16. Travis

travis

. . .

A fter a week away on the dozers, I’m due back at the station. I’m grateful for a chance to see firsthand how these workers help finish containing the fires and clean up the mess the blaze left behind. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would join my dad on his jobsite. He may or may not have let me sit on his lap as he drove an excavator or two around a job site. As an adult, I’m just glad OSHA never knew.

As I’m pushing burned rubble into a pile to be scooped into a truck, one of the guys veers too far to the left, nicking a tree enough for it to topple over. It feels like slow motion, the tree teetering for a moment before coming right for me. I scramble out of the bulldozer, unsure if the metal above me is enough to withstand that kind of fall. With seconds to spare, I exit in time as it indents exactly where my head would be.

The noise of the equipment is too loud, and it makes a hell of a sense that my dad’s voice was constantly booming when I was a kid. How the hell does anyone get anything done when you can’t hear each other ?

A few men rush over to inspect the damage. Thankfully, the dozer isn’t immovable and a few of them pull their equipment over to shift the tree off the cab. Once it’s off, I hop into it and test to make sure I can drive it. After a thumbs up, they shout for me to pull it off the site.

I can’t imagine what the wives and husbands of this crew must go through. It’s not easy being a spouse of a firefighter, but for the construction crew who comes in—especially when a fire is still active—their spouses must also worry constantly about their safety.

Is this what Cass would go through if we got married? Would she worry constantly that I’m safe? I hope she’d know I would do everything in my power to come back to her in one piece.

With the night crew coming in, it’s already after sunset when a crack of a tree snapping has all of us looking around to see where it’s coming from. With the spotlights sporadic, I’m barely able to see it several yards ahead, a little too close to one of the men finishing a scoop with a backhoe loader. Without thinking, I spring into action, rushing toward the danger like a fucking idiot. I can’t stop the tree from falling, but if he’s injured, I can help.

If he had stayed in the cab, he would’ve been safer. The tree fell too far to the right and caught his ankle. I make it to him in record time and begin scooping debris to the left and right of his leg to free it. He tugs and I shout, “Don’t pull, it could break more of your leg!” He nods, wincing in pain as other men rush over to help me move the earth around him while we wait for a claw excavator to shift the tree.

After several minutes, we’re almost able to free his leg. I hop over and strip off my safety vest to tie it around his leg at his calf. The tree is lifted off him and my makeshift tourniquet will have to hold him over until we can get him to a hospital .

“Let’s get him in the truck, I’ll take him to the emergency room!” A few men help him to my truck and the cab door barely shuts before I’m peeling away from the jobsite. I call the hospital, but no one is answering. Checking the time, I realize Cass should be on shift. I click the messages option on my truck’s LED screen, and voice, “Text Cassidy.”

“ What do you want to text Cassidy Rogers? ”

“Leg fracture incoming from the fire clean up. Please make sure someone is ready for him.”

“ Sending ‘Peg capture coming from the tire clean up. Cake is sure ready for Kim.’ ”

“Mother fucker! What the hell?”

A minute down the road, she hasn’t responded, and I call the hospital again. As soon as one of the operators picks up, I go through the motions and am finally connected to someone in the ER. “Hi, I’m transporting… Fuck, what is your name?”

“Chad Smith,” he groans.

“Chad? Fucking hell, I’m sorry… I’m transporting Chad to the emergency room. A tree fell in the fire clean up; landed on his ankle. I’ll be there in twenty-seven minutes. Please make sure someone is available with a gurney.”

“What vehicle are you driving?”

“Dark gray pickup.”

“All right, sir, I’ll make sure staff is notified and ready.”

We hang up, and I make it to the hospital in twenty-one minutes. I’m just glad Ashlyn and the sheriffs weren’t out tonight.