It Happened at the Fair: A Novel

by Deeanne Gist

  Cullen slid his eyes closed.

  Della shrank into him and turned her face away.

  He needed to get her out of there. “Let’s go.”

  She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “We’re not going anywhere in this crowd.”

  Sure enough, they were packed in from behind. Even if they made it to the opposite edge, the guards weren’t letting anyone past the barricade.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She swiped her tears. “Yes. I can’t watch, though.”

  Before he could gather her close and shield her from the tragedy, the woman in front of them crumbled. Extending his arms, he barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

  “Make room. Quickly.” Della nudged those around them until they opened enough space for him to lay the woman in.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Della.

  Nodding, she crouched down, then removed the woman’s hat and loosened her collar. He stood back up, relieved Della had something to temporarily occupy her mind.

  The men on the tower crowded around the rope, assuming it would carry them to safety.

  “No!” Cullen shouted before he realized he’d spoken out loud.

  Della jerked her head up.

  He tried to mask his distress but felt sure she could see it.

  Swallowing, she returned her attention to the unconscious woman on the ground.

  A second man slid down. Caught unawares by the shortened length, he plummeted like a leaden ball through the fire, then right through the thin roof and into the caldron of flames below. He’d scarcely let loose of the cord when another skimmed down, his flight ending as he lodged into debris on the roof.

  Too fast to count, firemen skated down the cord with heart-rending regularity. As each figure appeared outlined against the tower, Cullen’s gut clenched.

  Men sobbed and averted their gazes. Women clung to posts and supports, hiding their faces in their hands, then screaming whenever a groan from the crowd announced another had dropped.

  All had taken the plunge but four. Standing, they huddled together, John still among them.

  Cullen didn’t know whether to rejoice or be even more horrified, for he knew the men finally realized what had happened to the others.

  The woman on the ground recovered enough to sit up, but not stand. Della handed her a fan, then went from her to another who’d fallen to her knees with hands clasped, screaming hysterically.

  Cullen followed closely behind Della, offering his help, but she shooed him away. Still, he kept her within arm’s length. He didn’t want to lose her in the crowd, especially under these circumstances.

  The space cleared by the guards continued to fill with patrol wagons and ambulances from the city. Fire engines chugged and pounded. Yards of hose lay in zigzagged rows. Men from the hospital service grouped around little red banners. A layer of soot and horror frosted it all.

  It didn’t seem real. Had it just been yesterday he and John laughed over some joke? Had it only been this morning when John nudged him again about a demonstration of his system? That he stopped just short of saying his feelings for the Crowne Pen lady were becoming serious? Was the woman in question even here, or was she still in Machinery Hall, blithely unaware of the tragedy unfolding?

  A child sobbed. Hushing him, the mother held the boy’s head against her neck, bouncing, rocking, and crying with him. Cullen thought about the families of the firefighters. The wives, the children, the brothers, the sisters, the mothers, the fathers who had no idea their loved ones would not be returning home.

  It was too much. Too much to take in all at once.

  The flames grew more savage, fanned by the wind and fed by the combustible material that made up every building in the fair.

  White powder from the plaster covered the people, the ground, the buildings. Billowing black smoke blotted out the blue sky that had been crisp and clear just thirty minutes before.

  John and the three remaining men began to rig up a line, tying one burned remnant of rope to another, but its length was still far too short. They secured the knotted rope to the ledge, and the first man clambered over. He dropped straight down. The second came down sideways. The third just outright jumped.

  John was the only man left.

  Cullen couldn’t breathe. Tears poured down his face. He thought of the sisters John had told him about. He’d been the only son, yet he had left farming to strike out on his own.

  Grief squeezed Cullen’s heart. Who would tell John’s family? What was John thinking right now?

  As if sensing the question, John threw his pocketbook to a comrade on the roof, then pantomimed a handshake. All alone and silhouetted against the tower, he clasped his own hand, then struck his heart. A clear message of deep affection for those who would survive him.

  Cullen swiped a sleeve across his eyes and questioned God. Again. How could He let such atrocities occur?

  His mother’s image flashed before him. Had she died of asphyxiation or from the flames themselves? Had she tried to send him and his father a parting message? Had her last thoughts been of them or of horror?

  The tower began to rock. Grasping the flaming rope, John calmly lowered himself down and dropped from its burning end.

  Cullen pressed a fist against his mouth.

  The tower lurched, toppled, and broke in half, collapsing in a rush of flame, smoke, and debris. The sound was like nothing Cullen had ever heard before. Surely no volcanic explosion had ever been louder.

  The force tossed John into the air, before releasing him to plunge toward the roof.

  Bowing his head, Cullen sobbed. Della was there in an instant, offering quiet reassurance. Going up on tiptoes, she slipped her arms about him and pulled him close. Burying his head into her shoulder, he gripped her tight, squeezed his eyes shut, and continued to weep.

  For John. For the firemen. Their families. His own mother. And for himself.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Within an hour, the entire building collapsed in a tremendous gust of flames. Firemen fought the monster. Wagons whisked away bodies. The stench caused Della to gag and look anywhere but to where ambulance attendants rushed around with blood-splattered faces.

