“I spent three years in a ship’s rack,” I said. “A paddock is the Ritz in comparison!”

So I had dragged an old quilt and a too-fluffy pillow outside through the darkness to the guest room beside the tack room. I settled in, cold and frustrated, my head like a hornet’s nest of thoughts and theories. By the time my mind finally gave up, my body was beyond exhaustion, and I slept like the dead.

The stink of kerosene woke me.

Disoriented by the lack of sleep, I threw back the covers. The light coming through the gaps in the wall changed the color of my skin to the orange glow of sunset. I covered my eyes, but one look told me all I needed to know.

Fire!

I sat up straight in bed, gasped, and sucked in a lungful of scorching air before my training took over. I dropped back on the bed, then rolled to the floor.

On hands and knees I crawled to the door leading outside.

Smoke roiled up through a crack in the wall next to the paddock, where the horses whinnied in panic.

The horses!

I pulled open the door and scrambled outside. A burst of cool air hit my face, and I slammed the door to keep from feeding oxygen to room. In the first light of dawn I saw the paddocks nearby. The doors were still shut, the doors barred with two by fours.

I yanked them off and threw open the doors.

The appaloosa mare snorted and then broke. She raced away from the barn with her head down and made for pasture. Inside the other paddock, the gelding reared up, hoofs pawing the air in front of me.

“Out!” I yelled.

The gelding refused. It turned its wild eyes toward the smoke, which was pouring down from above.

“Come on! Out!”

I ran into the empty paddock. Grabbed a coiled lead rope from the wall. Reached over the planking that separated the stalls and swiped the gelding’s flank with the rope.

The horse bolted. Once it hit open air, it ran hell-bent for the mare.

There was no time for me to congratulate myself. After taking a quick look at the fire—it was burning in the loft above the paddock—I sprinted down the path to the house.

With one leap I was on the porch and through the kitchen door, happy for once that Lamar left the doors unlocked.

“Wake up!” My deep voice rang out. “Fire! The barn’s on fire!”

I snatched the phone from the wall. Punched 911. “Barn fire at Rivenbark house!”

“Boone!” Lamar came down the hall pulling on his boots. “Get in your turnouts! Mary Harriet, go outside and start the pump!”

“Got it!” Mom called from the bedroom.

“The horses are out,” I ran after him to the vehicles. “I turned them loose.”

 “I left the herd out to graze last night.” Lamar pulled his gear from his truck. “There’s a two inch hose in the fire shed. Soon as the pump’s running, we’ll lay down a fog spray. That’ll knock the fire down so we can haul the equipment out.”

“Got it.”

In full gear I ran to the fire shed, an outbuilding Lamar had built a decade earlier when lightning took out one of the old tobacco barns. I had always thought of it an another example of Lamar’s paranoia, but now that I was hooking the two-inch hose to a line that ran down to the pond, I was glad my stepfather was a man with foresight.

I ran toward the fire, the heavy canvas hose unrolling behind me.

“Pump’s on!” Mom called from the house.

I barely reached the barn before the hose charged. I twisted the nozzle to set up a fog spray.

Knock it down, knock it down, Lamar’s voice played in my head. Stay under the fire. Heat goes up. Everything that rises must converge. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What action, I wondered as I attacked the fire, had caused someone to react by trying to burn down our barn with me in it?

2

The Allegheny VFD was the first company to respond. Julia pulled up in her truck ahead of Otto, and the engine arrived five minutes later. Julia set up the pumper so Otto and Julia could give the remnants of the barn a good soaking before the next stations arrived.

I took the chance to get into full gear. Working with Lamar at my side, I used the hooligan and a fire axe to spread out the timbers so the water could reach them more easily. We took a break when the vollies from Galax and Atamasco arrived.

No sign of Eugene Loach and his goons.

Good. I didn’t want them on the property anyway. They were my number one suspects. Torching a man’s barn was a classic Southern gesture of intimidation, like burning switches.

It meant shut up or die.

The crew worked diligently until the morning sun rose. Dawn brought enough light to begin stowing the equipment, along with an eerie silence. The firefighters all seemed to conclude the same thing without talking about it: Some bastard had attacked one of their own with the very devil they devoted their lives to destroying.

When the last hoses were stowed and the pumper drained, Lamar called the firefighters together. They stood in a loose circle, facing him, helmets tucked under their arms or dangling loosely in their exhausted hands.

“I want to say thanks for your time and your hard—“ Lamar paused. He looked around until he spotted me sitting on the steps of the galley, my helmet still on and my face dusted with soot. “Boone, come on over here. Like I was saying, thanks for all y’all did for us here today. Mary Harriet and me owe you one.”

The vollies nodded and grunted.

Julia patted her belly. “You done talking, Cap? My gut says its time to eat.”

Lamar laughed, but his reply was cut short when blue lights hit the group.

Sheriff Hoyt drove his prowler through the maze of pickup trucks. He parked near the house and killed the lights. “Looks like you folks had some trouble.”

“Surprised to see you out this early,” Lamar said when they shook hands in greeting.

“Mary Harriet called.” Hoyt took a seat on the steps. “Y’all got any coffee? I like it with a dollop of cream and two spoons of sugar.”

Lamar leaned on the stair railing. “Boone, get the sheriff some coffee.”

“Yes, Captain,” I said curtly and shucked my turnouts by the door.

Inside, Mom was making pancakes and sausages. A pot of coffee was already perking.

“Hoyt ordered coffee,” I said.

“Cream’s in the fridge.”

I retrieved it. “He said you called him.”

“Don’t sound do judgy.” Mom sighed. “We’ll need a police report for the insurance company.”

I poured the coffee into two cups. Outside, Hoyt’s voice rose. The sheriff talked with his hands, and the hands were moving faster. Lamar was talking, too, his mandible jutting forward.

I knew that face.

The captain was angry.

“Lamar likes his black?” I asked.

“He does,” Mom flipped a stack of pancakes on a plate. “One cup will be enough.”

I doctored the coffee and took it outside. When I pushed the door open, Lamar and Hoyt stopped talking.

“Drink up.” I handed Hoyt the cup.

Hoyt thanked me, then asked, “Boone, exactly where we you when the barn caught fire?”

“In the sleeping area. Asleep.”

“How’d you know the barn was on fire?”

“Smoke. Heat. Smell of kerosene in the morning.”

“You got the horses out mighty fast.”

“A fire’s a great motivator.”

Hoyt blew on the coffee to cool it. “How about that Nagswood fire? You got there early.”

“It was engulfed when I arrived,” I said. “What are you accusing me of?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Hoyt said. “Now about this Tin City house. You got that call mighty fast, too.”

“I was in school dissecting a rat’s scrotum when the call came in. You saw me on the highway with Deputy Pete, and you got there before I did.”