Prarie Fire Part 25

"Yeah," Bud said. "Yeah!" He realized Sarah's idea might work. He turned and shouted orders to the rest of the riders. The men didn't look convinced that the plan would succeed, but Sarah's confidence was contagious. They set to work immediately.

"The other ranchers," Sarah began. "What do you know about them, Bud? Will they need our-" She stopped in mid-sentence. She had forgotten about Cordelia Henley. "Bud, the widow Henley. Do you know if she's there alone?"

"d.a.m.n! Sorry, 'bout my language, ma'am, but I bet she is. You know she don't like the riders hanging out at her place. Besides, most all her riders are on the drive. Mrs. Tolliver," Bud cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable, "I don't think there's anything we can do for her at this point. I mean, if the fire's as close as you say, it'll be at the widow's place before it gets this far." Bud coughed and blinked his eyes as the air around them grew thicker.

Sarah turned on one heel and whistled sharply for Coal. The pony, still saddled and ready, raced to where she stood. Bud antic.i.p.ated her actions and grabbed the reins before she could mount the animal.

"Mrs. Tolliver, don't be foolish. You can't ride right into the face of that thing," Bud said.

"We can't spare any of the riders if we're going to save this ranch, Bud, and I won't leave Cordy out there alone," Sarah shouted back, taking the reins from the man's hand.

"At least take a couple of the men with you."

"I've got my own," Sarah called out as she pulled herself onto Coal's back. Hanan and Anoli mirrored Sarah's actions, and the three raced out onto the prairie.

They rode toward the black wall of smoke. They all wore bandannas tied across their faces. Even with the cloth barrier, Sarah's throat burned and her tongue felt coated with the acrid taste of smoke. She couldn't see more than what she guessed to be a half-mile in front of her, but finding Cordelia's ranch house wasn't hard. They followed the dried-out creek bed that ran behind her house.

"Do you hear that?" Sarah pulled Coal to a stop.

"Storm?" Anoli said hopefully.

Sarah listened to a sound that she was convinced she had heard before. It sounded like the beginnings of a summer storm. The noise reminded her of the rumbling thunder that seemed to roll down from the wooded hills. Instead of fading away, however, it grew in intensity. She remembered where she'd heard the familiar sound only moments before a ma.s.sive line of stampeding buffalo became visible through the smoke.

"Ride!" Sarah screamed as she spurred her horse into a gallop. The buffalo looked like the animals in her vision. They were large beasts in a herd at least five hundred yards across. Looking over her right shoulder, she couldn't see an end to the immense herd; they kept coming as if materializing from the smoke. She slapped Coal's flank sharply with the reins. She had made the decision to ride across the front of the herd and now that they were halfway there, they couldn't turn back without being crushed by the oncoming animals. She hoped that she'd made the right choice, but if she had waited for the herd to pa.s.s, it would have taken hours, and by then, it might be too late for Cordelia.

They raced across the prairie, Sarah flanked by Hanan and Anoli. The Chahta men were sore-pressed to keep up with her, but one look to their right and they rode with the same urgency. Sarah had to turn farther south than she wanted to keep ahead of the swiftly moving fire. They had to make a wide detour once they reached Cordelia's land.

Sarah cried out as soon as they reached the yard in front of the main house. The beautiful two-story structure was aflame. A huge oak tree had fallen onto the far end of the house, and the flames consumed it.

"Check back there!" Sarah pointed toward the open door of the barn as she jumped from Coal's back. Hanan dismounted and ran toward the barn.

Sarah ran inside the back door of the house, dodging falling pieces of wood and flame. She might have been terrified if she had stopped to let herself think about what she was doing. "Look down here, I'll go upstairs," she ordered Anoli.

Sarah took the stairs two at a time and threw open doors, all the while calling out the widow's name. The top floor was free from fire, but the smoke was beginning to collect there.

"Here!" Cordelia Henley's voice rang out from a bedroom at the end of the hall.

Sarah found her on the floor, looking as though she had fallen and was unable to rise on her own. "Who in the h.e.l.l are you?" Cordelia rasped. She coughed and Sarah pulled the bandanna from her face. "Good Lord, Sarah Tolliver! Get yourself outta here, child, before this place cooks us good."

