Twilight's Burning

by Diane Guest

  He fell back in a rictus of agony as the fire swallowed up the animal skins and devoured him, continuing northward faster than a man could trot.

  Hendrik deWeert had been out in the woods beyond the clearing for a good portion of the day, trying to contain the small fires that were still burning in the underbrush. By late afternoon, he and his neighbors were convinced they were fighting a losing battle.

  It was the general consensus that, since Hendrik's was the largest of the homesteads with cleared area of more than eighteen acres, his would be the safest place to wait out the fire.

  The evening meal was a silent one, except for an occasional interruption by one of the children in the room. In the soft tones of their native tongue, the mothers quieted them. This was indeed an occasion when children should be seen but not heard.

  It was in this atmosphere of almost undisturbed quiet that they were all able to hear it. A soft moaning, far off, carried on the wind that had risen up from the southwest. Jeanne deWeert walked to the window and tied back the curtains that had begun to billow into the room. "There's fire in the potato patch!" she cried.

  "Impossible," said her husband, moving to her side. "There's nothing there to burn."

  But there they were, fingers of flame, running along the plowed ridges like writhing snakes.

  The three men ran outside and drove the wagon and mules to the site of the spreading fire. They had filled the wagon with barrels of water earlier in the evening, but had barely enough to begin to quench the blaze.

  "Get to the creek and fill those," Hendrik yelled at the other two. A furnace blast of wind hit them and blew the words back in his face. The three stood, shocked into momentary paralysis by the suddenness and the immensity of the fiery avalanche they could see sweeping toward them from the south, east, and west. Only the horizon to the north kept them from being encircled.

  But how could it be? Much of the timber to the south had already burned. How could the fire burn what wasn't there? The question went unasked as the great solid sheets of white hot flame rolled toward them with the speed of a freight train.

  Hendrik turned in time to see fire crawling along the ridge of the barn. They began to run back toward the house. "Get the women and children to the north pasture," he screamed above the din. "I've got to get the animals out."

  He threw the barn doors open wide and drove the screaming horses out, only to have them turn in terror and run back inside before he could close the door. With a wailing shriek, the roof of the barn was torn from the rafters by a raging hurricane wind.

  All at once, Hendrik was enveloped in a mist of living fire. He groped through the suffocating smoke and stumbled against the well pit.

  He called out, his voice seared and cracked, and as the smoke cleared in a sudden gust, he saw one of his children running before the wind. A hawklike tongue of flame streaked down the sky, veering from its course, determined not to let a single living creature survive. And in the next instant the child was a torch, incinerated by a cloud of flame.

  The curtain of heaven was ripped from top to bottom by a tremendous uprush of fire and Hendrik lurched forward, his clothes gone, and fell where the child had been but was no more. Now there was nothing.

  He lay face down, feeling the ground burning away under his body and gave himself up to the holocaust. By the time he died, the scorching winds just in advance of the fire were already a mile to the north, carrying with them a deadly message from the throat of the forest.

  Mrs. Deidrick stood in the kitchen, frankly shaken by the news that Caroline Morgan was dead. Not just dead. Murdered. Bad business all the way around, she thought as she began to prepare supper.

  Ash drifted in through the screenless window and settled softly on the food. Exasperated, she crossed the kitchen and slammed the window shut. In spite of her preoccupation with Mrs. Morgan's death, she couldn't help but notice the ghastly half-light that stained the evening sky, its reflection turning the water of the bay a sickly, bilious yellow. The wind had freshened, and even with the windows closed she could hear the low murmuring of the trees as they rustled against themselves.

  So absorbed was she in listening that she didn't hear Quint enter the kitchen until he stood almost beside her. "Mrs. Deidrick," he said.

  "Quintal McCormick, didn't anyone ever teach you not to creep up on people?"

  He didn't answer, but handed her a pair of men's pantaloons. "Here. Put these on."

  "I beg your pardon," she said in a shocked tone. No self-respecting, churchgoing woman would ever think to wear trousers, for whatever reason.

