Mim pulled the child away from the case. She had a comment planned, like the first line of a play. “Some weather for December,” she managed. “Can’t complain about this.” She moved shakily to the milk cabinet and took out a gallon in a glass bottle. Pulvers Dairy. Maybe milk from her own cows. She put the bottle on the worn pine counter.
“That be all?” Fanny asked.
“No. I’ll be needin’ some flour,” Mim said.
“Takin’ a trip?” Fanny asked, nodding at the roof over the truck.
“Just considerin’,” Mim said.
“Hard to say about the weather,” Fanny said, writing down $1.41 for the milk on the back of a paper bag. “A good snow’d put an end to them fires.”
Mim picked up a bag and found it was sugar instead of flour. She stooped to put it back.
“If you want to put an end to them,” Fanny said.
Mim turned, frowning. “Fires?” she repeated, feeling the heaviness of her motions, sensing she had answered too slowly, wondering if she had already given John away.
“Ayyup,” Fanny said. “Some year for accidents, this one. Most beyond belief.”
“You say you had a fire?” Mim asked, standing at the counter holding out three crumpled dollar bills. Hildie was whining and pulling on her hand, trying to drag her toward the candy case.
“You mean you ain’t heard?” Fanny said.
Mim shook her head.
“Well, don’t know how you would, all alone up there. Guess you ain’t got no phone these days?”
Mim shook her head again.
“You stop that now, Hildie,” Fanny said, handing the child a Mars bar with a greasy wrapper. “These here are gettin’ kinda old. Now no more fussin’, hear?” She turned to Mim and took the money. “Comes of bein’ the only child. You always spare the rod when you got only the one. You put too high a value on them.”
“What about the fire?” Mim asked softlv.
✓
“Up to Gore’s.”
“Gore’s!”
“Yep. Funny thing. House burned to the ground. But that old barn ain’t touched. Got a charmed life, that barn of Toby’s.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Hard to say at first.”
Mim took the change without counting it to see whether Fanny had charged her for the candy bar. She stared at Fanny.
Fanny chuckled. “They thought Bob was cooked, ’cause he weren’t nowhere to be found. Then they took note that that spiffy new truck with the sirene was gone too. And they found the old man in the barn. He just took a blanket and moved right in. His everlastin’ cows. All he ever cared about, his cows. That barn’s goin’ to collapse on him, first big snow. You wait.”
Mim tried to think of something to say. “He’s gettin’ on the old side to be livin’ all alone,” she said.
Fanny shrugged. “You don’t figure Bobby’ll be that eager to come back? Guess the old man’s goin’ to fall on the town after all. Nineteen kids and not a one worth a plugged nickel.”
Mim smiled uneasily.
“Or maybe that auctioneer there’ll do for him. Ought to, you ask me.
Trying to sort out the pieces, to think how John’s fire could have burned down Gore’s place, Mim stood at the counter holding her bag of flour, and let the silence stretch too far. “I guess so,” she murmured. “Tough luck.”
Fanny shoved the brown paper bag with the milk and flour across the counter toward Mim with a sharp look. “Breaks your heart, don’t it, dearie,” she said.
Mim’s heart somersaulted. She took the bag in one arm and crowded Hildie toward the door with the other.
“There’s a firebug loose, all right,” Fanny added. “Tried to set the whole Parade alight the night before.”
Mim looked back. “What?” she said.
“You heard me. Take a look up yonder past Mudgett’s. You mean that’s not what you was lookin’ at, sittin’ in the truck afore you come in?”
Mim threw another look over her shoulder at Fanny, unable to answer. Outside, she stood by the gas pump openly squinting once again at the charred spikes of trees clinging to the hill beyond Mudgett’s.
That night after Hildie was in bed, Mim sat at the table turning and turning a mug of birch tea. “We’ve got to go now,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Thursday.”
“All my life, livin’ near forests, I never saw a forest fire,” John said. “Remember the fires in Bar Harbor? The 4H was ever after us about fire, like they figured we’d be trippin’ over fires every load of wood we cut.” He had his knife out and the bark peeled off a new maple stick, but he was stabbing at the table, leaving a circle of small raw marks. “A forest fire. I figured a forest fire ate up houses like kindlin’ sticks. I figured a forest fire went—”
“John!” Mim cried. “Tomorrow’s Thursday. At the very least, they’ll be comin’ after the truck. Will you set your mind to that?” John looked at her absently and went on talking. “They got no dogs at Gore’s these days. No dogs to warn them...”
Lassie, thinking she was summoned, struggled to her feet and waddled to the table wagging her tail. John ignored her.
“John,” Mim asked suddenly, lowering her voice and leaning closer to him. “Was it you set that one too?”
“What a question, Miriam,” Ma snapped. “Wasn’t you up there sleepin’ with him the whole night through?”
“But, John,” Mim cried, “if they figure out you set the one, they’ll lay the blame on you for Gore’s as well. They’re like to come for you tomorrow, let alone the truck.”
John got up, paced to the door and looked out into the darkness. “I didn’t set but one fire, and that one fizzled,” he said. “But, could be I set a good idea goin’. There’s plenty have the same reason’s us to want trouble for Gore.”
“Sit down, for the love of God,” Mim cried, springing up herself, then sitting down again. “You make a perfect target there.” She pressed her palms to her eyes. “I wish we had some shades.”
“Well, for myself, I’d rather burn up in my bed than be turned out like a tramp,” Ma said.
“We plan to take your bed, Ma,” Mim said, “or at least the cushions. John, why can’t we go? Now. Tonight.”
But John wasn’t listening. His eyes were bright. He was carving away at the kindling now.
“John!” Mim cried. “Lord sake. You’re actin’ both of you like you lost your wits. Tomorrow they’ll take the truck for sure. And then we will be stuck. Stuck! And you keep settin’ like we had a world of time to kill.”
John threw his knife on the table and stood up again. “We go and he’ll say, ‘Look, the Moores are runnin’. Must be them.’ Perly don’t give a damn who done it really. All he needs is a body to crucify.”
“But if we go...” Mim started.
“How far do you reckon we’d get with the truck lookin’ the way it looks? Lucky to make it to Powlton.”
“If he’s goin’ to crucify a Moore,” Ma said, “I’d sooner he found us at home than runnin’ like so many hippies.”
Mim slammed down her cup so that the tea leaped out and spattered on the table. “What about Hildie?” she cried. “You just sit here and wait when you know sooner or later... It’s her they’ll come for.” She dropped her forehead on the table. “At least in the truck, we’d stand a chance.”
The wind blew hard all night, and John, listening as the hours passed, kept thinking he heard sirens and alarm bells, even the crackling of fire. Hildie, Mim, and Ma. He kept counting them over. He listened to Hildie’s labored mouth breathing and felt Mim’s warm foot resting against his knee as she slept. Ma, sleeping alone downstairs, made him uneasy. He wanted to bring her up into the little room with the rest of them so that he could count her life over too in the sound of her breath. He kept hearing cars in the dooryard, footsteps in the gravel, the sound of rifles being cocked. He remembered stories of people held prisoner in farmhouses—torture, rape, children tossed on bayonets. In the cities they shot people walking down the streets. In Vietnam they had shot whole villages.