I took a huge gulp of air and began the program we call Alert and Alarm. As you may remember, this consists of blast after blast of Urgency Barks. These are not the same barks we use on cats, coyotes, or skunks, but rather barks that are shrill and passionate, so loaded with emotion that nobody inside the house can possibly ignore them.
I fired off round after round of Urgencies, barked myself down to skin and bones, and almost passed out from lack of oxygen. But to my complete amazement, nobody answered the call.
I couldn’t believe this! What did it take? I dashed around to the north side of the house and took up a position right under Loper and Sally May’s bedroom window. This time, they couldn’t ignore me. I reloaded my tanks with air and resumed barking. The window was open, and with only a screen between me and them, I was sure they would hear me.
“May I have your attention please? This is a news bulletin from the ranch’s Security Division. We have a monster prairie fire approaching headquarters, and if you’ll pardon me for saying so, Loper, you might want to get out of bed and grab a bucket of—”
“Hank, shut up that barking!”
“Water, and no, I will not shut up my barking, meathead, because—”
“HUSH UP!”
See what I have to put up with? A dog barks his heart out and tries to warn his people, and what good does it do? They never listen to their dogs, but this time they were going to listen, like it or not.
I had some serious reservations about diving through the window, but they had left me no choice. Before I could think about the hazards of jumping through a window screen, I entered all the targeting information into Data Control’s mainframe computer. When the Launch Button flashed on the console of my mind, I coiled my leg muscles and fired the weapon.
CRASH!
Was I cut to ribbons by the window screen? Did I live long enough to wake up my people or did we all burn up in the awful fire? To find out, you’ll just have to keep on reading.
Chapter Eleven: I Take Charge
Boy, you talk about sounds that will bring a sleeping rancher out of his bed! When I went ripping through the window screen, that did it! Loper sat straight up and muttered, “What the Sam Hill!” There was a moment of eerie silence, then I heard him jump out of bed and stumble over to the window. “Sally May, wake up, hon, we’ve got a fire coming this way!”
Well, glory be! But you see what I had to do to get his attention? Oh, and do you suppose anybody bothered to check my body for cuts and wounds? No sir. Lucky for me, I had come through the ordeal without a scratch, but still . . . oh well.
Loper turned on the light and suddenly the place became a beehive of action. While Sally May flew out of bed and slipped into her bathrobe, Loper scrambled into his clothes and ran for the telephone in the kitchen. He dialed a number and paced while it rang.
“Slim? Loper. Big fire in the home pasture. Start calling the neighbors. Call the fire department, then get up here as quick as you can.” He leaned over so that he could see the fire through the utility room window. “Slim, tell ’em we need heavy equipment. We won’t stop this one with a water truck. Hurry!”
Loper hung up the phone and walked out into the utility room. For several moments, he stared through the window at the red monster that lit up the night sky. His shoulders sagged and his head slumped forward.
Sally May joined him. She gazed out the window and let out a gasp. “Oh my heavens, it’s huge!”
He put his arm around her shoulder. “Hon, we’ll fight this thing as best we can, but there’s a chance that we might lose the house. I’m going to start hosing down the shingles. They’re wood and they’ll be the first things to burn. Wake up the kids and load the car with anything you want to save.”
For a moment, she seemed too shocked to speak. “Save? What do you save from a whole lifetime?”
“Not much, but that’s where we are. I want you and the kids to get out of here right away. Go down to Viola’s place and wait until I call.”
“And you?”
“Slim’s calling the neighbors and the fire department. We’ll give it our best shot.”
Their eyes met and she said, “I’ll stay here and help . . . at least for a while.”
“Hon . . .”
“If it looks hopeless, we’ll leave.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “All right, old gal, let’s get moving.” They turned and started toward the kitchen. I had been sitting there, watching, and all at once I felt very uneasy about . . . well, being inside Sally May’s house. You know how she is: no dogs in the house, ever.
