Prairie Fire

by Kayt C Peck

  “You take it, Pook. I want to concentrate on driving,” Judy said.

  Pookie picked up her radio. “This is Coldwater fifteen for Coldwater four. She’s driving.”

  “Fifteen, you’ll get to the station before us. Take the brush truck as soon as you get there. We’ll follow with the pumper,” Brad said, his voice clear but distorted over the radio waves.

  Once they were clear of the workshop and could see in the distance, they both spotted the smoke. Judy guessed the fire was no more than three miles from the fire station. She drove with the emergency flashers blinking and as fast as she felt safe, not worrying the least about speed limit.

  “Damn, that’s right near the Johnson homestead,” Judy said.

  “Do I know them?” Pookie asked.

  “Old couple in their eighties. They don’t get out much. I’ve got about 500 acres of their grassland leased.” She leaned forward, getting her bearings on the fire. “Oh Hell, that’s our grass burning.” She kept her attention on the road, but still glanced repeatedly at the smoke. “Only looks like an acre or so though.”

  “Hurry!” Pookie said.

  “I am!” Judy responded.

  Judy barely had the truck stopped and in park before they were both on the ground and pulling gear bags from the backseat.

  “Wildland gear or bunker gear?” Pookie asked.

  “It’s a grass fire. I guess wildland,” Judy answered.

  They both pulled Nomex coveralls, helmets, and gloves from their gear bags. Since they were already wearing tough boots, they didn’t change to the lace-up boots with the thick soles they’d been issued for wildland. They did throw into the brush truck both pairs of wildland boots, along with packs and the “jiffy pop” fire shelters required at all wildland fires. The shelters were a last-ditch effort for a firefighter to deploy if they knew they were about to be over-run by a fire. If Harold had had one, he probably wouldn’t have been burned. Ted had said all those items were required gear but more for forest fires than prairie fires.

  “Still, if you have to work for long putting out spot fires where the grass has burned, you’ll be glad you have those boots,” Ted had said.

  Pookie hit the button to open the bay door as Judy started the engine. Judy paused on the concrete apron outside the bay, waiting as Pookie hit the button to close the door and then jumped into the passenger seat.

  “You remember what Ted taught us about sirens, lights, and radio?” Judy asked.

  Pookie answered by hitting the switches to turn on the siren and light-bar. Judy accelerated out of the yard and onto the state highway, heading toward the fire. Pookie picked up the microphone to the truck radio and hit the talk key. There was a loud squeal before they both remembered to turn down their hand radios to prevent reverberations. Pookie hit the key again and spoke into the mic.

  “Coldwater Unit Two out of station,” she said.

  The disembodied voice of Dulson dispatch responded. “Copy that. Coldwater Unit Two out of station at fourteen, thirty-two hours.” Ted had already told the Coldwater company that response records were kept based on a military twenty-four-hour clock.

  Judy had no idea how slow a firetruck could seem as it raced to a fire. She remembered the face of Mrs. Johnson and her kindnesses over the years – soup when Judy’s mother was recuperating from an appendectomy when Judy was just a girl. Eating oatmeal cookies and visiting in the Johnson living room when she’d gone with her father when they’d first formalized the land lease agreement. She drove and prayed, prayed for the safety of a wonderful old couple.

  Since they’d leased the burning pasture for fifteen years, Judy knew exactly where to go. Pookie turned off the siren as they pulled off the highway and stopped at a wire gate.

  “Leave the gate down,” Judy called as Pookie jumped from the truck.

  Just as they’d been taught, Judy drove to the rear of the fire. She recalled painfully the drastic mistake they’d all made the day Harold Kenton was so badly burned. The memory was especially acute when she spotted the elderly Thomas Johnson beating at the flames with a gunnysack. The fire was less than an eighth of a mile from his house.

  “Coldwater Unit Two on scene,” Pookie said into the microphone as Judy pulled the truck to a stop just behind the fire.

  “Dispatch copy. Coldwater Unit Two on scene at fourteen, forty.”

