No Eye Can See (37 page)

“Johnnie, is that you? I hear someone.”

“Yes. He's here,” Zane said. “Probably started it with his clumsiness, getting your fire going. What is he bringing out of the house? Your harp,” he added with disgust.

“No, Wesley. Don't let him. The things don't matter.”

The boy had almost caught him, as he set the blaze low and slow, he thought, at the pine needles dusting the ground behind her house. He hoped the flame would eke its way into the cabin, with smoke awakening her and then his rushing in. But he'd seen Johnnie shuffling up the hill. Maybe it was his usual time to come, or he'd heard of the hotel fires and was looking after Suzanne's gold purse. His presence forced Zane to slip out behind the house and come up from the opposite side. By then the flames had bitten into the logs. He'd stood watching at the window until the smoke clouded his vision. Then he'd come around and been there when the dog pulled her to the door. That Chinese interloper had arrived at almost the same time and had rushed in, hauling trunks and
just now that wretched troubadour harp Suzanne insisted on playing and seemed to gain strength from.

They might have lost everything.

“Let me take you to a place I have,” Zane said. “You'll be safe there. Nothing's left in town. Not a thing.”

Suzanne's teeth chattered as she talked. “Just get Elizabeth for me, will you? She's at Kossuths Bakery if it still stands. She and Mazy will help us. She and Mazy, my family. Get my family for me.”

“You're being naive, Suzanne. Hurtful. Putting your children at risk. You need to come with me.” He'd pressed her head into his chest.

“Tiptons friend's coming,” Sarah said.

“Is he? Oh, good. He knows Elizabeth. He can get her.”

“You should come with me, Suzanne. I can take care of you. And the boys. Just look at what your irresponsibility almost caused.”

“I need to see how the others are.” Her voice sounded tense, strong. “We're family, Wesley. That means something to me.”

“Good then,” Zane said, dropping his arms from the quilt. Suzanne lurched a bit when he stood back, caught herself from stumbling, her arms outstretched now. He watched her weave her hand to find him. “I need to be helping fight the blaze,” he said. “You're all right here, then, with your
family”
He thrust the child at her. Clayton cried.

“It's gone,” Seth said, his face flushed as he rode his big sorrel up, reigned up just outside Ruth's barn. Puffs of air shot out through the horse's nostrils as Seth stepped down. “I've never seen anything like it.” He lifted off his hat, ran his hands through his yellow hair.

“What are you talking about?” Mazy asked, the pitchfork still in her hand.

“Shasta City. Whole place went up in flames. Weren't enough buckets to stop the spread.”

“Mother—?”

“She's all right. But most everything you had in your rooms, it's gone.” Mazy gazed at her feet, her dress pulled up between her legs and tucked into her belt, then looked up at Seth. “Except for what you brought here. And Suzanne,” he said. “She'll need you two. Nehemiah brought her down to Tipton and Adoras while I headed out here.”

“Sarah?” Ruth asked.

“She's fine. They're all fine. Scared. Just a kid.”

“Go in and get coffee,” Ruth told him. “We'll hitch up.”

He nodded. “The Wilsons want their mules and wagon, so we've got to harness their team, too,” he shouted after her. “Get the boys to help.”

Mazy walked out to gather up the Wilson mules, using a bucket of grain to lure them in while Ruth called the boys already heading toward them at the sight of Seth. They hitched up the wagons, saddled Jumper and Koda, then headed inside. Seth faced a sea of faces, answering questions put to him by Mariah and the children.

“Kossuth House, too. And the St. Charles. The Shasta. Your bookstores, Mazy. Seventy houses, all the rest of the businesses on either side of the street, and half the buildings in the alleys. Even the church. Everything. Mackley Alley, Two Foot Alley, they're all just rubble.”

“Were you burned out?” Mazy asked.

“Didn't have much, but I've been staying in a tent with a wood floor I put up myself far enough from Main and Second. It's fine. Spending most of my nights at the hotel working.” He winked at Mazy, and she bristled, her shoulders stiffening. “Guess there won't be any games of chance there for a while.”

“The St. Charles got singed in the fire last December too, didn't it?” Mazy said, filling a tin with milk from the pitcher.

“This time it went. Town looks like a mouth of black and broken teeth.”

“How'd it start?” Jason asked.

“They don't know exact,” Seth said. He took the refilled cup Mariah
handed him and drank, looked up over the top. “But it spread a long way fast to get as far as Suzanne's.”

He sat on the big bay and watched the town burn. The second story front of the St. Charles once painted yellow fell blackened into itself. Licked with flames shooting a hundred feet into the air, it would all be gone in minutes. The residential section popped and burst with canvas and wood, and oak leaves slick with oil spread the flames faster than a lick of the lips. People ran and scattered like rats, some carrying water buckets in long lines hopelessly trying to save a home, a church, a store. All without success. Rebuilding would consume them when it was over. And in the rebuilding, there'd be a fortune to be made. Maybe with less work than running his “trap line.”

