Carla Kelly (55 page)

She ate a bowl of stew, chafing because it was one of the best she had ever produced in the kitchen of the Double Tipi, and no one was there to appreciate it except Two Bits. She tipped a little into his dish, and she could hear him purr his way through it, even from across the room.

Beyond that small sound, ordinarily so reassuring, was the larger silence. She watched the ridge as noon came and went, her nerves on alert when the wind picked up and changed directions. Automatically, her eyes went to the horse corral. She had noticed in the past week, that when the wind changed, the horses seemed to sense trouble, whinnying and moving in tight circles.

“You're an idiot,” she scolded herself. She had forgotten that the men had taken all the horses, even her own. She couldn't leave if she had to. The wind changed again, and she let out a shuddering breath.

For the next hour, she looked to the ridge over which the men had ridden early that morning. She could have fallen to her knees in gratitude when a lone horseman came riding in. She didn't think it was Chief at first because he was lathered and heaving, and Paul never overworked his mounts.

Chief it was, though, and Paul on his back. Julia hurried into the yard, and then to the wagon road as he jerked his horse to a halt and practically threw himself from the saddle.

“Darling, help me get the rest of the shovels and rakes from the horse barn.”

Without a word, she ran with him into the barn, yanking the rakes from their stalls, splattering manure on them both. Most of the shovels were already in use on the fire line, but she grabbed the last two and ran with them to the wagon road, where Paul had dropped the rakes.

“May I get you anything to eat?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No time.”

“It's close, isn't it?” It was the question she had been spooling through her mind all morning, the one she hated to ask.

He nodded, his eyes on hers, as if daring her to show fright. She clenched her teeth until her jaw hurt, not about to disappoint him.

“What should I do?” she asked quietly.

“Watch the ridge,” he said. “Sit in the yard and watch the ridge. If you feel the wind change, watch the ridge.”

If she clamped her jaw tight enough, she could control her face. There was nothing she could do about the way she started to tremble. Paul grasped her firmly by both shoulders, moving so close to her that his face was almost too close to see. He gave her a little shake.

“Listen to me. If you see billows of smoke and start hearing something that sounds like a train, shoot the pistol that's in my bedroom. If we're close, we'll hear you.”

Julia nodded.

“Then run to the river.”

She couldn't help the gasp that escaped her. He leaned his forehead against hers, still speaking.

“Don't stop, don't go back for anything. Don't even look back. Run to the river.”

“It's so shallow,” she managed to say.

“It's all you'll have left, so you have to make it work. Mind you, all this is if the wind changes. It probably won't.” He held her off again so he could see her better. “If it does, get in the pool where I bathe. The last time I was in there, I noticed more of an overhang on one side. The water's starting to undercut there. Burrow into the cutbank, if you can. I couldn't do it, but you're small.”

She nodded, her breath coming faster until she felt lightheaded. He grabbed her jaw. “Slowly! That's better.”

“What will happen?”
I have to know,
she thought.

“The fire will jump the river. It'll crown in the cotton-woods and jump the river. Don't even think you can outrun it. Stay in the river and get as much of yourself under the water as possible. You'll have trouble breathing because the fire sucks out all the air. Don't run when you see the flames coming at you, even when every instinct you have will tell you to run.”

“I run to the river,” she said as calmly as she could. He didn't need to know how her insides churned, how clammy her hands felt. He had enough to worry about.

“I love you, Darling,” he was telling her when the roaring in her head quieted. “I wish we had talked sooner, but never mind.”

“We'll just talk later.” The same serenity that had filled her last night as she watched him sleep filled her again. “Get on Chief, and I'll hand you the rakes and shovels.”

He kissed her, said something to her in Shoshone, and mounted Chief. Lips tight together again, she handed him the tools and stepped back. Without another word or even a wave, he touched a spur to Chief and rode out of the valley.

Julia stood there until he was gone and then went into the house. She walked through all the interconnecting rooms of the small place, starting with Paul's bedroom. She opened the box that held his Bible and that terrible photograph. It was gone, which relieved her heart. There was a small deerskin bag she hadn't noticed before when she had taken that one look. She knew it was a medicine bag, maybe a treasure of Paul's father. She slipped it over her neck and tucked it down the front of her dress.

She stopped in James's little room, her hand gentle on his pillow, grateful beyond even prayer that he was safe with the Gillespies. She mourned over the parlor briefly, with its wonderful gray building paper, and her grandmother's lace curtains that Mama had given her before she left Salt Lake after Iris's death. There was her knitting by the rocking chair. She was making a sweater for Ursula's little Julia. Yarn was a dime a skein.

In her room, she held her Book of Mormon for a long while, toying with the idea of taking it into the yard and carrying it with her. She set it down. Papa had an extra book at home. If she started carrying things, she might never make the river. As an afterthought, she picked up the baby quilt that Mama had made for Iris when she was born. Julia was six at the time and had put in some of the stitches on the gold and purple irises. The quilt had been another of Mama's sad gifts to her at Christmas. She looked long and hard at Paul's gift of Shakespeare's sonnets and left it on the bedside table. Bookstores were full of copies of Shakespeare's sonnets.

