Fire: Chicago 1871 (6 page)

Julie wrenched free from Nate's grip on her forearm as he pulled her outside. “We can't just leave Mr. Black—”

“There's nothing we can do.” Nate jabbed an index finger toward the two-story building just across the street. “It's too late.
Look
.”

Julie stared, her throat tight with fear. The wood was literally smoking. It was about to burst into flames.

“Are you coming with me or not?” Nate was glaring at her.

Julie glanced up the crowded street, then leaned back through the door. “Mr. Black?” She screamed his name, but he did not answer. Julie's knees were
trembling. “Please,” she shouted. “Come with us!”

“You can't change his mind,” Nate was saying.

Julie looked up at the smoking roofline once more, then back at Nate. A scream in the street made her whirl around. A woman, dressed only in her nightclothes, was pointing at a fresh outbreak of flames two buildings down.

Nate led the way into the street. Julie gathered her skirts in one hand and stepped off the boardwalk, following him. They threaded their way between two wagons, the horses sweating with fear and pawing at the street planks. Julie saw a little boy pushed down, sprawling on the rough wood, and she gasped. An instant later his half-dressed mother pulled him back onto his feet, and they disappeared into the crowd.

Half a block on, Julie managed to glance back at the bookstore. The roof was in flames. She stumbled, wrenching free. “Mr. Black!” she whispered.

Nate gently turned her around. “You can't help him. No one can.”

Julie watched for another few seconds as dark smoke rolled out of the open doorway. Was he still in there, trying to pack his precious books? Julie saw a sudden gush of smoke burst from the windows as
they shattered, then cascaded into glittering piles of glass. The whole building was suddenly flickering with flames.

Julie pressed her hand against her mouth, fighting a strangling sense of panic. She felt Nate's hand tighten on her own, pulling her to one side, out of the way of a passing wagon. She glanced back at the bookstore, now a mass of flame, then turned and started walking again, unable to speak.

Still holding her hand, Nate steadied her as the crowd shifted and eddied around them. The human crush was almost more than she could bear. A burly man who stank of whiskey said something to her, leaning close, but she could make no sense of his words. An elderly woman, lying flat on a door carried by three other women, smiled weakly at Julie as they passed. A young woman shrieked and screamed over and over, repeating a name. Her husband? One of her children?

“You can come with me to my aunt's boardinghouse,” Nate was shouting, close to her ear. “We'll be safe there.”

Julie nodded, only half understanding what he was saying. She could not stop glancing at the
inferno behind them. A little boy darted in front of Nate, then went on, nearly running beneath a wagon. The driver cursed, shaking his fist.

Julie's eyes stung, and she wiped the sweat from her forehead. It was as though the whole world had become hellish, engulfed in fire. She half turned for a last glance up Taylor Street. The bookstore was hidden behind a sheet of flame.

“Follow me,” Nate shouted into her ear. “Stay close.”

Julie nodded, but when he let go of her arm, she stumbled. Hoisting her skirts in both hands, she ran a few steps to catch up, afraid to be alone in the terrified, chaotic crowd. Julie felt the hundreds of people around her like a pressing weight as they neared Canal Street. It was hard to breathe. The air was sooty and hot.

A woman on Julie's right pressed so close that Julie could feel the buttons that ran down the side of her dress. Her bustle was askew, sagging, her train torn and filthy. Ahead of them, Julie saw one man throwing punches at another. They seemed to sink into the crowd like stones into water, and disappeared.

“This way!” Nate yelled, jutting his chin to show her the direction he meant. Julie nodded so he would know she had understood him. They began to angle across the street, maneuvering through the throng. An old man shook his fist at Julie, and she apologized for bumping him, but his attention was already elsewhere. He carried a little dog in his arms, and it growled and snapped as she made her way past him.

The crowd spewed out of Taylor Street into the intersection with Canal. Suddenly there was a little more room, a little less crush. Julie pulled in a deep breath of hot smoky air and coughed.

“Are you all right?” Nate's flushed face was close, and Julie realized that they could walk side by side here.

