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firebox door. Flames belched halfway to the ceiling.
"The water bucket!" he cried, and pointed. I picked it up and threw the contents into
the fire, which blossomed into a wide explosive ball before wilting back within the
confines of the stove.
Bledinoff rammed the door back into place, but the stove still resembled an
oversized tomato with a freight train rumbling inside its skin.
He grabbed the bucket from me and dashed outside. I dashed after in time to see
him scooping up snow.
"Go back in the cabin," he said, surprisingly calm now. "There is another bucket in
the kitchen. I will climb upon the roof and throw this down the chimney. You throw
the other bucket of water onto the stove."
As I raced toward the kitchen doorway, I heard a faint slither and scrabble on the
roof. The freight train thundered within the red-hot metal. I found the other water
bucket and ran back to the parlor, snatching open the door with a hand full of jacket
inadequate to prevent me from getting a good singeing.
Flame, steam, and soot hiccoughed with a giant whooshing whoop down the
chimney, which crumbled into fiery sections on the floor. I poured half of my water
into the stove and the other half on the still-burning pipe charring the floorboards.
Suffocating black smoke filled the air. Coughing, I fanned it away from me. From
within the stove, the choked flames sizzled themselves to death, hissing "crosssss"
and then "crussss-cifixsss" as it died.
Vasily Vladovitch, looking as if he was ready to put on a one-man minstrel show,
kicked the door shut behind him and set down the bucket.
"I'm so sorry about your house," I stammered. "I-I hope the furs can be cleaned and
the stove, once it cools off, shouldn't be too hard to repair "
"My very dear Miss Lovelace." Bledinoff clasped my hand in his, his voice throbbing
with some intense, unidentifiable emotion. His hands felt cold enough that I feared
he had been frostbitten. "Do not apologize. By no means must you apologize. If only
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you knew how thrilling it is to meet once more such a fiery woman."
"But the fire wasn't deliberate." He looked as if he did not believe me, and
furthermore did not want to. "It was an accident. Although actually " honesty
compelled me to admit with a sidelong glance at the moosehead, "I suppose it might
have been Papa."
Vasily Vladovitch had lost interest in pyromaniac super-naturals by that time. He
had me backed against the wall right under the caribou rack. His lids drooped
heavily over his magnetic brown eyes as they fastened on my person somewhere
south of my chin and north-northeast of the high brass-studded collar of the
policeman's uniform blouse. His hand cupped my cheek in an extremely familiar
fashion, slipping over my ear and down, until his fingers fished inside the collar.
Now, I do not customarily permit liberties to be taken. However, in this case I found
myself at a loss. His movements were not threatening, but seductive, as if he himself
were now mesmerized. Perhaps he drought I was, too, although actually I was trying
to think of what I might say to dissuade him. He had just helped me out of a terrible
predicament, he was my employer, and I had been responsible for the ruin of his
stove. Furthermore, he was an erudite man of highly sophisticated literary taste, not
to be dismissed like some crude ruffian. Then his fingers moved deftly over the top
brass buttons and I knew I had better say something, and fast.
"Oh, yes," I said, scooting sideways. "The uniform, of course. You'll want to return it
to the fort before its owner discovers it missing. Have you something else I could
wear? I hate to impose on you, but old overalls and a mack perhaps, until I can find
something suitable?" He edged closer to me as I fiddled with the buttons myself. My
little cross fell forward, its delicate chain tangling around the button.
He took a step backward and regarded me reproachfully. "I believe I told you to
throw that in the river."
"So you did, but I decided against it," I said. "It is all I have left of my mother's.
Besides, I'll want it if they catch me again and somehow I uh fail to clear myself."
I shivered both at the idea and because the room was rapidly growing truly cold,
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now that the fire was out and the stove pipe was little more than a large straw for
the room to suck in freezing air.
He took my hand in his again. "Please, my dear, do not fear. No matter what
happens. You will not be permitted to die. I give you my solemn promise on tins."
"It is so good of you to believe me," I said, shifting away from him again, pacing for
warmth. "But I haven't told you my theory yet about the Deadly Miasma
responsible for the sudden, fatal, and apparently, from the expression on the face of
the victims, highly euphoric disease that seems to be at large."
"Why, I know all about that, my dear lady. Believe me, the symptoms are extremely
familiar to me. It is a common disorder where I come from. It wreaked great havoc
in the Old Country. Let me deal with the policemen. You must not worry yourself.
You have higher things to contemplate. You must rest and regain your strength.
Poor dear," he breathed, closing on me again. "You are so tired, so cold. Your veins
pound blue there, beneath that creamy pallor of yours *
"Whose creamy pallor is it now, Vasily Vladovitch?" a familiar voice demanded
silkily from the doorway. "Can you not contain yourself for even one night?"
Bledinoff whirled around so fast that his opera cape tickled my nose. "Sasha, my
darling girl! You are well! You have found me!"
Sasha, wearing the wolfskin parka like a fine mink, slinked slowly over to Bledinoff.
Putting a hand on either side of his head, she shook his face gently. "Ah, yes, and
now that I have found you, my beloved Vasily Vladovitch, what am I to do with you,
eh? You'll frighten poor Vahlenteena carrying on like that, you know. She's not used
to our kind show people, I mean. My God, it's freezing in here! Vasily Vladovitch,
have you forgotten that those of us with warm blood in our veins have need of
proper heating?"
"A little accident, my darling " he said, and explained all that had passed between
us.
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