In the kitchen, Julia banked the fire in the Queen Atlantic. She pumped herself a long drink of water at the sink and looked at her neat row of measuring cups and spoons and her well-used copy of the
Boston Cooking-School Cookbook.
“Miss Farmer, I came to cook, and I fell in love,” she said. “Fancy that.” She turned on her heel to leave but then remembered Paul's gun. She took it from the shelf over his bureau and ran out of the house before her resolve deserted her, closing the door behind her. As she did, she remembered her grandmama's story of leaving Nauvoo after sweeping the stoop and locking the door.

She sat on the folding chair in the yard, the quilt on her lap underneath the pistol. Another hour passed. She looked down at her little watch, a Christmas present from Papa, pinned to her apron bib. When she looked up, the wind changed.

She said her three-word prayer, thinking that she wanted to tell Sister Duncan someday how durable and all-purpose it was. She swallowed as smoke began to tower over the ridge, and she heard a noise unlike any other. Paul had said the fire would sound like a train, and he was right, except it was worse. The noise was all the hounds of the underworld, baying to be slipped loose.

Julia rose slowly to her feet. With calm hands, she checked the pistol's chamber, raised the gun overhead, and squeezed off two shots. She dropped the pistol, grabbed the iris quilt, and ran to the river.

The tiny ribbon of water looked so far away. She was halfway there when she stopped and turned around. The sight of the monster billows made her shriek. No wonder Paul had told her not to look back. She suddenly remembered the letter from Alfred Hickman that Paul had been too tired to read. She thought of Two Bits, somewhere in the kitchen. Maybe she had closed the door on him. She took a step toward the ranch house. It was still only smoke, even though it towered above the ridge now. She could be there in a moment.

Run to the river.
Paul had said it so many times. Maybe it would be the last words she ever heard of his lovely voice. She turned and ran to the river, not stopping until, out of breath, she was waist deep in the little bathing pool.

It had never looked so small and more shallow than it did right then as the smoke finally dimmed the sun and left her in eerie shadow. She started to wade across to the opposite bank, as far as she could get away from the fire without being on dry ground on the other side. She stopped, remembering the bank's undercut on the fire side.

When she turned around, the ranch house exploded in flames. She screamed and screamed until she was gasping for air. In mere seconds since her last look, the flames, now highly visible, had consumed Paul's house and were racing toward her. She faced the flames, dragging Iris's quilt through the water and scrambling to the cutbank, a pitiful scrap of protection. She threw herself against it, digging with her fingers until she felt her nails break. Inching her way tighter and tighter into the sandy soil peppered with gravel that scraped against her bleeding fingers, she dug in relentlessly.

She made herself as small as she could, draping Iris's sodden baby quilt over her face and still exposed shoulder. The sky grew lighter and lighter as the flames raced closer. She dug her bare feet—where she had lost her shoes she had no idea—into the muddy, gravelly river bottom because she wanted so badly to run and run. She slammed her eyes shut against the brightness of the fire, the noise so close now that her ears began to ache.

She heard a crackle overhead and knew the flames were crowning in the treetops as Paul said they would. She screamed again when one of the larger branches crashed into the water, the flaming wood striking her exposed shoulder and hip. She gasped from the intense pain in her shoulder and ducked under the water, since her hair began to burn. She stayed under as long as she could. When she came up to breathe, she found she couldn't. All the air was gone.

Desperate, Julia turned her face into the muddy bank and found a tiny air hole.
I know in whom I trust. I truly do,
she thought as she struggled to breathe. Her fingers felt singed, but she grasped Iris's soaking wet quilt closer as the fire shouted its challenge at her, daring her to live.

There was nothing else she could do. She had said her last prayers. Her life was in God's hands, as it had always been. She understood that now with a clarity that sliced through her fear. Iris had never been closer, and the knowledge brought no terror. She didn't feel peaceful, but the fear was gone.

Since the fire wouldn't begrudge her more than a shallow breath, she took it. She pulled Iris's quilt over her head as the fire hunted for her, but then it gave up with an angry roar and leaped the river.

After a long, long moment, she found she could breathe again, even though every breath brought ash into her lungs. Her ears still aching, she listened as the train roared on, leaving behind only the crackle of weeds firing up and fading quickly. She began to hear the river again, just a murmur of shallow water over pebbles, the river that had saved her life. She dabbled her fingers in the water. “Thank you,” she whispered.

With an effort that made her moan, Julia looked at her shoulder, hoping not to see it black and flaking, like that poor cowboy. She looked closer, taking in the odd shape, and decided it was dislocated. There was nothing she could do about that beyond endure the pain and wait for help, if anyone was alive to render any.

She touched her neck, flinching with the pain of a burn. She fingered it gingerly and patted more mud on it. She knew her hip must be bruised, but she could move. The branch still burned, but when it finally stopped, she pushed against it with Iris's quilt until it gave way enough for her to move farther into the pool and stand up. She feared no one would find her, so she staggered to the shallower wagon crossing, sinking down several times and resting until she was able to crawl from the river and collapse on the dirt. Weeds still smoldered and stank next to the road, but the road remained unchanged. She closed her eyes, said thank you one more time, and lapsed into unconsciousness.

Doc found her when the sun was lower in the sky. He pillowed her head in his lap, his expert fingers moving over her muddy neck.

“You did that one right, sport,” he told her, and she could hear the tears in his voice.

“My shoulder,” she murmured. Her throat was raw.