I grabbed the shash, and we slammed it open.
Outside, the courthouse green was in a state of bedlam. Tanker trucks from all over the county roared down the roads around the square. Firefighters ran toward the building while pulling on their turnouts.
People clustered around the bandstand. A bevy of debutantes clung to the back railing, trying to avoid Sheriff Hoyt as he was slapping the cuffs on G.D. Landis, who was seated in his wheelchair, screaming for his son.
“Up here!” I yelled. “Mayday! Mayday!”
“Boone-san!” Luigi ran toward the window. “The building is on fire!”
“I know that!” Smoke poured past me and out the open window. “We’re trapped! We need a ladder truck!”
“No time!” Cedar yelled. “The fire’s at our backs!”
The ladder truck was bulky and long. The trees, buses, and hundreds of chairs on the green would slow it down too much.
“Boone!” Abner yelled. “Stay there! They’re bringing a trampoline.”
A trampoline.
They wanted us to jump.
From a two story window.
“I don’t think I can do that, Boone!” Cedar yelled.
“Me, neither!”
“I have acrophobia!” she shouted.
“Me, too! Let’s take our chances with the fire!”
“I’m serious!”
“Me, too!”
Down below, the firefighters gathered. They stretched the trampoline ring out. Lamar was barking orders to the others, and I saw that the whole Allegheny squad had taken hold of the ring.
“Let’s go!” I yelled. “It’s now or never!”
Cedar looked down and froze.
She couldn’t move.
I pushed her off the windowsill.
As she fell, Cedar screamed, “You asshole!”
Her butt hit the center of the ring, and the trampoline collapsed inside, wrapping her safely like a cocoon.
“Your turn!” Lamar called up to me.
“I’m good!”
“Boone Childress,” Cedar yelled as they reset the trampoline for another go. “Jump down here this instant!”
I licked my lips nervously. They were chapped.
I had to jump.
No two ways about it.
I lifted a foot, bent my knees, and told myself to go.
My feet stayed stuck to the sill.
Behind the door, the receptionist’s counter exploded. The door flew open, and the super heated air rushed toward me. The force of the blast blew me off balance.
And out of the window.
I screamed like a little girl and landed in the trampoline with a huge humph of air.
At first, I saw only stars.
Then Cedar was leaning over me, smiling. The sky was a deep, rich blue, the color of a wide-open sea.
It felt like home.
Cedar cradled my head in her arms. “I love you, you big idiot.”
“I love you, too,” I said and pulled her onto to the trampoline as our lips met.
“Next time we're caught in a fire,” she said. “You better not push me.”
"Next time we're caught in a fire," I said. "Don't take so long to jump."
EPILOGUE
By the end of May, there was little evidence that the farm where Athena and Troy Blevins grew up ever existed. A bulldozer had swept away the bones of the fire that had destroyed it, along with shell of the heating oil tank that had been buried beneath it.
It was above that tank that Peter Mercer had placed a pot of thermite and then ignited it with a delay fuse like the one he had stuck into Cedar’s hands. The fuse lit the thermite, and the thermite burned white-hot straight into the tank, where it ignited a decade’s worth of sludge and leftover oil. The explosion unearthed the remains of Athena and Troy’s Great Aunt Ellen, who was buried closest to the house.
Now, the aunt was being re-interred, along with the rest of the bodies that had been removed by Stuart and Early. The man paying for the work was Trey Landis, who had donated the site to the Allegheny County Historical Society as an apology for the trouble his father had caused.
“Trouble he caused?” I asked Cedar.
We stood in the shade of live oak watching a crew of graduate students from Carolina Tech processing each set of remains.
“That’s how he’s phrasing it in the paper,” Cedar said. “Damage control.”
“Trouble is a pleasant euphemism for all the crap Landis did.”
The process had taken a day a half so far, and Abner expected at least two more days. Yesterday, Dr. K and Mr. Blevins had been on hand, along with Allegheny VFW and my family. A preacher had blessed the work before they started, and he would return later to bless the graves once the work was finished. Mr. Blevins had left right away. Dr. K had stayed most of the day, but when it came time to identify her own family, she was overcome and had to depart.
Together, we walked over to a tent that had been set up as a break area. There were four colors filled with ice and drinks and another loaded with snacks. Two platters of cookies were stacked on one of the folding tables, still covered in plastic wrap. Barefoot Bennie’s catered in breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Except for the cookies.
I made those.
“The headstones came in this morning,” I said as I grabbed a beer for myself.
“I saw them. They look nice.” Cedar pressed the icy bottle on the back of her neck. She was wearing a bikini top and shorts, and I watched a stream of condensation roll down the full length of her sun-kissed spine. “Did you try your cookies yet?”
“I’m afraid to.”
“How will you know if they’re edible?” she asked.
“I could feed them to the graduate students.”
“That bunch of vultures?” Cedar sat on the table. “They think Barefoot Bennie’s is fine dining.”
I laughed.
But I didn’t try the cookies.
A lot had changed. Stumpy Meeks was still living in a trailer, but it was on Dr. K’s property, and he was getting treatment for diabetes. The county courthouse was undergoing repairs for the fire and water damage. The preservation efforts were being led by Mrs. Yarbrough, who wanted the building renovated, not just fixed. She would probably get her way. Lamar had let me back on the Allegheny VFD, and after two calls, I hadn’t been kicked off. G.D. Landis and Pete Mercer were locked away.
“Wish your mom could see this,” Cedar said.
“She was out here yesterday with Lamar. They’re coming back this evening when Mom gets off work. It’s probably better if she doesn’t hang around. Abner gets kind of squirrely when she starts butting in.”
“Heard anything more about old man Landis?”
“Nothing that’s not in the paper.”
Because the arrest of G.D. Landis took place in front of roughly half the town of Galax, it took only nanoseconds for the rest of the county to find out about it. By the time he was booked and processed through the Allegheny County jail, there was an old-fashioned mob outside the jailhouse. There was also a team of attorneys from Raleigh, the advance guard for a group that would soon include over a dozen high-powered and high-priced lawyers.
G.D. spent almost no time in jail. A judge who was presiding at the festival convened a special session in the courthouse annex as the volunteer firefighters knocked down the fire and were using foam on the Class D metals fire. He set Landis’ bond at two million dollars, and the old man was free. Free until Trey had him committed to a hospital in Raleigh for psychiatric treatment. Conventional wisdom said that he would die before the case ever came to trial.
For his part, Trey claimed no knowledge of his father’s arson for hire spree, and he had no idea that Autumn Hills was being created as a white man’s utopia. He cancelled the project and started trying to clean up the mess. Last I heard, he had sold his home and was moving to New York to pursue a career in art.
Pete Mercer wasn’t so lucky. After his arrest, he was housed in the drunk tank, which had not been cleaned since the last two occupants. He was being held without bond for murder, arson, kidnapping, assault, and lying on my employment application. A public defender had been appointed for him, but Mercer fired him and demanded to act as his own attorney. His trial was months away still, and no one expected him to go quietly.