There’s a saying in Reno that you don’t plant a garden until the snow is off Peavine Mountain, and having been tested for a hundred years it makes sense. Besides, the mountain is visible from anywhere in the city, rising several thousand feet above the already near mile-high altitude, so it’s a good landmark. In the spring, you can see people all over town glancing toward Peavine to see if it’s time to put seeds in the ground. But spring was here a few months ago, and now we’re at the driest part of the summer, during one of the longest droughts in memory, and Peavine has become a tinderbox.
Early this morning the worst happened: Three teenagers, local kids in high school, drove their four-wheel-drive pickup onto the mountain and stupidly set off fireworks left over from July Fourth. The exploding powder ignited a fire on the other side of the mountain, away from the city, and the teens tried unsuccessfully to put it out and then drove to one of their homes and waited to call the fire department because they were afraid. But they finally called, and now I’ve been listening to reports throughout the day of the touch-and-go battle raging near the top of the mountain, which is only a mile from our home with nothing in between but lots of bone-dry sagebrush and open space. We’re in the first line of homes to be hit if the fire comes down our side of the mountain, the town side, and I’m pretty worried. My home is made of wood and has a cedar shingle roof, the same as all the other homes in our newer subdivision.
At quitting time from work, I headed for home. The air was smoky, even downtown where I worked, which made my nose plug up and my lungs burn, and everything was an ominous gray, as if an invisible hand had dropped a shroud over us. I had to fight traffic as I approached the northwest, as everyone in this part of town seemed as worried as I was, hurrying home and not paying much attention to their driving. My wife had listened to the radio all day, and we talked several times on our cell phones about the fire and agreed that so far we’d been lucky. We also agreed that the courageous fire fighters—and I’ll tell anyone how great they are just now—had managed to keep the front line of the battle on the other side of Peavine, but barely on the other side. Speculation had it that if the fire crested the mountain to our side, we would be in serious trouble, and the weather report had brought no comfort—continued dry, which was expected. But now, with the addition of Reno’s brisk afternoon winds, which can whip the fire and spread it quickly, Mother Nature seemed to be laughing at our fears.
I said yet another prayer to keep the fire on the other side of the mountain as I reached my driveway and stopped for a moment to admire our new home—at least new to us—and felt pride that we finally had been able to afford the place we’d wanted for so long. Elegant in my eyes, it was two stories, painted gray with white trim, and had a medium-sized yard with grass, now mostly brown, and two trees. Suddenly, I felt a moment of panic at the vision that flew through my head of what the fire might bring, and as I glanced up and down our street, ignoring the fact that our home looked the same as all the homes along the way, I saw several neighbors in their yards looking toward Peavine and knew they had seen the same horror. I backed my car into the driveway, ready for a quick getaway, just in case. My three years in the Army had taught me to think ahead and be prepared.
My wife, Ellie, met me at the door and gave me a big hug and kiss, and immediately we started talking about the fire, sharing what we knew, which wasn’t any more than what we’d shared when I left work twenty-five minutes ago. The fire was still on the other side of Peavine, but the wind was picking up even more, and reports said the fire fighters were “concerned.” Concerned? What the hell did that mean?
We looked toward the top of Peavine, just the one mile from us, and still couldn’t see the crest as the smoke was thick and heavy there, puffing up gray and white in undulating swirls, reminding me of genies who rise out of old lanterns in billows of clouds. I hoped a good genie was at the top of Peavine now. The smoke reminded me of artillery strikes in Vietnam when all you could see was that: the smoke.
We entered our home, and I heard Sandra, our grown daughter, shouting at her daughter, Elizabeth, to clean her room. “I won’t tell you again!” she hollered, the stress of the day obvious in her voice. Elizabeth shouted back: “OK, mom, OK!” and I could hear the stress in her voice, too. My first thought was who cares about a clean room when the entire house may not be here tomorrow, but I have become convinced that the two of them have an established existence of shouting at each other, that whoever shouts the loudest wins. Frankly, it grates.
