He took the stairs two at a time and reached the hallway, where serpents of black smoke curled.
“Sarah!”
“Gus! In here!”
She was still in her room.
The girl had closed the door as protection from the fire and Crane kicked it open.
Sarah stood in the middle of the floor, her new clothes bundled under her arm.
“I couldn’t get out,” she yelled as she ran into his arms. “The stairs—”
“I know.”
Large sections of plaster were falling from the ceiling, and smoke and fingers of flame were reaching for them. There was a tremendous crash as the stairs collapsed, and immediately the floor tilted at a crazy angle. Now the fire was also reaching upward, threatening to engulf the room.
Crane stepped to the window. He pushed with one hand, but it wouldn’t budge. He realized he was still grasping the money sack in a death grip and he angrily threw it aside.
He tried the window again, this time pushing with both hands. The frame moved an inch, then another, and finally screeched open.
Now the fire was an evil entity in the room, grabbing for them as the roof, angled floor and walls burned.
“Climb out the window, Sarah. Then give me your hands,” Crane yelled.
The girl did as she was told and clambered outside.
The marshal took her hands in his and, as her feet swung free, he leaned outside as far as he could, taking her weight.
As she dangled above the street, Sarah looked up at him. “Gus, my new clothes! I dropped them.”
Crane bit back the rebuke on his lips and said, “I’ll get them.”
He let go of the girl’s hands. Sarah had time to emit a single, short shriek before she hit the ground. She rolled, stayed still for a moment, then slowly got to her feet and looked up at the burning hotel.
“Hurry, Gus! Hurry!”
Crane looked around the burning room, found the girl’s bundle of clothes and threw them out the window. He tried to reach the money sack, but it was already on fire, bundled paper money burning with a strange, lilac flame.
Feeling no sense of loss, the marshal strode to the window, climbed through and dropped to the ground.
Sarah ran to him, a slight silhouette against a wall of fire.
“Thank you for saving my clothes, Gus,” she said. She put her arms around Crane and hugged him close.
The marshal smiled and stroked the girl’s hair. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“Where is home?”
“I have no idea.”
“It doesn’t matter, Gus. Home is anywhere you are.”
Together they walked along the street, framed in fire.
Sarah looked out at the beautiful landscape of the high plains flashing past the railcar window. She turned her attention to Crane.
“Do you think Paul will like the spot where we buried him, under the trees on the ridge?” she asked.
“He should,” Crane answered. “But being such an irritating man, I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes back to haunt me for one reason or another.”
Sarah was silent for a few moments. Then she said, “Gus, what will the people in Rawhide Flat do now that their money is gone?”
“There is no Rawhide Flat, not any longer.” He glanced out the window, then back to the girl. “They’re Westerners, Sarah, and they don’t give up easily. They’ll pick up and start over and maybe even rebuild the town. I don’t know.”
“What will we do, Gus?”
“Us? Well, you’re going to school in Virginia City. And as for me, I always thought I might prosper in the restaurant business. Pies, maybe. I’d like to sell pies, meat pies, fruit pies, all kinds of pies.”
“Pies are good.”
“You bet they are.”
“You really don’t want to be a deputy marshal anymore?”
“Yeah, I’m sure about that. As long as I live I’ll never again draw a gun on a human being.”
Sarah was silent, thinking. Then she said, “Gus, when I get older, will you marry me?”
The marshal laughed. “No, I don’t reckon so. You’ll meet a nice young feller who’s making his way in the world, and fall in love and that will be that.”
“I don’t think so. I see us getting married, like a picture in a book.”
“It won’t happen.”
Sarah, a girl just growing into womanhood, flounced in her seat. “We’ll just see about that, Augustus Crane,” she said.
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