by Sara Orwig
“Don’t do it today, Major,” Alaric said softly, cocking his blond eyebrows. “You have a war to fight. I’ll start back slowly. You can catch up with me. Besides, you said Trevor Wenger is in Europe, and that’s what the letter to General Howard said.”
They both turned to look at the house. The windows held an empty, dark look, and no sign of life could be seen. A shutter on an upstairs window banged.
Fortune turned away. The cold, biting wind he barely felt as his boots crunched the dried grass while he searched headstones and spotted the newest one. Grass had grown over her grave. A knot came to his throat. Tears burned his eyes, yet he was unaware of them as they spilled down his cheeks. The wind buffeted him while memories swirled like the dry leaves around his feet: Marilee laughing up at him, her dark brown eyes shining, her blond hair spilled over the pillow, her mouth red from his kisses as she held her slender arms up to reach for him, Marilee holding their infant son close.
“I love you, Fortune, and I always will.…”
They had been together not even two years, and both of them had been so young. He reached beneath his cape and pulled out a locket and knelt to place it on the grave.
“You left this behind, my love,” he whispered. “Marilee …” He bent his head as tears came. The loss still hurt with piercing freshness, and he wondered if he would cry over her the rest of his life. Marilee and Michael.
He stood up and eyed the gray headstone: Marilee Wenger. Trevor Wenger hadn’t put O’Brien on her tombstone, yet she was an O’Brien. Mrs. Fortune O’Brien. Married in a church—until death do us part.
Fortune wiped his eyes and turned, expecting to find the tiny grave of his infant son beside hers. The next stone read Charles Radley Wenger. On the opposite side was John Terrence Wenger. Fortune’s gaze swept over the weathered headstones; some were canted at angles with grass high around them.
Reading the names, he frowned and wandered around the family cemetery: Mary Louise Wenger Graydon. He paused beside her grave, running his hand over the tombstone. Mary Louise, Marilee’s aunt, who had introduced them and sanctioned their marriage. And later lost her life for doing so. “Mary Louise,” he said softly, “I miss her so.” He turned to read the other tombstones.
Louise Pearl Wenger, Charlsie Mae Wenger, Mary Wenger Payne, Winston Elmo Payne, Theodore Wenger, Hortense Mary Wenger Falkenham. Edwin Falkenham. Fortune walked the cemetery again, reading each tombstone in growing puzzlement. Where was Michael buried? He stared at the graves. “Marilee? Where’s our son?”
There was no infant’s grave, no tombstone marked Michael Hanlan O’Brien. Where was he buried? Why wasn’t he buried beside Marilee?
Standing over her grave, Fortune remembered the devastating letter: “… Marilee and Michael died from pneumonia. They were not at Belle Tache, where they could receive care.…”
If Michael had died with Marilee, where was he buried? Fortune stared at the grave and then turned to stare at the house with its Doric columns and fan transom over the wide door. Why wouldn’t Michael be buried in the family plot?
Like a ghostly apparition drifting past, a tiny glimmer of hope came. Michael hadn’t died with Marilee? Fortune’s breath caught, and he knotted his fists, feeling shaken, frightened even to think about the possibility and let his hope grow. Where was Michael? Why would Trevor have lied about the boy’s death? Trevor had booked passage to England alone after Marilee’s death. Fortune knew that from trying to find him. And Wenger had sailed alone. From all reports there had been no baby with him. So where was Michael? Fortune looked at the tombstones again. Michael Hanlan O’Brien was not buried in the Wenger family plot.
Michael must not have died with her! “Michael!” Fortune whispered. Our son is alive.
“Michael!” Fortune shouted, bursting out of the cemetery and running for the house, his long legs quickly covering the distance. “Michael!” he shouted.
His heart felt as if it would pound out of his chest. Somehow Trevor Wenger must have kept Michael, notifying Fortune that his son was dead to keep Fortune out of the way, out of his life. Michael Hanlan O’Brien, his son, was alive!
Fortune reached the house, barely aware of hoofbeats behind him or Alaric shouting as he returned at a gallop.
“Major!” he called as he reined in his horse. “Fortune, what the devil are you doing? Come away from there.”
