Cream. Butter. Buttermilk.
Pushing herself up, she managed to miss being trampled by the cow’s frightened hooves that stomped around her.
“Cream!” Her voice was deep and foreign in her ears. “Come on.” Ever obedient, Cream, although skittish, allowed Rebekah to lead her out of the barn. With eyes rolling back in her head, the more spooked of the cows walked beside her until they reached the house.
As she finished lashing the cow to the front door, a strong pair of hands fell upon her shoulders and turned her around.
“It’s over,” Samuel yelled. His booming voice was muted by the rain and the fire. He pulled her to his chest in a tight hug. “It’s over, girl. It’s over.”
Rebekah fought against her father’s embrace. “Are you trying to convince me of that or yourself?” From over his shoulder, she saw that the fierce fire now consumed the rest of the barn. Angry flames licked skyward from the loft and parts of the roof sagged in an unnatural display.
“It’s over,” Samuel cried again.
Rebekah stiffened in his arms as a scream tore from her lips. “Buttermilk!”
“The baby’s gone.”
“No!” Struggling against his iron grasp was futile, but after a moment, she managed to wriggle her way under his elbow.
“Rebekah, stop!” he bellowed. “Stillgestanden!”
She ignored her father’s frantic calls as she dashed toward the barn. Jeremiah dove at her from the side, but she dodged his clutches easily, just as she had done for years in their many games of catch-me-if-you-can. Neither he nor any of the Stoll boys had ever been able to catch her and tonight was no exception.
With her eyes and heart trained on the glowing barn, Rebekah ran as she’d never run before. “Buttermilk, I’m coming!”
Her father’s breath rasped behind her. Besides Joseph Graber, Samuel was the only one who could catch fleet-footed Rebekah. Thankfully, he was all tired out from fighting the fire. She sped ahead and left him wheezing in the mud outside the barn.
“Rebekah—don’t, baby, please.” His weak words sounded as far away as Germany as she raced into the inferno.
***
Ashy timbers that drooped in peculiar places left the roof low and threatening. Getting down on all fours, Rebekah crawled through the smoky mess. “Buttermilk! I’m coming.”
Her eyes watered, and her breath came in quick, burning gasps as she kept her mouth as low to the ground as she could. If there was any ounce of cool air to be found, it was along the ground. Still, she pushed onward. After an eternity, her hand came to rest on the soft hide of the silent calf.
Let’s get out of here and into some fresh air.
The thought was so strong that the words tingled on her tongue. She would have said them, for her sake and Buttermilk’s, but the thought of all the hot air rushing into her open mouth begged her to do otherwise.
She scooped the limp calf up and draped her over her neck before she began to crawl. With her eyes scrunched shut against the sweltering temperature, she felt for the cool mud that ringed the barn.
Any minute now. We will be out of here…any minute now.
Pat after searching pat, only hot ground and embers continued to meet her palms.
Just a little further.
When she thought sure she’d found the way out, her head hit a wall.
She struggled to orientate herself.
I came out of the stall and turned. I should be outside by now— She ceased the thought. Unless I turned the wrong way.
A shroud of hopelessness cloaked her. Buttermilk made no sound.
I’m in the back of the barn, not the front.
Paralyzed by fear, the world lurched to a sickening standstill and everything stopped. Everything but the burning.
***
Rebekah thought she was dreaming when she heard Joseph bring Butter, her wayward milk cow, back to her family homestead. When his voice rose to an hysterical level, her eyelids fluttered.
“Where is she, Samuel? Where is Rebekah?”
Her Pa, though, didn’t answer. Somewhere in her sleep-heavy mind, she heard him crying. Jeremiah too. The words “certain death” and “the barn caved in…we can’t get in,” left an ominous feeling cloaking her bones.
The crackle and sizzle of their warm, safe barn being reduced to charred ash and timber was like a lullaby until a creeping flame licked the bottom of her bare foot. Her eyes flew open and any sense of dreamlike peace was replaced with heavy smoke and hot air. The scream that tore from her throat may well have left a blood trail in its wake.
“Rebekah, keep yelling!”
Something grabbed her dress. “Pull her!”
The something yanked her from the barn into the rain that had changed from a pounding torrent to a soft drizzle.
“She’s smoldering—roll her in the mud!” Jeremiah’s young voice was panicked.
The sudden coolness was a welcome relief. Maybe this wasn’t a dream after all.
Her brother spoke the words that bumbled against each other in her foggy mind. “The calf—she went in after the calf. Is it breathing?”
“Buttermilk.” The syllables tangled together on her tongue, or so she thought. Apparently, they came out as a scream.
Joseph’s voice was in her ear, soft as clover. “Hush up now. I’m here, Rebekah. Everything will be okay. I’ll make it okay.” His voice was far away again. “Jeremiah, cake your sister in this mud. Get her cooled down. Samuel, hand me the calf.”
Woozy, Rebekah tried to make sense of what was going on around her. It appeared that Joseph’s mouth was over Buttermilk’s, but that didn’t make sense. Then, it looked like her Pa pumped his hands on the baby calf’s middle. That didn’t make sense, either. The only thing in the world that was right in that moment was the feeling of the chilled muck on her skin.
Immediately before everything went black, Rebekah thought she heard Joseph’s voice in her ear again. He whispered something about Buttermilk being all right thanks to her.
***
“Buttermilk?” Rebekah’s voice was lost to the roar of the inferno as she crawled through sagging timbers and shooting flames. The calf was nowhere to be found. Her eyes burned, her skin burned, and even her lungs burned. An ominous snap forced her to look up as the entire roof of the barn crashed down in a splintery ball of fire. She opened her mouth to scream, but the scalding air and smoke filled it first.
“That was a close call.”
Rebekah tried to force her eyes to focus, but they wouldn’t comply. Her world swam around her as she tried to find Buttermilk. Gingerly, she flexed her fingers. Instead of brushing against charred and burning wood, they met the cool underside of her childhood quilt
I’m not in the barn anymore. I’m in my own bed.
