Lost In A Dead Zone

by Jane Woods

"Let's face it, Roy, we're completely and totally lost," Johnny sighed with disgust.

"You're the one with the map!" Roy snarled at him.

"You're the one that can't tell a left turn from a right turn." Johnny decided not to even try and hide his own anger any longer.

"I can so. You didn't say left and right. You said east and west," Roy argued.

"West is where the ocean is. East is the opposite direction. How hard is that?"

"I can't see the ocean at the moment," Roy reminded him.

"Neither can I but I still know where it is. It's a great big body of water. How can you lose it?"

Before Roy could retaliate, he had another problem. The squad was slowing down of its own accord. He looked helplessly at the gas gauge. The needle was well below empty. Squad 51 had been assigned a call that was not in their usual territory. They were well into another squad's zone when the call was canceled. He had been aware that they were low on fuel but he had assumed that they would come upon a gas station. They hadn't. In fact, they'd seen nothing but scrub brush for several miles now.

"Don't tell me," Johnny groaned as the squad came to a halt.

"All right, I won't tell you," Roy said simply.

"I don't be-lieve this," Johnny growled as he picked up the mic to report their situation to dispatch. "LA, this is squad 51. Do you read?"

But there was no answer. There was no sound at all on the radio. Johnny tried twice more.

"What d'ya wanna bet this is a dead zone," he groaned.

"Sounds that way," Roy agreed.

"So now what do we do? You're the senior partner," Johnny reminded him and added under his breath, "who ran out of gas."

"I heard that. You're the one who can't read a map," Roy fired back.

“Look, Roy, half of the roads we’ve come to lately weren’t even on this map. None of them were marked with any kind of a sign. I’ll admit it, I don’t know where the hell we are. But I do know that we are stuck here without any gas so it looks like one of us hoofs it to a service station. My guess is that that would come under the job description of the junior partner, though right?” Johnny said snidely.

“Well then, you’d be wrong. I think we should stay with the unit. They’ll miss us eventually and the squad is a lot easier to spot from a chopper than either of us would be,” Roy told him in a command voice.

“I don’t think we should let it come to that. Can you imagine what Chet could do with this little incident? He’d blab it all over the department too. I say we solve this problem ourselves. We find a gas station, buy some gas and ask for directions. Problem solved,” Johnny argued.

“And where exactly is this magic gas station of yours? It sure isn’t back that way,” Roy pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “And it doesn’t look any more promising in this direction. How far are you willing to walk? This road could end up in Nevada for all we know.”

“If it did, it would be on the damn map!”

“Then how do you know it goes anywhere that would be civilized enough to even have a gas station. No, it’s safer to just wait here with the squad,” Roy decided.

“I can’t just sit here doing nothing,” Johnny griped, kicking the floor board out of frustration.

Roy didn’t say anything. He hadn’t seen a move like that since his kids were in the terrible twos and prone to temper tantrums. He didn’t like the situation any more than Johnny did but he couldn’t see where one of them traipsing off into the countryside in hopes of finding a gas station was any better and that probably wasn’t even safe.

They sat in silence for twenty minutes. Roy was actually starting to doze off when the sound of Johnny opening his door and getting out startled him awake. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Stretching my legs. It’s too cramped just sitting in the squad. To say nothing of being too hot. At least there’s a little breeze out here,” Johnny stated as he walked around the squad trying to get all of the cramps out of his legs. When he arrived at the driver’s side window he leaned on it. “How about this idea, how about if I take the handi-talkie and see if I can find someplace high enough that I can get a signal?”

“No, Johnny, there’s no point in you hiking off into the boondocks alone. This looks like that place that you had that nasty run-in with that rattler. What if you ran into any kind of trouble like that and there was no one around to help you?” Roy asked.

“Well, you could come with me. I mean it’s not like we have to worry about anyone stealing the squad or anything. It’s not going anywhere on an empty tank.....” Johnny urged.

