He rises to his feet and pulls me up too. Then, with Butch, we run back up the path.
At the top of the trail our family and the firefighters are watching for fresh fires on our side of Apple Creek. Everybody fans out and searches the length of the creek for Caleb. We never find him.
Twice tiny flames spring up along the edge of our lane. Little pockets of dried leaves that burst into licking flame only to be doused at once with a stomp of a boot or the splash of a bucket. Anna May stamps one of the fires out. Her skirt catches and Sam has to clap his hands against the fabric to put her out.
We fight the fire all night, my family and me and the men from the fire department. Apple Creek holds it, a wall of hellish light burning bright behind black trees of the far bank.
It is an hour before dawn when the wind picks up again and carries the cinders across the creek to the roof of our house. There, in the shingles above the attic, where the snakes sleep and the screech owls nest, a small fire starts. Just a few quivering flames at first. Then it spreads. Suddenly Stairways is on fire.
Dad races inside and next we know he and Ma and Doc Mayfield come out carrying Mrs. Madliner between them in Grandma Elliot’s old quilt.
The firemen work fast. Ladders and a pump. Cold creek water arcs through the night. Our stone house is strong. But the roof above the porch catches and now it’s burning; our home is burning. Black smoke pours from the windows. There’s a sound of groaning timbers; the bones of our old house are giving way. The men fight on. Another pump, more water. The porch collapses, its black skeleton crumpling in on itself, and I know that we’ve lost our house.
A bleak and gray light has started in the east, but by the time the dawn arrives, the fire has eaten our house. Early morning sun breaks over a fire-blackened stone shell. After more than two hundred years, Stairways is no more.
Knee-Deep Meadow is charred to a crisp, pockets of smoldering embers still spitting smoke that rises in thin columns high into a hazy morning sky.
The fire is out. But we’ve lost our home.
Chapter 25
THE GAME PRESERVE
Mr. Halleck’s house is enormous. It’s so big each of us boys could have our own bedroom if we wanted it. All four of us decide to stay in one room. It’s got a tall window that faces west. Ma and Dad take a room just across the hall.
Mr. Halleck has offered to let us stay here long as we need. Dad begins calling for apartments in town the very first day after the fire.
Two days after the fire, a police cruiser draws up to the metal gate in the stone wall that surrounds Mr. Halleck’s house and grounds. Dad lets them in and directs them up the lane to the house.
We meet them in the dining room. Ma and Dad and me.
Detective Ingleside is short, with a high and tight haircut. Like a Marine. He wears a gray suit and a black tie and surveys the room through heavy-lidded eyes. If he’s impressed, he don’t show it. The uniformed police officer with him is very impressed. He keeps looking out the window at the view of the valley. At one point he whistles.
Townie.
Detective Ingleside asks me about the night of the fire, about finding Mr. Madliner.
“Son, you say you found him by the side of the house?”
“Yes sir, but I was looking for my dog.”
“Did you see anyone else there?”
“No sir. Well, a shape, maybe. But it was gone quick.”
He jots something down in his book. The officer with him folds his arms.
Ma asks them if they’d like a cup of coffee. The officer says yes. Detective Ingleside says no.
“But you and your brother saw the boy Caleb later that evening, is that correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“Across the creek?”
I nod.
“What was he doing?”
“Running.”
“Running where?”
“I don’t know. My dog was with him. He was trying to shepherd him away from that fire. Butch is like that. He’s always looking after people.”
Detective Ingleside don’t seem to pay any attention to my talk about Butch. He goes back to asking questions about Caleb. “Your brother swam across the creek to try to get Caleb to come back with him. Caleb resisted. They began to fight. You swam over to help your brother. And you pulled Caleb into the creek with you?”
I nod again.
“But you never saw him after that?”
I shake my head.
Detective Ingleside looks at Dad. He leans in and folds his hands over the corner of the table and looks at me with gray eyes.
“And you’re sure you didn’t see him after that?” he asks. “Maybe swimming downstream in the creek? Maybe crawling out on your bank with you and then running off?”