Fair Play

by Deeanne Gist

  “I’d give you my jacket,” he said, “but my superiors frown upon guards walking around in their shirtsleeves.”

  She hugged the babe closer. “We’ll be all right.”

  A set of wind chimes hanging above Wisconsin’s porch clanked together in a discordant composition. A mother and father several yards ahead of them each carried an exhausted, slumbering child against their shoulders.

  Billy wondered if some observer straggling behind Hunter and her would assume the three of them were a family. She’d always wondered what it would feel like, being a wife and mother in a unit such as this. Tempting as it was to indulge in the fantasy, she didn’t allow herself such a guilty pleasure. She preferred to deal in truths.

  And the truth was, if she couldn’t locate this child’s mother, he, too, would wonder what it was like to be part of a family unit.

  Crossing over a bridge, they exited the turnstiles, leaving the fairyland of the Columbian Exposition and entering Chicago, the Metropolis of the West. Smoke from the trains pulling into South Park Station hovered like rain clouds. Train whistles pierced the air.

  The baby began to fidget and fuss, his legs kicking against the swaddling and pressing into Billy’s ribs. She shushed and patted him.

  Taking her elbow, Hunter helped her across Stony Island Avenue and onto Fifty-seventh Street. “Do you take the train or the cable car?”

  “Neither.”

  He stopped her, the elevated train rumbling past overhead. “You can’t mean to walk all the way to the Women’s Dormitory. The cable car’s right here. It’ll practically take us to your doorstep.”

  “For five cents.”

  “I’ll get our tickets.”

  She sighed. “You can ride if you want. The baby and I are walking.”

  “Why?”

  Because she’d squandered a great deal more money than she should have on a gown too feminine to wear and on undergarments no one could see. “Because I enjoy walking,” she said.

  “You can’t mean that you, a lone, unprotected female, have been walking home, in the dark, by yourself, in this city of a million strangers?”

  “I have. And haven’t had a moment’s trouble.”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “For a brainy woman, you’ve got no more sense than that little duffer there.”

  That was exactly why she’d chosen not to marry. So she didn’t have to do what men thought she should simply because she was female. Pulling free of his grasp, she continued down Fifty-seventh Street. A few seconds later she could hear his long strides closing the gap between them, the baby bottles inside her doctor’s bag clinking.

  The farther they walked from the train station, the thinner the crowd, until there was none at all. A distant shout from an open window filtered through the night air. A dog barked. The smell of someone frying up bacon made her stomach growl.

  Hunter’s eyes continually swept the shadows, the side streets, the rooftops, the nooks, and the alleyways. His diligence began to give her the willie wobbles. It seemed to her that if one expected the bogeyman to jump out at them, he would.

  The baby must have picked up on her tension, for he began to cry again and would not be consoled. When they reached Woodlawn Avenue, Hunter collected the child and tucked it into the cradle of his left arm.

  “Let me have the bag, then,” she said.

  “It’s too heavy.”

  “I carry it every day.”

  “Not with a night’s supply of baby bottles in it.”

  She grabbed the handle, her hand half-covering his. His was rough, warm, and very different from hers. “Let me have it.” She gave a gentle tug. “Please.”

  Finally, he released it to her, then placed himself between her and the street. There was no need, though, for there were no carriages or drays or wagons to shield her from. Simply a few vagrants sitting on the front steps of the First Baptist Church of Hyde Park.

  By the time they reached the dormitory, the babe had fallen asleep.

  “Cradle your arms,” Hunter whispered.

  Tightening her hold on the bag, she formed a sling with her arms.

  Stepping close, he spread his free hand against her back and pulled her up against him. Every point of contact sent a jolt as if she’d given herself an electric current treatment.

  He rolled the babe into her arms.

  At the feel of her womanly form, the baby immediately began to root. Her body responded the way Mother Nature intended. Heat rushed up her neck and face.

  “Looks like somebody’s hungry,” he said, stepping back. “You better get inside and give him one of those bottles before he wakes the whole place up.”

