Touched by Fire

by Gwyneth Atlee

  Daniel opened his mouth as if to explain, then hesitated. Confusion, guilt, and want all etched themselves in his expression. Finally, his features hardened into hostility. “That fact didn’t keep you from kissing back, now did it?”

  “Your brother is a kind and decent man.” She couldn’t be disloyal, no matter what she feared. No matter what the telegram had said, or how her body ached for one more kiss. She could still taste Daniel and feel the firm muscles of his chest against her. She’d almost sell her soul for one more touch.

  But not quite. Malcolm had already driven home the price of human want, at least the price a woman paid. Even the hint of scandal could ruin her forever, if she wasn’t lost already. What on God’s green earth was wrong with her? Her body had betrayed her desire to a man more familiar with harlots than decent women.

  He looked about to argue when a cry from outside interrupted their conversation. “Papa! I see fire!”

  He ran outside and shouted, “In the house, Amelia! Go get John. It’s coming this way, from the look.”

  Hannah ran, pulling the child along behind her and fearing the fire even more than her own demons. “John! John, come out!” she cried.

  When he threw open the door, she caught the scent of chicken roasting above the more acrid smell of smoke. Amelia rushed inside and flung herself into Aunt Lucinda’s waiting arms.

  “Daniel says the fire’s coming!” shouted Hannah.

  Without a word, John sprinted for the barn. When Hannah turned to follow him, she saw the flame at last, a glowing eddy of fire lapping at the brush piled near the edge of the west pasture.

  “I’ll get the plow!” John shouted in the direction of his brother. Hannah understood at once that he meant to put a break between the burning litter and the dried grasses of the cleared land around the house and barn. But John never had the chance to put his plan in action.

  Flame tasted the loose bark of a towering dead elm. Hannah heard a hiss, and the tree exploded into flame.

  That quickly, the nearest section of the dried tree crowns caught fire. Hannah cried out, but her scream vanished inside the whoosh of rising, heated air. Blazing leaves rained from the sky as the wind whipped them in their direction. And in the direction of the hay-filled, wooden barn.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the space of a breath, the first burning leaves sailed into the open hayloft door. As if it had been steeped in kerosene, the hay exploded into flame.

  “Dear God, the animals!” Hannah cried, neither knowing nor caring if anyone could hear her. She rushed into the wooden structure and quickly found Old Blessing.

  “Let’s not get breachy, darling.” She forced the panic from her voice and patted his sleek neck soothingly. If she alarmed him, he might well refuse her lead. Blessing’s eyes rolled and his nostrils flared at the crackling of the hay, the flickering orange light, and the smoke rolling downward from the rafters. He threw back his head and began to rise on rear legs when Hannah spoke again.

  “Poor Blessing. It’s all right.” With forced calmness, she took him by the halter and began walking toward the door. The old gelding followed her this time.

  John’s prized mare squealed in protest as he tried to lead her out. Once outside, Hannah was relieved to see John follow and turn the animal loose. She did the same with Blessing and went back inside to help get out the remaining horses and the cows that had come in for milking.

  The smoke roiled inside, far thicker than it had been just seconds before. Painfully, she drew thick air into her lungs and choked. Doubling over, she wiped her burning eyes, then managed to continue. She could see almost nothing, but frantic neighs and bellows led her toward the animals. Something grabbed her upper arm, and Daniel’s voice boomed in her ear. “Get out of here! Don’t want you burned up too!”

  She’d go, Hannah decided, but she might as well take one more poor beast with her. She felt her way to one of the pair of chestnut horses and began to lead him toward the door.

  Inside the barn, Hannah never saw John’s gray mare wheel around and race toward what the animal thought of as a place of safety.

  A shrill whinny gave her only a fraction of a second’s warning before the mare hurtled through the smoke-charged darkness and slammed Hannah to the floor. Then another darkness, even thicker, overwhelmed her, and, at least to Hannah, the terrible cacophony grew still.

  o0o

  “I swear to you, Daniel, I should have left her there to burn.” The voice was John’s, harsh as Hannah had never heard it before.

