Chapter Seven

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1871

Stephen didn’t know where he was.

His brain told him this was Chicago, but he found no evidence of it, nor could he discern which street he was on or near. Everywhere he looked were heaps of bricks, fragments of tin roofs, telegraph wires, the occasional standing wall, or an arched entryway rising over its fallen building. Houses and hotels had sunk into their cellars. One ruined block looked like another. But if he could just find the courthouse or even its bell amid all the rubble, he could find his way home from there. He kept walking.

Some time ago, the streets had been raised between five and twelve feet above the original level of the city. Now they stood up like causeways, resembling the bones of a prisoner of war wasting away. It gave an eerie, gloomy impression.

A crumpled one-page newssheet cartwheeled across his path. Catching it, he smoothed the paper across his shirtfront before reading it. Evening Journal—Extra, the banner read. It was dated October 9, 1871.

The Great Calamity of the Age!

Chicago in Ashes!!

Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’ Worth of Property Destroyed.

The South, the North and a Portion of the West Divisions of the City in Ruins.

All the Hotels, Banks, Public Buildings, Newspaper Offices and Great Business Blocks Swept Away.

The Conflagration Still in Progress.

Fury of the Flames.

Stephen scanned the rest of the sheet but didn’t possess the focus to read it carefully. Giving up, he folded it and stuffed it inside his trouser pocket. Perhaps later he would try again to understand what had happened.

Several children skittered over piles of brick, pulling out silverware fused together, glass bottles flattened, candlesticks bent in half. One boy found a mound of marbles melted into one colorful misshapen blob. Curiosities, they called them. Fire relics.

Stephen felt like a relic too, a curiosity even to himself. A man whose spirit had been so flattened and misshapen, he had failed to care for his own children when they needed him most. His clothing still damp from last night’s rain, he shivered with cold and something else, something that might have been shame.

He’d failed his girls. He’d lost everything they’d entrusted to him, and left them to fend for themselves. What would he say when he found them?

What if he wouldn’t—couldn’t—find them on this side of heaven? Curiosities weren’t the only things people were unearthing today. Charred human remains were being carried away. His knees went soft at the realization that his own daughters might not have escaped the flames. What then?

Stephen sat on a still-warm pile of bricks and held his head, trying to order his thoughts. But they refused to fall in line. They were more like a train that constantly decoupled its cars and derailed.

He should have feared for Meg and Sylvie’s well-being long before this, and it disturbed him that he hadn’t. Even now, as he considered their possible fates, it was not with fatherly anguish but with a detachment, a numbness, that he felt sure would hurt his daughters if they knew.

As if they weren’t already hurt by or angry about his absence.

Something was wrong with him. He should be able to feel more for them than he did. But feeling was easier before the war. Now when he felt anything, it was usually fear, suspicion, or rage. If he could feel sorrow, he would probably feel sad about this.

Gravel crunched beneath footsteps, and Stephen looked up to watch a pair of men carry another body from the rubble. This one hadn’t been burned. Could have been crushed by a runaway horse or wagon, he supposed. Or killed by a falling building.

A snatch of memory flashed in his mind. During the fire, he had hurt people, or tried to. He remembered throwing his fists against flesh and bone. Someone—maybe more than one person—had bled beneath his hand. Then, just as quickly as he saw himself warding off his attackers, his recollections derailed from Chicago and took the track that always carried him back to Andersonville.

To the hurt he had inflicted there just to stay alive. But no, to be fair, it was more than self-defense then. When he beat a man to death with a club, that was only to mete out a terrible justice in order to preserve the weakest among them.

He closed his eyes, and he was there. He could feel the Georgia clay on his skin between the lice and scabs. The Raiders had gone too far. They were the ruthless band of prisoners who preyed upon unsuspecting fellow inmates, breaking bones, even killing men to get their rations or a place in the shade. The Raiders disgraced the Union uniform. They were the worst sort of men, and they thought they owned the whole camp. No one was brave enough to stand up to them until the prison guards secretly armed Stephen and several other men with clubs to beat the Raiders into submission. Stephen was a Regulator, that was all. He hadn’t meant to kill that Raider with his club, but he had.

It was different from drawing a bead upon an enemy and pulling the trigger in a pitched battle. He’d killed a man—a fellow Yankee—in cold blood. And he’d been called a hero for it.

He’d been called a hero ever since.

But he wasn’t.

“Hey, mister!” A boy about the age of twelve climbed over to where he sat, snapping Stephen back to the present. “Take a look at this fine specimen, why don’tcha? Wouldn’t you like to have this as a souvenir from ‘the Great Calamity of the Age’?”