He pressed the reins against the horse's neck, turning it northeast toward one of Greasy's shacks. He'd wait there, let things settle a bit, consider what rich opportunities lived inside this danger.

Partway out of town he had another thought. Ruth surely would be heading in, to see about Sarah. Perhaps he should make a visit while she was gone, leave something of himself at her abode. Yes, this would be a fine time to raise her heart rate, something delicious to do before he decided to check his traps. He'd set new ones.

“You stay here,” Ruth told Jessie and Mariah. “Ned too. Jason, you're old enough to help.”

“I want to see Ma,” Mariah said. “Is she all right? Have you seen her?”

Seth nodded. “She had a couple of the other banking ladies in tow,” he said. “She told me to come on out and bring in what we could, for you not to worry. I'll bring her back soon as we're able.”

“Dont want to be left with no girls,” Ned complained. He kicked at the dirt in front of him and looked so glum that Ruth relented. “All right. But you stay close. This is no picnic we re going to. Mariah, you and Jessie are better off here.”

They loaded quilts, extra food, and any clothes the children had outgrown and Ruths one dress. “So many people burned out,” Mazy said. “But Mothers all right? You're sure?” Seth nodded.

“At least it isn't winter like the last fire,” Ruth said. “No one will freeze to death.”

They rode at a fast pace toward Shasta. From a distance, Main Street looked like an ant colony, people moving here and there, carrying shards of burnt boards, people standing in clusters, the scent of wet wood and smoke still punching the air. Chinese locust trees—the ones the Celestials planted and called Trees of Heavenly Light—stood with blackened trunks along with the oaks that once promised shade.

Mazy felt anxious, nervous. Not the loss of things she feared, but for her mother. Her mother, who wouldn't be in Shasta at all if not for her.

They rattled the wagon to a stop in front of what had been the Kossuth Hotel, Confectionery and Bakery. The sound of hammers pounding greeted them.

“Can that be? They're already building?” Mazy asked. “Things are still smoldering.”

“ ‘Coming back’ is ground into a Californian like dust,” Seth said.

Bent over a small pile of burning embers, Elizabeth stood with a shawl around her shoulders. Hers was a planned fire, and her shoulders shook as she dried out small pieces of cloth in its heat. She turned, her face smudged with soot when Mazy called her name. Tears pooled in her
eyes
and streaked her wide face as her daughter held her. “I'm glad you wasn't here,” she said. “It was awful.” She held her daughter with her elbow, not her hands.

Mazy held her close, then said, “What's wrong? Let me see.”

“I saved these snippets of quilt,” Elizabeth said, turning away.
“They're not looking too good. Got fired and scorched, and then I dumped them in a bucket. Just trying to dry ‘em out now.”

“Mother, you're hurt. For heaven's sake, let me help.”

Elizabeths palms were scorched, the skin already turning black.

“Butter,” Mazy said. “I brought some in.”

Elizabeth groaned. “Waiting all this time for sweet butter and it ends up on my hands. Wish we had some of Mei-Ling's honey.” She let Ruth spread the white gold—as Seth called it—on palms Mazy held, chattering as the women worked. “I went back after the Bible and your lawyer letter, Mazy. Saved those. Glad you took your writing with you out to Ruth's. Happened faster than an otter hits the river. Never saw anything so fierce or hungry. Oh, I saved the currency too, but not much else. Not your Wisconsin seed gourd. Our vegetable patch is trampled worse than when the cow brute did in yours back home. I'm sorry, child,” she said.

“No need to be,” Mazy said. “You did better than most would have. I wish I'd been here to help.” She patted her mother's back, then bent to gather the quilt pieces. Touching her elbow, she led Elizabeth to the wagon. “You get in,” she said gently. “Put this blanket around you. You're so shaky.” It felt strange to be tending her mother. “We'll go find Suzanne and the Wilsons, and Lura, too, and see how they've fared. You'll get practice now, Mother, in letting someone else help you.”

Zane skirted the meadow, coming from around the butte as he'd become accustomed to doing. He pulled up the horse, less edgy now that they were away from the noise of the fire, though the smoke hung like a layer of fog above them. Bits of ash rode with the stench of it, dropped on the pines. The slick leaves of the oaks and the thickness of pine needles would fuel the fire and—chaos, maybe for days. He watched the cabin and barn to see activity. Milk cows grazed, their
calves close by. He noticed two mules and a horse were gone. The wagon he'd seen next to the barn was gone too. The house looked deserted. Good. They'd all headed in. He'd simply step inside the house.