  “But you didn’t. You brought her back out anyway.” Daniel’s voice, but somehow, she couldn’t open her eyes to see him. He continued. “And well you should have. She was saving our own horses.”

  “Of course she was. They’d be hers, if we’d married.”

  Hannah wanted to defend herself against the accusation in his tone, but she could not. She felt as if a cow had fallen across her chest. Her lungs felt ragged inside, and she suppressed a fit of coughing.

  “She ran into a burning barn, twice, and brought out horses. And if your fool mare hadn’t run her down rushing back to her own stall, Mercy would have gone back in for more. I don’t know what the telegram says, but I’ll say this: she’s brave.”

  “Her name’s not Mercy Wilder. It’s Hannah. Hannah Shelton. The message was a warning about her from that Harlan fellow.” John’s voice crackled and sputtered, not unlike the barn had as it burned.

  “Shelton?” Daniel’s voice registered surprise and disappointment. “What else did it say? She some sort of swindler?”

  “I don’t know,” John answered. “That’s the worst part. I got only half a message. The telegraph wire’s burnt through, but it was a warning, Daniel. All I know is she’s bad business.”

  “Too pretty,” Daniel murmured. “I told you that right off. So what will you do now?”

  “Soon as she gets better, I aim to put her on the boat that brought her. She may be a criminal, for all I know. She’s at the very least a liar.” Bitterness suffused John’s voice, and Hannah felt tears coming to her eyes. Finding out had hurt him, and she added his pain to her substantial list of sins.

  “I’m sorry, John,” Daniel said. “I know I warned you, but I never wanted this to happen.”

  “A barn, my best horse, and my future wife — all gone. Right now I envy Job.”

  “At least the house is safe, and the brush fire burned itself out.”

  “We’ll build a bigger barn, once the rains come,” John said.

  “And you’ll buy a better horse someday.”

  “I wonder if I’ll ever find a woman I like half as much.”

  Sympathy rumbled deep in Daniel’s throat. “I admit, I sort of fancied her myself.”

  “False Jezebel, may she rot in Hell,” John swore.

  Hannah heard the door close as they left the room. The tears that squeezed out from her lowered eyelids choked her. She tried to suppress the sound, but her lungs and throat were both insistent. In a few minutes, Aunt Lucinda came in with some water.

  “Poor thing. Drink up, Mercy. You should have never gone inside that barn.”

  Hannah felt relief that no one had told Lucinda, at least not yet. The old woman washed her face with a warm cloth. Welcome as it was, this treatment wouldn’t last, she knew. They would tell their aunt soon, and Lucinda would hate her just as Daniel and John must.

  Maybe John had been right, she decided. It would have been best if he’d left her lying on the floor inside the burning barn. Even for her, it would have been a kinder ending, for she had no hope now.

  The thought brought fresh tears. That and the stench of smoke from her own hair provoked another round of coughing.

  “It’s all right, dear,” Lucinda said, misunderstanding. “The barn can be rebuilt, and as for that blamed mare, someday John will have another just as fine. No other animals were killed, thanks in part to your help. Now don’t you try to talk. You’ve got a big knot on your head and a dose of that bad
air. You just stay quiet; there’s someone here to see you.”

  Hannah’s heart thundered in her chest. What now? But it was only little Amelia, who ran in carrying her kitten. The girl hopped up on the bed and placed the calico fur ball beside her on the quilt.

  “I was scared when I saw your eyes closed. I thought you might be gone, like Mama.” Amelia’s voice rose fervent as a prayer. “Do you feel better now?”

  Hannah nodded miserably. Her loss would be another heartache to this child, who had already lost so much. Amelia leaned against her, arms outstretched. The kitten’s warm, sandpaper tongue began to lick her hand.

  She hugged Amelia fiercely and wondered what lie they would tell her. The truth, that she’d deceived them, would of course be confined to the adults. Hannah hoped they’d choose a gentle tale, one that wouldn’t hurt too badly.