  Her throat quit working. “Yes,” she croaked. Swallowing, she tried again. “Thank you for carrying him all this way.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He slid his hands into his pockets.

  Chin tucked, she kept her attention on the babe. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “But it’s Friday. You won’t be back to the infirmary until Monday.”

  “I need to collect more milk, so I’ll be back in tomorrow. That is, if I don’t find the mother.”

  He said nothing, but she could see the crisp crease in his uniform trousers, the cowpuncher boots peeking out from underneath.

  Pushing its tiny hand against her, the baby latched onto the upper curve of her breast through her gown, just above her corset. Gasping, she jerked away from the baby’s mouth. The backward momentum threw her off balance.

  Hunter caught her elbows. “Whoa, there.”

  The baby gave a choppy sob at the jarring.

  She regained her footing, but Hunter didn’t let go. Crickets hummed, their song rising and falling in soft waves.

  He brushed a thumb back and forth against her elbow.

  She took a shuddering breath. There was no mistaking his action for anything other than a caress and she felt the impact clear down to her toes.

  “Billy?”

  “I have to go, Hunter.” Pulling away, she was inside the building before she realized she’d used his given name. She glanced back over her shoulder.

  He stood outside, the door in his grasp, the wind kicking up a corner of his jacket.

  Turning back around, she flew to the stairs and the safety of her room.

  Hands shaking, she jerked the pins from her hat, peeled off her shirtwaist, stepped out of skirt and petticoat, unhooked her corset, tossed it onto a chair, shucked off her drawers, then pressed her palms against her stomach through her fancy Marshall Field’s chemise. But it did little to calm the storm within.

  Don’t think about him.

  The babe lay on her bed, kicking his arms and legs, his entire body red as he worked himself into a full-blown tantrum. His shrieks filled the room, bleeding through the walls and the crack beneath her door.

  Snatching a bottle from her bag, she crawled across the mattress and lifted him against her. “Shhhhh. I have your dinner now. Here we go.”

  The bed had been pushed into the corner, with the wall as its headboard. She propped herself up and placed the bottle in the baby’s mouth. He drank lustily, though tears still pooled in his blue eyes, which had yet to change into their permanent color. With his bald head, she had no indication as to whether he would be blond and blue-eyed, brunet and brown-eyed, or some other combination.

  He emitted a whimper.

  Without warning, her eyes filled, too. “We’re quite the pair, you and I. You facing a lifetime with no mother and me facing a lifetime with no baby.”

  Against her will, the what-could-have-beens and what-should-have-beens broke free from the tightly secured box she’d buried deep inside. Noiseless tears rushed to the surface. Tears she’d denied herself since her college days when she’d entered her first class of medical school in a beautiful gown with pretty bows and tiny pink rosebuds. The male students had whistled and clucked, throwing an equal number of kisses and paper wads.

  From that day forward, she’d worn
nothing but black, brown, and navy. Until recently. She’d had a pink-and-green gown sewn for her speech at the Woman’s Congress. And she’d purchased the blue-and-white-striped ready-made at Marshall Field’s. The former she’d worn only once. The latter, not ever.

  She wondered if she ever would wear it or if, for the rest of her life, the only pretty things she’d be able to enjoy would be undergarments. Undergarments only she could see.

  She closed her eyes, but tears still seeped out.

  She hummed to the baby. She rocked the baby. She held him as close to the breast as she could while letting the bottle do what she’d never have the privilege of doing herself.

  When he’d finished feeding and burping, she drew up her legs, sat on her heels, and laid him on the mattress in front of her. “Hello, there.”

  Peeling off the swaddling layer by layer, she examined the baby again. Not as a doctor this time, but as a daughter of Eve. She marveled at his minuscule fingers and toes. Kissed the soles of his feet. And rubbed his tummy. “My name’s Billy.”

  The baby tried to focus, but didn’t know how yet.

