Devilfire

Chapter One-2

Gavin shook his head. “Even if the infant survived the fall into a cellar, he probably died of the smoke.” i***t, what are you doing? his rational mind demanded. You're getting sucked into her fantasy. Stop it! You have no idea if there is a cellar, let alone an infant. And yet, Miss Smith's insistent assuredness seemed to infect him.

Stepping carefully around the body, he took hold of the beam and heaved. Fire had lightened it considerably, crumbling a sizable portion of its bulk and infiltrating what remained with fissures and ash. It disintegrated in his hands, but not before he could haul it away.

The portion of the dead woman that lay beneath the beam had survived the fire, more or less intact. A broad swath of a back, clad in a white nightgown, showed just how quickly the fire had taken the home. She had so little warning. Still, he could see nothing of her upper body. Bile rose in his throat as he considered touching the woman, but he knew Miss Smith would accept no excuses. And just how do you know that? You've known the woman all of ten minutes.

Carefully laying his hands on the intact portion of the body, he pulled upward, and as predicted, an upper back, head and arms emerged from an opening in the floor. Like the flesh under the beam, this part of her remained unburned, a long swath of dark hair spilling onto the remains of her home as he laid her gently on her side. What a horrible death she must have endured. Poor creature.

Without thought, he smoothed her hair away from her face and shuddered at the agonized expression etched forever into soft, supple features.

A quiet whimper cut through the night, and Gavin whipped his head to the side so quickly, the vertebrae in his neck popped. He groaned. All the aches he'd amassed in his late-night run through the burned-out town flared into burning pain. Then, he realized what he'd heard.

“Was that…?” he began.

“A baby,” Miss Smith breathed. Before he could stop her, or even offer a word of caution, the woman bounded forward and disappeared down the opening from which the dead woman had just been withdrawn. A moment later, she reappeared, a blanket-wrapped bundle in the crook of her arm. “The smoke wasn't as bad down there,” she crowed. “Just look!”

She peeled back the blanket to reveal a plump, pink form. It twitched and whined, one fist flailing in the air, the other hanging awkwardly to the side.

“Easy,” Gavin urged. “Was it a long way to the floor? He might be injured.”

“It's a bit of a drop,” she admitted. “Will you look him over?”

She extended the baby, and Gavin noted in passing that the child appeared to be about six months old. Big enough to be a bit sturdy. He gently rolled the boy over, so his body rested along Gavin's forearm, and cradled the baby's chin on his palm. Bruises marred the little back. At the change of position, the baby shrieked, and Gavin noted his left forearm still hung at an unnatural angle.

“Broken arm,” he said, “and I'll need to watch closely for concussion or other internal injuries, but I do believe we may have found our first true survivor.”

“What about…?” Miss Smith began, looking back toward the wagon.

Now how did she know that was there? I never saw a hint she was aware of me until I touched her. “I doubt any of them will last the night,” he muttered for her ears only, hoping the sound would not carry back to his cart.

She lowered her head, eyelids fluttering in sorrow. “I'll help them if they need it,” she offered. “Sometimes it's hard to move on when the passing is so sudden and violent.”

Despite the strangeness of the comment, Gavin nodded. Crazy or not, she means well, and sometimes, that's all a person can offer… or accept.

A change to Miss Smith's posture showed him her attention had been diverted. When she spoke again, it was clearly not to him. “Yes, we found him.” She paused. “Benjamin is such a nice name. He looks like he's going to make it and be just fine.” Another pause. “Should we try to find him a family? What?”

She turned her face toward Gavin, but her expression remained far away. “She says we should contact her sister, Judith Hart, who lives in Abilene. She's sure she will take the baby and raise him.” Miss Smith looked back, and Gavin could see, again, one of those damned heat shimmers; this time hovering directly above the face of the dead woman. He blinked hard, but it didn't dissipate.

Miss Smith continued speaking to her invisible companion. “Will you go on then? It's time.” Another long pause. “That's not the best way, you know. I promise I'll deliver him to your sister as soon as I can… oh, very well, but be careful not to linger too long. You don't want to become trapped here.”

Shaking herself, Miss Smith sighed and turned again toward Gavin. “We're done here, and I don't feel any more dead lingering in this place.”

“It's not as easy hunting for the injured,” he replied, “but there are plenty of folks searching.” He indicated the devastated scene, where at least a dozen other people, most of whom he recognized from Wichita Falls, hunched or knelt, poking into the ashes. “Let's get this little fellow over to the hospital tent and set his arm.”

“Agreed.”

Wincing as the baby cried, Gavin carefully placed his broken arm on his chest and wrapped the blanket around him again. Miss Smith made her cautious way out of the rubble, after marking the spot with another flag, so the poor mother could eventually be laid to rest. She approached Gavin, and he noted a smear of soot on her forehead. He reached out with his free hand, intending to wipe it away, but Miss Smith flinched.