"Come on, Cordy, I'm not leaving without you." Sarah bent down and helped her to her feet. She took Cordelia's arm and put it around her neck, slipping her own arm around Cordelia's waist.

They were a few steps out of the bedroom door when Cordelia stumbled forward. Somehow, her fingers caught in the rawhide strip that tied Sarah's medicine bag around her neck. "Wait! Your amulet, it fell on the floor."

"It's okay, I can come back for it once we get you out of here," Sarah panted. At first, she had thought Cordelia weighed next to nothing, but with every step they took, she thought different. Luckily, Anoli met them at the top of the stairs and easily lifted Cordelia into his arms. "Get her out of here, I have to go back for something," Sarah said.

Sarah ran back and picked up her medicine bag, tying it securely around her neck as she rushed back to the stairs. The flames licked at the bottom of the stairs and smoke filled the ground level of the house. With one foot still on the landing, she stepped onto the top stair with the other. A low moaning sound filled the air, and when she pulled her foot back, Sarah watched in horror as the staircase crumbled into the fire.

Flames shot up at Sarah and she jumped back onto the landing. The fire had burned the old wooden staircase from the underside. "h.e.l.lfire!" she cursed.

Sarah ran to the opposite end of the hall to get as far away from the flames as possible, but the smoke was quickly rising into the second-floor rooms, which made breathing painful. She took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could while she searched for a way out. One of the bedroom windows on the north side of the house led to the back porch roof. She opened the window and saw the flames eating up the sides of the house. There was nowhere else to go but up.

Getting out through the window was the easy part. Sarah grabbed at the eave above her and nearly fell to the ground when a wooden shingle came off in her hand. She stopped for a moment, her cheek pressed against the side of the house, and took a few deep breaths. She waited for her heart to ease its way out of her throat, then the heat from the fire compelled her to continue. Using the latticework along the side of the house, she shimmied to the roof. She wished that she had Devlin's strength to scramble up the vertical surface, but the fragility of the old wood made the task slow going anyway.

It took all the strength she had to pull herself atop the roof. She lay on her back, trying to catch her breath, and waited for the shaking in her arms to subside. Shouts from Hanan and Anoli roused her. She stood on shaky legs, but almost immediately sank back down. A wave of nausea overwhelmed her as she gazed at the shimmering ground below. The one weakness she had attempted to hide from others all her life came back at her with a dreadful force. An intense wave of vertigo washed over Sarah, effectively paralyzing her.

Sarah clung to the eave of the attic window, caught in the grip of her own human frailty. Her fingers cramped because she was clenching the wooden shingles so tightly with only the tips of her fingers. She could hear herself breathing in loud, audible pants. She felt the heat of the fire as the flames inside the house reached the second floor. She opened her eyes to see Hanan and Anoli calling out to her. Hanan tossed buckets of water at the flames, while Anoli beat at the fire with what looked like a wet burlap sack. Both men continued to shout up at Sarah in Choctaw and in English, but she showed no signs of hearing them.

Sarah kept trying to push her fear away, to tell her mind that the paralyzing terror was no more real than a hallucination. Each time she attempted to rise, however, the nausea and light-headedness would pound her back to her p.r.o.ne position.

"Please," Sarah prayed, "please, mothers, help me. Please send someone to help me." She felt the tears falling from her eyes, but she couldn't tell if it was due to emotion or the smoke that rose up around her. "I can't do this alone," she whispered to the air.

Something told Sarah to open her eyes again. She would say later that everything appeared to happen so slowly. The movement on the ground below her took place as though she were viewing it in a dream. She watched as her Chahta friends fought the blaze below. Suddenly, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, a figure burst through the thick haze. Leaping over a line of flames and through the wall of smoke that surrounded the house was Devlin astride Alto.

Sarah blinked and released one hand to wipe at her eyes. It was amazing to watch-Devlin all dressed in black, a stark contrast to Alto's cream-colored body. Devlin and the animal looked as one as they leapt into Sarah's field of vision. Devlin's hair whipped around her face, her cheeks smeared with dirt and soot. She was the most incredible vision Sarah had ever seen, and Sarah didn't trust what she had seen until she heard that voice.

