The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

and hold it with your other leg.”
    Kate came down the rope fast—maybe too fast. I braced myself as she dropped the last few feet, knocking me down. She screamed from the shock of the nettles tearing into her, but I wasn’t feeling the pain anymore. She rolled off me, and I stood up again.
    Archie was coming down the rope. He had taken gymnastics classes, and he had no trouble with the rope at all. He barely needed our help for the final drop, and he didn’t get scratched much because we had knocked most of the nettles that were directly under the rope out of the way.
    Tom was already halfway down the rope. He, too, didn’t need much help and landed almost gracefully. I looked up and saw that my mother was next. She was clearly terrified. Her skirt was rolled up, but that was the least of her problems. She probably hadn’t done anything like this for twenty-five years.
    She was sitting astride the windowsill. The broken pieces of the frame must be cutting into her backside. She was holding onto the rope but afraid to move. I saw Uncle Jeff’s head. He must be standing at the top of the ladder, and he was coaching her, talking calmly and soothingly. It was amazing that he could be so cool when the smoke was now pouring out of the window around them.
    He got my mother to twist around, so that both of her legs dangled out the window. She was still more or less sitting on the ledge and was clinging to the rope. Uncle Jeff talked her into positioning her legs on the rope before she left the safety of the ledge.
    Then she shoved off from the ledge. The back of her head hit the ledge as she slid past, but I don’t think she even noticed that. At first she came down slowly, her legs locked together, holding her weight. She shifted her feet to make herself slide faster, but then she slid too fast. She came shooting down the rope, which must be burning her hands and legs, screaming as she came.
    The four of us all stood underneath and received her full weight as she fell on top of us. We were all shouting and groaning. I hurt all over, but I tried to roll my mother out of the way because Aunt Dorothy was now coming down. Her descent was a little more graceful, but the ones of us who could still move tried to catch her as she dropped off the end of the rope. We ended up in a pile on the ground again.
    I looked up and saw that both Uncle Jeff and my father were on the rope. Time had run out, with the smoke pouring out of the broken window. Both of them were in relatively good shape and had been athletes in their time. We didn’t try to catch them at the bottom; they would have crushed us. Instead, we tried to get out of their way. They landed with a minimum of groaning. The nettles were now gone from the drop zone.
    The men were still coughing as they tried to stand up. I looked at the others. Everybody was conscious, at least, although various ones of us had injuries, ranging from nettle scratches to rope burns to perhaps sprained ankles or worse.
    “You saved us, Gary,” my father said, between coughs.
    This was the first time I had heard him say something complimentary to me in the past few weeks. I started to bask in his approval when something else occurred to me. I pulled myself to my feet and started limping toward the side of the barn where the outside door was located.
    “Where are you going?” my father asked.
    “To get Ed,” I said. “If he’s hurt, he needs help.”
    Kate trotted along beside me. Then she passed me since I was hobbled by a variety of injuries. By the time I reached the door to the barn, she had already opened it and was inside. Not much smoke had reached the lower part of the barn yet. I could see Kate bending over Ed, who was lying on the concrete floor near the ladder.
    “He’s hurt,” she said, urgently.
    And indeed, he had blood on his head where it had apparently hit the hard floor. But his eyes were open, and he was semi-conscious.
    “We have to get you out of here, Ed,” I said to him, lifting him by the shoulders.
    Kate tried to lift his legs, but he yelled when she did. I could see that one leg looked twisted, even through his pants.
    “I think his leg is broken,” I told Kate.
    Broken leg or not, we still had to get him out of the barn, because I was afraid the ceiling above us, which also served as the floor of the hayloft, was going to collapse. Kate and I dragged Ed toward the door, even though he screamed all the way. Perhaps I even received some kind of grim