  The Terminal Station was now in plain view over the blazing ruins of the Cold Storage Building. Trains had ceased running, and the fair stables just west of the tracks had burned down. The hotels over the fence, however, remained intact, as did the rest of the fair.

  Though the crowd had begun to disperse, it would still be a while before she and Cullen could get through. She rested her head against his shoulder, still trying to grasp what had happened.

  Placing a hand on his chest, she looked up. “Cullen?”

  He pulled his gaze from the final ambulance leaving the park. White powder sprinkled his hat and jacket. Soot clung to his face, accentuating the lines beside his eyes and making him look older than he was.

  He smoothed her hair from her face. “Where’s your hat?”

  “I gave it to someone to use as a fan.”

  Slipping her hand into his, she intertwined their fingers and gave him a soft squeeze. “I’m sorry about John.”

  Water rushed to his eyes. “Me too.”

  Her heart grieved. So much loss. So much tragedy. What if it all could have been avoided?

  “Your sprinklers would have prevented this, wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know. They would have been able to handle the initial fire in the cupola, but that explosion . . .” He shook his head. “They wouldn’t be able to withstand an explosion.”

  “What about before the explosion? When we saw the smoke? They would have opened up then, right? And perhaps put out whatever it was that caused the explosion?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. They certainly wouldn’t have hurt. I’d like to think they would have given John and the other men a bit more time to escape, but I just don’t know.”

  “I think they would have made
a tremendous difference. A life-and-death difference.”

  “Maybe so.” He sighed. “Maybe so.”

  A fireman shouted something indecipherable to another as they continued to fight the heap of burning embers. At least it looked as if they’d finally taken control of the blaze.

  Cullen brushed some of the powder from his sleeve, then offered her his arm. “Let’s go home.”

  Such simple words, yet so many men would not be going to their homes tonight. Her heart ached for them, their families, their friends, and their comrades.

  She placed her hand on his arm, then paused to take one last look at the burning heap. On the east side, a fireman tried to work around a crippled statue of Christopher Columbus, which still held the world in its hand. Just a few weeks ago, she had waltzed by the sculpture with hardly a glance. It now listed at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Another fireman tossed a rope over it and dragged it to the ground. The blaze devoured the staff, exposing its wooden foundation. A few moments later, the navigator for whom the fair had been named was buried in a mass of smoldering timbers, alongside an undetermined number of heroes.

  CHAPTER

  23

  My mother died like that.”

  Della snapped her gaze to Cullen’s, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was simply walking, staring into the distance, as if he’d not said a thing.

  “Trapped on a tower?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Trapped in a fire.”

  They exited Sixty-Fourth Street, then drifted in the direction of Harvell House, their steps slow, their hearts heavy.

  “When?” she asked.

  “In ’78. I was twelve.”

  She said nothing. Just waited. Carriages traveled in double columns, filling the avenue as people left the park. But other than an occasional call of a driver or the clopping of horses’ hooves, there was no sound. No hum of happy conversations. No friendly shouts. No hawking of wares. Only stunned silence.

  “It was summertime, and we’d gone into Charlotte for supplies,” he said. “She stopped by the cotton mill. I headed to the blacksmith’s. He’d been teaching me his trade and would sometimes let me operate the bellows.”

  She tried to picture what he must have looked like as a boy. Barefooted, with sun-kissed skin and trousers rolled up to his knees, perhaps.

  “When the fire bell rang, the whole town poured into the streets, me included. I’d been running toward the billowing smoke for a good minute before I realized it was the mill. But even then I wasn’t worried. I knew my mother would have gotten out.”

  White powder fell from their clothing, leaving a trail behind them. Smoke obliterated all sunlight, though they could still see.

  “The owner of the mill kept the windows tightly closed so the humidity wouldn’t weaken the cotton fibers. The air inside was so thick with cotton dust and lint, you could hardly see or breathe. That’s why I wasn’t with her. Cotton dust makes me break out in hives.”

  She still couldn’t fathom a cotton farmer whose body rejected the very crop that provided for him.

  “Sad thing is,” he said, “the mill had a sprinkler system.”

  Her lips parted. Please, God, she thought. Not one of his. Then she remembered he’d been much older when he tested out his first one on the cowshed.

  “It was a manual system,” he said, “and the operatives weren’t able to activate it. I don’t know why, but they weren’t. Some of the folks on the ground floor made it out, but cotton is highly flammable and the windows were sealed. The people on the second floor didn’t stand a chance.”

  She swallowed. “And your mother was on the second floor?”

  “She was.” His voice didn’t rise or fall or crack, but flattened into a monotone. “The hook-and-ladder carts arrived, of course, but even with their steam engines throwing water onto the building, there was no saving it.”

  She bit her lip. She didn’t know whether to reach for him or leave him be. Crossing her arms, she held tight to her elbows.

