The sight was absolutely horrifying—worse than any of the graphic illustrations in my horse care manual. A dozen or so firemen, outfitted in their blood-red shirts, ringed a wretched gray horse. At least the horse used to be gray. A patchwork of sausage-colored blisters blanketed the animal’s back now, the sores swarming right up the neck and exposing its naked ridge. Only tufts of singed hair spiked where a mane had once fallen. The poor horse’s head was mostly hairless, too, and such a swollen, misshapen mess I wasn’t sure if any eyes could see through those slits. If ever a creature had been burned alive and still breathed, this was the one.
A sourness stung my throat. The morning’s porridge burbled threateningly. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I spun away from the entry and pressed myself against the brick for cool relief.
I’d always thought I had a strong stomach. I could pore over the drawings in my horse care manual for hours, and they showed grinning skeletons and flattened nervous systems and dissected hearts. But now I understood that they were only ink on paper. This horse, this bleeding, blistered, skinned horse, was all too real. Even outside the station, the sharp stench of burnt hair mixed with the dank odor of weeping flesh clung to my nostrils. I closed my eyes as my head swam.
A strangled cry, like that of an infant, broke through my fog. It was the horse. I waited, my heart kicking. The cry came again, a lonesome, desperate call that I knew was meant solely for me. I couldn’t have defended that belief, but I knew with complete certainty that it was so, and even before my eyes opened, I was pushing away from the wall. Hand to my stomach, quivering like a jelly, I inched back toward the entry. Helplessly mesmerized, I slipped inside and joined the ring of men, unnoticed.
I saw now that the injured horse had a cotton rope looped over a lone patch of mane behind the ears. It was the only sort of harness to be suffered. The man holding the rope was fidgeting from foot to foot, as if the soles of his feet were burning at that very moment.
Betwixt and between elbows, I saw that there was another man standing beside the disfigured animal. He was tall and clean shaven, with chunks of wavy brown hair sweeping back from features that could only be described as hawklike. The assured air of a judge cloaked his square shoulders. His stained apron, on which he was wiping his hands at that moment, was my first clue that he was the veterinary. The bag at his feet, spewing rolled bandages, hinged metal instruments, and various jars of medicine, confirmed it.
The men had stopped their arguing. It seemed everyone was waiting for some sort of decision. All eyes, including my own, rested upon this silent man as he lifted first one hand and then the other, apparently weighing for himself the horse’s options. I realized I was holding my breath, like the others in the room, as we grimly awaited the verdict. When the man shook his head, my own cry was lost among the groans.
A door slammed, and the circle respectfully parted for a wiry, gray-haired man wearing the brass-buttoned suit and severe demeanor of a fire chief. A dalmatian trotted obediently at his side, head cocked, awaiting command.
“Harland!” The man’s clipped voice matched his brisk pace. “Here it is.” He handed the veterinary what looked, oddly enough, like a sack of flour. Just as he did so, the dalmatian stopped, one paw lifted. His coal black eyes pinpointed me. With a high-pitched bark and a scrabbling of claws, he charged. Everything blurred. I took a step backward, tripped—on my skirt, I think—and fell. The dog snapped viciously at my feet.
“What in the devil’s name-?”
“Rachel!”
“What is she doing in here?”
Arms were suddenly all around me, pulling me to my feet and hurrying me outside. The dalmatian was yanked by his collar in the opposite direction. There was a great deal of grumbling. I was shaking. Frantic. Scared for myself, but more so for the horse. As I gathered my wits, I realized I’d been left alone on the pavement with James, who was thoroughly irritated.
“You oughtn’t to have come in, Rachel,” he scolded. “In the first place, the public isn’t allowed, and in the second place, it’s too horrible, especially for a girl.”
“That … that horse,” I stammered. My stomach heaved and I paused to force a swallow. I knew I was only a breath away from fainting. “What happened to that horse?”
