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"Set
the canner further back on the stove," Ma Richards said. All the
good feeling from the dinner table was gone from her voice.

"I’ve got to leave room to set the other one on," I
said.

"You won’t need room if that tips over on you," Ma snapped.
She had changed back to her old self.

Instead of answering I started carving up more fat at the table. I
sliced twenty times this way and twenty times crossways. The fat
sliced easy as clotted cream or thick jelly. My left hand was so
slick with grease I couldn’t pick up anything but the blocks
of fat. I raked the knife across the board harder than I needed to,
to show how determined I was to get the job done and ignore
Ma.

There was a little blood on the fat and on the board also, and I
hardly noticed when I felt a nip at the end of my middle finger as
I held a slab down to slice it. But when I saw the bright blood on
the white fat I knowed I’d cut myself. A drop fell from the
end of my finger, and then another. "Oh no," I said.

"What have you done?" Ma said.

"Just a nick," I said.

"Don’t get blood on the lard fat," Ma said.

I grabbed a dishcloth and wiped the grease off my finger. I’d
cut a place on the tip about the size of a pinhead. But it kept
bleeding bright red drops. I cleaned off the left hand with the
cloth and tore a strip from a fresh linen rag. I bound up the
finger as best I could to stop the bleeding.

"That’s what comes of being in a hurry," Ma said.

"I’ll have to be more careful," I said. I wasn’t going
to take the time to get mad at Ma, and I wasn’t going to
stoop to the level of her snideness. With the bandage on my finger
I finished slicing up the second pan of fat and then lugged the
heavy canner to the top of the stove. But as I slid the container
onto the stovetop I pushed it too far to the right and hit the
canner already there. The boiling fat rocked like a wave had been
sent through it. I backed away and seen a tongue of boiling lard
spit up and over the rim as the wave sloshed on the side of the
canner. The flung grease hissed on the stovetop and turned to
crackling bubbles and smoke. But there must have been enough grease
so that some of it busted into flame, for I seen fire on top of the
stove. That might not have amounted to nothing, except the rocking
and sloshing continued in the canner and the hot oil spit out again
and leapt right into the flames. With a whoosh the fire flared on
the stovetop. I think it would still have been all right and just
burned there sizzling on the metal except a little more grease
sloshed out of the pot and the fire caught onto that and followed
the splash back into the pot. That was when the fire blazed up in
the canner itself. All the hot oil caught at once and the flames
jumped to the ceiling, lighting the kitchen.

"Oh my god," Ma said.

I looked around for something to throw on the flames. There
wasn’t a blanket or quilt anywhere. There wasn’t
anything bigger than a dish towel.

Now a grease fire is a worse kind of fire than usual. A grease fire
hisses and jumps from one spot to another. There was grease all
over the stove and all over the kitchen. The flames darted from one
spot to another.

Ma run out to the back porch and got the water bucket. I’d
heard that throwing water on boiling grease is the worst thing you
can do, and I hollered for her to stop. But she flung the bucket of
water right onto the flaming pot. You would think cold water would
put a fire out, but the dousing exploded in a hiss and made the
boiling lard splash in all directions. The flames followed the leap
of the splash. The water just spread the fire. Flames landed on the
second canner of fat and on the dishpans full of fat on the table.
The whole kitchen seemed to turn to flames before my eyes. The
curtains on the wall caught fire, and heat blistered my face.

"We’ll have to get out," I yelled to Ma. I pulled her toward
the back door. Smoke was already so thick you couldn’t see
much but the flames in the kitchen.

Mr. Pendergast come running in with another bucket of water.

I guess he must have been to the spring. "Don’t throw no
water," I hollered. But he flung the water right on the fire,
making even more smoke and steam.

"I’ve got to get my money," he shouted.

"What money?" I said. It was so hot I could barely stand in the
doorway.

"My pension money," he yelled.

"You come back," I said, and grabbed at his arm. But he had already
jerked away. He dropped to the floor and crawled under the smoke. I
knelt down where I could see, out of the worst smoke, and watched
him work his way to the right of the stove.

"Get back here," I hollered.

"You better stop him!" Ma screamed.

I knowed Mr. Pendergast kept a can of kerosene sometimes used to
start fires behind the stove, but I had forgot about it. He reached
into the corner behind the wood box and brought out a pint jar. And
I think he would have made it out except for this explosion that
flared up behind the stove. It must have been the kerosene catching
fire. I screamed as the flames covered Mr. Pendergast up.

"Let him go," Ma shouted. But I couldn’t just leave Mr.
Pendergast laying there in the fire. I had to try to help him. He
was screaming and the fire seemed to be right on top of his
head.

"Take his foot," I hollered to Ma, but she was already out the door
and on the back steps coughing and trying to get her breath. "Grab
hold of his foot," I said.

I took hold of Mr. Pendergast’s feet and yanked as hard as I
could, and he moved a little. I was coughing too and felt smothered
from the smoke. I jerked harder and got Mr. Pendergast halfway out
the door. And then Ma took one of his feet and helped me pull him
onto the porch.

Mr. Pendergast’s hair was burning, and part of his shirt was
burning. I didn’t have nothing but my apron, and I put my
apron over his hair and snuffed out the flames. I burned my hands a
little, but got the fire out. And just then Ma brought a bucket of
water still warm from the washpot and throwed it on his shirt. We
rolled Mr. Pendergast over on the wet porch and seen how bad his
face and forehead was burned. The skin looked black on his forehead
and scalp where his hair had been. His eyebrows was burned off and
the skin on his cheeks looked red and peeling, and bloody in places
under the soot.

I was thinking we had to put something on his face and on his back
where his shirt had burned. What you put on burns is butter or lard
or some other kind of grease or oil. There was butter in the spring
house, but the lard was burning up in the kitchen. And then I
thought, No, I’d better try to put the fire out first. If I
can I’ve got to save the house. I stood up and looked in the
door.

"You stay out of there," Ma Richards hollered. "Nothing you can
do."

Smoke poured out the door and out the windows. You couldn’t
see nothing in the kitchen. I couldn’t even see any flames.
That made me think nothing was burning but the lard, and maybe that
could be put out. I looked around the porch and seen a pile of tow
sacks by the hoes and shovel and mattock. They had been used I
guess for taking corn to mill or carrying leaves to put in cow
stalls. I grabbed up eight or ten sacks and run to the
washpot.

"What are you doing?" Ma Richards called.

"Putting out the fire," I hollered back. I plunged the sacks into
the pot and pulled them out streaming warm water. With my arms
around the dripping sacks I run toward the back door.

"You stay out of there," Ma yelled.

I leaped up the steps and run past Mr. Pendergast into the smoking
kitchen. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t see much. Bending
close to the floor I walked to the stove and throwed wet sacks on
the burning canners, and then the smoke boiled up worse and I
couldn’t hardly see what I was doing. I run back out to the
pile of sacks and got eight or nine more and carried them to the
washpot.

"You stay out of there!" Ma screamed. But I didn’t pay no
attention to her. I carried the hot dripping sacks against my chest
and hurried through the back door. I figured if the house could be
saved I had to try. I’d started the fire, and I had to stop
it. I stepped across Mr. Pendergast laying on the porch. He was
starting to wake up from the smoke swoon, and hollering.

Fighting my way into the smoke, holding my breath and bending down
low as I could, I put sacks on the burning grease on the table. I
flung sacks on the burning can of kerosene and used the rest of the
sacks like a shield to walk up to the burning curtains and jerk
them down and smother them.

I started coughing, and every time I coughed I breathed in more
smoke. Smoke burned my eyes so I couldn’t see nothing. I put
a hand over my eyes and started toward the door. To keep from
breathing smoke I held my breath, and it felt like my chest was
going to bust. The longer I held my breath the more it felt like my
chest was ready to explode. And then I couldn’t find the
door. Smoke was everywhere and my eyes stung so I couldn’t
see. And I couldn’t breathe for coughing and smothering
myself. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t tell up from down,
or remember where the door was or where the table was. I was so
weak I couldn’t hardly stand up. My knee knocked against
something hard, and my head banged on a sharp corner. There was
nothing to breathe but smoke, dirty, greasy smoke.

Somebody pushed me and lifted me, and the next thing I knowed I was
hobbling and tripping down the steps out into the yard where the
air was cool. It was Hank helping me outside. The air was fresh,
but every time I took a breath I coughed, and smoke burned in my
lungs and in my throat. I bent over and felt something wet leap in
my throat, and found I was throwing up on the ground. I was trying
to throw up all the smoke I had swallowed, but puked out tenderloin
and grits and butter, now sour and bitter. I had to throw up
everything. I heaved until tears come to my eyes and I was so weak
I was trembling.

"What in the world happened?" Hank said.

"Julie bumped a canner and the lard caught fire," Ma Richards
said.

When I was empty I stood up straight and wiped my mouth and brow.
"You could have been killed," Ma Richards said.

"The fire is out," Hank said. He looked through the doorway into
the smoke. "You put it out just in time, before the floor or walls
caught." He stepped out on the porch fanning the smoke with his
hand. I looked through the back door and seen the smoke was
settling in the kitchen. The top half of the room was already
clear. And I seen Mr. Pendergast laying on the porch floor
groaning. His face looked awful with its burns, but he was still
holding the pint jar, and in the jar was dollar bills and coins
like sliced pickles. A silver dollar had rolled out of the jar onto
the porch.

Excerpted from GAP CREEK © Copyright 2001 by Robert
Morgan. Reprinted with permission by Simon & Schuster. All
rights reserved.