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exhilaration of kissing her, the frustration at Rasmussen s rejection of his proposal, and
the guarded optimism at the prospect of working for Karak not to mention the couple of
shots of whiskey he d drunk, all combined to give him a sour stomach and dull headache.
He fell into bed and almost immediately to sleep, but deep in the night, something
woke him. He sat up in the pitch darkness of his room. Something had brought him out of
sound sleep a feeling, a sense of something not right.
Getting up, he lit a lantern and walked out into the stable, bits of straw and grit
clinging to his bare feet as he padded across the dirt floor. The horses were moving in
their stalls, restive, nervous. High-strung King tossed his head, his eyes rolling in fear.
Something wrong. The hair on Jim s neck prickled as he scanned the dark room. So
many places someone could hide. Images of the droopy-eyed man and his cronies leaping
out and attacking flashed through his mind. Clutching the lantern tighter, he eyed the
pitchfork leaning against Lady s stall. The mare stretched her neck over her gate and
blew a warm breath against his cheek. Jim stroked her nose, still ready to dive for the
pitchfork at any sign of movement in the deep shadows.
He took a deep breath and suddenly realized what was wrong. Mingled with the
familiar scents of hay and horses was the acrid tang of smoke. He followed the faint odor
through the stable and out the side door.
The smell was stronger on the night breeze. Jim looked in all directions for an orange
flicker that would indicate the source, but saw nothing in any of the buildings in town. A
reddish glow in the western sky caught his attention. Walking past the corner of the
building, he gazed across the dark prairie under the even darker midnight blue sky.
Several miles away the McPhersons barn was engulfed in flames. Smoke illuminated by
the fire billowed in clouds above it, and a line of flames spread out from the barn. Fire
was devouring the dry prairie grass.
Jim turned and ran down the sidewalk intending to wake Rasmussen at home and get
him to spread the word, but there were already others who d been roused by the smell of
smoke. Neal Hildebrandt and his son, Ned emerged from their house next to the feed
store. Down the street that crossed the main road, Nathan Scott ran from door to door,
waking residents.
Those who had horses stabled at the livery would likely be coming for them. Jim
went back inside the building, lit a few lanterns and opened the main doors for the rush of
people he expected. He led Crusader from his stall and began saddling him.
John Walker from the hardware was the first to arrive, carrying an armful of shovels
and burlap sacks, which he loaded on the back of an open bed wagon. He harnessed
Zephyr to it.
For the next twenty minutes, Jim worked feverishly, checking out riding horses to
their owners, harnessing others to wagons of supplies for firefighting. There was no point
in attempting to carry enough water in barrels to quench the flames. The best the
townspeople could do was to build a firebreak, preventing the fire from spreading toward
town.
After all the horses were gone except for Old Tom, Jim finished dressing Crusader
and mounted him. He rode out of town and across the open prairie to where the men were
digging ditches and setting up a controlled burn. The breeze rushing against his cheeks
was also feeding and driving the flames faster. A sense of urgency drove Jim s heels into
Crusader s sides, making the horse race faster. He had to hurry, had to help.
Ned Hildebrandt had been put in charge of tethering and guarding everyone s horses.
The boy had them pegged to the ground out of range of the workers, but it wasn t far
enough from the growing fire to please the beasts. Their nostrils flared and they pulled
against their picket lines, anxious to run from the smell of smoke.
Jim leaped to the ground and tossed Crusader s reins to Ned. He grabbed a shovel
from the wagon and joined the line of men breaking sod and churning up earth so there
would be no more grass to burn. He pressed his foot against the spade head, digging into
the rock-hard soil, and turned a shovelful. The grass was as dry as straw after a rainless
month, and the wildfire swept over the prairie as quickly as the wind could drive it. There
was no doubt in Jim s mind that the flames would easily leap the narrow trench they were
digging. But on the far side of the ditch, Nathan Scott orchestrated the setting of smaller
fires that would scorch the grass between the trench and the wildfire. This controlled burn
might be able to provide the buffer needed to shield the town.
The thick smoke hanging in the air filled his lungs when he inhaled, and made him
cough. He tied a bandana around his mouth, then resumed shoveling.
Jim s shoulders began to ache as he broke yard after yard of turf. When his digging
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