Wishes on the Wind

    When Friendship Turned to Passion

    "Give me a chance to show you that I can change. Let me kiss you, Meg."

    Meg averted her eyes. "I'm no good at kissing. I don't know how."

    The well of tenderness inside David, from which only Meg could drink, expanded as he urged her softly, "We have so much to learn from each other, Meg. Shouldn't we start now?"

    Silence.

    "Meg, look at me." The resounding clamor of his heart overwhelmed the hammering of the rain on the roof over their heads as Meg raised her face to his. "Nothing will ever be right for either of us unless we set our feelings right. You know that, don't you? Put your arms around my neck, Meg."

    David barely restrained a gasp of pleasure as her arms encircled his neck. Intent on the pink trembling lips so close to his, David closed the distance between with a soft, "I love you, Meg…"

    "Fire! Fire!"

    The shouted warning echoed deep below the surface of the Lang mine, raising Dennis O'Connor's head toward the entrance of the gangway as thick, choking smoke spiraled toward him. Coughing, his eyes smarting, the big man retreated with stumbling steps, refusing to succumb to panic. Shouting orders to the men around him, he turned to seek the figures of his sons within the group scrambling into an intersecting tunnel where the air was still clear.

    O'Connor counted five. All of his sons were safe. But his relief was temporary as a panic-stricken voice reached his ear.

    "Dennis, there's no way out! We've not a chance! We're doomed, man, doomed!"

    "Close yer mouth, fool!" Turning his handsome, smoke-streaked face toward the smaller man at his side, O'Connor continued in a more guarded tone, "I'll not have ye panic any of me men, John Bannen. I'll not give up me life so easily as ye seem inclined to do. Now be quiet and give a man time to think!"

    Chastised, Bannen collapsed back against the rear wall, his eyes on O'Connor as the big Irishman scanned their immediate surroundings.

    Spying a pile of bracing timbers and equipment in the corner of the shaft, O'Connor raised his startling light blue eyes toward a small vent over his head. Coughing again, realizing smoke was gradually penetrating this area of the shaft as well, O'Connor turned back to the men around him.

    "Pile them timbers over here! Quick, boyos! James, Kevinget the tools! We'll barricade ourselves against the smoke and stuff our jackets into the cracks. Then we'll pray that trickle of air above our heads'll keep us alive until the fire's out!"

    Frowning at the silence that followed, Dennis snapped a quick, "Step lively, lads!"

    Working alongside his men as they moved the heavy timbers,    O'Connor grimaced as the first nail was pounded home. He glanced at his sons as they worked effectively with the older miners, and his heart swelled with pride at the courage they displayed despite their youth. They'd get out of this together, his sons and him, and his boys would grow to strong men who'd do both him and Mary proud. He'd see that his sons and Meg had a good life…

    His optimistic thoughts halting, O'Connor glanced up in dismay as black smoke began barreling into the shaft. He gasped for breath, tears running from his burning eyes as the men around him dropped their tools and strained to breathe. He staggered, coughing violently as his sons, equally affected, gathered around him. Sinking to his knees in the rapidly darkening shaft, O'Connor curved his arm around the youngest of his boys, choking, furious as he realized that someone atop had been fool enough to turn on a ventilation fan, forcing the smoke back upon them.

    The silent appeals in eyes so similar to his own registered sharply in his mind as his sons' faces began fading from sight. In the moment before consciousness slipped away, Dennis O'Connor realized that this mistake would be the death of them.

    A fine rain fell as Meghan O'Connor stared at the freshly dug grave a few yards from her feet. Her eyes drifted to the huge mounds of earth piled beside it, and she shuddered as moisture began penetrating the shawl covering her head and shoulders. She avoided looking at the uneven rows of markers surrounding her in the hillside cemetery, and lowered her head as solemn mourners behind her responded to Father Matthew's signal and began reciting another prayer. Her lips moved with the familiar words, but no sound emerged. She swallowed with difficulty, her eyes moving to the six unadorned coffins beside the gaping hole. She struggled to recall the faces of those enclosed within, but they strangely eluded her. Her frozen mind recited the names of her brothers: James, twelve years old, two years younger than she; Kevin, sixteen; Patrick, seventeen; Daniel, nineteen; Dennis, twenty. And Dennis O'Connor, Sr. Da.

    Her mind suddenly deluged by the images which had evaded her, Meghan was swept by a sorrow beyond tears. She closed her eyes and clutched her hands together more tightly, her fingers whitening with the desperation of her effort to speak the prayers still resounding around her. A hand closed supportively on her thin shoulder and she looked up at her only surviving brother.     Sean's youthful face was emotionless, but she recognized the pain that lay behind his light blue eyes. It mirrored her own. She glanced at their mother, but turned swiftly forward once more, unable to bear the dear woman's agonized distress.

    A moment passed before Meghan realized the last prayerful rumble had ceased. She looked at Father Matthew as he offered once more:

    ''May the perpetual light shine upon them. Through the mercy of God, may they rest in peace. Amen."

    Holy water mingled with rain, falling on the coffins. The drops blended, becoming indistinguishable from each other as a flurry of movement preceded the slow descent of the plain wooden boxes into the ground. Muffled sobs grew louder, the sorrowful sounds having no effect on Meghan's frozen state until the sound of her mother's low, shuddering keen reached her ears. Meghan watched her mother take a few steps forward, her grief-ravaged face white in the gloom of the overcast morning. Mary O'Connor's frail frame swayed unsteadily as she took a handful of soil from the nearest pile and dropped it into the open grave.