  "Mrs. Deidrick, I want you to listen because I haven't time to say it twice." He led her to the window. Now the world outside seemed rent in two. Above the trees, the arc of heaven was blood-red with streaks of fire. Below, the forest lay dark and shrouded. "We're all going down to the bay," he said quietly. "I think something is coming worse than we've ever seen. I want you to wet down these trousers and put them on. They'll help to protect your legs. I have blankets outside. Wet. Take one before you leave."

  Mrs. Deidrick knew from the tone of his voice that there was no more to be said, no time for questions. He turned at the door. "One more thing. Once you leave the house, save yourself. Don't try to be heroic."

  She began at once to blow out the lamps and then stopped. Foolish old woman, she thought. What purpose do you think you're serving? She dipped the trousers into the basin of water on the sideboard and put them on. She stifled a feeling of momentary distress that she would make a mess of her highly polished floors with her dripping. I'll clean it up later, she thought.

  There were several people gathered on the front steps and she could see some huddled together, praying. Their words came to her over the low roar. "Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death on that day of terror: when the heavens and the earth will be shaken as Thou dost come to judge the world by fire."

  She made the mental response. But deliver us from evil. From the gate of hell. She could hear a rumbling, grinding sound, as if the tortured earth was preparing to uproot itself and flee before the inferno. And then the siren from the mill began to wail its alarm.

  A small group of women and children had gathered in the middle of the lawn, cowering under a wet quilt the men were wetting down with buckets of water. Quintal ran over. "What the hell are you trying to do," he screamed. "Commit suicide? This ain't no ordinary forest fire." He grabbed one corner of the quilt and pulled it away from the shuddering group.

  One of the men ripped it from his hand. "We'll save our own," he yelled. "We been through fires before, McCormick. Ain't none of your concern." With that, the men gathered with their families under the steaming quilt.

  Quintal turned away. Fools, he thought. Goddamned fools, He wished that Mr. Morgan hadn't gone down to the Landing. They'd listen to him. "Take those blankets, "he shouted to the others who stood shivering in front of the house. "Get to the bay."

  There was mass hesitation. No one seemed to know what to do. No one wanted to be the first to leave the comparative safety of the lawn to plunge into the somber, hooded forest that stretched below them down to the bay, so they stood and watched in horror as a monstrous ball of fire appeared out of nowhere and exploded high above their heads, hurtling hundreds of searing fragments into the night.

  The trees along the edge of the lawn to the south were suddenly twisted apart and thrown to the ground, seized by a whirlwind of such awesome power that nothing could stand before it. The tempest lashed at the shuddering group of people with whips of flame.

  They began to run, all at once toward the bay, but not before Mrs. Deidrick saw the roof of Morgan House ripped away by an immense, unseen force, sending a colossal column of fire jetting up like a mighty blowtorch through the shattered core of the house. Pushed along by a hot blast of wind, they ran, some burned alive by the heat before the fire ever reached them. The rush of fire illuminated the landscape, turning the pitch dark night to lurid, mind-shattering high noon.
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  Behind them, all that remained of the families who chose to stay under the quilt was a silver belt buckle, two nickle garters, and a small pile of ashes.

  "I don't know about you," Kate said, "but I'm going to bed."

  "Sit with me one minute," John said. "Then I'll be pleased to join you."

  His wife sat down across from him and stretched out, her legs. "Poor Susannah," she said. They had just left the Snell house, trusting to Sylvanus the task of restoring some order and sanity to the household. No one knew anything about Edwin. He had simply vanished.

  "Sylvanus loves her, you know," John said.

  "I know. I'm glad."

  "I am, too. And if Edwin had to kill someone, I'm glad it was Caroline."

  "John Meade. What a terrible thing to say."

  "Come now, Kate, my love, you know that you were thinking the same thing."

  "I know," she said. "But at least I have the sensibility not to say it aloud. Even to you."

