A Promise for Ellie (33 page)

Opening the pen’s door, she crawled toward the outside wall. The heat was getting worse.

“Come on, chickens, I’ll open the door and chase you out.” Manure squished beneath her knees and under her hands, but a chicken flew past her. She reached the trapdoor and, after fumbling along the wall, drew out the peg to the hasp. The door fell outward, and she gulped the fresh air streaming in, then coughing and with tears streaming, she turned to find her chickens. “Come on. Come to the fresh air.” How long had she been in the barn? How long would the ceiling hold?

She grabbed the legs of a chicken and dragged it to the door and threw it out. She grabbed another one and threw it out. She could see red streaks of fire off to the side, back toward the main door, the one she’d come in through. Two more chickens, out they went, but she couldn’t find any chicks.

Get out!
She wasn’t sure whose voice she heard, maybe her own inside.
Get out that chicken door
. Dizzy beyond anything she’d ever known, she wanted to lie down but forced herself to find one more chicken. A burning board fell behind her.
Get out!
Using far more strength than she ever dreamed she had, she crawled back to the little trapdoor and tried to squeeze out. Air, real air, not smoke, filled her lungs. She coughed until she gagged, and then pushed, but her shoulders were too wide. Turning sideways, arms first, she inched herself through the little door and fell onto the ramp Andrew had built for her chickens to use to climb back into the barn in the evening. With one last burst of energy she staggered to her feet.

“Here, Ellie, come here!” Rebecca’s voice led her away from the burning barn.

Ellie’s eyes were so swollen, she could see only through slits, and that was like peering through water. But the voice she could follow.

“Oh, Ellie.” Rebecca snatched her out of the smoke. “Run, we have to run. The barn could come down any second.” Together they staggered, Rebecca half carrying her, out beyond the barn and toward the house.

“Water, water.” Her throat burned. Her body felt on fire. Her head—the pain was fierce. She wasn’t sure if she said the words or only thought them, but the coughing drove her to her knees.

“Here, let me help you.” Ingeborg’s voice choked on tears.

“Andrew?”

“They’re fighting the fire. He went in to look for you.”

Ellie collapsed into Ingeborg’s arms.
Andrew . . .
The scream that never left her lips echoed in her head.

“Ellie!” He screamed her name over and over until the smoke made screaming impossible. He fought the arms that tried to haul him back.

“Andrew, she’s out! She’s all right.” Haakan dragged him back.

Andrew swung at his father, his fist slamming against a solid shoulder.

Haakan’s fist connected solidly on Andrew’s chin, and he heaved his son over his shoulder and staggered out of the barn.

“Save the house.” Coughing and choking, he dumped Andrew onto the ground and headed for the bucket brigade.

“We are.”

As more horses and wagons arrived, the firefighters drenched the house’s roof with bucket after bucket of water. A giant crash, and the haymow burned through, bringing the entire barn down upon itself.

A tower of smoke and embers rose and feathered out, bits of burning board and hay seeking new fuel. Using water-soaked rugs and gunnysacks, the fighters beat out the embers. If it got into the drying wheat, they’d end up with another prairie fire to boot.

Ingeborg’s tears bathed Ellie’s face. “Oh, my dear girl, your hair is gone, but the burns are minor. How blessed you are.”

“Andrew?”

“He’s fine.”

“Mor, where’s Ellie?” Andrew whispered between coughing spasms. He rubbed his chin and sat up. “What hit me?”

“Your father.” Ingeborg handed him a cup of water. “Drink slowly.”

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t see. Where’s Ellie?” What he thought a scream came out a croak.

“She’s right here, Andrew. Hear her coughing?” She guided his hands as he scooted closer.

“Ellie.” He grabbed her hand. “Is she all right?”

“All but the smoke in her lungs, I think.”

“Ingeborg?”

She heard Elizabeth calling. “Over here.” She held the cup for Ellie to drink again. “Easy now.”

Elizabeth dropped to her knees beside the two patients. “Are her burns bad?”

