“Are you sure someone started it?”
“Maybe not the main fire, but I’m convinced someone started the fire on our ranch. It came far too fast, and you said the sheriff told you it was across the highway.”
“Could flying sparks have started it?”
“Yes, but neither of us believes that is what caused the fire, do we?”
Allyssa nodded, agreeing, peering out at the fires they could see and hoping they would stay far away. They stood there as Erin sucked noisily on his bottle, drifting off to sleep almost as soon as he was full. Fey handed him to Allyssa as soon as she got three burps out of him. He was asleep as Allyssa carried him in to bed, then lay down herself, smelling Fey on the sheets and cuddling with her pillow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Allyssa woke late, surprised no one had woken her. She got up when she heard odd sounds. She found no one was in the RV with her as she looked around the divider that sectioned off the master bedroom from the rest of the RV. Everyone was outside, and she saw that someone had pulled out the awning. Good thing too because rain was running off it. Cool, glorious rain was falling. She opened the door to smell it and closed her eyes. The air felt marvelous.
“Good morning,” she was greeted time and again by smiling people. The babies were in a portable playpen, busy in the early morning coolness as blocks, rings, and stuffed animals distracted them. She wondered if she should get them some clothes since they were clad only in diapers, then laughed at herself for worrying about that. They’d been so hot for so long, she had gotten used to keeping them in as few clothes as possible.
“Looks like the rain made it,” Allyssa said as she stepped down out of the RV.
“Looks like it may be extinguishing the fires too,” Fey added as she leaned up to her wife for a kiss. “Oooh, someone didn’t brush her teeth,” Fey murmured, then laughed at her wife’s chagrin.
“I’ll get you for that,” Allyssa promised menacingly. She watched the rain with everyone for a while, the drops coming down briskly, then she went back in to start breakfast with Juanita’s help. She hadn’t cooked very often in the RV, but they could manage breakfast. They had cereal too, and she put things together for the babies. They’d soon run out of milk with all these people to feed, but there was plenty of water in the tanks. She looked out the other side of the RV and saw not only Big Ben, Big Red, and her baby, Lil’ Red, but at least a dozen other horses grazing in the rain. All of them were rescues they had saved at one time or another. She smiled. They’d found them! Fey had explained that some horses sought out human companionship because it meant security and food.
“How long do you think we should stay here?” Woody asked as he ate the eggs Allyssa and Juanita had prepared, scooping them up with toast.
“At least until the rain stops,” Fey answered deadpan, and they all shared a good laugh. It was raining!
It rained steadily all day long. They played cards, talked, and Fey got the TV going, so they could watch the news. The rain covered a very large swath across Oregon. It was putting out many fires and causing mud slides. Now, people had to worry about creeks overflowing and shifting Earth. Formally dry creek beds would fill fast, and cracks would fill, sometimes breaking away, blocking the creeks, and damming them up. Eventually, they would break free and that could cause a mess, especially if it was unexpected.
“Hey, before it gets dark, I suggest we get on the other side of the creek we crossed to get here. Once that rain builds up in the mountains and feeds those creeks, we might get cut off,” Fey suggested. They all kind of cringed at the idea of packing up, especially in the rain, but everyone reluctantly helped. They got wet packing up while herding ducks, geese, and a reluctant llama and her cria into the trailer, but eventually they moved out. Allyssa led the way in the Suburban, Sean, who insisted on driving the Jeep was second, Woody drove their vehicle in third spot, and Fey followed behind in the RV.
Fey’s prediction had been right. There was already water building in the channel, and Allyssa turned on the four-wheel drive since she was pulling the trailer with the poultry and llamas in it. She slowed to handle it and wondered if she should have had someone else drive her Jeep. A thirteen-year-old boy might not be able to handle this type of driving, and she worried about that. She had a little trouble right in the middle but angled the SUV and plowed on through the creek and up the other side, pulling into their old campsite. She was pleased to see Sean in her Jeep parking next to her. Woody pulled up next to the Jeep, and then, Fey pulled up in the RV on her other side. Allyssa stood in the rain watching everyone and started to laugh as they got out. Behind the RV, plodding steadily along in the rain, were the horses. They must have wanted company and decided to follow their humans. Everyone had a good laugh over that.
The group quickly set up camp again. They watched the news and a couple sitcoms before they retired for the night. Everyone slept that night since they didn’t need to keep watch for fires anymore. They woke to the sounds of babies cooing and playing. Everyone was in a great mood. They stayed in the camp for three days while the rain extinguished many of the fires, then they slowly made their way across the plain and back towards the ranch. The creek that ran by the house prevented them from returning to the ranch by a direct route. They had to backtrack, their small cavalcade of vehicles plodding across the plains as Fey made her way to the cell tower and out the back road to the ranch. In a roundabout way, it took them to the driveway where they were stopped by the sheriff.
Fey and Allyssa approached the deputy, who had flagged them down. “Fiona Herriot?” he confirmed.
“I am,” she admitted. “This is my wife, Allyssa. Why do you have the driveway blocked off?” She frowned, trying to see beyond the squad car.