  “Now let’s give her some peace and quiet,” Lucinda told the girl.

  As the pair left, Hannah knew that there was no one who could offer her what the old woman had suggested. All the quiet in the whole world would never buy her peace.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the morning, Lucinda brought her ham and pancakes on a tray, but the old woman’s eyes had grown cold, her manner stiff, suspicious. Though normally garrulous, Lucinda didn’t speak a single word. It was very clear the men had told her of Hannah’s deception. Amelia didn’t come at all, and Hannah suspected the child would no longer be allowed to see her. In some way, that loss was the most painful.

  It was just as well Lucinda wouldn’t speak, thought Hannah, for whatever could she say to soothe the hurt in those aged eyes? While alone, Hannah attempted the Lord’s Prayer, but even that small comfort was denied her, for yesterday’s thick smoke had left her throat so tight she couldn’t speak.

  She chewed stubbornly on cold pancake and frowned at the bitter taste of ash. The ham, too, spoke of the old woman’s ire, for it was dry and tough. Still, Hannah choked down every bite with warm tea and fresh milk. She had to, for she couldn’t guess when she would eat again. She expected to be put out of the farmhouse and forced to walk through smoking coals all the way to town.

  As she finished her tea, Daniel came into the room and dropped into a straight-backed chair beside the bed. Though the sun was still low in the sky, his work must have begun already. He was streaked with ash, as if he’d been digging through the rubble of the barn. His brown eyes, once so full of longing, were hard and distant now.

  “John says your real name’s Hannah Shelton. That’s what you were hiding, wasn’t it?”

  She said nothing, and in doing so answered him completely.

  “We don’t take to liars here. We’re sending you back home soon as you can manage. In spite of what you did, you got hurt helping us yesterday, and we’re obliged. But I won’t have you laid up here in my family’s house. You hurt my brother and my aunt. Hell, you even hurt my little girl. So as soon as I can get a wagon through, I’m going to find another place for you to stay.”

  This felt terrible, thought Hannah, even worse in some ways than when Malcolm had made his accusations. At least when that had happened, she’d known she’d done no wrong. Now, guilt combined with pain to create a slurry of self-hatred, the worst she’d ever known. “I’m — so sorry.” The hoarse words triggered another round of coughing.

  When she finished, Daniel stood. “If you weren’t a woman, I’d beat you to a pulp.” The door slammed in his wake, and once more she was left alone.

  Hannah clenched her teeth. He hadn’t even asked why she had done this. None of them had. Did it even occur to them a woman could be driven to such desperation?

  She spent the day resting uneasily in a house she’d never live in. In her troubled dreams, the ghostly gray horse barreled past her, desperate to face an unknown danger in its familiar stall. Again and again, the animal exploded into flame, her shrill whinnies changing into human screams. Hannah woke up shivering beneath a layer of cool sweat. She still smelled the ash outside, and when she raised the window shade, she saw a plume of smoke in the distance. Would all Wisconsin burn before the autumn rains fell this year? She almost felt relief that she would soon be leaving. Then she wondered where she would go next.

  Could there be somewhere where it wouldn’t matter what she called herself? Or could there be a place where men so hungered for a woman that even the stigma of divorce meant nothing?

  Hot tears coursed down Hannah’s face. She wouldn’t even want a man who wouldn’t care about those things.

  Once again, she racked her brain to try to think of some other way to earn her living. She knew how to work, and she knew horses. She could read and write and figure numbers well enough. Surely, there must be something she could do besides what coarser men suggested. Surely there must be some way to survive.

  o0o

  John and Daniel’s wagon had burned, but they managed to pull Lucinda’s gig out of the flames. The following morning, Daniel harnessed Chance, one of his team of chestnut geldings, and braced himself to go to Mercy’s room.

  Hannah, he corrected himself. The illusion calling itself Mercy died inside the barn.

