The fire sucked the wind. The wind pushed the fire. One fed the other until the flames soared 30 feet and more upward, smudging the clear blue sky with smoky gray clouds. Flames jumped to the lower branches of trees left dry by the summer's drought. Embers fell to the ground and ignited the dry grass in the clearing. The wind pushed the flames eastward, toward the house and barn.

While Eddie and Henry frantically dug up dirt and tossed it on the fire, Papa and Adolph used the two-man crosscut saw to drop the closest trees inward onto the fire, hoping to deny the beast a fuel-rich path to grow.

Despite their best efforts, the fire moved relentlessly east-ward. One stand of trees at a time. Ever closer to the house with each passing moment.

How long ago had it started? Henry wondered, scooping another shovel of dirt onto the flames. An hour? More?

The flames leaped again, gobbled another patch of grass, threatened to dash out and seize him. Grunting from exertion and anger, Henry flung another load of dirt at the attacking fire. Sweat stung his already smoke-irritated eyes.

"Eddie! Henry!" Papa shouted over the fire's roar. "Come here!"

Henry ran to him, dragging his shovel. Eddie got there first.

On his father's signal, Adolph, 16 and taller than his father, paused to catch his breath. The teenager, with his father's dark hair and eyes and angular face, showed signs of maturing into a beefier version of his father. He stretched the kink out of his back, put there by an hour of steady sawing.

Dust and sweat matted the older man's dark hair into a tan-gle as dense as the underbrush they'd been working all sum-mer to clear. Thirty-four years old and the father of eight, Edward Hardies stood only five-foot-seven but had shoulders broadened by a lifetime of farming and lumbering. He mopped his forehead with the sooty sleeve of his green plaid shirt and told his younger sons, "I want you two to take the wagon back to the house. Rake and dig away every bit of vegetation you can between the edge of the woods and the barn. And have Mama and the girls fill every bucket and barrel with water."

Oh God, Henry thought. The whole farm's gonna burn up.

"But, Papa," Eddie protested, glancing back at the inferno behind him.

"Now!" Papa stuck a finger out toward the house. "Go!"

They ran to the wooden buckboard as fast as they could carrying the heavy shovels. Harley, a black gelding draft horse of uncertain ancestry, waited in harness, pawing, snorting, and straining against his harness.

Eddie tossed his shovel in the back and hopped onto the seat. "I'm driving."

For an instant, Henry thought about arguing but decided there were more important things to worry about at the moment. He hoisted himself and his shovel into the back. He mashed his well-worn straw hat tighter on his head until it was snug. He did not want to lose it as it had been a birthday gift a year ago. And, after all, Eddie did not have such a straw hat.

Eddie slapped the reins across Harley's rump and hauled back. The big horse clomped backward a few paces, snorting and flaring his nostrils but pushing as steady and straight as always. Eddie pulled the reins hard to the right, and Harley wheeled the wooden wagon around and set off down the trail. Harley, an implacable horse that had worked on the farm since he and Henry were two, had only two paces-plodding and slow. He eased into a slow walk. Eddie slapped the reins again, trying to urge him ahead faster.

No use in that, Henry thought with a shrug. Harley goes at his own pace, no matter what you do.

Eddie slapped the reins again and shouted, "Go, you durn horse!"

Harley stomped his feet harder but his pace stayed slow and steady. The wagon wheels clattered over the hard, rough ground, and the buckboard rocked side-to-side.

Henry leaned against the back of the wagon seat. Had the fire eased up? The flames seemed less fierce, the wind lighter.