“Why are you in such a hurry to leave?” Roy wanted to know.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Roy. I’m starving. Since I was running late this morning I didn’t have time to eat. We had to resupply at the hospital so I couldn’t grab anything at the station. It’s well past lunch time. And I can’t remember if I ate dinner or not last night,” Johnny confessed.

“How can you forget to eat dinner?!”

“I got busy and I just forgot, that’s all. About now I have a hole in my gut the size of the San Fernando Valley and I have to find something to eat!”

“Well, that explains the rotten mood you’ve been in for the past few hours,” Roy said.

“Oh yeah? What explains your rotten mood, Partner?”

“Okay, I’ll confess. There was a dusk-to-dawn Twilight Zone marathon on last night. I only meant to watch a few episodes but they kept showing good ones that I haven’t seen in years. That was always my favorite show,” Roy told him.

“That explains a lot,” Johnny laughed.

“You mean the fact that I’m tired?” Roy asked suspiciously.

“No, the fact that you’re a fan of the Twilight Zone.”

“Like how I can put up with you for a partner, maybe? That show was a classic. You have to admit it.”

“Couldn’t prove it by me. I never watched it. But I’ll agree to anything if you let us go for help instead of sitting here cooking our brains here in this hot squad,” Johnny urged.

“It is kind of hot. Okay. I guess we can go for a little ways and see if we can find any help. But we’d better lock up tight and bring the handi talkie,” Roy cautioned as he slowly got out of the squad. He really wasn’t in any mood for a long hike in the country but what they were doing was getting them nowhere.

“Great idea!” Johnny reached in a grabbed the keys to the bays from the search light handle and went around the squad locking all the doors.

Roy grabbed the handi talkie and walked around to the tailgate to fetch the gas can, in case they did find a gas station. Even since Johnny mentioned food, he realized that he was hungry too.

Johnny also locked up the passenger compartment. He waited for Roy to join him then started off down the road. They walked for a while then he looked over at Roy. Roy looked worried. “Don’t worry, we’re going the right way,” he assured him.

“How do you know which way is the right way?” Roy challenged.

“We’re going west. If we do that long enough we’ll get to civilization.”

“How do you know that?”

“Civilization is near the ocean in this state.”

“How do you know we’re going west?” Roy was sure he was involved in one of Johnny’s hare-brained schemes. He regretted leaving the squad already.

“Roy, why are you squinting?” Johnny asked, rolling his eyes in amazement at his partner’s lack of navigation skills.

“Because the sun is in my eyes,” Roy answered in a snarl. He didn’t like the tone of Johnny’s voice.

“Because we are walking toward the sun. It is after Noon so the sun is beginning to set and the sun sets in the west. You must know that!”

Roy stopped walking and stared at him. He didn’t like the condescending way Johnny said it but of course, if he thought about it, he did know that very well. “So I’m not the outdoorsman you are. Big deal!”

“Maybe if you’d spent less time in the Twilight Zone and more time taking in your real surroundings you would be,” Johnny muttered.

“Well it was never my goal to be Daniel Boone. At least I remember to eat,” Roy rubbed it in.

“Because Joanne feeds you,” Johnny pointed out.

“For your information, Joanne and the kids are visiting her mother at the moment,” Roy informed him.

“That figures. Joanne would have never let you stay up all night watching bad TV and turning into a world class grouch.”

“You’re no slouch in the grouch department yourself, Junior. Besides, if you’ve never seen Twilight Zone, how do you know if it’s good, bad or indifferent?”

“I watched it once, at the station with Chet. Let’s see, it was about some soldiers walking down a road, just about like this one, when all of a sudden they run into some other soldiers only these guys were on their way to the battle of Little Big Horn,” Johnny told him.

“I saw that one last night! It’s a classic because you know that all these guys are going to be massacred since there were no survivors of that battle,” Roy put in enthusiastically.

“There were thousands of survivors of that battle,” Johnny argued firmly.

