Harvest was finished at the Hanson farm. No longer needed out in the field, Elaine finally had time to get the books back up to date. She had been doing the Hanson’s bookkeeping for years since her mother-in-law had turned the software over, and she hated getting too far behind, especially with year-end coming up.
Elaine was usually pretty efficient, but something was wrong today. She was 27 cents away from reconciling the bank statement and she could not find the error, no matter how much she cursed at the computer screen. She’d made a mistake somewhere. But where? She’d have to go through every transaction again.
When her cellphone rang, she was grateful for the interruption.
Read Also
Wills and powers of attorney: the basics and why you need them
Every adult should have a will and powers of attorney. In this article, we explain the basics of these essential…
It was her husband Jeff.
“Hi,” she said. “Glad you called. I needed a break from …”
But Jeff interrupted.
“Look,” he said. “I think you should gather up the dogs. And any cats you can grab. Get them into the garage. They’re okay there for now, but we might need to move them in a hurry soon if this wind keeps up.”
“What?”
“If you get them in the garage we won’t need to chase them later. We can just shove them in the truck.”
This still didn’t make sense.
“Why?” she asked.
Now Jeff sounded exasperated.
“I think we can get this fire stopped, but there’s a reasonable chance we might lose the yard.”
Elaine blinked.
“Fire?” Elaine had been inside in her office for at least two hours. Now she turned to the window, but all she could see from the east side of the house was the road and the row of popular trees bending in the fierce wind.
“I’m out in the durum stubble behind the yard. With the disc hooked up to the four-wheel drive tractor.”
“What happened?”
“Brian Miller burnt a pile of dead trees in a slough in his wheat field to the northwest a few months ago. Must’ve been smoldering all this time. This wind brought up a spark. I gotta go.”
“Right,” Elaine said. “I’m on it.”
“Mom and Dad are in the city today and Mark’s got the day off. Don’t worry about them,” Jeff said before he hung up.
Elaine abandoned her 27-cent problem to grab her phone, shoes and a jacket so she could see what was going on and round up the pets. The school bus wouldn’t bring the kids home for a couple of hours, so she didn’t have to worry about them. She could focus on keeping herself calm.
Out in the tractor, Jeff was as close to the flames as he wanted to get. If he could just plow up a fireguard wide enough, maybe they could cut this fire off before it burnt through more acres. It had already come through the wheat stubble in Miller’s field, cut across the Hunter’s pea stubble, and eaten through at least 50 acres of the field behind the Hanson’s house.
Jeff’s tractor cab was surrounded by thick grey smoke. He turned on the lights, but it didn’t help much. He turned to look behind. Flames were licking at the edge of the disc.
When his cellphone rang he grabbed it on the first ring.
Brian Miller.
“Can you put your hazard lights on too?” Brian asked. “The last thing we need to do is crash into each other.”
Jeff turned his switch. “Good idea.”
“Windiest damn day of the year. I think we’re going to have to move downwind and work up wider guards. It already jumped that pass you just made.”
“Okay, yup,” Jeff said.
Jeff hit the button to hang up, but kept the phone in one hand. Then he turned the tractor cab to what he thought was the southeast. It was hard to tell in the thick smoke.
To the right of his cab, he could see what must be one of his sloughs. Half-a-dozen full-height trees were blazing with flames. At least he knew where he was and he could get his bearings. He could just make out his farmyard to the left. Flames were moving in closer to the row of trees around the back.
He lowered the disc and started working on a new guard strip.
His phone buzzed again and he checked the screen. John Hunter.
“I’ve got my pro-till hooked up. I’m almost there. What can I do?” John said.
“Brian and I are trying to stop this thing from heading further south. But it’s moving east too. Could you rip up a guard around my yard?”
“Yep,” Brian answered, then cut the connection.
Jeff looked around. Was this fire moving faster? Could the wind be getting even stronger? What would this ash do to the tractor’s air filter? How close could he get without getting hurt?
Then he made out the shape of Brian’s John Deere tractor in front of him. Maybe together they could make a wide enough guard to hold it.
Back in the yard, Elaine zipped up her jacket as she stepped out of the house. She could smell smoke and she saw a cloud toward the back of the yard, but it didn’t seem too close. Jeff was probably being overly cautious, she thought, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt the pets to spend some time in the garage. At least they’d be out of the wind.
The two-year old German shepherd was easy to lure in. There was nothing the dog loved more than a car ride. When Elaine opened the walk-in garage door Flora ran in ahead, shoving Elaine aside in her rush to get to the SUV, in case Elaine might be taking her for a ride in the back.
“Not this time,” Elaine said. She hurried out again, carefully closing the door behind her to trap Flora inside. But she caught a quick glimpse of Flora’s big, sad brown eyes. Betrayed.
“Sorry Flora,” Elaine apologized.
The older dog, Buddy, was harder to herd. Buddy hated car rides and his only experience with the SUV was being hauled to the vet. Elaine had to use all her strength to tow Buddy to the garage while he dug his paws into the gravel. She opened the door a few inches, hoping to push Buddy in before Flora barged back out.
“One more shove,” Elaine encouraged herself. “You’re almost in.”
Finally, she got Buddy in and the door shut, but not before she heard a sad whine from Flora, the innocent prisoner.
“And Jeff thinks I’m going to be able to herd cats?” Elaine asked herself, hurrying out to the old shed where she thought she’d last seen the cat carriers they almost never used.
In the tractor out behind the yard, the smoke was getting darker. Jeff thought he saw another tractor in front of him. But it wasn’t Brian. Someone else had brought a tractor and disc out to help.
Jeff couldn’t see how close the flames were to the yard, but he was pretty sure they were getting closer. Would that guard hold in this wind?
He called Elaine again.
“Take the pets if you can, but get yourself out of there,” he said. “We’re gonna lose the yard.”
…to be continued.
