Chapter Thirteen
Clay woke to someone shouting his name.
For a moment, he did not know where he was. Rain hammered the wagon cover. The air inside smelled of horse sweat and the sour smoke from last night’s fire. Tucker lay curled beneath a blanket at Clay’s feet, one hand closed around the little wooden horse Clay had carved for him.
“Clay!” Samuel shouted again. “Fire!”
Clay was moving before he had his boots on properly. He shoved through the wagon flap into rain so hard it stung his face.
It was probably dawn, but it was still black. Lightning flashed beyond the trees. It showed the whole camp in pieces: wagons tilted in mud, horses jerking at their lines, people stumbling out with blankets around their shoulders.
Then another flash came.
A pine at the edge of camp burned from crown to roots.
The lightning had split it open. One half still stood, black smoke streaming from it despite the rain. The other half had fallen across the ground, its branches snarled in brush and grass. Fire crawled through the needles underneath, orange and low, spreading along the wind.
Clay saw Everett’s wagon beyond it.
“Get the children away from there!” Clay shouted.
Samuel was already running toward the burning tree. Clay followed, slipping once in the mud and catching himself on a wagon wheel.
A woman screamed. Clay turned.
Sarah stood beside her wagon with one hand on the mule’s bridle. Her hair had come loose from its braid and hung dark against her shoulders. Violet was beside her, pulling Brady close to her skirts. Charlotte had Tucker by the arm, though Tucker kept trying to wrench free.
“Stay with Charlotte,” Clay called to him.
Tucker nodded, but his face had gone white.
A burning branch cracked overhead.
Clay looked up in time to see it come down.
“Everett!”
The branch struck the rear corner of Everett’s wagon with a hard, splintering blow. Canvas caught at once. Flames climbed the side of the cover, bright enough to show through the rain.
Everett came out from beneath the wagon flap with an armful of crates. He had no hat on. His hair lay flat and wet against his head. Anna stood a few yards away in the mud, staring at him.
“My goods,” Everett shouted. “Get the goods out!”
Samuel reached the wagon first. He grabbed Everett by the shoulder.
“Leave it.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“The roof’s burning.”
“I can see that.”
Everett jerked loose and disappeared back inside.
Clay ran to the wagon. Heat beat against his face. The canvas hissed in the rain, but it did not go out. One of the wooden wheels had begun to smoke where the branch lay across it.
“Everett!” Clay yelled.
No answer.
Samuel seized a leather satchel from the ground and flung it away from the fire. It burst open when it hit the mud. Boxes of cartridges, sewing needles, packets of coffee, and small tin cups scattered everywhere.
Everett stumbled back out with a crate held to his chest.
“You fool,” Samuel said. “Drop it.”
“It’s worth more than this whole outfit.”
The wagon roof groaned.
Clay stepped forward and caught the crate from Everett’s hands. It was packed with glass bottles. One broke against Clay’s chest. Vinegar ran cold through his shirt.
Everett reached for it.
Clay shoved the crate into the mud and pushed Everett hard toward Samuel. “You can buy more bottles. You can’t buy another life.”
Everett’s face changed. For an instant he looked ready to strike him.
Then the burning branch shifted.
The rear of the wagon gave a sharp crack and sank.
Samuel caught Everett under one arm and dragged him clear. Clay jumped back as the canvas roof folded inward. Fire took the dry boxes inside. It flared hot and yellow, driving them farther away.
Everett stood in the rain with his fists clenched.
“My wagon.”
Clay did not answer. There was nothing to say.
A horse shrieked from the far side of camp.
“Animals,” Samuel said.
Clay turned and ran.
The wind had changed. It blew the fire toward the line of wagons. Rain came sideways now, but the pine needles and brush burned under it, protected by their own thick cover. Flame moved quickly along the ground. It caught at the dry grass beneath the trees, then leapt where the wind carried sparks.
Men shouted over one another.
—“Cut those traces!”
—“Get the oxen loose!”
