singed hair. The sudden jolt shocked the cow, shoved it forward just enough for her mother to unclasp the hook. Ada leapt out of the stall as the wild creature hied for the door.
As they moved to release Seven, another timber fell from above. It just missed Ada and Kate but hit Seven squarely on her spine. The cow crumpled and roared. The heavy beam crushed Seven’s back, broke her so she lay at an odd angle. She could only move her neck. The cow swung her head back with that white “7” emblazoned on her forehead, a birthmark—a good luck sign, they had thought at her birth. Kate ran to the cow.
“NO!” Ada yelled, but her mother knelt by the animal. The chain glowed orange and bright, and without hesitating, Kate grabbed the hot metal and released this last cow.
Ada hurried to her side. “Mama, come on!” She pulled her arm and together they ran away from Seven’s shrill bellows. In the barnyard, they leaned against the water trough and breathed clean air. All the other cows huddled wild-eyed in the far corner.
Ada cupped her hands and poured water over her face. Her mother just stood, watching the fire. A red welt rose on her forehead, and her eyebrows were singed and gone. Ada glimpsed her mother’s hands—black and raw and oozing. That last chain had burned into her palms.
Her mother didn’t notice. She ran past Ada and shouted, “Open all the doors.” She disappeared through the smoke to release the chickens and heifers in the next barn.
Ada moved through the herd to the hog pen, where she slid open the chute. The pigs squealed with fright when she yelled, “Out, get out!” They grunted and circled and refused to leave the darkness of their little house. She waded into their pen to drive them out through the square of light.
Hunkering through the chute, Ada followed the last pig into the barnyard, where they cowered in a far corner. The fire was still too close, the animals too panicked. She shouldered her way through the Holsteins to the far side of the lot and opened the gate to the meadow. The older cows led, trotting through the gap and away from the heat. When the barnyard emptied, Ada closed the gate and looked back. Cinders blew into her face and hot wind licked her whole body. “Where are you, Mama?” she whispered, searching the other buildings. Finally, her mother’s head of brown hair bobbed from behind the wagon shed as she shooed the hens far into the alfalfa field.
Ada turned to watch the barn. The bottom floor brightened so she had to squint and hold her arm up to shade her eyes. Flames pressed against the windows and flicked through slats. Above, in the loft, smoke and flames pushed through the wooden siding. The barn and hay, the grain and tools and equipment, all of it was lost.
She ran to help her mother. From deep in the barn, Seven’s sharp call pierced the fire’s drum and clatter.
2
By the time the first men and their fire trucks arrived, the tin on the barn roof curled and flapped in the heat. Firelight reflected off their helmets as they rushed around the trucks, connecting hoses, opening valves, heavy boots slogging through mud. Three men charged forward with the long snake of hose, and the lead one opened the valve to release a heavy stream of water. Another fire company arrived, and soon a second team joined the first. But the tanks quickly ran dry, and heat forced the men to seek shelter behind a truck. The temperature became so intense the first crew had to move its engine back another fifty feet.
A half-hour later, two more fire companies turned into the lane. As soon as they saw the fire, the men turned off the sirens. The barn was lost, they knew, and all they could do was protect the other buildings.
Neighbors came and asked how it started or where Peter was. The older men saw calves and chickens in the alfalfa where Kate had driven them, and they sent boys out to check on these animals. Later, these neighbors would fashion a pen in the tractor shed, but now they simply leaned against their pickups and watched the blaze. Mostly they stayed silent, or they talked in low voices about the animals. They could see the milkers down in the meadow, the raw sores where a few were burned. They wondered if they’d have to be put down, or if Ada or Mark Hoover could heal them. They knew Ada and Mark could take out fire by using Bible verses and old chants for healing burns. But sometimes the burns were too severe. And not everyone believed.
Others joined the watchers—women and children, relatives and friends. They heard the sirens or saw the smoke from five miles away. When new people arrived, they greeted each other, their bodies already turning toward the fire. The women touched their faces or pulled their children close. The men spat and swore under their breath. All of them grew silent in their watching.
Light from the fire made their faces glow, and as day fell away to darkness, firelight cast strange shadows among them. Even when the watchers stilled, their shadows shifted and moved, twisting away from the smoke and blaze and the fire trucks’ revolving lights. Night’s cool air touched their backs, and women drew collars tight against their chins. The men shifted, glanced at each other, and watched another fire truck pull in. For a moment, their shadows disappeared in the truck’s headlights. Their eyes followed the firemen as they ran new lines, stumbling in their heavy gear to open valves, the water disappearing into the fire.
As the watchers stood in the shadows, they considered how much they could spare to give to the Franklins to help them through the coming year. The entire world of this one place—all its animals and people and plants—everything passed through this building’s doors. The barn was a bank of hay and wheat, corn and oats, now all gone.
But mostly, the watchers considered their own luck, their own good fortune. The women whispered quiet prayers. In their pockets, the men touched a buckeye, fingering the smooth nut, wearing away its ridges.
Like a mighty, anchored ship, the barn slowly sank. First the roof fell, then the sides, each collapse creating a shower of sparks hurling upward into the night. One side leaned and fell outward, and the men rushed away to return with their hoses to douse the blackened boards. Each collapse exposed the bones and ribs of the barn, mortised posts and beams all pegged together more than a hundred years ago. Those beams charred and ignited also, and soon they became wicks for this immense and hungry fire.
3
For a few minutes, Ada and her mother stood in silence behind the fire trucks. The men all looked tiny before the tower of flames, and they all looked the same in their heavy coats and shiny hats. Yet Ada knew one of them was Jesse. She just couldn’t tell which one. Jesse with his thick mustache and broad shoulders. Jesse who almost got her to say yes. Jesse who had other women saying yes.
The wind picked up and the inferno thundered. Sparks ascended to fall over them as ash. When one of the barn walls crashed to the ground, Ada flinched. Her mother stared straight into the blaze, a blankness on her face Ada couldn’t read.
From down the road another siren approached, this time an ambulance. Mid Kelso, their neighbor, worked her way through the people. Ada guessed she had made the call to the fire station.
“You OK?” Mid asked when she reached them.
Kate only nodded, her arms folded in front of her.
“Mama’s hands are burned,” Ada said. “Come on, Mama. We can’t do any more, and I need to look at your hands.” Mid gently turned her away from the roar and heat and shouts of men. As the women passed through the crowd, hands reached out to touch them, fingers lingering on their shoulders.
Ada glanced back and saw the medics with their bags, searching for anyone injured. She didn’t want their help, not yet.
In
