Veiled in Smoke Page 9

  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.<
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  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.”

  Chapter Eight

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1871

  When Meg was a child and learning to read at home after her schoolmistress called her hopeless, she had pointed to each word as her father read it and memorized the shapes of entire words and phrases rather than individual letters. They practiced for so long during the day that after going to bed at night, words stamped themselves on her closed eyelids. Once. Upon a time. There lived. What a torture of concentration it had been to assign meaning to those shapes.

  The words that marched across her consciousness now held meaning she struggled to grasp. Home gone. Hiram dead. Murdered. Beside her, Stephen mumbled the impossible phrases. Meg knew he was trying to make sense of them too.

  She could not tell if sorrow—both his and hers—added to or overshadowed the pain in her hands.

  Sitting on the floor of the ravaged church they now called home, Meg gazed at the gothic arches above where the altar had been, and imagined the stained-glass panes that used to gild the walls. In her mind’s eye, she saw color and shapes, beauty and light, the story of redemption in a portrait of Christ on a heavenly throne, His scarred hands outstretched in victory over the grave. Just because the windows had been shattered in a fire that destroyed Chicago did not mean Christ was not still on His throne. Just because Hiram Sloane had been murdered . . .

  Christ was still on the throne, she repeated to herself. Her own scarred hands aching, she squeezed her eyes shut, as shocked and grieved over the news as she had been yesterday when she’d learned it. There had been no good-bye, no warning. Had Hiram been afraid and confused? Did he suffer? Why would anyone kill the poor man?

  Shifting on the stone floor beneath her, she opened her eyes, noticed Stephen had finally drifted into an uneasy doze, and looked past Sylvie, down the line of others waiting for the doctor’s care. There were at least two hundred refugees in this church alone. Though most of them wore donated clothes distributed by the Chicago Relief and Aid Society, the smell of unwashed bodies was strong. Several people gripped rosaries or crucifixes as they waited, their dry lips moving in silent prayer. Others engaged in lively conversation around the fire.

  “What else could it be but God’s judgment on a sinful city rife with vice and crime?” one asked.

  “No, no, you’re looking at it all wrong. What you see as judgment, I see as mercy. It’s a chance to rebuild this city even better than before.” A ball rolled close to the speaker, and he sent it back to a dozen children playing in the open sanctuary, where wooden pews had burned away.

  “Mercy?” A third man jumped in. “What you mean is opportunity. Leave it to Chicago to turn tragedy into a way to make money and show up New York at the same time.”

  Sylvie leaned over the bulging pillowcases wedged between her and Meg. “Let me roll up your sleeve. The doctor is almost here.” Nimbly, she worked her fingers over the sleeve until Meg’s upper arm was exposed.

  Meg’s nerves stood on tiptoe as the visiting physician introduced himself as Dr. Dennis Gilbert and administered a smallpox vaccine to her sister. His greyish-white hair signaled years of experience, and the gentleness of his manner was comforting. Then it was Meg’s turn, and she watched the needle slide into her arm and back out again.

  “Dr. Gilbert,” she said, lifting her hands. Her bandages were rags by now, blackened and falling apart.

  “So I see.” The waxed tips of his mustache drooped as he frowned. The sweet smell of pipe tobacco lifted from his paisley vest. “The nature of the injury?”

  Briefly, she told him.

  “I don’t suppose any unguent or oil or liniment was applied before the burns were wrapped?”

  Sylvie’s brow knotted. “There was no time, we had to—”

  “I understand,” he interrupted, producing a bottle and holding it to Meg’s lips. “This will go easier if you have a drink of this. Two big swallows. I wish I had laudanum to offer you.”

  It must have been whiskey, for she’d never felt such a burning on her tongue or down her throat. She coughed and sputtered. Sweat beaded her hairline.

  Meg hadn’t even caught her breath before Dr. Gilbert unwound the bandage from her left hand until he reached the portion stuck to her wounds.

  “You’ll feel some discomfort.” Then he peeled the linen away, taking pieces of burned flesh with it. A yellowish substance mixed with blood on hands that looked leathery, a blend of dark red and brown. “That’s serous fluid. It’s normal.”