Our daughter left her husband two months ago, from another state where they’d been living, and moved herself, Elizabeth, who is seven, and some of her furniture into our home, and while we’re not overjoyed to have our kids and their kids move in, we at least feel good that we can help and that our new home is big enough for everyone. We welcomed them with love, of course, and so far it’s been all right—not great, mind you, with all of our daughter’s loud, back-and-forth arguing on the phone with her husband, but we feel we can manage. Our daughter has been preoccupied with her problems and, if I may say so, hasn’t been too attentive to Elizabeth, who I think needs special reassurance just now. Our daughter is trying to work things out, and it can get downright nasty at times, like living near an active volcano and wondering when it’s going to erupt next.
Ellie and I walked into the family room where the television screen immediately caught my attention with a view of the fire up close and the field crews in their yellow vests and hard hats slinging picks and shovels to make a fire line. The fire now had consumed more than a thousand acres on the other side of Peavine, fueled by the extremely dry sagebrush, and the announcer said it was only two-hundred feet from the top of the mountain and heading toward town. This got my adrenaline going in a serious way, and I grabbed several long breaths. Usually, Ellie runs everything, and I’m okay with that, but in primal emergencies, wasn’t I, the male, supposed to be the strong one? Hell, anymore I don’t know, but I told myself to toughen up for what lay ahead.
Ellie and I have been together since we first met in our late teens. She was a looker back then and still is in her late forties. I always wondered why she picked me when she could have had others, and some good catches, too. What I have appreciated most about Ellie is her ready smile and that her eyes light up when she’s happy, which is most of the time. When Ellie’s happy, I’m happy.
She called up the stairs to Sandra and Elizabeth that I was home and that fire or not, we would eat together as a family and that dinner would be in twenty minutes, which gave me time to change clothes, wash up and listen to more about the fire. It seemed I couldn’t get enough of the bad news. I talked to Ellie, as she busied herself at the stove, and speculated out loud what we should be doing in preparation, just in case, which made Ellie stop what she was doing. She looked at me seriously for a moment and then smiled as a light turned on behind her eyes. “You go ahead and plan,” she said softly, “but get ready for dinner in the meantime. Things will be all right, you’ll see.” She patted my cheek and gave me a quick hug. “You’re a sweety,” she announced, before returning to the stove.
I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed that she’d found me out trying to be the man or to hug her for being the strong, wonderful person she always was, so I gave her shoulder a squeeze and headed for the stairs to get ready for dinner. At the bottom of the stairs was a full-length mirror, and I paused a moment to take a peek, sucking in my stomach to get the best effect. I was nearly six feet tall and had brown hair that was graying at the temples, as was my brown mustache that I had worn since Ellie and I first met. I turned sideways and admired what I saw in the mirror, thinking that at age 49 I was in good shape.
Going up the stairs, I noticed that the windows had been taped and the vents were closed to keep out the haze that was everywhere, which prompted me to take an exploratory big breath, and when it came in clean I mentally thanked Ellie for her initiative.
Elizabeth dragged her feet about getting to dinner in the specified twenty minutes, and I know she hadn’t spent the time cleaning her room because I sneaked a peek as I came back downstairs. Sandra gave me a quick hug when she came downstairs to help Ellie set the table, and then she walked to the base of the stairs and shouted: “Elizabeth, do you need a special invitation? Dinner’s on the table. Get down here, now!”
In a moment I heard the clump, clump, clump of feet descending the stairs, and then Elizabeth entered the dining room, skinny with long brown hair and freckles, and I knew she was going to be better looking than any of us. She had Ellie’s chin, solid and firm, and her mother’s nose, which in the old days was called “Grecian,” which I believe meant straight and rather perfect, which it was. What I really loved about her looks were her expressive eyes, which I secretly liked to think she got from me. She could look at you and convey a hundred different moods, or none at all. She also had a sharp tongue, like her mom, and immediately would tell people when they called her a different name that it was Elizabeth, that she had been given that name and people should respect the fact. Lots of people wanted to call her Liz or Lizzy, and some even tried Beth, but she let them know what her proper name was, so everyone now called her Elizabeth. This afternoon she was wearing a light green t-shirt with her school’s name on it.
