No. It could not be too late. Clint yelled, “McGraw!” once, then louder, jabbing the horse with frantic boot heels. “McGraw!” Some survival instinct took over from there, turning his voice to one of conspiratorial indifference even as his insides were going off like cannons at the thought of Katrine trapped in the smoke. Even as he watched embers float lazily from the shed to settle and ignite on the homestead roof. “McGraw, it’s Thornton. Hold on there!”
Finally he was close enough to see McGraw’s face as he handed his torch to another man and peered in Clint’s direction. “Thornton?”
Clint kept at full gallop the last few feet into the homestead yard, even as the fire began lapping up the structure’s roof. “There’s men behind me,” he panted, hoping his breathlessness would come off as strain, not fear. “Just up over the ridge. Go.” He pulled on the reins as his horse made uneasy circles, spooked by the growing fire. “Get yourselves gone. I’ll cover. I’ll say the place was burning when I came up on it.”
He needed them to believe he was on their side if his plan to infiltrate the Black Four gang would ever work. But he also needed them to leave so he could save Katrine. McGraw, evidently one to see a job done, didn’t seem too eager to be gone. Clint’s heartbeat pounded ice against the heat now flushing his face. The ice threatened to swallow him altogether when he heard the sound of a bang from inside. It did swallow him when he saw the plank the soldiers had nailed across the homestead door.
“Get on out of here,” he insisted as hard as he dared. “I’ve reason to be here, you don’t. I’ll cover for you but it won’t do one lick of good in five minutes if you’re not gone.”
“He’s right,” Bryson Reeves, another of McGraw’s cronies, said as he tossed his torch into the little set of rosebushes Katrine had optimistically planted along the east wall. Clint felt them burning as if the flames nipped at his own throat. “Let’s get gone, Sam.”
Clint flung himself down off his horse with what he hoped looked like indifference. Every inch between him and that barred front door yawned long and deadly. He gestured over the ridge he’d just rushed down. “Land sakes, McGraw, are you waitin’ for an invitation? Go!”
McGraw considered for an excruciating moment, Clint’s throat turning to knots as he heard yet another sound from within. The Brinkerhoff homestead held no windows, no way out but the door barred behind him. He thought he heard a cough and imagined Katrine sinking to the floor, her pale hands clasping at her throat. He felt the heat of the flames prickle the back of his neck. The urge to rush over there and physically push McGraw off toward the river nearly overpowered him. He heard a small, insistent thud from the side of the house away from the men and for a terrible moment imagined he was hearing Katrine’s body hit the wall.
Then he remembered the logs. The loose two logs on the far side of the house, the ones Katrine was always complaining let the wind in to chill the room. He heard more thuds and realized she was trying to kick them out. Kick, he pleaded to her silently as his hands fisted in frustration. Keep kicking.
“I’m handin’ you a gift here, McGraw. Are you too dumb to take it? You’ve got four minutes, maybe five afore those men behind me catch up and see you standin’ here with torches while this shack burns.”
“Fine!” McGraw pronounced after what felt like a year, turning his horse and waving his henchmen to ride off.
Clint forced himself to stand and watch, shoving his weight back on one hip as if the burning house was just another prairie brushfire. The kicking behind him had slowed and stopped, halting his blood right along with it. Just twenty more feet. That’s all he needed.
Because God have mercy on him if he had to watch one more person die...
* * *
It was as if the walls of the tiny cabin had come alive, creeping toward her like prowling animals. Katrine’s eyes stung, far more from the smoke over her head than from the tears wetting her cheeks. The smoke made it impossible to shout, so she’d tried the door, but it would not open. She’d heard voices—there were men outside, but they did not open the door. They were not here to save her. The Black Four had struck again, had come to burn down the house to push her off her land. Her brother, Lars, had worried the terrible gang might someday stoop to killing, but she never imagined they would begin with her. I’m not ready for Heaven, she begged God, even though she knew He would welcome her. I’m not brave enough to die. Not like this, not trapped. Not alone.
Not yet. Turning in frantic circles, Katrine scanned the four stalking walls, searching for any help. It was so hard to see, so awful to breathe. My Lord, my protector, save me. She pulled in another scorching breath, seeing the edges of her vision curl in and grow dark. How could even the Black Four bear to stand out there and watch a soul burn to death?
Stumbling to the table more by feel than by sight, Katrine found a dishcloth, then the Mason jar that still held black-eyed Susans from the supper table she’d set. The supper Lars had not come home to eat. She pulled the flowers from the jar and stuffed the dishcloth inside, the water feeling cool against the growing heat of the room.
For a stunned moment Katrine wondered why she could suddenly see, why the room glowed orange. Then, pressing the blissfully cool cloth over her nose and mouth, she peered up just in time to see a flaming chunk of the roof fall with a hollow whoosh and settle on Lars’s bed.
Had they found Lars first? Was he already dead? Katrine’s heart froze at the thought that her brother, who’d saved her from how many dangers since they’d come to America, might no longer be alive to save her now. No, he must be alive, she declared silently. He must live and make a future for himself in this new town, maybe a family... Her thoughts were coming in tangles now and her eyes stung so badly. Where was Lars? He’d know what to do. He’d built this cabin for the two of them; he’d know how to keep it from being their tomb. Think, Katrine, try to think.
The beams overhead gave a dreadful groan and Katrine backed away from the noise, grabbing the jar of water as she did. She stuffed the dishcloth into the water again, but its paltry contents didn’t help much against the smoke and heat now filling the room. Why, why hadn’t she fought harder with Lars to make windows? He said they would only let in the cold, but the drafty corner did that already.
The drafty corner. The pair of loose logs on the corner of the house. Oh, how she’d cursed those cracks, how they seemed to welcome the flies and dust into the room. Lars had not yet fixed them; they still wiggled when a boot kicked them hard enough. Katrine crouched down and crawled over to the corner, not caring how the split-log floor snagged on her nightshift or scraped against her knees. Behind her, gold light burst out into the room, and Katrine turned to see Lars’s coverlet consumed in flames. It gave her just enough light to find the logs and shift around to start kicking.
Her shifting knocked over a chair, but she merely pushed it aside and continued to slam her bare feet against the loose wood. It shifted, but not enough. “Flytte!” she yelled, commanding the logs to give way in her native Danish as she kicked them again. Behind her the fire’s crackle and growl seemed to come closer. Katrine moved up and began kicking with both feet, not caring about the growing pain on her heels—what would that matter in a few minutes as she lay gasping? The air seemed to race away from her, stealing the breath she needed to keep kicking. She could feel her efforts growing weaker, feel how the smoke robbed her strength.
Keep kicking. Her leg wobbled as she forced it against the log, and somewhere through the thickness of her mind she heard a voice. She thought she heard crumbling, imagined the log was pulling itself from the cabin, coming to life to save hers.
“Katrine!”
She couldn’t actually say whether the voice was real or imagined. Everything was spinning into a black hole in her mind, like water draining through the bottom of a barrel.
The