Stephen frowned. “What is it?”

“Why, can’t you see? It’s a stack of ceramic coffee mugs welded together. Might even be from Wild Onion Café. Just imagine—there they were, all clean and shiny and ready to serve up some nice hot coffee to the next customers for Monday morning breakfast. Only those customers never came. The fire did. Now, what would you give me for such a token? Make me an offer, why don’tcha?”

“You’re quite a salesman, aren’t you?”

The boy grinned and shoved a hank of black hair from his eyes. “The name’s Louis Garibaldi. You ever need anything, you ask around for me, and you can be sure I’ll get it. I know everyone worth knowing. I got connections, mister.”

Stephen was unimpressed. “No, thanks. I don’t want your useless stack of cups.”

“Okay then, how about this? Just what do you suppose this was in its previous life?”

Without bothering to look, Stephen pushed off the bricks to stand. “I have no idea.”

“A revolver, of course!”

Stephen glanced to Louis, then down to the relic he held. “Where’d you find that?” He patted his waistband in search of his own Colt. It wasn’t there.

“Why, what’s it to you?”

Stephen grabbed the gun, turning it over to inspect it. The barrel veered off center. The cylinder holding the bullets turned only with brute strength, and the walnut handle had burned clean away. As a weapon, it was useless. But it was his, and he told the boy so.

“Not yet, it isn’t.” Louis snatched it out of Stephen’s grip. “But we can make it yours for the right price. How much will you give me for it?”

“Kid, I don’t have a penny in the world anymore. But that shouldn’t matter because I’m telling you, that belongs to me.”

“Prove it.”

“Look closely at the side of the barrel. You’ll see initials scratched there. SJT. That’s me, Stephen James Townsend. That revolver and I have been through a lot together, and I’m not about to part with it just because it had a bad day. Hand it over.”

Louis frowned, studying the initials Stephen knew were there. “SJT could mean a lot of things, mister. Could be Samson Jeffrey Talbot. Or Simeon Jason Thorndike. This here gun might be the precious property of one Surly . . . Jaw . . . T-bone.”

“Surly Jaw T-bone?”

The kid shrugged. “Code name. Whoever this belongs to would pay a little reward for its return, don’tcha think?”

“Whoever steals property from its rightful owner will go to jail, how about that?” Frustration boiled beneath Stephen’s skin. The boy meant to take from him the only thing that had made him feel safe.

A belly laugh erupted from Louis as he scrambled away from Stephen. “Oh, mister. You think the police care about something like this right now?” He shook his head, smiling gleefully. “You want it, you’re going to have to give me something for it. Ain’t nothing in this life for free, you know.”

With that, the little street rat tore off, kicking up clouds of dust and limestone powder. After a few bounding strides after him, Stephen fell into a fit of coughing that crippled his pursuit. He’d never recover the revolver from that kid, and even if he did, he’d never use it again. A black mood possessed him.

A steam engine hissed as a locomotive pulled into the train station several barren blocks away. Trudging in the opposite direction, he found his way to Court House Square. The courthouse cupola was gone, along with the enormous bell that had rung so incessantly for the past week. Some outer walls still stood, but the building was gutted. Stephen stared for a very long time. He felt a kinship with those ruins that he didn’t care to dwell upon.

Nor did he want to consider where all the criminals from the jail were now. He hadn’t wanted them to be burned alive, but now . . . well, they were criminals, and they could be anywhere. Instinctively he reached for his gun, only to remember its fate.

Around him, men with spotless white collars and frock coats gave orders to men with shovels, pickaxes, and wagons. The ruins from buildings across the street clogged the road. His gaze drifted to where Corner Books & More should have been. In its place, a pile of bricks and more relic-pickers roving over them.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Get away from there, you scavengers! If anything there is worth finding, it belongs to me!”

One bedraggled gypsy woman gave a small cry at the sight of him, while the other covered her mouth with bandaged hands before lowering them. “Father!”

Stephen felt a twinge of something to see his daughters in rags, hair bound in filthy scarves, but alive. He was sure he should have felt more.

Sylvie hadn’t sent her father to his death after all. Speechless with relief at the sight of him, she stood rooted in place as he scaled the mound of rubble where the sidewalk used to be. Early this morning, at the church Nate had taken her and Meg to for refuge and rest, Sylvie had desperately prayed this reunion would take place. But she hadn’t rehearsed what to say.

Meg found her voice first. “Father! You’re alive, and that’s all that matters.”

