Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from
Voice the Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. If
you have a comment, email it to me Box thirteen
at Great Detectives dot net. Follow us on Twitter at
Radio Detectives, and check us out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com,
slash Great Detectives. If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow
us use in your favor podcast software. Well, welcome to
our first ever Chief of Detective special, which is brought
to you by our Chief of Detectives Patreon Fats. As
one of our Chief of Detective Patreons, he has the
right to request that we play a non detective special now.
I will admit I set up my Patreon more than
nine years ago, and this is one of those benefits
that no one has taken advantage of before, but we're
so happy to do it, particularly this episode. It's a
really good one. It's a classic episode of Escape. The
original air date is August the second, nineteen fifty three,
and the title is The Red Forest, starring the Great
William Conrad.
Speaker 2: Tired of the every day and have a dream of
a life of romantic adventure.
Speaker 3: Want to get away from it all.
Speaker 4: We offer you.
Speaker 5: Escape, Escape designed to free you from the four walls
of today, for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 2: You are alone in a giant forest seeking a way
of escape, while around you gaining with your every step,
the relentless enemy, which is fire, is closing in from
every side until there will be only one way out,
and that way is death.
Speaker 5: So listen now as Escape brings you Anthony Ellis's exciting
story The Red Forest, the trail that.
Speaker 2: Led from a lumbered town along a washboard road and
into the forests. I'm no woodsman, but in the daylight
I found the place, and then I started back to
the car. But something was different, maybe the tall shadows.
There wasn't a trail anymore, only streams where there hadn't
been before, trees that were the same but weren't, and
sounds sounds that when you were a kid on a
hike with fun and now they schedule. I'd thrown my
last cigarette away three four hours before, and.
Speaker 6: That's when the fire had started, and it was.
Speaker 4: Then that I started to run run.
Speaker 2: It was nearly dark when I found the road. I'd
come to it about a half a mile below where
i'd park my car, A half hour later, on the
outskirts of a little town, my headlights picked up a
girl standing by the side of the road. She carried
a cheap paper suit case and she was summing a ride.
Speaker 7: Can I get a ride? Mister?
Speaker 4: Sure? Put your case in the back.
Speaker 7: Not many cars on the road, didn't.
Speaker 4: I been walking long uh.
Speaker 8: Huh on my way to Missoula. My last ride dropped
me a mile or so back.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you live around here. No, I don't guess you'd
be going as far as Missula. Sure, jeeve, that's swell.
Speaker 8: I got a job there starting tomorrow. Kind of broke,
if you know what I mean. Buses cost money.
Speaker 4: I know what you mean.
Speaker 7: Hey, your face, you've been hurt. You're all scratched up.
Speaker 4: Oh, I was hunting.
Speaker 2: I got lost just the other side of town. If
you want to take a nap.
Speaker 4: It's okay. We got about one hundred.
Speaker 6: Miles to go.
Speaker 7: Thanks. Gee.
Speaker 8: It's nice out here, kind of lonely. How much of
a road smells good? Wonder what that is over there?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 7: Well? Right like?
Speaker 8: See? Could almost be Seattle from a long ways off.
I had a boyfriend used to take me driving at night,
and when we came back you could see a glow
just like.
Speaker 5: Oh oh, I.
Speaker 6: Knew what it was, that blow in the sky.
Speaker 2: It was on our right, and there's the road twisted
through the trees that fell behind us, and then to
our left, and then circled until it was straight ahead again.
The girl had fallen asleep very quickly. I saw our
face in the light from the dash, thin, pretty and peaceful.
It was about fifteen minutes after I'd picked her up
that I saw the lights on the road, and then
closer the figures waving.
Speaker 7: Are there all ready? I just got sleep.
Speaker 2: No, there's something wrong. There's a cop coming this way.
Speaker 4: What's the trouble?
Speaker 9: We want you, mister? Wait, you want me fire bad one.
