I woke with a start. My cheek felt like a cold hand had been on it, a very cold hand, the hand of death itself. I listened and thought I was still sleeping, dream-
ing, because what I heard seemed so far off, seemed like something coming from deep down inside me, a voice echoing up from a well or out of a tunnel, a long, thin cry.
I sat up.
The stars were blazing, but there was more light than usual and it wasn't from what Natani called “the pregnant moon.” I scrubbed my cheeks with my palms and swung myself around. Gia's cot was empty.
Curious and also confused now, I slipped on my coveralls, shoved my arms through my shirt, and put on my clodhoppers. I stood up and looked at Robin and Teal, who were both asleep, their backs to me.
The scream I had heard in my dream grew louder and became a chorus.
“Robin!” I cried. “Robin, Teal.”
Robin turned and groaned. Teal did not wake up.
“Whaaa?” Robin groaned.
“Listen. What is that? Listen.”
She ground her eyes with her fists as if she heard through them and then sat up slowly.
“What do you think that is?”
“I don't know,” she said.
I went to Teal's cot and poked her in the shoulder. She spun around angrily and looked up at me.
“What do you want? It's not morning already, is it?”
“Listen,” I said.
“What?”
Robin was getting dressed, too. “Shut up and listen,” she ordered.
Teal sat up, groaning. Then her eyes widened. “What is it?”
“We don't know. Come on,” I said. “Get dressed.”
Reluctantly, she did and the three of us went to thedoor. I hesitated. The screaming was louder now, much louder. I opened the door and it looked as if the whole world was on fire. The blaze that came from our right had flames that seemed to be scorching the very stars. The three of us stepped out, astounded, our faces caught in a ghoulish yellow glow.
Natani and his nephew were rushing about.
The hacienda was consumed in flames. The screaming we heard came from the rear.
“Someone's trapped,” I said, and we hurried across the yard and toward the rear of the house. When we got there, we stared up in shock.
The slanted roof upon which we had climbed to spy on the buddies was streaked with flames. Part of the center of it had fallen in. In the windows we could see the buddies, all three of them looking out at us, their faces so illuminated by the flames that licked and traveled along the edges of the main house that they looked as if the fire was already burning within them, making them glow like lightbulbs.
The front of the hacienda was consumed in even bigger flames so that the fire had sandwiched them inside the house. M'Lady Three tried to step out of the window, but the roof in front of her became a bed of fire almost the same instant. The fire seemed truly to counter every move they made, every idea they had for escaping.
Behind us, Natani and his nephew were struggling to get a ladder up against one yet-to-be-consumed section of the roof. We watched as Natani's nephew climbed up the ladder as quickly as he could, smacking at the flames with a wet sack to see if he could make a pathway for the buddies.
We could see the fire inside the house eating awaythe walls behind them. M'Lady Two, stepped out of the window and turned toward Natani's nephew, who was now at the top of the ladder, beating at the flames. She lifted her left arm protectively and edged forward in his direction, but the roof, weakening all around that window, gave way and in the same instant we saw her fall into the belly of the fire. She went down without a sound. It was a sight so unreal, I had to convince myself I wasn't still asleep on my cot in the barn.
The flames as if in a march of victory rose to heights above the windows. Through them, I could see M'Ladies One and Three. They were screaming, but we couldn't hear them. It was a silent movie in vivid color. The roof above them caved in and the house seemed to crumble and fall into itself. Natani's nephew leaped from the ladder as it, too, fell forward. He hit the ground nimbly and Natani helped him up.
All of us stepped back farther and farther. The waves of heat were burning our faces.
“Get back,” Natani shouted at us. “Back, back.”
We retreated to the center of the yard, where we stood and watched the house burning. Off in the distance, like lanterns in the night, two revolving lights appeared. Someone was coming, but far too late, I thought.
Behind us, the horses were neighing in fear and kicking at their stall doors. Natani rushed back, his arm extended upward, his hand tracing the embers that were being carried in the smoke. I realized his concern immediately. They were moving toward the barn and the barn was dry, especially the roof.
I joined his nephew and him and we got the horses out of the barn and into the corral.
“They'll still be very frightened,” Natani said.
He ordered his nephew to open the corral so the horses could go as far as they needed. Then he turned his attention to the other animals. I worked at his side for what I later realized was hours. Robin and Teal began to help as well. Natani's foresight proved correct. A section of the horse barn caught fire. His nephew tried to contain it with their water hoses, but it was too little and had limited reach. It wasn't long before the horse barn was too far gone to save.
The lights I had seen belonged to a fire truck and an ambulance with two paramedics. There wasn't much for them to do but stand by like us and watch the
