Then There Were Five (14 page)

“Over to Meeker's farm.”

“Meeker's! Is it bad?”

“Pretty bad, I guess. They've even sent for the outfit over to Eldred.”

“Gee.” Rush hung up. An instant later he picked up the receiver again. “Thanks,” he said into the mouthpiece.

Randy hated waking up before she was ready to. “Go
'way!
” she grumbled, as Rush shook her shoulder. “Leave me
'lone!
”

“Randy! Wake up! Meeker's farm's on fire!”

“Meeker's farm? Is it? How do you know?”

“Miss Clisbee told me. I'm going over, I want to see if Mark's okay. Don't let on to Mona if she wakes up.”

“But I'm coming too!”

“No, sir, you're not. This isn't for girls.”

“Yes, sir, I am.” Randy leaped out of bed. “Mark's my friend just as much as yours.”

“Well, then, hurry!” Rush gave up in exasperation. “I'll get our bikes out of the garage. I'm going to wake Willy up too.”

Lucky it's hot, Randy was thinking. I don't have to waste much time on dressing. She stripped off her pajamas, put on her playsuit and sandals, and was ready to go. Down the stairs she flew on tiptoe. It was pitch-dark, but a light might waken Mona.

Outside the night was full of a strange clamor; braying fire siren, the windy bells of the engines, the rumbling thunder. The wind had sprung up while she was sleeping. It was vast and warm, and she felt that it was almost visible: a billowing, formless tide like clouds, or heavy smoke. She ran toward the garage, and bumped into Rush.

“Willy's not here,” he whispered. “Left a light burning, and his radio on as usual.”

“But where—?”

“To the fire probably. His bike's gone too. Here's yours. Does the headlight work? Good, so does mine. Let's get going.”

It was spooky but exciting coasting along in the dark behind Rush. The warm, enormous wind fanned Randy's face and arms; the woods murmured like an ocean, and Randy did not dare to look at them. She knew how huge and powerful they became at night. Rush was too far ahead. She rang the bell on her handlebars to give herself courage, but instead it frightened her almost to death.

“What time is it, Rush?” she called tremulously.

“It's late. After one o'clock.”

“Gosh,” Randy said.

They left their bikes in the weeds where Meeker's road turned off; Rush's flashlight had gone dead, but they didn't need it after all. The sky was bright with the ominous light of fire. Now and then the lightning came: a flash of icy blue above the burning gold and crimson.

As they ran panting along the uneven ruts they stumbled and tripped. The tall weeds brushed against them, and reaching briars scratched their legs. Randy fell headlong over a root, and Rush pulled her up again before she had time to find out whether or not she was hurt. The road seemed endless. Rush felt as though he were still running in his nightmare.

Once there was a burst of light and noise behind them. Rush pulled Randy into the milkweed at the roadside. The Eldred fire engine went snorting past them, all brass, bells, red paint, and lights. It left behind it a hot smell of gasoline, and a sudden quiet.

“Listen!” said Randy.

Her eyes opened wide with horror, for now they could hear the fire itself: a rich, jovial, mighty crackling.

“Oh, Mark! Oh, Mark! Oh, Mark!” moaned Randy, beginning to cry.

“Shut up, Ran, he'll be all right. You'll see.” Rush was pale, all the same, and he began running faster yet.

Suddenly they came out of the woods; and stopped dead in their tracks.

The farmhouse was now a raging bonfire. Still through the flames they could see the shape of it, the dark hollows of its doors and windows with smoke and fire coming out. The flames drove upward from the walls and roof, high, high, in a great, dazzling, lifting mane. The voluminous smoke billowed higher still in genii shapes, red-brown against the blue-black sky, and shot through with flying sparks like fiery bees. Beside the house the dead pine was ablaze, every branch outlined in burning veins of light.

Down in the hollow stood the two fire engines and a handful of cars. Firemen were scurrying about untangling hoses, and from the well to the house stretched a long line of men and boys passing pails of water from hand to hand: a bucket brigade. On the outskirts stood the onlookers: small knots of women, old men, and children, their faces white in the firelight, their fascinated eyes glittering with reflected flames. Somebody had tied the two Meeker dogs to a fence, and there they stood barking incessantly, first one, then the other, then both together.

