by A. J. Goode
He hesitated, struggling to get his bearings. The bell rope should be somewhere to his left, he remembered. Just inside the door, where the reverend or school teacher could ring the bell while standing in the doorway watching for stragglers. Adam took a hesitant step in that direction, and then another, and then he slammed his shin against something low and sharp that took his breath away and brought him too his knees.
As he fell, he felt the rope with one flailing hand. He clutched it and pulled once, twice, three times.
The sonorous clanging of the massive bell rang out in the dark night air. Adam waited a moment and then rang it three more times until his ears rang from the sound.
In his mind’s eye, he imagined his nieces running into the water of Saddle Lake. It was a shallow lake, he knew, and surrounded by trees that were as dry and withered as everything else around them. If those trees caught fire, the girls may not be safe there. They were in good hands under Caroline’s care, but her protection might not be enough.
Caroline.
He thought about her in his arms, remembered the way she felt against him. In that moment, he saw her face before him a thousand different ways. Smiling, laughing, studying him. He pictured her long, slim fingers working the needle and thread; he could almost hear her low voice as she spoke to him about her home back east.
I love her.
Realization hit him like a physical blow. He didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but somewhere along the line he had fallen in love with his wife.
It suddenly dawned on him that he was still on his knees inside the church. “I guess you know what you’re doing, Lord,” he prayed aloud. “You brought me to my knees in Your house, so here I am, asking you to keep them all safe. Please, God, Emily and Sophie. . . Caroline . . . they are . . . and Sam. Lord, I . . .” Words failed him, but in that moment he felt a sudden certainty that his jumbled prayer had been heard. He closed his eyes and felt a sense of peace slowly creep over his body.
“Please, Lord,” he murmured, finally finding words; “please let the fire turn.”
Chapter 17
The wind gusted against Caroline’s back as she stood at the water’s edge. Her hair whipped around her face and her skirt billowed around her. The smoky air blasted against her skin, peppering her with bits of sand and cinders.
Sophie and Emily stood close to her, their arms wrapped around each other. Despite the heat, Sophie was shivering.
“Do you suppose Uncle Adam is all right?” she asked.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Emily told her. She pulled her twin closer and looked up at Caroline for confirmation.
Caroline nodded. She couldn’t see any flames yet, but it seemed as though their entire world had turned orange. And the wind! It howled and clutched at her like a living thing, assaulting them with its hot breath in a never-ending show of force.
She was twisted around, hopelessly lost. The heated air was still coming from the south, she knew, but it somehow swirled and gusted from all directions at once. There should be others, she thought. Where is everyone else?
“Should we go into the lake, Aunt Caroline?” Emily asked.
“Not just yet.” Caroline looked around once more. The wind had stirred up choppy waves on the surface, and she worried that Emily wasn’t a strong swimmer. Besides, the animals were already tugging at their leads and shifting anxiously, their eyes white-rimmed with fear. She doubted whether she and the girls could hold them for long in the cold water.
Suddenly, a doe charged out of the woods and ran toward them. She veered at the last moment and plunged into the trees on their other side.
Mae jerked at her reins, wheeling in terror. Caroline dug her heels into the sandy ground and held on for all she was worth. “Easy, girl!” she called out. “It’s all right, Mae.”
“Dumplin! No!” Sophie shrieked.
Caroline turned and saw that the fat little pony had yanked free from Sophie’s grasp and was running after the deer as fast as his short legs would carry him.
“Come back!” the girl wailed. She stumbled after him, but her sister held her tightly. “Em, let me go! I have to go after him.”
“No, I won’t let you!” Emily was sobbing now. “He’ll be all right. He’s a smart boy. Please, please, Sophie, stop.”
More animals were running out of the woods, seemingly oblivious to the humans on the shore. It’s getting closer, Caroline realized. After a moment’s hesitation, she made up her mind.
