CHAPTER 53
It was like the end of the world.
Heat like hellfire, a sound of rushing wind, hungry orange walls of flames, the bawl of terrified beasts, acrid smoke that choked lungs and made eyes tear and burn, voices hollering and hawing, panicked animals herded away from flames and into the fields, arms that ached from the weight of buckets, the howl of sirens, flashes of red light, and sprays of water, the dousing of flames but not soon enough, the coming of dawn, charred beams still standing, black and smoldering, like skeletons of martyred saints, the drop of adrenaline, the weariness and hopelessness that comes so suddenly, wrapping tight as a shroud, the truth that is sometimes too much to bear, that feels like the end of the world.
Corney Tate took off his helmet and wiped his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of soot and sweat. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save the barn, Dutch.”
“You saved the house. That’s the most important thing.”
Corney shook Dutch’s hand, accepting his thanks.
“Well, it could have been worse, Dutch. A lot worse. You saved your stock, most of it anyway, thanks to this young man. Graydon, if we would have gotten here sooner, I’d have sat on you myself to keep you from going back into the barn for the animals. But you’re one brave son of a gun, I’ll say that for you. Brave or crazy. You’d make a darned good fireman. If you’re ever looking for work . . .”
“Thanks, Chief, but I think I’ll stick with ranching,” Graydon said with a weary half smile that quickly faded. “I don’t understand how it happened. I checked the stock before turning in and when I woke up, I was choking on smoke, and the loft was in flames. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We’ll be out again tomorrow to do an investigation, but it’s been so dry that most anything could have started it. A cigarette butt, a spark from a lantern . . .”
Graydon shook his head. “I don’t smoke, and I doused the lantern before I went to sleep. And it started in the loft, not the tack room.”
“Well, it could have been a spark from something, even static electricity. Wouldn’t take much in this weather.” Corney put a big arm on Graydon’s shoulder. “Without you, these folks might have lost everything. It’s a miracle they didn’t.”
Chief Tate climbed into the cab of his truck and drove away, sticking his beefy arm out the window to bid them farewell.
When the truck was gone and the dust settled, Dutch turned to his daughters and said, “I guess we’d better start cleaning up.”
Mary Dell shook her head. “You’re tired, Daddy. Go inside and get some sleep. Moises will be here soon. Me and Lydia Dale can help Graydon until he gets here. We’ll wake you up when it’s time to eat.”
“You sure?” Dutch said uncertainly. “I don’t think I could sleep, but my leg is bothering me. Maybe I’ll go and spell your momma, keep an eye on the babies so she can make breakfast.”
“You do that,” Lydia Dale urged.
Considering what could have happened, they had been lucky, incredibly so. Graydon had managed to get all the horses out, throwing his jacket and an old towel over their eyes and leading them out two at a time. Then he’d gone back for the sheep, opening the pens and herding them into the pasture. He’d gotten them all out, but they’d lost four of the lambs to smoke inhalation. The chickens were all dead, but the hogs were fine. It could have been so much worse.
The barn was a total loss, and of course, all the hay and feed was gone. They’d have to get some more right away. They’d need a backhoe to take down the scorched frame of the barn, but in the meantime, there was shattered glass to sweep up and piles of debris to clear away.
“Thank heaven we’ve got insurance,” Mary Dell said.
“You should call them right away,” Graydon said. “The sooner you do, the sooner we’ll get a check and be able to start rebuilding. Then call the feed store and ask Lester if they can bring us out a load of hay and some feed today.”
“All right,” she said and started jogging toward the house. “I’ll come back out to help as soon as I’m done.”
Graydon turned in a slow circle, cataloging the devastation. “You know, until the insurance adjuster gets here and we’ve got a backhoe, there’s not all that much we can do.” He rubbed his neck, thinking. “Well, I’ve got to bury those lambs and chickens. And we better get the broken glass up before somebody steps on it or drives over it.”
Lydia Dale bobbed her head, agreeing with his assessment. “I’ll get the shovel and broom.”
The shed windows were dirty to begin with, but the added layer of soot from the fire obscured most of the light from the glass, making it hard to find anything. She laid her hands on the shovel almost immediately and quite by accident, just by reaching her hand out to find the wall and bumping against the handle. The broom was harder to locate; prolonged searching left her empty-handed.
She groped around the boxes and barrels, shoving aside newspapers and a couple of old tarps, hoping to stumble upon a flashlight. Her efforts were rewarded when she reached into a box and laid her hand on a grooved metal cylinder. She flipped the switch, hoping the batteries were still good. They were.
She moved the beam slowly around the walls of the shed, but paused when the light moved over the top of one of the barrels and glinted against some glass. She moved to the barrel, looked inside, and found empty liquor bottles—one, two, three . . . eight empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Lydia Dale pressed a fist against her lips. Her pulse raced. She felt disoriented, almost dizzy, not quite certain of what her discovery meant. But then, when she heard Graydon calling her name, coming toward her, her uncertainty was replaced by fury and loathing, fury at him for turning out to be exactly what she’d feared he would be, loathing for herself for being so gullible, for being made a fool of yet again.
“Don’t worry about the broom,” Graydon said. “I found it leaning against the side of the house.”
He opened the door wider, standing in silhouette between the darkness inside and the early light of day. “Lydia Dale? Are you all right?”
She turned to face him, an empty bottle clutched in her fist. “Is this yours? Are all these yours?”
He hesitated barely a breath before answering. “Yes. But I didn’t empty them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean, I didn’t drink them. Not all of them. I poured out more than half of them about a month ago.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
He shifted his weight, spread his feet, and tilted his hat farther back on his brow. “I don’t care if you believe it or not. It’s true. I stopped drinking a month ago. Not that it’s any of your business if I did or didn’t. I never drank during the day, and I never let it get in the way of my work.”
“I see,” she said and crossed her arms over her chest. “You only drank at night, so you think that makes it all right. You think that it doesn’t matter as long as nobody sees you. But when you get drunk and fall asleep with a lit cigarette in your hand . . .”
“I don’t smoke. I’ve never smoked.”
“. . . or stumble around in a stupor and knock over a lantern, then it is my business!”
“That’s not what happened,” he said, his voice low and precise, the voice of a man who could only be pushed so far.
“Then what did happen? Fires don’t start themselves, and you were the only one out there.”
“I don’t know. But I wasn’t drinking, and I didn’t start any fire.”
“Somebody had to!”
“Maybe, but it wasn’t me.”
“Oh, no. Of course not! You’re just the big hero, the cowboy who rides in and saves the day, the guy who braves the flames to rescue the stock, who births all the lambs and fires the thieving hands, who waltzes back after disappearing for years and wins back everyone’s trust, who makes little boys look up to him, the man who makes everybody fall in love with him,” she sobbed, “and then turns around and breaks their hearts!”
Tears coursed down her face. She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and took in a gasping breath, trying to regain control. Graydon took a step toward her, moving into the dim light, a shadow reaching out to her. She pulled away.
“I want you to leave.”
“Don’t,” he warned her. “Don’t accuse me of things I didn’t do. And don’t tell me to leave unless you mean it.”
“I do mean it. Mary Dell hired you, but half this ranch is mine. I want you off my land. Right now.”
Arm at his side, he clenched and unclenched his fist, then reached up, settled his Stetson square on his head, and walked away.