Fire, Feral and Flood
As I pulled out that morning headed south I saw a fog coming from the west. That seemed strange until, about ten miles underway, I began to smell the acrid scent of burning grass and realized that I was driving into a huge grass fire burning out of control just southwest of me, coming my way. I didn't want to stop and turn around, so I turned off the air conditioning and anything that would let air in and drove on like a fool.
In the four years after the big fires, the grass had grown five feet tall almost everywhere in that part of California, choking out the crops that were formerly there. Here in early fall with little water for months, the storm I heard the night before must have started the fire I was experiencing. Off in the distance, I could see flames rising about 20 feet and moving rapidly toward the highway ahead of me by a stiff wind. I was driving right into it!
Smoke got thicker until I could barely see the road ahead, but I kept driving, almost blind and starting to cough as it seeped into the cab and I couldn't breathe without holding a cloth I grabbed up to my mouth that did no good. My eyes were smarting and watering making me want to pull over and stop my difficult job of trying to drive. To make things worse, the flames kept getting closer the further south I drove until they were right up on the road and some were jumping across. The smoke cleared here, but I could feel the heat from the fire as I drove through the wind whipped fire storm hoping for an end to it soon. It must've been five miles of this, with Charlie jumping around and choking while beating on the side of the window like he wanted to get out and I wouldn't let him.
Suddenly, we came upon the northern reaches of the San Francisco Bay on our right and the fire was gone. I pulled over to the side of the road, opened the doors and both Charlie and I staggered out, coughing, retching and catching our breath. It was a close call. I vowed never to drive into fire again, even though there may seem like there was no way out except to drive through it.
I went back to the trailer and checked on Danny and Lannie. They were choking and bleating loudly, showing signs of stress from both the fiery heat and smoke. I gave them water and they drank it and calmed down. I drank my share of water and gave some to Charlie who really welcomed it. It took me a lot longer to calm down than the animals.
But, before I could get to Vallejo, the road was jammed again. I knew what it was. Remembering two years before when I had tried to get to San Francisco. I expected an earthquake had made it impossible so that all of the vehicles headed that way jammed up and never got through--abandoned. There was nothing that I could do except turn around and go back where the fire was.
But I was lucky. Up ahead, at a point where I couldn't see before, the fire had passed on, moving rapidly to the east. And then, California 12 appeared. I hadn't seen it passing through earlier while blinded by smoke. California 12 headed southeast back towards I-80 and a way out. Once on the freeway though, I followed well behind the fires, traveling about the same speed as the burning grass--about 30 mph. I kept my speed low, not wanting to drive through that hell again. All I could see was fire and smoke. I would be either following or in it all the way to Sacramento if I stayed on I-80. At Fairfield, the smoke was heavy again and I looked for a way out. A battered exit sign for California 12 appeared again going east and I took that.
California 12 was a state highway well-maintained to serve the rural community that it passed through. Like everything else, that community was gone and being taken over by weeds and wildlife. The closer I got to the San Jacinto River, the more wildlife I saw, from deer to rabbits, quail on the road and the skies filled with waterfowl that used this area as a summer home to raise their young. When I got to the river I began to worry, because it was one of those old steel box frame bridges that had been there forever with a lift section in the middle to allow tall ships to pass through.
Worried about earthquake damage, I parked at the end of the bridge and Charlie and I took a walk across it to see if it looked like I could make it with the rig I had. Knowing the area, I was sure that in its heyday many heavily loaded trucks crossed over this bridge. As usual, there were a couple of abandoned vehicles, but they didn't present any real problem. We scared the resident pelicans away for the moment and saw seals in the mud flats below. It was the closest I would be getting to the sea in this area.
We got back in the truck and, with the windows down, I slowly drove across the bridge listening to it creak and groan and was glad that we made it across safely pushing a couple of cars out of the way in the process. From there it was a straight shot to I-5 and south. At Stockton, I picked up US 99 and took it through all the Central Valley communities that I had scavenged before. Remembering where I could get nuts, fresh fruit and other commodities like diesel fuel from my trip through two years earlier.
At Fresno, I did something that I thought I would never do. I unhooked the trailer and left it by the side of the road and let the goats join Charlie and me in the cab of the truck. It may have been the fear they had encountered during our ordeal with the fire, but both Danny and Lannie stunk so I had to drive with the windows down. I wanted to see Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and felt that it was best to leave the trailer behind because the roads from the maps I had, looked rough and mountainous.
I took California 180 to 198 and drove the torturous route all the way to view the canyon and then continued on to see the massive Sequoias. Three times before I got to Kings Canyon, there were slides that covered half the road. I made it around all of them, but was glad that I didn't have the trailer behind. The roads were wider and better maintained than I thought they would be, so it was only the steep grades and hairpin turns that made the ride interesting.
At the canyon, I stopped early and let the goats out to forage and just enjoyed some of the trails with Charlie along for an early warning of any danger. We didn't run into any and the goats were fine. I took time by a stream to give them a good scrub down that they seemed to enjoy. I caught a couple of nice trout. That evening, we feasted on the fresh fish and some of the nuts and fruit that we had picked up during the day. The night was peaceful and the cool mountain air refreshing to sleep in. I saw bear, but only on the road while I was driving.
Sequoia National Park was a disappointment. Although the trees seemed to have survived the flames like their cousins along the coast, I found that many of the giants had toppled over, blocking my way. What a shame. Charlie and I walked into where General Sherman was and thankfully, found him still standing. I spent another night there not under the trees because I heard that they would fall suddenly without warning. The last thing I needed would be to have that happen while I was there.
