Secrets of Goth Mountain

by Gary J. Davies

  ****

  Flames on the outside log surface were put out in half an hour, though thirty-foot flames still shot out the door, windows, and the top, which had now burned through.

  As time stretched on the fire fighters became exhausted. The heat from the fire further reddened painfully their faces and arms. They coughed from the smoke and moved like automatons, hauling bucket after bucket after bucket until their hands were too tired and sore to hold them, their arms too limp to pass them, and their legs too weak to walk.

  When the fire was mostly extinguished they saw that a rock weighing hundreds of pounds lay in the remains of the doorway. The door had been the only opening big enough to get out; with it blocked by the rock nobody inside could have possibly escaped the still raging fire.

  The physical burden of the fire fighters was dwarfed by the emotional one, their hearts unbearably heavy in sorrow, over the loss of the Goths, Mary, and their beloved shaman Great Two Bears. This massive weight, more than simple physical exhaustion, is what drove many of them their knees.

  Still, they each rose and continued fighting the fire after catching their breath, for there was nothing else to be done.

  Less than two hours after the blaze started, the cabin section of the hollowed out log was reduced to a smoking black heap. All the flames were finally out, as much due to a lack of fuel as to the firefighting efforts. The entire section of log that housed the healing cabin was now a heap of ash.