Reprisal by Mitchell Smith Page B

came out, too--an' he's an ace. Said it looked like a hot coal thing, which is what we think, too, and we see a lot of 'em.--Stove door was left open just a little bit, some coals rolled out on the floor, and that's all she wrote. Nighttime, so your dad would have been asleep." Duffield closed his eyes for an instant, leaned his head to the left to illustrate sleep.
    "I see."
    "He probably woke up, came out to deal with it, threw a little water on an'
    that was no use. People ... people live right through the woods there, they called it in.--An' you know, most cases, there isn't much sufferin'. Fumes'll get you before the flames."
    Joanna was across the pit from Duffield as he was talking. She wondered how many families had been told fumes got the person before the flames.
    "Are you saying ... and those people who live nearby ... are you saying he just died and didn't suffer so terribly?"
    Captain Duffield looked at her across the ruin. Joanna could see his reflection beneath him, in the black water. His reflection seemed to open its mouth to speak an instant before he did. "No, can't say that for sure, Mrs.
    Reed. Wish I could."
    His reflection seemed to want to add something more ... to warn her not to inquire further about suffering. About being burned to death, and crying out.
    Joanna walked back around the edge of the pit, but didn't look into it anymore. "... And nothing strange, nothing unusual? My father wasn't senile, Mr. Duffield. He'd lived here, starting with summers, and heated with that stove for almost forty years."
    "Yeah, but it only takes one mistake. You foolin' with fire, one mistake is all it takes."
    "And nothing--nothing at all strange about this?"
    "Only thing was a small pour pattern in the char, what had been a couple of floor planks --the width of that charcoal is what tells us they were floor planks. That's why I said he probably threw a little water on there. Any liquid'll pattern like that, a wet stain. It'll burn that pattern right into the wood, charred doesn' make any difference."
    "A pour pattern. ..."
    "Yeah, something just spilled there, and not much. An' Ted thought maybe an accelerant, you know, your dad got up at night, tried to jump-start his fire with a little kerosene or whatever?"

    "He would never, never do that."
    "Well, you're right. He didn' do that. Ted had that wood looked at first thing this morning, just to cover the bases, and it definitely wasn't a regular accelerant. You got esters and oils and so forth in that kind of liquid--those products are real complicated--and there was no chemical residue at all in those planks. Whatever it was just evaporated away real quick an' clean, so it was probably water. We think your dad woke up, found the fire an' threw some water on it, an' that didn' do any good."
    Mr. Duffield--Captain Duffield; she was meeting captains now ... sea captains, fire captains--Captain Duffield made a graceful dismissive gesture with his right hand, showing how little good the water had done. "You know, small amount of water's not much use on an advanced pine-wood fire, you get old dry-cured lumber. The water hits an' you get a little pattern an' it effervesces an' it's gone."
    "But something was poured on the fire."
    "Right."
    "--Something."
    "Probably water."
    "Could it have been anything else?"
    "I guess ... umm ... lab alcohol wouldn' leave any residue. But I don't see why he would do that, Mrs. Reed."
    Joanna tried to imagine her father in his flowered boxer shorts--Fruit of the Loom--standing sleepy and surprised. Pale, large, and lumbering, his body welted, softened, melted by time like candle wax, he poured an improbable small vase of water on a fire--a fire young, beautiful, full of ferocious energy, and growing.
    Captain Duffield, apparently with other things to do, turned from the site and walked away toward their cars, his shoes making no sound on pine needles.
    Joanna hurried after him as if she had another question she must ask, though she