—“Where’s my boy?”
Clay found Sarah at her mule. The animal had backed itself against the wagon tongue and was shaking so hard the harness buckled.
“Take your wagon east. Past the creek bed. Keep clear of the trees.”
“What about Tucker?”
“He’s safe.”
Sarah’s mouth tightened. “And you?”
“I’ll bring mine after I help Noah.”
“You said you’d—”
A gust of wind carried sparks between them. One landed on the back of Sarah’s sleeve. Clay slapped it out with his palm before it could burn through.
She stared at his hand. The skin had reddened at once.
“Go,” he said.
Sarah climbed onto the wagon seat without another word. She gathered the reins and snapped them hard. The mule balked, then lunged forward. The wagon wheels cut deep through the mud as she steered it away from the trees.
Clay watched until she reached open ground.
Only then did he turn back.
Noah stood beside his wagon, coughing into his fist while Charlotte fought with a knot in the rope line. Their two horses were pulling against each other, terrified by the fire.
Clay waded through mud to them.
“Noah, get on the seat.”
“I can help.”
“You can help by not falling under a wheel. Get up there.”
Noah looked like he meant to object. Then he bent double with another cough.
Charlotte’s hands shook as she worked the rope. “It’s caught.”
Clay pulled his knife and cut through the wet leather. One horse reared. He caught the bridle before it could break free, talking low though he could barely hear himself over the storm.
“Easy now. Easy.”
The horse’s eyes rolled white. Clay kept hold until Samuel came up on the other side.
“Take this one,” Clay said.
Samuel gave him a look. “You ordering me?”
“I reckon I am.”
Samuel’s mouth moved under his beard, almost a smile. He took the bridle.
Together they got the horses turned. Clay climbed to the wagon seat beside Noah and took the reins.
Charlotte clambered in behind them, her skirts heavy with mud.
“Hold on,” Clay said.
The wagon lurched forward.
Behind them, someone fired a pistol into the air.
Clay looked back. A team of oxen had broken loose near the burning pine. They thundered between wagons, heads down, ropes trailing behind them. Men scattered. One of the loose ropes caught around a wheel spoke and snapped tight.
The wagon tipped.
Clay handed the reins to Noah. “Keep them moving.”
“No,” Noah said, but Clay was already down.
He ran toward the leaning wagon. It belonged to the family from Missouri with three little girls. Their father was on the ground beside it, one leg pinned beneath the wagon bed. His wife crouched over him, screaming for help.
Clay dropped to his knees in the mud. The wheel had sunk deep. Fire was moving through the brush twenty yards away.
“Samuel!” he called.
Samuel came through the rain with two other men. They set their shoulders against the wagon’s side.
“On three,” Clay said. “One. Two. Now.”
Wood groaned. The wheel lifted an inch.
The trapped man dragged himself free with a cry. His wife hauled him by both arms. The wagon came down again, hard enough to shake the ground.
“Get him out,” Clay said.
The man’s daughters stood near a stump, soaked through and silent. Clay grabbed the eldest by the hand.
“Take your sisters to Charlotte’s wagon. Don’t stop.”
She nodded once and led them away.
Clay saw Tucker then.
The boy had slipped free of Charlotte. He stood beside Violet’s wagon, staring at the fire with both hands pressed over his ears.
Clay crossed the ground in three strides and caught him by the shoulders.
“I told you to stay put.”
Tucker looked up. His lips moved, but the wind stole his words.
Clay bent close. “You all right?”
Tucker nodded. Then he pointed.
Anna was still near what had been Everett’s wagon. She had a blanket over one arm and nothing else. Everett had not looked at her once since the fire began. Sparks blew around her, catching in her wet hair.
Clay took Tucker by the hand and pulled him toward her.
“Anna,” he called.
She did not answer.
He stopped in front of her. “You need to move.”
Her eyes went to the burning wagon. “Everything I had was in there.”
Clay looked at the blanket. “You’ve got that.”
She laughed once, without any humor.