Not only was I inside her house, but I had wrecked the screen on her bedroom window to get there. Gulp.
I lowered my head and began tapping out a slow rhythm with my tail. Tap, tap, tap. When she saw me, her face went toxic right away, but then it softened. She paused long enough to give me two pats on the back and said, “Thanks, Hank. You were very brave.”
Wow! Did you hear that? She said I was brave! I was so moved by her words, I wilted to the floor, rolled over on my back, and waited for the flurry of pats and rubs that I so richly deserved.
Huh?
Okay, they hurried out of the room and began their preparations. That was all right. I understood. After all, we had a fire bearing down on us and I could wait for my pats and rubs.
Whilst Sally May woke up the children, Loper grabbed his hat and left through the back door. I went with him. If there was a fire to fight, I wanted to be right in the middle of it, doing my part and showing the flag of the Security Division.
And besides, I had no great desire to stay in the house with Sally May. I mean, she had called me a brave dog, but don’t forget that unfortunate incident in the chicken house. She would have heard about it and she had a long memory. A guy never wants to push his luck.
Outside in the yard, we could hear the distant crackle of the fire and saw the rise and fall of the red glow behind the curtain of smoke. Loper didn’t say anything, but I could guess his thoughts. That thing was really scary. It made a grown man feel about the size of an ant, and a grown dog, too.
But there was a bit of good news. The wind had slacked up and the fire line had slowed its march toward the house. That gave us a little time to prepare a defense.
Loper turned on the water hose and sprayed the roof. After about five minutes, we looked off to the northeast and saw several pairs of headlights coming down the county road. Hooray, we had reinforcements!
The first to arrive was Slim, followed by Billy and several other ranch neighbors from down the creek. They had come prepared to fight fire with shovels and wet gunnysacks. I had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough. Where was that “heavy equipment” Loper had mentioned on the phone?
When Alfred came out of the house, Loper gave him the water hose and let him finish the job of wetting down the roof.
Loper gathered the crew together. “All right, boys, with a fire this big, the best we can do is save the house. There’s no way we can put it out. We’ll move out into the pasture about a hundred yards and start a backfire. Let’s go.”
In case you’re not familiar with some of the technical terms we use in the firefighting business, let me explain “backfire.” You probably thought a backfire was something an old pickup does when you let off the gas pedal. Well, that’s one of its meanings, but in the firefighting business, we have something else in mind.
See, we burn a narrow strip of pasture that lies in the path of a prairie fire, the idea being that when the big fire gets there, it won’t have any fuel. It’s called a fireguard.
But the most important part of any backfire procedure is the presence of a well-trained, experienced, fearless cowdog who will race up and down the line, delivering blast after blast of stern Anti-Fire Barking. You can have the best fireguard in the world, but if you don’t have that dog doing his stuff, well, you might as well be blowing
soap bubbles. Nothing works.
I’m not saying that a crew of men doesn’t help, but they’re mainly just a backup for the dog. Without that dog, fellers, the whole business just seems to fall apart. No kidding.
Anyway, I sent my men out into the pasture to backfire a strip of grass and prepare the fireguard. While they worked, I watched them closely because . . . well, let’s face it. When you have to depend on guys like Slim Chance to finish a job, you can’t relax. The man was a goof-off, a cowboy joker who had caught his own pants on fire that very afternoon, and I had to watch him like a clock.
Hawk. I had to hawk him like a clock.
I had to clock him like a . . .
I supervised the whole backfiring operation, is the point, and my crew did a pretty good job, all things considered, and at that moment there wasn’t much we could do but wait for the fire to arrive. That was a little creepy, standing there in what should have been black darkness and watching this glowing, roaring, crackling THING moving toward us.
We watched and waited. The wind had died to a whisper and the atmosphere was strangely calm except for the crackle of the fire. The men leaned on their shovels and talked in low voices, their faces smudged with soot and lit by the glow of the approaching flames. Now and then one of them would laugh. They seemed pretty confident that we would stop the fire. I wasn’t so sure.