“Where's Mark? I don't see Mark,” Randy kept saying.

“He's there someplace. Stop asking me that. He's bound to be someplace. Come on down and see.”

They passed three old men and heard a snatch of conversation.

“Hope they don't pump the well dry with them hoses.”

“Well, they say they got some kind of
chemical
to spray on too.”

“Hope they have aplenty. Looks like it'd take more'n a Flit gunful.”

“
There's
Mark!” cried Rush.

And there he was, coming out of the barn between the team of work horses, a hand on each bridle, light shining on his dazed face. Randy never forgot the way he looked then, so thin and small between the great bony horses.

“Oh, Mark, are you all right?” she cried, running up to him and forgetting the deep distrust she felt for all horses except Lorna Doone.

“Why, h'lo. Yes, I'm okay.”

“Anything we can do, Mark?”

“I guess maybe you could help bring out the cows, Rush. They're afraid if the wind don't change the barn might catch.”

“How did it start?”

“I dunno. I was asleep. The dogs woke me up barking, then I smelt smoke and when I opened my door the stairs was on fire. I looked right into it like a furnace and then I closed the door, and next thing I knew I was out the window and halfway down that ol' dead pine, the one that's on fire now. It was a good ol' tree.”

They all looked at the blazing tree.

“Then I heard someone calling my name. It was Herb Joyner; he saw the light from his bedroom window and came arunning in his pajamas right down the valley, and across the oat stubble in the back meadow. Barefoot, too—it must have hurt. He'd put in the call to Carthage before he left—”

“But—but Oren?”

“I dunno where he is. He went out right after milking. I hollered his name all the way down the tree … Guess he's still out.” Mark looked at Rush. “
You
know. Sometimes he doesn't come home till morning.”

“I'll start getting out the cows,” Rush said.

“So will I,” said Randy, and followed him into the barn.

The darkness smelled warm and healthy. It was full of deep, soft breathing and the rustle of hay. Randy stepped timidly up to the first cow. In the shadow it looked big as a mastodon, and its huge, still eyes stared at her out of its light face. Gee whiz, Randy thought, they say animals always know when you're scared of them. And I'm scared …

“Come on, bossy,” she said aloud in a sweet, false voice.

The cow came out with a heavy dignified tread and sighed a great sigh that smelled of hay. Randy put up her hand and found the bridle. She stepped forward and the cow stepped with her, mild and docile. Randy felt love in her heart for the creature. Beautiful, trustful, obedient animal. I must tell Father we should have a cow, she said to herself, and to the cow she said, “Don't be frightened, don't be scared. We'd never let anything hurt you.”

“Randy Melendy!” said an outraged voice. “What the dickens you doin' down here? I thought you was all safe asleep. What would your papa say?”

Randy looked up into Willy's indignant face; he was soaking wet and there was a bucket in his hand.

“I'm herding cattle,” she said.

“Well, isn't that nice! I suppose you brought the whole family along, too?”

“No, just Rush.”

“Oh, just Rush. And where is he, may I ask? Operatin' a hose or givin' the fire chief pointers, no doubt.”

“Oh, now, Willy! Don't be mad, we'll be careful. Rush is herding cattle, too.”

Soon all the cows were out. They stood at the edge of the pasture dazed in the brilliant light. Now and then one of them would comment on it in a great questioning voice.

The fire blazed higher than ever, high and arched, like a fiery sickle curved over the barn.

“'F they don't get both them pumps workin' soon they're gointa lose the barn sure. House is a goner already,” said the watchers.

But now a stream, two streams, were directed at the flames. The bucket brigade, too, still did its work nobly, sweating, spilling great puddles of water, but never resting.

Nothing helped much. The fire had gone too far. It had burst its bonds like the undisciplined giant that it was, roaring, and chuckling, and reaching, hungry for everything in sight.

“Roof'l cave in soon now,” someone said. “Better move back, sister, never can tell.”

Randy stepped back in a daze, unable to look away from that dazzling spectacle.