  John got up and crossed to his wife. He leaned over and kissed her on the top of the head. "You do have sensibility," he said, "and you also have a voluptuous body. Let's go upstairs."

  Kate followed her husband willingly. She needed him tonight. She wanted to feel safe under the weight of him. She said a silent prayer of thanksgiving to God as she climbed the stairs behind her husband for making John strong and kind. And sane.

  They fit together quickly with a comfort grown out of long habit and when he was satisfied, he lay upon her, growing soft in her body. They fell together into an exhausted sleep and never heard the walls of their house collapse in upon them, never felt pain as their bodies incinerated into ash.

  Jake Shepherd finished his last beer. Where the next was to come from, he wasn't sure. But he would get some even if he had to go clear up to Belle Harbour. He belched. Goddamn smoke had kept him from watching that bastard son of his. Didn't dare get too close.

  But he wasn't waiting no more. Time to be getting out of this place, especially with winter coming on. This camp would be one of the first they would use, considering the amount of timber still standing around here.

  It had been cold this morning. Now it was goddamned hot. He reached inside his pants and scratched his sticky testicles.

  He walked to the door of the bunkhouse. Got to get out of here before they start comin' in, he thought. Got to get that puke-face son of mine first, though. Thinks he's safe down there with Mrs. Fancy Teats. The puffy lids tightened across the red pig-eyes, narrowing them to slits. I'd like to get ahold of them teats, he thought. Seen Indians make some mighty handy pouches out of white teats.

  He picked up the broadax he carried with him now whenever he left the camp. He tested its edge with a practiced finger and smiled. Wouldn't take much to chop one of them Snell bitch's teats off with this, he thought. The smile broadened to a grotesque leer. Maybe I'll get me a little shot at Her Royal Majesty, he thought. Maybe do a little something to her. Before I kill her. He felt himself grow hard.

  The wind had come up from the south and he could hear the sound of distant thunder, rumbling low, far away. He took a breath of smoke-filled air and coughed. About time for some rain, he thought. I better get the little bastard before it starts. Don't feature get-tin' caught in a downpour.

  He lumbered out of the camp and headed toward the Landing, crunching through the underbrush like a huge animal, lifting his great ugly head every once and again to wonder at the steadiness of the thunder. Must be a hell of a storm, he thought.

  The wind was coming stronger now, and scorching hot, and he could see that the thick carpet of pine needles was alive with small surface fires, licking up at the trunks of the great pines, teasing, running up a ways, only to die out and appear again in another spot.

  The tops of the trees began to sway before the wind. He strained his smoke-reddened eyes through the haze and could see that the trees were full of birds, moving with the wind, but silent. The only sound to be heard above his own ponderous movement was the low roar, more intense now with each passing second.

  With a sullen anger that came from being suddenly afraid, he hunched down and increased his pace, his head pulled down between his shoulders. He was torn between the impulse to take flight as fast as he could, and shame that caused him to turn now and again to make ready to do battle with this unseen enemy. . He knew now that the cavernous roar in his ears was not thunder, but he was unprepared for the fragments of fire that began to fall around him like deadly hailstones. He pawed the air, swinging his broadax around his head, trying to hack the embers to death before they could burn him. As his clothing caught fire, he ripped it off with a defiant snarl and threw it from himself.

  Suddenly, he was pressed between a mass of hot air and a towering wall of scorching fire that stretched as far as he could see. He began to run, crashing over blackened snags, deafened by the death rattle of a thousand dying trees, bellowing out his own fear and rage at the hopelessness of his plight.

  He swept through the woods, keeping just ahead, the curs of hell snapping at his heels. Before him, through the smoke, he could just make out the edge of the clearing. He threw a look of defiance back over his shoulder. "Home free," he bellowed and began to laugh. "Nothing can beat Jake Shepherd."

  All at once in front of him, where there had been no fire, there was fire, sucking back toward the mother blaze. He veered off to the right, still confident, and headed toward the open fields that lay just beyond the trees. He smiled as he made one last lunge to break through the line of burning pines out into the clearing.

