Without Law 13 by Eric Vall

Author:Eric Vall [Vall, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Anna asked.

“Yeah,” Tara said. “How long do we have until this thing hits us?”

“It depends a lot on the wind,” the brunette explained. “We basically have three scenarios.”

“The good, the bad, and the ugly?” I asked, though I knew full well that none of these scenarios were going to be good.

“Basically,” Paige sighed. “If the wind stays the way it is, or dies down, then we probably have two to three days max.”

“Is that the good scenario or the bad?” Bailey asked.

“That’s the middle,” Paige answered.

“Well, shit,” Anna breathed.

“Three days still isn’t a lot of time,” Bailey said in a small voice.

“And that’s the maximum we’d have,” Paige said.

“What’s the next scenario?” I asked through a hard set jaw.

“If the wind hits from the south or the east or west, then it could push the fire back,” the brunette said. “It could miss us totally.”

“That sounds good,” Tara said.

“That’s why that’s the good scenario,” Paige sighed.

“So, we have the good and the middle ground,” Anna said. “What’s the bad?”

“If the wind picks up from the north, then we could have less than a day,” the brunette said, and she bit her lip as her eyes filled with tears.

“It’s okay,” I told her, and I put my hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for looking into this.”

“I wish I knew more,” she said as she looked up at me with wet eyes. “The fire will travel slower, through areas with more hardwoods, but I have no way of predicting the wind or anything, it’s just…”

“You’ve done all you can do,” I assured her. “And I appreciate it.”

“What do we do now?” Anna asked.

“We continue with our plan,” I said confidently. “We have the fire lines done on the farm, that’s all we can do there. Now we put them up on campus and hope for the best.”

The girls nodded, but I knew that they were upset. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do or say to make them feel better. We’d done all we could do at the farm. The fire lines were up, but there was no guarantee that they’d be enough. We could prepare all that we wanted, but even with all of our preparations, the fire could still overtake us and destroy our crops.

Then it would be a really difficult winter.

“Should we tell everybody?” Anna asked.

I thought for a moment about my options here. It was important to be honest with the civilians, but at the same time, I felt that if I told them right then, they would panic. If panic set in, it would be more difficult to keep everyone organized and get things done before the fire did hit us.

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “We just went over the evacuation plan, so they know what to do. We’ll do what we can until that becomes necessary.”

“What does that mean?” Tara asked.

“Tomorrow we’ll cut the trees and grass around campus down and hope that we can get this place as secure as the farm,” I explained.

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