Fire in the Canyon by Daniel Gumbiner EPUB & PDF

Fire in the Canyon by Daniel Gumbiner EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online

• Status: Available for Free Download
• Author: Daniel Gumbiner
• Language: English
• Genre: Family Life Fiction
• Format: PDF / EPUB
• Size: 2 MB
• Price: Free

THAT FALL, across the Gold Country, it rained steadily, and the
people of that hilly land, who lived up and down the spine of the
state, looked forward to a season of balanced precipitation. The
land, it seemed to them, existed in a state of fragile equilibrium. If
there was too much rain, the grasses grew tall, and in the summer when
they dried out, they provided extra fuel and triggered large fires. If it rained
too little, there was drought, and the land was both thirsty and more prone
to ignitions. It had always been like this in the Gold Country, as long as the
oldest of them could remember, but it seemed the margins for error had
grown thinner. Anyone who was watching could see this.

So it was particularly concerning when, early that winter, the rains came
to an abrupt halt. There were weeks of cold, weeks of wind, weeks of thin
overcast cloud cover, but there was never any rain. The wildflowers crisped
up along the side of the road and the hills turned brown and the air smelled
of dry sage and it was, all of a sudden, the opposite of what many had
expected. Had the land ever looked so parched? Had the reservoirs ever run
lower? The water districts held meetings, reallocated resources, preached
austerity. The fire safety committees updated evacuation plans, scheduled
projects of vegetation management. And as May rolled around, and the
prospect of any further, significant precipitation came to an end, a waiting
game began.

Their hand had been dealt. No new cards would be played.
The odds were what they were and nothing could be done to change this.
Up on his farm, near the town of Natoma, Benjamin Hecht could not
help but feel concerned. Every year, the conditions seemed to be getting
worse, the season lasting longer. And yet, worrying about the prospect of a
fire helped nothing. So whenever a rush of fear arose, Ben distracted
himself with the work of his farm. This was not difficult to do. Over the
years, he had amassed a wide variety of projects, which required near
constant tending. At present, he had ten new chickens, two dachshunds,
honeybees, a small flock of sheep, one guard dog, ducks, geese, several
CBD plants, one acre of Primitivo, two of Grenache, two of Barbera, three
of Gamay, and three of Syrah. And he had recently acquired, via the guy
who ran the concession stand at the Speedway and also bred poultry, two
baby emus.

At sixty-five, he was still decently strong, and able to handle the work
of the farm. He had a big white bristle of a mustache and, in the last decade,
he had developed a slight and inevitable paunch. His wife, Ada, liked to call
him “David Crosby without the voice.” The two of them had one child,
Yoel, who lived in Los Angeles, and worked in TV development. Yoel was
close with Ada, but he no longer spoke to Ben. For years, Ben had tortured
himself over the collapse of their relationship, but these days, he had more
or less made peace with it. Yoel had his life and Ben had his. That was just
the way it was.

For More Read Download This Book

EPUB