by Sara Orwig
“You have nerve, coming here. I heard you were in Atlanta again.”
“You knew I was here before.”
“Indeed. You burned Belle Tache. I don’t understand that logic. Your wife develops pneumonia, so you burn down her birthplace.”
“You know why I burned it—and it didn’t hurt her when I did,” Fortune said, fighting for control. He glanced again at the elegant office, filled with ormolu mirrors and potted plants, thinking the room was a reflection of its owner, who flaunted his wealth and surrounded himself in luxury.
“You’re here for a reason—I’d guess to challenge me.”
Fortune gave a snort of derision. “When I do that, it’ll be where there are witnesses, not alone like this.”
Wenger arched his brows. “You think I’d be afraid to meet you? You’d need witnesses to coerce me into responding?”
“No, I know you’d welcome meeting me.”
“You’re right. The sooner you’re out of Atlanta, the happier I’ll be about it.”
Fortune moved a step closer. Trevor Wenger’s eyes narrowed and his hand moved slightly. His arms rested against his sides, his hands out of sight beneath the desk, and Fortune suspected he held a weapon.
“Where’s my son?”
“So that’s what this visit is about. You will never have him. I give you my absolute promise,” he said, his voice suddenly tight with anger.
“Where is he?” Fortune said, keeping his voice quiet and level. “Where is Michael?”
“You took my daughter from me—”
“I took her?” Fortune interrupted, clenching his fists and breathing heavily. “She’d be alive if you hadn’t taken her away with you, dammit!”
“If she hadn’t met you, she would have married a southern gentleman and she would be alive today. You took my Marilee; you have Mary Louise’s money. My poor befuddled sister willed you her fortune. You may be able to charm women, but you can’t charm me.”
“Wenger, where is my son?”
“I don’t have my grandchild, and I don’t know where he is,” he said flatly.
“You’re lying,” Fortune accused. Yet as he stared into those angry brown eyes, he realized the man was telling the truth. Fortune had stared down enough liars to know when he was dealing with someone telling the truth.
“I could call you out right now for calling me a liar.”
“Are you challenging me?”
Wenger shook his head. “No. I want witnesses too. I want men in this town to see us agree to a duel. I want them to turn out to watch what I’ll do to you. You’re a Yankee, and if you think anyone will shed a tear over you, you’re mistaken.”
“Not everyone in Atlanta hates us, and you’re not exactly loved here. People know you were on both sides. I know about the money you gave the Confederacy, and I know about the money you made from the Union. You traded with Yankee as well as Reb. This nice thriving business is because you played on both sides. If I hadn’t burned your house, you could have come home to it.”
“A fact I never forget.” Suddenly he slammed the chair against the wall with a crash and stood up, a revolver aimed at Fortune’s heart. “I don’t want to shoot you now. This doesn’t suit my purposes, but I want you out of my sight. I don’t know where my grandson is.”
“Marilee would never have given him away.”
“Marilee died when she ran away to go back to you!” he yelled.
Stunned, Fortune stared at him. “She got away from you and was coming home?”
“Damn you for interfering in our lives. I promise you, you damn Yankee, you’ll regret it a thousand times over.”
“Where’s Michael?”
“If I knew, do you think I’d tell you?”
Fortune leaned forward, clenching his fists. “You lost them both, daughter and grandson. Are you a monster, that doesn’t know how to feel remorse?”
Fortune turned and strode toward the door, his back tingling, half expecting the gun to blast before he left the room. He turned the handle and swung the door open. Past the open-mouthed clerk he strode out into the bright sunshine, where he stopped and blinked, looking around. His heart pounded as he gulped for breath.
He mounted up and rode toward town. He crossed Five Points to stop at a gunsmith to purchase a Winchester rifle and ammunition, knowing someday he would need it. Trying to calm his stormy emotions, he rode back to the hastily thrown-up encampment of the Third Military District of the United States Army on the grounds of City Hall.
