Vonnie Davis - Pin-Up Fireman

He patted her brown hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “If you have the time, I’d really appreciate it. You sure Ryder won’t mind?”

“Ryder? You still dating that ugly, old, reprobate?” Quinn winked at her. “He’s not getting too frisky, is he?”

She planted a fist on her hip. “Do I ask you questions about your sex life? Don’t be prying into mine, which is just fine and double-dandy, by the way.”

Captain Steele exited his office and asked about Matt. The siren went off and the location of the fire announced. Half-eaten sandwiches in hand, fire personnel raced to the uniform rooms. How Quinn was able to get in his uniform and gear before anyone else, no one knew. As driver of the largest and newest fire truck, Quinn expected the men assigned to his apparatus to be onboard seconds after he was settled in the seat and revving the diesel engine. Heaven help you if he had to blow the horn and holler your name, because he would ride your ass until the next slow-moving fireman rose to the top of his shit list. His truck always had to be the first one out of the station.

Smoke rolled skyward as they turned onto an older residential street. The houses were so close together, the blaze had spread to the homes on either side of the building of the fire’s origin.

Boyd dragged the main hose to the fire hydrant farther up the street and, using a large wrench with a pentagon-shaped socket, opened the hydrant and made the connection. He opened the valve and ran to attach the hose to the fire engine, which used a powerful pump to boost the water presser and split it into multiple streams for numerous hoses.

Ivy Jo handed one off to Wolf who slung the hose over his shoulder and practically ran up the rungs of the ladder to reach the roof of the middle house. Boyd co-joined other hoses so more firemen could try their best to extinguish the fires on the nearby homes. Jace took a section and followed his brother Wolf up the ladder, too, in an effort to contain the blaze from the top down.

More fire trucks rolled in and hoses hooked up to distinguish the flames. Captain Steele ordered all the occupants of the houses and onlookers to stand across the street. He inquired until he found out who lived in each house. Had they gotten out safely? Did they have their kids and pets? One mother suddenly went ballistic and could be heard screaming above the din of machinery. Her son was missing. He was with her just a few minutes ago.

The captain spoke into his mouthpiece. “Boyd, got a missing boy. Ten years old. Lives in the middle house, his bedroom is upstairs, middle door on left. His mother thinks he went back inside for a ball glove.”

“On it. What’s his name?” Boyd grabbed a hose.

“Dustin. It’s his dad’s glove. He gave it to the boy to keep until he got back from Afghanistan.”

“Oh hell, of course he’d risk his life to retrieve it.” His Matt would do the same. Boyd flipped down his mask, turned on his oxygen and charged inside to the smoky pandemonium. The blast of heat hit him like a motherfucker. What was it doing to Dustin? Would he know enough to stay close to the floor?

Boyd raced up the steps, going as light on his feet as a giant like him could. He rounded the corner and there lay the boy on the floor. Boyd ran water over the walls and carpet surrounding the kid, not wanting to hit him full force with the hose, lest it take off any of his skin. This way it would soak into him. He reached into the bathroom and hosed down some towels and laid them over Dustin’s back before he scooped him off the floor. Sure enough, the boy clutched his dad’s baseball glove.

Speaking into his mouthpiece, he told the Captain he had the boy and he was still breathing, although unconscious. “On our way out. Have a stretcher and oxygen ready.”

About three steps down, Boyd’s boot broke through a step. On a twist and a roll, he maneuvered the kid on top of him when he landed. He jerked his boot out of the hole, but most of the old wood of the step came with it. Holding the kid and the hose took some finesse as he turned around so he could stand. Trouble was he was facing going up instead of going down and the soul of his foot hurt. His mood was going to hell in a hurry.

He backed down a few steps until he passed the solid wall and reached the banisters. At the next step, the board broke, forcing him onto the step he’d just vacated. The stairway was weakening. He kicked the banister free with his good foot and jumped to the floor with the kid, hoping like hell the fire hadn’t deteriorated the floor. The last thing he needed was for them to end up in the basement.

The floorboards cracked when his boots hit, splintered, broke and through the dust of a century or more of life. Boyd and the child he held close to his chest fell to the top of the washer and dryer in the basement. The jagged edges of the old lumber tore off part of his face gear. Pain shot through Boyd’s head, back and that damn step still clung to his boot. Fuck!

He rolled off the dented appliances and, limping, searched for an outside door. On the other side of the basement, concrete steps lead to locked double doors. Laying the kid aside, he checked his pulse and respiratory rate. Both were fair. Boyd snatched his ax from his utility belt and hacked his way out of the wooden portal. Once he had a hole big enough to pass Dustin through, he gave his position and handed the boy off to another firefighter. He made the hole bigger and pushed himself and his step buddy nailed to the bottom of his boot through the ragged hole he’d made.

Once he’d hobbled his way to the ambulance, he could hear Dustin’s mother giving the kid holy hell. Boyd stood beside her. “Ma’am, I know you’re upset because your son risked his life and is lucky to have survived. But your husband put him in charge of something.” He tipped his head toward the glove Dustin clutched to his chest. “He took the lessons of being responsible you’ve probably been drilling into him and knew he had to get that glove for his dad. Kids think differently than adults. They haven’t mentally matured the capacity to reason things through, they just react.”

She nodded and started to cry. “Yes, I know.”

“You’ve got a fine son, ma’am. He’s one to be proud of. He truly is.”

He hobbled away to the other ambulance and asked someone to remove the board from his boot. It was all he could do to keep from yelling a string of cuss words when the EMT pulled out the nail for it had gone through his boot into his foot.

“Take your boot off. Let me look at that hole. You up to date on your tetanus shots?” The older, barrel chested man gave him the stink eye which galled him even more.

“Aren’t we all? It’s a company requirement.” He removed his boot and blood ran out. “Put some antiseptic on it, a patch and wrap it up. Looks like we’ve got hours of work left here today.”

“If you think I’m letting you…”

Boyd grasped the old man’s shirt. “You have no freaking idea the day I’ve had already. Don’t give me a bunch of bullshit. Fix my foot so I can do my damn job.”

The old man yelled for the captain who took one look at Boyd’s foot and pointed to the ambulance where the boy was being cared for. They rode to the hospital together, an ice pack on Boyd’s face where the wood had ripped away part of his protective mask.

A shower, a salad and a glass of wine and Graci-Ella had unwound enough from her day at work to watch the news she always recorded on the TV. Tonight, local news topped national. A fire destroyed one house and did serious damage to two others. One fireman rescued a boy from a burning building, falling through the steps and floor to the basement in the process. The boy sustained minor injuries and was released. The fireman was hospitalized.