Without Law 13

by Eric Vall

  “I think that’s our best bet for now,” Rolly told me with a hard nod.

  “I was hoping you’d think so,” I said with a small smile.

  The air became even smokier as we stood and waited for the two barrels to fill with water. I wanted to make sure they were as full as we could get them, even if it turned out that we didn’t need all of the water for the fire lines. At this point it was just good to have some extra water around in case we needed it for something else.

  “So why haven’t you done it yet?” Henry asked Rolly out of nowhere, and I looked at the old man with wide eyes.

  “It’s alright,” Rolly chuckled when he saw my concern. “Henry knows.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I laughed. “You two are pretty much best friends, right?”

  “I asked him to be my best man,” Rolly said, and he rubbed his neck with embarrassment. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” I told him with a smile.

  “I still want you to be a groomsman,” the old man said.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I told him with a lighthearted chuckle. “It’s your wedding.”

  “Are you dodging the question?” Henry asked. “Why haven’t you done it yet.”

  “Well,” Rolly said, obviously slightly annoyed with his friend. “I didn’t think it was quite the right time at the moment.”

  “It’s now or never,” the fisherman said with a grin. “You don’t have all the time in the world, old man.”

  “Let’s see you propose to somebody at our age,” Rolly teased him. “It’s not exactly a walk in the park.”

  “Betty loves you,” Henry said with a softer smile. “And you love her. You should just go for it.”

  “Nobody asked you for your advice,” Rolly said, but it reminded me of how Anna and Tara spoke to each other. I knew there was still love there, even when they were bickering.

  “Alright, alright,” Henry laughed. “I won’t push any more, but I will say that I’m sure everybody could use some good news right about now.”

  “So now my engagement is going to be used to cheer everyone up?” Rolly chuckled with a raised eyebrow.

  “Why not?” Henry asked with a shrug and a grin.

  “You see what I put up with?” Rolly asked me with a shake of his head.

  “It must be a rough life,” I teased him. Something about seeing the two old men talk to each other like they were in their twenties still made me happy and sad all at once. I had a few friends from back home that I would have liked to see again, but probably never would. Still, I had a lot of people around me that loved me, and who I loved as well. I could only hope that by the time I was their age that I’d have a friend to bicker with just like that.

  After the water barrels were full, we all hopped back into the truck and headed up the driveway. It was already sweltering, and I wiped sweat off my brow as I drove. The smoke made the sky hazy, but it was still hot out, and, if anything, the smog probably just made the UV rays that much worse.

  I looked down at my arms as I drove and realized that I’d developed quite a tan over the past week or so.

  We made our way up the long, bumpy driveway, and I tried to go as slow as possible so that the water didn’t splash around too much. Once we got to the courtyard, I parked the vehicle near Rolly’s shed, which was on the side of campus by the field, and hopped out.

  “We need buckets,” I said.

  “On it,” Rolly agreed, and he headed into the shed as I went to the science building where we kept our fuel and grabbed three gas cans and filled them up.

  When I returned, Rolly and Henry had filled up ten or so buckets with water and lined them up near the field.

  “Perfect,” I told them.

  “Alright,” Henry said with a clap. “So how exactly do we do this?”

  “Let’s have you watch first,” Rolly chuckled, and he handed me a shovel.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “You’ve never done this before, either, have you?” the old man asked with an amused expression.

  “I can’t say I have,” I told him with a shake of my head. I knew that a fire line could be made by burning, but I had no idea the specifics of it. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to figure out, though.

  “We’ll use the shovels to carve out a small line where we want the perimeter,” he explained. “Then we light everything in front of it on fire. Carefully, of course.”

  “Right,” I agreed. That made a lot more sense than trying to keep the fire in one spot using just water, and I was glad that I had Rolly around.

  “How do you know so much about this anyways?” Henry asked.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” I admitted.

  “There was a big fire further up north where I lived when I was a kid,” he said with a shrug. “It was headed toward our house and my father, he was a stubborn man, so instead of evacuating a week before like everyone else, we stayed and put up fire lines.”

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “Ten, maybe twelve,” the old man answered. “We didn’t have a farm or anything like that, but my mom loved our house, and my dad loved my mom so he swore to her that he wouldn’t let anything happen to it.”

  “That’s a hard promise to keep,” Henry said.

  “Damn right, it was,” Rolly chuckled. “But he did it. We stayed until we couldn’t stay anymore, but we got the house protected and the fire didn’t touch it. It took down my dad’s tool shed, but our house stayed solid. Pretty much the only house within a mile that made it out alive.”

  “Wow,” I said, surprised that he hadn’t mentioned this sooner.

  “Yeah, so I guess that just kind of stuck with me,” the old man said with a shrug. “And I used to read a lot about fires. Even considered being a firefighter at one point in my life.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” I asked.

  “You had it under control,” he told me with a smile. “You did everything right. I would’ve stepped in if I felt you needed it.”

  “Well, thanks,” I chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I appreciate it.”