In the span of eight words, she had excused his loss of their inventory, his failure to come back for them.

All that matters? Sylvie twitched with irritation. Four solid miles of city had been decimated, miles which included their home, and Beth’s and Rosemary’s. State Street and Michigan Avenue were a barren wasteland studded with ruins to rival that of ancient Rome, not to mention the destroyed factories and lumberyards and ships that had been trapped by fallen bridges. The Palmer House hotel and Chicago Tribune buildings had only been fireproof until the water pumps stopped working and they could no longer keep their tar-paper roofs wet. Surely, all of that mattered too.

Evidently forgetting his aversion to touch, Meg reached to hug Stephen. He winced as she closed the distance between them, and she drew back. He would not hold his daughter even now. Instead he sidestepped her and walked over to view the bookshop’s burned-out basement.

With stunning speed, Sylvie’s relief at seeing him alive dissolved beneath her frustration. Meg was trying—far harder than Sylvie cared to. Could he not see how he pained Meg with such rejection?

“We were so worried about you,” Sylvie began. “We thought we might have lost you.”

He did not say he’d been worried for them. He did not ask about Meg’s hands. Hurt fanned into anger for her own sake and her sister’s.

“What happened, Father?” Meg asked him.

Stephen rubbed the back of his neck and kicked at a broken brick. “I lost it.”

“We know,” Meg said. “Nate told us. Nathaniel Pierce, the Tribune reporter, remember? Do you want to tell us about it?”

Their father’s bloodshot gaze narrowed. “How would he know? I just now learned of it myself.”

Impatience pricked Sylvie. “What are you talking about?”

“My revolver. I must have dropped it somewhere during the fire, and then just now some relic-hunter showed it to me but wouldn’t let me have it because I couldn’t pay.”

Heat flamed into Sylvie’s cheeks. “Your gun!” she cried. “Good riddance to it! You lost far more than that, and you know it. You lost our inventory and records. We lost everything except what we were able to bury in the yard and dig up again. Chicago is in ruins, and you pine for your gun!”

Meg might be too kind or too scared to say it, but someone had to. And Sylvie had nothing left to lose.

His eyelids flared. “What did you save? What do we have?” He lit upon the bulging pillowcases at her feet. “If I find that kid again, I can make a trade and get my Colt back. A man ought to have a gun, especially in times like these. The Rebels—”

“Not the Rebels,” Sylvie hissed. “Enough about the Rebels.” She wanted to scream. Fearing she very well might, she stalked away to cool her head.

“Father, what we saved is for us.” Meg’s voice trembled. “We need it all to begin again. We can rebuild and start a new life without your gun.”

His expression darkened, but he dropped the point when he noticed Meg’s bandages. Finally. “What happened to you?”

Meg swallowed. “I saved one of Mother’s books from the studio at the last minute. It had your photograph from the war inside. My hands will heal.”

A scowl slashed across Stephen’s face. “Better to have let that burn, daughter.”

Sylvie could almost hear her sister’s heart breaking. “That’s all you can say?” She paused, but he didn’t respond. “We waited for you. We would like to know what kept you. Tell us what the night was like for you.”

He took a step back from her. “You know as well as I do, don’t you? Chaos in the streets, everyone rushing to get away but slowing their own progress at the same time. . . .”

Sylvie crossed her arms. “But what prevented you from getting to the depot? And if you could not get there, why didn’t you come back for us as we arranged?” It felt almost sinful, the way she was pushing him for answers. But neither was he sinless, war trauma notwithstanding.

His brows knit together. He said nothing.

“Nate said the cart was already burning when he found you,” Meg prompted.

Stephen’s attention snapped to her. “That reporter was there? I don’t recall that at all. I remember artillery fire, musketry, taking cover beneath the cart. But I don’t clearly recall all the events of that night, so I can’t begin to answer your questions, Sylvie. There are some memories my brain just rejects.”

“We’ve heard that before,” she said.

Stephen’s expression hardened. “It’s the truth. If the past is a book, some of the pages in my mind are either blotted out or ripped away completely.”

“It’s all right, Sylvie,” Meg said, though her expression belied the statement. “He can’t remember.”

Or perhaps he didn’t want to.

Stephen jumped down into the open basement and began rummaging for who knew what. If he’d wanted to preserve anything, he might have thought of that before.

“Sylvie!” Meg said quietly. “Let it go. Stop interrogating him. I’m just as upset as you are, but we can’t argue about it now. Our house has fallen, in more ways than one. Now is the time to build it back up. Please. I can’t forge our little family back together without you.”

