Summer Winds (21 page)

❖

For nearly a week the storm clouds threatened and the winds blew as if trying to rid us of the last days of July, sometimes bringing rain and other times stray pieces of hay, debris, and anything else that wasn’t bolted down. The fire danger was high despite the water.

Small sparks ignited into brushfires south of us, and the local fire department warned of impending threats to adjacent counties. I didn’t think the flames would reach us in any significant way, as the rainwater seemed to have pooled in most areas around the ranch.

But only a few days later, the winds increased to gale force, forty-mile-an-hour gusts, and the fires were visible on the horizon.

Huge plumes of gray and by nightfall the smell of smoke in the air. No matter where we walked, the smell never left our nostrils.

We got in the truck and drove south to see how far away the fires were, but the rolling hills concealed the exact location. Calls to the fire department assured us they’d had men positioned five miles south for the last twenty-four hours. Nonetheless, the high winds were creating jump flames that were igniting new fields, and they admitted they had their hands full.

The animals seemed oblivious to the impending danger as they moved about aimlessly, noses to the ground, chewing on grass. I didn’t sleep well. It always worried me when something as big as a tornado or a wildfire approached. Too many animals to save and at what point did we save ourselves.

I drove up to the north pasture, where the cattle grazed on the near-barren grass, and located Perry. He and Cash were down on the ground stringing hot wire to hold the animals in. Cash rolled the big spool of silver wire along the ground, and Perry pulled and clamped it at eight-foot intervals, then ratcheted it up to the next post, taking the sag out. It was backbreaking work if you strung more than a thousand feet, and from the looks of the pasture they were about there.

“Have you checked the horse trailers?” I asked, ignoring Cash, leaving her to her work.

“Aired up the tires on the new one. Old one’s floorboards are in decent shape so it’s usable. We can jam the horses into ’em if we have to.”

“Tight quarters,” I told him, “but better than leaving them behind.”

“Won’t come to that,” he said casually. “They’ll knock it down. They’ve got trucks from three counties. Bo told me.”

“Why are you still talking to Bo?” My voice rose in anger, and Perry gave Cash a furtive glance.

“He’s in the volunteer fire department,” he said simply. “I’ve known him a long time and he must have been drunk or something when that thing happened.”

“That thing?
I’m
that thing. Well, that’s just great!” Cash threw the spool of wire to the ground. “He hawks and snorts and spits and you can’t stand to even bunk with him, but he seriously tries to jump my bones and you don’t give a shit. I ought to get him drunk and let him put his big sweaty belly up against your rosy ass and see how you like it!” Cash stomped off and I concealed a grin. Apparently the idea that male bonding superseded female injustice didn’t sit well with her.

Perry jerked upright. “What the hell?”

“I was going to ask her to help you get the trailers ready, but I think I’ll just stay out of her way.” I turned around and headed back to the house, chuckling at Perry’s shocked expression. It also crossed my mind that Cash was very sexy when she was fired up.

❖

Overnight the hot winds blew in, bringing the fire on us like a biblical plague, so close the smoke choked us. Oppressive summer heat coupled with intense flames, the wind drying out our eyes.

We could only move about restlessly in cotton clothes and work boots, trying to prepare for what might come. Hoses were hooked up to every spigot and horse trailers were backed up to the smallest pasture, where I’d temporarily corralled all the horses in case we had to round them up.

“What do you think?” I asked Perry, as we gathered on the south end of the ranch gazing off into the darkness at the red glow that seemed to be widening and brightening. Not a good sign. Cash was standing next to him and they’d most likely discussed the situation in detail. They seemed to have reached a truce, focusing on the fire, her anger merely scorched earth from which friendship could now be recultivated.

“Well, wind could shift and send it southeast of us.” He seemed to be making up unlikely scenarios just to calm me down.

“If it jumps the Wileys’ ranch, then I want to open all the cattle gates and herd them out. Give ’em a shot at not being barbecued before their time.”

“We’ll need an hour to get ready.” Cash looked around her with amazing calm. “I can drive one horse trailer and you can drive the other. That’ll give Perry the cattle detail. I’ve already got Moses and you can take Duke. You have insurance?”

