The Land of the Shadow (21 page)

Giving the wriggling bundle one last hug, Carly began to lower Dagny outside the window. The air was getting thicker with smoke, and the heat was making her face bead with sweat. If the fire had started in the kitchen, it was burning the floor away from under them right now.
Panic later
, she reminded herself.

The sheet wasn’t long enough to reach all the way to the ground, and she winced when she was forced to let go, swinging her daughter as gently as possible out away from the house. It was still a drop of a few feet, so all she could do was pray an inarticulate prayer that her baby would be safe. Dagny landed with an indignant squall but, thankfully, not a cry of pain.

She pulled the bottom sheet off the bed and laid it on the floor. “Down, Sam.”

He gave her a doubtful look but obeyed, lying on the sheet. He tucked his tail around his feet but thumped it on the floor a few times as Carly began to tie him up in the sheet, just as she had done with the baby. Carly realized with her stern demeanor, he must have thought she was mad at him, but she didn’t have the time to reassure him, not with the heat getting more intense by the moment. She pulled hard at the knots, as hard as the thick material would allow her fumbling hands. He was much larger than Dagny, and it took most of the material to bundle him.

Carly had no idea how much Sam weighed, but he was at his full adult size now, somewhere between seventy and a hundred pounds according to her book on wolves. Maybe even larger than his wild brethren. Groaning and straining, she struggled to lift him. It might be impossible, but she wasn’t giving up. Perhaps it was adrenaline, or the power of her sheer stubborn will, but she managed to lift him over the window sill. The sheet zipped through her hands. All she could do was slow it a little. He landed hard, with a sharp yelp of pain, his bundle a couple of feet away from Dagny, who was yelling at the top of her little lungs.

Carly had to get herself out now. There were no sheets left—they were stored in the hall linen closet—but there was a blanket folded on the chest at the foot of the bed, and it would have to do. She just had to tie the blanket to something—the bed frame seemed like it would work.

Grabbing onto the wood frame, she dragged it, grunting from the strain. The bed was made of oak and heavy . . . so very heavy, and her arms were trembling from exhaustion. Tears of frustration ran down Carly’s cheeks as she heaved, pulling with all her might until the thing started to slide across the floor.

“Carly!”

Had she heard that, or had it been in her head? For a moment, she wasn’t sure. She craned her neck out the window and saw Grady below, his hands cupped around his mouth.

“I’m here!” she called.

“Jump, girl!” he shouted.

She looked down at the blanket in her hand.

“Jump, goddammit!”

She’d never heard Grady swear. That’s what did it. She swung her leg outside the window and held on to the frame for a moment as she pulled the other one out, and then she pushed off.

Cool air rushed by her cheeks. She landed hard, hitting him awkwardly and knocking him off his feet.

“Are you okay?” Carly asked. She was lying on his chest, looking right down into his face. She rolled off and he let out a little grunt.

“Yeah. Fine.” His voice was a little strained.

“Thank you.”

He sounded amused. “Any time.”

Sweet relief poured through her, and she collapsed back to the grass for just a moment, pressing her shaking hands over her face. Her insides felt tremulous and electric with adrenaline.

Rolling over, Carly unbundled Dagny, who was still squalling. She prodded her baby all over, checked her pupils, and threaded her fingers through Dagny’s braided hair, feeling for bumps. Carly let out a little cry of relief that was almost a whimper to find her child unharmed. She clutched Dagny to her chest, rocking her. Grady had untied Sam, and the wolf limped over to Carly and gave the side of her face a lick. She put an arm around his shoulders. He sat so close to her, their sides were touching. He was trembling, too.

“I can’t be sure, but I think one of his ribs is hurt,” Grady said.

“You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay,” Carly murmured to him, as though she could verbalize it into truth.

“Yeah, it’s not that bad,” Grady said. He crouched down beside her. “He ain’t bleedin’, from what I could tell. Maybe just a crack.”

