Five

Hank Coolidge

Nice, Illinois

“Wait! Mr. McCarthy!” My eyes are still watering from the smoke, and I stumble trying to catch up with him. Mac is rolling out the yellow tape, boxing off black ash and smoldering wood. “You think somebody set this fire, don’t you?” I demand.

“Hank, you can’t be here,” he says.

But my mind has snapped out of shock, and it won’t stop racing. “That fire didn’t start itself. How could it? You know Dad. He’s too careful. We’ve done everything we could to make the barn safe, to make sure nothing like this ever happened. Dad had you guys do inspections twice a year, even though we didn’t have to!”

“I know, but—”

“We don’t park anything in the barn—not the truck, not lawn mowers. No oil or aerosols, no clutter. We put in the best wiring and electric we could get when we built this place. And we’re not stupid! We’d never bale wet hay. None of us would let wet straw in here.” My throat burns. I don’t know if it’s the smoke or the tears. “Somebody must have set our barn on fire!”

“Now, we can’t know if—”

“Who would do that? You have to find out. They almost burned our horses alive.”

“Get him out of here!” the other fireman hollers.

“You have to go,” Mac pleads. “Talk to your dad. Or to Brady, the fire marshal. They know more than I do about it. Brady’s handled arson cases before.”

Arson. The word sinks into the pit of my stomach.

“Hank!” Mom rushes up and throws her arms around me. “You’re all right! Dakota said you ran into the burning barn after that horse! You could have been killed!”

I wrap my arms around her. She’s shaking. “I’m okay. We’re all okay.” But my mind is spinning out plots and people and possibilities. Arson. What if somebody had it in for my mom? She’s an oncologist. What if one of her patients died and the family blames Mom instead of the cancer?

Or Dad? People whose houses burn down end up angry. I already feel more anger than I’ve ever felt. What if one of the victims of a fire blamed Dad for not getting there fast enough? For not doing enough to put out their fire?

Or me? Do I have enemies? Could somebody have done this because of me?

Mom hasn’t stopped talking, muttering. I think she’s even praying, thanking God for keeping us safe, for protecting the house.

I pry myself free from her. “Mom, you should be with Kat. She’s really upset.”

“I know. Dad’s with her. She’s going to be okay,” Mom says, “except she can’t find her cat.”

“Which one?” Kat rescues as many cats at Starlight Animal Rescue as I rescue horses or Wes rescues dogs. We must have a dozen cats on the property, and they all hang out in the barn.

“Kitten,” Mom replies.

Kitten is the only cat my sister keeps as her own. And Princess, but she’s sort of unofficially adopted Dakota. The others come and go when Kat finds homes for them.

A policeman, or maybe a deputy, his hat in his hands, strides toward us. “Excuse me. Do you own a large reddish horse?”

“Cleo.” Bile rises in my throat and mixes with smoke and ash. I think I’m going to be sick. “What? What happened to her?”

“She jumped my patrol car, for openers,” he says. “Came tearing straight at us—me and another squad car. We tried to block the road. You know, like a roadblock?”

“What happened?” I snap. “Why did you try to trap her?” As if that horse’s life could get any worse.

Mom puts her hand on my arm and squeezes. It hurts, like touching a sunburn.

“We thought we ought to contain her,” he says defensively. “That horse looks dangerous. Is she?”

“If you try to trap her, she will be.” As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I don’t know what the police do to dangerous horses. “Where is she now?”

“A couple miles that way.” He points northeast. “We can’t leave her roaming out there. There might be kids around.”

I take a deep breath to get control of myself. But the air, or the smoke, catches in my lungs. I can’t stop coughing.

Mom pats my back. “Hank? You need to get out of this smoke. Come to the house with me, and—”

I turn to the police officer. My eyes are watering. There’s fire in my throat and chest. “Take me to the horse. Please?” I have to try to help her or at least keep them from hurting her more than I already have. Cleo must be beyond terror. Maybe I could coax her in with feed. “Let me get some oats, and I’ll—” I don’t finish because I don’t have oats. Not anymore. Everything I had was in the barn. How are we going to feed the horses?

I can’t think about that now. I have to think about Cleo. “Will you take me to her?”

“Sure. Come on.” He leads me toward his squad car.

I turn back to Mom. “Tell Dakota to put Starlight and Blackfire in the south pasture with the others.” It’s the pasture that’s farthest from the barn.

She nods. “Be careful!” She wraps her arms around herself like she’s trying to keep warm, like it’s not a thousand degrees out here, like the whole world isn’t on fire.

The police officer opens the back door of his squad car and motions for me to climb in. I do, wondering if this is what it feels like to be arrested. I imagine grabbing the person who started this fire and shoving him into the back of this car, sending him on his way to prison. That’s where he belongs.

The policeman gets behind the wheel and starts the car. Then he turns to me. “I’m Deputy Hendren.”

“Hank,” I return.

“I figured. Sorry about you riding in back and all. Regulations.”

“It’s okay. I don’t care. I just want to get to the horse.”

He nods, and we back away from the barn.

I try not to look at it, but I can’t help myself. The flames have all but died out now, leaving a sickly wash of smoldering black and gray. I turn away.

We bounce over the lawn, skirting the driveway, the fire trucks, the news van. We pass Dakota and the horses, but I don’t think she notices me in the car.

Once out on the road, Deputy Hendren steps on it, and we’re flying. Dust rises to the windows.

We don’t talk. I want to ask him if there have been other fires around here, if he has any idea who could have set our barn on fire. But there’s a screen between me and the front seat, and I can’t bring myself to shout through it.

I know we’ve driven more than two miles when we come to a squad car parked on the shoulder of County Road 175. We slow down, but two cops wave us on, motioning us around the corner. We take the turn, and I see more squad cars, three of them. My heart’s pounding. Why so many cars? Cleo’s only one horse.

Then I see her. She’s rearing, pitted against four policemen, each with a rope hooked to her halter or looped around her neck. She rears straight up, pulling two big men off their feet. Cleo stands on her haunches so long I’m afraid she’ll fall over backwards.

“Stop the car!” I yell. I try to get out of the patrol car, but there’s no door handle on the inside. My ears hurt from Cleo’s squeals. The shrill cries pierce my eardrums and travel through my nerves.

I can’t take it. It’s worse than I thought. Cleo. The fire. Everything. Everything is worse than I thought.