Mike helped us lift Joy onto the trailer, as Nancy evaluated her.
I turned to run back into the field when I heard the softest voice. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” came the familiar voice of my sweet boy.
I turned to see Hudson, with his face covered in black soot, and I could smell the unmistakable scent of his singed hair. But he was alive and talking…
“No, son,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes. “I’m the one who’s sorry.
“How did you get back here?” I asked.
“Mr. Jake pulled me out of the burning things and told me to run as fast as I could back here.”
“What about the other kids?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he choked, as he started to cry.
“I saw Danny for a minute, and then he was gone… My back hurts, Daddy.”
“Let me see, son.” I turned him around and was taken back by the nearly one foot of his shirt missing in the back. His skin was worn black ash, and large blisters were visible. I lifted his shirt to find more of the same.
“Oh, buddy, I’m so sorry,” I told him, as he cried harder.
“Daddy, it hurts so bad. I feel like I’m going to die.”
I lifted him onto the trailer, calling out to Nancy to get him.
My two are back and alive, I thought, but her Danny is still out there.
A guilty conscience I’ve always had overcame me, as I jumped off the trailer and ran towards the expanding fire.
I ran straight for the two heads I could see.
Lonnie was holding his boy tight but let him go, pushing him to run towards the caravan.
Two more, I thought.
“Danny! Danny!” Jake called out over and over. “Where are you?”
Jake was systematically canvassing the areas around the flames, calling out his name.
I ran towards him, calling Danny’s name. The grass was tall, and I couldn’t see my feet.
My right foot hit something hard…or was it soft? I couldn’t tell, but it sent me sprawling onto my chest in the tall grass.
“What the…” I started to say, as I looked back and saw a child covered in black ash, shaking on the ground.
“Danny? Is that you?” I asked.
“Mr. Lance,” came the soft reply. “Please help me. I think I got hurt.”
I carefully lifted the now unrecognizable boy from the hard ground, realizing his face had been badly burned.
“Am I going to be okay, Mr. Lance?” he asked.
“Yes, buddy. We’re going to take good care of you.”
I wanted to tell Jake I had his boy but decided to run straight for Nancy.
Danny needed more help than both Hudson and Joy now, and he had to be the priority.
Lonnie’s only daughter was still missing. Dropping Danny off, I ran back to Jake.
“Is he okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know; he’s hurt bad,” I said, cringing with the news.
“Go to your boy,” I told Jake. “I’ll help Lonnie.”
A reluctant Jake made his way back, as Lonnie and I searched for his little girl.
Smoke filled the air, thick and dark black, as we called for her.
Mike called out from the trailer, pointing to the far eastern edge of the flames.
Lonnie was the closest and disappeared as he bent down into the grass. He emerged with a body in his arms. He ran past me as her arms and legs hung straight down. Her eyes were open, I noticed, but she was not moving.
Nancy was at capacity when Lonnie put his little girl up onto the trailer.
As I approached, she didn’t appear to be burned but she was not breathing.
“Lance, you’re up,” called Lonnie in the lead truck.
The field was now ablaze with fire on two sides of our caravan.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” called Mike over the bull horn. “Every vehicle back the way we came!”
I was the first truck and got turned around as quickly as I could without throwing the injured around on the trailer.
I could see Lonnie in my rearview, bent over his lifeless little girl. Thirty compressions followed by two breaths, he counted over and over.
“Please, Lord,” I prayed. “Not this. Please let his little girl and Danny be okay.”
Nancy was calling out instructions to Jake and others, with a lot of movement on the trailer from my rearview.
Joy was holding Hudson, with his head buried in her chest. I could barely make out Jax and Hendrix in the car just behind the trailer.
Once back at the highway, we headed north, wanting to put some distance between us and the expanding inferno. I held steady at 15 miles per hour to navigate stalled out vehicles without jarring the trailer around.
I looked in the mirror and saw Steve put his hand on Lonnie’s shoulder, as he shook his head back and forth.
Lonnie pushed it away, forcefully, and kept counting: one, two three, four, five....
“Twenty-one,” he counted, “twenty-two…and I heard a gasp as his little girl took a deep breath and began to cough hoarsely. She tried to sit up but fell back into her father’s waiting arms.
Lonnie and his wife were both sobbing, holding their still-coughing little girl.
I wished I could be back on the trailer and talk to Joy and Hudson. I called on the radio for Steve to come up and take the wheel.
He was just able to navigate around to my open driver’s door and into the cab. The switch was easy at only 15 miles per hour.
