Devilfire

Chapter One-3

They rattled down the path—really two wagon tracks etched deeply into the dirt—and came to a stop beside a dirty canvas A-frame, hastily erected in a flat area of the field.

Sensing eyes on him, Gavin turned toward Miss Smith, to see her golden eyebrow quirked.

“Dr. Cameron did the bulk of his training during the War between the States. He kept all his equipment afterwards, and is now a sort of mobile hospital, caring for all the small communities and ranches around Wichita Falls. He prefers it to city living, which works for me. I have to warn you, though. He's a bit… jumpy. Speak softly, and don't make sudden movements.”

“Too much artillery exposure, is it?” Miss Smith asked. “I know that's a hard thing to get over.”

“A bit,” Gavin admitted, though privately he had to acknowledge that a lot would be a more accurate assessment.

“Don't worry,” she told him. “I'm good with jumpy people. I might even be able to help.”

Dear Lord, what could that mean? Nervous about introducing his new companion to the man who, up until this afternoon, he'd believed was the most eccentric person in North America, Gavin hopped down from the wagon and circled around to lift Miss Smith to the ground. Even clutching the injured infant to her chest, she weighed far less than she should have. This one has missed more than the occasional meal.

As he circled around the wagon to check on his passengers, a short, stocky man with a puff of fading, reddish hair emerged from the tent. Blood and ash smeared his apron and face, and his hands trembled visibly. “What have you got there, Morris?” he demanded. “Any live ones?”

“Just one, I think,” he admitted, wondering how he could help the injured saloon-girl out of the wagon without hurting her.

“Two,” Miss Smith reminded him, indicating the baby with a gesture of her head.

Dr. Cameron jumped as though a battlefield cannon had fired next to his head. “Who the devil are you, another of the survivors?”

Gavin finally managed to climb into the wagon and slip his arms under the burned woman's shoulders and knees. She shrieked in agony, telling him the grim story that her destroyed hands and feet were not the worst of her wounds. Try though he might, he couldn't prevent several uncoordinated movements from jarring her.

By the time he made his way into the hospital tent, Dr. Cameron had already unwrapped the baby and gotten straight to work setting and splinting his broken arm. “Not a burn on him,” the doctor muttered. “Where did you find this little fellow, Miss Smith?”

Gavin carried his charge to an empty bed and set her down gently. She had stopped screaming and breathed shallowly, staring at the canvas above her with unseeing eyes. He laid a hand on her pulse and found it shallow and rapid. I fear it won't be long now. “Miss Smith?”

The girl lifted her gaze from the baby and made her way to the remaining survivor. “Dr. Morris?”

I can't believe I'm doing this. “I think this one needs you more than me.”

Miss Smith's eyes lightly traced the woman's face, and then she lowered her eyelids. “Don't be afraid,” she murmured. “It's going to be all right.”

Gavin left his new companion with the dying woman and hurried over to help his partner.

Dr. Morris looked up from the table with a grunt. “You have a penchant for finding strange people,” he blurted, tactless as always.

Gavin took no offense. “I believe this is the first time I've discovered someone who wasn't a patient. How's the little fellow?”

“Good,” Dr. Morris grunted. “Apart from a few bruises, this broken arm is his worst problem. How in the world did he survive? The rest of the few people who lived through the fire are in terrible shape.”

He waved behind him at the four other beds. Two held scorched-looking patients, snoring through a haze of morphine. The other was covered completely with a rough, gray blanket. “From what everyone says, it was the strangest fire. No one can pinpoint where it started. Every witness who was able to speak pinpoints a different origin: the church, the undertaker, and the general store.”

“I heard muttering about such things,” Gavin admitted. He dipped a rag into cool water and sponged the baby's face. Benjamin's lips trembled, and he howled. “It's good the little guy is breathing so well.”

The doctor looked down again without responding. “I think I'll skip the morphine for him. Now that he's splinted up, he seems not to be in too much pain. With all he's been through, I don't want to stress him further. If he gets fretful, we'll deal with it later.” He glanced at Gavin and back down again. “What do you plan to do with him? I presume his mother didn't survive, otherwise she'd be here.”

“Correct.” Gavin thought fast. How to explain knowing things we couldn't possibly know to this professional skeptic? “Um, Miss Smith had a chance to talk to the mother before she… departed. She gave us her sister's name. I expect Miss Smith will want to head to Wichita Falls and send a telegram as quickly as possible.”

Dr. Cameron grunted and returned his attention to the baby, wrapping the little boy in a rough but clean blanket, and handing him to Gavin. “Find a place to put him for now, would you? I have less healthy patients to tend to.”

“Doctors?” Miss Smith approached, her face set and tears sparkling in her eyes.

“Did she pass?” Gavin asked.

She nodded. “I thought she might make it at first. She was alert and talking, remember?”

Gavin circled around the cot, the baby cradled in the crook of his arm, and reached out slowly.

This time, Miss Smith didn't flinch. She allowed him to take hold of her hand. “It's hard when that happens,” he said gently, “but you helped her. She didn't die alone. You were there with her, right until the end. That was very brave of you.”

