The Killdeer Connection

by Tom Swyers

  Annie then launched into one of her pep talks. David could hear her upbeat sincerity in the tone of her voice, but he couldn’t focus on her words. It all rang hollow to him while he stood on that treeless hill, watching the sun slip behind the Killdeer Mountains. The sun might as well have been setting on his career, too. His law practice was about to land him in jail if he wasn’t careful. David’s prospects for working for someone else were limited, not because of his ability or energy, but because people assumed that anyone his age was about ready to gear down and sit around—that thing called retirement. It was as if he had spent his career swirling around a funnel, and now his only option was to slide down the spout into the retirement bucket along with the rest of the baby boomers. Even if he could afford retirement, he wanted no part of it.

  Nothing that Annie said was going to change David’s judgment on the case against him this time around. He had looked at himself objectively, and the facts were irrefutable. He was guilty of being an inadequate husband and felt incredible guilt about the verdict. A few tears ran from David’s eyes—tears of frustration, tears of desperation. It didn’t help matters that he was slightly drunk and freezing on an empty hill with a wintry wind in his face in the middle of nowhere North Dakota. He got a grip and told himself to grow a pair.

  Annie’s professed loyalty to him stung with every word she spoke because he thought her loyalty was misplaced. He wanted better for her, but he couldn’t figure out a way to provide it, and that was killing him a little every day.

  “I love you, David Thompson,” she said before hanging up.

  “I love you, too, Annie.”

  SEVENTEEN

  David was face down on the stiff cot mattress, out cold, when Russell Red Bear found him the next morning.

  “Wake up, David,” he said.

  David rolled over in his sleeping bag. The T-shirt he’d worn to bed was damp from the cold sweat of bad dreams. They were becoming a nightly occurrence. “What time is it?” he said with a groan.

  “It’s seven a.m.” The last thing David remembered was saying good night to the male paramedic and female EMT on duty after pulling something from his cooler to eat for dinner.

  “I thought we were going to breakfast in an hour.”

  “Plans have changed. I just got a nine-one-one call. A Bakken-unit train derailed outside of South Heart. There’ve been explosions and injuries. They need help. The paramedic and EMT on duty are out on another call. I’ve got to take this one in the spare ambulance. You want to ride along?”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Okay, I guess. I’ve got nothing else going on.” David always had wanted to see one of these unit trains, more than a hundred tanker cars of oil that stretched out at least a mile long. It was the type of train that Ben Prior had been unloading in Albany when he was injured.

  Red Bear grabbed his EMS jacket and a medical bag out of a closet. David put on some pants, slid into his shoes, grabbed his parka, and headed into the garage. One of the bay doors was open, and idling there was a truck-style ambulance. It had a square patient-care compartment mounted on the rear of the chassis. The driver rolled down the window. He was young man in his early twenties.

  “Hey, Bill,” Red Bear said to him, “this is David. He’ll be riding along with us today. You got the ride-along form up there?”

  Bill nodded and handed over the paperwork. “Gotcha, Doc.”

  Red Bear opened the rear doors, so he and David could climb in. They strapped themselves into a pair of bucket seats that faced each other on either side of the gurney. The ambulance took off, lights blazing and sirens blaring, barreling south on Route 22.

  “So, you work on the ambulance, too?” David asked, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the engine as he pulled out a pen. He struggled to fill out the few lines on the form in the bouncing rear of the vehicle.

  “Volunteer. I’m backup to backup. I don’t go often. We need volunteers on the staff to make this thing work.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” David asked, as he handed the signed form back to Red Bear.

  “Fire plan or patient plan?”

  “Both, I guess. I really hadn’t thought about the need for a fire plan.”

  “Yeah, there needs to be two plans, and they overlap. Our goal is to stabilize the injured and take them to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson without getting ourselves blown to bits.”

  “Blown to bits? That’s a nice thought.”

  “Yeah, the tanker cars involved are probably DOT-111s. They are thin-skinned, and they blow up. I’ve seen it happen once before. You’ve got to see it to believe it.”

