by Virginia Watts

Short Story published by Five on the Fifth

For three months, Harold watched the distant fire licking its way across the low lying meadows trying to get to him. In the beginning, it was only a wisp like a curl of hair stamped onto the horizon. He had welcomed it then. It was something new. He would take a breather from gathering buckets of creek water, checking his traps, splitting more timber for his winter stockpile to admire the greyish white shape undulating in the distance like a graceful, little dancer. Mesmerizing when painted against the deep pink sunsets. After a few weeks, the fire began to resemble the smoke of a birthday cake candle. Something Harold could lean over, puff away with the power of his own lungs and make a wish.

It wasn’t long, though, before Harold began wishing the fire away. He knew it wasn’t good when he started to be able to smell it. That fire didn’t smell like the ones he built to be able to stay up late into the night hours outside in the woods with the owls and the stars and the moon if she was in the mood. He built those fires in a small clearing in front of his one room, self-built log cabin, inside a stone pit, a safe distance from the sugar maples, hemlocks, sumacs and cherry birch. He didn’t want to scare anyone, trees or otherwise.

As the fire out in the meadows drew closer, when mean, red flames finally came into view, Harold felt a terrible terror pulsing in the roots and the trunks and the branches around him. A wall of soldiers was trudging straight for Patterson Creek Mountain. He began staying up later. Eventually keeping all night vigils.

Harold asked for news of the fire when he went into the village of Duncannon like he did every month for supplies. Harold couldn’t claim to be a real hermit, even if he had lived alone in a remote cabin for most of his adult life. There were some things he simply couldn’t be without. Most importantly, Budweiser, Corn Flakes, Smucker’s Strawberry jam, and nice toilet paper. And a little chit chat with people in town.

Last shopping trip, Lizzie Porter had really laid into him. That had scared Harold more than anything else. Lizzie owned the grocery store in Duncannon, but she lived pretty far away from civilization too, in a mobile home on the rim of a Fuller Lake she’d inherited from her parents. Harold had left Patterson Creek Mountain, earned a college degree in civil engineering, then decided to come back. But not Lizzie. She’d never been off the mountain. Not once. Lizzie was like a smart older sister who didn’t talk too much or boss him around even when they were little kids.

“Listen, Harold,” Lizzie said as she boxed up his groceries. “The fire is gaining real ground. Don’t wait too long. That foam retardant the forest patrol’s been dumping from helicopters? Well guess what. It’s worth shit. Might as well be cans of Barbasol. You got to be ready to pull back. Take some empty boxes and pack up what you can’t live without cuz Sheriff Hastings will be calling an evacuation in a matter of days. I’d bet my dog on it.”

“I’m not leaving my place, Lizzie,” Harold answered. “Captain of the ship and all.”

“Don’t be a fool. What are you gonna do? Just sit there in your stupid lawn chair and incinerate yourself?”

“Tell him not to come for me, Lizzie.”

She’d grabbed his arm hard them. Gripped it so tight. Lizzie was strong as an ox. There was nothing about her that didn’t proclaim she could take care of herself. Harold couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw tears in her eyes. That made him feel really bad. Made his stomach knot and squeeze.

“Harold, you know I can’t do that. I can’t tell him not to come for you. Go home and pack up what you can’t live without. Come on now.”

Harold had opened his mouth and clamped it right shut. You can’t box up a view of a valley, the sound of a creek, fragrant mountain air. You can’t pack a whole forest into boxes. But Lizzie knew that.

Howard rested his hand over hers. Patted it twice.

“Okay, Lizzie. I’ll pack up.”

On the way out of town, Harold stopped his pickup, got out and stacked the empty boxes on the curb outside the post office.

Copyright © 2021 Virginia Watts. All rights reserved.