We gotta have every man we can find. We can
use her too.
Speaker 2: Oh well, well look i'd like to ohoh, okay.
Speaker 9: Rose the forest ranger.
Speaker 4: He'll explain.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm sorry, but I'm on my way to massoula night.
Speaker 10: You're not I've got authority to do this, mister. I'm sorry,
but we need you and I haven't got You couldn't
get much farther anywhere.
Speaker 4: The road's cut off.
Speaker 10: The mountain's gone up like a torch. If it spreads.
There's three towns gonna go too. Come on, I got
some clothes and boots for you.
Speaker 7: Hey, what about me? I gotta get to Missoula. I
got a job in the morning.
Speaker 9: Sorry, sister, you got a job serving coffee here.
Speaker 10: You cop five dollars a day, a day or longer
it depends. Let's go.
Speaker 2: There was nothing else to do, so I got into
the clothes the ranger gave me, then stood around and waited.
I wasn't tired anymore, just scared, scared of going into
that forest again.
Speaker 4: The wind came up.
Speaker 2: A bit, and with it the smell, smell of burning,
smell of death.
Speaker 4: A long way off, but closer than the glow had been.
Speaker 2: We could see flickering against the sky, and it was
in a lot of places. And then suddenly it was
too warm and too quiet.
Speaker 10: All right, you guys, the telephones burned out, made contact
with a short wave, said you, mister, what's your name?
Speaker 4: Pindel?
Speaker 10: Pindell? Never use one of these.
Speaker 2: Got a walkie talkie? Yeah, sure, I was in the
signal court.
Speaker 10: Okay, you will carry it now.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 10: This is bad, it's real bad. The fires got behind us.
We can't get any more in through here for several hours.
They've got to come around from the other side. That's
thirty miles. Let's get out, Crowbar. Yeah, I'm putting you
in charge. You know what to do. Get in as
close as you can of the river and set a backfire. Sure,
I got to stick here with the transmitter. I'll let
you know what's happening.
Speaker 9: Sure you stay here with the pretty girl. We go
and get fired.
Speaker 10: Shut up, Hanson, you'll have to go with them. Threes
not enough.
Speaker 9: Sure, Well, the CoP's gonna do something.
Speaker 10: You better take along some food and canteens. Now, step
on it.
Speaker 7: Hi, got a couple of sandwiches I made up here.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 7: It's sure's something, isn't there?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: You scared?
Speaker 4: Scared?
Speaker 7: Why your face is why you're scared.
Speaker 6: I'm from the city.
Speaker 7: I know what you mean. Those trees give me the
willies too, dark.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, that's it.
Speaker 7: You'll be all right.
Speaker 2: Listen, kid, if if anything happens, you take my car.
Speaker 6: Here, Here are the keys.
Speaker 7: What do you mean?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: If I don't come back, ah, keep the car.
Speaker 6: Here's the registration.
Speaker 11: You kidding?
Speaker 7: You're coming back?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so long.
Speaker 7: Hey, my name's Jan.
Speaker 4: What's yours, Wally.
Speaker 7: You'll be careful, Wally.
Speaker 2: We went under the forest, men with spades, men against
fire and terror. There was the man they called fat,
three hundred pounds of ungainly body, topped by a tiny
and almost disgustingly childlike face.
Speaker 4: There was Crowbar, a big dark.
Speaker 2: Man, quiet and filled with the knowledge of the woods.
Handsome the state trooper, thin and wiry, his natty khaki
shirt stained with.
Speaker 6: Sweat and dirt.
Speaker 4: And me.
Speaker 2: We've gone about a mile when we first heard it.
It came in gusts with a wind high above us.
Speaker 9: Wait a minute, Oh.
Speaker 10: Shut up, about three miles I figures coming fast.
Speaker 9: We're about that far from the river, aren't we. Yeah, yeah,
listen you guys.
Speaker 12: If it's crossed the river with some plit's.
