Who by Fire Read Online Free

Ladders wrapped these towers, giving them a fairy-tale appearance. At night, when he was trying to sleep, Tom, who had a fear of heights, yielded to sick imaginings of climbing them. During the day he made fun of it all. It was he who had come up with the name “Sulphur City.”
    Don Harbeg had been working full time on the plant’s construction since harvest, and at church he drew crowds with his explanations. He said it was inside the silver towers that the fuels would be split out: propane, butane, and the mixture that made car and truck gasoline. “North of the cement stack is the sulphur building. Big vessels in there extract and condense the sulphur.” He flung around words like “condense” and “extract” as though he had always known them.
    Besides the new words, Tom had noticed that, if someone said something about the plant that wasn’t favourable, such as that it would stink more than anyone was admitting, Don would say he doubted it, that the plant was going to be all right. Tom suspected that Clint Comstock had hired Don Harbeg so he could play this part. If you worked on something, it was natural to stick up for it. The Texan’s strategy was that of a cutting horse: get one out, then try to get another from the herd to join it.

    The time for the plant to start operating came marching toward them. It was like the plant was filling with pressure and they could feel it in their own bodies. As Christmas neared, the normal good feelings that came with the season were replaced by an anxious mood. There were arguments about things that had never been argued about before.
    Part of the Ryders’ Christmas tradition was a buying trip to Lethbridge. Some neighbours went farther, to Calgary, but Tom found Calgary an unnerving place to drive. Lethbridge had wide streets and a few street lights that changed colour on a leisurely schedule: a farmer’s city.
    When the Ryders crossed the Old Man River Valley into Lethbridge, they ducked under the railway bridge and passed the brewery garden with its Christmas display. They parked in their usual place a block from the biggest stores and walked downtown together. At that point, they divided up so they could buy each other presents. Ella made the girls take Billy, and they groaned their disappointment. Billy was too excited to take offence.
    Tom went to Woolworth’s and walked back and forth along the jewellery counter. A salesgirl with a Christmas corsage on her white blouse homed in on him, but he turned his back. He did not want help so much as time to think. Ever since the construction machines came and the Bauers left, he and Ella had been bickering. It was a kind of irritation more than actual fighting, but it was getting worse. Ella claimed he was angry every time he came in the house. He thought he was no different than he’d ever been. There was just more to be angry about.
    Tom wanted to give Ella a present that showed he had put some thought into it. But he could not spend any more than he usuallydid. Ella did not like extravagance and would take it back if he over-spent. He stared at every object in the glass case, then at its price tag. He would only submit to the salesgirl if time ran out.
    Then it caught his eye: a silver brooch a couple of inches high that was one of the symbols on a sheet of music. Ella’s parents had been short of money all their life but had sprung for an upright when the Heintzman man came around. Ella had taken lessons as a girl and nowadays played the organ at St. Bruno’s. During the summer of their courtship, Tom had groomed and saddled his horse and ridden across the hills to visit her. Sometimes they went riding; other times they sat in her parents’ living room, and Ella played for him.
    The brooch was the perfect thing, and now he was nervous lest it get away.
    “What’s this called?” he asked the girl as she came up behind the glass cabinet. “It’s got to do with music.”
    She looked like the kind of girl who