Thaddeus looked around. “I don’t think they’ve actually gone anywhere. More likely they wanted a little time away.”
“That’s what the honeymoon is for. Will you at least tell me where they’re going?”
“After they’ve left. I promise.”
Fiona sighed. “I don’t understand why people don’t trust me with their secrets when I’ve proven that I know how to keep them.”
“You know I’d tell—” He stopped because Fiona sat up abruptly. She lifted her head and sniffed the air.
“Thaddeus? I smell—”
“Smoke,” he said. “I do, too. The wind’s shifted. It’s coming from the bonfires.”
She frowned. A sharp crease appeared between her eyebrows. “I don’t think so.” She jumped to her feet and began to turn. “This smells more like...” Fiona grabbed Thaddeus’s shoulder. “Thad! The barn’s on—” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. At least four people shouted it out for her.
“Fire!”
The music stopped. The band threw down their instruments, jumped off the porch, and ran full tilt toward the barn. Guests abandoned the tables, left the circle of the bonfires, and dropped their drinks. The men in the bunkhouse were moved to leave it as soon as the shouting reached them, and when they recognized the cause of the commotion, they directed people to the watering troughs and the well. Women joined the men to start a brigade.
Thaddeus caught Scooter Banks by the sleeve. “Where’s Remington? Is he with you? I don’t see him!”
Fiona jammed a fist against her mouth as spindles of fire arose from a hole in the roof. “Phoebe! Has anyone seenPhoebe?” She grabbed Jackson Brewer’s arm as he was hurrying past and pulled him up short. “I can’t find Phoebe! She would have come running if she could. Remington, too. I’m afraid they’re—” She couldn’t say her fear aloud and accepted that Jackson would nevertheless understand.
“I’ll see to it,” he promised, and then he was running again.
• • •
Remington dropped the ladder over the side of the loft once he had opened the roof. The blankets he had used to protect himself earlier were now ablaze. Descending the ladder would be like choosing to enter one of the circles of hell. Before he took that path, he began pushing bales of hay off the lip of the loft. Although some of them were burning when he dropped them, none of them exploded into flames. Just the opposite, in fact, the thick bales smothered a swath of fire. The unfortunate consequence was impenetrable clouds of smoke.
Remington could no longer draw a breath without coughing. He grabbed the top of the ladder, swung around, and lowered himself four rungs before he surrendered to the inevitable and jumped. Phoebe might have screamed. He couldn’t be sure. They were both choking on the smoke.
The bales cushioned his fall. The sleeve of his coat smoldered. He slapped at it as he scrambled over the hay bales and charged forward. He was gratified to see that Phoebe hadn’t moved from where he left her. He dove for her, tunneling under the heavy layer of smoke. She kept him from banging his head against the wall.
“They have to be close,” he said between coughs. “The fire’s through the roof. Can you shout? Curse? Bang the walls?”
She did all of that. He rose to his knees and joined her. Behind them, the fire continued to creep in their direction. Occupied with attracting attention, neither of them saw the man they knew only as Mr. Shoulders heave himself off thebarn floor and climb the wall hand over hand until he was standing on his feet.
It was when Mr. Shoulders began to cough that Remington became aware of him. “Get down! You can’t breathe up there.”
“Can’t... breathe... down... there.” He pounded his fists against the wall. “Got... to... get... out.”
Phoebe tried to make herself heard over the hand she was using to cover her mouth and nose. “Do what he says. Get down! I think I can hear them. They’re coming.” Her intention was to keep pleading but she did not have the breath for it. She gave up and went back to pounding the wall.
Natty Rahway inched sideways and tripped over the unconscious bodies of Ellie and Ben. He sprawled on the ground, picked himself up to his knees, and crawled toward the barn door.
Remington made a grab for him and missed. He also called out a warning. It was ignored. “Get ready, Phoebe. I think you’re right. They’re close.” He crawled sideways, found Ellie, and rolled her toward Phoebe. “Take her wrist. You’ll have to move fast.”
“Worry about yourself.”
Remington cupped the back of her head in his palm. What he did then could hardly be called a kiss, not when his mouth was as hot, hard, and sooty as a branding iron. “Sweet Jesus, but I love you.”
The door opened then. They sheltered their heads while Natty Rahway was consumed in a tornado of fire.
Epilogue
The honeymoon was postponed. Twice. Once for their convalescence, which Fiona and Thaddeus insisted on supervising at Twin Star, no matter the inconvenience to Dr. Dunlop, who had to make the journey from town daily in the beginning and then three times a week after he was able to convince Thaddeus that it was sufficient to monitor their progress. The second delay was forced on them when the Putty brothers proved to be every bit as slippery as Judge Miner had once named them. The posse was seven men strong and included experienced deputies from neighboring counties, but the brothers eluded capture for six weeks by doing something no one suspected they would do. They split up. There was talk of dividing the posse at that point, but Jackson Brewer was of the opinion that concentrating on one would eventually lead them to the other. They identified Doyle as their priority. The posse numbered eight men by then because Remington left Twin Star to join the search as soon as Doc Dunlop pronounced Phoebe fit. His residual cough kept him from receiving the same clean bill of health, but he’d had enough of everyone’s hovering and coddling by then, and with Phoebe’s blessing—some would say insistence—he left Twin Star to join Sheriff Brewer.
They tracked Doyle to a whorehouse in Harmony, then to a saloon in Jupiter, from there to a hotel in Lansing managed by a distant cousin who didn’t hold with his nonsense, and finally found him in a Denver jail sleeping off a drunk and disorderly charge after losing at the card table in the Palladium.