Fortune bounded up the stairs and pounded on the front door. Twisting the handle, he pushed, shaking it, impatient with the lock. “Michael!”
Alaric caught his arm and spun him around. “Have you lost your mind?”
Fortune stared at him, unable to focus until Alaric gave him a shake. He blinked. “Alaric, my son is alive!”
“You said he died—”
“There’s no grave.”
Alaric glanced past him at the house. “He was a baby. He could have been buried elsewhere. Let’s get out of here.”
“No! Dammit, I know Trevor Wenger. He would have buried his grandson here! Instead he brought him home and wrote me Michael had died.” He spun around, looking up at the imposing house. “Somehow he must have taken Michael to Europe with him,” he said, his amazement and fury gathering strength. He looked at the house and clenched his fists. Trevor Wenger had taken his son. “You bastard!” he yelled and stepped forward, swinging his foot to kick the door. The wood splintered and Fortune rushed it, slamming his shoulder into it to burst it inside.
“Fortune, for God’s sake, come back before someone shoots you!” Alaric pleaded.
Fortune glanced through open doorways into rooms. Sheets shrouded furniture and cobwebs draped the walls. “Michael?” He walked across the hall, the clatter of his black leather boots echoing on the dusty floor. A mouse scurried out of his way.
“My God, look what they left behind!” Alaric said, holding up a sheet, stirring dust motes into the air. Fortune glanced around at a marble statue of a winged female figure.
Fortune pushed the parlor doors open wider. The furniture was covered in dust, the draperies were drawn, and a musty odor assailed him. He turned, looking up the wide, curving stairs. This is where Marilee had been born and raised. And been brought home to be buried.
“Trevor Wenger!” he yelled, and Alaric jumped.
“Lord, don’t do that.” Alaric pushed his hat to the back of his head, his blond hair springing forward, locks curling on his forehead as he placed his hands on his hips and stared at Fortune.
“Trevor Wenger!” Fortune yelled again, the cry echoing faintly upstairs. “You bastard!”
“Come on, Fortune. Let’s get out of here. We have a hard ride ahead to catch up with our unit. General Howard will be all the way to McDonough if we don’t get moving. There’s no one here.”
Fortune turned to look at him, and Alaric drew his breath and stepped back.
“You ride ahead, Alaric,” Fortune said, controlling his rage. “Leave my horse, and I’ll catch up with you. I have to do something for Marilee.”
“You’re sure?” Alaric whispered, licking his lips and backing away another step.
“Go ahead.”
Alaric left, and Fortune turned away, forgetting him. He ran into the parlor and whipped sheets off a rose satin camelback sofa. Dust rose in a cloud as he dragged the sofa into the hall and raced back into the room to yank away another sheet and pick up a matching chair. He placed the chair next to the sofa and went back to get another chair, dust smudging his blue uniform. As he entered the hall, he heard a scrape.
A door closed somewhere in the house. He lowered the chair, setting it quietly on the floor. As he listened, his hand slid to his hip, to the holster with his Colt pistol. His hand closed around the grip, and he drew out the Colt and pulled back the hammer. He heard shuffling footsteps approach.
A servant with graying hair, a faded cotton shirt, and coarse cotton pants ambled into the hallway. “Suh?” He looked down at the pistol in Fortune’s hand. “Suh, this house belongs to the Wengers. You’re trespa
ssing here.”
Fortune put away the pistol. “Get out of here.”
“Suh, Mr. Wenger said this house is protected from soldiers. You need to go. I’m not s’posed to let a soul inside.”
Ignoring him, Fortune strode to the parlor and picked up another chair to place on top of the sofa.
“Suh, you mustn’t do that. Please, go,” he pleaded in a thick southern accent.
Fortune paused and looked at him, and the man backed up a step. “You get out of here,” Fortune said, “and you won’t get hurt. You can’t stop me.”
The servant backed up another step. “Yassuh,” he whispered.
“You knew Miss Marilee, didn’t you?”
Running his thick hand over his gray curls, the man nodded. “Yassuh. Miss Marilee was a beautiful child. She’s buried on the hill now.”
“Where’s her baby? Has he taken the baby with him?”
