Fair Play

by Deeanne Gist

  “No, no,” Kruse shouted. “We want her to come up here.”

  Startled, Billy glanced at the drunken boy. Hunter stiffened.

  “Hey, I remember you.” Releasing one woman, Kruse pointed at Billy. “You and him were here before.” He looked to the ladies beside him. “She’s that lady doctor who goes to Hull House.”

  Hunter snapped his attention to Billy. She was doctoring at Hull House?

  The young man grabbed himself and made a lewd gesture. “Quick. I’m in awful pain. I—”

  The women howled, covering whatever it was Kruse said. It was all Hunter could do to keep from racing up the stairs and knocking the boy into next week. But if Billy insisted on walking these streets, she’d best learn what to expect from them.

  She didn’t blush or seem the least bit affected. But he knew her well enough now to recognize when she’d retreated behind her armor.

  “I don’t need to see inside.” Mr. Green wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “You’ll do something about the condition of the building, then?” Billy asked.

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll knock it down.”

  Up in the window, Kruse released one of the women he’d been hanging on to. “Now wait a minute!”

  Billy ignored him, and her eyes brightened. “You’re going to build a new one?”

  “Certainly not,” Mr. Green answered. “The rents don’t even cover the property taxes. I’ll just leave the lot vacant.”

  “You can’t do that.” Kruse shook his finger at Mr. Green. “Wait right there.”

  Hunter held out a hand for Billy. “Dr. Tate, would you mind showing Mr. Green the way back to Hull House? I have a few things I need to say to Mr. Kruse.”

  Mr. Green nodded. “Come, let’s get away from here. I’ve no interest in staying any longer.”

  She placed her hand on Green’s arm. “So tell me, what do you plan to do with the property?”

  Hunter watched them head down the street just as Kruse sailed out the door.

  Hunter jumped into his path. “Go back inside, son.”

  The boy shoved Hunter’s chest.

  Hunter had him on the ground in two shakes, his knee in the boy’s back, his hands pinning the boy’s wrists. “You’re getting on my last nerve, Kruse. When I tell you to go back inside, you go back inside. I don’t cotton to anybody disrespecting the ladies. I’ve told you that before and I don’t like repeating myself.”

  “He wants to tear down the building,” the boy snarled.

  “It’s a hovel and going to collapse any minute now.”

  “It’s our home.”

  “You live with those women?” Hunter asked.

  “No, I live with my family on the lower floor toward the back.”

  A sawmill whirred in the distance. A cable car bell on Halsted clanged. Hunter glanced behind him. There was no sign of Billy and Mr. Green on the sidewalk.

  He eased up on the pressure. “If I let you up, will you keep a civil tongue in your head?”

  The boy said nothing.

  Hunter again pressed his knee a little more firmly. “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  Hunter released him.

  The boy jumped to his feet, his scrawny body bowed up defensively. “Where’d they go?”

  “They’ve left.”

  “I’ve got to find him.” He started to brush by Hunter.

  Hunter grabbed his arm. “Slow down there. We’ll walk together.”

  “He’s not really going to do that, is he? Knock it down, I mean?” The alcohol clogging Kruse’s brain had cleared some, but his steps were still uncertain.

  “I imagine he is.”

  “But what about the girls? What about my family? Where will we go?”

  Hunter rubbed the back of his neck. “Why don’t we ask Miss Addams at Hull House? She’ll probably have some suggestions. But I expect you to be respectful.”

  Kruse pulled to a stop. “I don’t want to talk to her. I want to talk to that gent.”

  “You’ll speak and act like you should?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, come on, then. I’ll show you where he is.”

  By the time they arrived at Hull House, the carriage was nowhere in sight. Only the horses he and Billy had ridden, their tails swatting flies.

  Billy stepped out from underneath the portico and hurried toward him, her eyes filled with excitement. “He’s going to donate the land for our playground!”

