Chapter 18: The Fire

The storehouse was already going when we reached it.

Flames stood out of the roof, and the grain sacks inside were burning with a thick brown smoke.

The whole camp was in the yard.

Women passed buckets from the creek.

Children stood in a row along the fence, too frightened to cry.

Hoyt ran at the door with a wet blanket over his head, and a beam came down in front of him.

He fell back, coughing.

"Winter flour," he said. "Forty sacks. It's everything we have."

I did not decide anything.

I threw off my blanket and pushed out of the chair.

"Freya," Trudy screamed.

My body went into the change in one long pull, and it did not hurt.

The grey wolf stood where I had sat.

I ran at the storehouse door and hit it with my shoulder.

It split off its hinges.

Heat struck me in the face, and I went in.

The flour sacks were stacked against the back wall, and the fire had not reached them yet.

I took the first one in my jaws and dragged it out across the dirt floor.

Then I went back.

Behind me, I heard a truck skid to a stop in the yard.

A door slammed.

"Hoyt!" a man shouted. It was Thane. "Line up the buckets on the left, now. Move!"

I came out with the third sack, and I saw him.

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