Through the smoke that drifts across the creek, I look into Caleb’s eyes and I see something I have never seen there before: shame. That horrible fire that tormented him for so long is gone. It has burned its way out. It burns our valley now, but it has gone from him.
And suddenly I know he won’t jump, no matter how much I shout. Caleb Madliner will choose to stay on his bank and burn. He will stay because he doesn’t believe he deserves to live.
“Caleb, you’ve got to jump!” I shout again. “There’s a way to fix it—all of this!”
Behind him, fire roars furiously. A new wave of black smoke billows across the bank. Fingers of it curl around his shaking body. The fire wants him.
Then, to my horror, Caleb Madliner takes a step backward.
Panic seizes me. “Caleb, no!” I shout. “No! No! No! Jump! Jump right now and swim! You can make it!”
Caleb gives no answer. He shakes his head and takes another step backward.
“Pete, he ain’t jumping,” I tell my brother. “He’s not going to do it!”
Next to me, Pete watches in stunned silence.
“Pete!” I suddenly cry. “Pete, you got to go get him!”
Butch barks again.
I scream.
Without a word, Pete dives into Apple Creek.
Pete knifes through black water and the rippling reflections of the fire burning on the far bank, his arms and legs slicing those flames in rapid, powerful strokes.
Caleb stares in amazement. He’s still staring when Pete springs from the creek, the water already curling off his body in waves of steam, and crawls hand over hand up the muddy bank until he rises before Caleb. Caleb stands mesmerized. Weeping.
Pete grabs him by the shoulders and shouts over the fire’s roar. “Come on, Caleb! If you stay here, you’ll die!”
Caleb shakes his head. “Go back, Pete! Go back!” He tries to twist away, but Pete holds him tight. He can’t break loose. Pete is too strong.
“Let go of me, Peter Elliot!” Caleb cries.
And then, in a sudden rapid movement, Caleb hits him low and hard in the stomach.
Pete sinks to his knees. He bends double, his mouth wide as he gasps for air, a look of surprise spreading across his face. And that’s when Caleb kicks him in the stomach.
“Pete!” I scream.
Caleb turns toward the fire. He don’t get far. Pete grabs hold of his ankle and with a single wrenching motion pulls him to the sand and rolls over on top of him. Now it’s a fight.
Their shapes collide: Pete grasping for a hold, desperate to drag Caleb to water as he slams his fists over and over again against Pete’s head, neck, and shoulders. Hot ash falls around them as they grapple, kicking and cursing. Black smoke sweeps over the bank once more, hungry for them both.
“Hit him!” I scream to Pete. But he can’t hear me. Whether because of the fire’s crackling or Caleb’s crazed shouting, Pete cannot hear me. I am about to scream again when a fresh blast of black smoke strangles my words in my throat.
And now my nightmare has become real. My brother faces death across the river, and I am helpless on my side. Only it ain’t some jungle in Vietnam, half a world away. It’s here at home. It’s Apple Creek.
There is only one thing left to do.
I jump too.
Apple Creek swallows me whole. Water fills my mouth and nose, and my clothes cling to my arms and legs like lead. I fight their dragging weight and the current that pulls me downstream as I kick and claw and pound the water for that far, burning bank. I pray for speed, for strength as I cut my own way through the fire’s glimmering reflection. I am splashing too much to see, but with the smoke and the sparks there’s nothing to see anyhow and so I just swim: stroke, breath, stroke, breath.
I smack into that muddy wall so hard, stars explode across my sight. My teeth feel loose in my head. But I’m across.
I lay hold of the bank with both hands to pull myself up. Mud squelches through my knuckles and I slide back into blood-warm water. Above I hear them fighting still, cussing, screaming. Frantically, I try again. This time my fingers close on dry roots.
I pull. The roots hold.
I pull harder.
The roots hold still.
I climb. Left hand, right knee. Right hand, left knee. The air is thick with smoke, and it burns the back of my mouth and my throat as I climb. Suddenly I feel sand under my fingers—hot sand. I’m up. I roll onto the baking bank and feel the hot breath of fire on my face. My eyes water instantly so that I can hardly see. Somewhere in front of me, Pete and Caleb fight in that swirling smoke.
And then they burst onto the sand before me, locked in each other’s arms, coughing, cursing, kicking, spitting. Pete’s face is a bloody mess, his eyes swelled up, lip busted. Caleb strikes him again and again. Butch appears, teeth bared, tiny little flashes of white in that smoke, barking, snapping. Pete rolls toward me, to the edge of the bank, and that’s when I throw myself upon Caleb and wrap my arms around his neck and latch on tight. He comes off the sand, desperate to throw me. But he can’t.
Pete falls back, gasping, and I have got Caleb Madliner now, got him tight, my elbow locked around his throat. He is helpless against me, the boy who tried to feed my fingers to the snapping turtle, the boy who lit this fire, who killed his father, who fought my brother.
Caleb goes very still as I lean forward and whisper in his ear:
“You’re the sorriest boy I ever met, Caleb Madliner, but I ain’t letting you die tonight!”
I step backward into empty air.
Chapter 24
END TIMES
I lose him soon as we hit water. Was gonna let go anyway, but he kicks me, gets me good in the ribs, and I yell even though I’m underwater. I swallow half of Apple Creek before I break the surface. When I do it’s nothing but smoke in the air, and I cough a fit and it’s forever before I can suck in a breath.
Caleb is nowhere in sight and a piece of me wonders if he’s hiding below, waiting to pull me under and drown me. I tread water and wait for his hands to close on my ankles. They never do. Caleb is gone.
Lots of thoughts go through my mind, but now they’re about Pete and Butch and whether they’re safe. Smoke pours over the bank. Pieces of falling ash sizzle in the water around me. I am just about to climb those roots again to go up and look for them when both my brother and my dog come sailing over the ledge. Pete misses me by a foot. He comes up shouting my name and whipping about in the foamy water.
“I’m here!”
Pete grabs hold of me and begins swimming for the far shore, carrying us away from that burning bank with his measured, powerful strokes. Butch is right behind us, his big head and pointy ears bobbing along in our wake.
I try telling Pete that I’ve lost Caleb. But that smoke gets its way again with my words; they die in another coughing fit.
Soon I feel soft mud bottom under my feet, but Pete won’t let go until we’ve crawled onto cool sand. Butch shakes himself, barking and whining. He won’t let us stay here. Too much smoke.
The far bank disappears under a writhing wall of yellow fire. I throw a wild look up and down the creek. But the water is empty too.
“I don’t see him,” I pant to Pete. “Couldn’t hold him . . . couldn’t pull him across . . .”
“He could only come by choice,” Pete says.
He rises to his feet and pulls me up too. Then, with Butch, we run back up the path.
At the top of the trail our family and the firefighters are watching for fresh fires on our side of Apple Creek. Everybody fans out and searches the length of the creek for Caleb. We never find him.
Twice tiny flames spring up along the edge of our lane. Little pockets of dried leaves that burst into licking flame only to be doused at once with a stomp of a boot or the splash of a bucket. Anna May stamps one of the fires out. Her skirt catches and Sam has to clap his hands against the fabric to put her out.