“No, there weren’t! The Seventh Cavalry was wiped out.” Roy was delighted to know something that Johnny didn’t know since he’d been embarrassed about momentarily forgetting that the sun set in the west. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“No? On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer led his force of 600-700 men up the Big Horn River to settle the Indian Problem for once and for all. The arrogant bastard even split his force into three separate units, sending Reno and Benteen off in other directions. All he thought about was hogging the glory, after all, he had his eye on the White House. He was not at all prepared to meet 3000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Oh sure, he and his troops did great at slaughtering villages of women and children but this time they had to face warriors. And most of those warriors survived the battle,” Johnny said emphatically.

Roy blinked for a minute. He almost didn’t recognize Johnny. There was a kind of fierce pride about him that Roy had seldom seen. “I never thought of that before,” Roy admitted uncomfortably.

“C’mon, let’s get a move on before we run into one of your friends from the Twilight Zone, shall we?” Johnny said simply and started walking again leaving Roy to momentarily wonder which side Johnny would be on if they did step into the Twilight Zone and come upon the Battle of Little Big Horn.

He decided he’d rather not know and started following him. Man, he was tired. Johnny was right about one thing. Joanne would have never let him pull a bonehead stunt like staying up all night watching TV.

Johnny had maintained his lead for some time but when they came to a hill, he really started to pull ahead. Roy forced himself to go faster. It wasn’t just the fact that he was tired that was holding him back. He also kept hearing Rod Serling’s voice in his head. “This is the story of two hapless LA County firefighters who think they are walking down an innocent country road in search of a gas station, but who, in fact, have just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.......”

Roy had only trudged halfway up the hill when Johnny came bounding back to join him. “Our troubles are over,” he announced happily.

“You got the handi talkie to work up at the top of the hill,” Roy guessed.

“Nope. Better than that.”

“You found a gas station? A town? A diner?” Roy almost let himself get his hopes up, since he was now starving also.

“Just come on and see for yourself,” Johnny said mysteriously, grabbing the empty gas can from Roy in hopes of lightening his load so he would hurry. Johnny took off at a trot back to the hilltop.

“This better be good, Junior,” Roy muttered, quickening his pace to catch up to his partner. He was starting to puff a little by the time he reached the top. He was disappointed to find no town, no gas station and, worst of all, no diner. He turned on Johnny. “How exactly are our troubles over?” he demanded angrily. There was nothing in the way of civilization within view except a small wooden structure that looked as much like a barn to Roy as anything else. There were a few well kept old cars parked near it. He wondered if it was some kind of classic car collector’s domain.

“That,” Johnny announced almost smugly, “is a fire station. I saw them backing an engine in when I first got up here. I bet they’d be happy to help out fellow firefighters in a jam.”

Roy squinted into the sun but looked harder at the old building. Sure enough, he noticed a flagpole by the road. Maybe this was a volunteer station. They did tend to make do with older buildings and equipment than the County did because they didn’t have the same budget. He had to agree with Johnny that if anyone would help them out, it would be fellow firefighters. “What are we waiting for, Partner?” Roy moved on ahead. He was going downhill now so he felt like a racehorse in the final stretch. These guys would surely lend them some gas and be able to give them directions. They could be back in familiar territory within the hour!

Once they got up close to the building they could see that it was definitely a fire station. The large doors were open. There was a free standing large brass bell in front of the station. The sign over the doors said SABLE CREEK FIRE DEPT.

They could see the engine. It didn’t look all that much newer than the one they had restored but this one was still in working condition. It was evidently lovingly maintained by the volunteers at the Sable Creek Station. “Isn’t she a beauty?” Johnny whispered reverently.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” Roy agreed. “Guess the vollies have to just keep on using the old things. I noticed they only had 48 stars on their flag.”

Before Johnny could say anything, a man walked around the engine and came up to them. He was dressed more like a farmer than a firemen, to their minds. He looked them up and down for a minute. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? Looks like a coupla big city firemen have stopped by to learn how to fight fires, boys,” he called over his shoulder.