  Rolly showed us exactly what we needed to do to make the perimeter line with the shovels, and we spent a good half hour or so getting that done before we took a break for some water. Luckily, the soil around us was fairly soft, so it wasn’t difficult to break through with the shovel, but it was a decently large area, and after the day we’d had before, my muscles were already aching. Not to mention, the smoke was heavy in the air, and I knew that it probably wasn’t helping us to breathe too well.

  Once the perimeter was made, it was time for the gas.

  “I don’t think we’ll need all three cans,” Rolly said with a frown.

  “I figured we could each man our own area,” I explained.

  “It’s a good thought in theory,” he said. “But if something gets out of control, it’s going to be hell. We should start with one, we’ll burn along the perimeter line first. Have one person with the gas and two people with water buckets.”

  “Alright,” I agreed. I wasn’t about to argue with him. He knew what he was doing more than I did, and his plan did sound a bit less dangerous than mine. As much as I liked to be the guy who came up with the plans, I knew when I’d been beaten and I was always humble enough to accept somebody else’s plan over my own if it was better for the situation.

  “I’ll handle the gas,” Rolly said as he grabbed the can.

  “Deal,” I said, and I handed Henry a bucket of water and grabbed one for myself.

  We made our way back to the small perimeter we’d just dug. It was only about six inches to a foot wide, which didn’t seem like much considering how tall the grass was, but I trusted Rolly to know what he was doing.

  Henry and I stood and watched as the old man laid down a small line of fuel right up next to the perimeter on our side, lit his zippo, and held it to the gas.

 
The small section went up in flames quickly, and the smoke from it only added to the smoke in the air. The grass caught fire and began to fall toward the other side of the perimeter, but Rolly quickly used his shovel to push it back over to our side. We waited until most of the length of the grass was gone, then Rolly patted it down with his shovel so it was more coals than flame, and we moved on to the next section.

  We repeated this process until we’d managed to burn up the entire section from our perimeter to the courtyard. It took all morning, and I was hot as hell by the end of it, but if it had any chance of working, then it was worth it.

  By that time the girls had packed two trucks full of supplies, as well as one with everyone’s bags, and they’d positioned them so that they would be easy to drive off in a hurry.

  “Hey,” Anna said as she and the girls walked over to the three of us as we sat in the grass and caught our breaths for a moment. “We brought you all some water.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I took the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and downed the entire thing.

  “Here,” Bailey said, and she handed me another one. “We brought you each two.”

  “Good call,” I laughed and took another drink out of the second one.

  “So this is some other sort of fire line?” Paige asked.

  “Right,” Rolly told her. “It should keep the fire from coming any further.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Anna said with a nod.

  After we got some water, I got back to chopping down some trees along the perimeter, and before I knew it late afternoon had set in. The day had grown smokier and smokier as we worked, and I figured that Paige had to be right, it couldn’t be too long before the fire hit us. Luckily, we’d managed to protect the place as much as possible for the time that we had. More than that, though, we were ready to evacuate if we needed to.

  The campus was far less protected than the farm was, but in all actuality, we could just move to the fort. We couldn’t rebuild our crops, not at this point in the season, and we needed those to make it through the winter.

  I loved the home we’d built on campus as much as anybody, but I knew that we had to have our priorities at a time like this.

  I told the guys to put the axes down for the day, we’d done all we could do, and it was going to be dark within an hour or so. With the animals still around, I couldn’t have any of us out at night, it was just too dangerous. Part of me expected to see an orange glow in the sky, but I hadn’t seen anything yet. Still, the smoke was pretty thick in the air, and I knew that the fire had to be close.

  I decided to head to the roof and check it out while everyone gathered around for the dinner that Betty had made.

  I stopped by my old dorm room and threw on a fresh tank top since the one I’d been wearing was completely soaked with sweat. Afterwards, I made my way up the rest of the stairs, and came out onto the roof.

  The evening was slightly cooler than it had been earlier in the day, but not by much, and I still found myself sweating as I stepped out onto the concrete of the top of the building.

  Dan was on guard duty, but I sent him down to get his dinner so that I could have a moment alone.

  I could hear everyone down below, and I walked over to the edge and peered down for a moment. The kids were playing in the grass near the library, and the adults lined up to fix their plates. I wasn’t sure what Betty had cooked, but I could smell it from where I stood, and the scent made my mouth water. It was then that I realized that I’d forgotten to break us for lunch, so everybody must have been quite starved.

  I walked away from the edge where my people were, and looked further north.

  I could see far in the distance there was a cloud of black smoke that rose up into the air. That was where the smoke around us was coming from, that was where the fire was. I knew that it wasn’t nearly as far away as it seemed, and though I couldn’t see actual flames because of the hills and valleys that surrounded us, something in my gut told me that it wouldn’t miss us.