Speaker 10: Get yeah, get wrong.
Speaker 9: Tell them it's coming this way pretty fast.
Speaker 12: Looks far up there, look to parks.
Speaker 2: Fire, dull calling row, and dull calling roll over. Roll,
This is roll over. We're still about three miles from
the river.
Speaker 6: We can hear it over.
Speaker 10: You can't backfire. Now the wind's change.
Speaker 4: You better come back over, right, he says, go back.
Speaker 9: That's okay with me. Boy, Come on, listen to that.
Speaker 2: I wanted to run again, that same feeling i'd known before,
the fear all around us, closing in and down. There
was no sky above, only blackness tinged with red, pressing
and behind the living forest running over, ticking, and passing us.
When we reached the road again, the sound was steady,
but I had a strange feeling of relief. When I
saw the forest ranger and the girl jan it was
like coming home. I think it was then that I
stopped being afraid.
Speaker 9: Come on, row, we can't do no good now.
Speaker 10: We got to try and join up at the others.
What do you mean The fire's on three sides of us.
That means we head southeast.
Speaker 4: Oh, can we take the road back?
Speaker 10: No, it's cut off. There's two hundred men trying to
give a path open for us. We've got to make
five miles and in a hurry.
Speaker 4: Bad as that.
Speaker 10: It's worse if we don't get there in time and
they can't make a fire break, we're going to be
smack in the middle and there's not going to be
any way out.
Speaker 5: We will return to escape in just a moment. Lightning
may strike more than once in the same place, but
it can't begin to compete with man when it comes
to starting forest fires. For one fire caused by light,
supposedly rational humans caused nine by trifling carelessness with matches,
cigarettes and bonfires. We need our forests for timber, to
conserve our water supply, to add beauty to our lives.
Let's not burn them up. And now back to escape.
Speaker 2: We didn't carry anything but canteens. It was hot, and
because it was hot at major thirsty even when you
didn't need water. The going was rough and we could
only head on what we thought was the general direction
of safety. It was at the ridge that we lost
the first man.
Speaker 10: Wind's changing again, crowbar which way? You can't tell? It's
haywire with this fire?
Speaker 4: Do we go straight ahead?
Speaker 10: Might as well wait a minute?
Speaker 4: See that ridge?
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm going up there.
Speaker 9: Shouldn't take more than ten minutes. I'll be able to
get a better look. Give me the flash. I'll signal
to you.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I haven't got much of a start. With fires behind
us a lot faster better than walking toward it. Remember
it's on three sides.
Speaker 10: Okay, make it fast.
Speaker 9: Good luck?
Speaker 10: Thanks?
Speaker 4: What do way do? Just certain way?
Speaker 10: That's right?
Speaker 9: But listen you're the range of white. You go what
you send Koba.
Speaker 10: He's fought fires before, he knows he's a better man
to climb up there. He's faster than me.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'll bet.
Speaker 2: Oh you okay, kid.
Speaker 8: Surely it's fine. I guess they're not used to walking nowadays.
High heels don't help.
Speaker 3: Ow you take it easy.
Speaker 8: My feet feel like they did once in a dance.
I went to some big lunk climbed all over me.
Speaker 2: I guess you want have that chop in Missoula.
Speaker 7: If I get out of this, that's all I care about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 7: Hey, Wally scared? Give him a hand, will you?
Speaker 2: She held on tight to my hand. It wasn't the
darkness that frightened her.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: That wasn't darkness anymore, but a yellowish red light that
came from everywhere. It was another kind of fear, fear
of something you could see here, and with every minute
feel more and more.
Speaker 6: We waited there.
Speaker 2: Ten minutes, eleven twelve, and.
Speaker 4: Then do you hear something?
Speaker 10: Yeah, seemed to come from over there, from the ridge.
Speaker 9: Maybe maybe listen, you think something got crowbar lying or something.
Speaker 4: I'll go up. No, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 10: No time. We waited too long.
