I am down in the cabin and Ross, who is eighty feet up in the fire tower, sees smoke. He tries to report it but his radio isn’t working and nobody can understand him. They phone him back on the cell: does he need the water bombers? He says no, it’s just a spot fire. In that moment a huge gust of wind blasts through the cabin, blows a towel off a rack, slaps it against the valve of the water cooler and turns on the water. I don’t know about it yet, because I can’t hear the water running, because I am concentrating on something else and my Steely Dan album is playing really loud. When l finally figure it out, I can’t find the mop anywhere. Ross must have put it behind the shed or something. But a terrific thunderstorm is in progress so I’m not going out there to look. I sop up two gallons of water with bath towels. And now the water bombers and a helicopter full of elite fire fighters are out over the fire, although Ross told them not to come—apparently they were sent by some erratic computer program. The bird dog (the pilot that that guides the bombers to the hot spots) nearly runs into the helicopter because nobody told anybody who was where. The helicopter radios the bird dog and tells him to take the bombers back because it is a small fire and they can action it without the backup. Just a couple of minutes before Ross saw the smoke, I put the chicken wings in the oven, but now he won’t be sitting down to eat them for at least a couple of hours.