Fire, The (41 page)

"I think they're out of town for the weekend. I haven't seen them since yesterday."

Kevin sighed. At least that much was good.

"Do you know where they went?" Sarah asked.

"No."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"I'd be happy to."

"If you see the Marshalls tonight, tell them that we came to warn them. Tell them to spend the night somewhere else. Tell them to get off this street immediately. Demand that they do."

"I don't understand. Has the mayor issued a warning?"

"He hasn't, to my knowledge, but he will. Don't ask me how I know. I just do. No one on this street will be safe tonight. If you see the Marshalls, warn them. Tell them to leave as soon as possible. You should do the same.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm staying with my sister tonight. She lives on Second Street. If I do see the Marshalls, I'll pass along your concerns."

"Please do. Their lives may depend on it."

The couple known as Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Johnson, at least to one person, said goodbye to Marie Denton and then proceeded west on Garnet, toward the Johnson residence.

"How much time do we have?"

Kevin kicked himself as he tried to remember details of the fire from Walt's tour and books he had read. He was pretty sure that the chaos and panic of August 20, 1910, hadn't begun until after eight o'clock, when gale-force winds had pushed the inferno to the edge of town. Walt had said there had been little to no wind between five thirty and six thirty, the calm before the storm. There was no wind now.

"We have a few hours at most," he said. "I don't want to stay another minute though. I think we should get out while we can."

"All I want to do is mail this letter to my parents. There is a mailbox on the corner of Sixth and Bank. Let me drop this off and then we can be on our way."

"OK. Let's go then."

As the two walked north on Sixth Street toward the city's commercial core, Kevin took note of several things he had never seen and heard before. The first, and perhaps most ominous, was the presence of giant embers that fell like snowflakes from a charcoal sky. The second was the deafening buzz from telephone lines that hovered over downtown Wallace like tightly stretched threads on a horizontal loom. It was at least twice as loud as usual and proof that the people of this threatened community were starting to talk.

The unusual sights didn't stop there either. As they approached the intersection with Maple, Kevin looked ahead two blocks and saw scores of soldiers march in formation toward the west end of town. Though cavalry and infantry were common throughout the rural West, all-black companies in states with fewer than seven hundred African Americans were not.

Kevin knew that these were the men of the Army's famed 25th Infantry, men who had been deployed to Wallace from Spokane's Fort George Wright. He suspected that they would play an important role in keeping the peace and taming the flames before this terrible night was done.

More unusual was a spectacle between Pearl and High, where dozens of people went into and out of two insurance offices. Even now, with the flames closing in and ashes falling from the sky, local agents wrote fire policies to anyone who walked through their doors.

Another procession greeted them as they reached Bank and dropped the letter in the box. Four wagons proceeded north on Sixth carrying what appeared to be the worldly possessions of four families, including a grand piano, a hutch, two sewing machines, and a goat.

"I'm getting nervous," Sarah said.

"I was nervous when we left Asa's shed. Let's get moving."

Kevin grabbed Sarah's hand and led her back down Sixth, this time in a southerly direction. He guessed that they would need less than fifteen minutes to reach the portal, lay down the gold, and get out of town before the wall of fire that was surely coming changed the town forever.

As they passed a group of residents waving new insurance policies, Kevin thought of Andy and Sadie. Thank God, he thought, that they were out of harm's way. He still worried about the Marshalls and Maude, whose whereabouts were unknown, and about the many children he had taught at the high school, but he knew that there was little he could do for any of them now.

Kevin picked up the pace as they approached Maple. He didn't trust the relative calm in the streets or the idea that he had even an hour to spare. He wanted to get out of Wallace and 1910 as quickly as possible, but as soon as he started to step off the curb he sensed that even his quickest step would not be quick enough.

"I see trouble," Sarah said.

Kevin took a breath as he led Sarah toward a group of rough-looking men. All appeared to be in their twenties or early thirties. Each watched his every step.

"Where do you think you're going?" the apparent leader said.

