to get to shore in the dinghy, but he didn’t care. He had a job to do.
Yet when he saw the city in flames, he paused in putting spare cartridges in his belt loops and gaped at the fiery orange dome over the sky. The unnatural arch of light and flame was so eerie that, just for a moment, he forgot everything, including the deadly purpose in his heart.
“Hey, Lightning,” he called, thumping his foot on deck to summon his companion, who was in the engine room. “Come have a look at this.”
The lake steamer Suzette chugged toward its final destination at Government Pier. Its point was marked by a lighthouse beacon, but Tom had a hard time keeping his mind on navigation. The sight of the burning city clutched at his gut, made his heart pump hard in his chest. He couldn’t help thinking about the tragedies that would strike tonight with the swift, indifferent brutality of fate. Fire was like that—random and merciless.
And damned inconvenient, given his purpose tonight. He had come hundreds of miles, from the vast and distant reaches of Lake Superior, to hunt down Arthur Sinclair. He wouldn’t let a fire stop him.
The smell of steam and hot oil wafted up through the fiddley, and the clank of machinery crescendoed as a hatch opened. “What the hell is going on, eh?” asked Lightning Jack, emerging through the narrow opening. He shaded his eyes and squinted at the city. “Parbleu, that is one big fire.”
“I guess I’ll get a closer look tonight,” Tom said, making his way down to the engine room.
Drawing back on a lever, he tamped down the boiler and then climbed abovedecks to help Lightning Jack drop anchor in the deep water. Though it was late, he had to shade his eyes against the light of the conflagration. People had gathered on the long fingerlike pier. Boats shuttled between the mouth of the river and the long dock. At the Sands, the fire reared so close that people drove wagons into the lake to escape the leaping flames. But their backs were all turned to the lake. Like Tom, they were mesmerized by the spectacle of the city in flames.
The skeletal tower of the Great Central elevator, surrounded by smokestacks, threw a long black shadow on the churning water. The fire tore across the city with the prairie wind, hot and muscular, feeding on the close-set structures.
Tom had seen any number of fires in his lifetime, but never one like this. Never one in which the wind seemed to bear the flames in its arms. Never one that moved with such furious speed. Flames covered the homes and businesses like blankets, building by building, block after block. He could see the deadly veil of crimson covering the West Division and pushing relentlessly at the edge of the river.
Tom Silver did not know Chicago well, for he had spent little time here, but it was the largest city he had ever seen. It was shaped by the lakefront and the branches of the river, which were constantly busy with commercial traffic. Ten railroads converged on Chicago, sixteen bridges spanned the river and canal, and hundreds of thousands of people made their home there.
Now its heart was on fire. This was the inferno, like the dreaded one in the Old Testament stories he used to read to Asa.
The thought of Asa brought Tom’s grim purpose back into focus. Tonight he would have his revenge. Nothing—not even the flames of hell—would stop him.
“You going to wait this out?” Lightning Jack asked, seeming to read Tom’s thoughts.
“Makes no sense to wait,” Tom pointed out. “If the fire spreads to the North Division before I get there, I’ll lose him for sure.”
“Then you had best be quick. It could be a convenience, eh? If the house burns, you won’t have to worry about evidence being found.”
Tom studied his oldest friend, his mentor, the man who had raised him. Lightning Jack duBois had found Tom, a five-year-old abandoned in a cabin in the north woods, sitting blank-eyed next to the stiff corpse of his mother. She had died of starvation, and Tom’s fate was not far behind, except that the tough old voyageur had intervened.
Since that long ago day, Tom had given Jack all his loyalty and trust. Just as Asa had trusted Tom.
“What is that look, eh?” Lightning Jack made a face. “You want to abandon the plan?”
“You know better than that.” Tom felt hard, driven. The killing would be a purification ritual, a way to wash his soul clean of the black rage that consumed him. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
Lightning Jack’s brow drew down in a scowl. “It is no crime, but retribution.”
Arthur Sinclair was a murderer, though no doubt his soft white hands were unsoiled, even in his own eyes. He employed underlings to do his work for him, but he was just as guilty as if he had slain seven souls with his bare hands.
“I still think you should let me go with you,” Lightning Jack said, resting his hand on the handle of his hunting knife.
“No.” Tom buckled on his cartridge belt. Truth was, Lightning Jack lacked a cool head. He tended to let passion get the best of him, and rage made him reckless. He despised Arthur Sinclair with a virulence that poisoned his heart, for his heart was the thing Sinclair had taken from him.
Tom’s hatred for Sinclair was different. Colder, more precise. The clarity of his hatred made him better equipped to kill. Lightning Jack was too volatile. He wore his grief for Asa like a hair shirt, and it made him wild and vulnerable.
“Shipping traffic’s heavy,” Tom pointed out. “You’d best stay here and look after the Suzette.“
“Spectators, I’m guessing,” Lightning Jack said. “Refugees. Like ants swarming in a flood. They have nowhere to go.”
Tom scanned the shoreline, picking out a train depot by a breakwater, towers and smokestacks, all pulsating in firelight. People trapped at the lakeshore waved their arms, signaling to the passing boats.
Lightning Jack watched as Tom holstered the Colt police revolver they’d bought at the Soo Locks. “Do you have enough cartridges?” Lightning asked.
“Jesus, how many times do you want me to shoot him?” Tom opened his buckskin jacket to reveal the row of ammunition in his belt loops.
“Seven,” Lightning said as Tom tied the thin leather strap of the holster around his thigh. “Go now. Time is short. I’ll keep the Suzette ready to weigh anchor.”
Tom lowered the dinghy into the water and began to pull toward the shore. The lake boiled with wind-whipped waves that crested and sloshed over the sides. Some of the boats he passed were gearing up to rescue refugees from the fire. If he were a better man, he would join the rescue effort. But he wasn’t here to save anyone. He was what circumstances had made of him, and in his heart there was no room for anything but hatred.
Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder at the waterworks north of the river. The structure still seemed to be intact, its gothic spire a black arrow against the noxious orange sky. Maybe the tower was close enough to the lake to survive the fire. So long as the pumps and bellows of the waterworks remained safe, the flames could be brought under control.
Yet he could not help noticing it was a losing battle. The high wind howled and stormed with hellish fury. Firebrands rained harder and thicker from the sky, sparking up blazes each place they touched. By the time he found the Sinclair mansion, the fire would not be far behind.
Tom
