Vows (57 page)

 
"Now, talk," he ordered threateningly.

 
"You bastard!" She slapped him so hard his head hit the doorframe and his ears rang. "You scum-sucking, two-timing peckerwood!" She kicked his shin.

 
Recovering from surprise he caught her by both forearms and crossed them on her chest as he threw her against the cold wall. "You're some lady, you know that, Tarsy?" he sneered, nose-to-nose with her.

 
"You don't want a lady, and you know it, Jeffcoat. You want something that dresses like a muleskinner and smell like horseshit! Well, you've got her and you can have her! She's the saddest excuse for a female this town's ever seen and I hope the two of you dry up and wither away together!"

 
"Watch it, Tarsy, 'cause I'm just one step away from giving you a sample of what I gave Charles the other night. Now, what did you say to Emily?"

 
Tarsy bared her lips in a parody of a smile. She lifted her chin and her eyes glittered with vindictiveness. "What's the matter, lover boy, isn't she so eager to let you paw her anymore? Won't she unbutton her pantaloons, or does she wear a union suit like the boys?"

 
He thrust her arms so tightly against her that stitches popped in her sleeves. "You're taking about the woman I'm going to marry, and you'd do well to remember that men don't marry the ones who let men paw them."

 
Tarsy's nostrils flared. "And maybe you'll find out women don't marry men who sample others."

 
"You told her that!"

 
"Why not? It might as well be true. There were plenty of times you wanted to."

 
"Why, you lying little bitch," he ground out through clenched teeth.

 
"You wanted to, Jeffcoat," she goaded with malicious satisfaction. "A dozen times you touched me like I never let any other man touch me, and you loved it. You got so hot I could see steam rising from your pants—so what's the difference? You know my body better than you'll ever know hers, and I'm not about to let her forget it, not after she stabbed me in the back. I wanted to marry you, you philanderer! Marry you, you hear!" Tarsy shouted, her eyes fiery with rage. "Well, if I can't have you nobody else can either. Just wait and see what you get out of her on your wedding night!"

 
Tom had never hated any living being with such pagan intensity. It built within him like lava heating, boiling toward the surface, bringing the overwhelming wish to punish. But she was dirt—not worth bruising his knuckles upon. He dropped his hands, unable to bear touching her a moment longer.

 
"You know," he remarked quietly, "I pity the poor sap who gets snagged by you. That won't be a marriage, it'll be a life sentence."

 
"Ha!" she barked. "At least he'll know he's in bed with a woman!"

 
"Quiet!" Tom's mood changed abruptly from belligerent to wary as he cocked an ear toward town, listening.

 
"Can't you take—"

 
"Quiet, I said!" His fight with Tarsy ended as swiftly as it had begun. "Listen!" He turned toward the porch steps and peered into the darkness. "Did you hear that?"

 
"Hear what?"

 
"There it is again … bells. And shouting."

 
The sounds drifted up from the town below, a churchbell, ringing clamorously, and the faint faraway accompaniment of distraught shouting. Tom moved to the top of the porch steps and waited, tense, staring out into the sky over the town below.

 
"Oh, my God," he whispered. "Fire."

 
"Fire?"

 
He launched himself into thin air, sailed above five porch steps, and hit the yard running. "Tell your father! Hurry!"

 
He neither waited nor cared if Tarsy followed. Instincts took over and he hurtled pell-mell across the yard toward the street, and on toward the business section of town where already a telltale orange glow had begun lighting the sky.
Whose place? Whose place?
If it wasn't on Grinnell Street, it was damned close. Propelled by adrenaline, he raced, ignoring the pain that jarred his ribs with each thud of his heels on the frozen roads. His heart hammered. His throat hurt. He plummeted downhill, feeling the street drop beneath him until the houses cut off his view of the horizon and he lost sight of the pale golden dome blooming in the nighttime sky.

 
Ahead, panicked voices shrilled.
"
Fire! Fire!
"
The frantic ringing of a second bell joined the first. Around Tom, house doors opened and people spilled into yards and began running almost as if mesmerized, without stopping for coats. "Whose is it?" everyone asked, their voices jarred by the impact of barreling downhill.

 
I don't know
. Tom didn't know if he answered aloud or only in his thoughts. His legs churned like steel drivers. His eyeballs dried. His lungs burned.

 
The man behind him fell off to begin throwing open doors along Burkitt Street, shouting into houses. Somewhere the faint
ting
of a dinner triangle joined the clong of the churchbells, but Tom scarcely heard. Nearing the foot of Burkitt Street, he joined a mass of others who had been galvanized into motion with the same abruptness as himself. Footsteps thundered louder, growing in number as the crowd approached Main Street, where runners funneled together and bumped one another like a stampeding herd.

 
Whose place? Whose place?

 
The throng sailed past the Windsor Hotel, joined by a quintet of men running out the door with their arms full of blankets, and a contingent of women carrying buckets. "Looks like one of the liveries."

 
Some ran too hard to voice speculation. Others puffed along, trailing the word that seemed to taint the very air Tom sucked in as he raced.

 
Liveries!

 
Through a haze of fear and the roaring of his own pulse he caught other scraps of words … she's a big one … it's got to be hay…

 
From three blocks away he smelled it. From two blocks away he knew it wasn't Edwin's place. From the corner of Grinnell Street he saw the flames already eating the sides of his own livery stable.

 
Oh Jesus, no!