Another branch snapped in the burning pine. Clay caught her elbow and put Tucker between them.
“Come on.”
She let him lead her.
By the time the wagons reached the open ground past the creek bed, the rain had done what the people could not. The fire still burned at the edge of the trees, but it had slowed. Samuel and several men beat at the grass with wet blankets, making certain no sparks crossed into camp.
The travelers gathered in a loose line of wagons on the far side of the creek. Horses stood with heads low. Oxen steamed in the cold rain. Children cried from inside wagon covers. A few people sat where they had dropped, too tired to do anything but breathe.
Clay found Sarah kneeling beside her mule. She had covered the animal with part of a canvas sheet and was rubbing its neck through the cloth.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
Clay looked down at his hand. A strip of skin across his palm had blistered.
“It’s nothing.”
“Show me.”
“I have work.”
“Clay.”
He held out his hand.
Sarah took it without speaking. Her fingers were cold. She poured water from a small tin cup over the burn, then wrapped it with a clean strip torn from the hem of an old underskirt.
***
Everett sat beneath the lean-to Samuel’s men had rigged from wagon canvas and watched Clay McCall walk through camp as if the place belonged to him.
The boy had changed his shirt. The clean one was too large in the shoulders, probably borrowed.
His blond hair was still wet. He moved from wagon to wagon with that calm face of his, checking lines, asking after children, speaking to old Noah Granger as though the man mattered.
People listened. Everett could not stomach it.
They listened to a nineteen-year-old stray with gapped teeth and a rifle on his back. They listened as if McCall had sent the rain itself running to the hills, tail between its legs.
Everett held his ruined leather satchel between his boots. The rain had soaked through it. Inside were wet account papers, two bent spoons, a box of cartridges, and a handful of coins. The rest was gone.
His wagon was gone.
He had spent three years building that stock. He had bought goods cheap in St. Louis and carried them where men had no choice but to pay what he named. It was work. Hard work. Folks acted as though a man ought to hand over his provisions because someone had failed to prepare.
Now they took what they could from the wreckage and looked at him like he was a thief.
Anna sat beneath another wagon with Violet and the Foster girl. Sarah had a blanket around her shoulders. Clay’s blanket, Everett thought. It was the same dark blue one McCall had used the night before.
The girl had come from somewhere with money. Everett had seen the silver clasp on her bag. He had seen the cloth of her dresses, though she had dirtied them up well enough now.
And now she looked at Clay McCall as though he was a decent man.
Everett spat into the mud.
Samuel came toward him carrying a cup.
“Drink,” Samuel said.
Everett did not take it.
“It’s coffee.”
“I can see that.”
Samuel set the cup on an overturned crate. “You’ll need a wagon.”
“You don’t say?”
“Then find one.”
Everett looked up at him. “You and McCall could’ve dragged mine clear.”
Samuel’s face did not change. “No.”
“You had time.”
“We had time to pull you out.”
“My goods were in there.”
“Your goods were burning already.”
Everett stood. Samuel was broader through the chest, older, and not a man Everett had much wish to fight. Still, Everett stepped close enough that Samuel could smell the smoke on him.
“You think that boy’s something special.”
“I think he did what needed doing.”
“He likes playing hero.”
Samuel’s eyes settled on him. “Someone’s got to around here.”
For a second Everett thought of swinging at him. Instead, he laughed.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Boys like him make mistakes; they ain’t got brains for this.”
Samuel picked up the coffee cup and held it out once more.
Everett slapped it from his hand.
Coffee spilled into the mud.
Samuel looked at the dark stain, then back at Everett. “Don’t ask for our help when you find one.”
He walked away.
Everett stood under the dripping canvas and watched Clay cross the camp toward Sarah. McCall said something to her. She answered, and she smiled.
Everett’s hand closed around the wet leather of his satchel.
The road was long. Storms passed. People got hungry. People got afraid.
A boy could be made to look like a leader when the work was easy enough.
Everett would wait.