  They jumped out of the truck and ran to the rear so they could start the pump. The used brush truck was equipped with two person-sized cages, one on each side of the truck bed.

  Judy turned on fuel to the pump and hit the starter button. It revved immediately and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Pook, get in the cage on the left side, and be ready with the nozzle on the hose reel,” Judy said.

  Pookie was set in place, nozzle in hand by the time Judy had the water pressure set. Judy jumped in the cab and moved the truck to run alongside the fire. From the bed of the truck, Pookie sprayed a dispersed stream of water. They were both surprised at how quickly they were able to move along the leading line of the fire.

  “Coldwater Unit One leaving the station,” came over the radio, but Judy barely noticed as she concentrated in keeping the truck in the right place to support Pookie’s fire suppression. When they reached the head of the fire, Judy stopped the truck, opened the door, and stood on the running board to call directions to Pookie.

  “Get on the other side and hang on,” she said.

  With amazing agility, Pookie climbed over the top of one cage, and into the other, never dropping the nozzle from her hand.

  Driving quickly through the black of already burned grass, Judy drove to the rear of the second flank of the fire, and they repeated the same procedure until the most threatening wall of flames was out. Just as they were finishing the second flank, the pumper truck pulled up beside them.

  “Coldwater Unit One on scene,” Judy heard Joe Bob’s voice say over the radio.

  “Dispatch copy. Unit 1 on scene at fourteen, fifty-three.”

  Brad stepped down from the driver’s seat of the pumper and walked toward where Judy had stopped the brush truck. Joe Bob followed closely behind. Judy rolled down the window.

  “Nice job, Judy girl,” Brad said.

  Joe Bob laughed happily, glancing between Judy and where Pookie still stood in the personnel cage on the truck. “You girls sure did it,” he said.

  Pookie smiled down at her fellow firefighters. “That was more fun than just about anything I’ve ever done,” she said. She looked at the plastic window on the brush truck water tank. “But we’re nearly out of water.”

  “Looks like you got it to me,” Brad said.

  Joe Bob looked at the blackened grass. “We still need to put out those hot spots. Good wind come up and those cow pies will start it all over again.”

  Brad held a hand up to Pookie, helping her jump down from the truck. “Come on, kiddo. The pumper has plenty of water. We’ll run a hose over and fill you up.”

  Old Mr. Johnson walked toward the firefighters. He looked tired, and soot smudged.

  “I heard y’all had started a fire company. Was sure darned glad to see you show up,” he said. As he got closer, he leaned down, looking directly at Judy’s face. “Why Judy Proctor, is that you?”

  “Yes, it is, Mr. Johnson. How’s the wife?”

  “Good enough to hen peck me. She’ll give it to me good tonight. I’d dumped the trash barrel down in an arroyo. Heck, it had been two days since I burned trash, but I guess there were still some embers.”

  “Looks like it,” Joe Bob said.

  Pookie approached the group, smiling at the old man as she climbed back on the truck and put the open end of a hose down into the refill outlet on top of the water tank. As soon as it was placed, she waved at Brad, who then opened the valve from the pumper to start water down the hose.

  “And who’s this young fella?” Mr. Johnson asked.

  Judy laughed. “Mr. Johnson, meet Pookie Thompson. She’s staying with K
athleen and me and helping out on the ranch.”

  “She? You mean a couple of girls saved my home?”

  “Yes sir, it looks that way,” Joe Bob said.

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Mr. Johnson said.

  Pookie removed her helmet as she waited for the tank to fill, wiping sweat from her forehead. Mr. Johnson stared pointedly at her blue hair.

  “Young lady, looks to me like you stepped into a paint can,”

  Judy laughed. “Yeah, Pookie’s kind of the peacock of Coldwater Volunteer Fire.”

  Joe Bob took a step back, speaking to both the women. “I just want to know one thing,” he said.

  “What?” Pookie asked.

