Cowboy

“The explosion blew him 35 feet, all the way across the road!” said my friend Mae. “Can you believe it? 83 years old, and he lived!”

“That is hard to believe,” I said. “Is he still around?”

“Oh yes,” said Mae. “Lost his Paradise home and everything he owned, but Lee’s a tough old cowboy. He was knocked out and lay in the ditch for three and a half hours. The fire burned right over him. They said he was burnt black as coal. The fire burned everything around him while he was knocked out. He lost his house and everything.”

Mae gave me Lee’s phone number, I called and introduced myself. I told him I wanted to hear his story.

“It’s not much of a story,” he said. “I was knocked out cold through the whole thing, and all I have to show for it is one shoe and one dog.” 

“I heard you were blown 35 feet,” I said. “That sounds like a story to me!”

“More like 40 feet,” said Lee. “I think I damaged the driveway when I hit it with my head. But I’m a tough old cowboy, we take it as it comes. I’m just a little bit older than the hills, but I can still ride bulls. My wife doesn’t think so. She’s a beautiful lady, but even ornerier than me. Tougher, too. She fell and broke her hip and her arm after the fire. So, I’m not getting much good work out of her lately. Don’t tell her I said that. She’s wilder than all get out. She’s over 90 years old and more beautiful than ever. We love to dance. She fell when we moved into this fifth wheel. I worked a whole lotta years to become homeless. We might build again on our lot in Paradise but I’m hard to work with. I’m a contractor. When I say plumb, level, and square, I mean it.”

I asked Lee about the day of the fire.

“The fire came later in the day to my place on Deer Creek Lane. My granddaughter had already come by and hauled off my wife, when I decided I better get moving. I’ve been a logger and a cowboy, and I’ve fought fires. I figured I knew what to do. I watered the place down and I was loading my four dogs into the pickup. But that fire was too fast. The propane tank blew and sent me flying. Knocked out in the ditch while the fire burned right over me. I never did find my other shoe….” 

Lee paused there. When he continued, he choked up. “Three of my dogs didn’t make it, Doug,” he said. “My special dog Lacey, the Border Collie with the white ruff, she had her legs wrapped around me. I always load her into the pickup because she’s overweight.”

Now Lee is talking through his tearful sobs.

“I’ve never had a dog so close,” he said. “She clung to me. We were in this world to help each other, comfort each other! I love all animals, Doug. I’ve worked with livestock my whole life, but it’s not just numbers! I loved every horse, cow, pig, dog, and animal I’ve ever seen.”

Through his pain, Lee told me that Lacey perished in the fire along with Princess, the other Border Collie, and Lucky, the Black Lab. Bambi, the Lab/Pit Bull, survived, curled up on the floorboards in the cab of the pickup, having stayed there as the entire area was consumed by the howling fire. 

“I woke up to a red blizzard of fire and smoke. I was dazed and stupid. I hauled myself in a half-crawl back across the road to my charred pickup, the only thing left of the world I knew before that tank blew.”

Lee jumped in the pickup, it started up and he drove himself and Bambi out of Paradise.

“I was pretty beat up,” said Lee. “The worst is a bunch of 3/8 inch holes burnt into me from the embers, but they gradually fill up.

“Like I said, I’m a hard-headed old cowboy. We take it as it comes.”