Meanwhile the rapping on and in his head continued unrelenting, increasing in tempo, accompanied by what seemed to be the clapperclaw of crows. He turned to the window. The blanket had fallen. Two desperate nuns in black, with spectacles, were scratching on the broken glass, screaming at him through the fog of his bleared vision, the cataracts on his intelligence. Screaming what? He couldn’t make out the words. Something like—fway-go? fway-ho? They pointed upward straight at Heaven with extended forefingers. Way to go? Yes, ma’am, the Way. The One Way.

He nodded. Yes, sister, I understand. I understand. He crossed himself, turning his sick head away, and saw a brown stain on the ceiling directly over the bed, a stain that grew and spread and darkened even as he watched. A busy noise, like a hurlyburly of rats, rustled through the attic. The stain broke open and fragments of plaster and burning wood dropped to the floor. Orange flames, bright as sprites, flickered around the edge of the opening.

Fuego.

Henry leaped up naked, pulled the woman off the bed—the nuns fled—and draped the double sleeping bag around her nudity. Groggily awake, she stared in panic at the burning hole in the ceiling. Henry grabbed his pants, shirt, boots. A section of the roof caved in, blocking their escape through the front door.

This way…. He clutched her wrist and led her through the south door into the gallery, Myra’s studio, the barnlike interior of the old store. Things fell, streaming with flame. Two bodies lay on the floor under the trestle table. Henry kicked them awake. They stumbled up and followed him and the woman through smoke and fire out the back door and into the clean breathable air of the yard. Some neighbors had gathered to watch. Blue woolly smoke with happy flames gushed from the roof. The whole house from end to end, throughout the attic, appeared to be on fire.

It’s all right, adobe can’t burn, the woman said.

Right, said Henry, yanking on his pants, his boots. He looked wildly around for assistance, saw a bucket hanging to the spout of the pump. He ran to it but the bucket was empty. Someone had kicked over the can of priming water. He jerked the pump handle up and down. Nothing came forth but the croak of dry air. He tied his bandana across nose and mouth and ran back into the studio. The smoke was so dense he could barely see.

Myra! he shouted, Myra!

No answer. Her easel stood in a corner near the empty and overturned beer keg, her latest and half-completed painting resting on its crossarm. Embers fell on his hair, his shirtless shoulders. He seized a painting from the wall, snatched up the easel and its canvas and blundered out the narrow doorway in back, stumbling with his awkward load.

Where’s Myra? he hollered. Anybody see Myra?

His friend Roggoway, the shivering girl in the body paint, the woman wrapped in the sleeping bags stared at him in wonder. Six stunned and fear-struck eyes. She left last night, the girl said. Went back to town with the others. God but it’s cold. She huddled in the arms of Roggoway, seeking warmth. Bildad, like van Hoss, was nowhere to be seen.