My Gentle Barn (30 page)

When Stacy came in she said, “Ellie, where’s a box? I’m packing you up.”

“What?” I said. “Why? The firefighters had it under control, we saw them. And the fire’s so far away.” I set Cheyanne down on the carpet next to her little friend, and I went to make lunch for the kids. As I cut carrot sticks, Jay came into the kitchen, visibly agitated. “I thought they were going to put this fire out. But it seems worse to me.”
He headed for the back door. “I’m going to hike up the hill to see if I can tell how close it is.”

“I’m going with him,” Logan said, and he headed out the back door after Jay.

Meanwhile Stacy was in the living room filling boxes and suitcases with our stuff—photographs of our family, jewelry, clothes—anything that looked important.

“We haven’t even gotten an evacuation warning,” I said. “Wouldn’t they tell us?”

Stacy shook her head. She had grown up in the Hollywood hills and had been through several fires. To her, the air tasted way too familiar. “You don’t want to wait for them to warn you,” she said. “Not if you want to take anything with you.”

Take anything with us?
I sat down on the carpet and pulled Cheyanne into my lap. My mind went to our animals—ten horses, eight goats, six pigs, two cows, lots of chickens and turkeys, all our dogs and cats, and a cockatoo—eighty animals in all. What on earth would we do with our animals if the fire came any closer? We’d never really thought this one through; we were city folks.

Five minutes later Jay called. “The fire is here. Start grabbing animals and let’s get out!”

“What?” I said.

“There’s no time for denial,” he said. “We have to move now! Logan and I will meet you in the barnyard.”

“Oh my God.” I stood up with my daughter in my arms. I hesitated for a moment; Cheyanne had never been away from me for longer than a few minutes.
She’s two now
, I told myself.
She’ll be OK
. And I handed her to Stacy. “Take the kids and go,” I said.

“What about you?” Stacy asked.

“We’ve got to get our animals out.” I kissed Cheyanne’s cheek and looked her in the eye. “I’ll see you very soon,” I told her, and Stacy took the two kids and the boxes and suitcases and loaded them all into her car. As she drove off, I rounded up our dogs and cats and the bird. The
dogs went into my car, the cats and bird into the car of our employee Randi, who happened to have come in to the office that day. As Randi headed back to the office to pull out computers and important files, I ran down to the upper barnyard, the wind whipping hard across my face and my eyes tearing. By the time I was inside the barnyard, I could taste the ash in the air, and I could see thick, black smoke billowing up behind our house. I worked as fast as I could, gathering all the crates I could find for the chickens, turkeys, and potbellied pigs. I had no idea how we’d get all our animals out in time; we only had our one small hitch trailer and would have to make several trips. But there was no time for thinking. We’d figure it out when we got to that part. Now it was time for action: Grab a chicken, put her in a crate; grab a potbellied pig, put him in a crate.…

Jay and Logan made it down from the back hill and helped me crate the animals. Jay looked up at one point and yelled, “They’re here!”

“Who?” I said, coughing on the thickening smoke. Jay answered, but the wind had grown so intense, the fire whipping it into a frenzy, that I couldn’t make out what he’d said. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I saw a flock of people—volunteers!—headed our way through the smoke. A huge stock trailer—for transporting “livestock”—was pulling in behind them. My ever-resourceful Jay; he had called a sister rescue organization just north of the fire. We grabbed the crates that held the smaller animals and started loading up the stock trailer, which went quickly now that we had the help of the volunteers. Then we carried the goats to the trailer one by one. By this point the smoke was so thick, I could barely see and my eyes were stinging. And we were all coughing and choking as we worked.

Finally the upper barnyard was all cleared, except our three farm pigs—Susie Q, Bodhi, and Biscuit (the last of whom we’d gotten after Duncan had passed away). Because of their sheer weight, I knew we would need their cooperation if we were going to move them to safety; there was no way we would be able to carry these enormous pigs.

“OK, guys,” I said to the three pigs, calling out above the
screaming wind. “There’s a fire, and we’re in danger! We need you to move quickly to the trailer. It’s going to take you to safety.” Susie Q and Bodhi stood up from the hay, as though they had understood every word, and we guided them from behind to the awaiting trailer. Biscuit, however, decided this was a good time for a strike. He sat down in the hay and would not budge. Volunteers gathered and pushed, pulled, urged, begged … but Biscuit was not interested in moving. The fire had taken over the hill behind our house and was headed in our direction. It was my first view of actual flames, and my heart started pounding in my ears.

“Come on, Biscuit,” I pleaded. “It’s time to go now!”

“We have to get out!” shouted one of the volunteers. “Forget him. We can’t save them all; we’ve got to get the others to safety.”

“No!” I yelled above the wind. “If he stays, I stay. I won’t leave any of my babies behind!”

One of the other volunteers took out a rope and started tying it around Biscuit’s snout.

“What are you doing?” I said, alarmed. “That’s not how we treat our animals.”

“Do you want to get this pig out?” he said. “ ’Cause we have about five seconds.”

“OK, OK, you’re right.” As the guy tied the rope around my pig’s upper jaw and snout, I said, “I’m sorry, Biscuit, but I’m just not going to let you die.”

Jay and the volunteer pulled on the rope tied to Biscuit’s snout while two more volunteers and I pushed from behind, and after much heaving and grunting on our parts, we got Biscuit up into the trailer. We were soaked in sweat, but my stubborn, thousand-pound baby was headed to safety. By the time the trailer left with these animals, the fire had traveled down the hill alongside the house and the upper barnyard. In every direction, just fifty feet away, there were flames. Luckily the gravel driveway was between us and the fire, giving us an escape route. Now it was time to get the horses and cows out.

