THE WARGAMER
Whipole dug for the last potato chip in
the bag. He had hoped they would last until he reached the
scene. No such luck. He crumpled the bag and threw it on
the floor of his truck. As chief of Greenback Volunteer
Fire Company, Randy Whipple was the first to arrive. A hard,
early evening rain was just letting up as he cut the ignition.
Got to lay off that junk, he thought, gingerly easing his
five ten, 225 pound frame down from his red, mud spattered,
Ford Bronco. As a defensive tackle in high school, his size
had served him well. As a middle-aged, out-of-shape, 24
hour convenience store manager, the wear and tear was beginning
to show. Above, a full moon found a break in the overcast
and briefly shed its pale light on Whipole’s jowly,
care-worn face.
“Damn,” he muttered, slipping in the mud. He
adjusted his baseball cap and reached into the Bronco for
a flashlight.
Behind him, sirens whined closer up the
quarter-mile dirt driveway leading to the place where the
huge run-down two story Tudor home owned by E.C. Lovelace
had stood half an hour earlier. The house had been a dark
and depressing place, surrounded by towering pines blocking
out much of the day’s sun light. Now, there was just
a hole in the ground. Whipole was staring at the spot, when
the first of the fire fighting vehicles lurched up the drive
and ground to a halt amidst the debris surrounding the only
part of the house still left, sections of the stone foundation.
The driver, Wilson Donfetter, a.k.a. Dutch, ambled over
to Whipole while his crew unloaded equipment. Donfetter,
gray-haired and in his 70s, had been a volunteer fire fighter
for the past 45 years. He could still man-handle the big
rigs as good as the 20 year olds. Whipole was envious.
“Don’t look like there’s
much left for us to do, does it Chief?” said Donfetter,
spitting a wad of tobacco juice on the ground. “I
heard the explosion over in Vonore. We was eatin’
catfish at Blanche’s, and whoom. It shook the windows.”
“Yeah, I heard it too.” Said
Whipole. “Strange, though, about five minutes before,
I got a call saying to get up here real quick. I sounded
the alarm and was on my way,
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