This evening, the light at sunset caught the road dust settling over the neighbor's pasture in such a way that I mistook it for smoke. I stood beside the road and sniffed the air for a while to reassure myself.

Just nervy, I guess.

Old habits die hard. This tinder-dry weather makes me want to gather up feed sacks and pile them close at hand. Childhood memories of chasing flying embers and slapping them with a wet feed sack come back to me. Of course, burlap feed sacks are a thing of the past now. Commercial feed comes in paper; the paper bags are cheaper and reduce dust — but they are certainly of no use in beating out a grass fire. I wonder what I would use to beat out a small grass fire around the house now — pull the sheets off the bed and soak them in the water trough, I guess.

We depend on the volunteer fire department, although we know that distance equals time and that help is not right around the corner. So we also rely on ourselves and our nearby neighbors. Thus it has always been outside the city limits.

Pardner recalls the grass fires in the big ranch country of New Mexico, where professional fire-fighting equipment might be an hour or two away. Landowners first called their neighbors. Then they phoned the bars and cafes in the surrounding areas — the customers all turned out. People passing through felt duty-bound to stop and help. While the ranches usually had bulldozers to make fire breaks, the key to fire control was people — men and women armed with shovels and those ubiquitous wet feed sacks.

When I see smoke rising, I feel guilty. I feel as if I should go and lend a hand. But then I hear the sirens and rationalize, "The fire department is there. They don't need me. I'll only be in their way."

Maybe Wallace McRae, the poet and Wyoming rancher, was right when he said, "One of the first signs of the dissolution of a community is when they form a volunteer fire department. If there's a fire, everybody ought to be fighting it."

On the other hand, perhaps it is the volunteer fire department that makes us a community. In rural areas where there is no longer a local school, a store or perhaps not even post office, the volunteer fire department serves as the glue to hold us together. Their annual barbeque or

plate dinner is one of the few times we all gather as a community to socialize, and they are there to help us in emergencies.

Yes, neighbors still help neighbors when smoke rises on the horizon.