Randi and I drove our cars full of animals down the hill and parked them out on the main road, away from the fire. Then I ran as fast as I could to the horse barn and the second, enormous stock trailer, my eyes and lungs burning. Jay and Logan met me there and had brought down our own small trailer. The horses, just fifty yards down the hill from the flames, were panicked and were whinnying and banging the metal feeders with their hooves. We were racing against wind-stoked flames, but I knew we’d get the best results if we let the horses know what we needed from them. “You’re going to be led one by one to the trailers,” I called out, trying to keep my voice even and hoping they could hear me above the screaming wind and fire. “Please trust us. We’re going to take you to safety!” Jay, Logan, the volunteers, and I began leading our horses into the trailers, trying our best to move slowly, talk calmly, and reassure the horses that they were safe and could trust us.

I could see the fire leaping down the hill toward us, eating up the trees and fences in its path. Luckily there was a wash that was stalling the flames between the upper and lower barnyard, but I knew the fire would leap the wash soon. It was hard to see anything through the thick black smoke, yet we continued to move the horses as calmly as we could into the trailers. Huge gales of wind were blowing, forcing the fire closer, kicking up branches and dust in our faces. The horses had every reason in the world to spook and try to run, but instead every one of them walked calmly by our side and into the trailers, even though some of them hadn’t been in a trailer for years.

We had room for nearly all the animals, but there were a few we just couldn’t fit: our newest members of the herd—two young Belgian draft horses, Zoe and Lazar—and also Buddha and our steer, Vegan, who now weighed two thousand pounds.

There was no way I was going to abandon our four remaining animals. I would stay behind while Jay and the volunteers drove the rest of the animals to the other rescue, which was north of the fire zone. Jay didn’t want to leave me there, but we both knew they had to get as
many animals out of there as they could while I figured out what to do with the ones left behind.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted. “And Randi’s staying to help.”

Jay nodded, though he didn’t look reassured. “I’ll be back as fast as I can to get you guys!” he said. “As soon as they’re all unloaded.” And he slid behind the wheel of the truck.

The flames had now leapt the wash and were consuming the brush and trees on the lower end of our acreage. It was getting dark out—it must have been nearing six o’clock—and this added to the darkness of the smoke. The wind, dust, and heat of the flames were making it almost impossible to see or think straight. We stood and watched as the fire surrounded the empty horse and cow barns. I knew that Jay and Logan and the others were not going to make it back in time to get us.

“Let’s at least walk them out to the road!” I yelled to Randi through the howling wind. I had wanted to keep the remaining animals on our land to keep them contained, but the fire was just too close, so Randi took the two draft horses and I took the two cows, and we led them out the gate to Sierra Highway. Being that close to a deafening, hot fire was more than a mature horse usually could tolerate, and Zoe and Lazar—young and inexperienced—were edgy and jumpy. But I just kept asking for their trust and, amazingly, they gave it to us. As for the cows, Buddha was easy—she would have followed me to the moon—but Vegan was even more opinionated than our pig Biscuit and was twice his weight. Vegan felt that there, in the middle of a firestorm, would be a good time to eat sweet grass and lick the trees. Outweighing me by a couple thousand pounds, he pulled me like a kite behind him. Finally I managed to plant my feet and wrap his lead rope around a tree to get him to stand still.

So there we were, two humans, two cows, and two giant horses, waiting at the side of the road as a wall of fire advanced our way and debris whipped all around us. What exactly we were waiting for I wasn’t sure; I was certain Jay and the trailers would not get back before the
fire took over everything. And I was quite sure there was no bus that was going to come by and let us all on board. But still we waited; there was nothing else we could do. I was working very hard to stay calm in order to pacify the horses, yet a sense of panic was finally getting me in its grip when I saw what I was sure was a mirage. Just like an oasis in the desert appears to those dying of thirst, here was a truck in a firestorm, heading down the road toward us. A truck pulling a trailer. On impulse I jumped in front of the truck, my hand out like a traffic cop, and yelled, “Stop!”

The truck turned out to be real, and amazingly, it didn’t hit me.

“Can you take our horses to safety?” I yelled.

“Yes!” the driver said, just like that, no questions asked.

We ran the two horses into the trailer, and away they went. I had just given our gorgeous horses to a total stranger, yet I had no choice; I had to believe that everything would be fine. When you’re pushed up against the wall by a life-threatening force of nature, suddenly trust is all you’ve got left. Trust and a belief in angels sent to save you.

One more miracle
, I thought.
One more miracle for our cows
. And sure enough, another truck pulling a trailer appeared on the horizon. “This is way too good to be true,” I said as I stepped out into the road and prepared to stop our second truck of the day.

Buddha walked into the trailer elegantly and easily. But Vegan was still on a mission to eat and explore. Slowly I reined him in, but he wouldn’t walk into the step-up trailer. The fire was beating down on us, and there was no way I was going to take no for an answer from our last animal to be rescued from the inferno. I cajoled, I pushed, I pulled. Finally I lifted one of his front feet and
put
it into the trailer, then the other, and by the grace of God and everything holy, Vegan went into the trailer. We slammed the door shut and the truck raced away.

“OK, get yourself out of here!” I yelled to Randi, and we ran to our cars—hers filled with the cats and the bird—and off she went.

With the animals headed safely out of the blaze, I turned around
to see what the fire looked like. Everything was aglow, the once khaki-colored landscape now entirely ember-orange. From where I stood I couldn’t see our house at all; the flames had engulfed the whole of it—our house, our office, the barns, everything.
We got everyone out
, I thought.
That’s what matters most
.

Before I ducked into my car, packed with eight dogs who were very happy to see me, a lone fire truck pulled to a stop outside our gates.

“It’s too late!” I called out over the roar of the fire, but he turned up our drive and disappeared into the flames.