He found that he could stay close to the wall and keep the boy in place while he used both hands and feet to gain foot and handholds on the side of the building.
He heard Victoria scream and looked around. The wall ten feet away burned through. Flames came out of the boards and licked up the sides. They spread out, coming toward him.
He’d made it to the drainpipe when the wall he’d been climbing on disintegrated into burning kindling.
He swung over to the other side of the drainpipe and found a wall that hadn’t burned down to him. A few more burning pieces of wood fell on him and he looked up.
The fire on the wall was coming down toward him and coming down quickly. He had to drop recklessly to stay ahead of the flames. Twice, the drainpipe came away in his hand when he put his weight on it. He was forced to grab the next section of drainpipe and let himself drop. The boy came loose twice, and he was forced to stop to get him resettled.
Each time he faltered, Victoria screamed. She trotted back and forth below him in a frenzy of worry.
The wall to either side of him smoked. He felt the intense heat attack him.
He was still ten feet off the ground when he couldn’t do it any more. He didn’t have anywhere to grab. Everything was burning. He dropped the child off to a man below and jumped. He hit hard. It knocked the wind out of him. When he opened his eyes, he saw the entire wall of the building coming down on top of him. He rolled to the side with furious energy. The wall hit close enough to burn a hole in his shirt.
He got to his feet and saw Victoria lay the boy on the ground. She tipped his head back and held his jaw up. She took deep breaths and blew them into the boy’s lungs.
Twenty breaths later, the boy coughed and began to breathe on his own.
Victoria stood up and saw Nathan. She launched herself into his arms. “I thought you were going to die. It was so dangerous.”
He held her close. “I didn’t though.” They clung together for a few seconds. Nathan said, “You saved the boy’s life. You breathed life into him. Where did you learn to do that?”
He noticed she was crying. She sniffled twice. “At school. We were built next to a hospital. We’d make explorations there and learn life saving techniques.”
She noticed that she was in his arms. He could feel her stiffen. He pulled her closer. “No. We won’t go back to where we were. We just did something very brave and very hard. If we can do this, we can do a little thing like conceive a baby. It can’t be harder than what we’ve done today.”
She still looked nervous. He put his hand on the back of her head and held her still while he kissed her. She stayed stiff for a few seconds until it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed back.
Chapter Nine
Twenty minutes later, they stood in their hotel room again. Victoria wrinkled her nose. “We smell of smoke. You especially.”
Nathan spoke boldly. “Let’s take a bath. Together. We can scrub each other’s back.”
“Oh Nathan. That’s so daring. I’d love it. But how?”
He took her hand and pulled her into the bathroom. A wide and long copper tub sat on claw-like legs next to the wall. Nathan pointed to two faucets. “One is cold water and the other is hot.”
“How does it work?”
“There’s two big water cisterns on the roof. They’re filled with rain water and water brought in by workmen in the morning. From three in the afternoon till seven at night, the hotel keeps a fire going underneath one of them. It’s quite remarkable. Watch.”
He turned the hot tap. They waited a few seconds until water, hot enough to sting the skin, poured out in the tub. He turned to Victoria with a grin. “What do you say? Let’s take these clothes off and put them in the corridor. I’ll call down and have them washed and dried. We can get ourselves lathered up and get rid of the odor of smoke.”
Victoria’s answer was to undo the bow on the neck of her blouse and pull it open. Nathan took off his shoes and socks, shirt and pants then his underwear. He stood in front of Victoria naked and smiling. She dropped her skirt on the floor and stared at him. She said, “Damn. Look at you.’
“Damn?”
“Yes. I’m not always a lady.” She struggled out of the rest of her clothes. Nathan gathered them up and set them out in the corridor. He phoned town to the front desk then came back in the bathroom.
(By the way, telephone exchanges came to Denver in 1879, six years earlier.)
Victoria was luxuriating in the tub. The water came up to her chest. Nathan said, “My dear, if you’ll slide forward a bit, I can sit behind you.”