“No, not that I can tell.” They both kept their voices low. “I’m more worried about their lungs.”

Sitting on the ground, Andrew held Ellie close to his chest.While his words to her were soft, his face wore anger like a cloak.

Ellie coughed and gagged.

“Honey will help soothe that throat.” Elizabeth moved her fingers gently over Ellie’s head.

“I’ll go get it,” Andrew offered.

“No, you stay where you are. That’s what you can do best for right now.”

“M-my chickens,” Ellie croaked.

“Ellie, it’s you that’s important.We can always get more chickens.” Andrew clutched her fiercely, holding her hand against his cheek.

“How did the fire get started?” Elizabeth asked as she smoothed salve on Ellie’s other hand.

“I don’t know.”

“Ellie thought she heard someone hammering but we decided it came from far away.” Rebecca brought more water. “We were brushing our hair when we heard someone yell ‘fire.’ Or at least I think we did. It all happened so fast. Ellie told Sophie to get help, and Grace and Deborah ran to ring the church bell. I tried to keep Ellie from going into the barn, but she shoved me away. I’m sorry, Andrew. I tried to hang on to her.”

“Shh, child, you did your best.” Ingeborg gathered the now sobbing Rebecca into her arms.

Ingeborg glanced down at her son. Since she’d wrapped Ellie’s head in soft bandages, he might not have realized her hair was mostly singed off. The salve she’d applied to the burns on her scalp would help the pain.

As the rising sun lightened the eastern sky, the firefighters stopped by to tell Andrew how sorry they were.

“Sure wish we’d had the fire wagon,” one said.

“Wish we could have saved it.” Knute Baard shook his head. “Fine barn. You think the hay wasn’t dry enough?”

“No. I walked through there earlier in the day and didn’t find any hot spots. Thank you for coming.” Andrew shook his head from side to side.
Did I check closely enough?
The thought tormented him.
Surely
I did.

“Who rang the church bell?” asked Pastor Solberg.

“Grace and Deborah did. Remember? The girls were sleeping here last night,” Ingeborg answered.

“No, I heard it ringing before we got halfway there, so we came on back,” Deborah said.

Solberg shook his head. “Strange.”

“Could someone have been working in the barn?” Rebecca joined the group. “Ellie heard hammering.”

“But who?” Haakan wiped his sooty face with a cloth that had been drenched in the bucket. “We were all home in bed.”

“I should have stayed here.” Andrew held his sleeping Ellie close.

He could hear her breath wheezing like an organ bellows with a leak.

“I thought about it but figured Mor would say it was improper or some such.”

Sophie had tied a rag around her head to keep her hair back out of her eyes. Her nightdress gaped along the hem where she had ripped it running across the field. Smoke and grime stained all their faces and clothes.

“There is no reason anyone would have been working in the barn at that time of night—especially without Andrew,” Haakan said.

“You think someone set the fire deliberately?” Sophie asked.

“Now, who would do a thing like that?” Ingeborg took the honey Sophie brought from home. “Mange takk.” She knelt by Ellie and, pouring the honey into a spoon, held it up and said, “Wake her, Andrew. This will help.” When Ellie stirred, Ingeborg moved the spoon to her lips. “Take this, dear one. It will soothe your throat.”

“We need to get her breathing easier.” Using her stethoscope, Elizabeth listened to Ellie’s chest.

Haakan thanked those who came in from beating out burning embers. After everyone had gone but the family and the girls who had stayed overnight, Andrew sat back down beside Ellie.

“I know what my throat and chest feel like, and I wasn’t in the barn that long.” He gave his father a studying look. “I’ve sure got a sore spot on my chin, though.”

Haakan flexed his hand. “Haven’t had to knock anyone out for a long time. Guess desperation makes us do foolish things.” He looked over the still smoldering barn remains. “What a shame.”

“What a tragedy,” Andrew said.

“No.” Haakan half turned toward his son. “A tragedy would have been if someone had died in the fire. We can rebuild the barn.”

