Part Two: fiction ripped from the headlines...
The Fire Pounces
Rick felt at home in someone else’s bed, often he slept in the Tahoe. It was a pleasure to be unplugged and free to sleep-in, surprisingly he was dreaming about Mexico.
Storm chasing was a young person’s game; it took the commitment of a professional athlete, constantly on the road, the pressure to sink the big shot, the same highs and lows of victory and defeat. An integral part of storm chasing was waiting, supplanted by quick bursts of energy and adrenaline. He loved it more than Jessica, but they both slept happily, peacefully for the first time in days. Dreamland was a bucolic scene that early morning in Texas, yet outside, roiled a fire as wild as any super-cell ever hunted, bearing down on the beautiful couple.
“Jess, get up!” Rick shook his partner. “Get up, I smell smoke.”
She was groggy, “Smoke?” Jessica was confused. “Is your phone on?” She asked.
He fumbled through his backpack; it was dead. “I think my battery is done! Damnit, all my stuff is out in the truck,” Rick responded. They were uneasy with the lingering smell of burning brush wafting through the house.
The rush to the Tahoe gave Rick no assurances, the smell of smoke was heavier, and as dawn broke there was a red glow on the horizon. Darkness cloaked the pyrocumulus cloud forming above. Jessica was already headed up the ranch road in flip-flops, Rick followed her, still waking up.
Rick remembered “Devil’s Throat,” off the coast of Cozumel: Jessica was the first diver through the long coral tunnel over 100-feet below the surface, and heading up the ranch road seemed eerily similar; smoke formed a tunnel and at the entrance to the ranch where the trees opened into a clearing, they could see the wall of flames in the distance.
Over a million acres of dry trees fueled a “mega-fire” which burned at frightening temperatures, spawning fire-whirls spinning off tornadic winds of 80 mhp. The only hope to stop such destruction was a change in the weather; the inferno was out of control.
The smart phone interrupted. Jessica’s expensive weather app delivered three ominous chimes. Each was a warning from the previous night about wild fires raging through Texas. They could see darkness, which was the tree line in the distance, but leaping mirthfully from the tops, red sheets of fire snapped like firecrackers. Instinct dominated what happened next. Rick pivoted like a point-guard, back to the Tahoe, grabbing the laptop computer on his way to the house.
Amazingly, Clay was still asleep snoring like a black Labrador, blissfully ignorant. Jessica watched over Rick’s shoulder as he looked up coverage warning maps, reading NWS updates. During their sabbatical, wild fires encircled Liberty County; Clay seemed so surprised and sleepy they could have been showing him a foreign newspaper.
Rick and Clay shuttled back outside, as Jessica studied the laptop. “What in the hell is going on, Rick?” Clay asks.
“Can you see the shooting flames above the tree line, Clay?” Rick shot back, “I think we need to get outta here.”
They both internally inventoried their emotions at the moment, recognizing regret, ignorance, terror, flight, confusion, curiosity, and urgency, all competing for bandwidth inside the central processing unit known as their hung-over brains. “I knew there were some wild fires around Texas, but I gotta tell ‘ya Rick, this caught me off-guard, and it looks a whole lot closer than I would like! There’s just a coupla ways off this ranch and the county roads are hard to navigate,” Clay responded to the ominous wall of flame at which they both stared.
“Alright.” Rick wasn't quite listening, planning another quick exit, almost instantaneously assuming command. “Load your truck.” He said, wheeling again toward the house.
“I'll get Jess,” he was running back down the road.
“We’re burnin daylight!” Clay was one step behind, but he caught the irony of the last statement.
Photo credit: AP
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(to be continued in Part 3)
©Mark H. Pillsbury
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