Barking Dogs

by R. R. Irvine

  Thanks to Larsen, Manwaring was first in line. He booked prime broadcast time, including a thirty-minute editing session preceding both the Morning and the Evening News. His competitors would be stuck with their porta-paks, while he had the luxury of the truck’s small but well-equipped studio.

  “Who’s your talking head?” Carlson, the gypsy driver, asked.

  Manwaring started to answer but Larsen beat him to it. “Vicki Garcia is with us.”

  “Tell her for me she’s a godsend.” Carlson chalked her name on his blackboard. “If this fire keeps burning, I’ll make my nut for the year.”

  “My sources say the wind’s going to slack on sometime late today,” Larsen went on.

  “I hope not,” Carlson said. “I haven’t had a good network shot since the Great Salt Lake flooded.”

  Manwaring slipped them both a hundred dollars before returning to the motel. By then, it was nearly four, an hour before the morning update. As quietly as possible, he filled the automatic coffee maker that he always kept in his suitcase and plugged it in.

  “You might as well turn on the light,” Holland said.

  “Christ,” Wilcox muttered. “That’s what I call short turnaround.”

  “I’ll shower first,” Manwaring said. He cranked the water all the way and stepped under the spray. The jump-start brought him back to life. He felt invigorated until he changed into fresh clothes that reeked of smoke.

  Vicki was up and doing exercises when he knocked on her door a few minutes later.

  “We’ve got an up-link truck and editing time in thirty minutes,” he said.

  She reached for the cup in his hand. “Thank God, you’ve brought coffee. I hope I don’t look as bad as you do.”

  She looked as good as always.

  “Did you get any sleep?” she said.

  “I got a late call and then there was the up-link to deal with.”

  “Was it Reisner on the phone?”

  For a moment he thought about pulling her chain by saying yes. If he did, though, Vicki would insist on knowing every word.

  “It wasn’t Herb,” he said.

  “Who then?”

  “Something personal,” he said.

  “It was about me, wasn’t it?”

  “It was my mother,” he admitted.

  Vicki thought that over for a moment. “What’s with you and her?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’d never marry a man before I met his mother.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a test I heard about. Judge a man by his mother.”

  “You watch too much TV.”

  “I read more than your scripts, you know.” With that, Vicki entered the bathroom and turned on the shower.

  He was on his way out when she poked her head around the doorjamb to say, “Do you think I should wear the same outfit today, so I can look like I’ve been on the fire line all night with no time to change?”

  “The morning audience doesn’t overlap the Evening News.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. I’ll go with a jungle outfit then. You know, the camouflage look.”

  ******

  The Morning News insert, shot from a platform atop the uplink truck, ran sixty seconds, most of which was videotape of nighttime fire scenes, plus Holland’s live scan of the city hall area as dawn was breaking.

  “They saw me for fifteen seconds,” Vicki complained as she unhooked the microphone from her lapel. “I might as well have stayed in bed.”

  Still on camera, though not for broadcast, she stomped to the end of the truck where a metal ladder was attached to the siding. There, she folded her arms and waited for someone to give her a hand. Frank Wilcox obliged.

  Inside the truck, Manwaring picked up the cellular phone.

  “Vicki called me at home last night,” Herb Reisner said without preamble. His tone was an accusation. “She filled me in about the religious screwballs in Defiance. Things like that I should hear from my field producers, not the goddamned talent.”

  Thank you, Vicki, Manwaring said to himself. “I didn’t want to disturb you that late, Herb.”

  “Cut the crap, Manwaring, and listen to me very carefully. I want us to be the first crew on the ground in Defiance. An ABN exclusive.”

  “I’ll tell Vicki.”

  “I discussed that possibility with her last night.”

  Exclusives invariably ran two minutes, thirty seconds of which would be on Vicki, live and in color from coast to coast.

  “The fire’s still out of control,” Manwaring said. “It’s eighty degrees and the sun’s just up. The wind’s blowing like a son of a bitch, and the entire area’s cordoned off by National Guard troops.”

