Burning memories, p.1
Burning Memories, page 1
Burning Memories
By B.J. Daniels
Copyright 2011 B.J. Daniels
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
Burning Memories
Just Like Riding a Bike
A Little Good Advice
A Clear Cut Case
Later she couldn’t remember what had made her look up from the dishes she was washing. She gazed out through the dusty kitchen window to rows of dried cornstalks standing golden in the sun.
Beyond the garden, ripened grain shimmered in waves of heat. A hot wind sucked at the faded green gingham curtains at the window, drawing her attention to the far horizon.
What Adelle saw made her drop the half-washed cup in her hand. It shattered on the edge of the porcelain sink unnoticed as she stared at the skyline.
Where the wheat fields turned to foothills, a rough edge of charcoal gray stained the summer sky.
The dishrag slipped from her fingers.
“Let me be wrong,” she whispered as she turned and ran for the front porch. “Please. Let me be wrong.”
At the rickety old screen door, a fly buzzed lazily against the puckered screen, reminding her of another summer day when she’d opened the same door to bad news.
Just three summers before, she’d pushed open the screen to find Sheriff Hanson standing with his head down, his hat in his hands.
“I’m sorry, Adelle. It’s William. He’s been in an accident.”
His gaze had dropped again to the porch floor, the same porch where she and William had spent warm evenings watching the lights come on across the wide valley.
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” the sheriff said.
They’d married young. Adelle hadn’t been quite 18. William had just turned 20. Everyone said the marriage wouldn’t last.
On the day Sheriff Hanson knocked at her door, Adelle became a 32-year-old widow.
She brushed back a wisp of hair from her face as she shoved the screen door aside and hurried out to the edge of the porch.
Just as she’d feared, there it was along the thin line of the horizon.
Smoke.
She gripped the porch railing.
Grass fire.
As she watched, smoke trailed across the skyline, the plume growing larger as the seconds ticked by. The wind carried the wail of sirens and a promise.
She closed her eyes, recognizing that promise. The house stood directly in the fire’s path. The wind, now whirling her hair playfully around her face, would eventually bring the blaze. She and the large old farmhouse William loved would be devoured by the flames.
She clung to the porch railing for support as all the old emotions she’d felt right after William’s death rushed back. She was a woman alone, afraid, helpless. Without William, even the smallest decision seemed impossible to make.
For a moment, she considered sitting down on the porch and letting the fire take her. And just as quickly, a stronger emotion forced its way in.
Anger.
William had been taken without giving her a chance to fight, but she wasn’t going to let this fire take their farmhouse without a fight.
Working against time and the wind-driven blaze, she cranked open the outside faucets. Water shot from one garden hose after another. Sprinklers whirred on and spray fell like light rain across the lawn.
So feeble, the thin spray, when pitted against a raging grass fire.
She wiped perspiration from her face with the back of her hand and glanced around the yard for something more powerful to fight with.
Almost hidden by the high brush thicket at the edge of the ditch stood the old irrigation pump, a rusty relic from a time when she and William had planned a family-size garden.
She dragged a gas can from the barn and filled the pump’s engine, then she jerked the starter rope. The pump sputtered just enough to give her hope, then quit. She pulled again and again, until her arms ached and she wasn’t sure she could pull another time.
Still she refused to quit.
She straightened to catch her breath and check the fire. For a few moments, she watched it pick up speed on its way to her.
Bending down again, she grabbed the wooden handle at the end of the rope and pulled. This time she put everything she had left into it.
The engine sputtered and spit, and just when she thought it wouldn’t, it caught and chugged. Tears blurred her eyes as the large, thread-bare irrigation hose jerked to life, spewing water across the lawn.
It hadn’t been love at first sight, Adelle and the old farmhouse.
“I know it’s not much and it’s a long way from town. It needs a lot of work, but its got five bedrooms.” William had stopped talking to grin. “We can add on if we decide to have more than a half dozen kids. What do you say?”
She turned now to look at the farmhouse. They’d painted it, renovated it and loved it. At first it was a symbol of everything they dreamed of for their lives. Later, the still-empty extra bedrooms became a reminder of what they would never have.
Adelle knelt to take the irrigation hose into her arms. It fought like a massive wriggling snake. With a determination she thought she’d lost, she wrapped her arms around the writhing hose and wrestled with it until the full force of the water sprayed across the roof of the farmhouse and cascaded down the lap siding.
William had taken the news that she was barren – that’s what her mother called it – very well, on the surface. He’d pulled her into his arms and held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
“It will be all right,” he’d told her. But of course, it hadn’t been.
They’d applied to an adoption agency, but had been warned it took time.
And then William was gone, taking the rest of their dream with him.
Adelle shuddered from the cold spray of the spring-fed ditch water and from the memories.
“You’re acting as if you’re a 100 instead of 35,” her mother had said only the week before. Adelle didn’t feel 35. She felt 100.