  Much as Hunter wanted to share her enthusiasm, he first needed to take care of the boy’s concerns. “Dr. Tate, you remember Mr. Kruse?”

  She looked at him, as if just now noticing him.

  Hunter held back a sigh. That was why she had no business going on calls alone at night or in neighborhoods like this. She simply didn’t pay attention to her surroundings.

  Her armor fell into place. “How do you do, Mr. Kruse.”

  “Where’s the gent you were with?” Kruse asked.

  “I’m afraid he’s left.”

  “Left?” The boy looked up and down the street. “Which way did he go?”

  “He left by carriage,” she answered.

  “But, but . . .” The boy’s face turned red.

  Hunter indicated Hull House with his arm. “Why don’t we go inside and see what Miss Addams has to say. I’m sure she—”

  Without another word, the boy spun around and ran in the opposite direction of his home, disappearing down one of the alleys.

  “What was that about?” Billy asked.

  “His family lives in that building. He’s worried about where they’ll go if the building’s torn down.” He lifted a brow. “And he’s worried about where the women upstairs will go as well.”

  “They should be able to find another place. At least, that’s what I’ve heard Miss Addams say upon occasion.” She approached her mount and freed the reins from the post. “According to her, the residents are very nomadic, moving to more comfortable apartments when they can afford it and resorting to poorer quarters during times of illness or hard luck.”

  Hunter clasped her waist with the intent of lifting her into the sidesaddle, but the moment he touched her, all the desire and turmoil from the night before flooded him.

  She must have felt it, too, for their eyes locked.

  It would have been the most natural thing in the world to lean down and kiss her. Instead, he scratched his thumbnail against her shirtwaist. “We have some talking we need to do.”

  She swallowed, but said nothing.

  He kneaded her waist while caressing her ribs with his thumbs. “I want to kiss you.”

  Her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth. “Why?”

  A reason. He needed to give her a reason. “That’s what we need to talk about.”

  A movement behind her caught his attention. A little newsboy barreled toward them. Wait, was that . . .?

  “Derry?” Releasing Billy, Hunter snagged the little shaver by the back of his collar. “Hold up there a second. What are you doing here?”

  Derry struggled until he realized who it was. “Oh, hello, Mr. Scott. I can’t talk right now. I’ve got to get home and release my sister, then get back to the fair before somebody realizes I’m gone.”

  Billy stepped around Hunter, her hand resting on his back as she gave Derry a look of confusion. Hunter wondered if she even realized she was touching him.

  “Release?” she asked the boy. “What do you mean, ‘release’ your sister?”

  Derry strained at the bit. “I hafta go. I can’t lose my job.”

  Hunter nodded toward his horse. “How ’bout a ride? You tell me where home is and I’ll take you there.”

  Derry’s eyes widened. “You will?”

  “Sure enough.” Grabbing his buckskin’s reins, he swung up into the saddle, then leaned over. “Give me your arm.”

  Derry quickly complied and Hunter settled the boy in front of him.

  “Hold onto th
e saddle horn and tell me which way.” He started to tell Billy to wait for him, but she was already mounted and arranging her skirts.

  “I’m over on Jefferson.” Derry pointed east.

  Whirling his buckskin around, Hunter wrapped an arm around Derry’s waist. “If you can’t keep up, Billy, come back and wait for me here.”

  He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, spurring the horse toward Jefferson while being careful of the children in the streets. In minutes they arrived in the poorest section of the ward, the houses veritable shells.

  “That one.”

  Hunter pulled to a stop, swung down, and reached up for Derry. The boy’s eyes were big, his smile wide. “That was fun!”

  Chuckling, Hunter plopped him on his feet just as Billy arrived and joined them. Without waiting for an invitation, they followed Derry into one of the most vile grocery stores Hunter had ever seen. Bugs crawled in and out of burlap bags filled with grain and other staples. Slimy egg whites seeped from cracked eggs, spreading to the foodstuffs beside them. Fruit rotting with age swarmed with flies.