  “The on-site exclusive was Vicki’s idea actually, though you should have thought of it yourself. I called Idaho Falls and bribed a helicopter pilot to fly you onto the killing ground.”

  “You could get us killed or arrested.”

  “The way I see it, it’s a matter of back-timing. If you reach Defiance just before we hit air in New York, say three-thirty in the afternoon your time, it will be too late for anyone to stop you. If you run into legal problems later on, the exclusive will already be ours.”

  Reisner clicked his tongue. “What do you say, Kevin? Are you with me?”

  Manwaring took a deep breath. Holland wouldn’t be thrilled about flying in this kind of weather. Wilcox wouldn’t like it either, though hazardous-duty pay might keep him quiet.

  “What did the chopper pilot say about flying conditions?” Manwaring asked.

  “He said not to worry. He said he flew in worse in Iraq.”

  “Jesus. We’ll have to keep that from Holland. War heroes scare him.” What Manwaring didn’t have to say, what Reisner already knew, was that Holland had hated choppers since covering the war in Vietnam.

  “Are you with me, then?” Reisner said.

  “I never said I wasn’t.”

  “Damn, what I wouldn’t give to be young and a field producer again.”

  Reisner was forty and rumored to be taking pills for high blood pressure.

  “Your pilot’s name is Rick Green,” Reisner went on. “He says he’ll set down at a place called the Beaver Dam Inn. It’s five miles outside Ellsworth and has been abandoned for years. He says there’s a turnoff from the highway.”

  “We’ll find it. I’ve put a local man on the payroll as a stringer.”

  “So I hear from Vicki.”

  “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Count yourself lucky, Manwaring. All you have to do is keep her happy. I’ve got Lee Aarons on my back, not to mention a dozen field producers just like you.”

  “I’ll pray for you, Herb.”

  “The pilot says he’ll use the old horse corral as a landing pad. I told him to get there at exactly three-fifteen this afternoon. That ought to land you in Defiance by three-thirty, with half an hour left over to set up the porta-pak for broadcast.”

  Vicki entered the truck. “Is that Reisner on the phone?”

  Manwaring handed the receiver to her without a word.

  She listened for a moment before speaking. “Three minutes, Herb. You promised. We’re not risking our lives for anything less.”

  She winked at Manwaring. “I’ll hold you to that, Herb.” She nodded for a moment before giving the phone back to Manwaring. “Herb says to make sure the batteries are charged on the porta-pak.”

  9

  THANKS TO Blaine Larsen’s hand-drawn map, Manwaring and his crew arrived at the pickup point on schedule. They’d been careful not to be followed out of town by the competition.

  The Beaver Dam Inn faced a rocky, white-water stream, and had been abandoned long enough to be surrounded by a second-growth forest. The old horse corral, filled with waist-high weeds and partially enclosed by a disintegrating split rail fence, was the only possible landing site.

  The four of them carried their gear to an opening in the fence and waited.
Holland and Wilcox found a spot where they could sit on the ground and lean against the lowest fence rung. Both folded their arms and closed their eyes against the smoky sunshine.

  “Reisner’s going to be pissed if that helicopter doesn’t show,” Vicki said.

  Manwaring clenched his teeth. It wasn’t Reisner who’d make his life miserable if the exclusive fell through.

  “Maybe we should phone in,” she added.

  Manwaring shook his head. “There’s always the chance of being monitored by the competition.”

  “If the chopper doesn’t show, I expect you to get me there in the Ford if necessary.”

  “Don’t say that,” Wilcox said without opening his eyes. “I was counting on flight pay.”

  “Maybe even a bonus,” Holland added. “Or a mention on the air. You know the kind of thing to say, Icky. „I owe everything to my wonderful camera crew. Without Lew Holland and Frank Wilcox, I’d still be schlepping in Peoria.’”

  “You have a vivid fantasy life,” she said.