“Where have you people been?” he asked, looking at the four vehicles. “We thought you might have perished in the fire. There are people out looking for you.”
Allyssa looked back, relieved they had stopped to have Rhonda replace Sean behind the wheel of her Jeep and trailer once they hit the road. He hadn’t been happy about that, but Allyssa had insisted. After all, they were on a legal road at that point. She saw Traci looking anxiously from the front seat of the Suburban.
“We got cut off by the fire and headed to the lake out back in our hills. We just made it back because the creeks made it impossible to ford,” she explained.
He nodded and spoke into his mic, calling the sheriff on the line and telling him that the Herriots had been found, hale and hearty.
“You keep them there,” the familiar voice came over the radio.
“Will do,” he promised, glancing at them.
Fey and Allyssa exchanged a look of consternation.
“What’s going on?” Woody asked, walking up.
“We are being asked to remain here,” Fey explained, exchanging an odd look with the therapist. He frowned, wondering what was going on.
Wherever the sheriff had been, it took him a long time to get there. He didn’t come from the highway or up the road, but rather down the Herriots’ long driveway. They could see all the burnt-out grasses and trees around them as they stood waiting. The rain hadn’t stopped the fire in time here, but it had pounded down the dust and soot. The sheriff stopped his SUV on the far side of the deputy’s patrol car.
“Man, I am glad to see you folks,” he said sincerely when he saw them. “Maybe you can answer a few questions for me?”
Fey and Allyssa stood with Woody as he asked where they had been, what they had done, and how they had left. They explained about packing up as soon as the deputy delivered the notice, but by the time they were ready to leave and had set the sprinklers on the house, barn, and cabin, they had been cut off. Woody contributed his story about driving down the driveway only to find a wall of flame blocking his exit. He had turned around to warn everyone, and they had escaped out onto the plains of the ranch and headed towards the big lake. They went on to tell about the rain, the creeks, and their own cutoff when they f
inally made it near the ranch and had to backtrack due to the creek.
“And here we are now. What’s going on that we can’t see our place? Is it completely gone?” Fey asked, her heart in her throat. She was resigned that everything was gone. She could see that the fields Brock had plowed up, planted, and left with dead crops were destroyed by the fire.
“No, your place is fine. The sprinklers must have held off most of the fire, and your backfire helped; it stopped at the edge. Did you have a lawn or something?” he asked, puzzled as to why the backfire didn’t backfire on them.
“Yes, I had been doing a bit of preventative watering up the hill, so we were even having to cut the lawn,” Allyssa admitted. Her heart was soaring as she exchanged a hopeful look with Fey. He had said their place was fine. Now, she wanted to know how fine.
“That explains that,” he said, one mystery solved.
“What’s going on, Sheriff? Why can’t we go to our house? We have a lot of tired and hungry people here,” she said, pointing at the four vehicles they had traveled in.
“We found a body when we went to look for you,” he said, watching them carefully.
“What? Where?” Fey asked, frowning at him.
“We reckon it was actually from the backfire and the other fire coming together.”
“You mean the fire from across the highway?” Allyssa asked, trying to make sense of this. Whose body was it? She’d kind of guessed but wanted it confirmed. She didn’t like to speculate.
“No, it was the secondary fire. Must have been the one you saw at the end of the driveway,” he said, addressing Woody.
“A secondary fire?” Fey asked, wondering if she was missing something here.
“Yeah, we thought at first the fire across the highway had thrown sparks and jumped the highway, but we found evidence that someone used a flame flower to start a secondary fire that the winds would have carried towards your place and your ranch yard.” He was watching them all carefully, looking for any signs of dishonesty in the stories they told him. After all, he did have a body on his hands. “We are still investigating, but preliminary reports show the man may have been caught between this secondary fire and your backfire.”
“What idiot would use a flame flower in conditions like these?” Fey asked. Conditions were beyond combustible, and that was like throwing a match on gasoline.
“The body has a gunshot in its shoulder,” he said, looking directly at Allyssa and watching for her reaction.
Allyssa gasped, realizing the implications of what he was saying. The sheriff knew it wasn’t feigned; she genuinely looked surprised. He went on gut instinct a lot in his job and was allowed a certain amount of leeway. He knew a lot of his local people, and he hadn’t believed the Herriots had anything to do with the death of the body they had found, but he had to be sure. The body was at the coroner’s office. They were making sure it was Trever Kapatrick. He knew he’d have to present some very convincing evidence, or his superiors would insist on charges being leveled against this woman, who had previously killed the dead man’s brother and some rustlers on this very ranch. He was relieved when they were so open and forthcoming. He’d have been suspicious if they insisted on lawyering up before answering his questions. He was also relieved to see them all alive and well. While he had been among those who were looking for the missing family, he had also been searching for evidence, just in case the death of that man hadn’t been what it seemed. He would be pleased to report that the man had apparently been caught between the fire he started and the backfire that Fey started to protect her property. He might have died of smoke inhalation and not the horrific burns on this body, but they would need an autopsy to determine that. The fire had burned hot and furious on the prairie’s dried brush and grasses. When they found the sprinklers running from the spring house on the ranch, they had determined the sprinklers kept the roofs too wet for the sparks to jump to these buildings. The fire department had insisted they turn off the water, so he was only too glad when the rains arrived that night and the hunt began for this family. They had doubled up their hunt after the man’s body was found over the hill, not too far from the ranch home.