“Come on, girls, into the lake. Hold onto each other.” She tugged on Mae’s reins, urging the frightened animal to follow her into the water.
The water was colder than she expected. Her feet sank into the soft sand at the bottom of the lake; her dress immediately wrapped around her ankles and she struggled to remain upright. By the time the water was up to her knees, she was shivering; when it reached her chest, she gasped in shock and then coughed as the smoke-filled air filled her lungs.
Sophie ducked under the water and came up with her hair streaming. She crouched in the water with only her head above the surface.
Caroline took a deep breath and plunged under the surface. She came up sputtering, rubbing water out of her eyes, and imitated Sophie’s crouching pose. “You too, Em,” she managed, still wheezing.
They stayed there, ducking under from time to time whenever the cinders and smoke in the air became too thick. Shadowy figures began to emerge from the woods to join them in the water, and Caroline thought she recognized a few voices as belonging to her neighbors. Nellie and Joseph Conway arrived just ahead of the Andersons. She heard Rich Anderson urge his sobbing wife to go into the water, while Grace fretted about ruining her shoes. In the orange glow of the night air, Caroline could just make out their silhouettes as Rich finally picked her up and carried her into the lake with him.
“I’ll buy you ten new pair of shoes if we both survive, woman!” he growled, dumping her unceremoniously into the cold water when it reached his waist.
She gasped and splashed, wailing that she couldn’t swim. Caroline made her way over to the distraught woman and put her arms around her.
“I hate this Godforsaken place!” Grace cried. “We’re all going to die!”
“Shhh,” was all Caroline could say. Rich stood helplessly watching the two women. “How close is it?” she asked him.
“Our home is gone,” he said shortly. “The barn, the house, everything. The road into Serenity was on fire when we passed it.”
Adam was on that road. Caroline shuddered.
Rich seemed to read her mind. “We owe our lives to your husband,” he told her. “Adam woke us up, pounding on the door and shouting at us that our home was on fire. We didn’t have time to save anything but ourselves.”
“You rode all this way?” Sophie asked. “Mrs. Anderson, I didn’t know you could ride like that.”
“Anyone can run when the devil’s on their heels,” Rich said. He stroked his wife’s wet hair and cleared his throat.
“Did you see which way Adam went?” Caroline asked.
“East. He said he was still going to try to get to town to ring the bell, even though the road was on fire.”
They fell silent then, listening to the crackling of the flames that were coming closer. Bit by bit, Grace Anderson’s sobs quieted to hiccups. Caroline handed her off to her husband and made her way back to the twins.
Presently, Emily spoke up in her quiet voice. “D’you think it’s going to turn, Aunt Caroline?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” It should have reached us by now, she thought. It was hard to tell which way the wind was blowing and whether or not it had shifted direction. Please, Lord, let it turn. Keep Adam safe. Keep us all safe. Please, Lord, let it turn. Her silent prayer became a dull refrain, repeated over and over in her mind until the words lost their meaning.
She lost all track of time as they huddled in the cold water. Her legs and back began to cramp from crouching there, and her teeth chattered from the cold desp
ite the hot air that tortured her skin and scorched her lungs. Please, Lord, let it turn. Keep Adam safe. Keep us all safe. Please, Lord, let it turn.
Emily and Sophie were murmuring softly to each other. She wondered what they were saying, but was just too tired to try to make out words. At some point, she realized that she had let go of Mae’s reins somewhere along the line, and she had no idea whether the mare had run away on dry land or if she was still milling about somewhere in the water with the other animals and people that crowded around them.
Please, Lord, let it turn. Keep Adam safe. Keep us all safe. Please, Lord, let it turn.
It may have been minutes or hours later when she suddenly became aware of Rich’s hushed voice.
“By God, I think it’s turning.”
Caroline blinked, coming out of her stupor. “. . .turning?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Look! The fire is moving to the north,” he said.
