WHEN FATHER SEES THE smoke, he stops the wagon and tells me to drive the rig the rest of the way home. I climb up front and take the reins while he jumps down and runs ahead, disappearing from our sight around the next bend. Mam clutches Teddy tight the whole rest of the way. It’s not easy keeping Mae and Ulysses moving, me with only one good arm and they decided against forward motion. Finally, Ulysses stops and digs in his heels as only a mule can, refusing to go on no matter how much I holler at him. I get down and, taking hold of Mae’s halter, lead her forward so that Ulysses has no choice but to follow.
When our cabin comes into sight, Mam and I are relieved to see it still standing, but we can see flames licking up over the trees in the direction of the creek. We can hear Gyp barking fiercely from down that way. Annie is out front with Isabel. They come running to meet us.
“The mill is on fire!” Annie calls to us.
“The mill is on fire!” says Isabel, Annie’s echo.
Mam tells me to stop the wagon so she can get down. She puts Teddy into Annie’s arms and tells her to take him and Isabel into the cabin and to keep them there.
“Where are John and Will?” she wants to know.
“Down at the mill with Father.”
Mam starts running down the path to the mill. I tie off Mae and Ulysses to a tree and follow Mam, lickety-split. At the end of the path I find Mam stopped, staring at the wall of the mill, now a wall of flame—the roaring heat warping the air around it. Gypsy is at Mam’s side, whimpering in between barks. Mam cries out, “How could they do such a thing?”
I look at the angry blaze and know in my heart that Mam is right—this is what Dr. Thompson meant when he talked about punishment. Through the smoke, I make out John and Will by the pond, scooping up buckets of water.
“Go back to the house, Mam,” I tell her. “Take Gyp. Keep the children safe.”
In a flash Mam sees what I’m driving at, that if they hate us so much they could set the mill on fire, they could do the same to our home. She calls to Gyp and hurries back up the path, while I run to the pond and grab a bucket to help John and Will haul water.
“When did it start?” I call to the boys over the din of fire and crashing timbers.
“’Bout half an hour ago!” shouts John. “Gyp was barking and wouldn’t stop. I came outside and smelled the smoke.”
I turn to the mill with my full bucket and see Will handing off a pail to Father, who throws water at the east wall, the one containing the waterwheel. My heart takes a leap to see Joe Hampton at his side—I’m thinking that maybe with all of these hands we have a chance at saving something. I hand my water off to Joe, who pivots and splashes it onto a spur of orange and yellow that’s making its way toward the wheel, which so far has been spared. He shirks off the blanket he’s wearing as a poncho and tosses it to me.
“Get it wet!” he yells.
I leave the water buckets to John and Will and throw the blanket into the pond, finding enough strength in my left hand that between it and my good right one I can pull its sodden weight back out of the water. I carry it back to Joe, who grabs it and starts beating back the flames with it. I pick up my bucket and fetch more water. Father has three of us bringing him buckets now and is able to pick up the pace of dousing near the waterwheel while Joe works his way around to the south wall, where the flames are so fierce. So far the fire hasn’t reached the creek-side north wall. If we can stop it from spreading any further, we’ll keep the wheel from burning.
John and I are at the pond, side by side, filling our buckets when a gunshot cracks the air. We both look in the direction of our cabin where it came from, both with new fears. I glance over to Father and Joe, still working. Neither of them heard it. They’re too close to the roar of the fire.
“You stay,” I tell John.
I set down my bucketful of water so he can carry two, and I run up the path to our house. Mam is standing outside, holding Father’s rifle. So that’s where the shot came from. She calls to me, “There’s two of them!”
I look to where I can hear Gyp barking, in the bushes along the track that leads to the house, and I see two points of light bobbing between the trees. Lanterns. Gypsy is out there, barking fiercely. I take the rifle from Mam and tell her to get back inside and lock the door. With only one good arm, I can’t load the rifle—there’s naught I can do but use it for show. But it’s better than facing whoever’s out there bare-handed.
There’s a yelp from Gyp, and then she’s silent. I don’t see the lights from the lanterns any longer. I listen for the snap of a twig, but all is still. Mae gives a nervous whinny from where she and Ulysses are tied along the track. In the moonlight I can see her nodding and shaking her head. I step softly over to the wagon and use it for cover as I scan into the woods for movement, but there’s none that I can see. I’m worried about Gyp, that she’s gone so quiet. What have they done to her?
“Get off our land!” I yell. “I’ve got a gun!”
There’s a choked off laugh, coming from the right of me—not far into the bush. It sounds like a kid!
“I can hear you!” I call. “I know you’re there!”
A voice comes back at me, a voice I recognize as belonging to Tom Breckenridge.
“And what the hell are you going to do about it with one arm broke!” he shouts, taunting me.
“I know that’s you, Tom!” I say.
Now I can see his lantern light through the trees, and I can hear the swish of undergrowth as he comes my way. There’s a second light behind him, bobbing toward me.
“Who’s with you?” I call.
But in another second I can see for myself. It’s Pete Harkness.
“Unless you’re planning on throwing that rifle at us, you may as well put it away, George,” says Tom with a grin. “We know you can’t shoot straight.”
Tom looks over to Pete to see if he appreciates his joke. Pete gives a laugh. I lower the gun. I couldn’t shoot them, even if it was loaded.
“Did you set the fire?” I say.
“What fire?” says Tom, still with that grin on his face.
“I’m telling the sheriff it was you!”
“Go ahead,” says Pete, “if you think the sheriff’s ever going to listen to you again after all the lies you’ve been telling him about folks.”
“It’s a shame about your mill,” Tom says. “I hope nothing else bad happens to you.” He turns to Pete. “C’mon,” he says. “There’s a bad smell around here, like dirty Indians.”
“Or dirty Indian lovers.”
“Same thing.”
Tom and Pete step out of the bush and amble away toward the trail, like they’re out for an evening stroll.
“Pete!” I call. Tom keeps walking, but Pete turns back to me. “What did you do to Gypsy?”
In the light from his lantern, I can see him lose his cocky look. For a second I see the old Pete, my friend. He knew Gyp from when she was a pup. When we were boys, we used to take our dogs with us when we went hunting for rabbits and the like.
“It weren’t me,” he says. For a second he seems broken up, then in a flash he gets angry. “You were there that night, George,” he tells me. “It was your idea to follow them. You were part of it. Don’t make like you wasn’t.”
I stare at him wishing with all my might that I could find some reason why he’s wrong, why he had more to do with the lynching than I did, why he’s guilty of taking a boy’s life and I’m innocent. But he speaks the truth. I’ve got blood on my hands, same as him. The only difference between us is that I’m sorry for what happened. What use is that to Louie Sam?
Pete looks like he wants to say something more, but instead he just shrugs and follows Tom off down the track. I watch them go. There’s no point in pretending there’s something I can do about them. There’s no point at all.