Read Online Into the Whirlwind by Elizabeth Camden - Free Book Online Page A

forward. Against his better judgment, a twinge of pity took root.
    “Give me the blasted bag,” he growled. He tucked it under his arm and strode forward.
    “Are you sure?” She was breathless as she struggled to keep up with him. “You’ve been carrying it forever and must be exhausted.”
    “Miss Knox, I worked for seven years as a longshoreman hauling two-hundred-pound crates off the wharves of Chicago. A few satchels of paper aren’t a problem.”
    “You did?” She sounded as shocked as if he’d suggested he had built the Pyramids. “I never thought of you as anything but a lawyer.”
    He tightened his mouth. He’d been thinking of her as a woman whose hair he wanted to run his hands through. A woman holding a watch in a summer garden. “I’ve never thought of you as someone who could tear herself away from her accounting ledgers.” Not really true. He thought of her sitting beside him on a blanket beneath the stars. Or at a baseball game. Holding a baby. He’d long ago accepted that he was a hopeless sap over this woman, but he would get over it.
    The night sky was illuminated only by the eerie orange glow of the fire. As they rounded the corner onto East Street, the crowds thinned. Most people were long gone, and it was easy for Mollie and Zack to jog toward the factory. The sparse traffic on the streets seemed more ominous than the surging crowds. Without the noise and bustle of the foot traffic, it was easier to hear the snapping timber and the menacing roar of the fire now only a few blocks away. The endless clanging of church bells merely added to the sense of urgency.
    The moment her factory came into view, Mollie raced aheadof him toward the metal door, but as she fumbled for the key, the door opened from within.
    “I figured you’d be by soon,” a man said as he pushed himself forward on a crutch.
    “Ulysses!” Mollie embraced the man and Zack noticed the empty space where there should have been a leg. “We’ve come to get the inventory out,” Mollie said.
    “We’re one step ahead of you, Mollie-girl. I boxed up the watches and the lathes and they are on the train. Declan crated up the equipment, but we could use some help getting it to the train depot.”
    The transformation on Mollie’s face was amazing. A smile lit her eyes as if the sun were bursting behind them. “God bless you, Ulysses!”
    It was dark inside the factory, but enough of the orange-tinged light filtered through the high windows to illuminate the dark silhouettes of people inside. Zack didn’t know who these people were, but their loyalty to the 57th was strong enough for them to leave their own households vulnerable while they rushed to the aid of the company.
    A balding man reached out to shake his hand and introduced himself as Oliver Wilkes. “I’ve worked at this company since I was fifteen,” he said. “This equipment won’t go up in flames while I’ve got a heart still beating in my body.”
    Equipment for making watches was mostly small, and they packed up the tools quickly. Five minutes later, Zack and Oliver Wilkes carried the crated equipment to the depot. A single train remained at the station, the doors of the boxcars wide open as workers from the nearby factories stuffed the interiors with bolts of fabric, half-made furniture, and pieces of machinery. Mollie’s stash of watches and her few crates of equipment were an easy fit. It was dark inside the musty interior of the boxcar,but Zack loaded the crates into a corner and secured them with bands. He stacked the two satchels from his parents on top.
    “Do you know where this train is headed?” he asked Mollie.
    She glanced over her shoulder. “Someone from the piano factory said it is going to Evanston to wait out the fire. If the tracks aren’t damaged, it should be back in a day or two. I’m not sure what I’ll do then.”
    Her lip wobbled as her gaze tracked back to the empty factory. In all likelihood, there would be nothing left of