Stands a Calder Man (20 page)

They had nearly beaten the fire to a standstill when Webb sensed something was wrong. He lifted his head, trying to identify the cause, as he scanned the fireline. It was a full second before he noticed the almost imperceptible shift in the wind's direction. There was a sudden crackle and curl of yellow flames, angling toward the wagons.

“The wind's changing!” He shouted the warning to
the others far down the line and headed to the fire's new point of attack.

Those closest had already seen the threat and were converging on it. As Webb hurried to join them, he saw Lilli whipping at the shooting flames in a kind of terrified frenzy. She was too close to be effective, and her frantic efforts were fanning the fire, not smothering it.

Before he could call to her, smoke rolled from the hem of her long skirt, and he heard her scream. “Lilli, roll!” Webb started running. “Get down on the ground and roll!” But her fear put her beyond hearing as she first tried beating at her skirt, then turned to run to the wagons.

Webb dived at her, sending both of them crashing to the ground. It seemed he'd never known fear in his life until that moment. Her hands clawed at him, trying to get away, but he kept her down and grabbed the water-soaked blanket she'd been using, throwing it over her kicking legs and the smoldering skirt. He pinned her struggling, heaving body to the ground with the weight of his and pressed the blanket tightly around her thighs and hips. It was long, agonizing seconds before the skirt stopped smoking. But she was still fighting him, sobbing hysterically, her eyes closed.

“The fire's out, Lilli,” he assured her and ran a stroking hand down the side of her face. “It's all over.”

“I can still smell the smoke,” she protested in a choked voice.

“The fire's out,” Webb repeated and eased some of his weight off of her as she began to relax. “I promise you it's out.”

She brought a hand up to her mouth as if to smother her crying. “I can smell it,” she insisted, not opening her eyes.

Webb moved, slipping an arm under her and lifting her up. She weakly buried her face in his shirt, crying softly now. He turned his head to her, his lips tightly brushing the singed ends of her hair. “You brave little fool,” he murmured, half in anger for the extreme
danger she'd put herself in. He scooped up her legs to carry her when he stood.

Then Stefan Reisner was kneeling in front of him, his smoke-blackened features making him look even older. Anxiety was in his eyes as he reached out a hand for his wife.

“Is she all right?” he asked. “Vhat happened?”

“She caught her skirt on fire, but I think I got it out before she was badly burned.” His arms tightened around her possessively. “I'm going to carry her over to the wagons where the women can see to her.”

“I vill take her.” Stefan insisted it was his right.

“I've got her.” Webb stood up, refusing to relinquish her and leaving Stefan with little choice except to agree. Lilli seemed oblivious to both of them, not caring whose arms were around her.

Webb strode to the wagons, with Stefan staying right beside him every step of the way. His mother and several other women hurried forward as soon as they saw him carrying someone in his arms. Ruth was one of the few who hung back.

“Is she hurt?” his mother asked. Immediately she suggested, “You can put her in the back of the wagon.”

Someone lowered the endgate so Webb could set her down inside. “I think she's more frightened than anything else,” he explained as he surrendered her to his mother's care. “Her skirt caught on fire. There might be some minor burns on her legs.”

“The poor dear, she's fainted,” his mother murmured, cradling Lilli's head on her lap. “Someone bring me a wet cloth.” Webb stepped back and Stefan immediately took his place. “Are you related to her?” his mother asked as Stefan's trembling hand touched the unconscious woman's shoulder.

“Lillian is my vife,” he acknowledged. “She vill be all right?”

“I'm sure she will,” Lorna assured him and shot a confused glance at Webb, as if questioning why he had carried the girl here instead of letting her husband bring her.

He pivoted away, a nerve leaping along his cheek. He looked right past Ruth, not even seeing her, as he started back to the fireline. They had contained the flames and kept them from breaking through to the wagons. But it wouldn't be over until the last ember was out.

Lilli stirred, a panic surfacing, but there was still a glazed quality to her eyes when she opened them. “The fire . . . smoke . . .”