“Yes,” she told him, looking back over her shoulder. The sea of flames behind them was rapidly engulfing this end of Taylor Street, driven by the wind. Julie's dress fluttered up around her ankles, and she fought to keep it modestly in place.

“Where do you live?”

Julie pointed. “Across the river, in the South Division.” She watched an odd expression pass across
his features and wondered what he was thinking.

“Aunt Ruth's boardinghouse is a lot closer. I want to go there first.” Abruptly, he lurched to one side, slapping at his own shirt.

At first, Julie couldn't tell why he had done it. Then she realized he was looking down at his feet. She followed his gaze. There on the pavement, just in front of him, lay half a shingle, still burning along one edge. As she watched, the wind scooted it along the planks, then let it lie still again. When Nate looked back at her, Julie was astonished at how pale his flushed face had become.

“It fell out of the sky,” he said quietly, looking back down Canal Street toward Taylor. “That's nearly a block. The wind carried it this far.”

Julie nodded, understanding. Maybe the firemen wouldn't be able to put the fire out this time. If it could jump whole blocks, how could they? Maybe nothing was going to stop it.

She thought about her father and clenched her fists. He would look for her, if he could. When he saw the burned rubble that had been the bookshop, he was going to think she was dead. Julie imagined her mother, stricken with grief, her father trying not
to weep. She had to find him somehow—or make sure that he could find her.

◊ ◊ ◊

Nate kicked at the burning shingle, then looked up, scanning Canal Street. As far as he could see there were no flames ahead of them—yet. The wind gusted, and Nate saw Julie reach up to capture her hair. The crowds around them had slowed a little, and he saw a few people standing still, their faces grim. Some of them probably had lost their homes and had nowhere to go.

“My father will come looking for me,” Julie said suddenly. She kept glancing back toward Taylor Street. “Maybe I shouldn't go too much farther.”

Nate fought an impulse to leave her there, if that was what she wanted. But he knew he couldn't. It was obvious that she would have no idea how to take care of herself in this crowd. “You can't stay this close to the fire,” he said aloud.

Julie ducked her head. “I don't know what to do.”

Nate shrugged. “You can come with me. My aunt Ruth and Mr. Oliver will know what you should do.”

“Mr. Oliver?” She looked confused.

“He's a fireman; one of our boarders.”

Julie hesitated, then nodded. He was relieved when she started forward.

The crowds were thinner on Canal Street and they could walk much faster. People were spreading out, and the wagons were able to make their way through the teeming traffic.

Julie gathered her skirts and tried hard to keep up. Nate kept glancing at her sidelong. It was obvious from her expensive silk dress that she was the daughter of a wealthy man. She looked out of place walking through the dirty streets with the crowds. People like her were usually the ones helping, the ones ladling out soup or dropping off old clothes for the needy.

“Oh, no! God, no!”

The man's voice came from behind them. Nate spun and looked at him. He was pointing over the rooftops. Nate followed his gesture and saw smoke rising from the barely visible steeple of St. Paul's Catholic Church.

“St. Paul's is on fire,” Julie said in a low, disbelieving voice. “Where are the firemen? Why doesn't someone put it out?”

Nate shrugged, hoping she didn't expect him to
answer. The way Mr. Oliver had looked at supper, it was hard to imagine the exhausted firemen being able to fight any part of this fire.

“I was christened in that church,” Julie said softly. “My father took groceries there this afternoon for the refugees from last night's fire. We attend Mass there sometimes.”

A rush of heavy footsteps made Nate turn. Seven or eight men were sprinting up Canal Street. They carried bulging feed sacks over their shoulders. There was something different about them, and it took Nate a few seconds to realize what it was.

These men were fully dressed, and their clothes were clean. The fire had not driven them from their homes into soot-filled streets. They had come from an area untouched by the fire—and they had come to steal. They weren't carrying their most treasured possessions. They were making off with someone else's.

“Make way!” the man in the lead shouted out.

