“And the Bible,” the smallest put in.

Clemmie managed to control her voice. “Is everybody all right? Nobody hurt?”

Geneva said, “We made it out just fine. Rusty helped us.”

Now that he had time to think, Rusty began to suffer from a worrisome conscience. If he hadn’t fallen asleep . . .

Clemmie murmured, “Everybody is here. Thank God for that.”

Out past the barn, two stacks of hay went up in flames. The raiders had taken time to touch them off before they left. Clemmie lamented, “The house is gone, and now we’ve got no winter feed for the stock.”

If the animals had to, they could survive on grass until the spring green-up, Rusty thought. But the prospect of the family spending the winter without a roof was much more troubling. “Clemmie, we’d better see after that wound.”

He started to tear the gown where the bullet had ripped through, but she shoved his hand away. “Ain’t proper. Geneva can see to it.”

It struck him odd that at a moment like this she should let modesty take precedence. Only the direst of emergencies had caused her even to let him see her in her nightgown.

One of the girls asked fearfully, “You think they’ll come back?”

Purdy stood hunched, staring at the blazing ruin that had been their home. “Ain’t much to come back for, unless they take a notion to burn the barn and shed, too.”

Rusty thought they probably would have had they not encountered more resistance than they expected.

“He ought to’ve killed us,” Clemmie said bitterly.

“He?” Rusty asked.

“Caleb Dawkins. Who else? If he wanted to be shed of us, he ought to’ve killed us, because we ain’t givin’ up. We may have to go somewhere else for a while, but we’ll be back.”

Geneva asked, “Where could we go?”

“I don’t know, but we ain’t about to roll over and die. We’ll build it all back big as it ever was.”

“Dawkins would just burn it down again.”

“Not if he’s dead. He’d be dead now if I’d just been able to get him in my sights.”

Rusty looked around sharply. “Did you see him here tonight?”

“No, because if I had, I’d’ve shot him. He must’ve managed to stay back out of the light.”

Thunder rumbled, and lightning streaked the northern sky. Rusty could smell moisture in the air as the wind carried the smoke away from him. He said, “Everybody better get into the shed before it starts to rain.” He supported Clemmie, helping her move under the roof. Geneva and the girls brought the clothing they had managed to salvage.

A downpour began. Even under the shed, Rusty could feel the cold mist as the wind drove it inside. “Pity it couldn’t have done this an hour ago. They wouldn’t have been able to light the fires.”

Clemmie said grittily, “What if is a fool’s game that nobody wins. We’ve got to deal with things the way they are. Come daylight we’ll take stock of what’s left and figure out what we can do, where we can go.”