It was very cold that morning many years ago. I was shivering to the point where I actually caught myself shaking. Smelling wood smoke from somebody’s fireplace somewhere far away surely didn’t help either, and I imagined whoever it was around that fire were all nice, warm and cuddly. It was December in Texas, and it was deer hunting season. My baby brother Eddie and I were up in a tree deer blind in what we called my Dad’s “Ranch”, even though it was just a few acres in Medina County, Texas. My brother was sound asleep in a warm sleeping bag next to me, and I was jealous of him because I was so very cold.
Looking out that deer blind, which was really only a wooden plank atop a tree with no protection from the wind, I had a great view. From there I could see a wide panorama of that whole side of that hill, and it was beautiful. The oak, mixed in with some maple trees, all were ablaze with red and burnt orange. However, along with all the beauty I also recall the cedar trees biting into my nose, letting me know that they were also there, and it made my nose run. The wind was blowing probably around 15 to 20 and I assumed that was the reason I was so cold.
My four brothers, and I used to call this a “mountain” when we were kids. It was way up in the central Hill Country of Texas. To get there from San Antonio, where we lived, we took Highway 36 North; through Bandera, and once you passed through the little town of Medina towards Kerville, it was just a few more miles to “Mesa Verde”, which was the name of the land around there.
I recall when my Dad, brothers, and I would go there, it was a adventure in itself. A small, winding gravel road would take you up the mountain where getting there meant you sometimes saw the bottom of ravines or gullies on either side of the narrow road. Driving up I always thought or imagined I was going up a mountain pass in Colorado looking for gold, and blazing a trail in the 1800′s with a horse and a couple of mules tagging behind through a rugged mountain pass somewhere.
Now I heard my brother stirring, telling me that he was quite hungry. I told him to hush. After a little while, I heard him say again, “I’m hungry!” over and over. I kept telling him that it was too windy to start a fire for breakfast and to go back to sleep. However, after more than a hundred times of hearing his requests, I relented and told him okay, and to get his stuff so that we could get down from the blind.
I knew better. I knew I should not have started a camp fire that morning. While cooking breakfast for Eddie, all of a sudden, a big gust of wind came into our small camp fire area, and the small fire we started for breakfast had literally jumped and had turned into a line of fire about a hundred yards long down the side of our gravel road! Never in my 23 years of life had I seen anything like this! All the dry grass around our small camp house was also on fire and Eddie and I, along with our other brother Frank, who of was pretty upset, and our friend Rick were trying to stomp it out with whatever coats or jackets we had on hand. However, we didn’t seem to be making any headway, and a decision was made among the four of us, to get help (because this was long ago in a time where no one had cellphones). So, I ran down the gravel road to our nearest neighbor, who had a phone, so they could call the fire department.
When I got back to our camp site, most of the fire was out except for a few spots that were still smoldering, and we quickly got them out. By the time the fire department came up the mountain from the town of Medina, every bit of the fire was out. It was a good thing that the wind was blowing up towards our road or else that whole mountain would have started on fire, I later thought. The only thing hanging around after the fire was out was our embarrassment and dignity over the whole matter. How could you have started a fire with this wind, the fire captain said? Leave it to a foolish one, and a hungry baby brother.
My only other regret that morning was that all throughout my time spent in the military, I never used my good Army jacket and I was always had it clean and pressed in a closet somewhere looking really nice. I always thought after getting out of the Army I could proudly wear it. Well, looking around that morning after the fire, I spotted my once pristine military jacket all full of holes from the fire. After so much caring I did for that jacket throughout my career, there it was on the still smoldering ground half-way burnt up and all holey now. No matter, I thought because my brothers and I and friend were all alive and safe.
To this day, I don’t recall if we ever did make breakfast for Eddie that morning.