  “I know what you’re saying. I’ve seen the videos. I wouldn’t want to be a firefighter and face that disaster.”

  “Yeah, the problem is that firefighters want to fight fires. That’s what they’re trained to do. But if you get close enough to fight this fire, you’ll either blow up or get incinerated. You see towns and cities around the country buying all this new equipment and foam to fight the Bakken fires. What a waste. They don’t have enough foam to do the job, and they can’t get enough water to mix in to make it, anyway, unless they’re right by a sizable body of water. Besides, they can’t get close enough to apply it without killing themselves. All you can really do is stay away and evacuate everyone within a half mile of the site—I’d say more like a mile—then wait for the fire to burn itself out. Sometimes it can take days. But if you go in at the wrong time—kaboom! Say hello to a four-hundred-foot fireball, and get ready to greet your maker.”

  David thought about telling him that if they stabilized the oil to remove the gasses before shipping, there would be no explosions. Harold had taught him that much. But this was neither the time nor the place. “How long a drive is it?”

  “The way Bill drives, we should be there in thirty minutes.” Red Bear picked up his phone and talked to dispatch. He tried to get more information on the accident.

  David’s thoughts turned to Christy. He was probably on his way to school. David felt a surge of the same adrenaline rush Christy had told him about whenever he rode in the ambulance. Pulling out his phone, he texted his son: So, this is what it feels like to ride along in an ambulance. David hit Send and leaned his head back against the seat. He was looking out the small rectangular window on the other side of the ambulance. He watched the telephone wires go up, find a pole, and go back down again. There was nothing else to see except where the sky touched the horizon. It was mesmerizing. Up, down, and then a pole. Again and again. There were no trees in sight. David wondered if the North Dakota state tree was the telephone pole.

  “Say again?” Red Bear asked the person on the other end of his phone. “Six cars . . . okay. We’ll take the access road from the highway.” He turned to David. “They’re going off one at a time. We’re going to get a smoke victim and get the hell out.” He slid open the divider window to the cab and gave Bill instructions.

  When they turned off the highway that ran parallel with the rails, the dirt access road pointing straight at the tracks was clogged with emergency vehicles and news trucks. The incident had taken place midway between the towns of Belfield and South Heart. Police had set up a roadblock fifty yards from the rails, and they weren’t allowing anyone to get closer.

  All three of them exited the ambulance at the barricade and headed for a cluster of firefighters and news reporters. The sky was a royal-blue bowl; the sun shone bright overhead. It was warmer here than in Killdeer, well above freezing. David figured that the fire must be warming the air.

  All you could see for miles around were telephone poles that looked like sticks shot into the ground and large hay bales sealed in white plastic that resembled mammoth marshmallows. With the fire raging on the tracks, everything seemed in place for a supersize campfire dessert.

  Suddenly, a black tanker car exploded into a ball of blinding orange. It sent up towering flames and a fireball followed by a thick, black cloud that
quickly billowed into the largest mushroom David had ever seen. A few firefighters squinting toward the tracks flinched at the explosion. Film crews and photographers on either side of the road snapped into go mode. They were filming and clicking away. “Oh, my God,” one reporter said to a cameraman. “Did you get that?”

  The fire chief, standing between the open driver’s door and the front seat of his SUV, dropped his radio microphone into the driver’s seat. Sweat broke out on his upper lip as he barked out a series of orders to his staff. “Okay, we’re going to make this location Incident Command. Joe, did you hear back from BNSF?” he asked, referring to the freight-railroad network.

  The firefighter replied, “Yes, they confirmed that this is their track. They’ll have a response team here ASAP.”

  “I hope the hell they get here before the whole train blows up,” the fire chief spat out before turning to his audience. “The cars are going off like a string of cheap firecrackers. I’ve called all engines and personnel back to this staging area. They spotted the placard number on a few of the cars. Its Bakken all right—a unit train. I’m calling for a state-police helicopter to monitor the fire from the air. For now, we need to stay away. The heat is too intense. We already got smoke-inhalation victims. Wind shifts caught a couple of guys off guard. Set up a perimeter pronto to keep gawkers away. No evacuation issues; nobody lives in the blast zone. But if the wind turns, we may have to clear everybody out of South Heart. The smoke is deadly.”