As soon as he was seated behind his desk in his narrow office, one of the few in City Hall, he pulled pen and paper in front of him to write. When a knock came at the open door, he glanced up.
“Did you see Wenger?” Major Alaric Hampton asked, flicking his blond hair away from his face.
“Yes. He doesn’t have Michael,” Fortune said as Alaric entered and dropped in a wooden chair, stretching out his legs. “And he hasn’t had him. He can’t find him.”
“Why not? Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say, but he doesn’t have him. He isn’t lying. He may know where Michael is, but it’s not here,” Fortune stated, glancing around the small office at a wooden filing cabinet, a hat rack, and a shiny brass spittoon.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I did some thinking as I rode back here. I’m resigning from the army.”
“You didn’t give it much thought. We’re all of a mile from the Wenger Ironworks.”
“I gave it enough thought.” He held out the letter he had just written, and Alaric leaned forward, a lock of blond hair falling over his forehead as he took the letter. He read and looked up.
“Why? What good will this do?”
“I want to find my son. While I wait to be mustered out, I’m going to St. Louis. I’ll hire a Pinkerton man to find my son.”
“Damn, I hate to lose you. We fought all through the war together.”
For the first time that morning, Fortune relaxed and smiled. “You won’t lose me if you stay in Atlanta. I intend to stay here—at least for a while. I have unfinished business.”
“A duel with Wenger.”
Fortune raked his fingers through his black hair, which sprang back in unruly waves. “No. That was my first inclination, because I’d like to put a ball through his heart. On second thought, though, I’d prefer to ruin him financially. That would be the kind of slow death I’d like for him.”
“When you get on the subject of Wenger, you frighten even me, and I know I’m safe from your anger,” Alaric said solemnly. “Fortune, you were so young when you married and it didn’t last very long. Let it go. You won’t look at another woman. If you relaxed, tried to enjoy life, you’d meet other women. You don’t know this son. There are many beautiful women who can give you other sons.”
Feeling a surge of anger, Fortune tried to curb it. Alaric was a friend, and his intentions were good, even if misplaced. “You’ve never been in love, Alaric, so you can’t possibly understand.”
“Me? I’ve been in love dozens of times!”
Relaxing again, Fortune laughed, looking at his friend, who was draped over the chair like an indolent cat. “That’s just it—dozens of infatuations. You don’t know what real love is. I adored Marilee, and it was forever.”
“You went from losing a wife to fighting a war. You don’t know what it’s like to just enjoy life. Fortune, try my way. Go with me to the party Friday night.”
“I’ve been to parties,” he said, his mind drifting back to his letter of resignation from the military. “I don’t enjoy balls.”
“Small wonder! You scowl and dance two or three dances and leave. I’ve seen ladies who want to fawn over you. They flirt and try to get your attention, and you don’t even see them. It isn’t natural to shut women out of your life. You do the work of two men to burn off energy—”
“I see women on occasion.”
“Oh, yes,” Alaric said with cynicism. “When your body c
an’t take any more, you find a woman who will satisfy you physically and leave you untouched emotionally. Look at this,” he said, leaning forward and catching Fortune’s bony wrist. There a chain of gold links gleamed dully in the light. “You wear her trinket like a slave bracelet. Let go of her memory, dammit, and try to live again!” He leaned back against the chair, hooking his leg over the arm and swinging his booted foot.
“I’m going to St. Louis,” Fortune said, trying to end the conversation. He had no interest in other women. He loved Marilee only.
“And Trevor Wenger? What about him?”
“I’ll be back to contend with him. In the meantime, he may learn something about Michael before I do. If my son is in Atlanta, I’ll know it.”
“So you’ll stay in Atlanta when you’re mustered out?”
“Yes, until I find Michael, I don’t intend to let Wenger get out of my sight.”