  “Did either of you break a nail?”

  aaAA

  Guy Guyette’s trip to Albuquerque exceeded all his expectations. He’d already submitted the Assistance to Firefighters FEMA grant application and felt certain the brand new company would be a cinch to obtain funding for its first custom built water tender, fully rated to serve also as Class A Pumper for structural firefighting. The addition of a third engine would enhance the state’s rating of Coldwater Volunteer Fire Department to a full station rather than a substation, increasing state allocations by at least $50,000 per year. The meeting with his old buddy at Harold’s Fire Supply and Equipment had gone well, very well indeed. They already had the truck specced out and could be ordered as soon as the grant was approved.

  The sun was just setting as Guy opened the personnel door to the station, a bag containing a burger and fries in his hand. He’d check the office and eat his fast food dinner before he drove to the ramshackle farmhouse that was his temporary home. Guy’s mood couldn’t have been better when he sat at desk and hungrily attacked the burger. His mood was great, until he noticed the report, written in Brad Kenton’s broad script, in the in-basket. As he chewed, he read. The burger was almost gone when he lost his appetite and threw the remainder of the burger back in bag.

  “Bitches,” he mumbled as he read of Judy and Pookie’s successes at Coldwater Volunteer Fire Company’s first official fire. His upper lip curled into an ugly sneer and then morphed into a nasty smile as an idea revived his good mood. Guy cranked up the computer and opened the NFIRS website. He was the only one with access since he guarded the password like sacred script. For the most part, the report he typed was accurate in every detail. Times, location, number of acres burned, cause of fire…they were all correct. Only the names were changed to attack the innocent. Guy’s appetite returned as he inputted the names of the heroes in Unit Two. Responders: Coldwater One, Guy Guyette, and Coldwater Two, Brad Kenton.

  “Fuck those bitches,” he said. “Damned if they’ll get the credit for our first fire call.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Test of Friendship

  Judy punched the code into the combination door lock of the fire station, then she twisted the handle and pushed hard against the heavy metal door, so hard she hurt her shoulder when the door didn’t budge.

  “What the hell?” Judy said. She shivered in the light drizzle, the last remnants of a summer thunderstorm that had soaked the thirsty prairie earlier that day. She tried the code again, pushing more tentatively. The door stood closed and forbidding. I know that’s the right code, Judy thought. She looked up at the grey sky and trotted back to her pickup. When she first arrived, she’d left her slicker on the back seat, expecting only brief exposure to the rain. She donned the slicker, feeling only slightly warmer and a tad clammy from the damp shirt underneath the waterproof slicker. Judy pulled her cell phone from her pocket, looking for Brad’s number on the speed dial. She hadn’t hit “send” when she noticed Brad’s pickup on the highway, driving toward the station. Judy stepped inside her truck, waiting out of the rain until her unofficial brother arrived. Brad parked beside her and they both rolled down windows so they could talk.

  “Why you out in the rain?” Brad asked. “It’s not a training night.”

  “Guy hasn’t returned my calls or email. I came down to leave a note.”

  “About what?”

  “Remember my friend, April Sims, the reporter from the Amber Globe-News?”

  “Sure do. She and Sophia helped look after the folks when Dad was in the hospital,” Brad responded.

  “She wants to do an article about what it’s like to start a new fire company, especially out here in the boondocks.”

  Brad’s face lit up with his contagious smile. “That would be awesome.”

  “I suggested she come over next Tuesday when we do training, but I wanted to make sure all the officers knew about it.”

  Brad’s smile faded slightly. “I’ll have to check with Guy, but I don’t see why not.”

  Judy’s irritation increased. “Brad, you’d think Guy was king of the world, the way you talk about him.”

  “Well, he is the chief.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Judy sighed and decided to change the subject. “Hey, something’s wrong with the door lock. I couldn’t open the station.”

  “Oh, Guy changed the combination yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “He says if we change it every month or so, the station will be more secure.”

  Judy laughed. “Brad Kenton, we don’t even lock our houses out here. Why do we need to change the station locks so often? What if we’d had a fire? I couldn’t have gotten in to the trucks.”

  Brad climbed out of his pickup and walked toward the office door. Judy followed. The drizzle had dissipated. They air was heavy with moisture, a wonderful thing on the semi-arid plains.