"I'm walking my fiancée home," Kevin said.

"You're not walking anyone home tonight, Mister. The mayor has ordered every able-bodied man to report for firefighting duty. You're coming with us."

"I'm not going anywhere with you. Excuse me."

Kevin tightened his hold on Sarah's hand and tried to push his way through the crowd but didn't get far. One of the men grabbed his free arm and pulled him back.

"I don't think you understood, my friend," he said. "You're coming with us."

Kevin shoved the man back but knew he couldn't do more. He wasn't sure he could take on one man right now, much less eight. He turned back to Sarah when he felt her squeeze his hand.

"Go with them, Kevin. I'll be all right. We can meet up later and do what we were planning to do at another time," she said in a firm voice. "I'll be OK."

Kevin glanced again at the men. He tried to think of something that might buy him some time, an excuse that might still offer a shot at the chamber, but he couldn't do it. He glanced at Sarah, saw her nod, and realized that he had no choice but to submit.

"They need volunteers at City Hospital, ma'am," the youngest man said. "That's not too far from where we've been ordered to go."

"That settles it then," Sarah said. "I'll go to the hospital to help out. You can meet me there when you're done. Go, Kevin. I'll be all right."

"OK. I'll go. I'll meet you at the hospital," he said. "Don't even think about going anywhere else. If you're ordered to leave the city, then get on the train to Spokane. Contact Andy at the paper and stay put. I'll find you. Will you do that?"

Sarah nodded.

Kevin looked at his captors with frustration, anger, and contempt. He knew that they didn't have a legal right to force him to do anything, but he also knew that, in times like this, brute force mattered more than the law.

"Come here," he said as he pulled Sarah in. "Remember what we still have to do. Remember when we have to do it. We'll get through this."

"We will."

Kevin kissed her quickly and forcefully and let her go.

"I love you."

"I love you too," she said. "Now go. I'll see you in a bit."

Kevin then turned toward the men and joined them as they continued west on Maple. When he took one last glance at the woman he loved, he saw hope, resolve, and affection in her beautiful eyes, as well as something he didn't want to see. He saw tears.

CHAPTER 70: KEVIN

Saturday, August 20, 1910

The nine men wasted no time moving to where help was needed. After cutting over to High Street, two blocks north, they walked across Placer Creek to King Street, where they joined more than two hundred firefighters, soldiers, police, and civilians in a defense of the city.

Kevin didn't think much of his forced conscription, but he had to tip his hat, the one he now held in his hand, to those who had long predicted that the greatest threat to Wallace would come from the southwest. Placer Canyon was the point of least resistance between a fire the size of Connecticut and an isolated community that, for all practical purposes, was now on its own.

Even before he reached the battle lines on King Street, he could see that a bad situation was about to get worse. During the ten-minute walk over, a light breeze had turned into a stiff breeze and the stiff breeze had turned into a gale. He knew that if the wind remained this strong the rest of the night that history would repeat itself in spades.

Kevin remembered from a book he had read that one survivor of the Big Blowup had compared the sound of the wind-driven fire to the "sound of a thousand trains rushing over a thousand steel trestles." Others compared it to the "roar of Niagara Falls" or the sound of cannons. None of these accounts gave Kevin a measure of comfort.

One bright spot on the forced march to the Western Front was the Duvalier mansion. With every light off and every door closed, it appeared completely deserted. Maude had apparently had the good sense to get out of town while the getting was good. Kevin hoped she had found a safe haven and would soon return to an intact home.

When he finally reached the front lines, Kevin was directed not to a flaming forest but rather to a vacant lot, where idle men mingled with idle equipment. For more than an hour he waited for further instructions as others doused buildings with garden hoses, cleared trees near homes, created firebreaks, and set backfires in spots deemed most at risk.

Kevin knew that the measures would probably do little more than spare one neighborhood, but he also knew that they had to be tried. Unlike the dynamite charges some had set off in town in the misguided belief that man-made thunder would bring about God-made rain, firebreaks and backfires, measures solidly rooted in fire science, often worked.

