Town Burning (28 page)

Jake twirled his empty bowl across the floor, then looked out into the cleared space in the middle of the room. He stood splayfooted, breathing deeply, his muzzle slowly moving from side to side. He looked like a drunk in Futzie’s looking for an argument.

“Drunk’s a coot,” Billy said disgustedly. Jake growled. “I give him too much. He’s O.K. with a little—gits kind of playful. But he’s a ornery old critter gits he too big a bellyful.
Jake!
You mind your P’s and Q’s now or I’ll boot your ass out of here! Mind you don’t do no business on the floor. I’ll rub your nose in it like I done before.” Aside, to John and Franklin: “He kind of loses control of his puckerstring sometimes.”

Jake looked from Billy to John, then for a long time at Franklin.

“What’s he looking at me for?” Franklin asked plaintively.

“He likes you. The old slob’s gitting sentimental now. He won’t hurt you none,” Billy said. “Let him set on your lap if he wants.”

Jake slowly approached.

“I don’t know if I want him to,” Franklin said. He sat stiffly, waiting. Jake put his paws on the box and looked up at Franklin. When he jumped to Franklin’s lap Franklin jumped too, and the box, the spilling beer, Franklin, Jake, and all nearly went over. For a second Jake looked like the man in the circus balancing himself with practiced calm on top of several teetering boxes. It looked as if Jake himself kept the whole business from toppling over. Franklin, shaken by the experience, hardly dared to move his hand as Jake licked it for spilled beer.

“Pet him, Frank. He loves attention,” Billy said. “Go on, now; he won’t hurt you none. I told you, he
likes
you. Once old Jake makes up his mind he likes you, you could step on his balls and he wouldn’t do nothing.”

Franklin cautiously put his hand on Jake’s head. The raccoon responded like a fat puppy—coy and fawning.

“It’s kind of disgusting, ain’t it, John?” Billy said. “He gits like that. By the
gee,
he’ll hate himself in the morning.”

“It’s getting pretty late,” John said.

“Wait a minute,” Billy said. “Listen!” John heard nothing but the wind, now coming back into his consciousness, whistling and sighing past the shack.

“Thought I heard something.” Billy cocked his head and closed his eyes. “Thought I heard the fire whistle—wouldn’t be too damn’ surprised I did.” He shook his head. “There! Heard her again!”

“I heard a whistle,” Franklin said.

“I did too,” John said. The frantic
moo
of the steam whistle on the firehouse came to them clearly in a lull of wind.

“One, two, three,” Billy counted, “thirty. Two. Wait a minute. One, two, three. Now wait…Four short. Thirty-two—that’s down by the river, from the railroad bridge to the Northlee town line. Four short—Forestry call! We can see that from the height of the land. Come on!”

Jake ran for the corner beneath Billy’s bed, and Billy grabbed the beer.

Outside, the sky was bright as clear noon, blue and untroubled, but under the trees darkness seemed to bleed out of the ground and they couldn’t see at all. Billy turned the truck around, lights on, and they drove rattling to the Huckins graveyard. The whistle blatted its windy, panicky message through the valley of Leah. The riverbanks were burning orange from the railroad tracks to the woolen mill. Even at this distance the flames danced and flickered and shot in every direction at once. Smoke flowed up the bank and over into Leah, where it slid along streets and around houses, dimming out streetlights and windowlights. A siren was just then winding down, but the whistle repeated its simple statement over and over.

“They can’t git the hoses through the fire to the river,” Billy said. “Oh, boy! What a dinger! Look at them little ants running around down there!”

They could barely see, along the edges of the long fire, strange energetic shadows—little men.

On the Vermont side of the Connecticut River the men were doing better, with the wind blowing their fire to the water. Little sparks streamed across, some dying in the air, some in the river, but some carrying over the river, over the fire on the Leah side, where they swirled in big arcs over the houses and buildings of the town.

“Your dad’s yard is O.K., Johnny. The mill’s in the way. It ain’t going to burn past the Cascom River, and them brick walls will stop her. Ain’t much to burn in the mill yard, neither, but cars. I can see ’em driving the cars away now.”

“God help those houses on Poverty Street,” John said.

“Thinks I, I’ll git me a rock to sit on and watch the show. Let her burn, you little bastards!” Billy shouted. “Yahoo! Lookit, Johnny, she’s a-going past the railroad bridge! They can’t do nothing!”

“You don’t give a damn, do you, Billy?” John said, but Billy didn’t hear him.

