"We are truly like trees," he said. "As their bark thickens and they grow taller, wider, so do we."
I suppose it was his way of telling me not to be afraid of life, but to profit from it, to always be a student, to never turn my back on anything. One of the first things he had told us when we had first arrived was "I know you are not
happy. But you must remember that life's sorrows often bring great joys." With that attitude, he would never be depressed, never be sad very long. It made him as strong as the tree trunk he sometimes resembled.
It's no exaggeration to say that sometimes a series of events or even a single event would make you feel as if you had passed through a lifetime. That night was one of those times. It seemed to last forever, and for a while it was as if nothing had come before and nothing could come after.
I woke with a start. My cheek felt like a cold hand had been on it, a very cold hand, the hand of death itself. I listened and thought I was still sleeping, dreaming, because what I heard seemed so far off, seemed like something corning from deep down inside me, a voice echoing up from a well or out of a tunnel, a long, thin cry.
I sat up.
The stars were blazing, but there was more light than usual and it wasn't from what Natani called "the pregnant moon." I scrubbed my cheeks with my palms and swung myself around. Gia's cot was empty.
Curious and also confused now. I slipped on my coveralls, shoved my arms through my shirt, and put on my clodhoppers. I stood up and looked at Robin and Teal, who were both asleep, their backs to me.
The scream I had heard in my dream grew louder and became a chorus.
"Robin!" I cried. "Robin, Teal."
Robin turned and groaned. Teal did not wake up. "Whaaa?" Robin groaned.
"Listen, What is that? Listen."
She ground her eyes with her fists as if she heard through them and then sat up slowly,
"What do you think that is?"
"I don't know," she said.
I went to Teal's cot and poked her in the shoulder. She spun around angrily and looked up at me.
"What do you want? It's not morning already, is it?"
"Listen," I said.
"What?"
Robin was getting dressed, too. "Shut up and listen," she ordered.
Teal sat up, groaning. Then her eyes widened. "What is it?"
"We don't know. Came on," I said. "Get dressed."
Reluctantly, she did and the three of us went to the door. I hesitated. The screaming was louder now, much louder. I opened the door and it looked as if the whole world was on fire. The blaze that came from our right had flames that seemed to be scorching the very stars. The three of us stepped out, astounded, our faces caught in a ghoulish yellow glow.
Natani and his nephew were rushing about.
The hacienda was consumed in flames. The screaming we heard came from the rear.
"Someone's trapped." I said, and we hurried across the yard and toward the rear of the house. When we got there, we stared up in shock.
The slanted roof upon which we had climbed to spy on the buddies was streaked with flames. Part of the center of it had fallen in. In the windows we could see the buddies, all three of them looking out at us, their faces so illuminated by the flames that licked and traveled along the edges of the main house that they looked as if the fire was already burning within them, making them glow like lightbulbs.
The front of the hacienda was consumed in even bigger flames so that the fire had sandwiched them inside the house. M'Lady Three tried to step out of the window, but the roof in front of her became a bed of fire almost the same instant. The fire seemed truly to counter every move they made, every idea they had far escaping.
Behind us. Natani and his nephew were struggling to get a ladder up against one yet-to-beconsumed section of the roof. We watched as Natani's nephew climbed up the ladder as quickly as he could, smacking at the flames with a wet sack to see if he could make a pathway far the buddies.
We could see the fire inside the house eating away the walls behind them. M'Lady Two, stepped out of the window and turned toward Natani's nephew, who was now at the top of the ladder, beating at the flames. She lifted her left arm protectively and edged forward in his direction, but the roof, weakening all around that window, gave way and in the same instant we saw her fall into the belly of the fire. She went down without a sound. It was a sight so unreal. I had to convince myself I wasn't still asleep on my cot in the barn.