  As much as I wanted to be optimistic and to tell myself that there was a chance the fire could go right by us, I knew that simply wasn’t the case. Optimism had its place, but it wasn’t with fires, and it most certainly wasn’t in life or death situations. I’d take pessimism every time in that case. I’d heard something a long time ago that said that pessimists tended to live longer than optimists, and part of the reason was because they took fewer risks and they didn’t do as many dangerous things. At the time I thought that sounded ridiculous. What kind of a life were you living if you weren’t taking risks? Even if you lived forever, I thought it would be too boring to be considered a good life, but now, I understood why pessimists lived longer, and I was determined to be one of them.

  After I got a good look at the horizon and the placement of the fire, Dan came back upstairs, and I decided to head back down to the others and get some dinner for myself. I also decided that I would stand watch that evening. I had somebody up there at all times to see where the fire was at in case we needed to evacuate, but I had yet to have a turn.

  As I stepped onto the landing in the living room I heard someone curse loudly in the small closet where the CB radio was. It sounded like Kimmy’s voice, so I walked over and pushed the slightly ajar door all the way open.

  The dark skinned woman sat at the desk with some equipment she’d gathered from the station right in front of her. She held her forefinger in her mouth with her eyes closed, then as I watched she took it out again and shook it.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Oh shit,” Kimmy breathed, and she jumped in her chair as she turned around to look at me. “I didn’t realize anybody was there.”

  “I just got here,” I told her, and I walked over and grabbed her hand to inspect her finger. “Are you hurt?”

  “It’s not bleeding or anything,” she told me, but she didn’t pull her finger away. “It just got smashed, that’s all.”

  I inspected the finger and saw that she was right, it wasn’t bleeding at all, but I still didn’t like the idea of her being hurt.

  “What are you doing in here anyway?” I asked. “You should go get some dinner.”

  “I could ask you the same question,” she chuckled.

  “I guess that’s fair,” I laughed. “I was just up on the roof checking where the fire was.”

  “And?” she asked, her eyebrows pinched together with concern.

  “It’s coming,” I said seriously. “I can’t say when, but it’s coming.”

  The dark skinned woman nodded and let out a low breath through her nose, then she looked up and me and nodded her head toward the equipment she was working on.

  “We’re almost ready to broadcast,” she told me.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really,” she agreed. “We won’t reach the whole world, but between twenty and fifty miles for sure.”

  “That’s great,” I said with a nod. We still didn’t know anything about this group that was near us. At this point I wasn’t sure that we had time to find out, but if they didn’t know about the fire yet, then I figured they at least deserved to know that.

  “Now you just have to think of what you want to say,” she said.

  I let out a sigh as that thought sunk in. What could I say to these people? Evacuate now, a fire is coming.

  Whatever I was going to say, I needed to figure it out before it was too late to warn them.

  And somehow I needed to figure out if they were worth being warned.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t like to have to think it, but it would make it a lot easier on us if we didn’t have to take out another group of assholes right about now. I had to figure out if these people were assholes or not, but either way, if the fire hit us then there was a possibility it would hit them, too. And depending on where they were at, they could most likely smell the smoke already.

  I was somewhat torn. If they were good people, then I felt I should warn them to give them extra time
to get prepared and get out. But then again, we’d dealt with people like Brody, incest hillbillies, and cannibals lately, and if I would have had the option to have a fire come through and annihilate those douchebags, then I would have jumped at it.

  Whatever I was going to say on the broadcast, I couldn’t be too leading with it. I needed these people to reach out in order to determine what kind of people they were, then I’d be able to figure out what I should do.

  For the moment, though, I was hungry as hell, so I grabbed Kimmy and led us outside where everyone was gathered around the tables.

  Everyone was quiet, but it was still strange to see them gathered around for dinner. Part of me wanted to scream and force us all back to chopping trees and clearing brush back, but I knew that would do no good. We’d done what we could on campus as far as fire lines went, and at that point we just had to hope that they were enough. The lines on the farm were a bit better executed since Rolly had used the tractor, but that hadn’t been an option on campus, so we’d done the best that we could.

  Betty had finished cooking so she had put the fire out, and the sky had dimmed even more with the oncoming of evening. It would be dark soon, but it was still light enough out to see, so I went over to the table that had the food laid out on it and dished myself up a plate.

  Betty had made a pot roast of some kind, with potatoes, carrots, and peas on the side, as well as some cornbread. Everyone else had plates in front of them that were either empty or almost so, so I dished myself up a generous portion and made my way over to where the girls sat at a table with Rolly, Betty, Henry, and his grandkids.

  “Hey,” Bailey greeted Kimmy and I as we took a seat.

  Kimmy sat next to Betty, who had baby Anthony, and she took him from the old woman with a smile and put him on her lap.

  “Hey,” I said as I stuck my fork into a piece of meat.

  “We were wondering where you went,” Anna said.

  “I was up on the roof,” I said through a mouthful of delicious food. “I wanted to see if I could see the fire.”

  “Could you?” Betty asked. “It’s been getting smokier by the hour around here.”