Other than the times I’d said hello to her at family gatherings or when Ellie and I had made visits to her home, I hadn’t spent much time with her, so I didn’t know her well, except that she was seven and did things I believe seven-year-olds do, like not cleaning her room and leaving her stuff where it falls, and I also noticed that she had become adept at pushing buttons to make adults pay attention, which included my button about leaving her stuff lying around the house.
After Elizabeth and Sandra moved in, I thought I had an opportunity to get to know her better and asked if she would like me to read to her, not knowing if she was too old for this, and to my surprise she said yes, so I took her to a bookstore and let her pick a book. For the past few weeks in the evenings before she went to sleep, with her cuddled under her blanket and me stretched out alongside, I’d been reading a fantasy to her that she chose called The Journey of Druid Bodmall, a story about a young Druid girl who goes from one exciting adventure to another. Elizabeth can read and likes to follow along, and when I tease her and make up sentences to change what the characters are saying or doing, her immediate response is one of annoyed resistance, but then she laughs and makes up her own sentences. I’ve been very impressed with her attempts to reach beyond her immediate need to control her surroundings, like a plant sending out roots for safe places to anchor.
Now, however, at the dinner table she had a scowl on her face and stopped before sitting down to address her mom: “I can’t clean my room and eat at the same time.” I marvel at her cunning at such a young age and wonder what the adult will be like.
Her mother reached over and pulled out Elizabeth’s chair. “Don’t be a smart mouth, young lady. Sit down, please, so we can get on with dinner.” Elizabeth did.
After a short pause, Ellie asked me to say grace, given the gravity of things, and we all clasped hands. Elizabeth sat next to me and grabbed my hand and squeezed it twice, as if to let me know she’s happy I’m home, so I squeezed her hand back and then made up a short prayer asking God to look after us during this trying time, and when I got to the “amen” to end it, Elizabeth quickly added: “And protect all the birds and snakes and animals, too.” I said another “amen.”
Dinner was baked chicken, potatoes and string beans, all very good—Ellie always was an excellent cook—and conversation was limited as no one wanted to talk about the fire and couldn’t think of anything else to discuss. When everyone had finished, Ellie sat up straight and said: “I think it might be good for us to talk about the fire and what it means in our lives.” She continued without waiting for anyone else to speak. “I have never been this close to a fire before, and I find it frightening, but I also know there’s not much I personally can do about it right now, so I’m praying to God to keep us and our home safe.” She stopped and looked around the table, encouraging us to speak.
My first reaction was to kick myself for not saying what Ellie had just said, but then Ellie always was the quicker one. I waited to hear from Sandra or Elizabeth, and suddenly Sandra blurted: “I don’t know what the hell I’ll do if it gets this far.” She clearly was on the verge of tears. Sandra had brown hair, like the rest of us, cut short like Ellie’s, and was an attractive woman, just like her mom had been at that age, but now her face was serious and showed the stress she’d been under with the separation and now the fire.
Ellie leaned over and patted Sandra’s hand, like she’d patted my cheek a while ago. “Honey,” she said soothingly, “everything will be all right. You’ll see.” Sandra smiled wanly, clearly not convinced.
I looked at Elizabeth and realized she was scared, and then, surprising myself, I spoke: “There’s a chance the fire can get this far, and if it does our house won’t stand in its way. I’m sure we’ll be notified in the next few hours to get ready to evacuate, to be prepared to move on short notice, if need be. This is scary stuff, but it’s real. I do believe, though, that in the face of it all, we’ll be all right. We have fire insurance on our home and furniture, so if the worst happens we’ll be able to have another home. The question now is: Are we prepared? We need to discuss what we should do if we’re ordered to evacuate.”