"Sarah," Devlin called out, and it made Sarah cry that much harder. "Sarah!" Devlin stood behind Hanan and Anoli, searching in vain for a way to reach Sarah, who refused to move. Devlin knew that Sarah didn't like heights. Sarah kept a death grip on the ladder when she climbed into the hayloft, but Devlin had never seen her in this shape before.

"Dev," Sarah called out, but the smoke had made her throat raw so that it came out as more of a whisper. She swallowed and tried to clear her throat. "Dev!" she cried out at last.

"I'm here, Sa! Sarah, you have to jump," Devlin yelled.

Sarah shook her head and closed her eyes again. Devlin looked for a ladder, anything that she could use to get to Sarah. She gave directions to Hanan and Anoli to keep at the flames in the area below where Sarah was trapped.

"Sarah. d.a.m.n it, Sarah, look at me," Devlin shouted as strongly as she could. Sarah trained her mind to Devlin's voice and opened her eyes again.

"Sarah, you have to jump. I'll catch you, but you have to, and you have to do it now."

"I can't," Sarah cried. "I can't make my legs work."

"Yes, you can. You have to, Sa, you just have to." Devlin paused to see if she was getting through to the terrified woman. Through the smoke, she thought she perceived a bit of reason in the frightened green eyes. "All you have to do is push yourself off and jump. I'll catch you, Sa, I promise."

Sarah turned her head to look into Devlin's face. For the first time, she saw how close the flames were to her. She also saw the fear in Devlin's expression. "I'm scared, Dev."

Devlin's expression softened. "I know you are, Sa, but I know you can do this."

Sarah coughed as the breeze shifted again and blew additional smoke into her face. She held onto the eave with fingers that had lost all sensation because of their tight grip on the wood. Her knees felt wobbly and weak as she rose to a standing position. She still faced the attic window, unable to muster the courage to turn away.

"d.a.m.n it, Sarah! You're going to die up there, then I'm going to die trying to get to you. Is that what you want?" Devlin shouted.

Sarah shook her head in a furious motion.

"Then you have to jump. You don't have to look down. Just close your eyes, turn around, and jump. I'll catch you. Sarah, remember who you are! Do the Alikchi let fear control them?"

The remark had the same result as a slap to Sarah's face. She was letting fear control her. After all she had been through, the visions she had experienced, now she was letting the Keyuachi win. They were getting the best of her, and one thing Sarah detested was allowing her own lack of self-esteem to beat her.

"I am Alikchi," she whispered, echoing the mantra until she felt some degree of will return to her body. She carefully turned, facing away from the house, and looked at the ground, the flames nearly lapping at the toes of her boots. A familiar nausea made her stomach lurch.

Devlin saw the transformation take place within Sarah as her words had the desired effect. At the last moment, she saw Sarah teeter slightly and shut her eyes tight. "Don't look down. Sarah, just keep your eyes closed and trust me. If you jump, I'll be here to catch you. Now, Sa, you have to jump now!"

Sarah's timing was perfect. As she pushed off the building with one foot to clear the flames, the wall crumbled in. She opened her eyes when her body made soft contact with Devlin's arms. Devlin half caught her, but used her own body to block the rest of Sarah's fall. They hit the ground and Devlin rolled them away from the house as it crashed down in pieces.

Devlin had her arms wrapped tightly around Sarah, but their reunion was short-lived. Hanan ran forward with their mounts and Anoli helped them to their feet, indicating that he had left Cordelia in a wagon by the river. They realized there would be no way to get back to the Double Deuce. The smoke hampered them almost as much as the actual fire. They couldn't see to navigate through the thick haze, and it was still possible buffalo might stampede them.

Once at the river, they found Cordelia in fine shape, considering recent events. The first thing Devlin did was to jump off Alto and pull Sarah down from Coal's back. She took Sarah in her arms, oblivious to the looks exchanged by the others in their party. They kissed each other, and Devlin wiped the tears from Sarah's dirt-streaked face. Sarah wrapped her arms around Devlin's waist and squeezed so hard Devlin thought her ribs would break. She wasn't about to complain, however.

Devlin pulled away from the embrace and looked into Sarah's face, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Hi, I'm back."

Sarah laughed through her tears and held onto Devlin. Suddenly, she looked up in fear. "Matt?"

"It's okay, he's with Hannah in the village."

