TWENTY-SEVEN

THAT NIGHT I LAY AWAKE IN A COLD AND MOST UNFRIENDLY darkness. Even two quilts, the madder brown one with the yellow stars and the heavier nine-patch, brought no comfort. I was adrift, confused. Was Father guilty? Or was the firebug truly Captain Gilmore? And if either were true, why was I still so suspicious of Mr. Lee’s late-night appearance? What was his motive?

I desperately needed to talk with James, but he still hadn’t come home. Where was he?

Shivering from head to toe, I couldn’t tell if it was the cold or an awful foreboding that kept my knees twitching and jerking. I began to believe that the fire alarm was going to jangle at any moment, and as the parlor clock chimed the quarter hours I startled at every distant bang or whistle. But they were false calls, every one of them. That was fitting because nothing, anymore, was as it seemed. People wore masks and talked over your head or behind your back. No one was as they appeared. I was scared to close my eyes.

Some time during that long night Grandmother closed hers.

As I passed her open door the next morning, I noticed her lumpy body silhouetted under the bedclothes. That sight alone gave me another chill. Rising with the sun was religion for her. “Are you all right?” I whispered into the curtain-darkened room. An unseen fly droned and banged against the windowpane. I didn’t hear anything else. “Grandmother?”

Having moved so far from home, we had no friends to tell. No one came to sit in the parlor and share remembrances of church picnics and blue-ribbon fudge, of first love and first steps. No one came at all except for the undertaker, and when he and his assistant carried Grandmother out of the house, the narrow brick building felt so empty.

Mother began cooking. It was what she knew how to do. She penciled a list and put on her wrapper and went out the door. I ran out to the Girl and buried my face in her warm neck and cried and cried. The muzzle she rested on my shoulder was as comforting as any hand.

Later, as I stirred a fire in the stove, I found myself stirring memories. Each crackling orange spark lit a photographic image in my mind: of Grandmother’s floured finger touching my nose; of her brown, well-worn Bible opened across her lap (to the Psalms, meaning she was happy); of the three of us huddled in this very kitchen, shyly sharing dreams. Tears continued trickling down my cheeks.

Mother finally returned with a precious slab of corned beef and a basket full of all the fixings for chicken and dumpling stew. How were we going to eat it all? There was no ice to keep leftovers. Oblivious to the practicalities, she silently began chopping and measuring. I did the washing and the drying and, when asked, set about ironing Grandmother’s favorite tablecloth, the one she’d embroidered with tulips in all four corners. That task alone took nearly an hour, during which time neither of us spoke of our ache.

Not wanting to pull Father or James from their work, Mother decided to hold the news of Grandmother’s passing until evening. She ordered the front steps swept and the hall rug shaken out and the parlor dusted. For whose eyes? I wondered. Still, I dampened a rag and began running it across the mantel. As for herself, with the beef boiling and the stew simmering, Mother began rolling out platoons of biscuits.

When I slid her potted ivies over to wipe their crusted water rings off the windowsill, I paused to glance outside. A pleasant enough fall afternoon: hazy blue sky, yellow leaves skating down an empty street. But without any horses, all too quiet.

I didn’t know how many more hundreds had died. I’d given up walking the pavement because I couldn’t bear to see the wheezing, snotty-nosed horses cruelly harnessed to their wagons, or far worse, the stiff carcasses, piled with legs akimbo like so much firewood. Maybe I wasn’t suited for the rigors of veterinary medicine.

As I stepped away from the window, I tripped over my sewing basket. The unfinished sampler, with its two apples sinfully stitched in bold red, fell open on the floor. I stuffed it back in the basket with a flush of guilt, then gathered up the newspapers Father had left strewn around his chair. A small headline in one caught my eye: FIRE CHIEF REASSURES PUBLIC: HORSES STAND AT THE READY AT ENGINE COMPANY NO. 8.

