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Chapter 6: Jaxson

Jaxson could feel his back teeth grinding together. He was pretty sure he'd have nothing but powder in his mouth if he kept this up.

But it was either that or really lose his shit.

He watched the building in front of him closely, since there wasn't much else he could do. The flames were starting to die down, now that all of the easily flammable guts had been burnt out, so there wasn't much for him to do except watch it burn and keep embers floating on the wind from starting fire to neighboring buildings.

Of course, he wouldn't have to conserve every drop of water in the tank on the truck if the damn fire hydrants worked. He felt the anger begin to rise in him again. Who'd heard of letting fire hydrants fall into disrepair for years on end? It was enough to make him wanna

"Hey, mister!" he heard an angry voice shout in his left ear as someone tapped on his shoulder. He spun around to confront an older man in blue-and-white overalls with a stained and dirtied Carhartt's jacket over top. He had a big wad of chew in his lower lip that he spit and then glared up at Jaxson.

"Ain't you the new fire chief?" the older man demanded. He barreled on, not giving Jaxson a chance to respond. "Last time I checked, flames came from fires. Ya oughta use this here fire truck to put it out!" His voice rose in pitch as he got angrier, his cheeks starting to flame red from anger or the cold, Jaxson couldn't tell.

"Sir," Jaxson said, trying to keep his voice an even keel and realizing that he was probably failing miserably, "the fire hydrant for this area is apparently in disrepair and has been for a while." A lot longer than I've been fire chief! He managed to keep that thought to himself, although just barely. "The tank on this truck is on the small side. If I use all of the water in it to try to contain this fire and then the building next door catches, I'm out of luck. I need to save the water in case "

"Sounds like a real good excuse to just stand around and do nothin'." The man spat a black glob into the snow. "Damn lazy city folk. My taxes go up and my buildings burn down. Every last one of those damn city councilmen are gonna be run out of office for this one!"

Another older gentleman came up and put his arm around the shoulders of the man standing in front of Jaxson, cutting off whatever else he was about to say. "C'mon, Stultz, let's go. We can talk to the city council about this later."

"Damn right I'm gonna talk to the council bout this!" Mr. Stultz practically growled, but he let his friend lead him away.

Jaxson turned back to the fire, trying to keep his face blank, even as anger and worry roiled in his guts. He hadn't even been on the job for a week, and people were already talking about calling for his resignation.

He couldn't be fired from this job. He just couldn't. He had too damn much riding on it. He wasn't going to let Kendra win. He wasn't going to lose his kids. This job didn't just give him a paycheck - it gave him a way to get his kids back. They'd have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.

Once the fire died down, leaving just a shell of blackened bricks behind, Jaxson began winding the hose back up on the truck. The snow on every rooftop in town certainly helped in keeping the fire contained. If it'd been the middle of August when this fire had started...Jaxson shuddered to think about it.

He drove back to the firehouse, no sirens or lights flashing this time, his spirits equally as depressed and quiet. This was not how he'd envisioned his career would start out in the Sawyer Fire Department. Dylan was sitting in the passenger seat of the firetruck and in stark contrast to the excited babble on the way to the fire, Dylan was stone-cold quiet now. Jaxson snuck a look at the kid out of the corner of his eye, but Dylan was looking out of the passenger-side window. Was he hiding his face from Jaxson? Was he that angry or disappointed or whatever in his new chief?

Jaxson carefully backed into the open bay, hitting the garage door fob once he was squared away, the grinding gears of the closing of the overhead door the only sound in the dead silence of the fire station.

Jaxson was climbing out of the truck wearily when James started in on him. "What the hell was that?" the man shouted, his bushy mustache bouncing with every word. "We go to a fire so we can watch the building burn? If I just wanted to stand around and watch shit burn to the ground, I coulda skipped a whole lot of training hours!"

Jaxson advanced on the older man, his patience gone. Snapped. Disappeared along with the flames of the mill fire.

"Are you screwing with me right now? Whose brilliant idea was it to leave fire hydrants scattered around this podunk town that don't damn work?!"