  She shut her eyes and turned her head, gritting her teeth. She shouldn’t have looked.

  Beside her, Stephen awoke with a start. “What are you doing to her?” he fired at the doctor.

  “Only what must be done, sir. If we had more time, and water at our disposal, I would take more care and bathe these burns properly.”

  Stephen bristled. “Do you mean you’re treating her improperly? Do we have gangrene to look forward to now?”

  Meg cringed at the mention but did not miss the sentiment behind it. That her father should express concern for her was an unlooked-for kindness. That it had grown rare enough to gain her notice, when before the war it had been as common as breath, was too tender a truth to dwell upon. She released the thought as one removed pressure from a bruise.

  Dr. Gilbert began unbinding her right hand. “Be at peace, my good man. I am doing all I can.”

  “This one doesn’t hurt nearly as much as my left,” Meg told him. Still, she didn’t watch as he exposed it. Neither did Sylvie, who caught and steadied Meg’s gaze instead.

  The pause that followed could not have been more than a few seconds. Yet it was enough to kindle uncertainty.

  “Your left hand has sustained a deep second-degree burn. But your right hand . . .” The doctor’s tone had shifted subtly yet distinctly.

  Practiced in studying faces, she saw in the pull of his mouth and the sideways flick of his gaze that he was preparing what he would say next, and that she ought to prepare herself too. Dread vibrated through her.

  “In your right hand, there is a section of third-degree burn that covers the underside of your thumb, index finger, and part of the palm beneath the middle finger before the third-degree burn fades to second-degree. That is why you don’t feel pain there. The wound went so deep, the nerves have been damaged.”

  She heard him. But only as one heard a voice from the other side of a long tunnel. A flash of heat made her dizzy. Questions rose to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them, not ready to hear what level of functionality could or could not be recovered. She would nurse hope and determination instead. Had she not also been told that she would never learn to read or figure sums? Those dismal predictions proved wrong. Even so, a chill danced down her spine.

  “What’s next, doctor?” As gentle as her voice, Sylvie’s arm came behind Meg’s shoulders.

  From his case, Dr. Gilbert pulled out a jar of ointment and began spreading it over her hands. Only t
he second-degree burns protested his touch. “We’ll bind you up again. If you can come by any laudanum, you should take it for the next three days to help manage the pain, especially before you change your dressings, which you must do daily. Just unwrap your hands, soak them in water for a bit to wash them, and wrap them up again. I’m afraid I have no unguent to spare.”

  “But when will she be better?” Sylvie asked, a catch in her voice. “That is, when will her bandages no longer be needed?”

  “For the left hand, in two or three weeks. The right hand will need them a few weeks longer. Follow up with me at the North Division free clinic in a week or ten days if I don’t see you again here.”

  “And then? What about scarring?” Sylvie pressed. “It won’t interfere with normal function, will it? At least in the left?”

  The doctor finished applying the ointment, then wrapped her wounds with fresh linen. “Oh, certainly she’ll be scarred even in the left hand. But the severity, and how it will affect daily life, remains to be seen.”

  The way they discussed her fate in front of her but not with her made Meg feel oddly, mercifully, detached from it.

  Dr. Gilbert moved on to Stephen. “All right, sir, your turn. If you’ll just roll up your sleeve.”

  Instead, Stephen stood and stepped away, sending a broken shard of slate skittering across the floor. The sound stirred Meg’s attention, unfocused at the edges though it was.

  “Sir?” the doctor said.

  “All these people.”

  “Yes, and they are all waiting for my services. So if you’ll just allow me to quickly administer the vaccine. . . .”

  Stephen tugged the end of his beard, then tapped the side of his leg. “Too many people. I can hardly breathe in here.” Wind swept through the open windows, ruffling his unkempt hair.

  The men who had been debating the cause and benefits of the fire broke off their conversation to listen. One woman quietly tucked her rosary away and watched.

  “Father, just let the doctor give you the shot, and then you can go for a walk,” Sylvie told him. The curfew would start in a few hours and was strictly enforced, but he had plenty of time before then.