Firebreak: A Mystery (5 page)

“You want to come in for a cold drink? Unwind before you try to get some sleep?”

She nodded and followed him inside. He was right. She was exhausted, but the intensity of the night would sit on her chest like a rock if she tried to go to bed without settling her thoughts.

He poured them both glasses of ice water and they sat out on the front porch in his old wooden rocking chairs.

“I can’t get old man Beeman out of my head,” Dell said. “I hate to say it, but that could be me in another ten years.”

Josie grinned. “You’re a pain in the ass like he is, but you’ve got more sense. Grit’s one thing, but self-preservation has to count for something.” Josie thought about the heart he had been whittling but didn’t bring it up to Dell. There was already too much sadness to contemplate. She didn’t want to imagine what might have happened to Beeman in the fire.

Dell drained his glass of water and set it down on the floor.

Josie felt the stress and emotion of the day pressing in on her chest, and her thoughts turned to Dillon. She wondered when she would be able to face a major event in her life and not think of him. He had been the calm voice of reason when her intensity needed a buffer. She turned to Dell, her best friend and occasional confidant. “I called Dillon yesterday to let him know about the fire. I left a message. I thought he might be worried, but he never called me back.”

“Maybe he already heard about it on the news.”

“I just thought he would have returned my call.”

Dell sighed and Josie closed her eyes in embarrassment. She imagined herself as too tough to agonize over a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with her, but there she was, dragging him up again.

“You get why he left you. Right?” Dell said.

“I get why he left Artemis,” she said. “I understand why he hated this place after the hell he went through. He said he was tired of watching over his shoulder for the next disaster. He said leaving was the only way he could ever find happiness again.”

She could feel Dell staring at her in the dark. “You get why he left Artemis, but not why he left you?”

Josie was quiet, gazing up at the pitch-black sky, where the light from stars and the moon had been extinguished by smoke. Josie had mastered the art of deflection, but Dell knew her too well.

“You told me a couple of weeks ago that it was time to let him go,” he said.

She leaned back into the rocking chair and heard the familiar creak of the wood against the porch. Over the past few years, the dangers required of her job had been an issue for Dillon, but he’d also understood her dedication. After the kidnapping, though, everything changed. He shut down. He quit laughing. They didn’t argue, because they quit talking, but she’d believed that eventually things would return to some kind of normal. “He didn’t give me the chance to leave with him. That’s what hurts,” she said. “He didn’t even ask. He just ended it. He came to me one night and said he was selling the business and having movers pack up his house. He couldn’t handle walking by Christina’s desk one more time. He left the next day. That was it.”

“Surely you can understand him feeling that way,” he said.

Josie felt numb. “It sounds selfish, after the hell he went through. It’s just that you think you’re important to someone, and then you discover that other things matter more.”

“You want my opinion?”

“I do.”

“Certain people define themselves by their career. Teachers and nurses and cops are the worst. You go to work ten, twelve hours a day, but then you come home and it doesn’t stop. Teachers’re always trying to fix people, nurses want to heal the world, and cops want to solve problems. Well, you got dished up one hell of a problem with Dillon. And you thought you solved it. He came home safe. Problem was, you had no idea how to make him better. And you can’t handle that.”

She absently twisted the ring around her finger that Dillon had given her the year before for her birthday, but said nothing. She knew Dell was right.

“Dillon’s a smart guy. I always liked him. He was a little soft for my taste, a city boy, but he had a good heart and he loved you. I know that much for sure.”

Dell stopped and looked at her until she nodded. He was right. There was little doubt that Dillon had loved her.

“I get that,” she finally said. “But it obviously wasn’t enough.”

*   *   *

In the middle of the night, Josie had received a text from Doug Free stating that the firebreak had worked, and that the fire was 75 percent contained. She’d finally been able to relax and get a few hours of sleep before her meeting at the firehouse the next morning. On her drive into town she called both Otto and Marta to confirm that their families were fine, and that the fire had spared their homes.