“I’ll be filing my report,” he told them. “You can go home, but there will probably be some follow-up questions.
“Sheriff, our home is in Sweetwater?” Woody put in, making it a question.
“A lot of Sweetwater is gone, but the people have already returned and are talking about rebuilding. The school, the clinic, and that side of the town were saved, but not much more than that.”
“What about the Sweetwater retirement home?” Allyssa asked, suddenly wondering about a lot of their 4-Hers and where they would go with their horses. After all, each Christmas they ended up at the retirement home when they did their caroling.
“That was saved,” he admitted, nodding.
“If our place is okay, could you spread the word that we will let anyone with horses stay on our spread. We don’t know what condition our fences are in yet, but if they have feed and fodder, they can bring ‘em,” Fey quickly said and was immediately backed up by Allyssa.
“The rescue will welcome them as soon as we see to the damage,” she added her two cents to her wife’s comment.
The sheriff nodded and gestured to the deputy to back his cruiser out of the way. He marveled at these two women’s tenacity. They had just been faced with the possibility of losing their home, and now, they were offering to help others in need. He got in his own SUV and sent out a radio code to call back all his men that had been searching for the family.
“When you know what you have, let us know?” Fey asked the therapist, hoping that his place had been spared. He nodded and got in his vehicle to follow Allyssa up her driveway. He would have loved to just leave from here, but they had to drop off the Jeep since Sean couldn’t drive it in front of the sheriff or his deputy.
Driving over that last hill, both Fey and Allyssa felt a tremendous sense of relief upon seeing the buildings intact. They pulled around the fountain to the front of the house and parked. “We’re home,” Traci said in awe, the break in her voice very apparent. Allyssa understood her though. This home, this refuge, had come to mean so much to all of them. That it had been spared, was a relief.
“Look at that mess,” Fey stated. The fire may have missed them but not the soot, and the rain had turned the dust and debris to a sludgy mess.
“It’s here though,” Allyssa answered, relieved. “The ranch is all here.”
Slowly, they put everything back in the house, the threesome immediately terrorizing their living room with their attempts to walk and get into everything. “Look at those beggars,” Fey grinned, seeing them take charge. They knew they were home. Juanita was already chasing them around, trying to keep them out of things they weren’t supposed to get into, but they were determined to try anyway.
“We better do some laundry,” Traci said, bringing in the laundry bag.
“You could have done that in the RV,” Fey pointed out. There was a washer and dryer in the RV, something she had been grateful for many times when her work got messy.
“Yeah, I forgot,” the girl admitted, shrugging and heading for the laundry set in the house.
“I’m going to hook up the hoses and start washing off the house,” Fey stated.
“Not until everything is put away,” her wife objected. “Besides, I want to do that too,” she admitted with a grin. The grime was on everything. The rain had patted it down, not washed it away, and spraying it off sounded like fun. The two women shared that grin and began unpacking. They put up the frames that had been hastily taken down, put the babies’ things back in their rooms, and took their own boxes and suitcases up to their bedroom. “Those can be put away later?” Allyssa asked hopefully.
“If we can convince Juanita to watch the threesome with the kids’ help, we can offer to spray down the mobile home first?” Fey offered, sounding magnanimous. She didn’t fool her wife. For some reason, the
y were both looking forward to the messy job. Somehow, it felt festive. Finding their home was not lost had been such a blessing, and they both wanted it to shine now.
Juanita was thrilled that they wanted to clean the outside of her mobile home. She loved the privacy of her home, and when they had offered to build her a bedroom in the basement of the farmhouse, she had declined. She had already fixed up the old mobile home to her liking. The paint on the outside was no longer that faded yellow. Instead, it had been redone in a rusty-yellow color that suited it much better and helped it blend in with its surroundings. She’d put flower boxes under the windows and painted the trim a bright white. The makeover had been outstanding and pleasant.
Fey and Allyssa found push brooms and used dish soap to rub down the outside of the mobile home, trying not to rub off any of the new paint in the process. The fibers on the brooms removed the dust and ash very well. Some of it might have eventually turned into an almost cement-like paste if they hadn’t gotten it off.
“I hope this overcast sky lasts,” Fey murmured as they finished brushing the mobile home down and began to rinse it. They’d attached more hoses together to reach behind the barn, but whoever had been on the ranch had neatly coiled them back up at the spring house.
The women got splattered and were filthy, but they had a lot of fun as they washed down the mobile home. Next, they worked on the barn, reaching as high as they could with the brushes all around the large structure. Finally, they worked on the cabin and its addition. It took them all day, and they kept looking at the hill, expecting trailers of horses to come in as the sheriff spread the word, but amazingly, no one came.
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