hoping I might be able to use a sound bite about the dead woman’s concern for her father. But then Egan added, “She probably thought she could get some money out of him.”
I was standing on the deck of the Titanic. There were no lifeboats and I was going down.
Egan jumped in to fill the silence. “I guess Dad should have called and told her he was leaving, but they didn’t talk a lot. And with the way things are headed with this fire, it was more important he got out fast.”
I straightened. “Where are things headed with the fire?”
Bell jumped in. “We’d prefer you stick to questions about Senior Firefighter Egan’s sister. This interview is not about the fire.”
“Can’t blame me for trying.”
She smiled. “I don’t.”
I turned back to Egan.
He’d taken a small packet from his pocket and was shaking the contents to the bottom. “Truth is, I haven’t seen Jess in over ten years. She took off after high school and I was glad to see her go.” He ripped the top off the packet. “She came home for the first time last spring. Stayed one night with Dad, and then took off in the morning.”
“So that’s good, right?” I brightened. “Your family reconciled. Everyone got to make peace before the tragedy.”
He pulled a water bottle off his belt and then opened the top. “Not really. I wondered why she visited until someone told me she had a man up here—and he’s married to boot. Thankfully, Dad never heard about that.”
So much for reconciliation and closure.
Egan poured some of the packet into his mouth and followed it with water. He swished everything around, then swallowed.
Bell actually shuddered. “Wouldn’t you rather have that warm and fresh-brewed?”
I looked at the packet in his hand and recognized a popular brand of instant coffee.
A small smile appeared at the corner of Egan’s mouth. “I won’t make it out on the line if I get used to that kind of luxury.”
He finished the packet and swished more water around his mouth. “Are we done here?” He started to get up.
“No, please,” I said. “Just a couple more questions.”
He reluctantly sat back down on the masonry fence.
At this point, I had nothing usable. I decided to abandon nostalgia and ask about the tragedy. “Did your sister go out on the lake a lot? Was it a special place for her?”
“When she was a kid, you couldn’t keep her out of it, but then like an idiot she blew her shoulder out. Never swam after that.”
“Could that have contributed to her death?”
“No.” His anger flared. “She died because she was stupid enough to get drunk or high or whatever and take a boat out on the lake by herself. Her shoulder had nothing to do with it.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
But I don’t think he even heard me. “I don’t know how she got so stupid. Jess was a smart kid. Mom wanted her to be a lawyer or something, but after she died, Jess got all weird about the environment. I grieved for Mom and moved on, but Jess just got weirder and weirder.”
I started to try to steer him into remembering the good times, but he continued, “You know she actually chained herself to a tree, protesting development with some fruity environmental group. The cops had to haul her off. Sixteen and my dad had to get her out of jail.”
“It sounds like a very difficult time. Maybe we should talk about the good—”
“She sp
ent her entire senior year of high school grounded. And it worked. For a while things were okay, but after graduation she went out every night partying.”
“She must have been a passionate free spirit. You could even say, an innocent who loved nature. Maybe you could talk about that, in your own words.” I was basically asking him to paraphrase my statement, which was skirting pretty close to an ethical line, if not over.
It didn’t matter, though, because he refused to grab the life preserver. “Innocent girls don’t do the kinds of things she did. I’m too ashamed to tell you about her final big stunt, but let’s just say it proved she had no decency.”
We all turned to look as a Cal Fire truck passed on the road above us. It towed a long flatbed trailer with huge bulldozers.
Once the noise had died away, I tried to take advantage of the pause. “How about when your sister was older? Maybe you have some good memories from when she outgrew that phase.”
“She never did. At the end of that summer she turned eighteen and blew town. Joined back up with that environmental group where they were headquartered down in Venice. That was thirteen years ago.” He looked down at the ground. His giant boots were caked with black mud. “I have a friend who went down there and says you can’t walk barefoot on that beach. There are drug needles and stuff in the sand.”
“But you must have some good memories,” I stressed. “Maybe from when she was a child? Try to think of her when she was a little girl. What kind of little sister was she?”
He kept his face down as he kicked at a pebble. “She used to follow me around everywhere. She always wanted me to show her stuff. Fishing, camping, swimming, you name it. If I could do it, she wanted me to show her how.” He looked up and smiled for the first time. “I must have tried to teach her how to put a worm on a hook a million times before she got it to stick. She loved the outdoors. She loved these mountains, and the lake.” His smile faded. “Maybe it’s right she died there. Like she’s at peace or something.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
My pulse charged. That was my sound bite. No hearts were going to break, but at least it gave the viewer a taste of who the victim was and a window into the loss her brother felt. I waited, just in case he started crying, but after a few moments he shook his head and looked at me with dry eyes.
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