It Happened at the Fair (25 page)

She couldn’t help but note, however, how the early evening sun silhouetted his handsome physique as he bent over, grasped a shovel low, scooped up a load of ashes, then carried them to a garbage cart.

Somewhere in those ashes and embers were Mr. Ransom’s remains and those of countless others. According to the papers, only a few bodies had been recovered so far. The reason, they said, was that the explosion—caused by large amounts of ammonia stored within the building—left no traces of the victims it had claimed. She couldn’t imagine the horror of the task Cullen and the other men faced.

After depositing his load in the cart, Cullen turned and saw her. His steps slowed, then halted altogether. He was on the opposite side of the rubble, and out of respect for the dead, no one was talking. To hail him or even wave would have been inappropriate. And truth be told, she didn’t want Maxine to meet him. For once she did, his name would jump off the list of boarders and she’d never hear the end of it.

Still, she wished she could at least greet him. Ask him how he was holding up. Tell him he needn’t worry about practicing his words right now. Tell him she missed him.

She knew of a way. She had but to hold her hands next to her waist and make some subtle movements. But to do so was forbidden. So she simply held his gaze, wondering what he was thinking and if he missed her too.

Blowing into a handkerchief, Hilda sniffled. “Are the two of you ready?”

Della forced her attention to her friend. “Whenever you are.”

“Then let’s go,” Maxine said, her voice somber.

Della glanced back, but Cullen had already returned to the rubble, his focus on his work.

She strolled to the Court of Honor alongside Hilda and Maxine feeling bereft and somehow abandoned. They gathered about the Music Hall’s outdoor pavilion. Under the lull of fountains and the lash of waves against the sea wall, musicians played home melodies, moving hymns, and “The Vacant Chair.”

At concert’s end, the fountains flashed crimson, a reminder of the fire’s fury, then purple—the color of royalty, dignity, and heroes.

Someone in the crowd began to sing “Amazing Grace,” his tenor voice pure and true. Della, Hilda, Maxine, and the others added their voices until all five verses had been sung a capella. After the last refrain, silence descended.

Gulls wheeled along the shoreline, their squawks drowning out the fountain’s raindrops. The moon made an early appearance in the still-lit sky. The faint rumble of distant machinery assured that life would go on.

GOVERNMENT BUILDING

“Cullen exited the Government Building in his denims and sat on the top step of the wide, marble-like entrance.”

CHAPTER

26

Two weeks after the fire, Cullen received another letter from home. He exited the Government Building in his denims and sat on the top step of the wide, marble-like entrance. Dad hadn’t paid the principal on his merchant credit for two years, and had racked up a total debt of six hundred dollars, not two hundred. So his interest rate had jumped to fifty percent. Fifty percent.

GOVERNMENT BUILDING

And if that weren’t bad enough, he had lied about the cushion. There was no cushion. Not now, not ever. The three hundred dollars he gave to Cullen was part of that thousand he’d borrowed. And now it was gone. Used to pay Mrs. Harvell and the rest of Cullen’s fair expenses. The only money they would have would be the three to four hundred dollars from the crop.

But outgoing, they’d have their mounting merchant debt, plus interest, plus the mortgage, plus seed and supplies, plus property taxes, plus the Dewey boys Dad had hired, plus extraneous expenses.

Propping his elbows on his knees, Cullen pressed the butts of his hands against his forehead. He needed to make at least six hundred dollars. How the devil would he do that when he’d not had so much as a nibble in almost three months, even with Vaughn’s carrot?

He supposed he could go back home and hire on at one of the mills, but it would take almost three years to earn six hundred dollars, and that didn’t include living expenses—not to mention the duress his body would be put under in those closed-up, fiber-filled mills. No, he’d write back and have Dad see if the Building and Loan would float them for one more year. If they said no . . . he didn’t even want to think about that. Instead, he’d once again concentrate on selling some sprinklers and selling them now.

Pushing himself up off the steps, he headed toward the disaster site to tell the boys he needed to return to Machinery Hall. It’d be a good while before the site was completely cleared, but they had recovered as many bodies as they were going to and were now working in a rotation of shifts between the ruins and the fire stations. They would understand that saving the farm needed to take precedence.

Cleaning up the debris had allowed him plenty of time to think. Too much time. He was stunned and not a little concerned at how often his thoughts drifted to Della. At how much he missed their lessons. At how much he missed her.

With a determined effort, he redirected his attention to John and the fire. And the more he considered it, the surer he was. His sprinkler would have put out the fire in the cupola, alleviating any reason for John and his battalion to have even climbed up there. A manual sprinkler system wouldn’t have worked, for in order to turn it on, someone would have needed to climb those stairs.

Same thing for the fire beneath, which had triggered the explosion. If it had been subdued immediately, the explosion might never have happened.

Entering Machinery Hall, Cullen admitted it felt good to be back in his suit and it felt good to have a plan of attack. John had asked him to do a demonstration from the first day they met. And by all that was holy, he was going to do one. If folks could see how his system worked, then maybe they wouldn’t be so skeptical.

First item on the agenda was to write to the fair’s director-general. He suspected it would take a good deal of persuasion to convince the commission he needed to set a shed on fire in the middle of the fair grounds, but he was determined.

As he approached his booth, his steps slowed. Someone else stood where John was supposed to be. It wasn’t any of the boys from the brigade, but instead a tall, gangly man with thinning hair and a receding hairline. As different from John as you could possibly get.

Emotion clogged his throat.

“Mr. McNamara.” One of the women with the Crowne Pen Company stepped from behind her counter. “We heard you were helping with the aftermath of the fire.” Her eyes watered. “I’m so sorry for your loss. John spoke of you often.”

She’d used John’s Christian name. This must have been the woman John had referred to. The one he’d pointed out that long-ago day as being someone “mighty special” and more recently as one whom he was becoming quite serious about. He racked his brain, but could not for the life of him remember her name.

“Thank you, Miss . . . ?”

“Carpenter. Greta Carpenter.” She had a classic beauty, like paintings of the Madonna.

Disregarding protocol, he slipped his hand into hers and left it there. “I’m so very glad to meet you. John spoke of you with great warmth and admiration.”

Her lips trembled. “And I of him.”

“I’m so sorry. We will all miss him.”

“Yes, and thank you.” She touched two fingers to the corners of her eyes.

A machine behind them began to transform solid bars of steel into wire netting.

He glanced at it. “I’d best head on to my booth.”

She gave his hand a long squeeze. “Good luck with your sprnklrs. John thought they were a wonderful invention.”

Swallowing, he nodded. “Thank you, Miss Carpenter.”

ILLUMINATION SHOW

“From all parts, a chorus of oohs and ahhs came forth. Below, gondoliers bent to their oars, each stroke breaking the Basin’s reflections into a thousand glistening fragments.”

CHAPTER

27

Allowing Della to go first, Cullen followed her through the massive portal of the grandiose Manufactures Building. They’d spend a good deal of time on tonight’s lesson in order to leave room for the premiere of the fair’s illumination show. Dr. Bell had given Della two tickets for the Otis elevator, running to the highest roof promenade in the world, and she’d decided she wanted to use them tonight so they could watch the show from there.