The California 198 loop back to 99 was blocked by those fallen trees, so I backtracked to Fresno and the trailer. I was glad to unload the goats. They seemed to agree and eagerly jumped into the trailer and their home away from home. My home away from home, the sleeper, required a good scrubbing.
Before long, I came upon where I had left Charlie, the 1st’s, truck because he could no longer drive. Tears welled up in my eyes. I missed that old coot and I cursed him for the reminder that I had also lost Lisa. It took me a few miles before I was right again. Charlie, the 2nd, realized I was hurting and clung to my shoulder in sympathy. Sometimes, I thought he had instinct about human behavior more than any human I had ever known.
Since I had prepared the resort to last without me being there, locking up all the cleaned out units, except for dust that had creeped in through cracks, it was an easy cleanup to put things in order for the winter. Unfortunately, things were not right by the swimming pool. Shortly after I got there and cleared out one unit to be used as a corral for the goats at night, I realized that there wasn't as much wildlife as I normally experienced hanging around the pool. There was, however, a few bones scattered around like that left by a carnivore and some large scat that I couldn't identify. The first morning back, when I came out to the pool, I saw huge watery tracks leaving it and following the creek out of the complex. I kept the 357 by my side and an eye on the goats as I worked to put things back in order. Told myself I needed to go hunting for mountain lion.
That evening as I was cooking outside and the goats were hanging around I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye and was shocked at what I was seeing. A chill ran down my spine as not 30 feet away, a Bengal Tiger was creeping up on the goats! I slowly pulled my pistol out of my holster, removed the safety, turned around as carefully as I could, fighting the shaking that my whole body wanted to do, and tried to be as stealthy as the cat was. There was no time left before the tiger would strike. I had to strike first.
I aimed for the head low and squeezed the trigger. It was as though I saw the bullet go through the tiger's right eye as the gun recoiled and the cat lunged forward, kicking up dust in a circle with its flailing paws before going silent. I looked for Charlie and saw him on a nearby balcony, too scared to let me know danger was coming. Coward, I thought.
It was a huge cat. A male. And, very well fed with a wonderful coat. I did what I always did. No animal went to waste in my presence. Even the meat. It took a long while but I skinned him carefully and after using his brains to help me cure the inside of his skin, I made a beautiful tiger skin rug for my bedroom in my suite. It was wonderful to put my feet on that fur during the cold weather when I got out of bed in the morning. I had no glass eyes, so I sewed those eyes shut.
From then on, whenever I was away from the resort, I put the goats in their room with water and food. I had to look around and see if I could find evidence of any more tigers. After a couple of weeks of looking for signs like track or scat, I found none around town. I did find evidence of coyote, wolves and mountain lion. I knew I would have to always keep close watch on the goats.
Two weeks after we arrived, Lannie gave birth to two kids, unfortunately, one of them was stillborn, a billy. The poor little thing had deformities that probably resulted from radiation. The nanny, seemed to be all right and was quite frisky right away, going for her mother's milk. I named her Jenny. I worried about what would happen when she mated with her father. I had no knowledge about problems with incest in goats. At least for now, I wouldn't have two billy goats challenge each other over the nannies. With no real need for their milk except to make some cheese, I began to wonder if I would have to let them go feral.
I took the little guy over to another resort, climbed to the roof, and put him up there. Charlie followed along to see what I was doing, and then, paid his respects to the little goat by giving him a light touch before we left. I checked a couple of days later and the vultures had picked his bones clean.
It was nearing November and I was expecting that cooler weather would be coming down from the north occasionally, with even some snow. This morning it was unusually hot and humid, something like what I had experienced along the Gulf Coast and in Arkansas in midsummer. I looked to the south and saw a strange, wall like, cloud approaching. It was like nothing I'd seen before, not in all my travels with all the storms, some quite menacing. This high wall was circular and moving. I could see lightning strikes flashing in the upper edges and knew that it was experiencing some ferocious winds.
I put the goats inside and stayed outside watching the storm gradually roll in with Charlie on my shoulder, chattering something to me in my ear about what he thought of what was coming. By evening, we got rain in torrential downpours. It was on and off, until the wind came. It gradually built up until it was blowing well over 100 mph by my reckoning because the building was shaking and the howl of the wind was very loud, annoying and relentless. Sheets of rain were slamming into the courtyard and blew away all of the amenities that I had built out there for my convenience. I could do nothing about it because going out in that courtyard looked very dangerous and I was too busy with towels under the door and around the windows, trying to keep the water out.
Going to sleep was impossible all through the night as the wind roared while water and wind gradually tore at the resort's façade, tearing it away and breaking windows on the other side of the courtyard and pool with loud crashes. But that was not the half of it. Sometime during the night, water began pouring in under the front door and I looked out and saw that the whole courtyard was flooded and rushing down the creek bed below the resort in a torrent like a raging river. Finally, in the morning, it was over and the sun started to peek out and reveal the damage.
What I saw made me want to leave the place. While Palm Springs had suffered major fires and damage during the meltdown, I had grown accustomed to the way it was and expected to stay that way in this desert oasis for some time to come. That was not to be. The climate had changed. There was no going back to the way things had been. I had to accept that. I started by going out in the courtyard and cleaning up the mess.
Three days later, I had just swept up all the broken glass and boarded up all the windows with no glass, when it started to snow.
