Matthew tore his gaze from Abigail. “Are ye sure?”
Before James could reply, there was the sound of breaking glass and they all crouched down. Matthew stared toward the door of the bedroom where the sound had come from but, despite a few added odd sounds, there was no sign of an attack being set up. He was just standing up to go and look when there was another crash of glass breaking toward the back of the house and he went back down into a crouch.
“Thought you said they had left,” he muttered, glancing at James.
“Saw them all ride off. Didn’t see none turn back.”
“Yet some must have circled back.”
“Not sure we can be certain of that without getting our heads shot off,” said Dan.
“I smell smoke,” said Abigail as she began to stand up.
“Stay there and stay down,” Matthew ordered. “Skirts and fire dinnae mix well.” He stood up and headed for the bedroom door.
Abigail sat down and muttered, “I am not one of your damn soldiers.” She looked at Boyd when he laughed weakly. “What?”
“In times like these we are all soldiers. A war forces us into the job sometimes.”
“That is a very dark view of things.” She frowned when he shivered. “You are growing cold. You should have said that you were cold.”
She moved and grabbed the handle of a chest set at the foot of the bed holding the bodies of her parents. As she began to drag it over to where Boyd sat, one of the other men hurried over to help her. She looked at his roughly cut brown hair and blue-gray eyes and recalled that Matthew had called this man James.
“Thank you kindly, James,” she said. “It was a lot heavier than I remembered.” Matthew abruptly cursed in a loud startled voice and she looked at him. “What is wrong?”
“Handle is hot.” He touched the door. “So is the door.”
“The kitchen,” she said, and dropped the quilt she had been lifting out of the chest for Boyd then stood up.
“Stay there,” Matthew ordered again and strode toward the door leading to the kitchen. Even as he braced himself to touch another hot door handle, smoke began billowing out from beneath the door. “The fire is going weel in there, too.”
“But why burn the house when they were retreating?” Abigail asked.
“Revenge for the dead and wounded,” said James. “Might be hoping it will kill a few of us as well.”
“Instead it will just leave nothing for my brother to come home to, if he can,” she said.
“Where is your brother?”
“No idea. The Rebs took him. They said they needed men and he was not allowed to say no.” She turned to look toward the wall between the kitchen and the front room where she stood. “I should move my parents. I think the fire has reached that wall.”
Abigail had barely finished speaking when a creaking groan echoed through the room. She stared at the wall and cried out when it abruptly began to collapse, smoke, ash, and a hint of flame swelling up behind it. Still smoldering, the wood fell on her parents’ bodies but when she moved to go toward it, two of the men grabbed her by the arms and held her back.
“They are burning up,” she cried out as she struggled to get free of their hold.
“I dinnae think they would wish ye to join them,” Matthew said as he took James’s place and got a firm grip on her arm.
She finally stopped fighting, tried to ignore the smell of the smoke coming off the bed, and felt tears dripping down her cheeks. “I was going to bury them. Together. Now there will be nothing to bury.”
“I suspicion there will be something left, but ye will be gone.” Matthew winced, thinking he had just been too hard, but there was no reaction from her on his words.
“Why?” She hated how her voice sounded when she cried but forced herself to ask. “Where am I going?”
Knowing they had to get out, Matthew used a few quick but clear signals to tell his men to check outside for the enemy. “Ye will come with us. Gather what ye can and need. Quickly, for the smoke is growing too thick and the fire will soon come for us.”
“That chest,” she said and pointed to the one she had pulled away from the bed as she fought to push her grief back.
Abigail pulled her arm away from his loosened grip and moved to a table set near the door. She collected up the photograph of her mother and father, one of them before they had left the city to come here. She wished she had made them get one of her brother, Reid, but all she had left of him was in the trunk she had saved. A drawing of the cabin done shortly before he had been taken away, his mouth organ, and his fancy boots were all that she had left of her brother. Glancing back at the burning bed, she shook her head and strode out the door. It was so little of a life Reid had only just begun to live.
Boyd sat outside, away from the cabin, in an attempt to escape any live sparks and the smoke, her chest beside him. He watched the men gather up the horses as she sat down on the chest and tried very hard not to think of anything. Watching her home burn down held all her attention until Matthew stepped between her and the sight.
“We cannae take the chest on the horses,” he said, and worried about the blank look on her face.
“Then we can use the cart,” she said in a disturbingly flat voice. “George is still in the stable and he can pull it.”
Matthew looked toward the barn. “Thought they took all your horses.”
“George is a big, old plow horse. He did not want to go.” She slowly stood up, moving like an old woman. “Da brought him all the way from Pennsylvania. I think the men tried, but it looked like one got bitten so they obviously decided to leave him. Didn’t have the time to coax him, I guess.” She started toward the barn and Matthew fell into step beside her. “He will pull the cart. It will carry Boyd, too.”
“Oh, aye.” He glanced back at the younger man. “He cannae ride weel with only one arm.”
At the door to the barn he glanced down at a flat stone set in the ground to the right of the door. Pendragon was clearly painted on it, neatly but with a flourish. It was an odd thing to write on a stepping stone.
Abigail began to open the door, saw what had caught his attention, and sighed. “One of the Rebs shot my cat. It was a senseless thing to do. And mean. He was no threat.” She wiped away the few tears that slipped the leash she held on her grief, wondered who she cried for, and stepped into the barn.
“Aye, it was senseless and probably just mean, but a lot of that happens in a war.”
She just nodded, not in the mood to talk on men and their wars. “There is the wagon.” George neighed in welcome. “And there is George.”