The Drought (33 page)

Thomas spit a wad of tobacco in the dirt and said, ‘When you call names like that you may as well have throw’d a match at the little girl.’ He didn’t let the punishment go at just a talk. After, he had whipped her good. She couldn’t sit down comfortably for nearly a week. Even so, it wasn’t the whipping she remembered. It was his description of those burnt bodies.

Was she doing this?
It felt real. Smoke was stinging her eyes. She could smell burnt flesh. She whispered, “I have to help the children.” She ran deeper into the gypsy camp.

A small child was on fire. Beth snatched up an army green blanket and chased after the burning girl until she dropped. She fell on her using the blanket to smother the flames. When she pulled back the blanket, only a smoldering husk remained.

She screamed, “No!” and rolled off the body. Stomach bile rose up in her throat. She spit into the singed grass. From a great distance she heard her name being called, “
Beth.”

A dark skinned man appeared out of the smoke filled night looming above her. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. Half his face was burned away. He snarled. “You did this, you threw the match.”

On the burnt side of his face, Beth could see the exposed muscle of his jaw, the raw, stringy tendons working as his mouth came together to form each word. A gold cap on his back molar glittered through the charred wreckage. She felt her bladder weaken. Sounding like she was nine again, she said, “I wouldn’t set someone on fire.”

The thing before her, twisted its burnt face and in her father’s voice said, “When you call names like that you may as well have throw’d a match.” A dark tongue shot out and ran along charred lips.

Again, from far away, Barry’s voice came through the smoke-filled night.

“Help Beth, I need you!”

The gypsy leaned closer and licked Beth’s face with its dark tongue

The shotgun was wedged between her and the gruesome apparition. Angling the gun, she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. The shotgun blast hit the gypsy in the chest. The impact sent him flying onto his back.

Scrambling away from the burnt figure, she heard Barry’s voice again. This time she could see him. He was on the floor in the collection room, his legs dangling into the crevice. With the baby still cradled in his arms he was unable to climb out.

Smoke, real or imagined wafted through the corridor and into the room. Crawling across the cold, dirt floor she reached Barry. This time she had no choice but to accept the decrepit baby into her embrace.

Relieved of his burden Barry attempted to crawl out of the crevice. His leg was still snagged. Angry over his own fear he snapped. “Give me the flashlight.” Dragging his body as far as he could he reached back with the flashlight and smashed at the skeletal hand holding his ankle. The fragile bones shattered on impact, disappearing into the crevice.

They sat together for a moment each afraid to voice the things they had seen. She finally said, “The fire.” It was poised more as a question than a statement.

He tilted his head up and said, “I think it’s real. I think Griffin has set the whole place on fire.”

Breathless she asked, “The gypsies?”

He murmured, “Real enough. I don’t think they want us to take the baby.”

She looked down at the macabre form bundled in the blanket, half tempted to throw it down into the crevice—she didn’t owe Dora anything. The woman had been the cause of so much pain in Beth’s life. Why should she risk anything for her? She lifted her eyes and found Barry watching her carefully.

He said, “He didn’t cheat on you.”

Her lips quivered.

“I’m two years older than Jar.” He let the number sink in before adding, “It’s not for her anyway. It’s for me.” He held out his arms, waiting.

Placing the dead baby into his outstretched arms she said, “All right. I’ll do this for
you
.”

Junction, Texas

A raging inferno engulfed the front of the house. The fire, not satiated by the foyer and the great hall, steadily climbed the stairs. Tongues of flame jumped out hungrily to taste the wood, the wall hangings and the drapery. Thick, black smoke, an emissary of the coming destruction, rolled through the halls.

Keeping low to avoid the dangerous smoke, Beth and Barry moved through the dark corridors toward the back of the house. Barry revealed the rest of his plan when they were safely in the small butler’s pantry. He intended to take the dumbwaiter up to the attic, lay the delicate bundle with his mother and come right back down. Throwing her a cocky smile he climbed up onto a small table and opened the door set in the wall. He said, “Don’t worry this shouldn’t take more than…” His words faded into a curse. “God damn it.” He was holding the end of a cut rope.

The boyish face once again turned hard. He pointed to the door that led outside. “Wait for me here. If the smoke gets too heavy just get out.”

She looked at him, understanding his intent. “You’ll never make it. The whole house is going to collapse. The fire’s already on the first landing. The second and third floors can’t last.”

“I have to do this.” He picked up the bundled corpse and walked toward the door.

She followed him into the hall, intending to go with him.

Turning, he blocked her. “Think of Jar. He’s going to need his mother when he comes home.” He leaned over, kissed her cheek and disappeared toward the back stairs.

Barry made the third landing without any trouble. Hazy smoke drifted through the hall. Swearing softly, he cursed Griffin for cutting the dumbwaiter rope. Expecting the attic door to be locked, he half-heartedly climbed the steps.

The door stood slightly ajar.

Laughing in disbelief, he gave it a cautious push. He peered in expecting Griffin to jump from the shadows. Nothing happened.

The attic was hot. The heat wasn’t coming from the sun or the long drought but emanating through the floors and the walls.

He didn’t have much time.

Pulling the blanket away from his mother, he rearranged her arms and placed the small bundle in her embrace. He kneeled down next to the bed and said, “Mom, I wish I could give you a proper burial, but the house is on fire and I won’t be able to get you out in time. I brought you the baby. I hope that was the right thing to do. Robert is here now and he’ll keep you safe from the gypsies, and Griffin’s gone so you don’t need to be afraid anymore.”