Speaker 4: When he may be hurt.
Speaker 10: I know that, but it'll take you longer than it
took Crowbar to get there. Come on, no, you.
Speaker 9: Couldn't find him in the dark. Says he's hurt. Anyway,
we'll move on. He'll catch up.
Speaker 2: I say, we go after it, all right, put it
to a boat.
Speaker 10: Hurry up, Hanson, We go on.
Speaker 9: Let's get out of here, and.
Speaker 10: I say, go on. That leaves you, miss, I'm staying
with Wally.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll go with you. We never saw prow
Bar again. Maybe a lion got him, maybe it got lost.
We never saw him again. The ranger went ahead, finding
trails somehow keeping us moving. We began to climb, and
after a while we were on another ridge and for
the first time we could see the fire. It stretched
out for miles, like a huge red sea.
Speaker 4: Then it was all around us.
Speaker 7: Oh gee, Wally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, kid, I know, well, it hurt much.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 10: Take him breather. I'm gonna try the walkie talkie again.
Speaker 7: He's not scared, is he?
Speaker 3: I guess not.
Speaker 7: Is that because he's a ranger, because he's very brave.
Speaker 6: Jan, you're a funny girl.
Speaker 8: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: Hey sure, why did you want me to do that?
Speaker 7: I don't know. You're a nice fellow. We'll miss you.
Speaker 2: Listen, Jane, I'm gonna tell you something. If we get out,
well maybe yeah, look, I'm all right. I mean, maybe
we could have fun together. I know, well, I did
something wrong one time. I killed a man. Why he
framed me. He got me put away for something I
didn't do. We were driving in the east and ran
over a woman.
Speaker 6: He was at the wheel, but he ran off.
Speaker 3: And left me.
Speaker 7: Well, you didn't do it.
Speaker 2: That's what I said. But I'd been drinking and went
to sleep. When I woke up, I was behind the wheel.
He'd put me there, and that's how the cops found me.
Speaker 3: I got five years.
Speaker 2: I was married, I lost my wife, my job, my friends,
and I saw i'd get my pal and I did.
He knew I was after him, and.
Speaker 3: He ran but I caught up with him.
Speaker 7: I don't care, don't you.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I told you.
Speaker 6: That meant maybe because if we do get out, I know, I.
Speaker 7: Know it's okay.
Speaker 9: I'm on bendel the rangers moving off.
Speaker 2: It was the state trooper Handsome. I worried how much
he'd heard, but there wasn't time to worry about it.
Then Roe thought he'd seen a break in the fire,
and we headed for it. And when we got down
in the trees again, I began to get a feeling
that had been there before.
Speaker 4: It was nothing I.
Speaker 2: Could recognize, but just a feeling. A couple of hundred
yards along, I knew, why hold up.
Speaker 10: There's a shack.
Speaker 9: Looks like someone is living there. Better have a look.
Speaker 10: Ye, doors open.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's a man.
Speaker 10: Give me a hand here. Sure he's been shot, Yeah.
Speaker 9: A few hours ago.
Speaker 10: From the looks of it, you think the man who
did this might have started it?
Speaker 4: Well, what do you mean?
Speaker 10: The fire started a few miles north of here. We
figured somebody got careless with a match. Maybe it was
the killer running away.
Speaker 9: I'd like to get the fellow who did that. Maybe
I will me too.
Speaker 10: Well, we can't do anything here. Come on.
Speaker 2: From there on, nobody talked. It was hard enough to
lift your feet. Chan was nearly through. I have carried
a if Rowe knew where he was leading us.
Speaker 4: He didn't say.
Speaker 2: We followed, and knew that sooner or later we'd stop
because we were too tired to go on?
Speaker 6: Fat was the first.
Speaker 9: Minute.
Speaker 13: You've gotta go on there channel right, just for me?
