"I know, I know. I'm sorry." He controlled his voice and peeled off his coat, hung it on a peg with the others.
"You've been running," said Hannah Burns.
"Some. I knew I was late and it's cold out there."
"We were dreadful worried.—Here. Meg. Get Sam some hot tea and some stew from the pot, will you?"
There were other men eating too; and Merritt sat down at the side of the table nearest the crackling fire and nodded his thanks as Meg set dinner before him. Others went about their business. Meg settled at the bench beside him and leaned against the table.
"Sam, you just about had all the house looking for yon tonight"
"I'm sorry. I said I was sorry."
"You stay out so late—always. You're wearing yourself out I hate to see how tired you are."
He realized that he had lifted a spoonful of stew and was stupidly staring into it; he let it down into the bowl again. He took the cup instead and drank, and then looked at Meg.
"You look in the sky today?" he asked her. That's why I stay late."
"Does killing yourself help?"
"Let be, Meg," he said, sharper than he had intended, and was instantly sorry. He reached over and took her hand. "Meg, I am tired. Forget it."
"You were more than tired when you came through that door."
"Let be."
"Did something happen out there?"
He considered a moment, weighed how effective a lie would be with Meg. "Sazhje's back," he said quietly. "But don't tell it."
"You saw her?"
"I talked with her a moment—at least for what little she can say. I don't know what she wanted—only that maybe I crossed that odd little mind of hers today and she waited for me this evening."
"After being gone three weeks?"
"I don't know why she came, or what she wanted. Truthfully."
Meg gave a short and humorless laugh. "Maybe it was you."
"Meg—"
She smiled a little. I'm sorry, Sam. That was mean."
"You know the truth about what there ever was with her; and I'm sorry it ever touched you. That's the main reason I don't want you to mention Sazhje's coming around this evening. I don't want to start it all over again. I have enough on my mind without that."
"You don't have to explain to me. I know you too well."
"Good or ill?"
Her hand closed on his, tightened. "Enough so you can't lie to me; enough to be sure why you do most things, and to know you're worried sick over the work out there. If you think I'll add to your problems, you're wrong."
It was a true shot, well-aimed. He looked into her eyes and believed her. "There were things I said some time ago," he said, "that I've daily wished I hadn't. I'm mortally sorry for that, Meg; I wish you could understand me then and now… but there are things that must hit too hard to ever completely forget."
"Do you want me to forget?" she asked, which was the terrible direct-question manner Meg always had, cutting to the heart of things.
"Do you have to ask like that?"
She smiled one-sidedly and shrugged. "Only when the answer's plain. What was true then still is."
"Less so. Less so. Meg, I'd be off this wretched world at the first chance sometimes; and ten minutes after, I don't know. And I'm less and less sure you couldn't leave it if you had to; but I'm not sure you'd be happy outside it."
"I know what you think," she said.
He started to ask what that was, but there was a stamping and an opening of the front door, and Amos Selby and Jim were there with a great deal of commotion. Meg sprang up to welcome them and to take their wraps; and Amos came over after to take Merritt's offered hand.
"I didn't know you were back," Merritt said. "Or did you just get in?"
"About three hours back," said Amos, stepping over the bench to sit down; Jim took the other side, and Meg sat down next to Amos.
"We've been unloading," said Jim. "We—thanks, Hannah," he interjected as Hannah Burns put a bowl of stew and a cup of tea in front of him. Another woman gave the same to Amos. "We got a lot of supplies and a few new workers, most of them kids. And food for the next few weeks, anyway."
"How are things downriver?"
"Not much changed," said Amos, "but it's tight rations in a few areas. They're willing to suffer to make sure we eat. Anything so long as they know we're at work up there and the dam is rising."
"You—" Merritt began to ask further of that.
And then an alarm began ringing. Steps thundered to the door; the door flew open with a thunderous crash and Ken Porter filled the doorway. "We got a fire!" he shouted into the silence.
Benches scattered and men rushed for the doorway, for the tool storage and shovels, and women shouted for sacking and buckets. Children began to cry.
"Watch it!" Amos shouted at everyone. "You know what started it"
But no one was paying attention, and he looked at Merritt.
"Better double the sentries," Merritt said. "Meg—you and the women lock that front door after us and be careful what you open it to."
He ran, then, after the rest, snatching his coat that held his gun; and Amos and Jim were at his heels.
It was a warehouse: it was going fast, the entire yard lit by the fire that had involved the roof and at least a portion of the adjoining one. Men were carrying supplies out of it, ignoring the danger of collapse, for the supplies, the food, were life itself.
Merritt collared several men and sent them to the guard posts himself, to be sure every point was covered; and then he seized up a shovel and dropped it again, for in his fatigue the third warehouse only then occurred to him. Men had lost the first building, vainly trying to smother the fire with buckets of earth: there was no water on the hill… it must be carried up from the river; and stinging smoke and wind scattering the dust made the effort impossible.
"Never mind!" he shouted, running. "Get the supplies out of the other one. The explosives… get them out!"
Dazed men dropped shovels and stared, some moving, others wiping at eyes and simply trying to see and breathe. It was very hard to hear over the roar of the fire and wind. Merritt shouted at them again and finally went from one to the other, pushing and shoving them into action; then he went to the door of the third storehouse, blind in the dark and the smoke, trying to locate the boxes of caps and the explosives, trying to remember how many there were in alclass="underline" fifteen, he thought—two on the site already, the rest, the most part—in the warehouse. Heat numbed the air, deadly heat.
He found the boxes, heaved up a double load, started for the door.
"Sam?" Burns' great voice bellowed out of the dark. "You found it?"
"Give me some help," Merritt called back, staggering with what he carried. He looked up as the light of fire showed between the shingles of the roof and swore without breath. "We're afire," he gasped as he struggled past Burns and toward the door.
Men were ready there, relieving him of his burden, taking it far from the fire, gingerly.
"Never mind that stuff," Merritt said of the supplies they were rescuing. "Get back in here and help us before the whole shed blows."
Burns staggered out again, discharged his load to waiting hands, though there were few enough willing to go into that overheated building. There was no time to argue with them.
Twice more he and Burns each made the trip from the inside to the door, and by this time the roof was showering sparks, fire raining down in a roiling smoke. They worked their way back and forth through the tangle of boxes and sacks, sweating and gasping under that heat-sensitized load.
A last time Merritt handed over the explosives to one of the men waiting, and staggered out free into the clearer air, coughing and wiping his eyes. Then there was a wash of air and pressure and sound too deep to hear.