“County actually,” Roy corrected him shaking the hand that the man extended to him. “I’m Roy DeSoto. This is my partner, John Gage.”

“Roy, John.” He shook Johnny’s hand also. His large red mustache seemed to dominate his face but his blue eyes were friendly enough to put them at ease. “Clyde Montgomery. I’m the captain of this motley crew. We were just about to sit down to a meal, come on and join us.”

“That’s the best offer we’ve had all day, Captain,” Johnny grinned gratefully.

“Ach, none a that captain stuff. Call me Monty. Everyone else does,” Monty’s booming voice corrected him as he led them to the kitchen of the station.

There were three other men in the kitchen. It seemed odd to Roy and Johnny to see firemen dressed in farmer’s overalls but they reminded themselves that volunteers dressed in their own clothes not uniforms. This far out in the country they were probably all farmers. They stopped wondering about anything as they joined the men in a hearty meal of vegetable stew with homemade bread and farm fresh butter and milk. They didn’t know if it was because they were so hungry or because the food was fresh that made it the best meal either of them had had in days.

The rest of the crew was introduced. Lefty Willis was the cook. He was obviously called Lefty because his right hand was missing. He told them that he had gotten it caught in a thrashing machine when he was a kid and didn’t even miss it anymore. It had certainly not impaired his cooking ability.

Rory Mahoney was another big, redheaded man but his constant sparing with Monty told them that the Irishman and the Scot were not to be confused. Mahoney reminded them of another Irish fireman they knew all too well. Pranks were a part of Mahoney’s repertoire they discovered when a dribble glass found its way to the table.

The last man was much younger than the others. He was introduced as Flash Leonard. He did not look so much like a farmer as a high school student. He talked incessantly about his hobby of photography and his desire to one day be a news photographer. In the meantime he practiced by taking photos of the firemen in action. He used an old fashioned camera that had belonged to his grandfather. It was big and cumbersome but he showed them some of the prints of shots he had taken and the old camera and the young photographer had really captured the action of burning barn.

The men were friendly and made Roy and Johnny feel right at home. Conversation drifted toward the lack of work in the area. The recession had evidently hit this area even harder than it had hit LA. Lefty called it a depression. The economists had not yet called it that yet but maybe in this rural area the economy had sunk that low.

The men had all had a good laugh at Roy and Johnny’s plight of running out of gas. They were about to ask for the loan of some to get them to the next gas station when a couple of kids ran into the station and reported a brush fire. Monty told them to go ahead and ring the firebell to call in the rest of the volunteers while he and the others got the engine to the fire.

Roy and Johnny volunteered to earn their lunch by helping put out the fire. Flash showed them where the turnout gear was kept as everyone got ready to roll. The gear was older and heavier than they were used to but like the old engine, it still worked so the Sable Creek Station used it.

Roy and Johnny hopped onto the back of the old engine as it bumped its way down the old country road. It threw a wake of dust and pebbles up behind it.

The grass and brush were both extremely dry. When they got to the fire they found a farmer trying to beat it out using feed sacks but the fire was quickly getting away from him.

Monty took command. He pulled one of the heavy hoses off the engine and handed it to Roy and Johnny, then he called to his own men. "Mahoney, you and Lefty grab a hose and head around to the Northern Exposure. You guys work it from the South till the other guys get here. Some of the farms are harvesting now so they may not get word of the fire for a while."

Roy took the old nozzle and began to walk toward the fire. Johnny patted him on the shoulder. "South is this way," he told him. "He has no sense of direction," Johnny explained to Monty.

"No wonder ya got lost," Monty commented.

"He had the map," Roy started to argue but soon his attention was on the brush fire.

"Surround and drown 'er!" Monty called encouragement to the men working the hoses.

Flash had followed the old engine on an old Indian Motorcycle with a sidecar which carried his camera equipment. He began shooting photos of the men and the fire. No one had time to pay much attention to him as they battled the blaze. If this fire got away from them it could spell disaster. Out of control wildfires were the bane of drought-prone California.