  The barn. He remembered how he’d kissed her there, how the heat built up inside him, as if his heart might burn right through his chest. No wonder the place caught fire, he thought with a sad chuckle. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that spark of something real. And it was real. He was sure of it, for Hannah felt it too. Her body had loosened, and no matter what she said, he’d seen regret shimmer in her blue eyes. Then she pulled away and reminded them both of John.

  Did she think he was the one with money? After all, their mother left the farm to John. As well she should have. John had been running it responsibly ever since their father died, when both boys were in their teens. John hadn’t been so eager to run away to fight some far-off war. Daniel was besieging Vicksburg the night his mother died. He wondered, even now, if she’d forgiven him for leaving.

  Returning to the present, he kissed Amelia and his aunt good-bye. “I’m going to drive her back to town, see if I can stow her with some friends.”

  Amelia wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she tightly squeezed her doll. She’d cried for hours when he’d told her Hannah and Uncle John had decided not to marry and how each thought it best if they did not remain in the same house. Even his promise that Amelia and Aunt Lucinda could stay here for the week had failed to comfort the child.

  “Don’t forget to pick up a few things at my house. And be careful,” Lucinda said, her voice warning that she feared Hannah’s deceit even more than fire.

  “I’ll be sure to, and I’ll make certain the woods are safe for when you two go back home.” He turned to the stairwell.

  “Papa!” Amelia’s voice sparkled behind him. When he turned, she continued. “I know! You can marry Mercy! Then she could be my mama, not my aunt!”

  God, how he hated to snuff out her joy. He bent down and took her in his arms. “I know you love Mercy, and I know she loves you, too. But sometimes things aren’t right. She has people back home, family, and they miss her very much.”

  “But I’ll miss her, too. Won’t you?” Her tears wet Daniel’s cheek as he squeezed her close.

  “Of course. Now go help Aunt Lucinda for a while. Mercy’s sad, and she might not want you to see her cry.” Lying to his daughter was almost as bad as dashing her hopes, but how could he tell her the truth about Hannah Shelton?

  Lucinda took the child’s hand and lectured her as they walked toward the kitchen. “You be sure to stay away from that hot rubble. Goodness knows what kind of filth you would track in! Come now, we’ll fix some of your favorite apple dumplings.”

  Daniel trudged up the stairs and rapped on Hannah’s door. She let him in, and he could see that Lucinda must have laundered her blue dress. Even so, a soot stain made an ugly smudge across her chest. Thinking of her paltry bags and wardrobe, he considered buying her a new dress. Quickly, he dismissed the ridiculous notion. After all, her p
assage and the cost of Harlan’s “introduction” had already set John back far more than that dress. Just because she was a woman, that didn’t excuse her deceit one bit.

  “Just a moment,” Hannah told him, her voice hoarse with emotion. In one deft motion, she wound up dark waves that fell to her waist, then pinned them into a neat roll. That simple task put Daniel to mind of his Mary, though her hair had been fine and honey blond.

  A prolonged round of coughing left Hannah red-faced, but she didn’t let it stop her. With dignity, she preceded him down the stairs, her posture stiff and arrogant as a Philadelphia debutante. Positively shameless. Daniel shook his head, amazed at her gumption. The woman wouldn’t hang her head if she’d just robbed the bank in Green Bay.

  John was checking Chance’s harness when they went outside. Though he hadn’t faced Hannah since the fire, he didn’t shrink away. Instead, he quoted scripture. “Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.”

  She hesitated before she reached out with one hand. “John, I know you’ll never have me, but I beg you to forgive me. I — I didn’t know what else to do.”

  He slapped her, hard enough to knock her down. His auburn hair flapping with each word, he shouted yet another Bible verse, “And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.”

  Daniel grasped his brother’s raised arm, shocked that he would strike a woman. Even when they were children, John had never engaged in fisticuffs. And before today, the harshest words Daniel had ever heard him speak had been to berate a French farmer who beat his wife black and blue.

  “She’s not worth this, John,” he warned. “You’ll only be mad at yourself if you go on. Think on all that church teaching you’re so fond of.”