The church! Emma shot to her feet, her heart in her throat. “Henry. Bertie. Grab every pail or pot you can find in the house. I’ll grab the ones in the stable and meet you by the garden. Malachi . . .”
But he was already through the front door. Gun drawn. “Stay in the house,” he yelled over his shoulder as his boots pounded across the porch. “It could be a trap.”
Stay in the house? While her ladies flocked to the scene and tried to extinguish the blaze on their own? Not a chance!
Emma ignored Malachi’s command and sprinted through the house to the kitchen and out the back door. Trusting Aunt Henry, at least, to follow—Henry would never sit idly back and let a man fight her battles for her—Emma grabbed the milking pail and the one used for water and dashed across the length of the corral, making a beeline for the church.
The smell of burning wood assaulted her as she ran. Flames flickered in the distance, glowing with an orange light against the dark sky. But only on one side of the building. The side closest to the garden. If the fire reached the plants . . .
No. She wouldn’t let it. They depended on that garden for food, for wages, for purpose. She’d not let it burn. Malachi could chase down the instigator, if he so chose. She had a town to save.
Ducking through the corral slats, Emma dragged the pails behind her, not caring about the dents and dings they gathered as they knocked into the fencing. Once on the other side, she hiked her skirts up again and ran toward the small group of women gathering at the garden gate. Someone had already pushed the gate wide and stood hunched over, working the handle of the pump they used to irrigate the crops.
Malachi, having taken the longer path down the main street, caught up to her just as she reached the road. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to a halt. “What are you doing out here? I told you it wasn’t safe.”
Emma jerked her arm free of his grasp. “Safe doesn’t matter right now. I need to be with my ladies. Fighting the fire.”
“Safe always matters, Emma.” Malachi’s gaze left hers to scan the area around them. “He could be lying in wait, planning to use the light of the fire to pick you off one by one.”
“Well, if I hear a gunshot, I’ll take cover. In the meantime, I have a fire to put out.”
“Emma . . .”
Ignoring the plea in his voice, she spun away and sprinted across the road. “Form a line,” Emma called, spotting Tori and Grace among the women. “We can take turns at the pump and pass the buckets down.”
Tori nodded to her and immediately started organizing the women, some of whom were in their nightwear.
“I’ll take over the pump. Let you young ones do the heavy lifting.” Maybelle Curtis huffed up behind Emma. The poor woman must have run all the way from her home on the north side of town.
Emma patted her shoulder. “Thank you, Maybelle.”
The older woman nodded, bent slightly to catch her breath, then straightened and started calling out orders of her own. “If the smoke gets too thick, tear a strip of petticoat and wrap it around your nose and mouth. Too much smoke in the lungs can take a person down. And mind your skirts. Especially those of you taking the front lines.” She skewered Emma with a pointed look as she passed through the gate and took hold of the pump handle Flora had just released. “A stray spark can set the fabric ablaze before you know what’s what. I don’t want to be tending any burns that could have been avoided with common sense.”
Emma nodded, grabbed one of the buckets Flora had already filled, and headed toward the church. Water sloshed onto her skirt and shoes as she scurried. The cold barely registered. The fire held her full attention.
Heat stung her face and hands as she neared the fire. Her eyes watered from the smoke. The acrid smell wrinkled her nose.
You will not steal our home! The silent vow reverberated inside Emma as she tossed her bucketful of water on the first flames she encountered. The hiss of steam echoed loudly in the night, but the flames raged on, undeterred.
“Toss me the empty pail,” someone called from behind.
Emma turned to find Grace waiting with open arms. Emma flung the pail across the three feet that separated them. Grace caught it, then spun around and repeated the motion, Tori’s line well in place. And judging by the movement farther down, a full pail was already halfway to her.
Emma turned back to regard the church, a cough scratching at her throat. She walked a few steps along the wall, eyeing the damage already wrought. The flames seemed to be most concentrated in the center of the wall, though they licked upward as well. They hadn’t reached either the front or back of the building. As far as she could tell, only this one section was ablaze.