Exhausted from our efforts to save all the animals, Robin, Teal, and I sat in front of our barn barracks, which had escaped the embers because of the wind's direction. We watched the police, firemen, and paramedics conferring with Natani. It all remained unreal to me. Their faces glowing, the flames, the crackle of the fire, the tower of smoke that the wind carried into the desert. Through it, the stars twinkled as if the heavens approved of it all.
“Where's Gia?” Teal asked, and Robin and I looked at each other.
During all the excitement, our frantic activity and terror, none of us had thought about her.
“I haven't seen Dr. Foreman either,” Robin said.
We turned back to the dwindling conflagration and stared at the flames like three hypnotized people, no one speaking, no one moving. Finally, Teal leaned against me. I put my arm around her and Robin put her arm around me. It was the way the police and thewoman from the social service agency found us. We were like three girls frozen, discovered at the top of some very, very high mountain. I'm sure we looked as if it would take a crowbar to pry us apart.
We had sat there together throughout the night and into the first morning light. The fire had burned the house to its foundation. It still smoldered enough to send up a significant tower of smoke I was sure could be seen for miles and miles.
Strangely, other Indians appeared out of the desert as though they had always been out there. I couldn't imagine from where they had all come, but at least a few dozen men and women and some children were on the property. I saw from the way they circled Natani and spoke to him that they respected him greatly. Later, I would learn that he was actually a descendant of a famous Navajo medicine man, and the Indians had high regard for inherited powers.
The woman from the social service agency introduced herself as Mrs. Alexia Patterson, but insisted we call her Alex. All three of us had been through enough layers of the juvenile system to understand it was her way to get us to see her as a friend and not a bureaucrat. A sheriff's officer was with her when she first approached us. I could see that he knew exactly what the ranch was used for and who we were. He wore a hard look of accusation and suspicion and wanted to talk to us first.
“Let them clean themselves up,” Alex told him. “They've worked hard helping with the animals and everything, Lieutenant.”
He grunted a reluctant okay and we walked in a daze to an outside sink where we washed our faces and hands, our necks and arms. The stench of smoke and burned wood was so thick it was deeply embedded inour very skin. It would take more than a rinsing to get it off our bodies. It would never wash off our souls and hearts.
While we cleaned up, Alex and the sheriff's deputy stood off to the side talking and watching us. The terror and shock we had experienced leveled off, but rushing in to replace it were waves of anxiety. What would happen to us? What had happened to Gia? What did the authorities think about us?
“How are you doing, girls?” Alex asked, walking over to us.
“Ginger peachy,” Teal told her.
Alex didn't blink. She smiled and nodded. “That, um, barn or building over there?” She pointed to our barracks. “That's where you girls slept?”
“Yes,” Robin said. “It's the first-class accommodations here.”
“I think,” the sheriff's deputy said, stepping up beside Alex, “that the time for smart talk is well over.” He glared at us and no one spoke.
“This is Lieutenant Rowling, girls. He and I have to ask you questions. Why don't we all go into that building then and have a talk,” Alex said in as sweet a voice as she could muster. Lieutenant Rowling nodded his approval, but kept his eyes fixed on us with the accuracy of a pair of well-aimed pistols.
We all walked to the barracks.
After we entered, Alex stopped and looked around the Spartan quarters. She was truly surprised that the floor was covered in straw and all the cots but one were without mattresses, pillows, or blankets.
“I don't understand,” she muttered, and looked at the sheriff's deputy, who just shrugged. “Let's sit here,” she said, nodding at my cot, which was the closest.
We sat on it and Lieutenant Rowling pulled another one closer. Alex sat on that, but he stood glaring down at us.
“How many of you are there at present?” she asked.
'There were five of us when we three came. There were four of us last night. Mindy's dead. She committed suicide," I told her.
Alex looked at Lieutenant Rowling, who smirked. “Who committed suicide?” he asked.
“Mindy.”
“Mindy Levine,” Robin said.
“You saw her commit suicide?” he asked.
“No, Gia told us that happened. We were out in the desert,” I said.
“Who's this Gia?” he asked, looking from me to Robin and Teal.
“She was the other girl, the fourth girl,” Robin told him.
“You said you were out in the desert. What does that mean?” Alex asked.
“We were being punished. We were taken out there and left to find our way back,” I explained. “Teal got bitten by a rattlesnake. Natani saved our lives.” I felt like I was repeating a recording, speaking with little or no emotion, just reporting facts.
Again Alex's eyebrows hoisted and she looked at Lieutenant Rowling.
He shrugged again. “You guys should know more about this place than we do,” he said defensively.
Alex nodded. “We should. But, we obviously don't.”
“Yeah, well, that's for later. Right now,” he continued, bearing down on me especially, “what do you know about this fire?”
I shook my head and the other two did the same.
“We woke up and saw the whole place illuminated, so we dressed and stepped