  And then the steel jaws slammed shut on Jake Shepherd's leg. He shrieked, a high, inhuman shriek, as the half-breed's iron trap ripped through his skin and flesh and clamped its jagged teeth onto his bone, throwing him forward in a paroxysm of agony.

  He looked down. His leg was shattered, flesh hanging loose from flesh, bone chewed free from bone. He tried to crawl forward but the hideous, crushing trap held him tight. His mad shrieking spiraled upward and died in the roaring sound of the pursuing fire.

  Beads of sweat exploded from every pore on his face, hissing and scalding his skin as the ghastly heat of the fire rolled toward him. "Help me!" he screamed. "Help me!"

  Then a tremendous cyclone lifted him away from the ground, tearing him free from the jagged teeth of the trap, and throwing him naked, screaming, into the heart of the fire.

  Jake Shepherd did not scream for long.

  If it hadn't been for Sylvanus, Susannah knew that she would have gone mad and joined Edwin in some insane sacrificial ritual. After Caroline's body had been removed from the house, she had stood for what seemed a lifetime, alone in her room, trying to find the strength to face what had to be faced. Edwin had killed Caroline Morgan. Somehow he would be found and then they would drag him away like old Zero Zeena, drooling and frothing at the mouth.

  She opened the wardrobe and touched the sleeve of one of Edwin's coats. Oh God, Edwin, she thought, what will they do to you? What hideous, unspeakable things will they do to you? She felt the floor rock madly under her feet. She would have fallen down had Sylvanus not suddenly appeared beside her to hold her up. She was deadly cold in spite of his arms around her, and he sensed her need, knew that she had to be sheltered if only for a moment.

  "I'll hold you," he said softly. "I'll hold you."

  She stood motionless in the circle of his arms, making her ears listen to the sound of his heart beating.

  "Are you all right?" he asked finally.

  She nodded and he held her away from him so he could see her face. "You haven't cried," he said.

  She shook her head. "This is beyond tears," she said quietly. "It's beyond what I know to be real."

  "I'm going to stay here with you," he said, "until they find Edwin. Abby has kindly offered to move out of her room and in with Mame so I will have a bed. But I told them it wouldn't be necessary since I'd be up here. Sleeping with you."

  The absurdity of the suggestion made her smile and she felt a
tremendous rush of relief that she could tell he was teasing her, that she could still tell the difference between fact and foolishness. "Oh, Sylvanus," she said and hugged him, "if you ever made such a scandalous suggestion to poor Abby, she would take as proof positive that this horrible world was indeed at an end."

  He lifted her chin and kissed her softly on the mouth. She thought at first that the sound she heard was in her head, but then she became aware that he was listening too. "What is it?" she whispered. It came to them like the sound of the surf breaking on the beach, one wave sucking back, not yet gone before another came crashing down upon it.

  The mill siren rose in protest over the cavernous roar. Sylvanus took her by the hand and pulled her to the door. "Get some blankets," he ordered. "I'll get the children. We've got to get out of here." Before she could speak, he said, "Don't ask. Just move."

  She did as she was told, running downstairs and out onto the porch, then back again, each time carrying as many blankets as she could.

  Then something made her stop and listen, something so strange that she froze where she stood. The noise had increased, but not in volume. Only in intensity. It was no louder than it had been before but now she felt as though she could almost touch it with her hands. It was thick. Not loud. Thick. She could see people running in all directions, some toward the woods, others away, like ants whose nest has just been senselessly destroyed by a child's probing toe. And then a thousand different sounds filled the night air, every sound she had ever heard except that of a human voice. It was as if in their terror they had all been stricken dumb.

  Suddenly, the wind hit Susannah with such force that she was thrown violently against the porch rail. She heard something snap inside her chest and at the same time she was smothered in red-hot pain. She sagged to the floor.

  Sylvanus was beside her in the next instant. "Are you hurt?"

  "I think so."

  "Can you stand?"