My jaw dropped. A quick scan of the interview showed it chock-full of falsehoods. ‘“I’ve personally supervised every one of the fires,’” Captain Gilmore claimed, ‘“that my company has been called out to fight.’” Farther down he stated, “‘On several occasions, when the cause of a fire has aroused suspicion, I’ve personally and thoroughly examined the aftermath. In most cases I’ve found that simple neglect, along with Man’s capacity for error, has proved to be at fault, so I don’t believe the public need worry itself about some soulless hooligan skulking around our city and purposefully striking sparks.’” Asked about the distemper epidemic, he had the brass to respond, “‘I don’t know the situation at other companies, but the horses at Engine Company Number Eight are all in fine fettle. They’re standing at the ready, just as my men are.’”

Such lies! At least two of his horses were dead, I knew that for a fact, and he wasn’t at the furniture factory fire. Mr. Lee had to be right. And I had to tell James.

Folding the newspaper along with the others beside Father’s chair, I hurried into the kitchen. Flour speckled both the table and floor and coated Mother’s arms in white. She shook the hair out of her face and kept rolling dough steadily.

“It’s almost five,” I said. “Do you want me to walk over to the station to get James?”

“No, we can wait until he gets home.”

“But I need to talk to him. I didn’t get a chance to last night.”

“We can wait” she snapped. “Now please fetch some potatoes from the cellar. Six or eight will do.”

I brought up the potatoes and, at her bidding, hastily and sloppily mopped the hall and kitchen floor. Under her critical gaze I was forced to get a bucket of clean water and mop them again. I was ready to explode. Only after I’d set the table to her satisfaction was I excused to my room. Angrily, I took the stairs two at a time, ignoring her hollered command to walk like a lady. I whipped past the pinned butterflies and Grandmother’s empty room. Everything was wrong. Firemen were setting fires and journalists were printing lies and Mother was cooking for people who would never arrive. And even though this was the quietest of November evenings, with stars just beginning to poke through the graying sky, I knew a storm was brewing. I just knew it.

I paced my room for an hour like a horse trapped in a too-small pen—from the bed to the bureau to the window and a glance down the dark street. The lamps were lit, but it still lay empty. Why didn’t James come? And where was Father at this very minute?

Flopping onto my bed, I opened my horse care manual. I’d always found solace in its detailed descriptions of illnesses and, more importantly, its cures for them, so I tried leafing through the pages. But I couldn’t concentrate. Voices in my head drowned the words on the page. First Mr. Lee’s, which had been echoing in my ears since last night: “I thought you cared about those horses.” And then Grandmother’s, repeating a verse of a few weeks ago, “They shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them.”

Two floors below, the parlor clock chimed. I jumped off the bed, ready to run—to where? This was unbearable.

A loud crack sounded outside: the Girl kicking the carriage shed’s wall. I cocked an ear, though I hardly needed to decipher the code. She kicked again. I pictured her pacing just as fretfully as I had been. A loud, urgent whinny split the air and that was the final dot after the dash: She was calling for me. I began tiptoeing down the stairs with the plan of sneaking out of the house. Mother caught me at the bottom.

“That horse of yours is making an awful racket.”

To my way of thinking, that was as good as an official leave. “I’ll go have a look at her,” I said, and before she could second-guess herself, I darted past her and through the kitchen. The odor of burned stew trailed me out the door.

The instant I entered the shed, the Girl spun to face me. In the darkness I saw her ears prick. Eagerly she began weaving from side to side like an athlete anticipating the ball. She knew something was going to happen too, even with that cotton stuffed in her ears she knew it. Did she sense a fire somewhere? The alarm hadn’t yet rung. I decided to go after James. “I’ll be right back,” I promised, and gave her a pat on the neck. She nickered anxiously. Gathering my skirts, I tore down the alley.

Running through the dark and drinking in the cold air was a wonderful tonic for worry. I almost imagined myself a firehorse, dashing to the blaze with utmost speed, pouring every ounce of energy into a lifesaving effort. Even with those awful shoes cutting into my ankles, with pain stabbing my side, I kept running. I pounded the pavement until my chest was near to exploding, until, gasping for air, I clattered to a stop in front of the silent fire station.

Its lower level was completely dark, though lamps glowed in the second-story windows. The big main doors were closed. For the first time I noticed the small sign beside them that read PUBLIC NOT PERMITTED. I wondered if that overzealous dalmatian was waiting inside to enforce the rule. With my heart still thudding in my ears, I tugged the door ajar.

