When We Caught Fire

by Anna Godbersen

  After all the years of rule learning, and rule following, and perfect dressing, and perfect walking, Emmeline couldn’t help but be a little proud of herself for doing a very unladylike thing, and going to a saloon. The skin of her face tingled and her heartbeat was jumpy with the notion that she was really here, inside Jem’s—which was the kind of place a girl who gets engaged to Frederick Arles Tree was absolutely, without a doubt, not supposed to be.

  The long, narrow barroom was frenetic with color and noise. Every corner was full of men, their shouting and their smells. They had fearsome faces, ruddy with drink in the low light, and they were not afraid to stare and cluck. They probably weren’t afraid of anything. They sprawled against the bar, shoving at one another in a way that was half play, half not. A current of fear went up and down her spine. She hadn’t felt so awake in days.

  “Aren’t they all so very interesting-looking?” Emmeline whispered excitedly, as she held tight to Fiona and returned the bald stares of the patrons.

  Fiona did not seem quite so sure. At the entrance to Jem’s, she had held back once again, saying they wouldn’t be permitted inside. “Come on,” she had whispered, grasping for Emmeline’s shirtsleeve. “We shouldn’t have come. The cab’s still waiting for us. We can go home now and nobody will notice we’ve gone. They’ll never let us in, anyway.”

  But Emmeline, alive with the energy of the old neighborhood at night, had given the big bear of a man who guarded the door her most persuasive smile along with a ludicrous story about how they were Anders Magnuson’s long-lost sisters, and a moment later they were ushered inside.

  As they moved down the bar, Emmeline whispered, “I can’t believe that worked!” And when she heard no response, added: “I feel a little brave, don’t you?” and gave Fiona her brightest eyes. She knew Fiona would see how fun this all was, if only Emmeline could show her.

  “A little,” Fiona allowed.

  “Thank you,” Emmeline whispered. “Thank you for coming with me even though I know you’d rather be sleeping. I had a terrible afternoon and if I didn’t do something absolutely bad I might have gone crazy, and I’d never have had the courage if you hadn’t agreed to come along, too. Someday, when I am Mrs. Frederick Tree and do nothing but host afternoons, this will make such a funny story, and we’ll laugh remembering it. Won’t we? Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes.” Fiona sighed. “It’s all right, I forgive you.”

  “About earlier, too?”

  “Yes, it’s all right about earlier, too.”

  Emmeline smiled, and knew they were on the same side again, the way they had been since they were little girls.

  The energy of the place was wild, and it carried them back, back, through one long corridor and another, past small rooms in which men played cards on bare tables. They moved in the direction of a thundering crowd, until they arrived in a cavernous space. It was like a great barn, although much larger than any barn Emmeline had ever seen. Men perched in the rafters, the better to watch the frenzy below. The shouting was so savage it seemed to clamor from within her own skull.

  A cheer went up, and everyone pressed in toward the center.

  “Get up, Mag!” someone cried out.

  “Kill him!” called another.

  “Come on,” Emmeline urged, putting her shoulders against the thick of bodies. Hundreds were jockeying for position by the raised platform, which was crudely built of unpainted wood, and cordoned with ropes.

  Then, suddenly, she caught a glimpse of him.

  If she had passed him on the street, she might not have known him, for he was broader, and his features had toughened since last she saw him. But in the ring, it was obvious that this was the first boy to whisper she was pretty and hold her hand with a tenderness that still made her heart light when she remembered it. He moved in the same spirited way he had then. He was as handsome as before, and he seemed even more himself in the ring—darting, compact, and fierce. His chest was bare above the waist, and he circled his opponent with fists hovering close to his face. Once she saw him, Emmeline had a strong notion never to take her eyes off him again.

  The other fighter was almost a giant. Much larger, and older, too. He had a drum for a chest and a great scarred melon of a head, and he bellowed when he swung.

  Emmeline elbowed the man next to her. “Who’s winning?” she asked.

