A lumberjack was something Matthias Timmermann never thought he'd be. Most jacks wanted what came in bottles and corsets in the nearest lumber town saloon. They'd blow their entire winter earnings at the end of the season, after the logs were driven down rivers to the saw mills.
Matthias wanted out of the logging camps and into the arms of Annabella, a beautiful German girl working in the boarding house in Peshtigo. He wanted to kiss her the night they danced on the moonlit boardwalk, but circumstance tore them apart. He longed to take her in his arms again, and smell her hair and touch her skin.
On October 8, 1871, there was more than desire burning. Unaware that Chicago was also burning, the people of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and the Sugar Bushes ran for the rivers and creeks trying to outrun the fire storm.
The tempest did not care if it was an innocent child, lovers entwined in the heat of passion, or a mother about to give birth. She did not care if they were elderly or bedridden. The tempest was at hand and she wanted them as they were.