  The reporters wanted to follow up, but the chief said he’d take no questions until things settled down. He climbed back in his SUV and reached for his radio, already focused on the disaster at hand.

  Fire vehicles retreated to the far side of the barricade. A firefighter waved the doctor over. Bill grabbed the oxygen equipment, and Red Bear reached for his bag. Two firefighters helped their colleague out of the truck and sat him on the front bumper, where Red Bear and Bill began treatment.

  People in the crowd were talking among themselves and watching the fireworks when another explosion detonated with the impact of a sonic boom. An orange fireball inflated and transformed into a black mushroom cloud. Again and again, it happened. Vehicles pulled off the highway in both directions as their drivers watched in horror along with the police.

  David saw one vehicle parked on the opposite side of the highway all by itself. The late-model black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows was pointed at the train. He could see an exhaust plume coming out of the tailpipe. It looked like the same vehicle he had spotted at the airport and again in the Walmart parking lot. There were no flashing emergency lights. The windows were rolled up tight. No one stood outside of it.

  Bill came trotting back and hollered for David to help him unload the gurney. They had the firefighter hooked up to an oxygen mask before they loaded him into the ambulance. The last thing David saw out the rear window as they sped off for the hospital in Dickinson down Interstate 94 was yet another orange fireball heading for the heavens.

  Red Bear hooked up the firefighter to an IV bag hanging from the ceiling. The man looked to be in his midforties, Caucasian, a little pudgy. His face was blackened, but Red Bear said he saw no signs of burns. Halfway to the hospital, the man motioned that he wanted to take his oxygen mask off. The doctor helped him peel it off.

  “I think I’m okay,” the man said.

  “Maybe,” Red Bear said, “but let’s get you to the hospital to make sure.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life,” the firefighter blurted out. “They didn’t . . . they couldn’t train us for that. It was nuts. Before they blew, those tank cars were boiling, spitting, hissing. I swear, it sounded like the devil himself locked in a cage.” His voice now sounded hoarse.

  “Take some more air,” Red Bear said, handing him the oxygen mask.

  The man grabbed it and inhaled a few times, then pulled it away as if he just had to talk more. “The wind shifted the smoke right into our faces,” he said before wiping sweat from his brow. “It was bright light one second, pitch-black the next. Like a freakin’ eclipse. I couldn’t see the guy that was standing right next to me.” He broke into a coughing spasm now. “My chest hurts, Doc.” He looked like he was having trouble breathing.

  “That’s enough talk for now,” Red Bear said. “I’m going to put this mask back on, and I want you to keep it on, okay? Doctor’s orders.” The man nodded as Red Bear put the mask on his face and then stretched the elastic band around the back of his head to hold it in place.

  David felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out. There was a text from Christy: Ambulance? Are you okay?

  David texted back: Yeah, long story, but I’m fine. Not me. I’m on a ride-along. I’ll talk to you tonight or tomorrow.

  A few minutes later, the firefighter tried to talk with the mask on, but Red Bear couldn’t understand him. His voice was muffled under the mask. So the doctor moved from his seat to get closer. David did the same. “I don’t feel well,” the injured man said. “I think I’m gonna pass out.” Then he let out a groan that faded to nothing before his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Red Bear removed the oxygen mask and put his index finger on the silent man’s carotid artery. “He’s not breathing, and I don’t have a pulse.” He tore open the firefighter’s stained shirt to reveal his chest. He attached the automated external defibrillator to the man’s chest by applying two pads. “David, open the window to Bill. Tell him to pull over—now! This man is in cardiac arrest.”