The inhabitants of King Street didn't wait to see if they did. From seven to eight o'clock residents of the city's most affluent neighborhood loaded wagons, carts, and even cars with people, animals, furniture, and other belongings and moved to the east end of Wallace.

Some rode horses, including Spirit from the stable down the street, while others proceeded on bicycle or foot. One man in a chain-driven Maxwell touring car offered to take his neighbors to any place in the city for the cost of a smile.

Those who couldn't haul their belongings to presumably safe warehouses on the north and east sides of town turned to the earth. They buried sewing machines, jewelry, plates, silver, and even liquor in hastily dug trenches in several yards. One man buried a case of whiskey in front of a crew working the hoses, only to dig it back up, pop open three bottles, and share his cache with those protecting his house.

Kevin enjoyed watching the more humorous of these acts, but he didn't enjoy twiddling his thumbs while others went about the serious work of defending a community. He wanted to work or be allowed to leave and get out of town before things got worse. It wasn't long before he got his wish. At eight fifteen the Great Fire of 1910 showed its face to the residents of Wallace.

Kevin couldn't see much of the fire at first. He couldn't see much of anything through the smoke that continued to choke the Silver Valley. That changed when the winds died for a few minutes, allowing a nearly unobstructed view of a monster.

The blaze first appeared not as a giant wall but rather as a thin ribbon of gold that crowned the ridges to the southwest. Set against the backdrop of black mountains and a black sky, the line took on the appearance of a corona during a total solar eclipse.

Even a distant line, however, was sufficient to inspire action. Within seconds important men with important jobs began shouting orders to those on the front and those in reserve. One of these men slapped Kevin on the shoulders and led him to four small houses on the south end of King Street, where more hoses, buckets, and opportunities to help waited.

"Grab a hose, son, and do what you can," he said.

Kevin did as instructed. He wasn't sure what one man, or even several men, could do against a fire that big, but he figured it wasn't his job to ask. He grabbed a flimsy garden hose and began throwing water on a residence that was no more than a cabin. The owners of the home, an elderly blacksmith and his wife, had apparently left town on the morning train to Spokane.

Kevin gave the house a thorough rinse, from its highly flammable shingle roof to its cedar sides to its freshly painted doors and windows. He vowed that if he did nothing else in the effort to save King Street, he would prevent the couple's home from turning into a pyre.

He waged a successful battle for more than fifteen minutes, fighting everything from falling water pressure to falling fire. Embers the size of softballs dropped from the sky with increasing regularity, forcing him to look upward as well as outward. When ashes landed on his shirt and started to burn a hole in his sleeve, he turned the water on himself.

What he couldn't put out was the fear in the ranks, which seemed to grow by the minute. All along the fire lines, men ran back and forth, shouting orders and moving equipment, as the odds that the entire town might go up in smoke went from remote to possible to likely.

The sights and sounds in the distance were no more comforting. The fire moved through Placer Canyon like a multi-headed beast, consuming everything in its path and leaving acrid waste and scorched destruction in its wake. When Kevin heard trees snap, crackle, and fall, he thought not of the many news videos he had seen of wildfires but rather of the climactic scene in
The Langoliers
, a miniseries based on the Stephen King novella, where toothy creatures mowed down a forest in minutes.

Kevin fought the good fight until the wind became a deciding factor. He doused the roof one more time, dropped the hose, and turned off the water, which still flowed in ample amounts. He wanted to continue but knew he was no match for the southerly gales that had steadily turned his streams into mist and rendered even his most creative firefighting efforts ineffective.

When he turned around, he saw that others too had surrendered to the wind. Men who moments earlier had held hoses and cut trees now walked toward the command center at King and Bank. Others loaded equipment and supplies on wagons. If a retreat wasn't imminent, it was likely. The blaze that had raced through the canyon in thirty minutes had finally arrived and now threatened to destroy a town that was rapidly running out of options.