“What would William say if he knew you’d given up on life?” Her mother was a first-class arguer. “Do you really think that’s what he would have wanted?”
Adelle didn’t know. They were married 15 years and now she had trouble recalling his face. At one time she could have called up every feature, every detail.
Now she felt as if she was losing him all over again. And her mother didn’t understand why that upset her so.
“It’s been three years,” her once-best friend Cindy said the last time they talked. “William is gone. You’re still young. You have to make a new life.”
How did she do that? Cindy had quit calling and Adelle didn’t bother either since there was nothing more to say. William was gone and she was still here in the farmhouse with all the memories of what was and what could have been.
Over the moan of the wind and the putter of the irrigation pump came the roar of vehicle, a rare sound this far up the dead end road.
Adelle turned as a rural fire department pickup barreled down the dirt lane, kicking up clouds of dust. She wiped away the tears that had collected on her cheeks as the fire marshal left his pickup and headed toward her.
She would have known Hal Owens anywhere, even under this thick, yellow fire-fighting garb and the smoke-blackened face shield of his helmet. It wasn’t just because Hal owned the local grocery store where she shopped or that he always went in the back to find her the freshest produce. In the last year, Hal had driven out numerous times “to see how she was getting along,” as he said.
He’d asked her to the movies and to Sunday dinner. She’d turned him down saying she didn’t want to go anywhere just now. He’d been polite and shy about it, just as he was about asking.
But he’d gotten in the habit of driving out on an afternoon or weekend. They’d sit on the porch and sip lemonade made from the fresh lemons he brought from the store, or she’d make a pot of coffee. He liked his with sugar and cream.
Many times they’d just sit and just stare out at the horizon. Out here the land ran in rolling prairie to the foothills. Hal had never felt the need to talk and she liked that about him.
Sometimes, she’d drive into town to shop and they’d chat briefly in the store. And sometimes Hal would walk her out to her car and ask her how she was really doing. She would tell him and he would listen. He wouldn’t tell her that it was time for her to quit mourning William and settle up with the past like it was some kind of bad debt.
Hal would just listen. He made her feel it was all right to talk about it. And later she’d drive home feeling a little better.
Once Hal convinced her to go to a carnival over at the county seat. He bought her a Coke and some cotton candy that was as pale pink as the roses that grew in her front yard.
They’d walked under the canopy of bright carnival lights. Darkness disguised the dust and dirt, hid the dents and grease on the whirling rides and gave the night an almost magical feel. The night air seemed to crackle with adventure, and on the Ferris wheel Adelle let Hal hold her hand, although it was still sticky from the cotton candy.
As it grew late, they stopped in front of the fortuneteller’s tent and Hal urged her to go inside with him.
She shook her head. The future? She couldn’t face it anymore than she could her unresolved past.
“I know you probably think getting your fortune told is silly,” Hal said. She told him she didn’t, urged him to go ahead and get his done, that she’d wait for him.
Light spilled from a tear in the si
After a while, Hal came out of the tent. There seemed to more of a spring to his step and he was smiling.
“Good news?” she asked.
“If you believe in those kinds of things,” he said, tucking his head to hide a sheepish grin.
They walked along the backside of the tents, avoiding the barkers trying to sell their wares. In the dark shadows of one tent, Hal stopped, and taking her hand, pulled her close.
“I wish I could believe what the fortuneteller told me tonight, Adelle” he said. “That I will find happiness with a woman with sunlight in her hair. That I will be able to wash the sadness from her brown eyes.”
Maybe it was the way the rainbow of carnival lights played across the sky or the talk of fortunetellers and bright, happy futures, but Adelle let Hal take her in his arms. His kiss was both gentle and strong. For a moment, she lost herself in the old woman’s vision.
Then a small crowd of people came off of a ride, laughing and jostling each other, and she quickly stepped out of Hal’s arms, feeling guilty and disloyal to William.
That night they drove home in silence. Neither mentioned the kiss or the carnival. Adelle put the kiss away like a cherished piece of china she was afraid to use for fear of breaking it.
Then a month ago Sunday, Hal had driven into her front yard. He was dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit, and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. First he stood on one foot and then the other as he tugged at the stiff collars of his new white shirt.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he’d said. “William’s been gone now more than three years and..” He poked in the dirt with the toe of his freshly polished boot. “What I’m trying to say is… I worry about you out here alone. I was thinking you could use a man to look after things.” His gaze met hers. “And a man needs someone too.”
She had been holding her breath.
“Darn it, Adelle, I want to marry you.”
She’d turned him down feeling as miserable as he had looked. But how could she have said yes to Hal when she still hadn’t said goodbye to William?
Now as she watched Hal stride up, his rubbery fire coat flapping loudly in the wind, she realized how hard it must have been for a man like him to propose to her. Worse yet to be turned down. She doubted he’d ask again.