The room was silent, and I couldn’t tell if everyone was surprised that I had spoken up like this or if what I had said made so much sense that they really were thinking about it. Frankly, I couldn’t remember ever taking the lead like this, but now I had to follow through as everyone was looking at me expectantly, so I reached behind me to the desk in the corner for a tablet and pen and announced: “I’m going to make a list of the things we need to do, and I want you, Elizabeth, to tell us the first thing. What do you think we should do?” I had looked at her as I was talking and knew she was frightened, and by letting her go first I’d hoped the focus would help her calm down, like jumping into a cold pool to get it over with.
For a moment, she seemed about to burst into tears, but then she sat up straight, drawing strength by being the center of attention. “I, uh...,” she began, haltingly, “think we should all have ice cream!” Everyone laughed, and her eyes lit up. She has strength, my granddaughter does, I thought, and I felt proud of her.
“Ice cream it is!” I said and wrote ice cream on the tablet. “OK, what’s next?” I looked to Sandra for item number two, and she smiled now, more relaxed, and announced that the ice cream should have chocolate sauce. When Ellie’s and my turn came up, we agreed we needed to be thinking seriously about what to take with us if we had to leave and that everything must be highly mobile to fit into our cars. Ellie suggested we gather our most precious and important things first and then come together for ice cream and chocolate, and the vote was unanimous. I reminded everyone to not forget toothbrushes, and they all laughed. I phoned my brother, who lives in the south end of town, and got an OK for us to bunk with him for a while if the worst happened, which was a relief.
During the next hour, our arranged gathering place in the center of the living room began to fill with the things we felt we needed to sustain life and that were most important, and the first items to appear were sleeping bags, pillows, several blankets and items from the medicine cabinet. Then, a suitcase, for Ellie and me and one for Sandra and Elizabeth containing changes of clothes, went onto the growing stack, and Sandra added her makeup case. The next items came from Ellie—things like our photo albums and a hurricane lamp we had purchased on a long-ago trip—and Sandra brought down her stereo-CD-tape player and her small television set. I was beginning to get worried about the size of the growing pile, which was becoming less and less mobile.
Ellie added a glass-covered, framed cross-stitched sampler handed down in her family since 1817 and several ancient-looking books she said were from her great-grandmother, and I spent my time backing up computer files on flash drives, which took up no room when I added them to the pile. I then turned to help Ellie, but she announced she was done. “I think that’s it,” she said. “Its sort of strange that when it comes down to what’s really important, there’s not much.”
Thus far, Elizabeth had brought down nothing, but I knew she was helping Sandra with items because the two were loudly vocal about it, and after an hour when Ellie said it was time for ice cream, Elizabeth came downstairs with empty arms. I beckoned her to the hallway. “Don’t you have anything for yourself to add to the pile?” I asked.
She hesitated a moment before speaking. “Yes, but mom said there wasn’t enough room for silly things, so I didn’t bring anything down.”
I asked her what her mom had called silly things.
“She didn’t say,” Elizabeth responded.
“I’ll tell you what,” I told her, “you go back upstairs and get any three things you can carry and bring them down to the pile. I’ll tell your mom I said it was OK. What do you think?”
She smiled and ran up the stairs, and I walked to the family room for ice cream. After a few moments, Elizabeth came in for her share of ice cream, a big smile on her face, and I knew she had complied, and when I could excuse myself I went to the pile to see what she had brought down. Very neatly at one edge were a birthday card with a message written by her mother, a framed photo of her, her mom and dad at the beach in California, and the book I had been reading to her, The Journey of Druid Bodmall. The book made me choke up that she would think enough of it to count it among her important items.
