Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

“Is she all right?” he asked. “Vhat happened?”

“She caught her skirt on fire, but I think I got it out before she was badly burned.” His arms tightened around her possessively. “I’m going to carry her over to the wagons where the women can see to her.”

“I vill take her.” Stefan insisted it was his right.

“I’ve got her.” Webb stood up, refusing to relinquish her and leaving Stefan with little choice except to agree. Lilli seemed oblivious to both of them, not caring whose arms were around her.

Webb strode to the wagons, with Stefan staying right beside him every step of the way. His mother and several other women hurried forward as soon as they saw him carrying someone in his arms. Ruth was one of the few who hung back.

“Is she hurt?” his mother asked. Immediately she suggested, “You can put her in the back of the wagon.”

Someone lowered the endgate so Webb could set her down inside. “I think she’s more frightened than anything else,” he explained as he surrendered her to his mother’s care. “Her skirt caught on fire. There might be some minor burns on her legs.”

“The poor dear, she’s fainted,” his mother murmured, cradling Lilli’s head on her lap. “Someone bring me a wet cloth.” Webb stepped back and Stefan immediately took his place. “Are you related to her?” his mother asked as Stefan’s trembling hand touched the unconscious woman’s shoulder.

“Lillian is my vife,” he acknowledged. “She vill be all right?”

“I’m sure she will,” Lorna assured him and shot a confused glance at Webb, as if questioning why he had carried the girl here instead of letting her husband bring her.

He pivoted away, a nerve leaping along his cheek. He looked right past Ruth, not even seeing her, as he started back to the fireline. They had contained the flames and kept them from breaking through to the wagons. But it wouldn’t be over until the last ember was out.

Lilli stirred, a panic surfacing, but there was still a glazed quality to her eyes when she opened them. “The fire . . . smoke . . .”

“It’s all right, liebchen,” Stefan murmured, patting her hand.

“Stefan?” She turned her head toward the sound of his voice.

“I am here,” he assured her, and she drifted back into that unconscious world. His sad eyes lifted to the woman holding the wet cloth to Lillian’s forehead. “It is the fire she fears. Vhen she vas small, it burned the building next to vhere she lived. There vere people trapped inside. Her mind cannot forget it.”

“I understand,” Lorna murmured and guessed it was one of the many bonds that held the older man and this young girl together despite their vast age differences. She wondered if Webb understood how strong such bonds could be. She had seen the look in his eyes when he’d carried the girl in, and her heart went out to him.

There was no leaving until the fire was completely out. All prairie people knew how an apparently dead fire could smolder and break out anew. So they walked along the dead ashes, looking for hot spots in the sun’s gloaming. The fire had taken part of the wheatfield, but more than half was undamaged.

A small group of homesteaders had ventured across the burnt ground to inspect the few charred timbers of wood still standing as skeletal evidence that a crude house once stood there. One of the group was the owner. He’d had so little to lose, but it was gone. All he and his family had left were the clothes on their backs, their wagon and horse team, and half of a wheatfield.

“Nothing- There is nothing,” he murmured brokenly. Even the plow had been damaged by the fire. In the center of the burned-out shell, there was the charred metal of a broken lantern.

“It vas the vill of God,” another offered.

“No God did this,” Franz Kreuger declared. “Do you think this fire just happened? Someone started it.”

“Vhy do you say this?” Stefan frowned.

“Because it is true.” But Franz didn’t offer any proof. “They threatened us. Now they burn our homes.”

“You think the ranchers did this?” the owner questioned in disbelief. “But they came. They helped put the fire out.”

“So it would not burn their land, only your house and your wheat,” Franz pointed out. “They are probably sorry only that your entire field did not burn.”

“We must tell the sheriff,” Stefan proposed as the next logical step. The others nodded agreement.

“All of us, we will go tell him together,” Franz stated, but the dark cynicism in his gleaming eyes showed his skepticism that it would do any good. In his experience, the little man only got help from others of like circumstance. “Tomorrow we will all come to help build a new house for you.”

“I cannot come.” Stefan spoke in silent apology. “I must look after my vife.”

The homesteader Sokoloff nodded his understanding and offered, “I regret she was hurt.”

“We are lucky no one else was.” Franz Kreuger gave them all a look that seemed to warn that one of them might be next. He had believed in the plottings of the powerful too long not to see it here.