Alaric stood and placed the letter back on the desk. “I wish you’d change your mind. If you’d just let down once, Fortune, just once—it wouldn’t be so difficult after that. You might find life is a lot nicer.”
“She’s the only woman I’ll ever love. And I want my son.”
A week later Fortune strode into the unpretentious Pinkerton’s Detective Agency office in St. Louis. He paused in front of a desk. “I need to see someone about a missing child.”
He was shown into another office, and the man behind a narrow, uncluttered desk stood up and offered his hand. “I’m Irving Eisner.”
“Fortune O’Brien.”
“Have a seat, Colonel,” Eisner said, folding his lanky frame onto the chair and giving his black beard a tug. “I wondered how long it would be before you’d be here.”
“You expected me?” Fortune said.
“Our agency was hired a long time ago to look for a Michael Hanlan O’Brien, child of Marilee Wenger O’Brien, deceased, and Lieutenant Fortune O’Brien of the United States Army.”
“Did you find him?”
“No. I’m not the agent assigned to the case, but I was the first year.”
“Who hired you? Trevor Wenger?”
“Of course. The grandfather is anxious to find his grandson.”
“Would it matter to an agency that the mother didn’t want the grandfather to have his grandson?”
Eisner shook his head and smiled. “Begging your pardon, Colonel, but we have only your word on that.”
“You’re still searching for him after all this time?”
“Yes, but not as an assignment from Trevor Wenger. As you know, Pinkerton’s has a reputation for success. We always get our man. Sometimes it has taken longer than other times, and this is one of the difficult cases. Trevor Wenger lost patience with us.”
“So why are you still searching for Michael? Who’s paying you to look?” Fortune asked, puzzled and impatient to get answers.
“A young woman took your son.”
“Why? Who is she?”
Eisner continued as if he hadn’t heard Fortune’s questions. “William Dryden, the father of this woman, wants us to find his daughter. Jonathan Norby is the agent on the case. This Dryden fellow has taken ill, and I think he wants to see her again before he dies.”
“Who is she?”
“At this point, I can’t talk about the case.”
“I want to hire you to find Michael.”
“The only way I can take the case is to inform Dryden that you are also hunting for the boy. Since you don’t want the woman and he doesn’t want the boy, I see no conflict of interest.”
“I want my own agent, not the one working for this Dryden.”
Eisner nodded, tugging at his earlobe. “It’s rather irregular to have two of us on a case like this. I see no reason against it, though. The only catch is, if I find the boy, the agency will have to report it to William Dryden as well as to you.”
“If I hire you, you’ll report to me first.”
“That’s agreeable, but I’ll warn you now, the case is difficult and it’ll be expensive.”
“I can afford to pay. Besides my colonel’s salary, I have savings and an inheritance.”
“Fine. I want two hundred dollars to start.”
Fortune reached beneath his coat and withdrew a bag that jingled.
“Good Lord! You came from the South and you’re carrying gold?” Eisner asked.
Fortune glanced at him. “I’m armed and I have greenbacks if you’d prefer—”
“Gold is more than satisfactory,” he replied with a faint smile.
Fortune counted out the amount and pushed two hundred dollars across the desk. “Now, your agency is still searching after all this time—why?”
“I said, we always find our man, but in this case it’s a woman, and she’s extremely elusive.”
“I don’t believe you,” Fortune countered, experiencing a flash of anger at the thought of someone keeping his child hidden away. “You haven’t found a woman in all this time? A woman has my son and she’s eluded Pinkerton’s for years?”
“The war, Colonel O’Brien,” Eisner answered patiently. “We were given the case at the outbreak of the war. Our men were in military intelligence during the war; we were short of manpower.” Eisner tugged at his black beard. “She went out West and vanished for several years. We didn’t have the manpower to continually search for her.”
Fortune ran his fingers through his hair distractedly, thinking about the woman who had Michael. Had she taken good care of him? How had she gotten him in the first place?
“Michael was born before the war broke out, though. What about that first year?”
