Embers from the fire above fell around her, hissed as they hit the water.
She peered through the darkness for the stallion, heard it snort a short distance downstream, spotted it in the fire’s eerie glow. It was almost ten feet away from her and swimming hard for the other side. If only she could grab hold of its mane.
She reached for it, sank beneath the surface.
Belle coughed and cried harder.
Bethie took her baby under her left arm, rolled onto her back, reached with her right arm, kicking through the water with all of her strength.
Strands of coarse hair.
The stallion’s tail.
She grabbed hold, pulled until she was near enough to reach the saddle. Exhausted, she sagged against the powerful animal, gasping for breath as it carried them to safety.
Behind them, the fire was an impassable wall of flame that seemed to stretch the length of the riverbank.
***
It was sometime after dawn when Bethie awoke, nudged from sleep by the velvet of Zeus’s inquisitive muzzle.
The big stallion stood protectively over her, still burdened with the saddle she hadn’t had the strength to remove last night. Zeus nickered, nudged her again.
Exhausted, every muscle aching, she sat up, patted the stallion’s forehead, reached for Belle, who had begun to fuss, still wrapped snugly in the shawl. Though the shawl had been singed in places and was as damp as everything else, it was the only shelter Bethie could offer her baby.
“Come, little one.” Bethie’s voice was rough from smoke, which still wafted through the air from across the river.
She leaned against a rock, began to nurse.
And in the light of day, the terrible truth finally hit her.
Nicholas was dead.
There was no way he could have been behind her and survived. She squeezed her eyes shut against the images that rose up unbidden in her imagination. Nicholas racing behind her on one of her mares. The fire closing in on them, overtaking them, claiming them. Unbearable heat. Choking smoke. An agonizing, terrible end.
He had chosen to save her and Isabelle, to give them the swiftest horse, to send them on their way before him, and now he was gone, burned to death.
Tears filled her eyes, blurred her vision, ran hot down her cheeks.
She could not bear to think of his suffering, could not bear the grief that filled her at the thought that he, who had once been tortured by fire, should have died in flames. No one deserved to die that way.
Nicholas!
Even through her tears she could see the immensity of the destruction. The forest on the other side of the river was gone, reduced to blackened trunks, smoldering logs, and scorched earth. Smoke hovered above the charred landscape, now in great columns, now in spiraling tendrils that drifted on the breeze like unquiet spirits.
All of it was gone. The cabin. The barn. The chickens in their coop. Dorcas and her wee calf. Her loom and spinning wheel. Isabelle’s cradle. The moccasins Nicholas had made for them. Her quill. The book.
“Nicholas!” She whispered his name, felt her heart shatter.
He had done so much for her and for Isabelle. He had treated her with a kindness no man had ever shown her, save perhaps her real father. He had awakened something inside her—feelings she didn’t understand. And his kisses...
But now he was dead.
As the sun poured its golden rays across the landscape from the east, she wept.
***
Some hours later, Bethie stood on a rock, rubbed the horse’s chestnut coat with a makeshift currycomb of dried reeds, while it nibbled at the soft green grass. She had lifted the heavy saddle and blanket from the stallion’s back and hung them over a tree branch to dry. She didn’t want the wet wool or leather to chafe and cause sores on the big animal’s back or belly. They had many miles to cover, and the stallion would have to carry them nearly every foot of the way.