Going back the same way, I made it over to Joy and my boy.
“Joy, honey,” I called out as I got close. “How are you doing?”
She didn’t answer but just looked straight ahead at her twisted foot. Hudson cried softly in her arms. “Joy,” I said quietly, touching her shoulder gently.
She jumped. “Huh?” she replied.
“I’m here,” I told her. “I’m right here.”
“I’m looking at my foot, and something is not right,” she said without looking up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m...I feel like I’m in a fog… I mean, my foot hurts but not as bad as it looks. And where’s Hudson?”
“Honey, he’s right here in your arms,” I said, noticing the large lump on her forehead for the first time.
“Do you know my name?” I asked her.
“Of course, Lance. I just feel numb, I guess, and my ears are ringing.
“What happened?” she asked. “Is everyone all right?”
“I don’t know. Hold tight, and I’ll check.”
Hudson was quiet but breathing normally, as best I could tell.
I made my way over to Jake and Nancy, who were tending to little Danny. “How’s he doing?” I asked.
“He has some bad burns,” replied Jake. “A few on his face and the rest on his chest.”
I could hear him whimpering as Nancy tended to him. “Hang in there, buddy,” I told him.
I worked my way over to Lonnie, still holding his little girl close. I touched him on the shoulder, and he turned quickly, like he was about to knock my lights out.
“It’s just me, buddy,” I told him.
His face relaxed. “Sorry, Lance. I thought you were someone else.”
“How is she?” I asked, knowing most of it already.
“She’s alive,” his wife interjected angrily, “and that girl Sheila is to blame for it,” pointing her right index finger towards the back of the caravan.
“Hold on,” Lonnie told her, lightly grabbing her outstretched hand and lowering it. “There will be time later to see what happened. Right now, we’ve got injured to attend to, and that’s all.”
“I know exactly what happened,” she spat. “It was her damn cigarette that started the whole thing. Who’s smokes a cigarette in the middle of a field of dry grass? And what kind of idiot throws the lit butt into the middle of it, where our kids are playing?”
“That’s enough right now,” said Lonnie sternly. “Stay here with our girl. I’m going to chec
k on everyone else.
“What have we got?” he asked me.
“Danny has some bad burns on his face and chest. Hudson has burns on his back, and Joy appears to have a broken foot and a concussion.”
I grabbed three cold packs from one of the freezers and wrapped them each in a towel. “Hold this on your head,” I told Joy, handing her one as I put the other on her ankle.
“This one’s for you, my brave boy,” I told Hudson, carefully placing it on his back.
“Thank you, Daddy,” he said softly, trying to force a smile. “I’m sorry we were playing outside the circle,” he continued, and started to cry again.
“Are they going to be okay?” he asked. “My friends, I mean…are they hurt bad?”
“I think they’re going to be okay. And son, it’s not your fault. As the adults, we’re responsible for what happened. It’s our job, my job, to keep an eye out for all of you. I didn’t do that today, and I’m sorry, buddy.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. I’m not mad.”
“I love you, son,” I told him as I kissed his soot-covered forehead.
“How’s your head, Joy?”
“I have a headache and feel nauseous, but I’m thinking a little more clearly. If I could just take a quick nap, it might help.”
“No, honey. We can’t do that. I need you to stay awake for me. I’ll sit here and talk to you.”
“Why is this so hard,” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Joy said, “at least at home we were safe, and we knew what to expect. Now every day seems worse than the last. What if we don’t make it to Colorado?”
“We will, Joy. We will make it, I promise you that.”
“Tell me about our new life,” she said, as she yawned deeply.
“Stay with me, Joy, and I’ll tell you both about what our life in Colorado will be like in a few short weeks.
“You have both been to the Ranch more than a few times but probably never really saw it in its entirety. I walked every foot of the valley growing up, and I know it forward and backward.
“We will work together, side-by-side, farming the land with many other like-minded survivors.
“The days will be filled with the laughter of our children and the nights with stories of the past.
“No traffic, no bills, bosses or deadlines. No more missing dinner with our kids. Just quiet, slow living, getting to know our children for the first time.”
“That sounds nice,” she responded, kissing Hudson on the cheek.
“That’s what this is all about,” I added. “Not just for our family but everyone here. It’s a chance to start over, and it couldn’t happen in McKinney.”
I gazed towards the back of our line of vehicles and could see the smoke in the distance getting farther away. The entire horizon was on fire, but the wind must have pushed it the other way. I wondered how far it would burn with no one to fight it. There would no doubt be many people in its path without vehicles to outrun it.
