Katy Vine: Although the city of West sits just off Interstate 35, on a stretch twenty miles north of Waco that is saturated with harried drivers, the town itself is tranquil. A couple of blocks from the highway, past the public elementary school and the 1912 yellow-brick city hall, a set of raised railroad tracks offers a view of West’s small, historic downtown, where on late afternoons the city’s relaxed rhythm is apparent. At Sam’s Barber Shop, Sam Pinter is usually sweeping the hair off the floor and tidying the combs and clippers. Around the corner, the night-shift bakers at the Village Bakery are starting to make kolaches in the cavernous back room, while locals begin to trickle in at the Czech-American Restaurant (“Home of the original Czech fries”) and Nors Sausage and Burger House, where they know to order the spicy link with a side of sauerkraut.
At the Old Corner Drug Store, where residents of West have had their prescriptions filled since the late 1800’s, closing time means finishing up a few last orders. This is what pharmacist Kirk Wines was doing on Wednesday, April 17, before heading out into the balmy spring evening. A robust 59-year-old with short white hair, he had served the town’s 2,800 people as a pharmacist for thirty years, and now, at 5:30, just like every other evening, he set the alarm, locked the doors, and walked out to the back alley, where he’d parked his silver Ford truck. Turning on a sports radio station, he pulled onto a wide road and headed east to a well site where the local water co-op board, of which he was a member, had scheduled a brief meeting. As he drove, Wines passed homes with tidy lawns and porches, which eventually dropped away to reveal lush farmland.
After the meeting, Wines returned home to the one-story brick house he shared with his wife, just north of downtown. A little before 7:30, their son, Brad, stopped by to help his father fiddle with an old lawn tractor. The two were in Wines’s workshop when Wines heard his fire department pager go off. As a member of West’s all-volunteer force, he carried the battery-operated device at all times, and he was used to hearing the telltale beeps at inopportune moments. In the years since he’d joined, around 2000, he’d had to respond to emergency calls more than once a week, sometimes leaving the pharmacy in the middle of the day to put out a brush fire or spray down a car that had burst into flames.
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