The vollies and Roy and Johnny worked like a well oiled machine. They managed to put the fire out before it got completely out of control and before the engine ran out of water.

“I’m gonna feel this tomorrow,” Johnny told Roy rubbing his shoulder where the heavy hose had been resting.

“I know what you mean. I think maybe we are spoiled by modern day equipment,” Roy agreed.

When they got back to the station, Monty told them that they had earned five gallons of gasoline and he had Flash fill up the container Roy had brought at the gas pump behind the station. Lefty and Rory argued so much about the directions they were giving them that Roy felt more lost than he had before. Finally Monty asked them where their rig was.

Johnny told him it was a mile or two east of the station.

“Okay, head back the way you come for 3 miles. Turn by the faded yellow farmhouse going north about five miles. Then you’ll come to the crossroads of County Road 817 and Sable Creek Highway. Trust me, it ain’t all that much of a highway but it’ll take you back to LA.”

Johnny ignored the map and used Monty’s directions. The road that crossed with 817 was not called Sable Creek Highway but they took it anyway and it led them to the familiar freeway system that would take them back to Station 51.

They had no sooner turned onto the freeway when their radio came to life in a burst of static.

“Squad 51. Do you read?” asked an exasperated voice.

“Uh-oh. Sounds like we’re in trouble,” Roy remarked.

“Yeah. Now the thing works just fine,” Johnny complained as he tentatively reached for the mic.

“LA, this is squad 51. We have been out of service due to a mechanical malfunction which has now been repaired. We were in a dead radio zone and this is the first chance we have had to report in.” Johnny hoped his feeble excuse would be accepted.

“10-4, Squad 51. Return to quarters.”

“Yes sir! Ah - that is, 10-4 LA.” Johnny tried to hide the relief he felt.

“Looks like we dodged a bullet that time, Junior,” Roy grinned. The grin was wiped from his face by the next transmission they received.

“Squad 51, this is the garage. What exactly was the nature of your mechanical malfunction and how exactly did you two boneheads fix it?” Charlie the mechanic demanded, calling them boneheads on an open transmission was the least of what the ill tempered man could do.

“Ah turns out it was something minor and it’s fine now. Just fine,” Johnny fudged.

“The problem wouldn’t a been the nut behind the wheel running outta gas or nothin’?” Charlie demanded.

“‘Course not, Charlie,” Johnny assured him after glancing nervously at Roy.

“All the same, I’m stepping up the routine maintenance on the unit. It’s too late today but I’m leaving an order for B-shift to bring it in for a once over.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Charlie,” Johnny agreed, trying to be serious.

Charlie ended the transmission abruptly and Johnny replaced the mic on the stand, sharing a high five with Roy that they had gotten out of that one. They gassed up at the first station that they got to and managed to get back to Station 51 during the 5 o’clock news.

They tried to act nonchalant as they walked into the day room.

“Well that’s a mystery,” the cap was saying.

“What is, Cap?” Johnny asked. He headed for the kitchen where Mike was taking the breadsticks out of the oven. He tried to grab one and was assaulted with an oven mit for his trouble.

“Brush fire up in the hills. A chopper reported it but when the responding company arrived it had gone out by itself in this dry weather. Unbelievable.”

“Where was the fire?” Johnny asked.

“Way up in the State Road 817 area.”

“That’s no mystery, Cap. Me and Roy put that fire out.” Johnny had finally managed to grab a breadstick and avoid the angry chef.

“You and Roy? What with the fire extinguisher on the squad?” Chet scoffed.

“No. We helped a volunteer station put it out, Smart Guy,” Johnny sneered at him.

“That where you guys were all day? I heard Charlie ask you if you’d run out of gas,” the cap looked at them for some kind of explanation.

“Cap! Would we do something like that?” Johnny was duly wounded by the accusation. “We were there and brush fires are dangerous so we helped the local guys out. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Why didn’t you let dispatch know where you were?”