Speaker 12: Don't please want get up? I can't. Okay, you stay
and come on to your can't.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, catch up to us.
Speaker 4: Stay on the train, come on chanting. We have to.
Speaker 12: Don't leave me. That's the word.
Speaker 7: Can we help him?
Speaker 12: We're almost tell ourselves.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether it was because none of us
lacked him, or because we knew that we couldn't do anything.
Funny how you can lose a man and no, he's
gonna die and you put him out of your mind.
Speaker 4: Perhaps we wanted to.
Speaker 2: Live so badly we good the fire would take time
out from us to attend a fact. Handsome was next.
Speaker 9: I'm finished.
Speaker 10: Oh you're not.
Speaker 6: We can don't get thrilled.
Speaker 9: No, no, you go ahead, save the girl.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, Hanson.
Speaker 4: We go on.
Speaker 9: Maybe I can catch up, but I gotta rest. Yo, Wally,
do me a favor. What I lost my gun somewhere?
You know what I mean? It'll be quicker that way.
You you got one?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Thanks one bullet fire. Eh, that's what I wanted to know. Okay, Pindell,
I've got enough. Rest I can keep up with you.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 9: I feel a little safer with this on me. All right,
go ahead, I'll walk behind you.
Speaker 2: He knew he knew what I'd done, but I didn't care.
Now it wasn't important anymore. Right now, all I wanted
to do was get the chain out of this. Was
that he was behind us.
Speaker 13: It sounded like handsome, come on, come on? But what
that m He mustn't have fallen. There's no time we
got to Oh he didn't help fat by him?
Speaker 12: I shall know. Please, all right, all right, stay here,
answer that, sir, but can't call me?
Speaker 14: Yeah, okay, my way?
Speaker 12: Can you get up?
Speaker 9: It's broken?
Speaker 4: I guess Handsome you know about me, don't you?
Speaker 9: Yeah? Yeah, I know I heard you killing the girl.
Speaker 4: She won't say anything.
Speaker 9: No, I guess not.
Speaker 4: The fellow had a common toy.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't know.
Speaker 4: I'm a cop.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's getting hot.
Speaker 12: Put your arm over my shoulder?
Speaker 15: Are you You can't get me up there?
Speaker 12: But I can try.
Speaker 15: Come on, m yeah, low good. We can't make it.
Speaker 4: I'll get wrong.
Speaker 12: I'll come back.
Speaker 9: There, no time. Go on, we'll get out of here. Well, like,
go on, I got your gun. Nobody you ever knows.
I'm sorry, Like, get out of here.
Speaker 2: Somehow I made it up the trail again. I thought
I heard a shot, or maybe it was a burning
tree going down. John was waiting for me. We caught
up with Row and went on until the trees began
to thin out, and we heard the shots of men.
But I don't remember anything else because I.
Speaker 4: Passed on for a long time.
Speaker 2: When I woke up, Jan was sitting by my bed
and it was cool again.
Speaker 6: Hi, Jana, Jane? Did they get handso? Now?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: No, listen Jana, about what I told you back there?
You know the man I killed, Well, I'm not sorry.
I mean it was all right about him, but not handsome,
crowbar and fat.
Speaker 3: That was my fault.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: Well, I want you to call the cops. Now, listen.
Speaker 2: I've I've been dreaming about it. It's no good. I'd
be a good kid and call the cops.
Speaker 7: You're outside in the cord.
Speaker 3: What do you mean for him?
Speaker 7: You told what you did while you unconscious?
Speaker 4: Hid?
Speaker 3: Oh that's good, that's good.
Speaker 6: I'm glad.
Speaker 7: You want me to hang around.
Speaker 3: Well, except to you, I guess I guess it is.
Speaker 7: I'll hang around.
Speaker 5: Escape has brought you The Red Forest, written and directed
by Anthony Ellis, starring William Conrad as Wally and Georgia
Ellis as Jan. Featured in the cast were Parley Bear,
John Dayner, Jay Novello and Tom Tully. The special music
for Escape was composed and conducted by Leith Stevens.