  Unpinning his diaper, she replaced it with a new one. “I know. It’s a boy’s name. I was supposed to be the much wished-for son. But no matter, I was the apple of my father’s eye and I am more grateful to my mother for marrying him than for anything else she ever did.”

  After swaddling him, she began to pull the pins from her hair. “With such a wonderful example as them, you can understand why I could hardly wait to find my own prince and wed him. Never did it occur to me that I wouldn’t marry. But as the years progressed, I discovered that no man wanted a wife who played the same role as he did. He wanted a wife who would sit at home and bake the bread and entertain the neighbors and see to his needs.”

  Scooping up the pins, she placed them on a bedside table, then tunneled her fingers through her hair and shook out her blond tresses. “Mr. Scott is no different, I’m sure. He’s strong. He’s capable. And he’s quite virile.”

  After giving her scalp a good scratch, she pulled her hair over one shoulder, broke it into three sections, and deftly braided it. “He would never sit still for a wage-earning wife. So I must not, under any circumstances, start something that I know has no hope of ever coming to its natural conclusion.”

  The baby yawned, stretching its mouth wide.

  She yawned in return and tied off her braid. “Don’t you be a man like that, dear one. When you grow up, you be strong and confident enough to let your wife be whoever she is. Even if that ‘whoever’ is a wage earner.”

  Getting up, she padded a drawer, placed it on the bed, and tucked him inside. Then, with the sweet smell of baby filling her, she crawled in beside him and fell into a wearied, if not sound, sleep.

  OLD TIMES DISTILLERY CO.’s LOG CABIN9

  “If you’re liking Kentucky, ya can go to the other side o’ the park over by the windmills and see an old moonshiner’s still from there.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  With the babe propped against her shoulder, Billy stopped just short of the Woman’s Building and bought the day’s official schedule from a young boy in blue toggery. Hunter shook his head. She’d purchased one every single day she’d worked even though Hunter knew she never attended any of the events listed. The boy never had to make change, for she came with the exact amount every time.

  When she approached the entrance, Hunter reached for her doctor’s bag, gently prying it from her. “How did it go this morning?”

  Her mouth turned down. “No one at the dormitory knew anything about the baby.”

  Sighing, he took her elbow and helped her up the steps. “I didn’t have any luck either,” he said. “I questioned every staff member and scrubwoman in the building. No one saw a thing.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  At the landing she paused, resting her cheek against the baby’s. “I spoke with the matron in charge of my floor at the dormitory. She said there’s a settlement on the West Side run by a couple of women. They do all kinds of services for the poor. She said they take in the sick, prepare the dead for burial, shelter women who have violent husbands, and they save babies from neglect.”

  Glancing at the infant, he swallowed. “So you’re taking him there?”

  “I don’t know what else to do. I looked for a wet nurse at the dormitory, but the women there are only in town to see the fair. None had the time nor the interest in taking on an extra little one.”

  He smiled a bit at her mention of a wet nurse. “Where is this settlement, exactly?”

  “It’s called Hull House and, according to the woman I spoke with, it’s at the corner of Halsted and Polk—about a mile west of Marshall Field’s.”

  “Marshall Field’s?”

  “A department store in the heart of downtown.”

  “So around seven miles from here.” He pulled a timepiece from his pocket. “When are you leaving?”

  “What is it now, about twelve?”

  “A little after.”

  She looked to the side. “Well, he’s hungry, so I need to feed him again. And I was going to go through a trunk we have in the infirmary. I think I saw some infant clothes in it. Then I need to gather up some more goat’s milk to take with me to Hull House.”

  “So about one-thirty?”

  “I was hoping for one o’clock.”

  He tucked his pocket watch away. “Will you wait until one-thirty?”

  “Why?” A slight breeze loosened some wisps of hair and brushed them across her face. Hooking them with her finger, she tucked them back up into her twist.

  “Because I want to go with you,” he said. “And I need time to talk to Carlisle and to change out of my uniform. Also, unless I miss my guess, this settlement probably isn’t in the best part of town.” He held up a hand, halting her objection. “Let me say it this way, I’d like to escort the baby.”