“Yes,” I whispered, thinking insurance didn’t replace memories.

“Any documents or valuables you want out?” she continued.

“Box of photos in the coat closet.”

“I’ll put them in the truck.” Cash went inside, leaving me and Perry on the front steps.

“Let’s get some sleep. If it hits Wiley’s have them call us,” I said, and went back inside to try to get some rest.

❖

It was two a.m. and I’d been asleep only a couple of hours when the phone rang. Jonas Wiley was shouting that the flames were at his south pasture and he was calling everyone he could to ask for help. I told him we’d be there. I ran across the living room floor barefooted and banged on Cash’s door. She stepped inside off the porch, fully dressed in jeans and boots. “I’ve got burlap, shovels, water tanks in the back of the truck ready to go.” I realized while I’d slept, she’d been awake and planning. I ran back to my room and threw on jeans and boots and a sweatshirt over a tee. We were in the truck in minutes, headed down the road toward Wiley’s. Cash said Perry was already over there, and I wondered how I could have just checked out and slept. So unlike me.
I must be more stressed than
I know.

All the neighboring ranchers were gathered at the property line, beating back the flames with everything they had. People had been trenching for days, trying to create a fire line the flames couldn’t jump. The row of ranchers strung out as far as you could see, their shovels tossing dirt on flames.

Cash fell in beside them and I was impressed that she knew where to stand and how to help without being told. A section of flames died down, then a gust and the fire flared somewhere else. A shout went up and men clustered to beat it back. A fire truck finally pulled onto the scene—more like a tank on the back of a pickup.

County fire departments were makeshift and volunteer, some of them better than others at the occasional work.

Two men jumped out and dragged a big hose, which shot down the fire line and into the most serious burn. The flames quieted. The tanker, now empty, left to refill. Soon another section of the fire had them in retreat again. The heat and sweat and human noises were insignificant in relation to the sound of the air itself. The wind flung the flames around our feet where they danced between us. I picked up a shovel and joined a group of people trying to toss dirt onto the newly ignited patches of prairie grass.

Hours went by and we seemed no better off than before, just dirtier and sweatier and more tired. Then the wind died down, an omniscient force silenced and the calm unnerving. As the blast furnace simmered, the ranchers knew they had a lull in which to conquer the blaze. Despite fatigue, we double-timed our moves, beating small, recalcitrant flames, dousing them with water and throwing more dirt on the hot spots. After another hour, we began to rise from our bent positions, exhausted, to assess the landscape.

Jonas Wiley shook hands with Jock Goodie, and Sara beamed at her husband. If there was something good about this fire, it gave folks a chance to see that Sara and Jock were here to stay and would pitch in like everyone else, and maybe it would be Jonas Wiley who would help neighbors find their way to the Goodies’ store. Wiley’s wife hugged him, dirt-stained tears smudging her face. “I think we’ve saved it.” Her husband put his tired arms around her shoulders and held her against him, while men paced up and down the line making sure every little ember was out.

“Couple of us will stay down here,” Perry said. “Case of a flare-up.” A few other men nodded, indicating they’d hang around in case we’d missed anything.

Moments like this made me proud to be a rancher. People who probably didn’t see each other but once a year showed up to save another family’s property. Some of us out of self-preservation, but a lot of these folks, as I looked around, were well out of the path of the flames and didn’t have to spend their night in the soot.

I caught sight of Cash, as dirty as the fellow next to her, who on closer inspection appeared to be Stretch Adams. Their conversation went on for a moment, and he chuckled and squeezed her arm at the bicep as if measuring her muscle strength.

I waved and she caught sight of me. She didn’t look the least bit tired and gave me a sweet smile, as if she too understood what had just happened here when it came to things that counted.

I left drinking water with Perry and offered to go get him anything he needed, but he acted irritated at the idea that he needed more than a rock to sit on and a can of beer, the latter having been handed to him by another rancher smart enough to throw a case in the back of his truck. Cash insisted she would hang out with Perry for a bit and then walk back across the pasture. Nothing left for me to do but pack up and drive home, grateful for a moment to have struck a bargain with nature.