The man frowned. “No, suh. He’s hunting for that baby.”
“He’s what?” Fortune said, frowning and wondering if he had heard correctly or if the old man’s mind was gone.
“No, suh. He can’t find the baby. He’ll never stop huntin’ until he does find him, that I know.”
Fortune stopped short, mulling over what he had just learned. Where was Michael? Why wasn’t he with Trevor if he wasn’t buried beside Marilee? She wouldn’t have given him up to anyone. Where was his son?
He drew a deep breath. “Go on. Get out of here. I have no argument with you.”
“Mister Wenger said the gov’ment promised the soldiers wouldn’t burn Belle Tache,” the old servant persisted, his voice filled with worry.
“I’m not burning it because of the war,” Fortune said, pausing again to look into those anxious dark eyes. “I was married to Miss Marilee. I’m Major O’Brien, her husband and Michael O’Brien’s father.”
“Lordy, me.” The servant blinked. “You’re the Yankee she married?”
“Go on. Get out of here.”
“Suh, I wish—”
Fortune raised his head and scowled. The man blinked and nodded, turning to shuffle out. At the door he glanced back once and then closed the door behind him.
Fortune strode back to the parlor and swept china figurines off a table. As they fell and broke into pieces, he picked up the chair to pile it on the settee. He went to the dining room, carrying chairs back to stack them in the hall.
He yanked down satin drapes in the dining room and rolled them into a ball, tossing them onto the heap.
Glancing up, he took the stairs two at a time and ran from room to room, finally stopping in what had once been a young girl’s room. Inside was a four-poster with a canopy. Two cloth dolls were on the bed, stitched smiles on their faces. Moving closer, he lightly stroked the bed, thinking about Marilee growing up in this bed, sleeping here night after night. Fortune picked up one of the dolls and put it beneath his coat. He roved about the room, opening drawers, taking a bracelet made of links of gold. Finally he took a pillow from the bed and left the room, taking one last lingering look at it.
With the pillow beneath his arm he ran to another room, stopping in the doorway. His heart began to pound as he looked at a cradle and a room filled with toys, a room ready for a tiny child. The counterpane and pillows and chairs were deep blue. It was a boy’s room. Where was Michael? Was the old servant lying?
Moving along the hall, Fortune entered a bedroom that ran the length of the house, with a fireplace at one end. Sheets draped the furniture in this room, and heavy forest green drapes were drawn, making the room dark and forbidding. Fortune built a fire from logs piled on the grate. He pulled a burning log from the fire and carried it to the bed. Tossing it on the mattress, he stood and watched as the sheet blackened and then a tongue of orange flame curled up. In a minute a fire burned brightly in the center of the bed. With a sudden puff the canopy over the bed ignited. Sparks rose as flames crackled and built.
Fortune turned back to the fireplace, dragging a chair close and thrusting the back of it into the fire. While the fire grew and crackled behind him, he stomped on the arm of the chair. It snapped and he yanked up a broken piece. Wrapping one end in a sheet, he placed it on the fire to get it burning. Heat warmed his back and the crackle became a roar. When he turned, he shielded his face with his arm; the drapes had caught fire and now the room was an inferno.
He strode downstairs with the burning torch. Placing the pillow inside the pile of the furniture, he ignited it. The feathers smoldered and finally caught. He stood staring at the dancing blaze as it leaped and grew.
“That’s for us, Marilee. And I will find our son. I’ll get Michael back. I promise you,” he said, his words loud in the empty house.
In minutes flames twisted high, and billows of gray smoke stung his eyes as they spread throughout the house. He picked up a burning chair and tossed it into the dining room, where it crashed and sent flames shooting upward.
Acrid smoke curled against the ceiling as the fire spread. He backed out the door and crossed the veranda. Alaric had tethered his horse to a post. Mounting up, Fortune rode away with a painful glance at the cemetery. “Good-bye, my heart,” he whispered.
Feeling the heat on his back, he turned in the saddle. As flames flickered in the upper windows, the roof crashed in, sending a rolling ball of fire curling skyward. Flames shot out the door and danced up the outside walls. Windows popped with a tinkling of glass. Darkening the sky, smoke rose in a gray spiral above the house. Feeling a grim satisfaction, Fortune turned to ride east. Not far away, Alaric was waiting for him.