“And what makes you suppose you can do so with me?” Sylvie’s words tasted as bitter as the sentiment behind them. She picked at the dirt beneath her fingernails, then abandoned the effort with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I just don’t share your confidence.”

A commotion drew their gaze to the street. A wagon had stopped, and people flocked to it with pails and buckets.

“Water!” the wagoner cried. “Get your water here, a shilling a pail! Water to drink, water!”

Sylvie dug through a pillowcase for cash and the pewter pitcher they’d saved. With both in hand, she hurried to the water cart, nearly as thirsty for news as she was for drink. After calling to their father to watch their belongings, Meg followed.

After a dozen others, it was their turn. “What can you tell us?” Meg asked the man who filled Sylvie’s pitcher. “Surely there’s more to report now than we read in the newssheet this morning.”

“Aye,” the man said. “The new estimate is one hundred thousand people homeless.” The cart’s horses twitched their tails.

“One hundred thousand!” cried a woman with a Polish accent. “Where on earth will we all go?”

Sylvie and Meg stepped aside after they had paid but stayed to hear the answer. Sylvie held the pitcher to her sister’s lips before drinking herself. Never had water tasted so good.

The wagoner shoved his hat back on his head and mopped his brow before filling the Polish woman’s pail. “The railroads are offering free tickets out of the city for those who’ve got someplace to go. General Sheridan and his troops are setting up fifty thousand army tents in Lincoln Park, or you can stay in any church or school you can find. Or you could do as them are, and build your own shanty with scraps of wood and cloth.” He squinted at a scorched little lean-to being set up in a hollowed-out cellar.

Forlorn, Sylvie watched the lean-to go up. Such an arrangement would never do for her father. It looked too much like what he’d described of Andersonville. And she was sure he’d spent his share of time in army tents.

Then a familiar sight crossed her line of vision. “Meg! Isn’t that Eli Washington?”

Meg watched a carriage driver painstakingly steer his horse and buggy through a cleared path on La Salle Street. “That’s him! Eli!”

Leaving the water cart, she and Sylvie went to greet him.

Eli drew rein on his horse. “Well, praise be. At least all of you are safe, thank God for that.” But he did not seem wholly relieved.

“I trust your neighborhood was spared,” Meg said.

Before Eli could respond, the carriage door opened. Jasper Davenport unfolded his long limbs and stepped out. Sylvie barely knew him from Adam, yet his presence proved stabilizing.

“Our neighborhood was spared, yes,” he said. “We’re south of where the fire started, so we were not in danger at the house.” His face was as grave as Eli’s.

“What’s this about? You have news?”

Sylvie looked up to find her father approaching, all their earthly belongings in tow. His beard was singed and powdered with limestone dust, his clothing full of holes, his face smeared with soot. She was certain she looked no better, and it shamed her. In a futile effort to tidy herself, she stuffed stray strands of hair beneath the scarf around her head.

“It’s my uncle,” Mr. Davenport began, a faint drawl in his speech. He removed his hat from his curly bronze-colored hair. “Eli thought you would want to know.”

All regard for her appearance vanished as dread twisted Sylvie’s middle. “Something happened.” Something terrible.

“Tell us,” Meg pleaded.

Mr. Davenport matched Stephen’s hard stare. “Well, you are aware he had a habit of wandering off. He went missing Sunday night, after he retired but before the general alarm began ringing.”

“Oh no,” Sylvie breathed. “How long was he missing this time? Where did he go?” She could only imagine how horrified and bewildered he would have been if he’d gone anywhere near the fire.

In the driver’s seat, Eli’s shoulders rounded forward, his composure sinking. He kneaded the reins.

“That’s the trouble, I’m afraid.” Mr. Davenport spun his hat by the brim. “We don’t know where he went.”

“You mean he’s still missing?” Meg asked. “After all this time?”

Stephen circled a hand through the air. “Out with it, young man. Get to the point.”

“We found him just now. At a stable on Milwaukee Avenue in the West Division.” He said this as if they ought to understand.

“What on earth was he doing there?” Meg asked.

“The stable is being used as a temporary morgue for victims of the fire. When we couldn’t find him among the living, the police suggested we look there.”

Sylvie stared at him, waiting for more information. Anything that would make sense of what he’d just said. “But you cannot mean—he’s dead?”

“It’s worse than that.” Mr. Davenport turned his sharp green eyes on Stephen. “Hiram Sloane was murdered. Bullet wound through the chest.”