Luke’s voice rang clear on the still and ominous air. “That’s from Jeremiah, Abner. Know what else it says? ‘In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.’” Gardell was using the lull to better his own position beyond the water tank. So, Burriwi noted, was Sloan.
Luke turned his back on Sloan. “I spent a little time making certain of the text, Abner. Deuteronomy clinches it. ‘The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.’ That’s God’s will, Abner, and you’re not in it.”
Burriwi could feel the tension from away up here. Sloan was bent over attending his pistol—reloading, no doubt.
Sloan exploded up and out of his hiding place. He fired at the pandanus and leaped the manger. He hunched down behind his big burly wagon horse now. The animal rolled its eyes and shifted back and forth nervously in its stall.
Luke wheeled to face him. “You, Sloan! I opposed you bef—”
Three steel chains stretched across the front of each stall to keep its horse inside. Burriwi himself had hooked and unhooked those chains many times when he helped Fat Dog with the horses. Sloan didn’t bother with them. He came diving forward; he sprawled on his belly under the chains and fired at Luke!
Burriwi could hear the slug hit. The preacher staggered backward—done in, or just ducking? Burriwi couldn’t tell from here. Almost instantly Luke’s friend Martin roared something and opened fire. Gardell screamed “No!” and blasted away. The clearing filled with drifting gunsmoke. That and the near darkness obscured Burriwi’s view. Curious how driving rain fails to wash away smoke.
Sloan was on his knees now. His gun clicked; it clicked again. The gunsmoke began leisurely to lift away and dissipate. Burriwi could smell it up here now.
Gardell, with a wicked grin, stepped boldly out and stood before the water tank, his gun on Sloan. “I still have a few shells left. One from my father, one from McGonigan, one from Butts.”
Burriwi expected fear on Sloan’s face; darkness and some smoke still obscured his vision, but all he could see was defiance. Defiance and hatred.
Movement in the haze—Luke regained his feet and planted himself squarely in front of Sloan, facing Gardell. “Here’s where you choose, Abner. Your own revenge, or God’s way. But they’re not the same thing. Tell me to move aside and I will. I won’t try to take your choice away from you. But you have to tell me to.”
For once, Sloan and Gardell agreed on something. As one they shouted at Luke, “This is none of your business, Vinson!”
Luke wheeled on Sloan and pointed his Bible at him. “You stay out of this, Sloan!”
The planter knelt there in the stall door, the chains pressing his back, and gaped. The hatred faded to utter surprise.
Luke turned his back on the man who had just tried to kill him and faced Gardell. “It is my business, Abner.” He wagged his Bible in Gardell’s face. “You’re doing what my Lord forbids and then trying to get Him to take the blame for it. It’s your vendetta, not God’s, and you’ll pay bitterly for the lie, I promise you. I’m trying to save you from that.”
“I waited for this too long, Luke. Set him up—sent him warnings so he could worry and fret, like my mum fretted all those years. His father destroyed both my fathers. Both.”
“And you think God’s going to let that sort of thing slip by Him? Crikey, Abner! You can trust Him better than that!”
“Don’t ask me not to. You got no right to ask me not.”
Luke’s voice rolled on. “God said in Ezekiel that the soul of the father and the soul of the son are His, and the soul that sins will die. Don’t you see? It’s not you against Sloan, two boys scrapping in a back alley, or I’d stand back and let you both have at. It’s God against Satan for control of you!”
Sloan broke his pistol open to reload. He glanced beyond the clearing to the pastoralist and at Martin’s large gun. He laid his empty pistol in the mud.
“Let God take care of Conal Sloan’s sin, Abner. Don’t bring sin upon yourself by killing a man for someone else’s crime.”
What was wrong with Luke’s book? Burriwi wagged his head. Bullet damage. It worked better than a hard kangaroo hide shield, for sure. Kangaroo hide doesn’t stop bullets at close range.
The haze of gunsmoke nearly cleared before anyone moved.
