Strictly Taboo(24)

They were like two balloons filled to just below the explosion point. They needed only the tiniest pin prick to come apart completely.



Nathan stumbled going down the stairs from their hotel room. He didn’t pitch face-first down the steps. The toe of his shoe caught on a loose corner of the carpet. He couldn’t bring that foot forward to get it to the next step and lurched to the side, hitting the wall with his shoulder. The sound reverberated through the lobby. Nathan stood against the wall and cursed. All of his anguish at his own futility came out. He kept his voice low but the words pierced Victoria’s spirit and soul. She grew up with a minister father and a Sunday school teaching mother. Coarse language wasn’t part of her history.



Nathan grew up in the mines among men from all parts of the world. The miners had a rough and dangerous life. Death visited the mines on a regular basis with flooding, rock falls, cave-ins and ill health. His spirit came of age to the tune of swear words.



When he finished damning the stairs, the carpet and the hotel to eternal ruin and despair, he realized what he’d said. He looked up at Victoria. Her soul obviously bristled at his use of such colorful words. She said nothing. She turned and walked ahead of him to his carriage. Dinner was a silent affair that evening.





Chapter Eight



Going back to their hotel, Nathan called up his pride and dignity. He wasn’t going to be lectured, even silently, by a woman who didn’t know him. Victoria felt offended and disappointed by Nathan’s behavior. Any hopes she’d had when she first arrived died during the flood of forbidden language. She occupied the few moments riding in the carriage with plans for her return to Kansas City and taking her place again as a school teacher.



As they passed a big building, it burst into flames. Nathan stopped the carriage in surprise. Men and women ran out of the building, which seemed to be a rooming house of some kind.



Nathan and Victoria heard a desperate, frightened cry from the back of the building. They got out of the carriage and ran around the back. A woman in an ill-fitting and worn dress pointed up to a window on one of the upper floors. She screamed, “My baby boy. My baby boy.”



Nathan leaped on the side of the building and used the wooden down spout to hold himself up. The boards on the side of the wall were set in staggered rows. He could fit the edge of his shoe to lift himself. The wooden drain pipe provided stability. He’d gone twenty feet up the side of the building when one of the boards gave way and his foot slipped. He hung by his hands on the wooden downspout.



Victoria felt her chest quiver in terror. She put her hand over her mouth and moaned. She wanted to look away but couldn’t. Nathan seemed to hang on to the downspout for an eternity. She gasped when she saw the fire take over the roof of the structure and drop fiery shards of wood on Nathan. She moved her hands with his as he batted away the pieces of flaming wood



He managed to find another place to put his foot and continue up the side of the building.



He made it to the second floor and reached out to jump over to the window when he heard Victoria yell, “No, Nathan. Go up one more floor.” She could see the child at the window crying in panic.



Nathan slowly, amidst another rain of fiery death, found handholds and footholds on the side of the building. His progress was slow as a glacier. He made it to the third floor and hung like a monkey with his hands inside the first window and his feet planted on the boards on the wall. He could see the fire getting closer. His face burned with the heat of the fire. Smoke poisoned his eyes and made it hard to see the boy. He swung away from the downspout and hooked one hand in the next window. He went hand-over-hand along the window and got ready to do it again.



A wooden trough designed to direct the flow of water off the roof and burning intensely, fell off the roof. Victoria screamed, “Nathan, look out!”



The trough hit him on the shoulder and knocked his hand loose from the narrow board where he put most of his weight.



Victoria made slight, whining and screaming sounds. She bit her lip so hard it drew blood.



Nathan swung back and forth from his other hand still holding the window until he could latch onto the narrow board again. He was still six feet away from the boy.



He rested for a few seconds. He heard the mother’s frenzied weeping, and tried again.



He made two risky swinging lunges and managed to catch a stable board each time. He made it to what he thought was the right window, it was empty. He heard Victoria yell, “The child fell back inside.”



Smoke as thick as deep mud boiled out of the window. Nathan held his breath and dove into the open space. The heat scorched his head and neck. He reached down and found the child. It was easy to put him on his shoulder and get back out of the window, but now he had to navigate the rapidly disintegrating wall without losing the child to get back to the drainpipe.