Susan Wiggs - The Firebrand

Then she stopped cold. She was speaking to nothing but smoky air. The driver had fled. There was no one controlling the team of horses.

She drew herself back into the coach. “I don’t suppose,” she said as calmly as she could, “either of you know of a way to get the team under control.”

Phoebe gave a little squeak and groped for her smelling salts.

Kathleen stuck her head outside the window. The coach swayed dangerously, and she clutched at the side. “Saints and crooked angels,” she said. “There’s no driver.”

She said something else, but Lucy couldn’t hear her because an explosion shook the night. Fueled by some forgotten store of kerosene or gas, a fireball roared down the street toward them. The coach jerked forward, narrowly evading the incendiary.

Lucy grabbed Kathleen’s skirt and pulled her in. Kathleen’s face was pale but firm. Phoebe moaned, looking dizzy and sick as buildings and people passed in a blur of speed. Then she pressed herself back against the tufted seat and shut her eyes, lips moving in desperate prayer.

Kathleen detached the stiff leather windshield of the coach, letting in a hot storm of sparks and smoke. Phoebe coughed and screamed, but Lucy made herself useful, helping Kathleen up to the driver’s seat. Kathleen, who had learned to drive on her mother’s milk wagon, tried to get hold of the reins, yelling “Ho!” at the top of her lungs.

The panicked team plunged down the street. The tallest structures in Chicago were burning, their high windows disgorging flames that lit the night sky. People were trapped in the upper stories, calling out the windows for help. Some of them dropped bundles of blankets containing valuables and breakables. Lucy was shocked to see that one of the bundles contained a live dog, which fought itself free of the bedding and ran off in a panic.

The horses churned along in confusion, knocking aside pedestrians and other vehicles as they headed straight for the heart of the fire. Phoebe screamed until Lucy grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

“That’s not helping, you goose,” she shouted, then prepared to climb up next to Kathleen, who had managed to catch hold of a flailing leather ribbon. Digging in her heels, she hauled back with all her might. Lucy grabbed the rein and added her strength to the tugging. The horses plunged and fought, but finally slowed.

Lucy let out a giddy laugh of relief. “Oh, thank—”

A second explosion crashed through the smoky night. The conflagration drew so much air that, for a moment, the flames around them died. The hot void left no air to breathe, then returned with a roaring vengeance. From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw Kathleen blown from her seat.

Lucy called to her, but the horses bolted again. Now she could do nothing but cling to the reins and pray.

Up ahead, the road veered sharply. The runaway team made the turn, but the coach teetered on two wheels, then went over. Lucy launched herself at Phoebe and they clung together. The coach landed on its side with teeth-jarring impact. The horses strained and whistled, trying to flee, but with the rockaway on its side, they could hardly move. The lead horse went up on its hind legs, raking the air with its hooves.

“Phoebe?” Lucy said, still holding her.

“Remind me to report the driver for negligence,” Phoebe said shakily.

Good, thought Lucy. If she was well enough to complain, then she was well enough to climb out.

“I’m going to try to get the door open,” she said. The door was now above her, and the latch had been torn away. She pounded with her fists, then put the strength of her back into it. Finally the small half door opened like a hatchway on the deck of a ship.

To her relief, Kathleen stood at the roadside, singed and disheveled, peering in.

“Are you all right?” the Irish girl asked.

“We are.” Lucy took her proffered hand and pulled herself out of the fallen coach. The panicked horses created a menace with their rearing and shrill whinnies.

“Help me,” Phoebe cried, her glass-beaded gown tearing.

Lucy and Kathleen pulled her out, and she began exhorting passersby for help. But the pedestrians had their own concerns and ignored her.

“It’s every man—every woman—for herself,” Lucy declared, feeling oddly liberated by the notion. “Let’s try to get the horses loose.”

“Loose?” Phoebe blew a lock of brown hair out of her face. “If we do that, they’ll run off and we’ll be stranded. We should try to get the coach upright again.” She studied the ominous blazing sky in the west. “We can’t outrun this fire on foot.”

“Everyone else is.” Lucy gestured at the bobbing heads of the crowd, borne along as if by a river current.

“Sir!” Phoebe shrieked at a man hurrying past.

He swung around to face her, and even Lucy felt intimidated. He was huge, clad in fringed buckskins, with long, wild hair. Even more terrifying was the large knife he took from the top of his boot. Phoebe’s knees buckled and she shrank against Lucy. “Dear God, he’s going to—”

The wild man cut the leather reins of the team. A second later, the horses galloped away, disappearing into a bank of smoke along with the stranger.

“He—he—the horses!” Phoebe said.

“At least they have a chance now.” Lucy grabbed Phoebe’s hand. “This way. We’ll go on foot.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” Phoebe dug in her heels. “I won’t get half a block in these shoes.”

Lucy was losing patience, but the sight of bellowing flames, marching like an army toward them, kept her focused on escape. She spied a flatbed wagon and hailed the driver, yanking off a ruby brooch as he approached. “Can you give us a ride?” she asked.

He snatched the jewel, swept his gaze over her and jerked a thumb toward the rear of the cart. “Don’t let anything fall off,” he said.

The load of rolled carpets, gilt paintings and furnishings teetered precariously as the wagon lurched along the road. The sky burned so brightly that Lucy had to squint to look at it.

She was doing just that when Kathleen jumped off the back of the cart and ran toward a bridge to the West Division. Lucy screamed her name, but this time it was Phoebe who was the voice of reason. “Let her go.” Phoebe coughed violently. “She won’t rest until she gets home, and we must do the same. Our way is north, Lucy. You know it is.”

Shaken, Lucy clutched her friend’s hands and tried not to wonder if they would ever see Kathleen again.

The Chicago River cut a line from east to west across the city before turning south, where the conflagration had started. The howling windstorm had fanned an ordinary fire into a holocaust riding a gale, moving with voracious speed, devouring everything in sight.

Lucy had never seen such a powerful force of nature. The fire smashed through whole neighborhoods at a time, destroyed reputedly fireproof buildings and then did the unthinkable—it leaped across the south branch of the river.

The wind was the fire’s greatest ally, driving the flames from rooftop to rooftop. Wooden shingles offered fuel for the blaze to feast upon. In the famous shopping district known as Booksellers Row, the buildings burned from the ground upward.

All those lovely books. Lucy winced at the thought of them being incinerated.

A towering dervish of flame reared at the end of the block, illuminating and then overtaking a throng of people.

Phoebe’s face turned pale in the angry light. “Did you see that?” she asked Lucy.

“I did.” As far as Lucy could tell, they were on Water Street, heading eastward toward the lake. She supposed that the driver would attempt to cross the river at the State or Rush Street Bridges into the North Division.