  The man clucked at the sight of a girl amid that rugged company, and his eyes narrowed lasciviously. But his interest slipped when another roar went up. Not glancing away from the fight again, he replied, “Crowd favors the young Swede. Anders Mag, he’s the house’s boy. Kid Curley will win, though. He’s old, but he knows how to finish a fight.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Fiona, at her elbow, replied hotly, and Emmeline was glad to see her as fiery and protective of her friends as she used to be. “See how fast Anders moves!”

  The man didn’t acknowledge the outburst, but it was plain that Anders was the more energetic of the two. The older fighter seemed to tire with every lunge. He’d grunt and a shower of sweat would catch the gaslight. Even if his fists did find Anders, they lost their force by the time they reached his body. All the while, Anders’s eyes were bright as mirrors, his torso glistening from exertion, his concentration absolute. How lovely, Emmeline thought, to be the object of such concentration.

  Another round passed in the same way. And then for a moment Anders’s attention seemed to drift. He slowed, gazed into the distance. He seemed almost to offer himself. Kid Curley seized the opportunity, and threw a hard punch that sent Anders staggering backward until he fell against the ropes. His body was listless—that taut, focused quality gone in an instant. He slid to the floor, blood mixing with sweat on his forehead. Emmeline blinked, not believing her own eyes. A moment before, he had seemed capable of anything.

  The way the crowd shouted and booed, they must have thought he was finished. His opponent raised his arms in the air, bellowing and strutting for the onlookers. Anders had been so fleet, and now . . . Emmeline’s heart shrank when she saw him brought low. He was still as the dead.

  Fiona was at her ear, whispering to Emmeline they should go. But Emmeline barely heard her. She couldn’t let this be the last she saw of him, bloodied and beaten. She lunged forward, grasping the rope with both hands. “Get up, Anders!” she cried. “Get up!”

  Time became slow. He wiped sweat away with the back of his arm, lifted his head, and squinted into the crowd. Someone shouted “Maggot!” but it was unlikely Anders heard. He was staring at Emmeline, transfixed, as if wondering if it were really her, or if he’d been hit hard enough to have visions. Emmeline leaned into the ring, her gaze seeking his, the rope scratchy in her palms, her chest rising and falling. She knew then what it was to be looked at, really looked at, by a man. After a few seconds—it could not have been longer, though it seemed forever—Anders got back on his feet, and beckoned to Kid Curley.

  The crowd roared when they saw him dancing again, light and taunting. Emmeline smiled and cheered, never looking away from Anders—she supposed Fiona must have felt the same as she did, delighted to see him in the fight once again, but she didn’t want to stop watching him for even a second.

  Now Anders seemed amused by his opponent’s swings, and they rarely met even his fists. His face was bloody, but it did not trouble him. Once, he appeared to glance in Emmeline’s direction with a grin and a wink. Watching his quick, sure movements, the way he ducked and swayed, she felt she was seeing life at last. His lean, forceful body and playful prancing made her think that the world of drawing rooms and balls and the right dressmaker and the wrong part of town was just a silly game. Only he seemed real.

  In a few rounds, Anders had his opponent. He was too fast, and finally Kid Curley could only cower behind his gloves and be pummeled at his belly and his ribs. He attempted another charge, but his strength was spent, and he only made himself an easier target. Anders hit him five times in rapid succession, at the jaw and either side of the
head.

  A brief, stunned silence hung over Jem’s as the big man crashed, like a great tree succumbing to the ax, and sprawled across the floor of the ring. Anders hovered above him, watchful while his opponent tried and failed to get up. The crowd erupted in agitation, howling and swaying. Everywhere people were shouting Anders’s name, and Emmeline was one of them. She was trying to get Anders to look at her again, but the crush of bodies was stronger now. A fight broke out between two groups nearby—Emmeline caught a glimpse of Fiona’s horrified face, before she was pushed in the other direction.

  Emmeline felt the warmth of Anders’s gaze, and she turned to find his eyes. They were as fierce and blue and focused as they had been in the fight. But he was closer now, having slipped through the ropes, and into the crowd. Her breath stuck and her lips parted, and she knew for certain that Father’s carefully laid plan for her life was in trouble.

