“Yes. Good thing I filled up the SUVs’ gas tanks yesterday. We are good to go,” Beatrice replied as they went to the first girls’ cabin.
Jessica and Susan Kettering were two sisters from Chicago whose parents were in Europe for work. The girls were living at the camp for a month, and Beatrice had gotten to know them well.
The girls, ages six and eight, both had amblyopia, or lazy eye. They refused to wear their eye patches on corresponding eyes at the same time. Thus, Jessica’s patch was on her right eye for six months, and Susan’s patch was on her left eye. In addition, they both had myopia and couldn’t read or see objects up close. Their glasses were thick and cumbersome for many of the sports, but their lighthearted attitudes overcame their personal struggles. Beatrice admired their closeness; they were always holding hands and helping each other.
Jessica awoke first. “What is it, Miss Beatrice?” She rubbed her eyes.
Jessica was thin and short, and had cropped auburn hair. She looked like a little ladybug to Beatrice, because she had a smattering of freckles across her nose. “Bruce and Cindy are going to drive you kids into town.”
“But why?” Susan asked, putting her glasses on before she sat up in bed. She lifted her little arms to Maisie.
Maisie leaned down to the girl. Beatrice didn’t know what it was about Susan, but she had a way of melting Maisie’s analytical heart.
As Maisie whisked the child out of bed and to the floor, Beatrice pulled a long-sleeved T-shirt over Jessica’s head. She held out a pair of pull-on pants.
“Once these two are dressed, Maisie, take them to the SUVs. I’m going to the next cabin. Belinda and Sherry are older. They can meet you at the SUVs. Then I’ll get Aubrey and Anna.”
“Got it,” Maisie said, tying Susan’s shoes. “In fact, you should go now. I’ll help Jessica with her shoes.”
“I can tie my own,” Jessica said proudly. “It’s okay, Miss Beatrice. I can help Maisie with Susan,” Jessica insisted. “She’s my sister.”
Beatrice felt her eyes sting with tears and a lump invade her throat. Jessica was so precious to her—if those flames came anywhere near...
“You’re such a help, Jessica.” Beatrice leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
Maisie stood upright, her eyes darting to Beatrice. “You did call Father Michael, right?”
Sucking in a deep breath, Beatrice halted. She’d been so concerned about getting the kids out of danger, that she’d skipped a step. “I—I...”
“It’s understandable,” Maisie said, her eyes going to Beatrice’s back pocket, where she kept her phone.
Beatrice yanked the cell out of her pocket and found Father Michael’s number.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Bless you for answering so quickly, Father Michael. It’s Beatrice Wilcox at the youth camp. I need your help.”
“Name it,” he replied.
Beatrice had only just started her explanation when Father Michael stopped her. He was already on his way to the church’s activity hall to turn on the lights and fans. “I’ll have everything ready.”
He hung up.
“Maisie, are you sure you’re all right here?” Beatrice asked, knowing that the girls’ eye conditions caused them to stumble and trip a great deal in addition to their having trouble dressing.
“I’m fine. We’re fine,” Maisie assured her.
Beatrice shot out the cabin door and paused for a moment to see Bruce taking two of the younger boys to the large black SUV. “Bruce!” she shouted.
“It’s A-OK! Cindy is checking the last cabin.”
“Good...” Beatrice’s voice trailed off as she glanced across the road. Flames snaked along the ground. The mounds of dry pine nettles around the trees sparked like tiny fireworks as they ignited. Then the tongues of fire wove up and around the tree trunks, following the growth of poison ivy and clinging vines.
In the distance she heard sirens pierce the summer night. At the sound, she felt the first burst of hope since she’d breathed in the smell of smoke. “Hurry,” she breathed.
Racing to the SUV, she found Bruce belting in nine-year-old Joshua Langsford. Joshua had tears in his eyes.
“Are we going to be all right, Miss Beatrice?” the dark-haired boy with the leg brace asked.
She ruffled his hair and wiped his tears away with her fingertip. “Yes, sweetie. Bruce is taking you all to Father Michael’s church hall. You’ll stay there until the firemen put the fire out. He and Cindy will stay with you all night. Maisie will drive in later and help bring you back when it’s safe. Don’t you be afraid. You’re a brave boy, Joshua. If you can survive all the pain from your leg surgeries, you can do this. You help Bruce with the younger boys, okay?”
“Okay,” Joshua replied, pursing his lips and slamming his back against the seat.
Cindy came rushing up with five-year-old Ricky Sanders, the youngest child at the camp that week. He was a foster child, hoping to be legally adopted by his new foster parents, and was Cindy’s personal favorite. “Did one of you get the Dunning boys?”
“Eli and Chris are in the last cabin,” Beatrice replied. “I thought you were getting them.”
“I was...” Cindy hesitated, looking at Ricky. She put Ricky in his child’s seat and belted him in. She turned away from the boy so that only Beatrice could hear her. Nearly in a whisper Cindy said, “They weren’t there. That’s why I thought one of you might have gotten to them already.”
“What?” Chills spread over Beatrice’s body faster than any fire could eat a dried leaf.
“Tell Maisie to check the common areas. I’ll do a sweep of their cabin.”
Beatrice had been a runner all her life. Track. Five-k races. She’d won them all, but never in her life had she run as fast as she did now toward the last boys’ cabin. She flung open the door.
“Eli? Chris?” she shouted. Their bedcovers were pulled back, but the boys clearly hadn’t been in bed for a while. She ran to the small bathroom, which had been the most recent one to be modernized. Right now, though, the last things on her mind were tile, plumbing or the new toilet she’d found on sale. The bathroom was empty.
“Eli! Chris!” she shouted, going around to the back of the cabin. Thinking the boys might have gone down to the lake past their curfew, she ran down the grassy slope. The cabins were outfitted with motion lights that illuminated the area like daylight for her.
The little lake was placid with a ribbon of silver moonlight gleaming across the surface. No one was on the diving raft. No one on the short pier. No one hid near the kayak rack or the beached canoes.
She ran back to the driveway.
She whispered to Bruce, “They weren’t there. Take these kids to Father Michael’s. Cindy will drive the other SUV. I’ll keep Maisie here with me while we keep looking for Eli and Chris.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Call me when you get there. I have to know the kids are safe.”
The screams of the sirens grew louder.
Bruce climbed in the SUV and started the engine. Beatrice walked back to the second one and gave Cindy a thumbs-up.
As they drove away, Maisie jogged up to Beatrice. “I’ve just checked the kitchen and the activity room. I can’t find Eli or Chris anywhere. Where on earth could they be?” she asked.
Beatrice heard fear trembling in the raven-haired girl’s voice.
“I don’t know.”
The sirens wailed to an earsplitting level as they barreled down the country road.
Beatrice looked at the fire. It was clearly raging now. She was glad the gravel road put distance and a natural fire barrier between her camp and the fire.
Then her mind recognized a figure standing behind a wall of flame on the other side of the road.
“Eli! Eli!”
Beatrice ra
n into the fire.
Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Lanigan
ISBN-13: 9781488085406
A Cowboy’s Christmas Proposal
Copyright © 2018 by Cathy McDavid
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