Sally May and the children came out to join us and brought a jug of drinking water for the men. I was watching them drink (had anyone offered ME some water? No), when Little Alfred came up behind me and put his arm around my neck.
He leaned down to my ear and whispered, “Hankie, what were you doing in the chicken house?”
Huh? The chicken house? Why were we bringing up ancient history?
“Mom thinks you were going to eat one of her hens.”
I whapped my tail on the ground and gave the boy a look of greatest sincerity. “Fire safety. I was, uh, giving your mother’s chickens a class on fire safety . . . you know, what to do in the event of a fire emergency. Son, there’s no substitute for training.”
I was in the process of studying the boy’s face when we were blasted by a sudden gust of cold wind, the leading edge of a thunderstorm. All eyes turned to the north and what we saw sent chills of terror down every spine. Two hundred yards to the north, the monster had been awakened. Red and yellow claws of flame leaped into the air . . . hissing, popping, roaring, throwing showers of red sparks high into the night sky . . . and the thing was racing toward us again!
I felt a powerful urge to run, shall we say, but Alfred tightened his grip around my neck as he stared at the fire with wide eyes. So I held my position. I mean, what kind of dog would run off and leave his pal behind?
The men shielded their faces from the heat and sparks, and shrank back toward the house. Loper yelled, “Sally May, load the kids in the car and get out of here, while you still can!”
Sally May scooped up the baby, then took Alfred’s hand and ran for the car, which was parked behind the house. Naturally, I went with them, I mean, what could be more important than guarding Sally May and her children? They would need an escort to lead them through the smoke and confusion, right? Of course they would.
When we reached the car, she jerked open the back door and told Alfred to jump inside. I was almost sure that she called my name too, so I vaulted up into the backseat and . . .
“Hank, not you!”
. . . and pressed myself against Alfred’s body. A boy and his dog. Surely she wouldn’t . . .
She leaned into the car. “Hank, you’re covered with soot. Stay here with the men. Maybe you can help . . . or something.”
Hmmm. Good point. The Head of Ranch Security needed to stay at the front. I turned to my little pal.
“Son, take care of your ma. I can’t leave this fire until we have it licked.” And to add emphasis to my remarks, I gave him a juicy lick on the cheek and dived out of the car. Sally May closed the door and they sped off into the night.
Chapter Twelve: All Is Lost!
Well, I had made a successful evacuation of the women and children, and now it was time to . . .
Yipes! Suddenly, the roar of the fire filled my ears. The blaze had reached the fireguard, and sparks and firebrands were raining down on the roof of the house, in the yard, everywhere! Loper grabbed the water hose and sprayed the fires on the roof, while Slim and the others beat out fires in the yard with shovels and wet gunnysacks.
So far, so good. Every eye turned back to the north, watching to see if the fireguard would do its job. For a minute or two, it appeared that it would, but then the wind rose to a screaming gale and . . .
HERE IT CAME!
Like an enormous jungle cat, the thing leaped into the air and landed on the other side of the fireguard. Smoke, flames, sparks, and chunks of burning grass filled the sky. All at once the air was as hot as an oven. The wooden shingles on the roof burst into flame. The shrubs next to the house caught fire. Men yelled and gasped for air, while I . . . well, ran around in circles, barking, because, frankly, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Then, over the noise and confusion, Loper’s voice rang out. “We’ve lost it, boys! Run for the creek! Run for your lives!”
Well, that sure made sense to me. I mean, I had already figured out that running in circles wasn’t getting us anywhere, so I pushed the throttle down to Turbo Six, and . . .
WHAM!
We’ve come to the sad part of the story, so grab onto something steady. In all the madness and confusion, I had somehow failed to notice . . . well, a tree, a big tree, a very large and immovable tree in the blackness of the inky darkness of the night. And in my haste to evacuate our hopeless situation, I bashed into it with a full head of steam.