“Sorry.” Gavin withdrew his touch. “You have a smudge on your face.” She froze in place, allowing the touch, and he wiped off the grime to reveal tanned, healthy skin beneath. The cadaver color is nothing but ash. Thank goodness.

A shudder shook her body from head to foot, and she stepped forward out of the ruined house and onto the road. “Shall we get out of here?”

Gavin led the way back to his wagon, taking a moment to check on his three charges. The saloon girl turned wild eyes toward him.

“Get him out,” she whimpered, indicating the doctor with her stump of a hand.

A glance revealed what had upset the woman. Labored exhalations from the injured man had ceased, and his pale blue eyes no longer blinked in mute agony but stared at the hazy sky.

“I'm sorry,” he told her. “I can't take the time to remove him now. We're heading back to the hospital tent to treat you, and I don't want to waste a minute.”

She whimpered and laboriously turned her head away from the corpse, while Gavin circled to the front of the wagon. He found Miss Smith standing uncertainly beside the weary horse.

“All aboard,” he urged. She scrambled into the seat, and he gently handed her the baby. “Careful of his arm.”

She nodded, accepting the fragile charge, and Gavin vaulted into the seat beside her. Grasping the reins, he urged the animal forward. The wheels began a sluggish rotation, and a tortured groan rose from the back.

“We lost one,” he muttered, hoping it would be for her ears only.

She nodded. “I saw it happen as we were walking up. He didn't need me though. He knew, and he went on without my help.”

For some reason, every time Miss Smith made one of her bizarre pronouncements, it felt less crazy to Gavin. He dipped his chin in acknowledgment and shook the reins again. From the back, the p********e began to wail, whether in fear of the corpse beside her, shock, or physical pain, he had no idea. I hope the old man has some morphine left in the tent.

As they passed back through the remnants of what had once been a small but promising ranching community, Gavin reflected on the damage around him. “It amazes me how bad the fire was,” he commented idly to Miss Smith. “I mean, yes, it's summer, and as hot and dry as a person would expect, and yes, there were only twenty buildings along the street, but I would have expected… I don't know… less damage somehow.”

“I see what you mean,” she replied, her voice hushed. “Even the nearest-in ranches burned, as though a brush fire had taken them, but it didn't. Near as any of the spirits could tell me, the fire started in the middle of town and burned outward, taking everything in its path as far as the creek, but not one spark jumped the water. And yet, no scrap of the town remains, and…” she paused and lowered her voice further, “almost no survivors.”

“Are you from here?” he asked, steering the conversation away from unanswerable questions.

“No,” Miss Smith replied. “I'm living in Fort Worth these days.”

“That's pretty far away,” he commented. “I live in Wichita Falls, and it took us most of the day to get here, though we were traveling with a loaded wagon.”

“Who's we?” she asked.

“My partner and I,” he explained. “Dr. Cameron. He set up a practice in Wichita Falls after the war, but the town grew, and he needed help. I arrived from back East three years ago and decided to stay. How on earth did you get from Fort Worth to Floreston so fast?”

“I didn't,” she explained. “I knew they would need me, so I came. I left Fort Worth last week and arrived about three hours before you turned up.” She paused, and then added, in a teasing voice, “I got a ride part of the way, from a farmer with a very slow mule.”

“Sounds like my draft horse,” Gavin commented. “He's definitely seen better days, and he doesn't care for the heat either. Wait, why are we making idle chitchat in the midst of a disaster?”

“To keep ourselves in control,” she said. “We both know there's a lot of work to do before we can fall apart and grieve what we've seen, so we have to pretend all is well for now.”

The wagon hit a bump. The infant shrieked and the woman in the back of the wagon groaned. A soft exhalation almost disappeared in the midst of myriad sounds, but it seemed Miss Smith heard it as well. She shifted her body, careful not to jar the baby, and whispered, “Go in peace, brother.”

“Did we lose the pastor?” Gavin muttered under his breath. You fool, how the hell would she know that? She's insane.

“Yes,” Miss Smith said softly, “but he had no trouble. He knew what to do. Pastors are usually good about it.”

“No offense, Miss Smith,” Gavin said gruffly, irritated by his own reactions, “but you are a very strange woman.”

“I know.” She laid a gentle hand on his sleeve. “I've heard that before, once or twice.” The warmth of her fingers sank through the thin fabric of his shirt and left sooty smudges behind. “I'm sorry.”

He glanced her direction and saw her face flaming. “It's quite all right. The shirt is already so dirty, what's a bit more ash?”

She grinned, which caused her jade eyes to light up and crinkle in the corners. For the first time, Gavin noticed a faint smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and on her cheekbones. Why, she's compelling, he realized, startled.

Up to that moment, he'd found her merely odd. Suddenly, the combination of her innocent damsel beauty and her unrestrained eccentricity elicited an unexpected reaction from inside him. Heat sizzled through his belly. His own face burned, and a suspicious tightness began to restrict the front of his trousers. Dear Lord, have I lost my mind? It's been a long time, but this?