Assured that the danger was over, there was a general milling toward the wagons and buggies as smoky, soot-blackened families made tired motions to depart. Three drylanders had volunteered to stay on the place and keep watch through the night to be sure no fire flared to life. A half-dozen cowboys had ridden out to catch up the loose horses. Nate came back, leading Webb’s black gelding and two others.
“We never did get to see them fireworks they were gonna have in town.” There was a dry, dancing gleam in his eye as he passed the reins to Webb.
“I think most of us have had all the excitement we want for this Fourth of July,” Webb responded with a twisted smile and swung onto his horse. The purpling sky made indistinct silhouettes of tired figures straggling to wagons a short distance away. Only those close by were distinguishable. And Webb recognized Stefan Reisner carrying a blanket-wrapped figure to his wagon.
“Here come Shorty and Abe,” Nate announced, pulling on the reins to back his horse and join the pair. “You comin’?”
“In a minute,” Webb threw an absent glance at his friend and kneed his horse forward. When he reached the Reisner wagon, the whiskered man was in the seat, with Lilli huddled against his side. Webb strained to get a closer look at her in the fading light. She was conscious, but there was an unseeing quality about her eyes. “Is she all right?”
“She vill be fine.” The man steadily returned his look with a kind of challenge. “I vill take care of her.”
Webb’s mouth thinned out as he set the gelding on its haunches and pivoted it away from the wagon. As he rode over to rejoin Nate and the others, he looked back once. There was a hard knot in the pit of his stomach at the sight of a slim silhouette resting its head on the stooped shoulders of a second.
In a dull lethargy, Lilli watched Stefan as he approached the bed, carrying a small bowl of gruel and a spoon. At the last minute, she roused herself sufficiently to push into a sitting position. Stefan paused and pulled one of the new chairs he’d built closer to the bed, then sat down. Her blank eyes watched him dip the spoon into the bowl, but it was halfway to her mouth before she summoned a protest.
“I can feed myself, Stefan,” she said in a lifeless voice and lifted a limp hand to take the spoon from him.
“But this vay I know you vill eat everything.” He ignored her attemp
t and carried the spoonful of gruel to her lips.
It was bland and tasteless going down. Stefan was not the best of cooks, but he had fixed all the meals for the last two days. Lilli experienced a twinge of guilt at the way he had waited on her, not letting her lift a hand to do anything for herself. Physically there wasn’t anything wrong with her. The one or two little burns on her legs certainly didn’t incapacitate her. Yet she had been languishing in this bed ever since Stefan had brought her home that night, rarely talking, just lying there as if she were in some kind of trance. Through it all, Stefan had been kindness itself.
“Most husbands would be complaining because they were doing all the cooking and the housework.” She looked at Stefan. “You haven’t said a word.”
“Vhat is two days?” he reasoned with a gentle smile. “You do these things for me all the time. Now, for you, I do it.” He dipped the spoon again into the gruel. “Until you are better,” he added.
He hadn’t even asked what was wrong, Lilli realized and studied him again with marveling confusion. “It was the fire.” She felt he deserved an explanation.
“I know,” he said and pushed the tip of the spoon to her mouth. “Eat.”
A frown knitted little lines in her forehead as she obediently swallowed the smooth mixture. “I don’t mean the grass fire. It was just a part of it. It was the tenement next door burning when I was little.”
“You don’t need to speak of it,” Stefan assured her.
“I . . . think I want to.” It was a gradual realization, unsure what purpose it would serve. “The other night, I was wetting blankets and taking them to the men fighting the fire. I started to give someone the blanket I had in my hand when I saw those yellow flames suddenly leap up.” She looked sightlessly beyond Stefan, reliving the experience that had trapped her in a childhood nightmare. “The fire started coming closer, but I couldn’t move. I had to stay there like those people in the burning building. Then my skirt caught on fire and I was one of them.” Her chest tightened, the muscles contracting and not letting in any air. “And the smoke. I can still smell the smoke.”
“It’s over You are here—and unharmed,” he said firmly.
Her lungs relaxed, expelling a sigh of mixed relief. “Yes.” A wan smile curved her mouth. “And behaving like a female ninny over it.”
“It vas a frightening thing for you.” Stefan indicated that he didn’t regard her reaction to the incident as abnormal.
“I feel sorry for the Sokoloffs, losing everything they had.” She found she could think about someone other than herself. Maybe this dullness that had insulated her against feeling anything was finally wearing off. “It was a terrible thing to happen.”
“Terrible, yes.” Stefan nodded with grim insistence. “Ve are convinced the fire vas deliberately started. Ve have told the sheriff our suspicions.”
“Someone burned their home on purpose?” Lilli frowned at this statement. “But who would do that?”
“Kreuger says one of the ranchers sent his men to do it after he made sure all of us vere in town. It vas da perfect opportunity.”
“But why Mr. Sokoloffs house? What had he done?” She found it unbelievable that he would be singled out without reason.
“It vas a varning for all of us. Sokoloffs place vas close to town, so all of us vould see it.”
“Did Kreuger say who he thought was behind it?” The minute she asked the question, Lilli realized how insidious the man was. Like Stefan, she was beginning to accept anything Kreuger said, whether or not he could support it with fact.
“He says Calder vould think he is big enough to get avay vith such a thing. And his son left after he danced vith you.” Stefan seemed to watch her closely, and Lilli was careful not to appear to be avoiding his gaze. “Maybe he vas not the first one there. Maybe he vas there already.”