Sarah breathed a heavy sigh and reached up to kiss Devlin again. "I missed you so much."

"Me too. Let's not do this again real soon. Okay?"

"Okay."

The two women sat on the wet sand at the bank of the river and continued to hold each other. Devlin explained that she and Matt had taken the train most of the way home. The train stopped when the engineers saw the smoke on the prairie. Devlin and Matthew unloaded their mounts from the train car and rode to the clan village.

"Matt's not too happy, though. He spent the summer with men treating him as an equal. All I could focus on was getting to you, so I ordered him to stay there and I took off. When I reached the Double Deuce, Bud told me I couldn't have been more than ten minutes behind you. Sorry, Sa, I would have been there sooner, but I ran into a few buffalo. The way they were moving, I figured it best to stay outta their way."

Sarah leaned into Devlin and squeezed her hand. "I prayed for help, and just like a miracle, you were there."

"Don't think I've ever been the answer to anyone's prayers before," she said with a grin.

"That's not true." Sarah sat back and looked into the blue eyes she had come to love so well. "I thought you were the first time I ever saw you."

The look of love and adoration in Sarah's eyes stole Devlin's breath, as well as her speech. She didn't have a response for such a profound declaration. Her ears tingled with warmth when she looked up and realized they weren't alone. She cleared her throat and looked at her boots.

Sarah then remembered the people around them and smiled in embarra.s.sment at Cordelia. "I'm so sorry about your home, Cordy."

"Sorry?" Cordelia looked at Sarah in disbelief. "That was you draggin' my old carca.s.s outta that burnin' box of kindlin', wasn't it? You get nothin' but my wholehearted thanks, little lady."

"But it was your home. All your memories were there."

Cordelia placed a gnarled, weathered hand atop Sarah's. "Sarah Tolliver, that house had physical memories in it, to be sure, but havin' things around you don't keep the memories alive. A house is just a place ta rest yer body. It can be a hole in the ground or a big ol' mansion. A home...now, that's what you keep inside of yerself. Everything that means anything to me, I keep in here." Cordelia placed the palm of her hand over her heart. "You two just remember that," she winked at Devlin, "and everything else will seem small in comparison."

The wind shifted once more and began to carry the smoke away. The fire eventually ran its course, encountering riverbeds and fire breaks that it couldn't cross, and the flames finally found nothing left to feed on. The more the wind blew, the more the blue sky became visible through the grayish haze. The afternoon sun began its descent into the western horizon, and once the smoke had cleared enough for the bright light to slice across the river, it felt like a rebirth of sorts.

Sarah, in her weariness, thought of Kontonalah's words. He had told her that Mother Earth had an uncanny ability to know when to begin again. He had also told her of all the good that would eventually come to the land because of the prairie fire. The irony was that humans were the only ones to pay from the devastation, but Sarah was reminded that it might be because most humans didn't know their place in the circle. The land had existed in its perfect harmony before man knew what time was. Everything that had life, even the trees, understood where they belonged within the sacred hoop. Does that mean we don't belong here? The Chahta people had shown her the answer to that question.

Devlin had once said to Sarah that there was room enough for all. Most of the white men were ignorant, unschooled in the ways of Mother Earth. Many, however, were arrogant. They had come to this country, to this land, intent on conquest. Instead of adapting to the earth around them, they forced nature to conform to their way of life, to their will. Sarah wondered when Mother Earth would tell man, enough. Alternately, she questioned whether man would realize that he had squandered the mother's gifts and that those gifts would never come again.

The wind continued to gain strength, but the chill autumn air turned humid and close. The blue sky turned a deeper hue. Thunderheads developed in the northern sky. By the time the small party had mounted their animals and made it into town, the heavens let loose with the year's long-awaited downpour. Thunder grumbled like a testy bull and the rain fell as though the clouds had been saving the precipitation for just such a day. The ground smoldered and hissed as the rain soaked in, preventing further fires from breaking out.

Sarah and Devlin settled Cordelia into a room at the hotel, then decided to spend the night. Frank and Maria Grayson, who owned the general store, had known Sarah and her uncle for years. The couple supplied the group with dry clothes and other necessities.