James steered me to the brick wall once more, propped me against it, and stepped away. Crossing his arms, he explained tersely, “A burning timber fell on her last night at the fire. One of the horses in the team broke free, but the other two went down and this one that’s in there,” he jerked his head toward the station, “she took the brunt of it.”
“She?”
He nodded. “I heard her called the Governor’s Girl. She was the middle horse in the engine team.” His wayward glance told me he wanted to be in with the men rather than out here with his meddlesome little sister. But he continued. “When they arrived at the livery fire last night, the driver left them too close to the building. That’s where the timber fell—knocked the horses right off their feet. Took so long to cut the harness that that one”—he jerked his head again—“was burned almost to death.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
James shook his head. For one cold instant, my heart stopped.
A lone voice carried from the station: “You can’t just shoot her!” There was more shouting, and when James left me to rush back inside, I somehow managed to follow in his wake.
The gray-haired chief was brandishing a pistol and motioning his firemen out of the way. Only the man at the end of the cotton rope was refusing to move. “I won’t let you do it!” he bellowed.
“Your concern comes too late, Mr. Lee.” The chief laid the pistol to the mare’s temple. “As you can plainly see, she’s as good as dead already!”
“Now, hold on there, the both of you.” At the veterinary’s stern command the chief eased down the gun, but the two men glared at each other like snarling dogs with raised hackles. The Governor’s Girl, head drooped nearly to the floor, stood motionless between them. I wondered if she realized her very life was being decided.
“The fault for this tragedy lies entirely with you, Mr. Lee,” the chief argued. “You should have unhitched your team and-”
“I told you that the livery was fully aflame when we arrived.” The man holding the rope gestured emphatically, causing the mare to flinch. “The horses trapped inside were screaming. You had to have heard them. I jumped off the engine and ran inside to see if—”
“—to see if you could get your name in the newspapers again!” the chief spat.
The wild-looking Mr. Lee opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it, and clenched his jaw. My heart flew to him for his heroics in trying to save the burning horses.
Noticing us inside the doorway, the chief vented his anger. “Get that girl away from here!”
James grabbed my elbow and roughly marched me out to the pavement. I was too shocked to struggle. My mind spun crazily. “You have to do something!”
“Really? And just what do you want me to do?”
“Talk to the veterinary. Or the fire chief. You can’t just let them kill her!” I was searching frantically for a plan. “You can tell them we’ll take her! There’s the empty shed. Surely we—”
“Hold on there, Rachel. What would we do with a burned horse?”
“Save her, that’s what!” I cried. “Or at least try to. She deserves a chance, doesn’t she?”
James was as tough as leather on the outside, the face he showed to the world. But inside, I knew, was a softer place, the soul of a poet. So when he hesitated, just for a second, and looked again toward the station, I knew I had him.
“Please, James.” I laid a hand on his arm. “‘And have compassion for them … pulling them out of the fire’…?”
He rolled his eyes and snorted. “You’re worse than Grandmother, customizing your sermon for every occasion.”
I blushed guiltily, but I knew the power of quoting God’s word. “Save her,” I said, squeezin
g his arm. “Please. For me.” I was dead serious and my brother knew it. Shaking his head, he reentered the station. I hurried back to the buggy horse and began stroking his neck with a fury that raised a sweat. My insides were churning. I was shaking again, now more with excitement than horror. A door that had once been locked to me was being pushed open. Or maybe it was a window. Either way, it was a chance for freedom, and I was going to gallop through it.
SIX
THE REST OF THAT MORNING WAS AGGRAVATION-PURE, unadulterated aggravation. James burst from the station only long enough to order me home, responding to my questions about the mare with an exasperating series of “I don’t know’s.” I beat my fists against the air and stamped my heel to utterly no effect. Left alone again on the pavement, I lifted my skirts and started running. Even in those dreadfully clunky shoes, and ignoring the stares from passersby, I ran all the way home.