“But what if someone did set it on purpose?” Andrew got up and stood beside his pa, hands in his back pockets, staring at some of the studs, now blackened spears against the brightening day. “Surely not. But if someone was pounding—what could that have been?” He turned to Sophie. “You didn’t see any lights in the barn?”

“Andrew, we didn’t look. The only time we went outside was to use the outhouse.”

“Sound carries at night. Must have been someone somewhere else who couldn’t sleep.”

“Maybe Ellie will know more when she wakes up.”

“That will be awhile. I’ve given her some laudanum to help relax her lungs.” Elizabeth stood. “Let’s get her over to my surgery so I can keep an eye on her.” She turned to Rebecca, who held baby Inga and was trying to keep her from fussing but not succeeding much. “Here, let me take her. She’s just hungry. We had a rather rude awakening.”

A rooster crowed, greeting the rising sun.

“Ellie’s rooster!” Astrid clapped her hands as the rooster and three hens came clucking from the other side of the barn. “Some of them lived. She’ll be so happy.”

“Sure, she almost gave her life for three stupid chickens!”

“Easy, Andrew. Right now be grateful things aren’t a lot worse.”

Andrew stared at his mother, shook his head, and knelt down to pick up Ellie. As he stood, the cloth wrapped around her head fell to the ground. When she whimpered in her sleep, he turned his head to comfort her. His eyes widened, his arms locked around her. “Her hair!

Her hair is all gone!” He stumbled at the first step, then strode toward the wagon. “If someone started this fire and I find out who did it, I swear I’ll kill him.”

“A
LL BECAUSE OF THOSE STUPID CHICKENS
.” Andrew paced in Elizabeth’s surgery.

“Easy, Andrew, Ellie doesn’t need your anger now. She needs your strength to survive this.”

He watched as Elizabeth listened to Ellie’s chest again and flinched at whatever sounds she heard. “Survive?” Andrew stared at the doctor. That first day Ellie had been coughing and sleeping, sleeping even while coughing. But yesterday and today she had seemed better—she’d smiled at him. His poor little hairless darling. He wanted to run, to smash someone, to find out who set the fire. He forced himself to not flinch when he looked at her, but Elizabeth had assured him Ellie’s hair would grow back. He thought back to the night before.

“Andrew Bjorklund, don’t you dare let her see how her hair being gone affects you.” Elizabeth had backed him up against the wall. When he’d tried to sidestep her, she stepped right with him. “I believe you are a good man who loves this young woman, and right now she needs to know only that you love her and that she will get well. Do you understand me? Nothing about the chickens, nothing about someone who might have set the fire. All that matters is Ellie.” She shook her finger at him. “Do you understand?”

He had nodded. No one in his entire life had lectured him like that.

Because you didn’t need it before,
the small voice inside now said, and it sounded far more patient than he felt. So many animals he’d nursed back to health, just like his mor with people. But this was Ellie! And she went into a burning barn to save her chickens. What was the matter with her? What had she been thinking?
You would
have gone in for a horse or a cow
. That voice again.
But that’s different.

They are big animals of real value, with feelings and . . .
He didn’t need help to see the errors of his reasoning.

If only he had been there. But he’d been over this ground too many times to count. After the scolding from Elizabeth he’d gone over to the station and sent a telegram to theWolds, telling them that Ellie was terribly ill from the smoke, but she would be all right.
Please,
God, that she will.
He leaned his head in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. As Ellie fought to breathe, he fought to think clearly. But all he could think and hear was Ellie.

“Why don’t you go lie down on the other bed, and I’ll try to get her to take some broth.” Elizabeth set her tray down on the small table by the bed.

“I’ll feed her.”

“All right. You sit on the other side of the bed and prop her up.

Rub her back, pat her back, and we’ll do this together.”

Andrew did as she asked, holding Ellie so liquid could slide down her throat more easily.

“Ellie, you have to eat something. We have to get liquids into you to fight off the infection. Now open your mouth and swallow this.”