It was a barn burning! And I knew it was G-Barn. When Rafe had come as far as he could, he jammed on the brakes. I was out of the car and running toward the deserted ring. I’d forgotten the snow fencing that separated the parking lot from the grounds, and I bounced off the paling. Rafe landed with both feet on the fence, and it splintered and flopped free of its stanchions and onto the grass. I skipped over and toward the bleachers.
“Oh, please, Pete,” I heard myself gasping as I ran. “Please get Orfeo out. Please get Orfeo out.”
The barn yards were crowded with screaming horses being led away, heads blanketed, with people rushing back for others from F- and E-barns, carrying tack, impeding the firemen, who struggled to position their hoses.
I was trying to get past a knot of wardens when Rafe grabbed me.
“Pete was there, Nialla. He’ll have got the horses out.”
“Not Orfeo. Not Orfeo!”
The stillness of his face, illuminated by the roaring fire that was consuming the loft of G-Barn, reflected the truth. And his moment’s hesitation allowed me to break free and squeeze past the fire wardens.
“Hey, miss! Miss! Come back here, you damn fool!” The firemen were not trying to put out the conflagration in G-Barn. They were doing everything they could to keep the fire from jumping to F- and E-barns. I could hear the screaming horse. One horse. Orfeo! Then I spotted my station wagon, where I’d left it, up against the ring fence. I dashed, fumbling for the keys in my bag. The motor started right away, bless it. Before anyone realized what I intended, I backed it around, pointed it toward the flaming barn door, and jackrabbited right down the main aisle. Burning timbers fell around me, into the stalls, over the corridor. The tires bumped over one huge rafter. At the cross of the T, I looked right. Orfeo was rearing in his stall, striking futilely at the bars, his gallant head and neck outlined against the fiery debris crashing down around him. I drove through the back door.
“The blanket, the blanket,” I told myself, fumbling for it, grasping it, falling out of the car, slipping on the muddy ground. Someone came tearing around the barn, shouting at me. I ran for the door, jumping somehow over the burning timbers and bales. “Orfeo! Orfeo!”
He couldn’t hear me over his shrieks of terror. But when I flung the stall door wide, I had just time to flip the blanket at his head as he lunged through. He pushed me back against the metal post of the next stall. Something seared my side, and the pain thrust me forward against Orfeo. I grabbed the blanket ends. His hooves skidded on the cobbles and gave me just enough time to secure my grip as Orfeo’s hysterical lunge pulled us both free of the box stall.
Then someone threw himself bodily at Orfeo’s head, and hung on to the frayed halter rope. Between us we got Orfeo aimed at the back door.
I tripped and got pulled over the threshold, but the man was practically riding the horse’s head. Orfeo was so fire-crazed that he plunged on in spite of the double impediments.
We got him clear of the barn. He crashed blindly into the practice-ring fence, snapping off the rails like sticks, pulling me, pushing the man at his head, on his head.
Men came to our aid now. Someone threw another blanket at Orfeo, someone else flipped a rope around his neck. Another man sloshed a bucket of water across his rump to put out the cinders. Sheer weight of numbers and lack of sight slowed the poor mad beast. He reared, shrieking, though, at the noise when G-Barn collapsed, showering us all with more sparks and debris.
“Take him to A-Barn,” someone bellowed right in my ear.
“He’ll respond to your weight, Nialla. Up you go!” It was Rafe, and then I was on Orfeo’s trembling wet back. I circled his neck with my arms, calling encouragements to him. A rough halter was fastened over the blankets. The horse was breathing in gasps, half-suffocated, exhausted with terror and pain. Two men were at his head, holding it down; three more paced alongside, ready to assist. Thus he was led through the firemen, the troopers, the noise, the fire heat, and up to the relative calm of A-Barn. Into the blessed confines of a stall.
By the time the cocoon of blankets was unwound from his head, all the fight and fear had left him a quivering, heaving wreck. I went to his head, holding it down, talking to him, comforting him. His forelock was singed, bloody burn marks pocked his face, his eyes were rolling and wild, and all I could do was talk, talk, talk.
“Where’s that vet? This horse is singed meat, and he’s favoring the left rear,” Rafe was bellowing nearby.
“Vet’s coming, Mr. Clery,” someone hollered, and then I saw a gray-haired man fumbling with the stall fastening.
“Then lemme in. Lemme in. Gawd, he’s a mess!” The vet had his bag open, sorting through for a jar. “Here, you take the off-side,” he ordered Rafe, shoving the jar at him. “This is what he needs. God in heaven, why’d they wait so long to pull him out?”
“That’s Juggernaut, Doc,” a spectator said.
The doctor jerked away from Orfeo, glanced at the whole horse.
“Can’t be!” He went back to his medicating while Orfeo gave gasping snorts of pain, dancing halfheartedly when the longer, bleeding wounds were treated.
“Take a look at that off-rear, doctor,” Rafe said.
“In a minute. In a minute. I can see he’s favoring it. I can smell scorched hoof.”
He got the brown goo on all the wounds before he tipped back the hoof. “Yeah, must have stepped on a hot coal. Burned the frog slightly. Not too bad. Oops, easy now, fella.” Orfeo squealed in pain, trying to pull his foot free. “Get this piece out… there!”
He jumped back from Orfeo as the horse instinctively lashed out with the sore hoof, put it down, lifted it quickly, trying to pull his head up. The next time the hoof went down, it stayed down, but it bore no weight.
“Did they get the mare out?” Rafe asked of the watchers.
“Yeah, she’s down the aisle. Pete Sankey got her and turned in the alarm. The damned barn was going up so fast-”
“Thanks!” Rafe replied with acid ingratitude.
“He’ll be all right?” I asked the doctor as he started a second go-round with the burn salve.
As if only then aware of my presence, the vet looked at me curiously.
“God in heaven, the horse doesn’t need a doctor as much as you do.”
He held out his hand to me, and I remember reaching for it, but the man seemed to be moving away from me rapidly, down a darkening tunnel.
4
I came partially out of the faint when the very cool air hit the burns on my arm.
“You’re hurting, me,” someone whimpered. My side, where Orfeo had shoved me against the metal post, was on fire. Whoever carried me had his hot, hard hand over the sorest place.
“We’re almost there, dear heart.”
Mercifully I was laid on a soft bed, but my own body’s pressure on a burn made me pass out briefly again.
“Shock is the most of it, Mr. Clery,” a baritone voice was saying. ‘The dress saved her from a more severe burn. These cinder blisters look worse than they are, but this anesthetic salve will make her comfortable. They’ll soon heal. It’ll take longer for her hair to grow back, but I’m told singeing is good for hair. That was a brave and foolish stunt, but she should be all right in a few days. Looks a little rundown. You show people don’t take care of yourselves in the summer.”
“Rafe? Rafe?”
The room was so bright, and I was sore, stiff, and sticky. My toes hurt. The sheet was too tight.
“Yes, Nialla?” His face was a blur above me. “My feet. The covers…”
The pressure was abruptly eased, with the fringe benefit of a cool draft of air over the burns. I thought cool was bad for burns, but it felt so good.