“Well we tried to, Cap, but that’s a dead radio zone up there,” Roy explained.

“The phone still works. You could have called in over 98's landline.”

“98's?” Johnny asked around a mouthful of breadstick.

“98's are the local guys up there. The ones you supposedly helped put out the brush fire.” The cap was now sounding decidedly suspicious.

“It wasn’t 98's, Cap. It was a volunteer station. Sable Creek or something like that,” Johnny told them.

“Oh that’s rich, Gage!” Chet said with some disgust. “The Sable Creek Conflagration is practically a legend. My father and his buddies were still talking about thirty years later. See I told ya, Cap, they were either lost or just plain goofing off all day. ”

“We weren’t goofing off!” Johnny declared as they all gathered around the table as Mike put the spaghetti, salad and breadsticks on it. “Okay, I’ll admit we did get a little lost there for a minute or so because there are a lot of back roads up there that aren’t on the map. We stopped at the station to ask directions. They gave us lunch so when they got the fire call we helped out. Seemed only right to pay them back for lunch and directions and all.”

“It couldn’t have been the Sable Creek Station, John,” the cap said seriously.

“That’s what the sign over the door said,” Roy put in, as he shoveled some of Mike’s spaghetti onto his plate.

“I don’t think there are any volunteer stations up there at all any more,” Chet declared.

“Well, you’re wrong, as usual, Kelly.” Johnny told him.

“I don’t think so,” the cap said. He got up and went into his office leaving everyone curious. He returned with a large black book with the words A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF FIREFIGHTING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FROM 1908-THE PRESENT printed in gold letters on the spine. They had all seen the book in the office for as long as they could remember but no one had ever looked at it before. The cap thumbed through the book for a few minutes. “Here it is. The Sable Creek station.”

“See I told ya that was where we were,” Johnny said in triumph.

“I don’t think so, Pal. Look at these pictures.” The cap opened the book in front of Roy and Johnny.

“That’s them, Cap,” Johnny insisted, spraying bread crumbs onto the book. “Oh sorry, but these are the guys, that’s Monty, Lefty and Mahoney who is almost as annoying as Chet. And see the photo credit is Jerome Leonard only the guys called him Flash -- probably because of that old camera of his. Talk about a blinding flash bulb ---”

“Johnny, read the caption,” Roy said in a strange, stilted voice.

“The Sable Creek volunteers were killed fighting a runaway brushfire on August 10, 1935!! This can’t be right, Cap. We had lunch with these guys today and worked a fire --”

“Johnny, these guys were killed 40 years ago. Forty years ago today,” Roy gulped.

Just then the engine was called out on a dumpster fire. Roy and Johnny continued to stare at the picture. The caption identified Monty and the guys on the hose closest to him, Lefty Willis and Rory Mahoney. Two other firefighters who could be seen in the background were identified as other volunteers. Only no other volunteers had shown up before the fire was out. They both looked closely at the photo and realized that they were the other volunteers. They had proof that they had been there and helped put out the brushfire, just as they had said. Only the proof was in a photo that had been taken years before either of them had even been born. They were still sure there was some kind of mistake.

They read the rest of the write up about the station and the article about the Conflagration. According to the article, Capt Montgomery and nine volunteers were caught in ravine when two separate fires joined and cut off their escape route. All ten men were killed. The fire also ravaged over 8,000 acres of farmland destroying all of the area truck farms and walnut groves. In response to citizen outcry the county expanded its coverage area to include the rural area and all the volunteer stations were disbanded. Just as Chet had said. They read the article several times before the truth began slowly sinking in. That explained why the old vehicles they had seen were in such good condition. It also explained the old fashioned turnout gear, hoses, camera equipment and the flag with only 48 stars. But it was not an explanation that made any sense at all. It was just plain creepy. They had met, eaten and put out a fire with men who had died forty years ago this very day.

“Roy,” Johnny suddenly gasped quietly, “you did drive us into the damn Twilight Zone!”

“You were the one with the map,” Roy countered weakly.

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