Nate moved to one side. He tried to pull Julie with him, but she shook him off, glancing backward at the men as they got closer. One of them passed so close that he brushed against her, knocking her off
balance. Nate reached to help her, but she shook her head. Once she had recovered and settled back into a striding pace, she looked indignantly at him.

“Were those men looters? Where are the police?”

Nate shook his head. “They have more than enough to do tonight, Julie.”

As they walked on, she stared at him and he waited for her to say more, but she did not. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain on his forehead. Instinctively, he slapped at it, as though it were a mosquito. His hand came away smudged with black. He looked up into the sky. The wind was shifting, confettied with tiny embers and fragments of black and white ash. Beside him, Julie was brushing at her skirts, tilting her head back to watch the ashes fall.

“Keep shaking out your skirt,” Nate told her. “And be careful of your hair.” He slapped at a stinging pinprick on the back of his neck.

Julie didn't answer him as they stepped off the boardwalk at the corner of Mather Street. She was looking at the church as they crossed. “St. Paul's is really on fire,” she said in a low voice.

Before he could stop her, she had turned up Mather, joining a ragged parade of spectators walking
toward the church. Nate hesitated, looking wistfully into the night, northward toward home, then reluctantly started after her. “Julie?” He hurried to catch up. “Julie, where are you going?”

“Look,” she said, her eyes fixed on the steeple high atop St. Paul's.

Nate uneasily gauged the distance back to the wall of glowing orange flames. It was creeping closer. He was pretty sure that Ewing Street was on fire now. That meant the wind had carried the blaze almost four blocks.

Nate turned and looked across the street. He stared at Bateham's Mill, seeing the twenty-five-foot stacks of kindling and the piles of furniture lumber as if for the first time. It would only take one ember and this steady wind to turn the whole place into a torch.

Julie couldn't believe St. Paul's was burning. Surely God would not allow it to be destroyed? But the flames were clinging to the cupola below the steeple, flattened against the wood by the wind. As she got closer, she could see that someone had rigged a long ramp up to the wide front doors that slanted at a gentler angle than the steps. Firemen were filing in and out in an uneven line. They were carrying out holy relics. Three men were staggering beneath the weight of the font. Others carried parts of the elaborate altar and carved wooden crucifixes.

One fireman, carrying a large statue of a saint on his back, paused at the end of the ramp, shouting out a question Julie couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it
made his companions laugh. But the laughter lasted only a few seconds. Then the flames on the cupola leaped upward along the side of the steeple, doubling in size as the wind gusted.

As Julie reached the raised boardwalk in front of the church, she saw a hook and ladder wagon pulled by two bay horses rumble around the corner. As the wagoner pulled the team to a halt, Julie could read the name
PROTECTION
emblazoned on the side of the wagon. The firemen rushed to set up a long ladder against the side of St. Paul's.

Julie heard shouting and turned back toward Canal Street. She spotted Nate. He was glaring at her through the crowd. Just beyond, she saw several men waving their arms over their heads, flagging down a steamer. It slowed a little as the crowd surged, people trying to get out of its way. The driver pulled the horses in a long arc onto Mather Street, and Julie could read the name as it rolled closer—
JACOB REHM.

The team's hooves clattered on the raised plank roadway. Within minutes, a fireman on a ladder was dousing the flames. Julie exhaled in relief as the
blaze was put out. St. Paul's was saved. The crowd began to cheer.

“Julie!”

Nate was shouting from behind her again. She glanced at him but refused to turn around. She didn't know what to do. Nate had been kind to her and he seemed trustworthy. But maybe it was foolish to go back into the crush of the crowds. It would be easier for her father to find her here, and this was the logical place for him to look. Once the fire was under control, St. Paul's would be helping the refugees.

A man near Julie whooped as the fireman came down the ladder, grinning at the crowd. Then the cheers turned to shouts of warning. The fire had rekindled itself on the roof. Julie caught her breath as the fireman went back up the ladder. This time, he held the stream of water on the flames until they had been completely drowned.

Once he was back on the ground, the man from the Protection pulled the ladder down. It slewed sideways, falling so hard that it broke. Julie squinted, staring at the roof. There were no flames.