One cigarette, I thought, could start its own flaming apocalypse.
My mind flashed to Sheila casually flicking the cigarette butt into the field, and I knew our group would never be the same again.
“Keep an eye out for a hospital or, even better, an urgent care,” called Nancy to Steve over the radio.
Passing through Memphis, Texas, Steve called out: “We’ve got an ER up on the right. It looks like a clinic and not a hospital.”
“It’s okay,” said Nancy. “There won’t be any meds left, but everything we need should still be there.”
She was right about the meds, as the front doors were smashed in with the cinder block that still lay on the floor inside the clinic.
Mike and Steve swept the building, finding it empty except for the pill bottles strewn about the floor.
“Big city or small town,” said Mike, emerging from the office. “Everyone loves their drugs.”
I was surprised to see Mike joking around, after his new girlfriend nearly killed four of our kids.
I didn’t say anything, knowing this would all be discussed in the coming days.
Mike’s biggest problem right now may be his only real friend, Lonnie, I thought.
“Let’s get everyone needing treatment inside,” called Nancy.
I helped Joy and Hudson off the trailer.
“You guys stay here,” I called to Jax and Hendrix, who were both worried about their mom and brother.
Nancy assessed the children first and told Joy she hadn’t forgotten about her leg.
Lonnie, Jake and I were tasked with finding the supplies Nancy was calling out.
The Urgent Care was no hospital, but it still had at least 20 rooms filled with cabinets, most with the doors open.
“It looks like someone checked every room for meds,” I said to Jake.
“At least they left everything we need right now,” he replied.
“Mike and Steve, cover the entrance!” yelled Nancy. “No one in unless they’re with us.”
She started working on Danny, who was burned the worst.
I got Joy and Hudson on the same gurney and did what I could to keep them comfortable.
Lonnie’s boy seemed fine, just shaken up.
His little girl was still coughing. I wondered how much smoke she, Danny and Hudson breathed in.
I had heard that people could die hours or days after breathing in a lot of smoke, and worried about them all.
The lump on Joy’s head was getting smaller, and she seemed much clearer now.
“How are you feeling, sweetie?” I asked, now thinking it was a dumb question.
“A little better since Nancy gave me those pills back at the last stop.”
Her ankle was now grossly swollen, and it looked like we may have to cut off her new pink tennis shoe. For the first time since it happened, I thought we should have checked out a mall or two. How long do shoes last, I thought? What about shirts, pants, socks and underwear?
We had been wearing the same clothes for a few days, between dips in the lake. Our clothes had held up, but what about next year or the one after that? The kids would no doubt need a different shoe size frequently as they grew, as well as everything else.
“We’re traveling with firepower and room on our trailers,” I told Joy, still trying to keep her distracted from the pain.
“We need to take an hour or so and hit up a Walmart or shopping mall and secure proper clothing for the next few years, until the power is restored.”
“Sounds good to me,” she replied in a tired voice. “Just don’t forget to find some pink tennis shoes.”
“I’ll get everything in your size, honey; I can promise you that.”
With Danny and Lonnie’s girl taken care of, Nancy turned to Hudson and Joy.
“Sorry, it took so long,” said Nancy. “I’m only one person, and a lot is going on here.”
“No worries,” replied Joy. “You’re doing a great job. Can you tend to Hudson first?”
“Absolutely,” Nancy replied, giving him a pill to swallow. “That should help some with the pain,” she added. She proceeded to remove his tattered shirt and cleaned his burns.
I held his hands as he cried out, “Daddy, please make her stop.”
Mini licked him on the cheek and laid down in his lap. He calmed a little, petting her head.
“I’m sorry, son. I know it hurts, but we must do this to get you better.
“Remember that time,” I said, hoping to distract him a little, “when we went to Bolivia to visit your uncle, aunt and cousins?”
“Yes, Daddy. We saw the Dakar Rally, racing across the country with the monster trucks and motorcycles.”
“Remember,” I said, “when the huge Red Bull truck kicked up sand all over us? It was dusty, and sand flew everywhere. It took Mom almost a whole hour to get it all out of your hair when we got back to your cousins’ house.”
“Yeah, Daddy, that was so cool.”
“It’s li
ke we’re doing now,” I added, only a bit slower. “We have big trucks and trailers kicking up dirt, and two cool four-wheelers as well.”
Next World Series (Vol. 2): Families First [The Road] Page 24