 
"
Get the horses!
"
he screamed from a hundred yards away, racing wildly.
"
I got a pregnant mare in there!
"
Ahead, figures appeared like charred stick-men as they scurried before the burning building, filling buckets, forming a brigade, pumping at the cistern out front. The red fire wagon, with its trio of bells clanging, bounced along the frozen ruts ahead of Tom, pulled by running men because it would have taken more time to hitch the horses than to tow it manually the two blocks from its storage shed. He passed it and arrived in the tumult just as someone led Buck out. The stallion reared in fright while the man fought to calm him and lead him to safety.

 
Tom screamed frantically, "My mare! Did anybody get my mare out?"

 
"No! No mares!
Only this stallion so far!"

 
Another voice yelled, "Man the pumps! Stretch that hose out!" A dozen volunteers gripped the handles of the old Union fire rig, but she was an ancient side-stroke pumper, built in 1853, and scarcely up to the day's standards. As the paltry jet of water fell from her hose Tom shouted at the fire crew, "Aim the water to the right. The mare is in the third stall!"

 
Another voice bellowed, "Pump, boys, pump!"

 
On either side of the fire wagon men worked furiously on the wooden handles. Horses whinnied in terror. Men shouted orders. Dogs barked. Women formed a bucket brigade to refill the tank on the old Union pump while others held their children back to watch from a distance.

 
"Who's getting my horses! Is anybody getting my horses!"

 
"Easy, boy … it's gotten too—"

 
"Get your hands off me!" Tom tore a blanket from one of the hotel contingent and ran toward the hose men, yelling, "Wet me down! I'm going in!"

 
The pump had gathered enough force to set him back a step as the stream of water hit him in the chest. A man grabbed his arm, momentarily blocking the spray. It was Charles.

 
"Tom, you can't!"

 
For a split second Tom's eyes flashed hatred. "Goddamn you, Charles, you didn't need to do this! Goddamn you to hell!" Tom shouldered past him, roughly bumping him aside. "Get out of my way!"

 
"Tom, wait!"

 
Emily and Edwin appeared in the confusion, grasping Tom's elbows, pleading and warning, but he knocked all hands aside and dashed into the flaming barn.

 
Behind him, Charles ordered, "Give me one of those blankets!"

 
"Don't be foolish, boy—"

 
"Edwin, you do what you want, but I can't let those animals die without trying to help them! Gimme some water, Murphy!"

 
"Papa, let me go!" Emily screamed, fighting Edwin's hands as she, to, struggled to get a blanket.

 
"Get to the pump!" he ordered her. "You'll be no help to him dead! Get to the pump and help the women!"

 
"But Buck is in there and—"

 
"They got Buck out!"

 
"—and Patty. Papa, she's in foal!"

 
"Emily, use some sense! Go get your medicine bag. If they get any more horses out, they'll need it. Then get to the pump with Fannie and keep that water running! Wet down more blankets! I'm going in, too!"

 
"Papa!" She caught his hand. In the midst of the chaos they exchanged frightened glances. "Be careful."

 
He squeezed her hand and ran.

 
Inside, Tom hunkered beneath the wet blanket, running through a sea of smoke. Immediately his eyes smarted and teared, blinding him further. Water splattered around him, sizzling as it struck flaming wood. Sweet Jesus, the beams were already burning and spreading along the loft floor. The stench of scorched leather, wood, and dung stung his nose. He swabbed his eyes with a corner of the sopped blanket, then plastered it over his face. Squinting, he made out the outline of his pride and joy, a new Studebaker carriage standing on the turntable as he'd left it. A chunk of flaming debris fell from above onto its leather bonnet. Surrounded by the terrified shrieks of horses and the thumps of their hooves he forgot about everything that was not flesh and blood. Down one bank of stalls he ran, throwing doors open, yelling.
"Git! Git! Hyah!
Hyah!" Back up the other side, forgetting about singling out any particular animal. Behind him some of the terrified horses balked at leaving their stalls or milled about, afraid of moving toward the fire surrounding the exits. He threw open the last stall door and charged inside only to be flattened against the wall by a muddled, wild-eyed mare named Bess who tried to turn around in the narrow space. He flung the blanket over Bess's head and clutching it in a clump beneath her jaw, dragged the animal forward. Terrified Bess braced her forelegs and whinnied.

 
"Goddamn it, Bess, you're comin' if I have to drag you!"

 
An immense roar rose—hay igniting somewhere, filling his ears like a hurricane. He stretched out a leg and kicked Bess hard in the groin. She fishtailed violently, then reared high, swinging Tom clear off his feet as he gripped the blanket. His ankles slammed against the wall. But when he landed, still clutching the wet wool, Bess followed at a frenzied trot.

 
He burst from the burning building already tearing the blanket off the horse. "Water!" he shouted. "More water here!" As the spray fanned over him he removed his leather hat and doused his hair, then slammed the hat back on and lowered his hands to fill his gloves. Turning, shrouded again by the blanket, he headed back into the barn with the jet pelting his back, running in an icy river down his plaster cast.

 
Ten feet inside the barn, he collided with Charles coming out. "I got Hank!" Charles shouted above the roar, leading a dun saddlehorse. "You've got time to get one more but that's all!"

 
Tom plunged into the wall of heat and light. Running, he sucked hard against the blanket, but even through it he breathed and tasted acrid smoke and singed wool. It burned all the way to his lungs until they felt as if they would explode. Through stinging, watering eyes, he searched and found a frantic Rex who, thankfully, followed him without resisting. But by the time he got Rex outside he turned back to watch a rafter at the far end of the building collapse in a roaring golden rain of sparks that changed swiftly to a white sheet of flame. Emily rushed forward to take Rex.

 
"Don't go back in, Tom, please!"

 
"Patty!"