“Some
idiot started it,” Windy said,
parking himself at the philosophy counter here at the Mule
Barn truck stop.
“Couldn’t hardly respirate myself this here mornin.’”
Steve and
the others nodded and sipped. We
all knew the topic of today’s coffee discussion: forest
fires. We have one.
Look out the front window where the words “open” and
“café” appear to be
written backwards. Look past the parking lot with its
waiting pickup trucks.
Look above the trees across the street above the bar
ditch. The sky is a dirty
red this morning, with the sun having to filter through
miles of smoke that
just hours ago was forest up in the mountains.
“Went off
and left a fire going, I heard,”
Dud said. We all shook our heads. Anyone over the age of
five knew enough not
to do that.
“You
remember back … oh, maybe 30 years now,
Doc,” Windy said, “when that fire wiped out Billy’s old
cabin at the gold
claim?”
“Yes I do.
Killed a bunch of deer, too.
Campbell Canyon. Looks like this fire’s about in the same
place.”
“If I was
philosophatin’ I’d reckon that
fire didn’t get enough trees the first time around and
jest waited ‘til some
more of ‘emgrowed up and then come back and burned them
up, too.”
“That old
fire,” Doc said, “was caused by a
lightning strike, Windy.”
“Oh, I
know. Thass why I said it were a
philosophatin’ thingie. You know, like we know it ain’t
true, but mebbe worth
thinkin’ ‘bout.”
We all
nodded in silent agreement because
what else could we do? And we really didn’t understand
what he was getting at,
but here came Loretta with the coffee pot, so who really
cares?
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Brought to you by the
novel Sun Dog Days, by Slim Randles. From www.unmpress.com.