I don’t want to scare the children, but I have to report the facts. While the other guys on the fire team dropped their shovels and ran for their lives, the Head of Ranch Security was involved in a serious accident. And as the roar of the fire drew closer and closer, he lay wounded and unconscious . . . right in the path of the firestorm.
And, well, I guess that’s about it. With me knocked out and the fire running wild toward the house, there isn’t much hope for a happy ending, is there? I’ve always preferred happy endings to the other kind, but we don’t always control the way things turn out, do we?
No. See, I’m trying to prepare you for the worst . . . but wait. There’s one little detail we haven’t discussed, and I’m sure it’s one you never ever would have considered.
You remember that blast of cold wind that brought the fire back to life? Well, it came from a line of thunderclouds that were moving in from the northwest. Where there’s lightning, there’s thunder; where there’s thunder, there’s a thunderhead cloud; and where there’s a thunderhead cloud, there could be . . . RAIN.
Fellers, it rained, and we’re talking about the sky opening up and raining down snakes and weasels. Hard rain, drenching rain, fire-killing rain.
I don’t know how long I lay there, knocked cuckoo, but the next thing I knew, I was lying in a puddle of water. Rain was falling in my face and a strange dog with a stub tail was standing over me. Blinking my eyes against the vapors inside my head, I looked closer and recognized . . . Drover.
He said, “Oh, good. I thought you were dead.”
“I’m not dead, but it was pretty close. I got run over by a tree.”
“I’ll be derned. I didn’t know trees could run.”
“This one did. What’s going on around here?”
“Well, let me think. I heard you barking at the fire and then it started raining and the fire went out.”
“What!” I sat up and glanced around. It was pouring rain! And the air was filled with the smell of stale smoke, and yes, the fire was deader than a hammer! “Yes? Go on.”
“I just wondered if you barked up the rain.”
>
“Help me up, Drover.” He helped me up to a standing position and I wobbled around on two pairs of shaky legs. “I’m shocked that you even needed to ask. I mean, the evidence is all here, isn’t it?”
“Well, I wondered. Tell me the whole story. I can hardly wait.”
“Let’s see if I can remember it all. Okay, Loper and his crew did their best, but the fire rolled over them and, well, I hate to point this out, but you saw what they did. They ran for their lives.”
“Yeah, and you stayed behind. Boy, what a hero!”
My legs had recovered enough so that I was able to begin pacing, as I often do when I’m trying to discuss difficult concepts. “Let’s don’t make too much of this, Drover. Some would call it incredible heroism, but to me, it was just another day on the job. Someone had to whip the fire and . . . well, I was the one.”
His eyes sparkled in amazement. “But how’d you get it to rain?”
“It has to do with the tone of the barking, son. By making small adjustments in our standard Anti-Fire Barking Procedure, I was able to release a powerful wave of sonic energy into the clouds.”
“Gosh, no fooling?”
“Yes, and, well, you see the results. It was our last hope.”
“Yeah, and then you got run over by a tree.”
“Exactly. Boy, what a wreck! I’m just lucky I survived.”
“Yeah, and what a victory! You made it rain and put out the fire!”
I halted my pacing and looked up at the dark sky. “Actually, the experience leaves me very humble, Drover. When you find yourself in possession of such amazing powers, it . . . I find this hard to explain. Nobody can understand how it is, up here at the top of the mountain. Let me just say that I’m grateful that it worked and I feel very, very humble.”
Well, that’s about all the story. Was that a great ending or what? I had patched things up with Sally May, Little Alfred didn’t have to spend the rest of his life living in a cardboard box, and, best of all, Pete the Barncat got soaked in the rain. Ho ho! I loved it. You should have seen the little snot: ears plastered down on his head, his tail soaked and ugly, water dripping off his chin, and mad, very mad. Hee hee.
The Case of the Blazing Sky Page 7