  Six

  Why do the young men of this city submit to backroom contests, where for scant prize money they may be near beaten to death? When asked, they grin and say it is an ancient honor. I think it is because only in the fight game do they learn their own might. Only when they labor against a worthy opponent do they finally find their true selves.

  —“The Sport,” Chicago Crier, October 5, 1871

  That moment, when Anders looked into the crowd and recognized Emmeline and seemed to come back to life, had rendered Fiona frozen, immobile. Although in reality it must have passed quickly, it had seemed to go on forever and ever, and Fiona felt that she was standing outside a glass case, hearing nothing yet forced to watch as Anders and Emmeline gazed at each other like the only two people in the world. Now the room was full of sound and fury, but Fiona was still cold, and having trouble making sense of what was happening around her. They were fighting, she knew. All around her, men were fighting, but she was oddly disconnected from the goings on, and she watched with detachment as Emmeline was pushed backward into the tumult and then knocked out of sight.

  A mean part of Fiona flickered and rejoiced. Then she dropped the feeling, like a pan hot off the range that would otherwise scorch her. She could not really wish any harm to Emmeline—they had been friends too long. And anyway, she had no choice but to help her, and get them out of there as quickly as possible.

  All afternoon Fiona had felt small and unsure of her place in the world, reliving that incident at the Palmer, feeling by turns ashamed of what she had done and indignant at being scolded for only doing what she had been told to do. It had been all silence between the girls on their return trip to Dearborn, and afterward they had gone to their separate realms. To be publicly humiliated in that way had smarted, but Fiona couldn’t allow herself to be angry. Being angry with Emmeline never helped anything. Whenever Emmeline treated her like a servant, she was brought back to the reality of things: how precarious her situation was, how much she depended on the Carters’ largesse. If Emmeline was bruised on the floor of Jem’s, or somehow marked in any way, it was Fiona who would be in trouble.

  She pushed through the bodies, and saw the hem of Emmeline’s skirt pinned to the floor by a man’s shoe. None of the men shouting and shoving seemed to notice the girl trapped underfoot. The realization that Emmeline would be crushed if Fiona did not get to her soon brought some sensation back to her limbs, and she yelled for the crowd to part. But before she could reach her friend, a man with a sly, punch-colored face had grabbed Emmeline by the shoulder joint and pulled her to her feet.

  “Hello, pretty,” the man growled as he pawed at her blouse.

  Fiona, hot with sudden fury, threw herself between them and put her arm around Emmeline’s waist to get her away. “Hurry,” Fiona said.

  They held hands as they rushed through the warren of rooms, not stopping to notice the disturbances swirling in every corner of the saloon. When they emerged, short of breath, onto the dark street, it was as though they’d stepped out of a forge and into winter. The cabbie was waiting, just as they had told him to, standing beside his vehicle and straining to make out the news from the crowd spilling through the front door.

  “How’d it end?” he asked the girls as they approached.

  For a moment, Fiona wasn’t sure what he was asking. She could only wonder how the story of Fiona and Anders and Emmeline would end. But Emmeline, quick as ever, understood what he had meant.

  “Anders Magnuson just knocked out Kid Curley,” Emmeline replied. A moment before, she had been scared silent, but now she seemed quite proud of being able to deliver a line like that.

  “Are they celebrating?” he asked.

  “They must be!”

  Fiona glanced over her shoulder. She would have thought anyone with eyes would have favored Anders—he feinted and jabbed so beautifully—but if that was so, they had a funny way of rejoicing. There were no embraces, only shoving, cursing, drinking. The patrons on the street were causing such a commotion that the driver had to hold his horses by the reins.

  “Come on.” Fiona climbed into the cab, gesturing for Emmeline to follow.

  “But what about Anders?” Emmeline asked.

  Fiona leaned through the cab’s open door, reaching for her friend. “If we don’t leave now,” she said, “we might not get another chance.”

