The City of Fire

by Grace Livingston Hill

There was something warm and sticky on the floor and it had got on his clothes, but he took no notice of it at first. He wondered what that sick pain in his shoulder was, but he had not time to stop and see now or even to think about it. He must call the Chief before the men were awake. So he managed to get upon his feet land steady himself against the wall, for he felt dizzy and faint when he tried to walk. But he managed to get into the hall, and peer into each room, and more and more as he went he felt he was alone in the house. Then he had failed and the men were gone! Aw Gee! Pat too! What a fool he had been, thinking he could manage the affair! He ought to have taken the Chief into his confidence and let him come along, Aw Gee!

Down in the kitchen he found a pail of water and a cup. He drank thirstily. His head felt hot and the veins in his neck throbbed. There seemed to be a lump on his forehead. He bathed his face and head. How good it felt! Then he found a whiskey bottle on the table half full. This after carefully smelling he poured over his bruised wrists, sopping it on his head and forehead, and finally pouring some down his shoulder that pained so, and all that he did was done blindly, like one in a dream; just an involuntary searching for means to go on and fulfill his purpose.

After another drink of water he seemed to be able to think more clearly. That tapping in the cellar yesterday! What had that been? He must look and see. Yes, that was really what he had come about. Perhaps the men were down there yet hidden away. He opened the cellar door and listened. Doggone it where was that gun of his? But the flash light! Yes, the flash light!

He shot the light ahead of him as he went down, moving as in a dream, but keeping true to type, cautious, careful, stealthy. At last he was down. No one there! He turned the little flash into every nook and cranny, not excepting the ledges above the cellar wall whereon the floor beams rested. Once he came on a tin box long and flat and new looking. It seemed strange to meet it here. There was no dust upon it. He poked it down with his torch and it sprawled open at his feet. Papers, long folded papers printed with writing in between, like bonds or deeds or something. He stooped and waved the flash above them and caught the name Shafton in one. It was an insurance paper, house and furniture. He felt too stupid to quite understand, but it grew into his consciousness that these were the things he was looking for. He gathered them up, stuffing them carefully inside his blouse. They would be safe there. Then he turned to go upstairs, but stumbled over a pile of coal out in the floor and fell. It gave him a sick sensation to fall. It almost seemed that he couldn't get up again, but now he had found the papers he must. He, crawled to his knees, and felt around, then turned his light on. This was strange! A heap of coal out in the middle of the floor, almost a foot from the rest! A rusty shovel lay beside it, a chisel and a big stone. Ah! The tapping! He got up forgetting his pain and began to kick away the coal, turning the flash light down. Yes, there was a crack in the cement, a loose piece. He could almost lift it with his foot. He pried at it with the toe of his shoe, and then lifted it with much effort out of the way. It was quite a big piece, more than a foot in diameter! The ground was soft underneath as if it had been recently worked over. He stooped and plunged the fingers of his good hand in and felt around, laying the light on the floor so it would shed a glare over the spot where he worked. He could feel down several inches. There seemed to be something soft like cloth or leather. He pulled at it and finally brought it up. A leather bag girt about with a thong of leather. He picked the knot and turned the flash in. It sent forth a million green lights. There seemed also to be a rope of white glistening things that reminded him of Saxy's tears. That brought a pang. Saxy would be crying! He must remember that and do something about it. He must have been away a long time and perhaps those men would be coming back. But it wouldn't do to leave these things here. They were the Shafton jewels. What anybody wanted of a lot of shiny little stones like that and a rope of tears! But then if they did they did, and they were theirs and they oughtta have 'em. This was the thing he had come to do. Get those jewels and papers back! Make up as far as he could for what he had done! And he must do it now quick before he got sick. He felt he was getting sick and he mustn't think about it or he would turn into Aunt Saxon. That was the queerest thing, back in his mind he felt this was Aunt Saxon down here in the haunted cellar playing with green stones and ropes of tears, and he must hurry quick before she found him and told him he couldn't finish what he had to do.

He did the work thoroughly, feeling down in the hole again, but found nothing more. Then he stuffed the bag inside his blouse and buttoned up his sweater with his well hand and somehow got up the stairs. That arm pained him a lot, and he found his sweater was wet. So he took his handkerchief and tied it tight around the place that hurt the most, holding one end in his teeth to make the knot firm.

The sun blinded him as he stumbled down the back steps and went to get his wheel, but somehow he managed it, plunging through the brakes and tangles, and back to the road.

It ran in his brain where the Shaftons lived out in the country on the Jersey shore. He had a mental picture in the back of his mind how to get there. He knew that when he struck the Highroad there was nothing to do but keep straight on till he crossed the State Line and then he would find it somehow, although it was miles away. If he had been himself he would have known it was an impossible journey in his present condition, but he wasn't thinking of impossibilities. He had to do it, didn't he? He, Billy, had set out to make reparation for the confusion he had wrought in his small world, and he meant to do so, though all hell should rise against him. Hell! That was it. He could see the flames in hot little spots where the morning sun struck. He could hear the bells striking the hour in the world he used to know that was not for him any more. He zigzagged along the road in a crazy way, and strange to say he met nobody he knew, for it was early. Ten minutes after he passed the Crossroads Elder Harricutt went across the Highway toward Economy to his day's work, and he would have loved to have seen Billy, and his rusty old wheel, staggering along in that crazy way and smelling of whiskey like a whole moonshiner, fairly reeking with whiskey as he joggled down the road, and a queer little tinkle now and then just inside his blouse as if he carried loaded dice. Oh, he would have loved to have caught Billy shooting crap!

But he was too late, and Billy swam on, the sun growing hotter on his aching head, the light more blinding to his blood shot eyes, the lump bigger and bluer on his grimy forehead.

About ten o'clock a car came by, slowed down, the driver watching Billy, though Billy took no note of him. Billy was looking on the ground dreaming he was searching for the state line. He had a crazy notion it oughtta be there somewhere.

The man in the car stopped and called to him: