Philip Wylie - The Other Horseman

“I said—clear out!”

“But, man, I’m a chemist!”

“I don’t care if you’re a damn’ emperor! I’m in charge. I say—get out!” He saw that Jimmie was not getting out. He turned. “Hey! Some of you men! We’ve a bit of bouncing to do.”

“Come on, Biff,” Jimmie said dully.

They were in the car again. “I’ll drive. Just leave the motor running. Okay, Biff?”

Biff nodded. “Sure makes a wonderful blaze!”

Jimmie drove slowly, inside the fence, around the buildings. The flames spread to the shed. Jimmie stepped on the accelerator and the car raced to the far end of the property. He stalled the motor and sat with hunched shoulders, looking out of the window. As if the earth were a bass drum and the drumstick some celestial body, the first explosion swept upon them. Afterward came four others almost as tremendous at intervals. The flaming contents of both buildings ascended toward the red sky, turning over and over, halting, falling back. A wave of heat oppressed them.

The people vented a great, collective scream. He looked. They were out of danger. Only fragments and sparks fell into the crowd. Some, who had been knocked down, rose and ran—dolls against the hot backdrop. A vast, slowly turning column of black smoke rose in the center of the fire. At its summit a sphere of flame-licked darkness formed. This monstrous object also blew up, with a lush detonation, and it rained down everywhere ten thousand drops of burning liquid.

“That’s that!” Jimmie said. “The rest of it will be more normal! Unless the gas escapes—and I don’t think it will.”

Biff was cursing slowly, gravidly.

Jimmie started the car, aided by his speechless brother. He went back around the buildings, looking at them.

Then he stopped and jumped out.

There was something so electrical in this movement that Biff, also, leaped to the ground and ran to his brother’s side. A big building shielded them from the worst of the inferno. Jimmie was staring at it, staring with all his might. “I thought—?” he said.

“There’s a man in there!”

The building was on fire all along the ground floor. Flames licked through it horizontally. Flames sent the windows tinkling and reached out into the night, embracing the structure with yellow horror. Upstairs, revealed by the wan glow of a lantern, a human figure ran past window after window.

“It’s Mr. Corinth!” Jimmie said slowly. “He must have been working tonight.”

“He’s caught!”

“I dunno. He’s going in his office. Where the records are.”

The light, with the man in front, vanished and reappeared at another window. Biff grabbed Jimmie by the sleeve. “The old man’s trapped! I can’t help much! But if you take the ladder up that tank you could hop over to the roof and get down a skylight! Toss him out the window. I’ll break his fall. Then come back through the roof—or jump, yourself.”

Jimmie pulled his sleeve away. “There’s going to be a blast there—in a minute.”

“Then work fast—you ape!”

Jimmie said, “Chances are it would get both of us.”

“A chance worth taking! Come on!”

To Biff’s dismay his brother stood still, keeping his eyes on the window. The light retreated. It wavered and stood still. “He’s opening the safe,” Jimmie said. “So the stuff in it will burn! God! I wonder if I’d have—” Suddenly he cupped his hands and yelled with all his force. “Mr. Corinth! It’s me! Jimmie! Jump!”

Biff pawed at his brother. “He can’t hear you! Get going!”

“I’m not going,” Jimmie said.

“Not going! You—!” Biff pushed Jimmie toward the tank.

“Leggo. In the old man’s safe is the story of what he was working on. He knows the story, and I do. No other people. If the wrong guy got those papers—even a reporter—! That’s what he’s thinking!”

Biff’s voice was frantic. “You gotta get him out. He’s a nice old guy, Jimmie! You can’t stand and argue! He’ll burn!!”

“I gotta let him take—his own chance.” Jimmie turned toward Biff.

Jimmie’s face was pale as death. Beads of perspiration stood on it, beads that merged and dropped unnoticed down his cheeks. His mouth had split back from his teeth.

His eyes were as bleak as if there were nothing but blackness in their places. It was an expression of incalculable agony. Biff had never dreamed of such pain. He was sure—during one terrible moment of hatred—that his brother had turned into an abysmal coward. But as he looked at that unbearable expression he knew he was wrong. Jimmie was standing like that because he had to. Because it was more important—somehow—for him to stand still, in a safe place, than to go to the aid of the old man.

Biff began to sob, without knowing it.

But Jimmie did not budge.

He waited, bareheaded. He watched small flames rise up in the room where the dim light was. The light moved to another room. Then the old man showed at the window with his lantern. He was fumbling with the catch when the blast downstairs dropped him, and the floor, into a sea of fire. The entire building caught. Its roof split. Its pent heat towered in the air.

Biff also stood still, staring at the building that was the pyre of his town’s greatest man. Then, numbly, he looked down. His brother had fallen.

Jimmie lay still. His fists were doubled. They beat the earth. His face was flat-pressed upon it. His shoulders stirred with the torment of strong muscles. For a long time the two men stayed that way—together and alone, behind the blistering extravaganza. Biff slowly stirred into himself an understanding of what he had seen. A man, he thought crazily, does have a greater love than to lay down his life for a friend. Jimmie had a greater love—even than that.

So Biff waited till Jimmie was through with it, till he went slack and silent. The fire was jumping less prodigiously and the engines were moving around the ends of it.

Biff bent over and tapped Jimmie. “Cigarette, old man?”

Jimmie sat up. He gave his kid brother a long look. “Thanks!”

MR. BAILEY PARKED his car and walked down to the bonfire burning at the river side. He pulled off his mittens and held out his hands so they would warm faster. He stamped his feet on the frozen ground and searched the skaters with eyes that were tired but alert. He didn’t see Jimmie at first. The people went whizzing around and back and forth and through each other, like confetti on a miscellaneous breeze. Then Jimmie came shooting along from way up the river, skating like a hockey player; he dodged men and women and children with bird-flight motions, turned, showered crystals, and started to walk up the wooden ramp.

“Hey, Jimmie!”

“Hello, Dad.”

“They, said over at the paint works I’d find you here.”

Jimmie smiled a little. “Yeah. Nothing more I could help with today. We’ve got everything we can, going again. It’ll be six months before they get the shops rebuilt. And eight, or ten, for a new lab.”

“I know. I—want to talk to you. D’you mind?”

“Not at all.” Jimmie picked up a wood bench, tucked it under his arm, walked clumsily closer to the fire, and put down the bench. The men sat side by side. “Going to snow—about tomorrow. Snow hard. For a long while. What’s on your mind?”

Mr. Bailey seemed hesitant about getting to the point. “A lot of things. A hell of a lot of ’em. You seen Biff?”

“Not lately. Not in the last few days.” HI didn’t know you were taking care of the family of the colored man that got killed in the wreck.”

Jimmie shrugged. His face was bright with color. Underneath were the gray tones of fatigue and the sharp lines of strain. “What of it? Who told you?”