It was true. The orange glow was now brightest to the north, although they could still see flames licking at the trees near the shore of the little lake.
“Does that mean we can get out of the water?” Grace whimpered.
“Not just yet, love.” Rich kissed the top of her head.
“Our baby--”
“Shhh.” Caroline thought she heard his voice crack as he tried to soothe his wife.
Please, Lord, let it turn. Keep Adam safe. Keep us all safe. Please, Lord, let it turn.
Chapter 18
When Adam emerged from the church, the street was filled with panicked townspeople. “How close is it?’ one man demanded, seizing the front of Adam’s shirt.
“About a mile out, and moving fast.” Adam raised his hands to draw attention to himself. “Everyone! Get your wives and children to Saddle Lake. There’s no time to save your belongings. Stay off the road; it’s on fire.”
Pieter VanDam took charge of leading the women and children into the woods toward Saddle Lake. Adam and the others hurried along the plank road toward the fire. With axes and shovels and anything else they could use as tools, the men began tearing up pieces of the road that hadn’t begun to smolder yet. Adam doubted that their efforts would help slow the flames when the dry branches above their heads were catching fire from the airborne cinders and sparks.
Suddenly, Will Baxter grabbed his shoulder. “Have you seen David?” he demanded. “He was camping in the woods with the VanDam boys.”
Adam’s stomach twisted. “Where were they camping?” But he already knew the answer.
“By Rich Anderson’s place.”
“Will . . .”
Will closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. “Maybe--maybe the boys took shelter somewhere. I’ve got to go find them.”
“I’ll go with you.” Adam handed his shovel off without even glancing up to see who he gave it to.
They went on foot, moving through the woods on the north side of the plank road. Smoke and cinders swirled around them in the night air, but they pressed on, shouting out for the missing boys as they went.
After a while, Will stopped and held up one hand. “Listen!” he hissed.
Adam paused. He heard his own ragged breathing and a crackle of distant flames over the howling gusts of wind, but there was something more. A tiny, faint voice reached them. “Over there!” he told Will, pointing.
“David!” the other man shouted, bolting in that direction. “Where are you, son?”
“Careful, Will.” Adam followed closely, squinting into the darkness.
There was a rustling sound in the undergrowth ahead of them, and then two dark figures burst out of the woods. One was tall and lanky; the other shorter and more sturdily built. The taller one clutched at Will and nearly collapsed.
“Thank God!” the boy wheezed. “We got lost; couldn’t find our way out.”
“Joris, where’s my son?”
Joris Van Dam shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. We were all together but he ran off after Sophie’s pony.”
Adam’s blood ran cold at the boy’s words. “Are you sure it was Dumplin?” he demanded.
Joris nodded.
“He ran past us,” Gerrit spoke up. “David said Sophie would never forgive him if he didn’t save the pony, and he ran off after it. Without him, me an’ Joris couldn’t figure out which way to go.”
The men exchanged looks over the boys’ heads. Even in the near-total darkness, Adam knew Will was feeling just as torn as he was; they needed to get the Van Dam boys to safety, but God alone knew where David and Dumplin had disappeared to. He thought back to the last time he had seen the little pony, riding toward Saddle Lake with Sophie clinging to his back.
Where are you, Sophie? he thought desperately.
A crash sounded nearby as a burning tree crashed to the ground. There was a whoosh of heated air as the dried brush near them ignited.
“Run!” he bellowed, pushing Joris and Gerrit in the right direction. “Don’t look back! Go!”
Beside him, Will Baxter cast one last despairing look over his shoulder and made a sound that was more animal than human. Adam clenched his teeth and tugged at the other man’s arm. “Come on, Will,” he urged. “Don’t give up. He may have made it to town already.”
Will nodded and stumbled forward.
