Racing upstairs, Hallie flung open her bedroom door. Its loud crash awakened both Liv and Dagny. As soon as Hallie yelled “Fire!” both girls scurried through the room, randomly grabbing possessions.
“There’s no time for that!” Hallie shouted. “Just grab your shoes—you’ll need them.” Hallie turned to get the boys just as flames exploded through the roof like an incandescent tornado. Red flames and blasting, undulant heat tore through the crumbling roof, buffeting her face as she charged across the small hall toward the twins’ bedroom.
Inside the room, one wall was on fire and the flames spread upward, devouring the thin wall as if it were paper. Smoke spewed forth and wrapped its choking fumes around the small, squealing bundles huddled together in one bed. The boys’ cries sounded hoarse and were almost instantly deafened by the rumble of flames and the shattering of window glass.
With a strength fed by fear, Hallie lifted a twin in each arm and fled the fiery room. Roof beams had crashed through the upper floor, leaving a gaping crater in the path to the other bedroom. The remaining floorboards splintered and the paint finish blistered and bubbled like a caldron’s liquid. Hallie screamed toward the girls’ room, calling her sisters’ names and praying that they’d had the sense to get out of the house. There was no way she could get to them now.
The boys’ fingers pinched her neck, and their small heads were wedged up to her chin. Hallie could barely see around them. She smashed her right hip along the stair railing, using it to help guide and support her. Tossing the sobbing boys slightly, she repositioned her numb arms under the twins’ bottoms, holding them as close to her sides as possible.
While she descended the smoke-filled stairway, Hallie prayed the rail wouldn’t give out. Cinder-filled smoke rushed up at her through the open front doorway. Hot embers singed her skin and brought cries of hurt and panic from the small boys. The banister held, and a thankful Hallie was just thinking that her prayers were answered when something seared her left leg. The pain sent her staggering through the door. She could feel flames licking an agonizing path up her leg, so she locked her arms around the boys and fell forward with them, rolling down into the street. As she tumbled, she pressed her hands to the ground, pushing her weight upward to keep from crushing the small, sobbing boys who clung to her.
She rammed into a hard wagon wheel, but she held the boys to her ribs, unwilling to let go even though the searing burn continued to cremate the skin on her leg. Someone tried to pull the boys from her arms but she held on, screaming, “No! Oh God, Nooo!”
Someone beat at her petticoats, and each swat crushed torturous wads of hot, scratchy fabric against her tender leg.
She looked up. It was Dagny who knelt over her, beating the flames from her smoldering skirts. Her leg felt on fire, as if it were blistering like the paint on the floorboards. She couldn’t hold back her sobs, and she heard Duggie’s pleading voice. “Put it out! Please, you’ve got to put it out!”
The wooden wheel vibrated against her temple.Oh no, the wagon! It’s going to run over us!She let go of the boys, but before Hallie could order her own body to move, the vibration increased. Suddenly, her legs and torso were doused with a powerful spray of water.
Relief was instantaneous; relief from the hot pain, from the horrid fear of the crushing wagon wheel, and from the worry for her sisters’ safety. If Dagny was here, helping her, then Liv had to be all right, too. Dagny would not have left Liv.
But just to be sure, Hallie forced herself to sit up despite the pain.
Before her, the house was unrecognizable, completely engulfed in fire, something that happened all too often.
She turned to see the blond giant, Duncan, clad in the leathern cape that proclaimed him a volunteer fireman.In his hand was the limp hose of the fire wagon—the one with the death-crushing wheel—and Duggie still gripped his forearm. Liv stood alongside, holding Gunnar and Knut by their small hands. They were okay, but all three were crying.
“Hallie, don’t move. Your leg’s burned,” Dagny warned when Hallie started to rise. But Hallie stood slowly, with Duncan’s strong hand helping her up.
She hugged him and repeated her thanks over and over. He stood in awkward stiffness, as if he didn’t know how to respond to her hug of gratitude. Then she stood back, wobbling a bit on her bad leg, and she smiled, but a shout shattered the moment.
“Hey, you!” Someone called out.“Get that engine pumping on those flames!”
Duncan turned to Hallie. “I have to get back. Can you make it on that leg, miss?”
“She’s burned,” Dagny cried. “Can’t you help her?”
“It’s all right, Duggie, I’ll be okay. Let him get back to work.” Hallie waved him off before ordering, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Dagny looked skeptical, but she nodded as Duncan and his wagon pulled away. Hallie looked up and down the street, trying to see which way looked the safest. Although the flames appeared less intense toward the north end, that area was overflowing with people rushing down the long blocks toward the waterline. Hallie knew that if she couldn’t get them near the bay, then her best bet was to seek high, barren ground. Telegraph Hill was the closest, but they’d have to travel south, where the fire still blazed. “Duggie, you’ll have to carry Gunnar, I’ll carry Knut. I couldn’t get to their shoes. Liv, you hold my hand tight and don’t let go no matter what.”
Dagny picked up Gunnar. “But Hallie, what about your leg?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not that bad.” Her leg hurt like the dickens, but she refused to slough off her responsibility on her younger sister. If she was going to head this family, then she’d start now. Besides, if her leg looked anything like it felt, the sight of it wouldn’t ease the panic in the younger ones. She settled Knut on the flare of her hip and grabbed Liv’s hand. “Stay as close as you can, Duggie, and hold Liv’s other hand. If we get separated, we’ll meet at the semaphore wall on Telegraph Hill. Okay?”
Dagny nodded, and they started up the grade. The farther they walked, the more crowded their path became. Wagons filled with store goods and carriages strewn with belongings were jammed together in the hazy street. At the crossroads, packs of people flooded into any open street space. Horses, spooked by the smell of fire and the milling of the crowd, jostled and reared, one carriage overturning onto innocent prey trapped by the immobile mob.
The bone-chilling sound of screams raked the raucous air, and in the distance, explosions reverberated like thunder as the incendiary path of the fire met some combustible matter. They threaded through the mass, sometimes able to travel a few yards, and at other times the small group was smashed and pitched in the middle of a frenzied crush. Most of the victims had fled their homes with little or nothing, and were clad in only their
flimsy nightclothes. Others, with their hoarded belongings piled nearby, were digging shallow holes with their bare hands, creating dirt vaults for their precious possessions.
Hallie couldn’t count the number of times the raw skin of her injured leg was battered and scraped. The fire grew more intense at the crest of the hill. The sight below them was awful.
Flames fanned into the night sky, appearing to coronate some of the majestic three-story buildings with a devastating crown of red-orange. Almost a third of the city was ablaze, dominated by the reign of despotic fire, and the entire business district, lay smoky and snuffed out, while people fled, heading to the safety of the wet or barren town borders.
When Hallie and the children finally reached the semaphore wall, volunteers were there to hand out blankets and help the injured find aid. A section of the hill was roped off to serve as a temporary hospital, and Dagny insisted that Hallie have her leg checked.
The twins had small burn blisters smattered across their exposed cheeks. Both Liv and Dagny had ash and black cinders covering them, and Hallie, like the twins, was beginning to swell with blistered burns where her fragile skin had been exposed. She stood with Dagny, Liv and the boys, clustered together in line, waiting for treatment. When they reached the tent opening, their angel of mercy appeared in the form of Agnes Treadwell.