“It's all right,
liebchen,”
Stefan murmured, patting her hand.

“Stefan?” She turned her head toward the sound of his voice.

“I am here,” he assured her, and she drifted back into that unconscious world. His sad eyes lifted to the woman holding the wet cloth to Lillian's forehead. “It is the fire she fears. Vhen she vas small, it burned the building next to vhere she lived. There vere people trapped inside. Her mind cannot forget it.”

“I understand,” Lorna murmured and guessed it was one of the many bonds that held the older man and this young girl together despite their vast age differences. She wondered if Webb understood how strong such bonds could be. She had seen the look in his eyes when he'd carried the girl in, and her heart went out to him.

There was no leaving until the fire was completely out. All prairie people knew how an apparently dead fire could smolder and break out anew. So they walked along the dead ashes, looking for hot spots in the sun's gloaming. The fire had taken part of the wheatfield, but more than half was undamaged.

A small group of homesteaders had ventured across the burnt ground to inspect the few charred timbers of wood still standing as skeletal evidence that a crude house once stood there. One of the group was the owner. He'd had so little to lose, but it was gone. All he and his family had left were the clothes on their backs, their wagon and horse team, and half of a wheatfield.

“Nothing- There is nothing,” he murmured brokenly. Even the plow had been damaged by the fire. In the
center of the burned-out shell, there was the charred metal of a broken lantern.

“It vas the vill of God,” another offered.

“No God did this,” Franz Kreuger declared. “Do you think this fire just happened? Someone started it.”

“Vhy do you say this?” Stefan frowned.

“Because it is true.” But Franz didn't offer any proof. “They threatened us. Now they burn our homes.”

“You think the ranchers did this?” the owner questioned in disbelief. “But they came. They helped put the fire out.”

“So it would not burn their land, only your house and your wheat,” Franz pointed out. “They are probably sorry only that your entire field did not burn.”

“We must tell the sheriff,” Stefan proposed as the next logical step. The others nodded agreement.

“All of us, we will go tell him together,” Franz stated, but the dark cynicism in his gleaming eyes showed his skepticism that it would do any good. In his experience, the little man only got help from others of like circumstance. “Tomorrow we will all come to help build a new house for you.”

“I cannot come.” Stefan spoke in silent apology. “I must look after my vife.”

The homesteader Sokoloff nodded his understanding and offered, “I regret she was hurt.”

“We are lucky no one else was.” Franz Kreuger gave them all a look that seemed to warn that one of them might be next. He had believed in the plottings of the powerful too long not to see it here.

Assured that the danger was over, there was a general milling toward the wagons and buggies as smoky, soot-blackened families made tired motions to depart. Three drylanders had volunteered to stay on the place and keep watch through the night to be sure no fire flared to life. A half-dozen cowboys had ridden out to catch up the loose horses. Nate came back, leading Webb's black gelding and two others.

“We never did get to see them fireworks they were gonna have in town.” There was a dry, dancing gleam in his eye as he passed the reins to Webb.

“I think most of us have had all the excitement we want for this Fourth of July,” Webb responded with a twisted smile and swung onto his horse. The purpling sky made indistinct silhouettes of tired figures straggling to wagons a short distance away. Only those close by were distinguishable. And Webb recognized Stefan Reisner carrying a blanket-wrapped figure to his wagon.

“Here come Shorty and Abe,” Nate announced, pulling on the reins to back his horse and join the pair. “You comin'?”

“In a minute,” Webb threw an absent glance at his friend and kneed his horse forward. When he reached the Reisner wagon, the whiskered man was in the seat, with Lilli huddled against his side. Webb strained to get a closer look at her in the fading light. She was conscious, but there was an unseeing quality about her eyes. “Is she all right?”

“She vill be fine.” The man steadily returned his look with a kind of challenge. “I vill take care of her.”

Webb's mouth thinned out as he set the gelding on its haunches and pivoted it away from the wagon. As he rode over to rejoin Nate and the others, he looked back once. There was a hard knot in the pit of his stomach at the sight of a slim silhouette resting its head on the stooped shoulders of a second.