Or almost home. Before I got there, I turned down the alley behind our row of houses, ran along it until I reached our small courtyard, veered into it and then into our carriage shed. Like a madwoman, I began digging through its rubbish, heaving aside empty barrels and stacked boxes, until I found what I was looking for: a pitchfork, broken-tined but serviceable. To salve my worry, I began stabbing viciously at the moldy stall bedding.
As the morning ticked by, I was aware of every slow-as-molasses minute. I didn’t know what was happening to the mare, to my mare, as I already thought of her. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead. I didn’t know if they’d shot her. I did know I jumped out of my skin at every distant bang, every far-off clap of hammer to nail, every slamming door. Sweat began trickling down my face as slowly as the ticking minutes. Slowly and torturously. I stabbed all the harder at the rotting layers of soiled straw. By the time the bedding was turned over into an uneven mass of small clods, my hands were blistered and aching. But there was no news and no relief.
I threw myself into tidying my horse’s new home. I neatly restacked all the rubbish in one corner of the shed: the wooden crates, two barrels, a rusted-through bucket, dozens of empty bottles, stiff, crusted rags by the armful, part of a fence, and a squealing wheelbarrow. Panting, yet reveling in the challenge of my labors, I dashed outside to yank a handful of tall weeds from the ground. I used them as a broom to beat down the cobwebs from the rafters. Sweat was streaming down my neck by then—along with a spider or two, which I had no time to flick away. They could tarry at their own risk. I cleaned like a whirlwind, attacking every corner, even brushing the layers of dust from the stall’s planks and leaving them as spotless, I guessed, as any table or sill in my own room.
“Setting up housekeeping?”
I spun. Grandmother.
“Gracious!” she exclaimed. “You’re a sight!”
With my chest heaving, I realized for the first time that the shed’s improvement had meant the worse for me. My fingernails were blackened half moons. My dress, which Mother had only recently sewn from a very pretty, gray-green muslin, was a muddier hue, and one underarm was actually ripped to the skin. My hair, I could tell, was hanging across my face as heavily as a mustang’s forelock. Yet all I could say to her was, “I’ve found a horse.” The sound of those words lingered so sweetly in the dust-clouded air.
“A horse?” she echoed, peering into the carriage shed’s dark corners. “Where?”
“At the fire station. She’s been badly burned and James is bringing her here. We’re going to save her.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
On the heels of her question, James barged into the shed, clearly out of breath. “With your prayers,” he puffed. A look of triumph showed on his face. “She’s coming,” he said. “The veterinary said he’d bring her round this afternoon in his ambulance. And I’ve been given permission by the chief himself to tend to her—under the veterinary’s supervision, of course. It seems she’s quite valuable, and with no extra stalls at the station just now—or the help—I’m their man.”
The wave of envy I felt at James being named the mare’s caretaker was squashed by the relief that she was alive. And soon to be living here. I threw my arms around him. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“Oh, no! Oh, my goodness, no!” Mother had made her way out to the shed too, stopping just short of the doorway, but she’d seen enough. “You promised you’d be ready,” she cried, “and just look at you!”
I should have been repentant, I know, but I was in such a state of bliss. I was soon to have a horse!
“Our appointment is in forty-five minutes. I don’t know how we’re going to get your hair combed out.” She measured me up and down. “There’s certainly no time for a bath. Honestly, Rachel, you’ve disappointed me.” Taking a peek inside the shed, she could only scowl. “And if all this … this tidying … of yours is in hopes of having a horse, I won’t be party to it. You’ll have to deal with your father’s displeasure, I’m afraid … alone.”
Grandmother spoke up. “Oh, leave them be, Nora. It’s just a horse and just a good deed that they’re doing.” Grumbling something else that was unintelligible, she brushed past James and Mother and headed for the house.