  Weaving past the bags, buckets, and tables, Derry pushed through a door to a tiny stairwell. Upon reaching the upper floor, he led them through a labyrinth of flats swarming with Russian, Hebrew, and Italian families. In order to enter one room, they had to pass through others. A mother and her children bent over uniforms of the Chicago police, or maybe the Illinois militia. Hunter couldn’t really tell. They sat in a semicircle of chairs sewing buttons and pulling threads. On a cot beside them lay an elderly woman with a sickly pallor, her withered skin stretching over her skeletal structure.

  He couldn’t help but wonder if youngsters such as these had made his uniform. The thought brought pangs of guilt, though he had nothing to do with the acquisition of it.

  He sidestepped chicken droppings left behind by one of the many clucking chickens strutting about the apartment. Muttering an “Excuse me,” he held a door on the opposite wall for Billy. They advanced into a dark, damp kitchen. A black stove dominated the west corner of the room. The stark walls held no ornamentation and gave no other indication this was a home where families shared warmth and laughter.

  A stoop-shouldered Italian woman sat beside a table piled with cloth petals in every color of the rainbow. At her feet, a basket of green cloth leaves with stamped designs were anchored by coils of thin wire.

  Five stair-step children of tender years helped her make decorative flowers similar to the ones Hunter had seen on ladies’ hats. The youngest ones wrapped green paper around wire stems. A girl of about six looked at him, her haunting black eyes set in a face that hadn’t been blessed by the sun’s rays for a good long while. Of a sudden, he was glad Billy didn’t wear hats. Very glad.

  Every room held a tale of poverty and wretchedness. The farther they progressed into the interior, the more stifling it became. The tenants had no running water and poor ventilation. The stench coming from unwashed bodies and the outhouses in the alley made the rooms even more intolerable.

  Finally, they reached Derry’s flat. The moment the boy opened the door, the smell of human excrement overwhelmed Hunter’s senses. He immediately found its source.

  Hunched over in a puddle of her own making, a moppet with a filthy face and matted hair was chained to the leg of a kitchen table.

  HULL HOUSE20

  “Billy stepped out from beneath the portico and hurried toward him.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  Billy sucked in her breath. The child couldn’t have been more than three.

  The girl smiled at her brother and held up a long spike wrapped in a grubby rag.

  “Put your doll down, Alcee,” he said. “I’ve come to give you your lunch.”

  Doll? That stick was her doll?

  Billy could see from here the child’s spine was curved. She looked around for something to clean the mess up with, but there were no pails of water. Only a heap of stiff, soiled rags that had dried and turned yellow.

  She couldn’t even confiscate the bedclothes, for whoever slept on the wooden frame in the corner covered themselves with newspapers.

  She moved closer. No, not newspapers. Flyers from the fair. Old flyers Derry hadn’t been able to sell.

  “Do you have any more catalogs, Derry?” she asked.

  Freeing his sister from the chain, he nodded. “They’re under the bed.”

  Before she could look, Hunter knelt down and reached for them.

  “How many do you need?” he asked.

  “Several.”

  Though Derry had released his sister, she stayed right where she was. Billy tossed the papers onto the floor surrounding Alcee, watching as the fluid changed the newsprint to a dark gray.

  “Where’s your mother, Derry?” Hunter asked.

  “She works in the pickle factory.” He removed a muffin from his pocket.

  Billy assumed he’d collected it from the Agriculture Building where exhibitors distributed free food for advertising purposes. The airy confection had fallen apart, so he packed it like a snowball, then handed it to Alcee.

  After one bite, her eyes lit and she stuffed the entire thing into her mouth. “More.”

  Derry shook his head. “Chew it up good. I only have one more, then you’ll have to wait until suppertime.”

  “Where’s a change of clothes for her?” Billy asked.

  “She don’t have none. She just wears those till they dry. She don’t mind.”

  Billy flattened her lips, but forced herself to use a moderate tone. None of this was Derry’s fault. “How long has she been chained up like this?”

