Jumping Feet First

Chapter 1

Smoke filling the air made it hard to breathe. Ally coughed as she tried to get the last baby goat herded into the pen without letting any of the others escape. Goats were non-compliant on a good day, panic caused by the scent of the approaching fire only made things worse. Finally giving up on the gate, Ally picked the kid up and set him over the fence where he could huddle against his mother while she went in search of two missing sheep.

Not for the first time in the last two days, Ally wondered what had possessed her to invest every penny she had and some she didn’t, to buy a piece of property outside the tiny New Mexico town of Garrett and start her own little ranch. Unlike most ranches in the area, she didn’t own a single head of cattle and not a single horse. No, she’d had the brilliant idea to invest in goats and sheep. They were animals that would pay off two-fold without having to kill her babies. Each of her animals was a breed she could harvest their coats, angora goats, merino sheep and more. In addition to harvesting the fibers she milked the nannies and ewes, making goat and sheep cheese as well as some soap products. She sold those at farmers’ markets and online. It wasn’t the easiest living, but it was work she loved and that made all the difference.

What she didn’t love though was people coming around and telling her she had to leave. Abandon her home and all these animals that counted on her because of the wildfire started by some moron who walked away from a hot campfire. The sheriff had been out here twice and the last time she’d told him exactly where he could shove his evacuation order. There was no way she was going to leave her animals here to die without doing everything she could to save them.

She’d gathered them all up and penned them near the barn, where she’d stretched every hose she could find up to the roof so if the fire got close enough that embers might spark it, she could turn the water on. She’d cut every bit of vegetation for more than fifty feet at the edge of her clearing. She wished she had access to a backhoe or dozer, so she could build fire breaks, but she didn’t know anyone who had one that wasn’t already put to use on the fire line. She’d just have to do the best she could with what she had.

The only thing missing was a single ewe and her lamb. Ally had counted them the day before and now the pair was missing. But she knew where they liked to hang out so she headed out to the little pond on the far end of the pasture, hoping they were hiding in the hollow just beyond it, and wishing, not for the first time, she’d had the money to invest in a good sheep dog when she’d gotten started. A well-trained dog would have helped so much as she’d gathered the animals over the last couple days.