  Wilcox opened one eye and leered. “Would you like to hear my fantasies?”

  Vicki smiled. “You’re not up to it.”

  With a grunt, Holland lurched to his feet and took Manwaring by the arm. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”

  “If you two have to pee,” Vicki said, “just say so and I’ll turn my back.”

  Holland stopped when they’d gone far enough to be out of earshot. “Some of your friends are starting to worry about you, my boy.”

  Manwaring sighed. Whenever Holland referred to unnamed friends, he was usually speaking for himself. Manwaring occupied his eyes looking for the helicopter.

  “This thing with Vicki, it’s a no-win situation.”

  “Not again.”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Holland said. “She looks good on camera. She memorizes well. She can read teleprompter like gospel. One of these days for sure, the network will be calling her to New York.”

  “Who’s to say I won’t follow her to the big time?”

  “She’ll milk you dry and then move on to someone else.”

  “You don’t understand her, that’s all.”

  “I’ve put a lot of faces on camera over the years. I’ve—”

  “Listen!” Manwaring interrupted.

  Despite an empty sky, he heard the distinctive rotor-thump of an approaching chopper.

  “He’s coming in low,” Holland said. “Just like Vietnam.”

  “I’m sorry, Lew. If we had any other way . . .”

  They sprinted back to the corral, where Vicki immediately hugged the cameraman. “You make me look good today, Lewis, and I will mention you on the air.”

  His answer was lost in engine noise and rising dust as the helicopter put down in the overgrown weeds. Ducking low, the four of them hurried toward the waiting chopper.

  As soon as Manwaring slid open the door, the pilot jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the back seat and shouted, “I hold four passengers.” He switched from thumb to forefinger to point at the porta-pak that Holland and Wilcox were carrying between them. “That piece of junk makes five.”

  “We can’t transmit without it,” Manwaring yelled back.

  “Then one of you will have to stay behind.”

  They could get by without Wilcox in a pinch, Manwaring knew, but it would slow them down. He tapped his watch. “You’re five minutes late.”

  “I told the guy in New York I’d get you to Defiance before four o’clock. But only if you get your asses inside right now.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Vicki said

  The pilot shrugged. His eyes, hidden behind mirrorlike lenses, were impossible to read.

  “Would cash change your mind?” Manwaring said.

  The pilot shrugged again.

  Manwaring handed over his wallet.

  The pilot removed five one-hundred-dollar bills before handing back the wallet. “Let’s go.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Holland shouted. “You’re going to get us killed.”

  The pilot shook his head. “I’ve carried heavier loads.”

  Vicki climbed into the front seat next to the pilot just as a wind gust rocked the chopper.

  Holland backed away a step. “It’s not worth it for some damned story.”

  “Please,” Manwaring shouted in his ear. “Do it for me.”

  “Whatever you do, it won’t be enough for her,” Holland said before getting into the chopper.

  The porta-pak went in next, followed by Wilcox and Manwaring, all crammed together uncomfortably. Vicki handed a set of earphones over her shoulder. Manwaring pulled them on.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” the pilot told him.

  The helicopter rose slowly, buffeted by the wind, before tilting its nose and heading east. Manwaring was airsick and swallowing constantly before they’d gone half a mile. As they passed over the fire line, an updraft bounced them violently. He was about to disgrace himself when the wind suddenly subsided.

  “Look at the smoke.”

  Below them, the smoke was rising straight up. The flames no longer looked frenzied.

  “The trailing edge of the front’s just moved through,” the pilot said. “Once you’re on the ground, you’d better be quick. You’ll be having company soon enough.”

  Beneath them was nothing but blackened countryside. When the helicopter hovered a few moments later, the pilot said, “Here we are. Defiance.”

  For an instant Manwaring thought it was some terrible joke. There was no town, only a charred wasteland. No trees were standing, nothing but stumps and debris. Only when the chopper settled onto solid ground were the remains of foundations and blackened rock chimneys recognizable.