“Could they git the hoses down to the river, they could stop her, maybe, before she gits to the first houses. If they don’t, Johnny boy, they ain’t going to have enough hose to save all them houses. Ayuh! Wash them roofs down good and they’d have her stopped. They ain’t got the pumps nor the hose for it.”

“Maybe they can stop it in the back yards. Not many trees,” John said.

“Nope. They ain’t
going
to stop her,” Billy said.

“You act glad about it,” John said.

Billy whirled around and stared fiercely at him.

“You damn’ right! You God-damn’ right! They ain’t nobody down there in that town ever done me the common courtesy of
nothing!
Ain’t one of ’em I owe squat! Let her burn up!” He finished his beer, threw the empty can on the body of the truck and turned conciliatingly toward John.

“Now you know me, Johnny. I never hurt nobody and I don’t figure on starting. Have a beer. Here! How about you, Frank?”

“No, thank you. I haven’t finished what I’ve got,” Franklin said. Then, nervously, almost on the edge of panic, “John, is the town going to burn up?”

“I don’t know,” John said.

“Don’t you worry, Frank,” Billy said, “even if Leah does burn to hell, you won’t git hurt.”

“If Leah burns, Pike Hill goes too,” John said.

“Ayuh,” Billy sighed. “I know that, Johnny. I know I’ll have to go down and help. Them little bastards will want me now, all right—for a short while.” He scratched his leg and then said, thoughtfully, “If only the town would burn and not the woods. Too bad, ain’t it, Johnny?”

Sam Stevens put the telephone back on its hook and turned slowly around in the farm kitchen, kneading his nose with a wide knuckle. “It ain’t a question of no fire department, no volunteer fire department, neither.” He was obviously imitating the voice he had just heard, carefully pronouncing
dee-partment.

“Eh?” Aubrey said. Adolf, Mrs. Pettibone and Jane waited. They knew it had been Chief Atmon on the phone.

“Well, sir, Leah is burning up, is all.”

“Sam!” Mrs. Pettibone said.

“It ain’t quite that bad, now. Don’t git your water hot,” he said kindly. “Least I hope not. Listen to Atmon, you’d think the world was coming to an end. Why in hell they made him fire chief, too, is beyond me. He’d much rather set down there in the Town Hall playing with his guns and pretending to be this here
Dragnet
fella. One job is enough for most men. Two is twice too many for Atmon.”

“You tell us what he said!” Mrs. Pettibone said. She got up, her hands flighting nervously, and poured more water into the stove reservoir.

“They’s houses burning down on Poverty Street. Atmon wants me to put that three-hundred-gallon tank on the pickup and come help. Git your coat on, Adolf. Come on, Aubrey.”

“One thing,” Sam said as the men stamped their feet down into their boots: “I ain’t going to use no water from my well. They can fill her down to Leah, by God!”

“I’m going too,” Jane said.

“Now Janie, they ain’t hardly room in the truck.”

“I can squeeze in. Adolf can ride on the back.”

Sam thought for a moment.

“I ain’t going to ask you
why.”

“That’s close to the Spinellis’.”

“Too close for comfort,” Sam said. “Ayuh. Aubrey, you hear me? You help us git that tank set, then you stay here. Way the woods is, fire could break out anywheres. You hear me?”

“Don’t want to go to Leah anyways,” Aubrey said.

“How about your sister?” Mrs. Pettibone asked.

“Don’t care about her,” Aubrey said. He had his coat and boots on, ready to go outside.

By the time Jane was ready the men had backed the truck under the big tank, where it hung in the shed, and chained it on. Sam was making the last inspection, his flashlight moving up and down. Occasionally its beam shot past the truck into the dry stubble where they had cleared brush and grass from around the house and barn.

The tank gonged and rattled as they drove down the gravel driveway and headed toward Leah on the Cascom River Road. The wind definitely smelled of fire now, not merely the fall smell of burning leaves and wood. Tar and rubber were burning, too. As they came nearer they saw the angry red glow of fire reflected in the moving smoke above the town.

In the Spinellis’ kitchen Father Desmond sat across from Mrs. Spinelli, drinking a glass of red wine. Jane stood just inside the door, amazed at their calmness as they turned toward her. Two blocks away she had seen a woman run, crying out loud, her arms full of blankets and a saucepan banging against her side. Men ran everywhere, pulling toy wagons full of dishes, splintering furniture in their haste to force it through doorways. On Poverty Street the world was coming to an end, and here they sat drinking wine.