Hanan and Anoli met up with the others who had followed Sarah from the Chahta village. They insisted on returning to the village, even though Devlin encouraged them to stay in town until morning. The men respectfully refused, and she didn't push the issue. She understood that her clan brothers probably felt uncomfortable among the townspeople. The fact that the men were returning to the village eased Sarah's mind for a different reason. She and Devlin sent a message back to Tima and the children informing them that they were safe and would be back the following day.

Sarah and Devlin stood under the roof covering the wooden sidewalk that ran from the hotel to the general store. Devlin thanked her friends for their help, and Sarah provided each of the men with jackets and wide-brimmed hats to protect them from the rain. Devlin didn't have the heart to tell her that the men were used to the elements and would probably feel strange using them.

The men were nonplussed at receiving the gifts. It was well-known that gift giving was something the Thunderbird clan did not do. Sarah was their medicine woman, and along with that honor came certain privileges. One of those privileges was the ability to give gifts. It would be considered a sign of disrespect for the men to refuse a gift from her.

Sarah gave the gifts because the gentle mother in her disliked seeing the young men head back home in the middle of a storm. Another reason was that the men had displayed a strength of character that impressed her. Hanan and Anoli especially had stayed with Sarah and never gave up trying to reach her, despite the risk to their own lives.

Sarah said a personal goodbye to each of the men. "You have my thanks and my respect. Hanan and Anoli, I owe you a debt."

The men's eyes widened at Sarah's remarks. To admit owing a debt to another clan member was a serious obligation. Sarah knew that those words, especially when voiced by a medicine woman, were an unbreakable oath. They formed an odd bond of friendship between receiver and debtor.

"I might have gone to the sacred place today if it hadn't been for the two of you. I wasn't very strong," she admitted. "The Keyuachi paid me a visit on that roof today."

"You see the Keyuachi?" Anoli asked in amazement.

"They are as real to me as you standing there. They've tried to trick me quite often lately." She grinned. "But when I remember who I am and that I have the strength of my Chahta ancestors in me, then the Keyuachi can't defeat me."

Anoli bowed his head and held Sarah's hand in his own. "I will remember your words, Mother."

Devlin was as impressed by Sarah's statement as the young men were. Sarah and Devlin watched as the group rode out into the rain. They waited there until they could no longer make out the shapes of their young friends.

Devlin looked down at Sarah and saw that the younger woman had changed immensely over the summer. Devlin hid her wry smile when she wondered if Sarah had changed at all. Hadn't she always been an enigma to her? Since the day they met, Devlin had suspected that Sarah could be as strong as circ.u.mstances dictated. At the same time, Sarah had a fragility about her that drew out every protective instinct Devlin had. Soft and hard, wise yet innocent. A crash of thunder punctuated Devlin's epiphany. She suddenly realized that Sarah Tolliver had been Chahta in her heart long before Devlin came into her life.

Chapter 22.

Sarah and Devlin lay nestled together on the soft feather mattress. They exchanged bits and pieces of what happened over the summer. They agreed that there would be plenty of time later to examine the details. For now, they were content to lie together and listen to the rain as it fell in a steady rhythm against the roof.

"I don't think I'll ever get the smell of smoke out of my hair," Sarah said.

Devlin reached down to kiss the top of the golden head. "Mmm, smells good to me," she said as she breathed in the scent of Sarah's freshly washed hair.

"It's funny, isn't it?" Sarah asked, changing the subject. "If the rain had gotten here a few hours earlier, the fire might never have happened."

"True," Devlin said. "But if you look at what might have been, I think we have to look at the fact that the fire was probably caused by lightning up in the hills in the first place."

"You've become quite a philosopher for a cattlewoman."

"I might say that's the pot calling the kettle black," Devlin said with a laugh.

Sarah reached up from her position within Devlin's arms to affectionately nibble on the soft skin of her neck. One kiss turned into more until Devlin worked herself free of Sarah's grasp. She sat up and looked at Sarah as though she had never seen her.

"Sa, you know the walls are like paper in this place." Sarah nodded and moved closer, continuing her a.s.sault on Devlin's neck. Devlin tried to fight against the waves of pleasure that came from the intimate contact. She realized it was a losing battle.

"Oh, it's all right to make love to me with your mother a few feet away, but it's not okay when I want to make love to you when we're alone in a room," Sarah drawled sweetly.