Miss Smith shrugged. “It didn't feel brave. It felt necessary. She needed someone, and I was the only one here. That happens so often.”

“Well, Miss,” Dr. Cameron blustered, coming to stand beside Gavin. His loud, booming voice startled the infant, who let out a squeak and commenced to fussing. Gavin shifted the little boy slowly in a rocking motion, trying not to jar the freshly-set injury. “Miss… Smith, was it?” the gruff older man demanded. At her nod, he continued. “If you find yourself frequently drawn to the ill and the dying, maybe you have a gift for healing. Have you ever considered assisting a physician?”

Gift of healing? From the ultimate skeptic? What alchemy has this woman achieved now?

“I wouldn't mind,” Miss Smith said. “I'm always looking for an honorable source of income, but I'm not good at sewing, and so I'm a bit out of options. Plus, the dying call me, and I have to answer.” She grinned shyly.

“Well, then, for now, why not stay here with us? We need another set of hands. Dr. Morris here can show you what to do, but it's simple enough work. Clean up messy faces and hands. Cool hot foreheads. Change the linens after someone passes. Call one of us if there's a sudden crisis.”

“I can do that, for a while,” Miss Smith agreed, “but at some point soon, I'll need to send a telegram to this baby's aunt.”

“It's too late in the day now,” Gavin reminded her, indicating the rapidly setting sun. “Tomorrow, after we check the patients, we can head into town. I need more supplies anyway.”

She nodded.

Gavin noticed the baby had started to drowse in his arms, so he spread out a blanket, and set the little fellow in it. Then, he moved across the tent to the dead p********e. And on and on it goes.

* * *

Annabelle scratched out the brief message she'd drafted on a scrap of paper. She frowned at the scribbled lines and tried once more… and scratched it out again.

“Having trouble?”

She closed her eyes and tried not to notice the pulses of energy pushing off Gavin's frame and invading her personal space. “A bit. I can't afford much of a message.” Annabelle admitted, “How can I explain to the little mite's aunt, in only a few words, that she cannot delay, but must come to collect her nephew immediately?”

“That is a challenge,” Gavin agreed, plunking into the second chair at the `table' fashioned from a dry stump he and Dr. Cameron carried with their mobile hospital. “Can I help?”

She shook her head. “I don't suppose it will make much difference. I can't write it cheaply. Do you think your partner will give me an advance on my wages for this purpose?”

Gavin c****d an eyebrow at her while studying her face intensely. An unwanted thrill tightened her insides, and she quickly returned to frowning at her paper.

“No offense, Miss Smith, but you look like you've missed a meal or two. Wouldn't it be better to use an advance on your wages for some beefsteak and home-baked bread?”

She shrugged. “I'll be fine. The baby needs to be settled quickly. So far, he seems to be doing all right gnawing on hard biscuits, but he'll need some milk soon, and there's none to be found here. The longer I wait, the more I'll have to spend on that, so it isn't really an economy to delay the message.”

“I see your point,” Gavin agreed, still scrutinizing her carefully. “He's an agreeable little fellow, isn't he?”

“He is,” she agreed, glancing at the baby, who sat on the hard-packed dirt, gnawing a biscuit and drooling soggy crumbs down the front of his shirt. “It's a shame his mother didn't make it.”

“It's a shame a lot more people didn't make it,” Gavin said. “I've rarely seen such dense casualties from a fire. I swear there were only about ten survivors, including this little sprout.”

“How many people lived here to begin with?” Annabelle asked.

“Estimates suggest around forty.”

Her head shot up and she stared into his eyes in disbelief. “Three-quarters of the town's population died? That's unthinkable! More should have gotten out.”

“'Twas the devil who done it.” An old man with a long white beard sat up in his cot. He paused, wheezed, and continued. “The devil, I tell ye. I was outside of town, camped near the river, and I seen it.”

Gavin rolled his eyes, but Annabelle leaned toward the man, widening her eyes in what she hoped looked like an encouraging expression. “What did you see, sir?”

Gavin snorted under his breath and muttered. Without thought, she hit him on the arm to silence him.

The old man frowned at Gavin.

“Pay him no mind,” Annabelle urged. “Men of science have no imagination. What did you see?”

“I seen the devil, in a long black robe, walking down Main Street. Every building he passed burst into flames. And how the fire spread! I never seen nuthin' like it. It was devilfire, I tell ye.”

“And how much moonshine had you drunk before that?” Gavin demanded, clearly unimpressed with the tale.

The old man's earnest demeanor faded to disgust. He flopped back down onto the cot and turned his back on the pair.

“Was that really necessary?” Annabelle demanded.

“No,” Gavin admitted, “but it was fun, and Lord knows, there isn't much fun to be had around here.”

“We might have learned something,” she protested. There's more to this story than meets the eye.

“Learned that dirty old drunks tell tall tales?” Gavin suggested impishly.

Annabelle frowned at him.

“Miss Smith,” he continued, in a more serious tone, “I don't know what information you're hoping to extract. It was a fire. It was bad. Many died. What more is there?”