He strained to remember what the minister usually said at a funeral. He stood up and whispered. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Then he awkwardly made the sign of the cross and said, “Rest in peace. Amen.” He stepped away from the bed. “I have to go, Mom.”

As if seeking an enemy the fire found him. Flames zigzagged down the hall of the third floor. The passage down the back stairs was still possible if he moved quickly. He pushed away from the wall ready to make a run for it. The flames shifted and blocked his way.

Not trusting his senses, he stepped to the right.

The flames shifted to the right.

He stepped to the left.

The flames danced to the left.

Understanding dawned on him. He murmured. “The gypsies.”

As if summoned from the depths of hell, the gypsies appeared gyrating on the wave of the flames. Their voices unified as one with the hissing and crackling of the fire.
“Give us back the baby.”

Barry shouted. “No! He belongs with his mother.”

The flames shot up higher, climbing the walls and racing across the ceiling. His only chance of escape was blocked by the growing wall of fire. Backing up the stairs he slowly retreated toward the attic. The flames, sensing his movement, climbed the wall of the stairwell, trying to block his retreat. He threw himself through the fire, rolled into the attic and managed to kick the door shut. The smell of singed hair filled his nostrils.

Smoke tendrils drifted under the door. The temperature in the room grew hotter. The paper on his mother’s desk started to smoke, the fabric of her nightgown to curl. Any moment things were going to start bursting into flames. This was no ordinary fire.

Frantically he looked around for an escape route. His eyes lit on the dumbwaiter. It was broken but it was still a way out of the room. The smell of singed hair grew stronger. He touched his hair certain it must be smoking.
Burn to death or fall thirty feet?
He opened the door and looked down. The slightest current of air was coming through the shaft. He imagined Beth sitting in the butler’s pantry with the outer door cracked open. He whispered, “I’m sorry Beth.” Praying she wouldn’t be there when he came crashing to the bottom.

As he climbed into the opening he thought about Luke Casteel climbing into the drainage pipe.
I’m Sorry Luke. I wish you had stood up to me, told me to go to hell—maybe we’d all be hanging out down at Flatrock bridge right now.
He pushed his scarred back gingerly against one panel and his feet against the other. Had it been the beginning of the summer when Barry was the strongest of his friends and the fastest he probably could have shimmied down the chute. His legs were weak from attrition, his body was exhausted from the long ordeal of fighting Griffin and his hands and feet were sweaty from the heat in the enclosed tunnel.

Three feet into the climb, he slipped.

Oddly, he didn’t panic. For the first time in his life he felt a sense of peace. Aside from the time he spent with Jar at his trailer, he hadn’t had much of a life at all. The image of Beth waiting at the bottom stopped him. He owed her more than this. Pushing out with both hands and feet he tried to get friction on the panels. At one point he started to slow, only to fall again. With arms and legs that felt as loose as Jell-O, he pushed out one last time and closed his eyes. He felt himself begin to slow right before he slammed into the bottom of the shaft.

*

A loud crash made Beth jump. Her finger tightened on the trigger of the shotgun and it went off with a deafening blast. She had the weird sense she’d drifted off, maybe not to sleep but into an exhausted fugue—
she’d felt Jared, felt his fear.
Her eyes scanned the room trying to identify the sound that had startled her. She saw smoke tendrils drifting beneath the door, heard timbers popping—the house was coming down. They were out of time. She looked at the door that led outside. She couldn’t leave Barry, not after everything they’d been through. Tears burned her eyes. She thought,
Damn it Barry you should have been back by now.

The smoke thickened. Coughing she swiped brusquely at her eyes and opened the door a crack. Sand skittered across her bare feet, and bit into her flesh. Griffin could be out there waiting for this moment, waiting to pick her off as she fled the burning house. She stepped forward until she felt a bed of sand beneath her toes and then she stuck her head outside the door. The sky was still a hazy gold but the gusting wind had stopped. She wondered if she would hear the gunshot—know the bullet was coming for her making its way effortlessly through the sand that had stopped an entire town its tracks.

A sound stopped her. She heard a low moan. Turning back into the smoke filled room she called out, “Barry?” She heard the moan again. It was coming from the wall. Scrambling onto the table she pulled the door to the dumbwaiter open. A limp arm fell out.

Barry’s crumbled body was lying at the bottom of the shaft, in a jumble of splintered wood. The roof of the dumb-waiter had collapsed under the impact of his body. She reached in and pulled his body out of the shaft. Bracing herself to take his weight she slid down and dragged his body onto the table. From there she lowered him to the floor and dragged him through the door and away from the burning house.

The acrid air made it difficult to breathe. A safe distance from the house she collapsed in the sand next to Barry. There were no gunshots, no sign of Griffin at all—that threat was gone. She knew they needed to find shelter but her strength was spent. She pulled Barry’s prone body close to hers and shielded his face from the blowing sand. She buried her own face against his hair and closed her eyes.

They traveled East

The state brought in snowplows and bulldozers to re-open I-10. Unlike snow, the sand was impossible to pack along the shoulder making it necessary to haul truckloads away from the interstate. Griffin drove along I-10 in the wake of a dump truck carrying four tons of sand. By the time he passed Kerrville the Aston Martin was covered with a thick coat of dust.