The case of the Texas fire

“When a huge prairie fire looms on the horizon in the middle of the night, Hank finds himself in a sticky situation …”

That’s the plot starter for Hank the Cowdog Book 51, The Case of the Blazing Sky. John R. Erickson has published 68 Hank books during the past 34 years, to the delight of children throughout the United States and now in countries from China to Iran.

On March 6 a real-life prairie fire on their Texas Panhandle ranch left Erickson and his wife Kris in the stickiest of situations. At 2:30 p.m. a caller told Erickson fire had broken out northwest of Erickson’s home—and with 40-50 mph winds gusting up to 70 mph, danger might be heading their way.

In Hank 51, when the prairie grass is “dry as a bone,” the buzzards sing, “South wind moans like a saxophone. / Call in the dogs, put out the fire. / Dry grass waiting like gasoline. / Call in the dogs, put out the fire. / One little spark … it could sure be mean. / Call in the dogs, put out the fire.”

Given the wind direction, Erickson at age 73 wasn’t too worried, but in 2006 a fire had burned to a quarter-mile of his home, and he knew winds could shift—so he grabbed his laptop computer, and his wife her mandolin. They took the most direct route to leave the ranch but saw a big black cloud in front of them, so they headed south and made it out safely.

They didn’t know how their 120 cattle, six horses, and two dogs were faring. (I particularly liked Dixie, a blue heeler who would leap off the Ericksons’ front porch with deer-like elegance.) Their fire was one of many that burned half a million dry Panhandle acres—and 60 or so miles south of them, one prairie fire was killing three people ages 35, 23, and 20.

Hank 51: “The wind made a sudden shift and began blowing hard out of the north. I guess you know what strong wind does to a fire. In dry weather, it will turn a little fire into a roaring monster and that’s just what I saw in front of me, a roaring, leaping, hissing monster of a prairie fire that sent a spray of sparks shooting up into the dark sky.”

The wind shifted at 6 p.m. The fire raged and by the next morning was burning itself out. The Ericksons headed to their home and saw it was gone. (So was Erickson’s office 200 yards away, where for years he has written every morning from 5 to 9:30.) Daisy, their yellow Lab, was waiting at the rubble pile, but Dixie was nowhere to be seen.

Erickson said he was insured, but “it’s tough to see your front porch under a pile of rubble … my writing office vaporized, all my books … all the quilts Kris had made.” Erikson’s son Mark wrote about “how weird it was to stand in the middle of the ashes of the house I grew up in, a place so familiar, become so alien and desolate.”

Hank 51: “Fellers, if you’ve never seen a prairie fire up close, you can’t understand how scary it is. It touches something deep inside a dog and makes him want to do just one thing: get as far away as possible and run for his life!”

The saddest story was of the three in Gray County, south of the Ericksons, who died while riding to open gates so their cattle could escape. One of them, Sloan Everett, placed a call to his pregnant wife and their two other children, advising them to leave their ranch immediately. They left, but never heard back from Everett and his friends. Later, firefighters found them. Everett, Cody Crockett, and Sydney Wallace died from smoke inhalation and burns.

Amazingly, five of Erickson’s six horses and just about all the cattle—including two cows who calved during the fire, and those babies—survived in a canyon north of his home. Erickson spent much of the next day unloading bales of hay contributed by neighbors.

Hank 51: “I stumbled and staggered through the cloud of smoke, following the sound of the Singing Buzzards, and not for one second did I ever know where I was. … Then, all at once, I popped out of the cloud.”

In Chapters 11 and 12 of Hebrews we learn of a “great cloud of witnesses” persecuted for professing faith in Christ. Another great cloud includes Christians who help after disaster. The only clothes Erickson had were the “dirty bluejeans and shirt I wore feeding cattle in the morning.

“But Bill Dudley—he was about my size—died of leukemia two years ago. His wife never got rid of his clothes. Soon I was wearing Bill Dudley’s Wrangler jeans and his blue Wrangler work shirt with snap buttons, just like mine—and it fits. When we go to church on Sunday I’ll be wearing Bill Dudley.”

As Erickson on March 7 was surveying his fire losses, Amazon.com was announcing the publication that day of Hank 69, The Case of the Wandering Goats.