Duck the Halls(4)

Two more firefighters stepped forward to help the medics by swabbing Mr. Dandridge’s hands and face with rags dripping with thick red liquid. Mr. Dandridge opened one eye slightly and then closed it again tightly. I wasn’t sure if he couldn’t see or didn’t like what he saw.

“Does that tomato juice wash out?” Mr. Dandridge asked.

“A darn sight better than the skunk odor,” a medic replied.

“May we ask Mr. Dandridge a few questions while the medics are working?” Chief Burke asked. Standing at his side was Jim Featherstone, Caerphilly’s new volunteer fire chief.

The medics nodded. With visible effort the chief came closer and squatted down at Mr. Dandridge’s side.

“Nelson, it’s Henry Burke,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we need to know a few things.”

Mr. Dandridge nodded slightly and assumed a stoic expression.

“Like why the devil did you call the fire department?” Chief Featherstone demanded.

“Because the county doesn’t have a skunk department,” Mr. Dandridge said. “Anyway, I didn’t ask for the fire department. I just called 911.”

“But you said the church was burning.”

“I never said the church was burning.” Mr. Dandridge tried to sit up and was prevented by the EMTs. “I said that I was in the church and that I’d been sprayed by skunks, and my eyes were burning. But perhaps I wasn’t speaking too clearly. Those miserable skunks were still trying to spray me.”

“Skunks?” Chief Burke asked. “Plural? How many? And where were they?”

“In the choir loft,” Mr. Dandridge said. “And I have no idea how many of them there were. I thought it was cats at first, and I went closer to see why someone had left a whole cage of cats in the church—”

“Cage?” Chief Burke and Chief Featherstone said in unison.

“Yes, cage. And I have no idea how many of them there were in the cage. A whole swarm of them.”

“Actually, the traditional term is a ‘surfeit of skunks,’” Dad put in. “I was just talking to Debbie Ann—she’s arranging for the ophthalmologist—and it’s pretty obvious what happened. Mr. Dandridge called her to say that he thought there were intruders in the church—”

“I saw the lights on from my house,” Mr. Dandridge put in. “I live just across the road.”

“And as Debbie Ann was urging him to leave the building and wait for the arrival of a deputy, he began shouting ‘It’s burning! It’s burning!’ Which was a perfectly natural reaction to being sprayed in the eyes by a skunk.”

“Skunks,” Mr. Dandridge corrected. “Could be dozens of them.”

“And of course Debbie Ann made the logical assumption that he was talking about the church,” Dad concluded.

The chiefs looked mollified.

“I’ve sent in two of my men wearing SCBAs to check out the church thoroughly, to make sure there’s definitely no fire and no other hazards,” Chief Featherstone said.

“SCBAs?” Chief Burke repeated.

“Self-contained breathing apparatus. I can lend you some if you want your men to investigate.”

“Thanks,” Chief Burke said. “I’d appreciate the gear—I plan to go in myself. I’m pretty familiar with the layout of the church.”

“I told my men to stay away from the choir loft as much as possible,” Chief Featherstone said. “At least until Eli Slattery from animal control gets here to remove the skunks.”

“Did he say how soon he’d get here?” Chief Burke asked.

“No idea.” The fire chief was frowning. “I left a message on his voice mail.”

“Eli’s a sound sleeper,” one of the firefighters put in.

Chief Featherstone’s frown deepened.

“Chief,” another firefighter said. “We could just call Osgood Shiffley down at the service station. He’s open all night, and only a few blocks from Eli’s house. He could probably pop over and pound on Eli’s door.”

Chief Featherstone blinked in surprise. He had retired after twenty years in a big-city fire department and moved to Caerphilly to take over leadership of our volunteer force. He was still getting used to life in Caerphilly, and looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or horrified by this kind of small-town solution to the problem.

“Let’s give Eli a chance to respond,” he said finally. “But I’ll keep the idea in mind if the delay becomes too inconvenient.”

“Maybe someone should just try to take the skunks out,” one of the firefighters said. “I always heard that after they spray they can’t do it again immediately.”