Speaker 2: Next week, you are in a lighthouse off the steaming
coast of French Guinea, while around you, frightful in its fury,
a nightmare of terror and violence is closing in on you,
a nightmare from which there is no.
Speaker 3: Escape.
Speaker 5: So listen next week when by popular request, Escape repeats
one of its most unusual stories. Three Skeleton Key by
George two doos. Those favorites of millions yours truly, Johnny
Dollar and Mister and Missus North make for highly exciting listening,
and as Johnny prowls the world for adventure and the
Norths meet murder merrily. Now most of these same stations
also bring you twenty first Precinct great stories based on
the world's largest police department. Consider this an invitation to
excitement and adventure. Tuesdays on CBS Radio. This is George
Walsh speaking, and remember Jean Herschel stars as kindly Doctor
Christian every Wednesday evening on the CBS Radio Network.
Speaker 4: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: As someone who has lived in the part of the
country where this episode is set for nearly all my life,
this was a fascinating story because I'm aware of the
country where this story occurs. We've also had a very
challenging wildfire season here as I'm recording this that's still ongoing.
In fact, today I'm staying indoors as the air quality
is really awful around here to fires that are some
distance away. Now, I will say, in terms of the
precise location, I've only taken the road between Idaho and
Missoula a few times, and it's been quite a few
years since I have. But when I was growing up,
we often saw arrows pointing to Missoula, but opted four
route that would take us further northwest to Libby or Kalispell.
So this type of country that this is set in
is definitely familiar for me. Wildfires are a regular part
of life out here. It's just one of those things
you deal with. If you live in the North East,
it's the winters. If you live in Florida, it's the hurricanes.
In my part of the country, the wild fires are
recurring event tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of
acres has far reaching effects, far beyond the actual zone
of the fire. I remember trying to visit Glacier one
last time before I left Montana, and even though the
park was still open and not in the path of
the fire, the smoke was so thick that breathing, let
alone driving, was a real challenge there. Even though my
current home in West Boise is far away from any
fire lines, fires from the edge of the city or
one hundreds of miles away affect our air quality. The
Air Quality Index measures this with numbers corresponding to condition
colors like green for good, yellow for moderate, orange for
unhealthy for sensitive groups, and red for unhealthy. The red
zone begins at one hundred and fifty, and we've had
days where the AQI has gone over two hundred. On
the day recording this, the AQI hit over one ninety.
The smell can be overpowering. I found myself with an
irritated throat after taking the trash bends to the curve.
The temporary place where're at in the foothills is much
closer to the fires, and so has even more quality issues.
Although we're nowhere close to the flames, and hopefully we're
getting towards the end of fire season so we'll get
past this. It's difficult, as experiencing wildfires can be from
a distance. This episode reminds us that's nothing compared to
the whore of being trapped within the fire lines. Now,
this is a very extreme fire. I've never heard of
a motorist being conscripted to fight a fire, and I've
lived in this part of the country merely my whole life,
including in some of the rural parts of Idaho and Montana,
and I've known several people who have regularly gone out
and fought wildfires. However, I think some of the inspiration
for this story for Anthony Ellis may have come from
the Great Fire of nineteen ten, which burned down three
million acres across three states and led to eighty seven deaths.
Firefighting in the West has moved forward, both in the
level of preparation and the equipment used to fight it. Nevertheless,
there's only so much that can be done, and being
caught in the midst of these massive fires is a
truly horrific experience, and in terms of the conscription the
forest fire is extreme, and Wally is in a situation
where the fire is closing in and he can't retreat
from it, so he might as well fight it.
Speaker 4: There's also a.
Speaker 1: Dramatic reason for this, and I don't think it's just
because the story couldn't happen if it didn't. Of course,
the story is a dramatic time tale of survival and
battling nature that's gone out of control, but it really
does offer some broader themes, and I think part of
it lies in the real life concern that's represented by
the mid episodes PSAs about the importance of fire safety.