Together they watched Belle Tache burn. Fortune thought of the destruction they were leaving behind, Atlanta shelled and burned, tracks and trains destroyed. Their orders were to burn their way to Savannah, except he had seen General Howard’s letter to spare Belle Tache. General Sherman had left Atlanta only days before, dividing his men. With General Howard, Fortune and Alaric would swing west through Jonesboro and Monticello toward Macon. The others, with General Slocum and Sherman, were headed east through Covington and Milledgeville. The two wings of the army were spread over a forty-mile width, ordered to destroy the South’s will to fight. He thought about Atlanta, its buildings in ruins, many only charred cinders, and he knew he would be back someday. As long as Trevor Wenger was alive, Fortune would be back to find him.
Fortune looked over his shoulder once more. The entire house was a raging inferno with clouds of smoke rising, blown south by the wind.
“Michael, I will get you back,” he promised quietly.
Chapter 3
Atlanta
April, 1867
Crossing Peachtree Street, Colonel Fortune O’Brien glanced at the ruins of the Georgia Railroad Bank Agency, still shattered, only parts of walls remaining, looking as it had when he left Atlanta in 1864. The rest of the street was being restored. Lampposts were being erected, businesses were thriving, and the Concert Hall looked like new. He passed a new dry-goods store still under construction. Men conducted business in front while workmen hammered on walls in back. Fortune was struck with the notion that he would always associate the sounds of pounding hammers with Atlanta. The smell of freshly cut lumber, from a constant stream of wagons, filled the warm spring air, and other wagons rumbled past hauling stone from Lynch’s quarry.
People were pouring into Atlanta: Yankees and Rebels, freed slaves, carpetbaggers and scalawags, Atlanta’s former citizens rebuilding from the losses they had sustained during the conflict. Fortune crossed the Western and Atlanta railroad tracks, turning on Elliott to Magazine Street, riding toward the edge of town. He passed some of the remaining palisades, a line of cheval-de-frise built to protect Atlanta from the Union army. His gaze strayed over the rolling hills that still had trees cut in half by cannon balls.
A tall black iron fence surrounded the sprawling rebuilt ironworks, and its gates opened onto a graveled drive. In iron over the wide gate were the black letters WENGER IRONWORKS.
With a surge
of grim satisfaction, Fortune entered the new, gleaming granite building and crossed a polished hardwood floor. His spurs gave a faint jingle with his step, and he was aware of the empty holster on his hip. Still, he was a soldier. Georgia had voted against the Fourteenth Amendment, and the state had been placed under military rule. Congress was under the control of northern Radical Republicans, who were going to cram Reconstruction down the South’s throat. Getting the assignment he wanted in the Third Military District, Fortune had been in Atlanta a week. He thought about how long he had waited to find Trevor Wenger. He had been headed toward this particular moment since he had lost Marilee.
“I want to see Trevor Wenger,” Fortune said politely to a man seated behind the desk.
The man looked up, frowning as he peered over rimless spectacles at the man in the Federal uniform. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but you’ll have to make an appointment. Mr. Wenger is busy at the moment.”
Fortune marched around the desk, and the clerk jumped in front of him. “Sir, you can’t go in there.”
Fortune brushed past him and threw open the door marked “Mr. Trevor Wenger, President, Wenger Ironworks.”
“Sir, I told—”
“Close the door, Smith.” Trevor Wenger leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes studying Fortune as the clerk shut the door quietly. In contrast to the utilitarian outer room, the office was resplendent with leather furniture and a carved rosewood desk.
“I’m not armed,” Fortune said, feeling an urge to rush across the room and attack the man with his bare hands. Mixed with the anger was a twisting pain as he stared at Wenger. Marilee had had his straight nose, his dark eyes and thick lashes, his lean face. Only her features had been soft, beautiful where his were handsome. His brown hair was thick and wavy, and Fortune suspected women found him irresistible. Fortune held his hands away from his body so that Wenger could see he wasn’t reaching for a pistol.