  David followed the doctor’s orders. When he turned around, Red Bear was bent over the inert body. “Clear!” he yelled before administering a shock from the defibrillator. The man’s limp form jolted. The back door flew open to reveal Bill. They had pulled over to the shoulder of the road. Vehicles were zooming by them; air blasts from the big trucks jostled the ambulance. When Bill slammed the door shut, the ambulance felt like a tomb.

  Red Bear barked out a series of orders. “Bill, get the oxygen bag; David, reach under you and get the bag out that says LUCAS and unzip it.”

  David thought he heard Red Bear singing as he unzipped the bag. The doctor was standing upright, bending over the man’s chest, one hand on top of the other. He used the full force of his body to thrust the heel of one hand into the unresisting sternum at a rapid pace. All the while the doctor was softly singing the lyrics to Queen’s song, “Another One Bites the Dust.”

  David didn’t know what to make of Russell Red Bear. He wondered if the doctor had lost his mind. But then it occurred to him that Red Bear was using the beat of the song to time his compressions. Press, release; press, release; over and over.

  After about thirty thrusts, Red Bear stopped. Bill then squeezed the airbag to force oxygen into the man’s lungs.

  Red Bear said, “David, get the backplate, that yellow board, from the bag and bring it here.”

  David did as he was told and stood with Bill and Red Bear. “We’re going to lift him,” Red Bear said to David, “and you’ll need to slip that plate under his back. On three . . .”

  David slid the backplate underneath the man’s torso, slightly below his armpits. This was the first time he had seen the firefighter up close. Now the guy didn’t look much older than Christy. David’s heart sank.

  “David, take Bill’s place,” Red Bear said while looking for signs of life. Nothing. “Clear” he said before shocking the man. The firefighter’s body jerked like a hooked fish flopping on a boat deck.

  Now David wasn’t moving. He stood frozen, terror-stricken, staring at the lifeless man’s face.

  “David, snap out of it,” Red Bear said. “We need your help.”

  A shiver ran up David’s spine.

  Bill reached up and grabbed David by the arm, pulling him down. David felt the tug and looked at Bill. He got ahold of himself and slowly took Red Bear’s spot, placing one hand over the face mask with the other hand holding the oxygen bag.

  Bill retrieved the Lucas machine whil
e Red Bear resumed his relentless chest compressions. The driver pulled a device out of the bag and snapped open its two legs. It was made out of sturdy plastic in the shape of a giant U. Once Bill had it over the man, Red Bear stopped. They snapped the two legs to either side of the backplate so the machine arched over the firefighter’s chest. In the middle of the machine was a circular suction cup attached to an adjustable piston. Red Bear lowered the piston until the suction cup made contact with the man’s chest. Then Bill switched the machine on, and it rapidly pushed the firefighter’s chest up and down. It sounded like someone running in a pair of corduroy pants as it tried to revive him.

  Red Bear was now busily checking the IV and breaking out drugs and needles from a compartment in the ambulance.

  “When that things stops after thirty compressions, David,” he said, “you’ll need to squeeze the oxygen bag twice, but wait for it to inflate before squeezing it the second time.”

  David, his eyes wide, jaw drooping, looked at Red Bear.

  “You can do this,” Red Bear said.

  David nodded slowly.

  “Okay, Bill,” Red Bear said. “We can continue the transport now.”

  With that, Bill swung open the ambulance’s rear doors and got out. The smell of North Dakota’s dark, rich soil had been replaced with diesel and sulfur fumes that blew in from the outside, along with a cloud of dust. Off in the distance, David saw a pump jack in the field next to the highway, bobbing its head up and down, pumping Bakken crude much the same way the device was trying to pump blood through this man’s lifeless body.

  Oil was viewed as the lifeblood of North Dakota, over and above everything and anything else. They’d keep pumping the oil no matter what happened to this firefighter or anyone else. The oil industry would never acknowledge the blood on its hands with respect to him or Ben Prior. Here, human life was just a cost of doing business. Nothing else, not even water or air—the basis for life itself—came close to the craving for oil. It occurred to David then that Red Bear was right. When it came to oil, we were a nation of addicts, concerned only with our next fix, our next big score—the next big well.