Gardell stared at Sloan as if Luke were not there. His arm relaxed until his gun pointed at the rain-beaten mud by his side. “If you’re destined to burn in hell, I leave it to God to strike the match.” Wearily he walked past Luke and Sloan, across the open stable yard, and disappeared into the darkness and tangle of the forest. The voices accepted him instantly and said nothing to betray his route or passing.
Luke’s book had won out over guns and hatred! Burriwi grinned. He’d chosen the right course, all right! An amazing and powerful thing, Luke’s book about his God. And an amazing and powerful God, to give such strength to the preacher man whom the forest spirits ridiculed.
Martin moved out into the open, his pistol in his hand. “Now what?”
Burriwi sniffed and sniffed again. It wasn’t the unique tang of gunsmoke. “Luke!” he called from his high roost. “Fire! Fire from the house!”
A splintering crack and the kitchen lit up orange. Samantha threw the tea billy, the last of her water, at the nearest flames. They sputtered and flared anew. She whipped the cloth off the table and beat at them wildly. That was an error; the cloth was soaked with coal oil no less than was the floor and wall. The glass from the kerosene jug Gardell had thrown crunched under her shoes.
The fire loved its tasty tidbit and ate instantly into the cloth. She threw it aside as flame rushed at her face. The kitchen was lost. She must retrench and fight it from the hall. If she could somehow cut it off at this end of the ell, the rest of the house would be safe. Even if it dropped brands on the roof, it could not spread—not with rain wetting down the tin.
Cole Sloan! Oh, God, please don’t let Abner kill him!
Sloan, Gardell, Luke—the distant gunfire had ceased. What had happened? Were any left to return to help her? She mustn’t cower now. She backed into the black, smoke-filled hall and slammed the kitchen door, cutting off the horror in there. The wall beside her, the wall of Linnet’s room, radiated heat. She laid a hand on it; it was too hot to touch. She heard crackling overhead; the fire was moving through the rafters above the ceiling!
The eggshell of wall exploded in orange fury. The fire in Linnet’s room had broken out into the hallway. With a shriek Samantha turned and ran through the darkness. She must do something to save the house, but she was helpless now. The only available water, the slashing, stinging rain, was not enough to stem the blaze. She heard a tin sheet pop and clang on the roof.
The hallway was so filled with smoke now, even were it noon instead of dusk, Samantha could not see. The smoke burned her eyes; they closed and filled with tears. The smoke set fire to her lungs and choked her; she couldn’t breathe.
If the fire destroyed her now as it was destroying the house, no one would know until tomorrow, after the ashes cooled. Her mind was warning her “Don’t panic!” even as her feet raced wildly down the hall toward the front door. Any moment her groping hands would fi—
She lay on the floor and the world churned, full of black smoke. The side of her head throbbed. What was … ? The stone face! She had run squarely into that stone pillar. All was not lost. It looked out the front window. She would find the face on it by touch and escape by following its nose. Where was … ?
Here. Kicking and groping, she found the cold stone, but it lay on its side. It had toppled and rolled. It offered her no clue, no hint in which direction safety lay.
The fire in the ceiling was igniting fresh tinder now in a room to Samantha’s left. N
o doubt it found more kerosene to feed upon. Gardell had doused the rooms liberally with his jugs thrown through windows. She heard the wild flames crackling close by and overhead.
God, help me, please! Send someone … do something!
Her own prayer startled her. She was no good—at least, not good enough to warrant divine help. She was no good at all. Her heart was as black as Mr. Sloan’s, in its own way. She knew it and God knew it. Honor merely for its own sake was not enough, not if God wasn’t included in it. Hours ago she had doubted His very existence. That surely must be some sort of flagrant sin. She knew now. Yes, He was up there, and probably snickering at her ineptitude.
God, please help me anyway … please!
“Sam? Sam! Where are you?” The baritone boomed from … from somewhere in the thick and horrifying darkness.
“Here, Mr. Sloan! I’m here. Ye’re alive! Thank God ye’re alive!”
Oh, yes, God, I mean that; thank you!
She tried to untangle her legs and stand erect. No! The smoke and heat were much denser up there; she must stay down close to the floor.