  She was right. Emmeline must know she was right. A riot was brewing and might soon block the streets, and then they’d never escape this place.

  And yet Emmeline drifted, staring off in the direction from which they had come. The night was full of coal fires and braying drunks, and other things that had no place in the fantastical life that she—that they both—had worked so hard to make come true.

  “Emmy,” Fiona urged.

  She sensed her friend’s hesitation, but knew that in another minute logic would win her over and they would be in the carriage, and Anders would be left behind for now. Maybe Emmeline would never see him again. She’d be married in a few days, after all, and her life would be very different forever after. And so it might have been, if Anders hadn’t appeared just then. He was wedged into a narrow space between two houses, a few buildings down from Jem’s. An oversize coat was thrown over his shoulders, and a hat was tipped to his brow. None of that mattered; she would have known him anywhere, at any distance.

  So, too, did Emmeline.

  Fiona watched her friend dart in his direction, as though watching something precious she had dropped down a well disappear from her grasp forever.

  As Emmeline approached, Anders withdrew into the shadow. Once again, there seemed to be a pane of glass between Fiona and her friends, and she watched with wide, fixed eyes as they spoke to each other for the first time in years. They were too far for Fiona to hear, really, but she had gooseflesh and her senses became extraordinarily acute and every word they said was somehow gratingly loud.

  “I only wanted to see if it really was you,” said the boy who Fiona had longed for for months, who had been her companion since she was a little girl. But his words were not for her.

  “It is,” Emmeline replied. “You know it is. How did you get in there? Come out.” She was offering her hand, and Fiona felt some small relief that he did not take it. “We’ll go for a walk and you can tell me everything.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” Her eyes sparkled. “You have a girl to meet?”

  “No, but—if I’m seen on this street tonight, I’m dead.”

  Emmeline smiled as though he was joking, but then her smile fell away. Their heads bent in collusion, and Fiona could no longer hear, although she felt desperate to know what was passing between them. She couldn’t feel her face and for all she knew the blood stopped moving in her veins. Then, suddenly, Emmeline turned and came rushing back.

  “Can you drive those horses hard?” she asked the cabbie as she scrambled onto the bench seat beside Fiona.

  “Sure,” he replied proudly.

  “Do it,” she said. “Now.”

  Fiona searched her friend’s face for an explanation of this
strange and dramatic order, but Emmeline was looking away, to the place where Anders was hiding in shadow. “Hold on,” she said. When the cab rolled into motion, she flung the door open again. Anders was already running. Running as though his life depended on it. And when he caught up with them he grabbed the roof of the cab, and swung himself inside.

  “Hey, Mag!” someone back at Jem’s yelled, and Emmeline and Fiona twisted toward the back window. The mass of patrons began to break apart and chase after their cab.

  “That was him!” said another.

  A group of men had separated from the crowd. There were five of them, running in a line as though into battle. The one in the middle wore a long, flapping leather coat from which he drew a pistol. Emmeline covered her ears and closed her eyes, but when he fired into the air, the shot was so loud it probably didn’t matter. Fiona felt its reverberation through her entire body. The cab turned a corner and hurtled north at a breakneck pace.

  They passed several blocks, and the men could not keep up. It must have been close to midnight, and they turned again onto an empty street. Fiona said, “I don’t think they can catch us now.”

  Anders had his face in his hands. At the sound of Fiona’s voice, he lifted his head and put his elbows on his knees, but his gaze remained vacant. As if realizing that he was in the company of ladies, he hastily removed his hat, and they saw what had happened to his face. He was still bleeding at the temple, one of his eyes was swollen, and a purple streak was visible on his cheek. Fiona crumbled inside to see him like that. None of them spoke for a while, and the cab rocked and rushed on.

  “Emmeline, Emmeline what have you done to me?” he murmured finally.

  When she heard Anders say Emmeline’s name that way, Fiona wondered how much more of this she could take. She fixated on her hands, which she saw had gone ahead and made tight fists without her knowledge.

  “Have I done something?”

  “No. Nothing. I suppose you didn’t mean to.”