Until bedtime, we all alternated watching television and going out front to see if we could see anything through the smoke, and then the fire crested over the top of Peavine—on our side now—and the news announcers made a big thing of it, which of course panicked everyone in our neighborhood, and to add to the fear a police van with a loud speaker drove up and down our streets advising us to be prepared to evacuate but emphasizing that this was not an order to clear out, only a warning. If the order to evacuate came, it would be announced on television, the radio and via the van with the bull horn. It all was very immediate and unnerving, and I knew none of us would sleep well.
As darkness came, it got easier to see up the mountain because of the fire itself glowing in the night, rippling and creeping along the rim in a continuous line, ever so slowly advancing toward our home and our neighbors’ homes. Occasionally, headlights or flashing red lights from emergency vehicles glowed and ricocheted through the smoke near the top in a light show that allowed the imagination to run wild, like catching a glimpse of the fiery gates of hell.
Ellie hustled everyone off to bed, announcing that we needed sleep. She and I had agreed to take turns on guard duty, so to speak, and I had volunteered to take the first watch, for which she gave me instructions, just in case. She again patted me on the cheek, reminding me of my earlier concern about how strong I was.
I went to the family room, stared at the TV until I felt myself nodding off and then walked outside. It was nearing one in the morning now, and with the wind blowing it was cool enough for a jacket, so I returned to the house to get one before going back out. The television had said the coolness of the night would help the fire fighters in their battle, and I wanted it to rain and snow and freeze. Many of my neighbors were in the street watching, clearly not able to sleep, either, and it was eerily quiet, with small knots of people talking in whispers. In the distance, you could hear an emergency vehicle radio blaring, not intelligible this far away and seemingly talking to no one. At the top of the mountain, the fire didn’t seem to be any closer than it had been several hours earlier, and I hoped it was a good sign.
I stood in my driveway watching and was startled when a yelping sound came from some sagebrush about twenty yards in front of me, and I realized it was a coyote trying to escape, and I felt sorry for it and all the animals running from the blaze, remembering Elizabeth’s wish to protect the birds and animals when we said grace at dinner.
Then, I was startled when a small hand clasped mine, and I realized Elizabeth was standing next to me. I took her hand and squeezed it slightly, and she returned the squeeze. Neither of us said anything, we just stood there next to each other holding hands, and it felt good. After a bit, I walked her to the curb, and we both sat down, and I pulled my jacket open and put my arm around her to help keep her warm. She snuggled up close, and again we didn’t say anything—there was no need. After a while, I realized the ring of fire seemed to be broken in several places, and I pointed it out to Elizabeth. I thought it might be something good.
After about an hour, with my back aching from no support and my lungs hurting from the smoke, I suggested to Elizabeth that we go in, and she didn’t hesitate when I stood up and took my hand again as we walked to the house.
“Grandpa,” she said just before we got to the door, “I feel better when I’m with you. I feel safe.” Then, she walked into the house and up the stairs to her room.
What a huge statement from one so young, I marveled, as I returned to the family room, determined to let Ellie sleep as long as possible. I turned on the TV again and felt great relief when a moment later the announcer said the battle had turned in the fire fighters’ direction, that it now was contained and should be out by sunup. Glory be! I watched a bit longer to be sure and then went outside once more to look. My neighbors in the street were animated and talking with clear excitement in their voices, loudly this time. It looked to be over, and all of us were damn glad and thanking the Lord for being with us on this one.
After cheering with several of my neighbors, I returned to the house and went up the stairs to let Elizabeth and Sandra know that the fire was contained, and both smiled sleepily and thanked me for telling them, and then I went to our bedroom to let Ellie know. She was sound asleep, and I sat on the bed looking at her and realized how much I loved her.
Then, it hit me that she felt secure enough to sleep like this with me on watch, and in a rush Elizabeth’s words returned to my consciousness: “I feel better with you. I feel safe.” Suddenly, my concern about being strong enough seemed silly, and I realized that when the tough times came my loved ones turned to me for support. I could feel this strength and warmth flowing through me, a wonderful feeling, and I leaned down and kissed Ellie on the cheek to waken her and tell her everything was going to be all right, just as she had predicted.