"Podunk town? You're the one who applied for this job! If you don't like it, you can just take your ass back to Boise, and don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!"

"I would like this job just fine if I had working equipment," Jaxson ground out.

"I could've told you that the fire hydrant on that street corner didn't work, if you'd bothered to ask! But noooooo...you have to run on down to the damn mill without me or anyone else who knows anything, so you could play hero!"

"I took the crew who was here and ready to go," Jaxson growled. "Not my fault that you weren't! Dylan managed to make it here on time. What's your excuse?"

"Not all of us get to sit around at the firehouse all day, shuffling papers around. Some of us actually do something with ourselves for our paychecks. Speaking of which, there's a whole lotta people right now who'd probably like their propane so they don't freeze their asses off tonight. I still have to do deliveries for Frank's. C'mon, Robert. Let's get some real work done."

The smaller man trailed behind James, the door slamming shut behind them. Jaxson turned to the rest of the crew. "Anyone want to tell me why on God's green earth you have fire hydrants that don't work?"

A man about Jaxson's age with dark brown hair stepped forward. "That fire hydrant hasn't worked for a while. Chief Horvath always said that the city just didn't care too much about getting em fixed, so..." He trailed off, shrugging.

"And you are?" Jaxson asked. He hadn't met this guy at the meet-and-greet earlier in the week, he was pretty sure, although faces were starting to blend together on him.

"Luke Nash." He shook Jaxson's hand. "My worker Dylan rode over with you."

"Well, Luke, do you or anyone else know why the hell the tank on this truck is so damn small?" Jaxson jerked his thumb at the fire engine.

A couple of the men shrugged, and then Moose spoke up. "The truck at the dealership has a much bigger tank. We use that one when we have to pump off the truck, and this one when we can access a fire hydrant."

"A fire hydrant that actually works?" Jaxson asked dryly.

"Yeah, one of those." Moose shot Jaxson an apologetic smile.

"When is the tanker due back from the dealership?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, probably."

"Well, let's hope that nothing burns down between today and tomorrow afternoon, then. Thanks for your help, everyone. I'm guessing that you have paperwork that you have to fill out to get paid for this fire?" At the nods of the men, Jaxson jerked his head. "Better get to it. Oh, does anyone have the time or inclination to drive with me round town? I'd like a map of all of the hydrants, and I want someone who knows whether they're in working order or not, so it needs to be someone who's pretty damn familiar with them."

Levi spoke up. "I'd normally tell ya to talk to James, but since that's not gonna do you much good, I'd be happy to go with. I'll tell you all I know."

"Much ppreciated," Jaxson said. "Thanks, everyone."

The men began to drift away, and Levi came up. "When do you want to do this?" he asked, leaning against the wall.

"Well, what does your work schedule look like? Where do you work, by the way?"

"The John Deere dealership," Levi said.

"Hold on, I thought Moose worked there," Jaxson said, confused. He could feel the tension begin to build between his shoulder blades. Too many men, and all of their stories were starting to get mixed up on him.

"He does. His dad owns it. Moose's my best friend. I work as a TIG welder for his dad, Mr. Garrett."

"TIG welder, eh?" Jaxson looked at Levi with new respect. Welding aluminum was damn hard work, and paid real well. Levi probably made as much as Jaxson did.

"Yeah, Mr. Garrett sent me to welding school on his dime. Said it was an investment so he could hire a reliable welder when I graduated." Levi shrugged, a slight tingeing of red blossoming on his cheeks. "I've been working there ever since."

"You got a vacation day you can put in for tomorrow? I'd like to get started on this as quickly as possible."

"Sure do. January ain't the time most farmers are wanting me out there fixing their tractors anyway, so it's real slow right now. Might as well do something productive. I can only rearrange my tool bench so many times."

Jaxson chuckled, the first time he'd wanted to even smile all day. "I'll save you from boredom. In fact, meet me at the Muffin Man tomorrow morning at 8:30, and I'll buy you some coffee and donuts before we head out."

"Deal." Levi shook his hand and then headed out of the bay, the echo of his footsteps fading away, leaving Jaxson alone.

And very, very worried.

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