In a dull lethargy, Lilli watched Stefan as he approached the bed, carrying a small bowl of gruel and a spoon. At the last minute, she roused herself sufficiently to push into a sitting position. Stefan paused and pulled one of the new chairs he'd built closer to the bed, then sat down. Her blank eyes watched him dip the spoon into the bowl, but it was halfway to her mouth before she summoned a protest.

“I can feed myself, Stefan,” she said in a lifeless
voice and lifted a limp hand to take the spoon from him.

“But this vay I know you vill eat everything.” He ignored her attempt and carried the spoonful of gruel to her lips.

It was bland and tasteless going down. Stefan was not the best of cooks, but he had fixed all the meals for the last two days. Lilli experienced a twinge of guilt at the way he had waited on her, not letting her lift a hand to do anything for herself. Physically there wasn't anything wrong with her. The one or two little burns on her legs certainly didn't incapacitate her. Yet she had been languishing in this bed ever since Stefan had brought her home that night, rarely talking, just lying there as if she were in some kind of trance. Through it all, Stefan had been kindness itself.

“Most husbands would be complaining because they were doing all the cooking and the housework.” She looked at Stefan. “You haven't said a word.”

“Vhat is two days?” he reasoned with a gentle smile. “You do these things for me all the time. Now, for you, I do it.” He dipped the spoon again into the gruel. “Until you are better,” he added.

He hadn't even asked what was wrong, Lilli realized and studied him again with marveling confusion. “It was the fire.” She felt he deserved an explanation.

“I know,” he said and pushed the tip of the spoon to her mouth. “Eat.”

A frown knitted little lines in her forehead as she obediently swallowed the smooth mixture. “I don't mean the grass fire. It was just a part of it. It was the tenement next door burning when I was little.”

“You don't need to speak of it,” Stefan assured her.

“I . . . think I want to.” It was a gradual realization, unsure what purpose it would serve. “The other night, I was wetting blankets and taking them to the men fighting the fire. I started to give someone the blanket I had in my hand when I saw those yellow flames suddenly leap up.” She looked sightlessly beyond Stefan,
reliving the experience that had trapped her in a childhood nightmare. “The fire started coming closer, but I couldn't move. I had to stay there like those people in the burning building. Then my skirt caught on fire and I was one of them.” Her chest tightened, the muscles contracting and not letting in any air. “And the smoke. I can still smell the smoke.”

“It's over You are here—and unharmed,” he said firmly.

Her lungs relaxed, expelling a sigh of mixed relief. “Yes.” A wan smile curved her mouth. “And behaving like a female ninny over it.”

“It vas a frightening thing for you.” Stefan indicated that he didn't regard her reaction to the incident as abnormal.

“I feel sorry for the Sokoloffs, losing everything they had.” She found she could think about someone other than herself. Maybe this dullness that had insulated her against feeling anything was finally wearing off. “It was a terrible thing to happen.”

“Terrible, yes.” Stefan nodded with grim insistence. “Ve are convinced the fire vas deliberately started. Ve have told the sheriff our suspicions.”

“Someone burned their home on purpose?” Lilli frowned at this statement. “But who would do that?”

“Kreuger says one of the ranchers sent his men to do it after he made sure all of us vere in town. It vas da perfect opportunity.”

“But why Mr. Sokoloffs house? What had he done?” She found it unbelievable that he would be singled out without reason.

“It vas a varning for all of us. Sokoloffs place vas close to town, so all of us vould see it.”

“Did Kreuger say who he thought was behind it?” The minute she asked the question, Lilli realized how insidious the man was. Like Stefan, she was beginning to accept anything Kreuger said, whether or not he could support it with fact.

“He says Calder vould think he is big enough to get avay vith such a thing. And his son left after he danced
vith you.” Stefan seemed to watch her closely, and Lilli was careful not to appear to be avoiding his gaze. “Maybe he vas not the first one there. Maybe he vas there already.”

She knew better, but she kept the knowledge to herself. “What does the sheriff say?”