  Derry gave her a strange look. “All day.”

  “No, I mean, how old was she when your parents started chaining her?”

  “Since afore she could walk.”

  Hunter rubbed his eyes.

  Billy gripped her hands in front of her. That explained the curvature of the spine. A growing child who’d been hunched over and chained to a table for three years would not be able to grow properly. She wondered if the girl could even walk. “Where’s your father?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a ragpicker. He could be anywhere.”

  Grasping the chain, Derry began to wrap it around Alcee’s ankle.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asked.

  “I hafta go back to the fair. The only reason I came home today was ’cause Nefan couldn’t let her loose.”

  Billy placed her hand on the chain, stopping Derry. “Who’s Nefan?”

  “My brother. It’s usually his job to feed Alcee, but he can’t no more ’cause he’s in jail.”

  “In jail?” She glanced at Hunter, then back at Derry. “What did he do?”

  “Stole some coal from a freight car.”

  Her heart squeezed. More than likely the boy just wanted a bit of coal for his mother’s stove. “How old is he?”

  Derry scrunched up his face and counted softly under his breath. “Eight, I think.”

  “Eight?”

  Derry shifted his weight, the chain in his hand clinking. “Listen, doc, I hafta go. I can’t lose my job.”

  “Well, you’re not restraining her. You go on. I’ll take her to the nursery at Hull House.”

  Shaking his head, Derry again wrapped the chain about Alcee’s ankle. “That costs five cents.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “Mamma won’t like that.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Now, you go on. I’ll see to your sister.”

  The boy hesitated.

  Squatting down beside them, Hunter rested his arms on his knees. “How ’bout I give you a ride back to the fair on my horse? I can get you there quicker ’n a wink.”

  Billy could see the boy was torn between wanting to ride on a horse and not wanting to leave his sister with her.

  Hunter placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, Derry. Alcee will be in good hands.”

  “What about my mamma? She’s gonna get mad when she gets home and Alcee
’s gone.”

  “I’ll make sure the neighbors let her know where Alcee is.” Billy gently pulled the chain from his hand. “Now, you go on with Mr. Scott. But hold on to that saddle horn, all right? I don’t want to be called in to work because you need patching up.”

  The boy’s eyes lit at the hint of a wild ride.

  Hunter stood, then touched Billy’s chin, raising it so he had her full attention. “I won’t have time to come back and get you. Will you come to the park and let me know you made it home safely?”

  Instead of being irritated, she was starting to warm up to the way he hovered. It was rather nice to be fussed over once in a while. “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you aren’t back by the time I get off tonight, I’ll be coming to look for you.”

  She offered him a small smile. “I’ll come find you, then.”

  Billy bathed Alcee, washed her hair, dressed her in a sack dress Miss Addams had on hand, then left her in their care. But she knew once five o’clock arrived, Mrs. Molinari would go to get her, then chain her up again in the morning. And there was absolutely nothing Billy could do about it.

  She could, however, do something about Derry’s brother. Imagine, an eight-year-old in jail. With that in mind, she only had time to pop in and see baby Joey for a few short minutes. He’d begun to recognize her voice now. His little hands and feet waved in recognition.

  “Hello, there.” She tickled his tummy. “How’s my boy today?”

  Kicking his legs, he cooed and bestowed upon her his very first smile.

  Her breath caught. A smile spread across her own face. “Why, Joey. You have a dimple. Right here.” She touched a spot just beside the corner of his mouth. “Can you show it to me again? Can you?”

  Pushing his tongue out as if he were trying to swallow molasses, he made a little baby sound, then smiled again.

  Joy filled her and she laughed. Scooping him up, she kissed his neck, then breathed in his sweet, sweet scent. She loved him. When she wasn’t looking, he’d sneaked into her heart and stolen it from her.

  For the first time in her life, she wished she were simply a wife and mother. Someone who didn’t have to worry about putting food on the table or paying the bills. Someone who could bring little Joey home and keep him forever.