    The falling dirt struck the coffin lids, the sound appearing to reverberate within her mother in the brief second before she sank limply to the ground. Concerned mourners scrambled to the fallen woman's side, leaving Meghan temporarily forgotten and more frightened than she had ever been in her life.

    A gentle arm curved around Meghan's shoulders, and she looked up. An encouraging smile on his lips, Father Matthew whispered, "We must not question the ways of the Lord, Meghan. We must trust in His wisdom. Will you try to do that, dear?"

    Her breathing labored, Meghan climbed the steep hillside, grateful to leave the shadow of the towering breaker behind her. She turned her back on the constant red glow of hillside furnaces, on the mountainous dumps of cinder and slag, and the great, brackish pools that grew larger each day. Her spirit lightening with each step, she realized she would soon be at her favorite spot, a small natural garden above the valley on a hill untainted by the Lang Colliery, where the sun's rays were not dimmed by the unnatural haze of coal dust below.

    Meghan paused, ignoring the voice in the back of her mind reminding her that she was trespassing, that the hill she climbed was part of the Lang estate situated on top. She reasoned defiantly that the Langs had no right to keep the only beauty still remaining on the scarred landscape to themselves.

    Concern crept into the silver-blue eyes unmistakably marking her Dennis O'Connor's daughter as she brushed a wisp of curly dark hair from her cheek. Always close, Sean and she had grown even closer in the two months since the deaths of their father and brothers. Sharing his pain, Meghan was aware of Sean's mounting bitterness as their lives became increasingly difficult.

    She knew Sean was right. Martin Lang controlled their lives and the lives of everyone in this section of the valley, while treating the poor Irish who worked in his mines with less respect than he gave his household animals. Like so many others, her Da had been lured from his native Ireland to the Pennsylvania coal fields with promises of a new life of plenty. He soon discovered, however, that his reward for eleven-hour shifts of backbreaking labor was working conditions that often broke lesser men, and a wage that kept him bound to a mounting tab at the company store. Unions had little effect on the situation, except to encourage strikes that did more harm than good when there was always another trainload of immigrants eager for work.

   Desperation had finally brought the dreaded Molly Maguires back to life among the Irish miners, and Meghan heaved a sad sigh at the thought. Her father had not approved of making the coal fields a battleground, or of the savage methods of the secret group. Da, and many men like him, had been ashamed to see murder and fear again become tools of an Irish organization. He said the Mollies made every Irishman less in the eyes of other men, but he hadn't dared to speak that opinion outside their home. The organization had become so powerful, and its secrecy so carefully guarded, that no one knew when a Molly was near. Da said there was a better way to escape the mines. He taught his children that if a man believed in himself, he would find his way to a better life.

    Tears brimmed in Meghan's eyes. The brief, formal note of condolence Ma had received from the Lang family the day of the funeral was all she had to show for Da's belief. A week after Da and the boys were killed, a new group of immigrants replaced them, without a single step being taken to see that the same thing wouldn't happen again.

    A familiar anger flushing her youthful face, Meghan raised her chin proudly. It made no difference to her what the Langs and their like thought. The O'Connors knew the worth of themselves and their own. But Sean's anger wasn't as easily satisfied. At fifteen, her brother was a bitter young man, and she worried about him. He listened too much to the men who said her father and brothers would have escaped the fire if Martin Lang had cared enough about his miners to have an emergency exit in the deep shafts. He brooded about ways to make Lang and other mine owners learn to respect the Irish in the mines. And he brooded about making Lang pay for the deaths of Da and the boys.

    Climbing again, with a strength that belied her fragile appearance, Meghan remembered Father Matthew's warnings against allowing Sean's bitterness to infect her. But it was so very hard not to.

    Stepping onto level ground a few minutes later, Meghan forced all dark thoughts from her mind and followed the trail that led to the spot she sought. Reaching it at last, she breathed deeply. She needed the peace of this place very badly. It was beautiful on the hill with the trees allowing just enough spring sunshine for comfort, and a great honeysuckle bush nearby scenting the air. A bed of violets edged a heavy carpet of moss beneath her feet, and Meghan dropped to her knees, silent as she allowed her mind to    inhale as deeply as her lungs. Oh, if only the whole world was as beautiful as it was here. If only

    Hearing an unexpected sound, Meghan froze into stillness. Her heart leaped at the sound of footsteps and horse's hooves approaching on the nearby trail.

    Panicked, Meg scrambled back out of sight into the overgrown honeysuckle bush and held her breath.

    David Lang cursed softly as he stumbled again on the uneven trail and turned to cast the great black stallion trailing at the end of his lead an angry glance. He jerked the reins sharply, instantly regretting his pettish action as Fabian gave a nervous snort.

    Damn! It was his own fault that Fabian had thrown him. He should have known better than to allow his thoughts to wander when the great brute hadn't been exercised for a few days and was primed to take advantage of his lack of concentration. But he'd be damned if he'd limp back to the stables in full view, with his riding clothes stained and torn from his fall. Townsend would snatch the opportunity to report to Uncle Martin that he had been right all along, that Fabian was too much to handle, and that the great stallion should be gelded or sold.