“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Hal said, shoving back the shield on his helmet to reveal a face black with smoke. “She’s coming Adelle, hell bent.”
She nodded, wondering why storms and fires were traditionally female. She lowered the heavy hose to the grass at her feet, her arms shaking from the strain of holding it as long as she had.
She waited for him to tell her not to worry because he was here now and he wasn’t going to let this fire take her home. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d depended on him the last three years. Hal had been there when she’d needed him, but she’d never needed him as much as she did right now.
“We’re going to try and stop her at the old railroad bed,” he said, looking away. “If we don’t stop her there…well then it’s going to have to be at Harley Diamond’s gravel pits.”
What was he saying? The old railroad bed was the only thing between her and the fire and it was less than a quarter mile to the north of her. Harley’s gravel pits were south, a good mile past her farmhouse.
“I’m sorry, Adelle,” he said, meeting her gaze. “We’re evacuating everyone between the fire and gravel pits.”
She stared at him, refusing to accept his words.
“My men are going to take on water from your ditch and then we’ll try to hold the fire at the railroad bed, but if it gets past us…I want you to get out while there’s time.”
She shook her head. It wasn’t that easy. William’s memory was as much a part of that old farmhouse as its second story.
“I can’t leave.”
“Damn it, Adelle.” Hal slammed his helmet against the side of his leg. “You don’t have a choice and I don’t have the time to stand here and argue with you.” With his free hand he ran his fingers through his damp hair, his anger quickly spent.
When he spoke again, it was no more than a whisper. “Adelle, I don’t think I have to tell you how much I care for you. But this fire is more than likely going to take your home and there is nothing I can do about it. I drove up here myself because I knew you wouldn’t want to go. I guess I thought it might be easier coming from me. I guess I was wrong.”
She blinked back tears as she followed his gaze out across the valley. In the distance she could see flames reaching skyward. Smoke boiled up as if a host of ancient locomotives were barreling down on them. The fire was coming and would be here soon.
Hal seemed about to reach for her, but pulled back his hand as if he’d thought better of it. “Time’s running out. You can get some things from the house if you hurry.”
What would she take? The grandfather clock William had bought her for their first anniversary? The china dishes she’d hand-washed since their first apartment? William’s fishing gear still standing in the closet by the front door? Everything, and yet nothing, mattered.
She gathered up the irrigation hose again and stepped back to shoot a stream of water across the roof again. She could hear the men talking on the mobile radio as the tanker turned around in her front yard.
Efforts to stop the fire at the county road had failed. The fire had jumped the road and was running toward the old railroad bed.
The wind carried the stench of burned land and lost dreams. Out of the corner of her eye, Adelle watched Hal’s face.
“Watering down the yard and the house won’t do any good at all, will it,” she said. She could feel tears burn her eyes and knew any moment she might be reduced to sobbing in front of him. She couldn’t bear to do that.
“Adelle…” Hal turned as more fire trucks pulled up in the yard. Several tankers backed up to the ditch to take on water.
“You know I can’t risk my men and the county’s equipment to try to save just one house, not even yours, not when I know there’s only a chance in hell of stopping that fire at the railroad bed. Please. Get ready to leave.”
She turned away to shower the house with water and hide her tears.
“Does William’s old tractor still run?” Hal asked from behind her. Before she could answer, he was already headed for the barn.
The tractor had been William’s pride, a treasure he’d found at a farm auction. It had been more than three years since the tractor had been started. As it clattered to life, it and Hal became one against a backdrop of smoke-grey.
While Hal carved a firebreak in the dust-dry grassland beside the old abandoned railroad bed, Adelle continued to soak the house with the ditch water. Her arms ached from the weight of the hose and her fingers grew numb in the spray. She knew it wasn’t enough to stop the fire from taking the house and yet she didn’t know what else to do.
Behind her, she could hear snatches of conversations riding on the wind. The day seemed hotter. The fire was getting closer. She listened for the reassuring thump of the tractor engine and Hal as the air around her grayed with smoke.
At first she didn’t realize why the windsock on her porch had drawn her attention. It whirled around the post like a tetherball, the wind blowing it first one way, then the other.
The wind. For a moment, she held a thread of hope that the wind no longer herded the fire toward her.
But by the time she heard the truck drive up in the yard, the wind was blowing hard toward her again and the smoke from the fire had grown thicker around her.
A truckload of neighbors armed with shovels jumped down from the flatbed and fell in to help widen the fire break Hal was tearing in the soil with William’s tractor. Many were people Adelle hadn’t seen or thought of since William’s funeral but only because she had avoided them, turning them away because they seemed only painful reminders of the past.
Now their faces offered encouragement.
Adelle rigged the irrigation hose through the ladder rungs so it sheeted water on the side of the house, then she ran to the barn for a shovel of her own.