At precisely 7:00 a.m., Doug sat down at one of the training tables across from Josie and Otto. His eyes were glazed over from exhaustion and his face sagged from the stress of the night. “We’re up to eighteen homes that were burned in Arroyo County over the past two days. Eleven of those homes are probably a complete loss.” His expression showed his grief.

“How many of them have been cleared?” Josie asked.

“Nine were up north in Riseman and Hepburn. All those homes have been checked. No fatalities.”

Josie hesitated, dreading the answer. “What happened with Beeman’s house?”

“The fire started ripping through that area and one of my guys went and got him. He was sitting in his wood shop, shaking like a leaf.”

“We oughta throw him in jail for putting your men in that position,” Otto said.

Doug frowned and nodded. “It’s maddening. He was awful glad to see us though, when the flames started lapping at his back door. He’s fine, but his house is a complete loss.”

“What about the Blessingses’ place?”

Doug shook his head. “I’m sorry, Josie. I know they’re friends of yours.”

She closed her eyes for a moment against the news, imagining Vie trying to hold it together when she found out her home was gone.

“We’ve got some things to be thankful for. The fire that started across the Rio is completely out. And most importantly, the firebreak worked. Downtown and the most populated areas weren’t touched. And other than minor injuries, none of my firefighters were seriously hurt.”

Josie nodded. “You guys did an incredible job. This town owes you a big debt.”

“I hope I get a few more volunteers out of this. It’s tough to get people to put in the kind of time this job takes. Without a strong crew though, this town would have been lost last night.”

“Are we free to check the remaining nine houses?” Otto asked.

“Not yet. I have a new crew out of Fort Stockton working the fire right now. I hope to have it ninety percent contained by noon. A group of guys went off the clock at three this morning to get some rest. They’ll be out again at ten to check homes for structural damage. I can’t send you in there to check for survivors until I know you’ll be safe. At least not the homes up north.”

“Where do you want us?” Josie asked.

“One of my guys said there were some structures, maybe a barn, burnt over on the western edge of the fire. We used Prentice Canyon Road as a firebreak. I didn’t think anything burned west of that road last night. Check that area first.”

Josie nodded.

“Just assure me you won’t go poking around buildings that may still be smoldering. You could have a roof that looks fine collapse, or a floor cave in. I’ve seen it happen.”

*   *   *

Several thousand acres of ground were intentionally burned each year throughout Arroyo County. Ranchers set fire to their lands to keep the dead brush to a minimum. The bigger ranches used spray rigs to water down their cattle and take care of small fires on their properties. Seeing burned land was nothing new, and with the summer rains the vegetation would come back in a matter of months. But to see homes and livestock buildings burned was a different matter. Neither Josie nor Otto had seen the affected areas of the county on their drive into town to meet with Doug that morning. Now, driving north along Prentice Canyon, the edge of the fire, they began to see smoldering barns and charred ground the color of coal.

“I’d hate to see what the mudflats look like,” said Josie.

The road curved along through the desert hills, but she noticed that the fire hadn’t crossed the gravel expanse.

“This road saved the western part of the county,” Otto said, noticing as well. “Why don’t we have mandatory firebreaks? We’d at least have some protection from smaller fires.”

“Who’s going to tell these ranchers they have to give up acreage for a firebreak? They use their own brush trucks and stock ponds to keep their land safe. They don’t want the county telling them what to do.”

“Not every rancher takes care of business. The fire finds the void and spreads.”

It was an old conversation. What appeared to be a simple solution would turn into a court battle that no one was prepared, or had the money, to fight.

She pulled down the driveway of the first ranch they reached. A sign that read N
EW
M
OON
R
ANCH
hung over the end of the driveway. She drove several miles down the dirt lane back to the ranch house before passing two buildings that were blackened, but didn’t appear to be seriously damaged by the fire.

Josie pointed her finger out her side window. “You can see where the flames licked up the side of that barn. There just wasn’t enough fuel to let it catch.”

“Those grass fires burn like hell. But they burn so fast, they can pass by the big stuff.”

