The main fire crossed the ridge behind them. Heat pushed at Rachel's back. Matthew pointed toward the ditch. "In there."
The irrigation cut still held several inches of cold spring water. They dropped into it. Rachel pulled George low against the bank. Lillian crouched beside him.
Matthew covered his mouth with his sleeve. The fire came over the pasture. It sounded nothing like Rachel expected. Not a roar.
More like a thousand sheets of paper tearing at once. Grass vanished beneath orange light. Fence posts blackened. The old barn caught along the roof.
Lillian made a sound beside Rachel. George stared. Rachel did not. She watched Matthew.
His face was gray beneath the soot. His left hand was pressed against his thigh. She reached for it without thinking. His fingers closed around hers.
Neither spoke. The fire moved past. Not quickly. Not slowly.
Time stopped meaning much. When the worst of it finally crossed east, the sky remained brown with smoke. They climbed out of the ditch near dusk. The barn roof had fallen.
Half the upper pasture was black. Three horses stood near the lower fence, trembling but alive. Others were gone. Rachel counted automatically.
Then stopped. Not now. George sat on an overturned water trough. No one spoke to him.
He did not ask them to. Matthew leaned against a fence post. Rachel came over. "Let me see your leg."
"It's bruised."
"That's not an answer."
He lifted his trouser leg to show swelling around the ankle. Rachel touched carefully. Matthew flinched.
"Can you put weight on it?"
"Some."
"You'll ride back."
"I can walk."
"That wasn't a question."
He looked at her. For the first time since Crow Creek, Matthew smiled despite everything. "Yes, ma'am."
Rachel looked away before he saw how much that small smile mattered. Night came cold. They stayed at what remained of the Hart place because traveling through smoke after dark made no sense. George slept wrapped in a blanket near the house wall.
Matthew dozed sitting up beside the surviving fence. Rachel and Lillian sat near a small lantern. The fire had burned itself down to scattered red lines along the hills. Lillian held a tin cup between both hands.
She had not drunk from it. "Rachel."
Rachel looked over. Lillian stared at the cup. "I need to tell you something."
Rachel waited. Lillian's voice was low. "I knew."
"Knew what?"
"About the way men looked at us."
Rachel's face tightened. Lillian continued. "I knew when they asked you questions because they wanted to get near me."
Rachel said nothing.
"Not every time," Lillian added quickly. "But enough."
The lantern flame moved. "I liked it."
Rachel looked at her. Lillian's eyes filled, but she did not cry.
"I liked being the one they noticed."
Rachel leaned back against the charred fence post. "Why are you telling me now?"
"Because I kept pretending I didn't understand what it cost you."
A long silence. Then Lillian said, "I thought if I wasn't the pretty one, I wasn't much of anything."
Rachel's anger loosened by a degree. Not gone. Different. Lillian rubbed one thumb over the cup rim.
"Pa praised you when something needed fixing. He praised me when somebody was looking."
Rachel looked toward George's sleeping shape. "That wasn't your fault."