No dog—yet. Stepping inside the station was like entering a grand hotel lobby, though a strangely empty one. I hadn’t remembered the floor being so polished or the ironwork dividing the seven stalls at the back so ornamental. Moonlight spilled through barred windows onto six piles of empty golden straw. Only the seventh appeared occupied. Mesmerized for the moment, I tiptoed across the room to solemnly read the names engraved on marble and brass plaques above each stall: Chester, Major John. They were long dead. The stalls of Duke and Black Jack stood empty. As did those belonging to Brownie and Ned. Only the stall reserved for the Governor’s Girl had an occupant, and the rangy gray imposter slumped inside it looked deathly ill.

I heard the firemen upstairs, their talk interspersed with laughter. I imagined them playing cards, telling jokes. How was I going to get James’s attention? And where was that sneaky dog?

I felt the nation’s founding fathers glaring at me from their portraitures on the wall: trespassing girl! I turned my back. No point in arguing that. On the adjoining wall, an alarm box and an oversize clock hung above a lone desk and chair. A logbook lay open on the desk, pen at the ready.

The firefighting vehicles had been backed into place in orderly fashion, their corresponding harnesses suspended in odd fashion above them. The web of pulleys made them look like giant leather spiders waiting to ensnare hapless victims. I shook off a shiver, screwed up my courage, and started up the stairs.

At my first footfall the alarm jangled. I jumped out of my skin. The men scrambled above, and the rope barriers to all the stalls automatically fell open with simultaneous thuds. The gray gelding grunted in surprise. Valiantly he struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the engine as the men came spilling down the stairs. I ducked inside an empty stall.

“Where is it?” someone shouted.

A man in red darted toward the alarm box to peer at the telegraph tape. “Summer Street,” he called back.

“Summer Street? All the way up there? Are you sure?”

The man checked the tape again. “Yep. Box Fifty-two. Summer and Kingston. Must be a big one for them to call us out.” He glanced up at the clock. The pointy black hands were inching toward eight o’clock.

The gelding had made his way to the steam engine, stopped, and obediently backed himself into place under the suspended harness. His legs quivered and his head drooped below any bridle’s reach. No one moved to fasten the harness.

“Where’s the chief?”

Attention swung toward the office. The door was closed; no strip of light shone beneath it.

“What are we going to do? Freckles can’t pull the steamer all by himself.”

“Put him back in his stall,” a vaguely familiar voice ordered. “He’s too sick to pull a flower cart.” I peeked over the half wall to see Mr. Benton Lee giving orders. What was his role in this? “There ought to be enough of us to drag it. Shall we give it a try, men?”

“All the way to Summer Street?”

“If you’re afraid of some blisters, Holmes, then stay behind. The rest of you, tie some ropes to the front of this contraption. My father’s always telling me how real firemen used to pull their own engines; we can do the same.”

“Your father’s engines didn’t weigh two tons,” someone grumbled. But his complaint was drowned by cheers and the loud creaks of the opening doors. The sick gelding was chased back to his stall, two long ropes were knotted into a makeshift harness, and the men themselves began rolling the shimmering apparatus into the night. James left with them, pushing from behind.

As the heavy rumbling and rousing calls faded away, I heard my heart pounding its own alarm: Summer and Kingston! Kingston was the street we’d walked down to get to McLaughlin’s Livery. That’s where Balder was. If the stable was on fire …!

I dashed outside. I thought I could smell it: the sharp odor of fresh smoke. Looking up, I gasped. An orange glow already silhouetted the city’s skyline. How big was this fire? That set me to running, retracing my steps. Playing the part of a firehorse was fancy no longer. Balder and hundreds of other horses were in danger. Or already … no! I wasn’t going to think of that. Chasing images of charred bodies from my mind, I prayed to God to spare their lives.

I received some sort of answer in an ominous rumble that shook the ground, as if a giant dragon were shaking himself awake. The whole world vibrated. This is the end, I thought. Judgment Day. Up and down the street, the gas lamps went dark, snuffed by some unseen hand. Now only the fire lit the sky. Gooseflesh prickled my skin. Did it matter anymore? Fighting my aching lungs, I kicked up my speed through the inky blackness. God forgive me, but I was saving some horses before I died.