“She’s very elusive. And we don’t know what happened, but in 1862 our agent on the case was found shot. We don’t know if she was the responsible party or someone else was after her and our agent got in the way. The moment anyone has been able to get close to the Dryden woman, she moves on immediately.”
“How does she support herself?”
“A number of ways.”
“There’s only one occupation where a footloose woman can be assured of income,” Fortune snapped, growing angrier at the thought that his child might be with a whore.
“No. From all indications, she avoids men.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” he said.
“Remember, she is being followed by men. Whom can she trust?”
“Who the hell is she, and why did Trevor Wenger give up the search?”
“Wenger has given up on Pinkerton’s. He has not stopped his search. As to who the woman is—on a winter night in the early winter of 1861, your wife and infant son took shelter in a barn belonging to William Dryden on a plantation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Your wife died that night.”
Fortune inhaled a painful gust of breath and looked out the window. His gaze drifted among rooftops and church spires as he thought of Marilee ill with pneumonia and alone with Michael in a barn. He turned his attention to Eisner.
“Sorry, Colonel. I thought perhaps you knew. Before she died, Dryden’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Claire, found your wife. She promised to care for the baby. Your wife was unable to tell her much except the baby’s name was Michael and her name was Marilee O’Brien. Dryden buried her at his place and put the child in an orphanage.”
Fortune closed his eyes, wincing. It stabbed like a knife to think of Marilee dying with a stranger, knowing she was going to die and having to give up Michael. He opened his eyes and drew a deep breath. “Go on.”
“We don’t know exactly what transpired between Claire Dryden and your wife, but Claire objected strenuously to the baby being placed in the orphanage. Eight nights later, the baby disappeared from the orphanage, and Claire Dryden ran away from home. We know she took the baby.”
Fortune felt another wave of anger. “Dammit! She had no right to my child. If she had left him there, I could have found him.”
“Yes, and so could have Trevor Wenger.”
“So what happened then?” Fortune asked, f
eeling tension knot his shoulders.
“Claire Dryden is clever and cautious. As I told you, every time we’ve found her and gotten close, she moves. We were to notify Trevor Wenger of her whereabouts, but every time we got word to the agency and back to him, she had spotted our man and taken off.”
“I’ve resigned from the Army. It’ll take a while before I’m actually out, and I’m going to stay in Atlanta. I want to know when you locate her next. I want you to get word to me the quickest way possible. You telegraph me, and I’ll pay them at the telegraph office to come notify me. I don’t give a damn how you do it, but you inform me at once.”
“I understand.”
“Where was she the last you knew?”
“I took a moment to get her folder when they told me you were here.” Eisner opened the folder and riffled through papers, reading a moment and adjusting his glasses. Fortune studied him, thinking he would be incredibly noticeable trailing after someone. He must be well over six feet tall with a long black beard, a bony frame, and from the looks of the way he was handling the papers, he must be nearsighted. Feeling another twinge of impatience, Fortune shifted in the chair.
“She was in San Antonio, Texas, when last we picked up the trail. At that time she was a dancer in a saloon.”
“Ahh,” Fortune said, biting back an “I told you so.” “So she was a dancer. A whore.”
“Not what you think. No male friends. Keeps very much to herself.” He lowered the rimless spectacles. “Actually, that makes it easier to find her. How many attractive young women avoid men?”
“I can’t believe a dancer in a saloon does.”
“She fled San Antonio in February, and we followed her to New Orleans. We lost her there. We think she was heading east, but we don’t know. I’ll report to you regularly on our progress. As far as we know, she’s unaware of your existence, of Wenger’s, or that both you and Trevor Wenger live in Atlanta. She could settle there as likely as anywhere else in the country.”
“Or she could leave the country.”
“Yes, but since she hasn’t in all this time, we’ve ruled that out. Although we have word posted at port cities to watch for her.”
“So where will you start?”