  “I was held back from fighting the fire. But even as they restrained me, I promised her I’d do something. Something to conquer fire. And that’s when the idea for automatic sprinklers came to me. It was as if my mother paused on her way to heaven and offered a parting suggestion. A dying wish, if you will.” For the first time, his voice wavered. He looked down. “What she failed to mention was what to do if I invented such a thing but no one wanted it.”

  Uncrossing her arms, she grabbed his hand. “Oh, Cullen. Even if no one places an order, you’ve done your part. You’ve offered the fruit of your hands. No one would ask you for more. Not your mother, not God, not anyone.”

  He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “I would. I would ask for more.”

  STEAM FIRE ENGINE

  COLUMBIAN GUARDS

  “The park was practically deserted, the atmosphere subdued.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  After dropping Della safely at her room, Cullen went upstairs, changed into the denim work trousers he’d worn on the train from home, and headed straight back to the disaster site. He might not have been allowed to clean up the mill fire, but he could certainly help clean up this one. John and the other twenty-plus men needed to be given a proper burial. But first they needed to be found.

  The park was practically deserted, the atmosphere subdued. Many flags had already been lowered to half-mast. The heap of ruins still smoldered, producing steaming heat—some pockets worse than others. Marines from foreign countries and sailors from the caravels now joined firefighters and men from the crowd who’d flung aside their jackets and plunged into the smoking mound.

  Without waiting for direction, Cullen clambered over twisted pipes and charred beams in an effort to reach the most likely location for the bodies. The stink of smoke and scorched rubble overwhelmed him. He took a deep breath, then regretted it immediately, as particles lodged in his throat, causing him to choke and cough. Grabbing a blackened piece of metal, he jerked back his hand as the heat singed his palm.

  “Here!” a man from the perimeter shouted.

  Cullen turned. A fireman sat in an oil coat, knees bent, catching his breath. He held up a pair of work gloves.

  With care, Cullen traversed the pile like a tightrope walker. “Don’t you need those?”

  “We’re taking shifts. It’s too hot to stay in there for long.” With a face covered in black soot, he peeled off his coat. “Take this too. When it becomes too much, come on back, and I’ll relieve you.”

  “Thanks.”

  While he put on the protective gear, he studied the pile more carefully. Removing the debris would be every bit as delicate as when he and Wanda used to drop a handful of wheat stalks on the ground, then attempt to remove them one by one without allowing the mound to collapse. But here, if a mound collapsed, lives were at stake.

  He hauled tangles of wire, shards of glass, and bits of chandelier to a nearby garbage cart. With each trip, layer upon layer of soggy wet soot caked his boots and trousers. Ash particles stung his eyes. Dust filled his lungs. Soot coated the inside of his mouth.

  Still, he continued. He wanted to find the bodies—yet at the same time, he hoped it was someone else who found them. He lifted the frame of a window. Underneath, a pocket of charred timbers burst into flames. He jumped back, dropping the frame, then stomped out the fire with his boot.

  From a tunnel-like passageway to his right, a god-awful smell caused him to whip his head to the side. And that’s when he saw it. A charred stump. And though it bore no resemblance to a human form, he knew what it was.

  Bile rushed up his throat, souring his mouth and nose before he could force it back down. His stomach convulsed. His eyes watered.

  Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord, he thought.

  Lifting his head, he searched the area. Some men shoveled, the clinks of their spades just now registering. Others worked in units hauling off the larger pieces. Another picked up an ice skate that had somehow made it throu
gh the conflagration intact.

  Cullen’s gaze snagged and connected with the man on the sidelines whose equipment he wore.

  The man’s slumped posture began to straighten one vertebra at a time. He pushed to his feet. “Chief?” he called, not looking anywhere other than at Cullen.

  “What is it, Gray?”

  The man named Gray pointed to Cullen.

  Cullen scanned the area, quickly spotting the white-helmeted chief who’d been consulting with two infantrymen. The chief handed his pad and pencil to the men beside him, then headed toward Cullen with long strides that quickly turned into jogs.

  The shovels stopped. Those hauling rubble paused. All movement suspended as the chief climbed over hills and vales to reach Cullen’s side.

  When he did, Cullen pointed.

  The chief’s drooping mustache looked as if a frozen frown had been painted on his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cullen rasped, tears streaking his cheeks.

  The chief looked at him. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Cullen McNamara. I work in the booth next to John Ransom.”

  “Are you the one with the automatic sprinkler?”

  Cullen blinked. “Yes, sir.”

  The chief nodded. “John went on and on about that thing. I’ve been meaning to go over and see it. I just haven’t had the time.”

  Cullen had no words. He had no idea John had mentioned him or his exhibit. Looking away, he swiped his nose with his sleeve.

  The chief placed a steadying hand on Cullen’s shoulder. “There’s no need for you to do this.”

  “Please, sir. I want to help.”

  After a brief hesitation, he nodded, then turned to the ambulance corps and signaled for them to bring a stretcher.

  Fifteen minutes later, another body was found. More turned up at frequent intervals until eight more were recovered. When nightfall came, the chief called a halt to all work and was met with protest.