  “I wasn’t going to walk. I was going to take the cable car.”

  “I’d still like to go.”

  She sighed. “All right. But if you aren’t right here at one-thirty on the dot, then I’m leaving without you.”

  It felt good to be in his denims. He hated wearing that stiff, awkward uniform. And the sword was downright embarrassing. But it was the cap which was the worst. It was about as useless as a four-card flush and provided no shade for the neck or ears. And he absolutely refused to wear the pompon on top. He’d been reprimanded twice and had pulled extra duties because of it.

  He couldn’t have cared less. Nobody’d ever catch him wearing a bunny tail on his head. He adjusted his Stetson, never so glad to have it right where it belonged.

  “Ded’cation of Kentucky State Building t’day!” Billy’s little friend thrust a pamphlet in Hunter’s direction. “Statue of Daniel Booth to be unveiled, Southern meals in the dinin’ room.”

  Daniel Booth? Stopping, Hunter took the schedule and perused it, relieved to see Kentucky, at least, had gotten Boone’s name right. “How much?”

  “Five cents.” The boy’s earnest black eyes captured Hunter’s.

  “Five cents? Why, I can get clear to downtown for that.”

  The boy stiffened, his face defensive. “It’s a fair price. The fellas in the Court of Honor sell ’em for ten cents. But not me. You buy from Derry Molinari and you’ll always get a fair price.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It sure is. And what’d ya want to spend five cents goin’ downtown for when you can go to the Kentucky Building and see what Daniel Booth looks like?”

  “Daniel Boone.” Hunter pursed his lips. “And I’ll admit, you have me there. I can’t imagine why anybody in this town would want to go anywhere but due south.” Digging in his pocket, he pulled out a dime and flipped it toward the boy. “Keep the change.”

  Derry caught it midair, his face lighting, his smile showing some bottom teeth missing. “Thank ya, mister. Since you’re a good e
gg, I’ll give ya a little more for your money.” Leaning in, the boy lowered his voice. “If you’re liking Kentucky, ya can go to the other side o’ the park over by the windmills and see an old moonshiner’s still from there.”

  Hunter felt a smile begin to grow. “Well, that is a bonus. And I’m glad you told me. Somehow I think the governor of Kentucky might leave that part out of his dedication speech today.”

  “He ought not to. It makes real sour mash and was captured by revenue officers.”

  Grin still lingering, Hunter pushed up the rim of his Stetson. “How old are you, Derry?”

  The boy puffed up his shoulders. “Nine and a half.”

  Hunter lifted his brows. “That old?”

  “Yep. And I do my share. Ever’ day.”

  “Your share of what?”

  “Bringin’ money home. I get one penny for every paper I sell. Papa got to stop by the grocer’s last night ’cause of me.” Looking left and right, he leaned forward again. “Say, are you a real cowboy?”

  “I’m a Texas Ranger.”

  “What’s that?”

  Hunter stared at the boy, aghast. What’s that? “You’ve never heard of the Rangers?”

  “Nope.”

  Rubbing his eyes, Hunter tried not to react. The boy was only nine. And most likely Italian, with his coloring and name of Molinari. He obviously came from a poor family who probably didn’t know much about the world outside of Chicago. But still, what’s that?

  Billy stepped out onto the landing, capturing Hunter’s attention. Holding the babe against her shoulder, she looked around but had yet to notice him. A Chicago breeze whisked through the boulevard picking up the edge of her simple brown skirt and whipping it. Frothy ruffles from her petticoat peeked out from underneath before being covered again when the wind settled.

  The image of Miss Pantalets-Trousers backing into the cellar flashed through his mind. He hadn’t thought of her for a while now, but still, he didn’t think he’d ever forget the sight she’d made hanging from the window with skirts, petticoats, and trousers bunched up while long, shapely, stocking-clad legs reached for the floor. That gal sure did have a nice pair o’ legs on her.