The Case of the Monster Fire by John R. Erickson

Author:John R. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hank the Cowdog
ISBN: 9781591881711
Publisher: Maverick Books TX
Published: 2018-03-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight: Racing the Fire

Okay, Slim was horseback on an old skinny mare and poked her with a spur. She pinned back her ears, wrung her tail, and crow-hopped. He slapped her with the bridle reins and I guess she figured out that she wasn’t hauling Woodrow or one of the grandkids. She straightened up and trotted south.

Those ten heifers he and Viola had bought and calved out were staying in a pasture south of the corral. It was good bottomland on the east side of a little creek, and it had grown a bunch of tall grass last summer, thick and knee-high on a man.

It made great pasture for a bunch of first-calf heifers. It also had tons of dry standing fuel for a prairie fire, and that’s the kind of thing nobody ever thought about until today. Always before, a rancher took pride in a pasture of tall grass. Today, that tall dry grass didn’t look so great.

Through the smoke, we saw the heifers about half a mile away. Slim tried to squeeze some speed out of the old mare but didn’t have much luck. A slow trot was the best he could get. All at once, I lost sight of the heifers and the air got thick with smoke. Slim noticed too, and looked over his shoulder.

I’ll never forget that sight. Off to the west, the smoke had become a wall, and it was flashing with red and yellow light. I mean, we couldn’t see flames, but they were there inside the smoke—big and coming fast!

“Good honk, it’s already here! Hank, I don’t know if we can outrun that thing or not.”

Yeah, well, why didn’t we stop talking about it and find out? Because it had come down to that.

You might say that the fire built a fire under that old mare. When she saw what was coming, she must have decided that she was younger than she thought. Slim used his one spur and the old mare took care of the rest, I mean, she was hauling the mail out of there.

I had to hit Turbo Five to stay up with her and, fellers, we were covering some country. I figured we were doing okay, I mean we’d finally gotten the old nag out of a trot, but Slim glanced back over his shoulder and yelled, “We can’t outrun that thing!”

That sent a shock out to the end of my tail. Good grief! IF WE COULDN’T OUTRUN IT, WHAT DID THAT LEAVE?

The smoke was so thick now, I could hardly breath. I could feel the heat and hear the crackling roar behind me. Slim was right, we were running full-speed and the fire was catching up with us, and in that sea of tall grass, there was no place to hide.

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