“Can you move? Can you come to my voice?” That way! He was over that way!
She crawled clumsily, trying to keep her skirts from dragging her down, but her knees kept pinning them to the floor. “Keep talking! Where are ye?”
“Sam! Here.” He was closer…. He started coughing.
A window shattered and a rush of hot air swooped past her. She heard tin popping on the roof, buckled by the heat. Her lungs were properly full now; she couldn’t stop coughing; she inhaled deeply without really meaning to and coughed all the worse.
A hand slapped the top of her head. It grabbed her hair and hauled her to her feet. Strong arms locked around her and pulled her in powerful strides through the darkness. They were in the other ell now; through the murky haze she saw a line of orange light under the office door.
He slammed his shoulder against his bedroom door and they lurched into the room almost without a pause. With a muffled fwump! the office door ignited behind them. The yellow light flared bright; the whole room in there was afire. She could smell the black and oily kerosene smoke.
One arm let go of her long enough to fling a chair through the window. Howling fire and smoke gushed in the door at their back. He snatched her up in brawny arms and threw her feet first out the window. She hit the bottle-brush bushes, fell forward into the cold, rain-soaked grass, and rolled aside to her feet.
She heard him hit the grass near her. He was at her side again in the darkness, dragging her into the cool black air away from the horror.
They stopped. She turned to see. Tin roofing peeled back and lifted up into the air, illuminated from below. Metal sheets near the open holes in the roof glowed pink. Flames leaped treetop high back by the kitchen. Red light danced in the windows. The big front window with all its tiny panes shattered and spewed flame out across the wreckage of that wagon, across the poor dead horse. A minute ago she had been in that room, right there.
With a mighty roar the roof collapsed into the parlor and dining room. A brilliant spray of sparks and firebrands danced skyward on the billowing smoke.
His arm remained wrapped around her. She could feel him breathe and sigh. “There go my dreams.”
She clung to him and sobbed, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s all gone.”
“No,” he murmured, “it’s not all gone. You’re safe.”
Chapter Twenty-five
In Ashes
The sky was murky, overcast, obscuring the morning sun, but Samantha didn’t care. At least it wasn’t raining. She walked stiffly, every bone and muscle in her body aching. How fortunate she was that she could feel all those parts! Her hair was a little frizzled, one eyebrow scorched off, but she had escaped unscathed.
She paused near the south side of what had been one of Mossman’s better homes. The black heap smoldered and stank. The ruins would probably harbor hotspots for days yet. Here were the bottle-brush bushes, shriveled black stumps in the loose dirt.
The west office wall had collapsed outward and reduced itself to fine gray ash. Mr. Sloan picked mechanically through the pile, poking here and there with a stick. He stood erect as she approached and cautiously worked his way, one step at a time, to her side.
She sighed. “Yesterday, after they left, I couldnae just sit while yerself and the others were … ye know. I was going to start cleaning up all that spilled kerosene, starting with the kitchen and just working back, room by room. He threw kerosene jugs through half the windows at least. It was something for me to do. I went out to the dunny first; wasn’t gone but a couple minutes. When I came back in the house, the kitchen was …” She shrugged.
“That’s when you should have run outside.”
“I thought I could put it out before it spread. Sure’n I could stop it, aye? For the fire was aught but a few minutes old. And then some of the kerosene caught, and whoosh. I threw the dishwater on it, dishes and all, and the kettle … But it burnt so hot with the coal oil; it went up so fast and furious.”
“Which is to say, if Gardell hadn’t—” He chuckled bitterly. “You told me I couldn’t get away from history, and I said I wasn’t worried about it. Remember? You were wiser than I gave you credit for. My short little history got me after all, just as surely as your long history took your brother.” He waved a hand across the ruins. “Hit me where it hurts most.”
“We’ll never know whether Mr. Gardell was at all justified in hating ye; whether yer father really did those things.”
“We know.” His voice rumbled, sad and quiet. “He told me, not long before he—what’s the fancy word you used? Defenst—that.”