  “He emailed the combination to me and the boys. We could have gotten inside.”

  Judy was still damp and clammy with the predictably accompanying mood. Irritation exploded into anger.

  “You and the boys? What about the rest of us?”

  Brad cleared his throat and changed his posture, standing tall, like a man of authority. “Judy, you just got to get over it. Guy has picked the fastest and the strongest. If you’re going to be a firefighter, you gotta pull your weight.”

  He turned his back to Judy, a movement that communicated dismissal.

  Judy moved like a cougar, swift and decisive. The concrete apron was clean and shiny from the rain, but the dirt to the side was still soft from recent construction, offering a nice bed of mud. She tackled him from the side, leaving him off balance, then she grabbed his right ankle, flipping him into a sizeable mud puddle.

  “What the hell!” Brad yelled, trying to stand, but slipping and sitting back down hard in the slimy mud. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Brad Kenton, we’ve worked side-by-side since we were kids. When have you ever known me not to pull my weight?” Judy stood at the edge of the concrete apron, fists clenched at her side.

  Brad managed to lumber to an unsteady standing position in the slippery puddle. He gathered into an attack position, his right fist cocked for a punch.

  “Come on,” Judy hissed. “I whipped you when we were kids, and I can whip you now.”

  Brad paused. Slowly, his body relaxed, and his contagious smile looked starkly white against the mud on his face. “Damn it, Judy. I bet you could.”

  “I could sure as hell whip Guy Guyette’s ass.”

  Brad put his hands on his hips and studied his oldest friend long and hard. “You know what, you could.” He cocked his head to one side, thinking. “Judy, he’s not exactly the strongest and the fastest, is he?”

  “He’s the sorriest, if you ask me,” Judy said.

  Brad wiped at his muddy face with his hand, succeeding only in smearing more mud on himself. “The code’s two-two-five-three,” he said. “Would you open up for me? I think I’m going to need to use the shower in the men’s room.”

  Judy’s anger swirled away, evaporating into some other universe. She fought to contain a fit of the giggles.

  “Don’t clog the drain,” she told him. She hit the buttons for the combination and opened the door. “Want me to bring in y
our gear bag? You could wear your wildland gear home.”

  “I better. If I walk in the house like this, Julie’s likely to tear into me too, and I don’t think I could take being whipped by two women in one day.”

  “What you two do in the bedroom is none of my business,” Judy teased.

  Brad raised one eyebrow as he entered the station. “Wouldn’t have dawned on me. Could be you just told me more than I want to know about you and Kathleen.”

  They were friends again. Judy felt a relief from a tension she hadn’t even fully realized was there. Brad was her brother, her partner in crime, and he always had been. For a while, she hadn’t been sure he was still there to watch her back.

  aaAA

  “Who the hell are you?” Guy Guyette asked.

  April Sims didn’t budge. Instead, she raised her camera and took another shot of two young firefighters as they demonstrated how to don a Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA).

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Guy said, a little louder.

  April turned and smiled at the red-faced man. “I’m April Sims from the Amber Globe-News.”

  “The media can’t be here without the chief’s permission,” Guy said.

  “All the other officers approved her coming,” Brad said from just behind his company chief.

  Guy turned abruptly. He stared at his young deputy chief with a facial expression that could best be described as gob-smacked.

  “What’s got into you, Kenton?” he demanded. “Haven’t gone soft on me, have you?”

  A silence had descended. All activity stopped, and a cadre of six young men, part of Guy’s handpicked lackeys, gathered close, listening intently.

  “You need to listen to the Chief,” said Billy Marsh, grandson to Halbert Marsh. He was just months out of boot camp, starting his four-year enlistment in the Texas National Guard.

  Guy gave a sly smile, nodding encouragement at his chosen few. He smiled until Brad turned on the young man.

  “Listen, yes, but that doesn’t mean we stop thinking.” Brad glanced toward Judy where she’d moved to be close to April after she saw the confrontation between reporter and chief. “Just ‘cause some fella comes in with all kinds of certificates, that doesn’t mean that our first loyalty shouldn’t be to our friends, our families, our community.”