Part 4
There was always someone awake at Inez’s house after the gathering. She and Caleb divided the hours first. Then Lorraine began arriving with supplies, and Otis found reasons to bring a sack of feed that could easily have waited until morning.
Caleb quit pointing that out. If they stayed, Inez could sleep.
The pasture dried as the weeks grew warmer. Along the grove, grass that had brushed wet against Caleb’s boots in spring began to rattle underfoot. He checked the road before bed and fed the filly. Sometimes Grant’s silence lasted long enough that Caleb almost trusted it.
One night the smell of burning woke him.
Outside, separate patches of flame showed along the trees. No thunder had passed over. The level path to the lower meadow was already burning, while the road above the yard remained bare and clear. Between it and Caleb stood the cutbank, too steep for the filly.
Inez came onto the porch with her boots in her hands.
“Get away from the house,” Caleb shouted, and ran for the barn.
Bracken was driving against the door. When Caleb opened both halves, he found the filly pressed into a corner. He caught her lead and brought her out with Bracken beside them.
The big horse stopped. Caleb nearly walked into him.
Roy stood in the yard with three other men. All four carried rifles.
“Bring the little one,” Roy said. “The big horse stays.”
Caleb moved in front of the filly. Heat was beginning to reach them from the grove.
“You lit it.”
“Grant wants this place empty. You could’ve made it easy.”
Across the yard, Inez had stopped near the porch. To reach the barn, she would have to pass the men.
“There are people living below here,” Caleb said.
Roy motioned impatiently with his rifle. “Then start moving.”
Bracken rose behind Caleb, forelegs lifting into the smoky air. One of the men stumbled backward.
“Shoot if you have to,” Roy snapped at him. “Leave the legs alone.”
A shot struck the earth near Roy’s feet.
Everyone turned toward the road. A pickup had stopped above the yard, and Lorraine stood by its open door with a rifle.
“Lay them on the ground,” she called. “The call’s already in.”
Otis came around the other side of the truck. He and Lorraine had been on their way to relieve Inez when they saw the glow. She had called for help before they reached the gate.
While Lorraine watched from the road, Otis scrambled down the bank with his shotgun pointed low.
“My place is below this one,” he told Roy. “You remember that?”
Roy’s men began glancing past him, measuring the way back to the road.
Bracken surged through the opening their distraction gave him.
He didn’t go toward them. He went toward the stock path, where fallen limbs burned in a tangle between the barn and the grove. Caleb shouted, but Bracken kept going. He struck at the low branches, shoved, and stamped again. One end of the obstruction moved.
A narrow space opened beside him.
Roy retreated first. The others followed, scrambling up the bare cutbank instead of holding the yard. Lorraine called down for Caleb to bring the filly. Otis reached Inez and guided her toward the gap.
Bracken was still forcing the limbs aside when they passed.
Caleb followed with the little horse, but she stopped at the heat. He couldn’t pull her through it. He bent close enough that his mouth was beside her ear and talked until she lifted one foot, then another.
They squeezed past Bracken’s shoulder into the meadow.
Caleb stumbled, caught himself, and looked back. He expected the red head above him. Smoke filled the passage instead. Flame ran along the displaced branches, joining overhead, and the opening disappeared.
He pushed the filly’s lead into someone’s hand and ran back.
Otis caught him around the chest. Caleb fought him, dragging both of them several steps toward the heat before Otis hauled him down and held on.
“There’s no way through,” Otis kept saying. “Caleb. There’s no way.”
The volunteer engines took nearly an hour to reach the place. By then the barn was gone and much of the grove was burning. Crews worked to keep the fire off the house while Caleb stood with the filly pressed against his leg, watching every figure that crossed the light from the trucks.
No red horse came out.
They let him into the burned ground after dawn. He found Bracken lying within the grove, where the smoke had thinned enough to show the pale ash around him.
His chest rose. Caleb waited through a long pause before it rose again.
He knelt beside the great head and touched the scar near the eye. The eyelid opened. Bracken moved his muzzle toward Caleb’s shoulder, making the smallest contact before letting his head settle.
“I’ve got you,” Caleb said.
He repeated it once, then couldn’t say anything more.
Audrey arrived with her bags and knelt on the other side. She listened to Bracken’s chest, examined the burns, and began treatment. When Caleb asked how they could move him, she looked along his enormous body.
“We can’t haul him safely in this condition. I’m treating him here.”
She sent them for clean bedding and water. Later, with help, they shifted him away from the worst ash onto cleared ground. He couldn’t rise.
Caleb learned where to stand when Audrey needed room and how to help without getting in her way. When she had no task for him, he sat by Bracken’s head.
Over the next two days, people came carrying whatever they thought might be useful. Lorraine brought medical supplies. Vivian worked on the debris. Inez found a job, a chair, or a cup for everyone who arrived.
Nobody came from Grant’s ranch.
Audrey stayed on the third night. Bracken’s breathing had become harder despite everything she had done. She waited until Caleb looked at her before she spoke.
“The damage in his lungs is getting worse. I’ll keep treating the pain and helping him breathe as much as I can. If that stops being enough, we’ll have to put him down.”
Caleb nodded. Then he moved closer to the muzzle, where Bracken wouldn’t have to lift his head to find him.
From the temporary pen, the filly called.
One ear moved toward her.
Caleb rubbed the sound patch beneath Bracken’s jaw, where the horse had liked being scratched during those evenings behind the cabin.
“Inez has her,” he said. “She’s close.”
He leaned his forehead against the warm neck. Beside him, Audrey adjusted what she could and grew still again. The pauses lengthened. Each time Bracken drew another breath, Caleb left his hand where it was.
Just before daylight, he bent toward the ear.
“You can rest. I’ll keep her safe.”
He waited for the next breath.
Audrey placed a hand between his shoulders. Caleb stayed with his fingers beneath Bracken’s jaw until the sun reached the cleared ground…
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