Carly knew he was lying from his rapid blinks. He knew no such thing—he was trying to make her feel better because there was nothing she could do if Sam was hurt. Carly nodded, as if she believed him, but she bet he knew she was lying, too.

A loud roar made them both jump, and Carly looked up to see the second floor cave in. Flames sheathed the collapsing walls while black smoke and red-hot ash billowed through the open windows on the floor below. The heat of it reddened her cheeks, and she and Grady moved farther back from the blaze.

She heard shouts as people rushed into the yard, those who had seen the fire or smelled the smoke. Someone pulled the chicken coop away from the back of the house, which was as yet unburned. The birds squawked in alarm and fluttered around, bashing into the wire of the sides of the coop. Carly rubbed her temples and thought,
No eggs tomorrow.
She almost laughed at how ridiculous she was being. What did it even matter, really? She was fooling herself that the chickens would ever be a viable source of food. She was fooling herself about a lot of things.

Despair washed over her, and she sank down to the earth, too stunned to cry. Everything she and Justin had was gone.

There was no way of extinguishing the blaze without hoses, and even if they had them, the irrigation system didn’t provide much pressure. At best, they might have been able to keep it from spreading if there had been any nearby houses. Still, Carly was pleased to see so many of the townspeople had come carrying buckets through the large lawn around the Connell house, something they had discussed in a town meeting a few months ago.

Mindy and Stan headed up the pack, both of them haphazardly dressed and red-faced from the run over. Mindy wore a T-shirt over her pajama top and carried a mop bucket in one hand, with an armful of medical supplies in the other. She looked relieved to see they wouldn’t be needed. Stan had on a pair of athletic shorts, his feet stuffed in unlaced hiking boots.

Stacy ran past them, both arms weighted down with large tool boxes she used as emergency medical kits. She was wearing scrubs, rumpled as though she’d slept in them, and her hair was a tangled wad from where it had partially fallen from the pinned up-do she had worn it in yesterday.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, dropping to her knees in front of Carly and laying her medical kits on the ground beside her. “The baby?”

Carly tried to collect her thoughts. “I think we’re fine, but please check Dagny.” Mindy reached them and dropped down on the other side of Carly, grabbing her in a hard hug.

“Are you okay?”

Carly didn’t know how to answer that. “Sure.”

Stacy took the sheet Dagny had been wrapped in and laid it on the ground. Dagny hid her face against Carly’s chest and had to be peeled away to be examined, because she refused to cooperate. Her shrieks of distress as Stacy checked her over made Carly want to cry, too. Carly tried to calm her, but Mindy was checking her, listening to Carly breathe through her stethoscope.

“Sam got the worst of it, I think.” Carly said after Stacy finished and Dagny was back in her arms, hiccupping from the force of her sobs. “I tried to slow him down, but he had a pretty hard drop.”

Stacy glanced back and gnawed her lip. “I can look at him, Carly, but I’m not sure—”

“Please, just do what you can.”

Sam didn’t want anyone touching him. He let out a whine that turned into a soft, high-pitched growl—as though he knew he wasn’t allowed to growl outright but wanted to make his displeasure known.

“Sam!” Carly said, and her sharp tone made him duck his head a little as his ears flattened. “She’s just trying to help.” She scooted over closer to him and rubbed his ears as Stacy continued her examination.

Sam whined again when Stacy prodded his ribs, but it was a soft, breathy sound, one Carly knew he couldn’t help. She murmured to him and he buried his face against her neck.

“I don’t
think
they’re broken,” Stacy said. “I don’t feel any fractures. Maybe we can just bind them up, like we’d do with a human case.”

“Sure.”

Mindy took Dagny’s sheet and clipped it with scissors from Stacy’s kit, then tore it into wide strips. She helped Stacy wrap it around the wolf’s torso, though he gave that soft whine all the while.

After that, there was nothing to do but watch as the house burned down to cinders. It reminded Carly, horribly, of watching the burning church after the Infection had swept through the little town. She looked away from the fire and laid her cheek against the top of Dagny’s head. Mindy put an arm around her shoulders.