  The chopper’s rotor slowed but didn’t stop.

  “As soon as you unload, I’m out of here,” the pilot said.

  “Bullshit,” Vicki said.

  “Forget it, Lady. I could lose my license.”

  Manwaring saw no point in arguing. Even if the wind kicked up again and the fire doubled back, there was nothing left to burn.

  He led the others far enough away to escape most of the soot when the helicopter took off and headed west toward Idaho Falls. Underlying the smell of smoke and charcoal was another Manwaring couldn’t put words to; he didn’t want to think about it either.

  He checked his watch. “Set up the porta-pak. We’re broadcasting in ten minutes.”

  While Holland and Wilcox readied their equipment, Manwaring walked Vicki through her on-camera moves. She’d begin inside what was once a good-size building; she’d be standing beside the ruins of a rock fireplace, then slowly step over the crumbling foundation and start down Defiance’s main street. Along the way, she’d speculate about the town’s final moments of life.

  “What should I say about the bodies?” Vicki asked once she had his scenario down pat.

  “The usual. „We can only hope death came quickly and painlessly to those who lived here.’”

  “Do you believe it?”

  Manwaring had to fight to keep his eyes from the blackened lumps that were attracting flies.

  “We’ve got a signal,” Holland called out. He waved the phone at them. “Reisner wants you both on the cellular.”

  As soon as Manwaring took the phone, Holland began panning the area so New York could see the devastation.

  “We’re the first ones here,” Manwaring said. “You’ve got your exclusive.”

  “How many dead?” Reisner asked.

  “There’s no way to tell.”

  “Dammit. You know the rules. Do a body count.”

  Manwaring tugged at Holland’s arm until the cameraman zoomed in on the remains. For Reisner’s benefit, Manwaring said, “It doesn’t look like there’s enough left for a coroner to count either.”

  “We’ve hit pay dirt this time,” Reisner said. “Put Vicki on. I want to know how she’s playing the story.”

  She went over the moves that Manwaring had already choreographed.


  “Baby, you’re wonderful,” Manwaring heard Reisner exclaim. “The best there is.”

  “How much time do I get?” she asked, holding the phone away from her ear to make certain Manwaring overheard Reisner’s reply.

  “How much do you need?”

  “Remind him it’s an exclusive,” Manwaring said.

  “I heard that,” Reisner said. “I’ll give you two minutes.”

  “We’ll take three.”

  “I’ve got a tight news show.”

  “We’ve got company,” Wilcox shouted.

  Holland swung the Betacam around and cranked up the sound.

  “Two choppers,” Wilcox said. “Big suckers.”

  “How much time to air?” Manwaring asked Reisner.

  “I see them. We’ll drop the usual opening and come to you live in thirty seconds.”

  Manwaring hustled Vicki and Holland into position near the half-fallen chimney.

  “Once you’re on the air, play it by ear,” Manwaring said. “Don’t throw it back to New York until I wrap you up.”

  Using hand signals, he counted her down to air. As if on cue, two massive National Guard helicopters landed like an invasion force. Soldiers spilled from them first, followed by medical teams, Ellsworth’s sheriff, and finally Mayor Ed Kearns, who came rushing at the camera waving his hands and looking angry.

  “We’re live to the network,” Manwaring shouted when the mayor was only a few feet away. Manwaring’s shout was a clear violation of Reisner’s rules—a field producer should never be seen or heard on camera—but worth it under the circumstances.

  The mayor stopped in his tracks, but not before Vicki grabbed hold of his arm. She introduced him to the audience without missing a beat.

  The mayor nodded nervously at the lens.

  “Let’s show our viewers what’s left of Defiance,” she said. Before the mayor could object, she led him through Manwaring’s choreographed tour. At the end of it, Manwaring stepped into camera range—another violation—to hand Kearns the spare headset.

  “Our anchorman, Lee Aarons, wants to talk to you from New York,” Vicki explained while the mayor was fitting the earphone into place.