“Defenestration.”
“Yeah. Winston Gardell’s death was accidental. McGonigan’s was not. And my father was certain to the very end that he had buried Abner alive. That he’d left the boy to die a slow, agonizing death. I think that was what put him over the edge—what drove him to suicide. I’m sure he could have coped with the financial reverses if it hadn’t been for the guilt.”
“Mr. Vinson lectured Meg extensively on the subject of guilt and how to rid oneself of it. He discussed a commitment to God by accepting Jesus as … I be nae sure of the words, but the end of it is that Jesus alone can erase guilt. I dinnae understand it except to know that apparently there be a way out of guilt.”
He frowned at her. “Thought you said you’re not sure God exists.”
“I wasn’t, then, but I am now.” She turned to look at him more squarely. Ashes smudged his cheek, and probably her face was just as dirty. “The storm, those months ago; ’twas God I called out to, even though I didn’t directly think of doing so. And when ’twas yerself and Abner Gardell out in the forest somewhere, and each intent on killing the other, me heart was begging God to take a hand and preserve ye; keep ye safe. I pleaded with Him to save me from the fire, and moments later I hear yer voice. Aye, He exists. Me head may doubt, but me heart knows, and I’ve learned to listen to me heart.”
“Good. Then you—” He turned, scowling, to look.
A freight dray behind two heavy horses came rattling up the lane toward them. On its bright red slab sides was lettered J. Wiggins, Shipping in vivid yellow. Luke Vinson drove and Meg, in the clothes she was wearing yesterday, pressed close beside him in the box. Martin Frobel was still around. He hopped out of the back to hold the uneasy horses as Luke climbed down. The pastoralist wore his pistol at his belt; perhaps he was not so sure the war was over.
Luke extended a hand. “Cole. Meg and I’ve set the date—this Saturday—and you’re invited to the wedding.”
Sloan declined the handshake. “Sam thinks you weren’t the one who sent the notes or set the courts on me, so I suppose I should offer congratulations.”
Samantha stepped into the silence. “Ye have me warmest blessing and congratulations, Luke. Meself will be by later this morning—aye, Meg?” She looked past the pastor.
Meg was beaming, a
ray of sunshine on a dreary day. “I’ll be at Luke’s. I hope ye’ll come along shopping with me. Trousseau.”
“For a trousseau? In Mossman? Heh! But aye, I’ll be along.”
Luke’s gray eyes met Sloan’s fairly. “I was mad at God, the state, the federation and everyone else, because I couldn’t act legally on behalf of John Butts or Byron Vickers. Now I’m coming to understand it’s for the best if a third party can’t intervene. My motives were misguided; I would have acted wrongly.”
Mr. Sloan sniffed. “You apologizing for something?”
“No. Yes. For my attitude. It’s a long business, and I won’t bore you with details. I’ve examined my reasons for coming here, and I’ve decided they weren’t very pure.” The boyish smile looked pure enough.
“Just why did you come here, anyway?” Was Mr. Sloan’s voice softening a little? It almost seemed so.
“To Australia? To serve Jesus. Found myself in a little ministry out by Torrens Creek, near Martin here. But there were problems and I got restless. I wanted to conquer injustice in big gulps, not little bits.”
“So you came to pester me. Whacko.” Mr. Sloan snorted.
The boy-face grinned sheepishly. “Aborigines, Kanakas, Orientals—Queensland has high numbers of such. And I was out to put the world to rights, so I decided to rip myself up from where I was planted, so to speak, and come here, to the sugar fields. You’re about the biggest sugar grower around. I thought that if I could bring you into compliance …” His lips formed a thin flat line for a moment. “What I failed to see until just recently was my true motives. Christ acted from compassion. I acted because this sort of thing is fashionable at the moment. So I’m backing away—retrenching—as I realign myself. I want to be more like Christ himself, however that takes me.”
Samantha smiled. “A sweet taste.”
“A sweet taste. Sweet savor. Acerbic hatred is hardly sweet. I’m sorry, Cole.”
Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) Page 24