Susan Wiggs - The Hostage

Keeping her head down, she hurried along a street lined by older buildings that housed shops and saloons burning from the roof down. A street-level window shattered as she passed it. Ducking instinctively to avoid the flying splinters, she felt a rush of heat and the sting of stray shards of glass on her face. Choking, her eyes streaming, she wiped her bloodied hand on her skirt and moved on.

A high-pitched yelp pierced through the roar and din of the fire. She peered into the window of a dry goods shop and saw a mongrel dog scratching frantically at the glass pane. For some reason, in the midst of this rush of humanity, Deborah’s heart went out to the creature.

Darkness shrouded the abandoned shop, yet at the back of the room she detected the hungry glow. Within moments, the shop would be afire. She urged herself move on, but the dog’s frenzied barking caught at her. She tried the shop door and found it locked.

“Help,” she said, turning to the first man who came along. “You must help this poor creature!”

The man, burdened with a clock and a bottle of liquor, glanced into the window. “It’s only a dog,” he said, not even slowing his pace. “Best worry about saving yourself, miss.”

“Please—” she began, but he was already gone.

Deborah was not sure what to do. She had never rescued a dog from a fire before. She had never even met a dog before. Her father had commissioned her eighteen-year-old portrait to be done with her holding an ugly little pug dog, but she had posed with a porcelain model, not the real thing.

The trapped mongrel scratched at the window with undiminished vigor. Deborah gave a sob of frustration, then took off her shawl, wrapped it around her hand and pounded at the window. The panes rattled but didn’t crack. The dog feinted back and cringed in confusion, then started yelping again. Nearly weeping in desperation, Deborah shut her eyes, turned her face away and whacked the window with all her might. The glass shattered and a blast of heat exploded from the building. The dog came out as if shot from a cannon. She caught it in her arms, hardly able to believe it had survived her bumbling rescue attempt.

The dog leaped out of her grasp and shied away in a panic. She put out her hand, but the creature just snapped at her finger.

“Come on, then,” she said. The dog hesitated until a coal dray clattered past, nearly crushing it beneath an iron-banded wheel. Then the mongrel sprang back into Deborah’s arms. It was a smelly, scruffy thing, but she savored its lively warmth as she struggled on through the street. She had gone a full block before she became aware that somewhere along the way she had lost her shawl. She’d probably dropped it after breaking the window.

She cast about furtively, looking for the wild man, and to her relief she did not see him. She pushed on, still holding the little dog. Nothing felt real to her. It was a night out of hell. It was what she had imagined war to be. Terror and wounded refugees and the sense that the world was being ripped to pieces. Only the hope that she might find a way to her father and their home on the lake kept her going.

At last she reached the rockbound shore of Lake Michigan. The water stretched out endlessly before her, a churning field of ink. The howling wind whipped up wavelets that reflected the towering fire. The water itself resembled a sea of flame. The lake bristled with ships’ masts and the smokestacks of steamers. Hundreds of vessels had gathered to witness the spectacle. Boats plied back and forth between the lighthouse and the pier, rescuing people and belongings.

For as far as the eye could see, the lakeshore teemed with refugees and conveyances, barnyard animals and pets running willy nilly through the night. People had waded out into the water to escape the blizzard of sparks and flying brands of flame. Deborah had no idea what to do. She tried to press northward, but it was a struggle hampered by the crush of humanity, the chilly water sloshing at the shore and various landings and piers jutting out into the lake. At last she could go no farther, for the way was blocked by a jetty of sharp black rocks.

She simply stood still, hemmed in by family groups clinging together amidst an outer circle of coaches, carts and barrows. She hugged the small mongrel dog to her chest, then, lifting her face, observed the burning city with a solemn sense of shock and awe. The flames formed a vast inverted bowl of unnatural light over a huge area. There was something mystical and magnificent about the conflagration. Others around her seemed to share her hushed awe, her openmouthed silence. There was simply nothing to say. There were no words to speak in the face of a disaster so vast and so all-consuming.

What had become of her father? His beautiful mansion? His business offices in the city? What had become of the only world she had ever known?

Shaking free of the spell cast by the giant fire, she looked around, scanning the crowd for a familiar face and keeping an eye out for the murderer. She wondered who these people were, where they all came from. Chicago was a city of three hundred thousand souls. Most of them had probably lost everything. Would they simply pick up and go on? How would they ever sift through the rubble of the fallen city and find their former lives?

Like phoenixes rising from the ashes, survivors would emerge from the wreckage of the burned-out city. Criminals awaiting hanging might run free. Wives who hated their husbands might escape their torment. Rich men would find themselves suddenly penniless. A poor man might come into wealth he never imagined. In the face of a fire, everyone was equal. It put her on the same level as the criminal who had abducted her, she thought with a shudder.

A tantalizing notion came to her, subtle as a whispered suggestion. What if Philip Ascot never found her again? What if she was lost forever to Arthur Sinclair? Then she would never have to battle her father over marrying Philip.

Deborah tried to imagine what it would be like to be nothing, nobody, to belong to no one. Immediately a wave of resentment washed over her. In running and hiding from an unwanted marriage, she would forfeit her father. Her friends. Her life. No man should have the power to do that to her. Yet still the fantasy held a bizarre appeal. If she were to simply disappear, would she even be missed? What would it do to her father? She honestly didn’t know. She had the sense that he valued her as a commodity, but as a daughter? She remembered back to their moment of connection in the study and thought perhaps he loved her in his blustering, bombastic fashion. Even so, losing her would not change the shape and color of his world. Her father would grieve for a time, then give himself over to business ventures. Philip would find some other heiress to marry. Her friends might honor her memory, but they would find paths of their own to follow.

The fact was, she was not a necessary cog in the wheel of anyone’s life. Remove her, and everything would go on uninterrupted. She wondered what it would be like to be needed in the way this small lost dog needed her. To be the single element necessary for its survival was an awesome thought. She quite doubted that she was equal to the task.

She shivered, feeling a chill wind off the lake, and pulled the dog closer. She thought about her friends, Lucy and Phoebe and Kathleen. It seemed a lifetime ago that they had been getting ready for the evening’s entertainment. Where were they now? she wondered. She prayed they had survived, that unlike her they had realized the danger of the fire and stayed safe away from the city.

Somewhere in the crowd, a baby cried and a woman’s voice spoke in soothing tones. Gradually people began talking, planning, worrying aloud. Prayer and speculation. Arguments and accusations. The babble of voices crescendoed, became deafening. With no one to talk to, Deborah felt more alone than ever. Still holding the dog, she picked her way up and over the rock and rubble jetty, wondering how far she would be able to walk before exhaustion claimed her.