“Father may not mind at all when he learns of the deal I’ve struck,” James proudly told Mother. “As the station’s newest apprentice,” he paused for effect, “I’m on my way to the feed store for supplies—to be charged on the chief’s account. Keeping a horse won’t cost Rachel, or us, a penny.”
She winced. “An apprentice firefighter? I’d prayed you were too young. Don’t you think you’re too young for this?”
“I’ll be nineteen in January. The chief thinks it’s old enough.”
“Well,” she said, brushing her sleeves of imaginary dust, “I suppose that’s something that will please your father. Never mind what I think. Come along, Rachel.” She extended her hand, expecting me to grab hold of it as a child would. Sighing, and rolling my eyes at James, I did.
“Take care of her until I get back. Promise?”
“I promise,” he replied. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
Mother didn’t ask about that exchange, though I was certain she’d heard it. She heard everything. So it was hardly fair, I suppose, that I didn’t hear her as she scolded and needled and begged me to hurry. How could I? I’d found a horse!
Squealing like a steam whistle, I slipped free of her hand the minute we were inside the house. I stampeded through the kitchen and up the stairs and past the lifeless butterflies, pausing only long enough to glance out the hall windows. To my way of thinking, the old carriage shed was standing straighter already. I rushed on, taking the attic stairs two at a time, and nearly breaking my neck when those awful heels clipped a step and sent me tumbling chin first. But I scrambled to my feet, hardly caring.
Mother had already been to my room, I saw, because my white dress, the one intended for school exhibition ceremonies, was laid out on the bed. Beside it was a matching hair ribbon. Hurriedly, I unbuttoned. It wasn’t easy, with my sweat-dampened skin, to climb into the dress’s starched stiffness. The high lace collar itched horribly. At least it hid my grime-streaked neck, saving me from having to scrub it.
Mary Grace, my best friend in Wesleydale, who was a year older and who lived in town, would have liked it. Actually, she would have said that she liked it, and then she would have told me everything that was wrong with it. She was always one for frills and ruffles and the latest styles in Godey’s. According to Mary Grace, your waist couldn’t be too small, your bustle couldn’t be too big, and your hair couldn’t be too curly. Mary Grace had her perfume shipped from Chicago. Mary Grace was engaged to be married.
Well, there were no curls showing in my mirror, just a mess of thick, shoulder-length copper hair adorned with a few feathery cobwebs and flecks of something dark. I reached for the hairbrush. My horse care manual lay beneath it. Temptation struck and my hand passed over the brush. This would only take a minute.
I flipped to the index. To my frustration, the headings t
here went from Breeding to Bronchial Tubes and straight on to the Cs with no entry for Burns. Quickly, I paged through the chapter on “Diseases of the Skin and Ears.” Treatments were spelled out for warts and sore noses, for mange and swelled ankles. But there wasn’t a single sentence about burns.
“Rachel!” Mother’s stinging call shot up the stairs. “We’re going to be late!”
I hurriedly dragged the brush through my hair just enough to make it presentable, tied the mass back with the ribbon, and shot down the stairs. Then, with Mother in white on one side of me and Grandmother in black on the other, we set off down the street. We headed in the opposite direction from the fire station.
For a while, the three of us bustled along in silence, though Grandmother gradually lagged behind, huffing. I could tell by her hobble that her knees were bothering her. She’d never complain, though, or seek to slow us. Mother, without actually acknowledging it, did adjust her pace enough to maintain only a slight lead. Her forehead wasn’t as creased as it had been when we’d started out, so maybe she was softening.
“I’m glad that you’re feeling better,” she said to me. “I know that our moving to Boston has been difficult for you.”
I nodded absently. My attention had been captured by a beautifully matched pair of flaxen-maned chestnuts harnessed to a phaeton.
“You know, dear,” she went on, sidling toward a new topic, “your father is very eager to make a success of himself here. He’s already working very long hours at his job. He needs to impress the newspaper’s owners. As his family, of course, we’re part of that impression. So I’m not sure this is the right time to bring—”
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