“Hello, Jane,” the young priest said. “I haven’t seen very much of you lately.”

“The town’s burning up!” she said. He smiled, and she noticed the specks of soot on his shiny face. His hands, too, were dirty.

“I’m afraid it is,” he said, and turned to look meaningfully at Mrs. Spinelli, as if Jane’s words supported what he had been telling the old woman.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Mrs. Spinelli said, although her expression hadn’t changed at all. She seemed quite calm. She hadn’t recognized Jane. In her lap she held the blue-and-gold pillow Mike had sent her from boot camp, and she ran her brown fingers delicately across the embroidered word
Mother.
The priest leaned toward her, his bulky shoulders pushed forward so that the black cloth shone across his back.

“No, no, no, no, nol” Mrs. Spinelli said. Then she looked up, surprised and pleased. “Janie! Where you been?”

The priest turned to Jane, his usual good nature gone. He looked as if he might cry. “I can’t explain it to her,” he said. “She won’t leave the house. She won’t believe me.”

“Where’s Mr. Spinelli?”

“He can’t do anything with her, either. So much to do now! Mrs.
Spinelli!”
he said sharply but unconvincingly. The old woman crossed herself and felt around in the folds of her black skirt for her rosary.

Mr. Spinelli came half-running into the room, then stopped short.

“Janie!” he said, taking her hands. “Janie, am I glad to see you! We got trouble. Mama lost her marbles. She won’t
hear
nothing about the fire. She just sits with the pillow all day. She’s sick to her head, Janie!”

“I don’t care what you tell,” Mrs. Spinelli said, “I got my kitchen here. I ain’t going no place. He took my Mikey.” She pointed her rosary-knotted hand at the priest. “Now he wants my house, my kitchen. What I done?”

“Mama! He didn’t take Mikey! My God!” Mr. Spinelli crossed himself. “Mama, Mikey got in a accident on his motorcycle, remember?”

“I live a good life. I go see Father Brangelli.”

“Mama, Father Brangelli ain’t here any more. This is Father Desmond. Father Brangelli, he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!” He moaned and shook his head. “Five years ago,” he said hopelessly.

Jane found herself going toward the old woman, who now looked up into her face, tears sliding easily, as they always had, down the burnished cheeks.

“Janie, you
good
for Mikey. You fix everything, ha?”

“I’ll keep her here, in the kitchen,” Jane said. “If she has to move I’ll take care of her. You go ahead.”

“Thank you, Janie. We got so much to do,” Mr. Spinelli said. He and the priest stood at the door, knowing that they had to go back to the fires.

“You’ll take care of her?” Father Desmond asked, officially relieved of the duty and yet not quite sure.

“You’re a good girl, Janie,” Mr. Spinelli said. “We’ll come right back as soon as we can.” They left.

“You stay with me, Janie. You hungry? I get you something to eat. You thirsty? I get you a glass
vino.
I get you.” She jumped up, carrying the pillow like a baby against her shoulder, to pour Jane a glass of wine.

William Cotter came back to the office with old Madbury, the yardman. He decided that the yard itself was in no great danger—the fire would have to cross the Cascom River, and the thick brick wall of the woolen mill would keep it even from the river, barring some odd catastrophe.

“I guess I better stay up the rest of the night,” Madbury said importantly, “just in case.” The fire was a great excitement to him, and as William Cotter looked into the old man’s simple eyes he thought of Christmas and birthdays. Madbury said good night and went off through the yard, his flashlight poking here and there through the smoke.

William Cotter mashed a long butt into the tin ash tray on Bruce’s desk. “If I smoke one more cigarette I’ll get cancer,” he said, realizing that he had been saying this over and over to himself all the time he had been making the rounds of the yard. Just one more and he’d get cancer. In that case he’d sealed his fate months ago. No will power at all. John didn’t seem to have much, either—not like Bruce, anyway. He wished he’d had a daughter. He always got along better with women than with men. A daughter like Jenny Lou, only white—he smiled. A daughter like Jenny Lou. He’d have traded both his sons for one like her. He and John had both been wrong about those kids’ coming. Gladys would have cracked up, sure as hell, like she almost did when she had the change of life. Of course that was during the war and she was worried about John getting killed. He was never worried about John, though. How could anybody really get worried about John? Nothing ever happened to, John. He did get mad, though, when he heard about those kids’ coming. Mad as hell. Don’t understand Franklin, either. Another one of those damn’ polite ones. They look at you calm as hell and don’t say anything. Why can’t a father have respect? They don’t even love me.