Josie slowed her jeep. “There’s somebody walking around the side of the barn.”

They both watched a man walk through the dusty lot. Josie drove down the dirt lane toward him. He wore blue jeans and a ranch shirt, and both were covered in black soot. Josie pulled her jeep up beside him and rolled down her window. His face was streaked with black. He put a hand out and Josie shook it through the window.

“I’m Joe Guti
é
rrez. I’m a ranch hand for Mike and Shelly Morris.”

“Chief Josie Gray, and this is Officer Otto Podowski. Your horses and cattle make it through the fire?” she asked.

“Every one of them.” He pointed to a field that lay beyond the barn. “The horses, I stayed with last night. We got the cattle to a clearing. Kept the fire back with water from the stock pond.”

“We’re glad to hear it. You need any help checking outbuildings this morning?”

“No, we’re fine. I heard the house up the road got hit hard. You might check there.”

“Will do. Take care,” she said.

Josie turned her jeep around in the barn lot and drove out along the ranch lane. “The next house up the road is the Nixes’.”

“That’s the country music people?”

“Billy Nix. He’s a singer, plays guitar. You ever heard him play?”

Otto made a dismissive noise. “Everybody drinking beer and crying and leaving. I have to put up with that nonsense with the yahoos we drag to jail. I don’t need it in my music.”

Josie smiled. “He’s pretty good. I’ve heard him at the Hell-Bent a few times. He’s hardcore country. Tries to come off like Waylon Jennings and David Allan Coe.” She glanced at Otto and saw by his blank expression that he had no idea who she was talking about. “Anyway, his wife, Brenda, is also his manager.”

“How’s a boss lady for a wife work for a hard-core country guy?”

“I don’t know. I hear she’s all business, all the time. Rumor is she’s negotiating a recording contract.”

About two miles past the New Moon Ranch they saw that the road had not stopped the fire from spreading west as Doug had thought. Scorched earth slowly spread out from the edge of the road into the pasture.

“Doug said the wind was gusting from the northeast. And everything we saw driving over here supports that. How would embers jump the road against the wind here?” Josie pointed off to the other side of the road. “It’s mostly sand and clumps of scrub brush.”

“One ember blowing in a crosscurrent could catch a clump of that grass,” Otto said.

As they drove another two miles down the road, the remnants of the fire spread farther into the field and down into a ravine. The steep valley made it impossible to see how far west the fire had traveled. This area of the county was sparsely populated, with no houses beyond the Nixes’. Another mile and the road ended at the base of Helio Mountain, which was part of the several-thousand-acre Oler ranch. The Nixes’ home wasn’t part of the ranching operation, and Josie was worried that it had been burned with no firefighters or ranchers to offer protection.

About five miles beyond the New Moon Ranch, around a bend in the road, the Nixes’ one-story white home came into view. Josie slowed the jeep to a crawl. Over half of the ranch-style house had been severely burned. The front door was situated at the center of the house. Everything to the left of it appeared to have been spared. To the right was a large hole that opened up into what had probably been the living room. The house disappeared around jagged black edges like an abstract painting. To the right of the living room the building was completely gone. The gravel driveway led to the front of this burned-out area and Josie wondered if it had been an enclosed garage, but they were still too far away to tell. A pickup truck parked in front of the house was nothing more than a blackened frame.

Josie stopped the jeep before pulling into the driveway and considered the layout of the property. Once around the bend, the road straightened out for about a half mile, and the house sat in the middle of the straight stretch, sitting back about five hundred feet from the road. There were several trees around the house, now burned down to blackened stubs, but with no furniture or other yard ornaments, it didn’t appear there had been much landscaping or many plantings to burn up.

“That’s not a good sign,” Otto said. He pointed at the burned-out truck. “You’d have thought they’d have taken both vehicles when they evacuated.”

Josie pulled into the driveway. Even with half of the house burnt up, it was still apparent it had needed work. White paint had chipped off the siding; some boards were down to bare wood, weathered gray from the sun. There were no other vehicles parked around the house, and no other outbuildings.