“Come on, Carly. We’ll take you home with us.” Stan took her arm to help her to her feet. Carly was surprised at how wobbly her knees felt.

“I can’t leave . . . Storm, Hamburgers, and the chickens . . .”

Stan sighed. “All right. We’ll stay here with you, then. We can camp out in the barn.”

The Davises offered pillows and blankets, and about half a dozen women said they would bring clothing. When they did, it was enough to restart the wardrobe of the whole family. Jason brought battery-powered lamps so they wouldn’t have to risk an oil lamp, and joked he was glad she’d had him save the batteries. Someone found a car seat that would work as a bed for Dagny for the night. People kept streaming in and out of the barn, going back to their houses to get things they thought she would need. Food was piled up beside one of the empty stalls, Mason jars and precious
saving-it-for-a-special-occasion
tin cans of food from Before.

Their generosity was so great, Carly didn’t know what she was going to do with all of the gifts, but she accepted everything with a smile and a warm thank-you. It was how people showed their affection after a disaster, and she could always redistribute them to those in need later.

Miz Marson thought of a water bowl for Sam, and donated one of her precious pain pills for him. She held up the tablet. “Ironically enough, Justin found these in a vet’s office,” she said. “I remembered him telling me about it.”

Carly was touched to the point where she had to blink back tears. She knew how much Miz Marson’s arthritis pained her, but the old lady saved the medicine for the worst days, the ones on which she could barely move.

“He’ll sleep better,” Miz Marson said. “He needs to rest to heal.” She moved toward Sam and Carly darted forward.

“You’d better let me do that,” she said.

Miz Marson looked over at Sam, who had his head lowered as he stared up at her, his amber eyes glittering in the low light. “Yeah, maybe I better.”

Carly took the pill and petted Sam for a moment before she took his lower jaw in her hand. Sam let out a soft rumble that turned into a low whine when she said his name. She locked eyes with Sam’s and held his gaze for a moment, waiting. It didn’t take long before he licked her chin, and Carly patted him before she used her thumb to push open his jaw. She shoved the pill onto the back of his tongue as quickly as she could and then released him. Sam huffed and shook his head, but he nuzzled against her for a moment. Carly stood and saw a few people staring.

Miz Marson shook her head. “Still don’t know how you do that.”

Carly gave a little shrug. “I’m his alpha. He’s always respected that.”

Carly and Dagny’s bed was made up in the hayloft. Sam would have to stay on the bottom floor. She felt bad about that, given the trauma he’d been through, but people were insistent she make her bed where it was soft and comfortable. Sam would be all right, they said, and, indeed, he made his way into Storm’s stall and lay down in the corner.

Grady brought her a pistol and hung its holster on a peg on the stall wall. Carly realized with a sudden jolt that the store of weapons in the house had been destroyed along with everything else. A cold chill swept over her. She might mourn the loss of the paper ornaments Justin made for their first Christmas, her
Lord of the Rings
DVD, and the other little beloved artifacts of their lives, but the loss of the weapons was a blow for their entire community.

“How did you notice the fire before everyone else? Were you on patrol?”

Grady pitched his voice low as to avoid being overheard. “I was. I was actually coming to see you. The fence was cut again. Same place. Justin was right. He came in through the same blasted spot.”

Carly rubbed the back of her hand over her numb lips.
 
“You don’t
   
think—”

Grady hesitated. “It’s a big coincidence, if not.”

Miz Marson began to shoo away the crowd, her demeanor kind but firm, saying Carly needed to get some sleep. Stan and Mindy spread out their bedding on the other side of the hayloft while Carly called her goodbyes with false cheer.

“I’ll be outside,” Grady said. “You don’t have to worry, Carly. We’ll keep watch over you ’til Justin is back.”

“I’d rather you kept watch over the hole in the fence.”

“We have been. He came in right as the shift was changing over. But it won’t be hard to identify him once we catch him. Justin laid some traps, and it looks like he—”