“Pa?”
In her dash to the window, she stubbed her baby toe on her unadorned dresser. The splintering pain ebbed as the sight unfolding outside met her eyes. “Pa!”
There stood Samuel, pumping water into a bucket so hard Rebekah feared he would break his arms. Then, he flung the half-full bucket at the monstrous yellow flames that roared skyward from their barn.
“Buttermilk!” The word ripped from her throat with such unanticipated force that her voice went sandpapery.
Her injured foot a distant memory, Rebekah hurtled past her parent’s bedroom, where all the little boys were probably cuddled in bed with their mother.
“Jeremiah! The barn—it’s on fire!” she yelled into the darkness of the house as she took the stairs two and three at a time.
Her oldest brother’s footsteps fell in behind her. “Let’s go.”
The pair reached the door at the same time. They flung it open so wide that it cracked against the strain of its hinges. Not bothering to turn and close it, they raced toward the barn. Rebekah hadn’t bothered to grab a covering and her rain-wet hair streamed out behind her like yellow ribbons from a maypole. It slapped her in the face when the wind whipped from a different direction.
She ground to a halt at the water pump and grabbed Jeremiah by his shoulders.
“You help Pa. I’m going in for the animals.”
Jeremiah began pumping ferociously for Samuel who, before that moment, hadn’t noticed that his two eldest children had come to his aid.
“Blitzschlag!” Samuel yelled in German. “Lightning struck the barn.”
***
The inside of their cozy barn was ablaze. Piles of the sweet-smelling hay, where Rebekah had hidden from her brothers on lazy fall afternoons, were engulfed by roaring, ravenous flames. The yoke her father had hewn by hand as a boy hung on a blackened overhead beam, charred and smoking. A rafter collapsed, shocking her back to her senses.
Cream and Butter, tied up in their stalls, pulled and reared against the ropes that had now become their enemy. Tiny Buttermilk bleated and mooed helplessly from behind her mother.
Rebekah yanked the knots that tethered Cream and Butter to free them. The eyes of her normally-docile cows were wild and terrified, but she grasped the lead ropes in her hands anyway and turned to lead them out.
She looked at the tiny calf which stood in the stall, frozen in fear. Their eyes met. I won’t leave you.
Turning her attention back to the task at hand, she sang the flapjack ingredients song loudly, partly to be heard over the roaring flame but mostly to keep both her and the frightened cattle calm.
Another flaming beam snapped and fell behind them. Butter, the milk cow, bellowed and reared. She danced a freakish dance on her hind legs before she jerked free and raced out of the barn and into the heart of the storm.
Rebekah stumbled with the force of Butter’s yank but couldn’t regain her balance. Before she could secure her hold on Cream’s rope, she fell in a sprawling heap in the mud.
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.