Branches slapped at their faces as they pelted through the woods. Roots and debris seemed to grab at their ankles like living things. To Adam, it felt as though the forest around them had come to life and was reaching for them as they passed, desperate to trip them up and keep them here forever in its fiery bosom. He imagined that the flames were licking at his heels as he ran behind the others, urging them to hurry, hurry, go faster, don’t stop, don’t look back --
“Aaagh!” Gerrit stumbled and went down, hard. “My leg!” he howled.
Adam slowed just long enough to yank the boy to his feet. “Lean on me,” he coughed. They stumbled on, soon losing sight of the others. Gerrit hobbled along beside him, nearly sobbing as they moved slower and slower.
“Don’t leave me, Mr. Phillips,” he wailed.
“Never,” Adam promised. But they were moving too slowly. The world around them had turned orange as the flames caught up to them, and he knew it would soon be too late. Without another word, he bent and lifted the child over his shoulders and ran on as fast as he could move with the added burden. His lungs burned as he gulped in the overheated air and smoke.
At last, the trees seemed to thin as he got closer to the town. He prayed that the fire had turned, that there was still something left of Serenity.
Somewhere safe.
He almost fell when he reached the little creek that ran along the edge of town. He was slowing down, struggling to move forward with his burden. With every step, it seemed as though Gerrit grew heavier and heavier; after a while, he became so still that Adam wondered if the child was still breathing.
His crossed the creek and heaved his way up the hill. Halfway up, his knees buckled. He winced as he landed on the hard surface and tried to stay upright. He became vaguely aware of voices shouting at him, and then Gerrit’s weight was lifted from his shoulders. “I’ve got him, Adam,” someone shouted. “Come on!”
Adam nodded, unable to speak.
He clambered wearily to his feet and staggered only a few steps before falling again. Pain exploded inside his head, and spears of brightly colored lights blurred his vision. With his last ounce of strength, he raised his head and saw dark shapes moving away from him, disappearing over the top of the hill.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a ghostly white shape moving toward him through the smoke. What’s Dumplin doing here? he wondered. And why is David riding him? Are we all dead?
And then the darkness claimed him.
Chapter 19
He was warm, but the breeze that tickled his face felt delightfully cool and moist. He heard a rhythmic tap-tap-tapping sound that he gradually recognized as rain. Adam breathed in deeply, savoring the sensation of crisp
autumn air, and then coughed as the air brushed against his dry and tortured throat.
“Here, drink this.” Gentle hands helped him lift his head to gulp water from the glass that was placed against his lips.
Feeling better, he opened his eyes and looked up into Caroline’s soft brown ones. Her face was weary and drawn, with dark smudges of soot marring her pale skin. Her dry lips were cracked, and loose tendrils of hair hung limply around her face.
He thought she’d never been more beautiful.
“You’re all right,” he whispered. “The girls . . . ?”
“They are fine,” she told him. “Emily has been helping take care of some of the injured, and Sophie is outside helping with the clean-up.” A small smile tugged at her lips. “Sophie is wearing a pair of David’s pants and working twice as hard as he is. There’s no stopping her, Adam.”
“David. He’s safe?” At her nod, he closed his eyes for a moment and sank back against the pillows as relief washed over him. His eyes popped open as memories of the fire came flooding back to him. “And Gerrit? Is he --”
“Shh, Gerrit is fine. He broke his ankle and his lungs are full of smoke, just like yours, but he’ll recover. Dumplin was smart enough to bring David to safety, and some of the men threw you on Dumplin’s back to carry you to town. That silly little pony is the town hero, and so full of himself he’s almost unbearable.” Caroline brushed her fingers softly against his cheek. He thought a shadow of sadness crossed her face, but it was gone so quickly that he decided he was mistaken. “Right now, you are the one we’ve all worried about. You struck your head on a rock when you fell, and I--we’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
“How --”
“Shh,” she said again. “You need to rest.”
He wanted to argue with her, but it was useless. His eyes closed and as he drifted back to sleep, he thought he heard her voice once more. “Sleep well, my love,” she whispered.