So much harm is done by the sort of human
carelessness that those PSA's target that leads to fires, things
like illegal fireworks and properly extinguished campfires and ignoring rules
about when burns can occur, and it goes into one
of the great paradoxes of the part of the West
I live in. We have a very individualistic ethic. I
think that most of the people who live out here
want to live our own lives as we see fit,
and in general that's where I tend to land, and
it's very hard for me to imagine living anywhere else,
because that's the sort of ethic and approach that I
tend to feel most comfortable in. But there are also
things that we have to do, basic courtesies that we
have to follow in order for this place to be
worth living in. And certainly that applies to the rules
for preventing forest fires. And I think the vast majority
of people, you know, some might read some political statement.
I think though, the vast majority of people, regardless of party,
regardless of anything else, don't want to say this area
on fire, and so they do all of the things
that are common sense to make sure that it doesn't
get set on fire. But then you just have a
few folks who just don't care, and they do very
stupid things that lead to massive wildfires. And I think,
in terms of that basic approach, the idea of Wally
having to be involved in fighting the fire he started
it is kind of a twist because most of the
people who start these fires either don't know, you know,
we're just so careless and out of it they're not
realized what they did, or they just drive away and
nobody ever finds out who did it. But Wally actually
has to confront and deal with what he did and
to see its effects up close and viscerally and feel it,
which does make him face what he did to at
least an extent. But there's also a broader message, and
I think it ties into his very idea of taking
the law into his own hands and seeking vengeance. He
thought he could have his own private revenge, that it
would only affect him and his deserving target. Yet his
act of vengeance has a far wider consequence. The idea
of vengeance or anger as a fire is pretty well
established poetic and literary image that is well realized in
the audio drama, as Wallly's act of vengeance cuts a
swath of destruction and death through so many innocents, and
the story suggests that's always the case with vengeance, as
much as we might wish it were not just individuals
whose individual acts have no consequences beyond ourselves and our
immediate targets. Rather, we're social beings, and just like in fire,
our actions always have consequences that ripple out. Now, of course,
this is more than its message and theme. It's, as
you would expect, really well produced, showing the high standards
that Escape maintained throughout its run, and a great performance
is always from William Conrad, whose narration and acting really
capture all of the intensity and all of the emotions
that this story demands. Of course, Conrad really shows some
great range in this episode, and he was one of
those actors who the vast majority of his radio roles
were kind of unremarkable character roles, but he could, when
given a chance, just deliver an absolutely unforgettable performance, which
is what we get here in this episode. I want
to go ahead now and thank our Patreon supporter of
the day, and of course says this is his special.
I want to go ahead and ninth fats Patreon supporter
since May of twenty twenty four, currently supporting the podcast
at the Chief of Detective's level of thirty dollars or
more per month. Thank you so much for your support
and also for suggesting this episode of Escape. It was
really a great episode to listen to and I enjoyed it.
That will actually do it for today. If you're enjoying
the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
We will be back next Sunday with our four thousand,
five hundredth episode special, but join us back here tomorrow
for the adventures of the falcon where.
Speaker 3: You want to see me do con tricks?
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 3: Shall we switch here?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 4: You poured down you?
Speaker 9: I have them drink HoTT in.
Speaker 1: Maam, you're alive.
Speaker 9: I guess I heard you.
Speaker 10: An apology, no sooners have been done.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful friendship. June.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's pretty posy stuff.
Speaker 9: A bit of pack.
Speaker 11: Why might? What's the trouble? Suddenly your imagination? You little wedding.
Speaker 10: Ah, you poor darling, you poor poor that.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll be with us then in the meantime.
Send your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net,
follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us
out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com, slash Great Detectives from
boise Idahol. This is your host, Adam Graham, Sign and
AF