“Where's Oren? Why the dickens don't he come home?” said a man. And another replied in a startled voice, “Gee whilikens, you don't suppose—! The kid said he was out all evenin'!”

“Naw, naw, he'd have smelled it sure.”

Randy felt scared. She ran to find Rush or Willy or Mark.

Rush and Mark were getting the hogs out of the sty, and at the sight of those hideous, rumbling creatures, Randy did not offer to help.

“Step back all,” commanded the fire chief suddenly. “Step back quick!”

And then there was a sound, a hollow, crashing, terrible sound. For an instant the flames swelled out sidewise, in a great mushroom of fire, and then curved upward again stronger than ever. The roof had caved in.

“Look, the barn's caught,” yelled somebody, a woman, in a high, thin voice.

It was true. From the upper part of the barn the hay protruded: from the loft windows, and the door. It bulged out between the warped planks, squeezed through the cracks like oats sprouting through a rotten sack. Everywhere that the hay protruded little tongues of fire were licking.

“How fast it goes!” whispered Randy.

Mark was standing beside her, but he said nothing. He stood there staring at the destruction as though half asleep.

“Why don't the dang rain
rain?
” growled a bystander. “Look at it, will you, holdin' off just's long's it kin!”

After a long while the fires began to subside. A hundred other little fires seemed to leap and blaze in the puddles of water that had spilled from the buckets and leaked from the hoses. The Carthage firemen and the Eldred firemen worked like Trojans. They fought not only the fire but the wind, which, vast and dry, was in league with the fire, coaxing it on, fanning it high, carrying sparks toward the strawstacks, the dry meadows.

At four o'clock the battle was almost over but no one felt victorious, for the house was gone. Nothing remained of it but smoldering ashes and a charcoal skeleton. The barn fared little better, though it still carried the travesty of a roof.

The onlookers began to leave in tired groups. They felt let down, saddened at the outcome of the fire. There was a commotion of rattletrap cars; metal doors slammed, voices called, the Meeker dogs commenced to bark again. Above and beyond these sounds could be heard the tireless chopping and chopping of firemen's hatchets. Flashlights played about the wreckage.

The fire chief was talking to Willy Sloper and presently Willy came over to the children.

“Come on, kids,” he said. “Show's over.”

“But, Mark—” Randy said.

“Mark's comin' too. C'mon, Mark.”

“Gee, thanks, but I can't. Oren wouldn't like to come home and find all this and me not here.”

“You come on. I'll fix it with Oren. It's late. You know how late it is? Past four o'clock. Every rooster in the state will commence hollerin' in about ten minutes.”

Mark argued no longer. Dog-tired, he followed Willy. Rush walked beside him, wide awake and full of thoughts; but Randy pitched and stumbled against him, suddenly half asleep. Rush put his arm through hers to guide her.

“My nose smells of smoke,” Randy muttered.

“Your nose
smells
smoke, you mean.”

“No, smells
of
it. I think it's going to forever. My hair too.”

The whole valley had a scorched smell, in fact. Now and then there was a rift in the odor, and the large wind came through, carrying the undisturbed fragrance of night woods.

The lightning flared suddenly. For an instant Randy could see all things in sharp detail: Willy's old scuffed heels, the clover pressed flat in his footprint, the moth hovering over the wheel rut. Then darkness again and renewed thunder.

Also a drop of rain.

“There it comes,” said Willy disgustedly. “Just missed the bus by a couple of hours. How do you like that!”

They were too weary even to resent it. By the time they came to the mailbox and picked up the bikes the rain was pelting down. They did not dare ride in all the wetness and confusion. Willy steered Randy's bike and Rush his own. They ran along the road, wet to the skin, slipping on loose stones, stumbling into ditches. Randy began to cry from strain and exhaustion, but nobody knew it. She swallowed her sobs quietly and the tears on her face might have been rain water. She would have died rather than let Rush know how she felt. “I told you so” is one of the horridest phrases in the English language.

“Mark can sleep in my room,” Rush said.

“No, he can sleep in the cupola,” Randy said. “That's the nicest place, and he once said he'd like to. And the bed's made up.”

“Whatcha snifflin' about? Cold?” inquired Willy anxiously.