Burn It Up(97)

Come to think of it, he could smell smoke. Someone must have hauled a grill down. Though what sort, he couldn’t guess—not gas, for sure, and not charcoal either.

Through the hole, the sun was a white sickle hugging a black hole of nothing, and the sky in his periphery had gone warm gray. He cast his eyes downward and lowered the plate. The horizon glowed a golden white behind the distant eastern mountains, but all else was darkening by the second, eerie and magical.

But something wasn’t right. The breeze was blowing from behind—from the direction of town, not the picnic. It wasn’t a cookout he was smelling. It was wood, and more. Chemical smoke, like fire lapping at painted boards. A stink he knew well, hard to get out of your clothes. He looked to the northwest, and though the sky was nearing nighttime darkness, he could see it. A plume of thick, dark smoke, coming from the direction of the farmhouse. He shot to his feet.

“Fire,” he said. Softly at first.

Only Miah heard it. “What?”

“Fire,” he repeated, louder. “Fucking hell—fire!”

Miah was up, squinting into the darkness. It had been a bright day, and no one seemed to have left any lights on in any of the buildings. You could just see their outlines against the reddish sky to the west. “Holy shit.”

“Oh no.” Christine stood, and word was spreading—half the workers had dropped their plates and were getting to their feet. The smoke was growing thick, fast.

Christine was on her phone, no doubt calling 911.

“Everybody!” Miah bellowed. “Head south! Take the horses and walk south!” He arched his arms in that direction, ushering them away from the path of the smoke.

Christine also hurried away, glowing phone pressed to one ear, hand clapped over the other to block out the shouting.

Up the hill, a light grew in the darkness—orange light.

“Fuck. Which building is that?” Casey shouted to Miah as he helped Abilene to her feet. “Follow the hands,” he told her. “Keep the baby away from the smoke.”

Miah squinted. “The stables? Or the barn.”

They’d better hope it was the barn. Nothing but junk in there, while surely the stables were full of horses, with so many of the hands taking their breaks.

Footsteps pounded up from behind them—one of the hands emerging from the throng now hurrying south. It was Denny, and her dark eyes were wide, legs pumping.

“Your dad is in there!” she shouted at Miah.

“What?”

“In the junk barn! I passed him earlier, when he was on his way over there.”

The tractor, Casey thought. He’d said he was going to be working on—

Miah was already running, and Casey took off as fast as his legs could pump, screaming his friend’s name. He’ll run straight in there if I don’t pin him to the f*cking dirt.

He was fast, but Miah was faster. It was only by the grace of another ranch hand catching hold of Miah’s arms, spinning him around, and onto the ground, that he didn’t go charging straight into the blaze. Casey tackled him, and with the other man’s help, they managed to drag Miah back a few yards. The air between them and the mammoth barn was like a waterfall now, a wavering yellow wall of heat. The only mercy was that it was a calm day, not windy, and that the breeze was headed for the range and not the other buildings. Still, it was dry country. Even a single scrap of airborne detritus could start a massive brush fire.

Miah was shouting for his father, and the sound cut straight to Casey’s bones.

“He might be fine,” Casey said, struggling to keep his thrashing friend pinned. “He might not be in there.”

Sirens sounded in the distance. It’d be too little, too late—Fortuity was the county seat, but even they had only one fire truck, and it was manned by volunteers. It’d be a long wait before the next nearest departments could rush over from other towns. Too late to save the barn. And unless Denny had been mistaken, or Don had been able to get out, too late to save Miah’s father. Casey’s muscles went watery at the thought, dread and fear and disbelief jumbled together, suffocating.

Miah went slack after a minute’s violent struggle, his swears giving way to hoarse, primal sounds, then dry sobs.

Casey’s heart broke for him. He didn’t know what it felt like to have a father you were proud of. One you loved and idolized and modeled your own manhood after. It had to feel like a piece of Miah himself was burning up.

“He might not be in there,” he repeated, clinging to the possibility himself. “Denny could be wrong. He could’ve gotten out.”

Miah wasn’t hearing any of it. He’d curled in on himself, forehead on the dirt, and Casey could faintly hear him saying, “Dad, Dad, Dad,” the sound swallowed by the rush of the flames, the choking of his sobs.

“We don’t know he’s in there,” the male hand echoed.

“Let’s get you up,” Casey told Miah. “Let’s get farther away. There’s too much smoke. There’s machinery in there, right? It might not be safe.”

That was what Don had been in there for—to dick around with some piece of equipment. Maybe that had started the fire. Gasoline or diesel, hay, all that brittle old wood, or whatever else might be inside. Could’ve been an accident waiting to happen.

Could’ve, but probably wasn’t. The Churches weren’t foolish or careless people. And that fact combined with whoever had been stalking around the place this past week added up to a gnawing pit, deep in Casey’s gut.