❖

Water, I decided was the world’s great luxury, as the shower cascaded down my dirt-streaked arms, washing away grit and grime and fear. We were safe now, the flames doused. Life could resume.

I got out, toweled off, and threw on cotton drawstring pants, not bothering to entirely dry my hair, but preferring to step out onto the back porch and let the wind caress it.

In the distance, debris seemed to be piled up around the barn and a light had been left on. The straight winds had undoubtedly upended everything that wasn’t bolted down. I poured myself a small glass of wine and donned moccasins to amble down the path to the barn. Relief flooded me, and I said a small prayer of thanks to God for sparing my ranch.

As I approached the barn, I spotted Cash standing in the aisle toweling off. I stopped to observe her half-naked body, the curve of her back. She picked up a clean black T-shirt off the sink’s ledge and slipped it over her head, her small breasts not requiring a bra. I waited until she was decently clothed, then approached.

“Cash, is that you?” I acted as if I hadn’t seen her but had only suspected it might be she.

She waved and then spoke when I came closer. “I was just washing the soot off.”

“You were a big help,” I said as I bent to pick up the scattered muck buckets blown down the aisle. Reaching inside the tack room, I set my wineglass on a counter to leave both hands free to collect the debris the wind had wrought: a stack of black plastic garbage bags loose and flapping about, harnesses blown off hooks, along with anything else that had formerly hung from a wall. Cash fell in at the opposite end of the barn, doing her part. “Don’t knock yourself out. I’m just collecting the big things that could end up out in the pasture.”

Giving the place a quick look, I stepped into the tack room and collected my wineglass, then flopped down on a comfy leather couch. I’d forgotten how cozy this old cowboy settee was, having banished it from the house for ostensible soil and tears. Tired, I swung my legs up and reclined into its smooth softness, then put my head back and let my neck muscles relax for the first time in what seemed days. The quiet was a luxury and I wondered where Cash had gone. Perhaps up to the house to have a real shower.

I glanced at the doorway and she was standing there…her shoulder angled up against the doorjamb as if Annie Leibovitz had posed her, strong and young and beautiful and looking as if she wanted to own me. Like a prey animal, I tried to get up and escape, but she was on the couch in one swift move. Her body above me, her weight aloft as she lowered herself onto me.

She pressed her lips to mine and without prelude devoured me with the heat of her tongue. Inside me, taking me, as surely as if she’d entered through an even more intimate passage. I moaned and twisted beneath her, not to escape but to savor every second of this erotic moment—one I had never experienced and now knew only through this androgynous woman. She slowly pulled her lips away and, eyes glistening, riveted mine. “So there’s no mistake, we have now kissed.”

“Let me up,” I whispered. She hesitated, then got off. I managed to get to my feet and find my balance. “There’s no denying what you do to me.” I paused, trying to quiet my pounding heart. “But the difference between being my age and yours is that I look down the road, past the passion, and I know the heartache that waits there… and I don’t want it.”

“You can reject passion for the rest of your life, Maggie, but that won’t stop heartache. It’s a risk you take to be able to love someone. And if ever there was a risk worth taking, I’m it. I swear to you, I’m it.” Her tone was pleading and I couldn’t look at her.

We stood there for a long time, in the silence of the night, orchestrated only by the crickets and the plaintive sounds of an old barn owl.

When she spoke again, her voice was sorrowful and held a quiet finality. “All right. I swear to you, on my grave, I won’t try to make love to you again.”

The following morning was the first day of August. The fire danger on the ranch seemed a distant memory, but inside me the flames could not be knocked down.

Perry phoned around ten a.m. to say he planned to sack in for the rest of the day. Life would get back to normal, he assured me, but I knew that wasn’t true.

I took a cold shower to relieve the throbbing in my body. I had decided to wash Cash and any longing for her out of my life.

But standing in front of the bathroom mirror again, I studied my nakedness, trying to see myself as Cash might see me if we were in bed together. Her taut, firm skin pressed against my slightly sagging breasts, her muscular thighs against my less-than-firm ones.