Elizabeth smiled, thinking how her baby had been concealed in the Fitzgerald Orphanage, a short distance from her home.
Be a cougar,her frontiersman had told her. And she had.
Her wonderful cousin had sympathized, conspired, and brainstormed. “No mother should ever be separated from her child, and the cruelty of your parents to force such a thing is barbaric,” she had affirmed.
Elizabeth had gained an ally, and every door that had been locked, miraculously opened, and every day since then, Elizabeth had visited her daughter, Caroline at the orphanage.
Chapter Three
Zachary Rourke took refuge in his compartment, watching out the window of the soot-belching steam engine as small railway stations slipped by. Church towers and farmhouses receded like mirages. An occasional covered wagon or hamlet peered through a bank of mist. Slowly, the endless plain of fields, woodlands, rivers, and mountains crowned with large, rundown houses gave way to an advancing shroud of scarlet light that covered a forest of factories and chimneys of New York City.
A variety of New York accents swirled around him, triggering a memory of a certain girl from six years prior. A beautiful girl with a delicate structure, her high cheekbones, well-shaped mouth, ebony lashes laying on her cheeks–captivating. A girl whose hand he’d held in what he’d thought was in keeping with the beginning of a journey, through a mysterious, unfathomable connection entwining them. He had at the time entertained marrying her and adopting the baby. But it was a momentary reaction based on an emotional response. He’d gone back several times to check on her and the baby.
For days, the old harridan guarding her held him off, said she’d gone with her husband, infuriating him with a bold-faced lie. On the last day, he was ready to burn the old woman atthe stake, kicked his way into the house and searched. The girl and her baby had vanished. A week later, the old woman had disappeared, all of them gone as if they’d never existed.
The train’s brakes squealed and hissed, letting out a blast of steam that inundated the platform. Enveloped in mist, Zachary swung down onto the platform of Grand Central Depot, his friend, Chen in his wake. Zachary whistled, staring with his inventor's eyes, at the lofty arches of elegant marble characterized by practical design and innovative engineering. New York City and its railroads weren’t shy and eager to proclaim their magnificence with a splendid monument a fitting gateway to the nation’s exuberant financial, commercial, and cultural capital where he’d come to get the financing for his invention.
Farther down the busy railroad station, Shawn Fitzgerald, his friend whose sister was married to Zach’s brother, John, waved to him. Bumped and jarred, Zachary pushed through the swearing, sweating and shouting crowd, shook hands, and introduced Chen. “Sorry we’re late. Our train was held up in Albany.”
Shawn ordered a servant to take their luggage. “Not a problem, but I must make a quick stop at the Fitzgerald Orphanage. By now, they’ve had the ribbon cutting ceremony for a new wing. My wife represented me, but I must be there for the refreshments—or I’ll hear about it.”
“Not a problem. But we’re not in the best of shape to convene with your peers.” Zachary said, his boots with spurs, tired and scuffed, his long black duster overcoat, and blue cotton shirt dusty from days of traveling. He touched his wide-brimmed, and high-crowned, cowboy hat. “I look like I’ve finished a cattle drive.”
Shawn scoffed. “The children will be enthralled with the mystique of real cowboys.”
Zachary leaned into Shawn. “If you want us to stay someplace else, I understand.”
Shawn looked up at the tall Chinaman. “Absurd. Every friend of yours is welcome at our home. My wife, Amanda, and my sister, Catherine would roast me on a spit if I showed no hospitality.”
Zachary was thankful that Shawn showed no prejudice. Chen, a former Buddhist monk, had attached himself to Zachary ever since he’d saved the Chinaman from a cave-in when building the Trans-Pacific Railroad. They piled in the richly appointed Fitzgerald carriage and Shawn gave a sharp rap to the side to alert the driver to move posthaste.
Thinking of the violet-eyed girl again, Zachary gazed out the window and narrowed his eyes on a street urchin, filthy, beaten and starved. Had the girl given her baby up for adoption? Where the baby would be worked to death by a frontier family? How could a mother not want to connect with her child? A sour taste grew in his mouth. The girl was the worst of selfish women, casting her child into the trash heap of humanity. For Zachary, a shimmering wave of pulsing fury fired from her atrocity, and he added her to the list of Jezebels and the worst of betrayers, unleashing her serpent’s lie onto the world.
The carriage halted in front of Fitzgerald Orphanage. It was a grand edifice started by Catherine Fitzgerald Rourke for the influx of orphans caused by the Civil War. Catherine had married Zachary’s oldest brother, General John Rourke of the Confederate Army. How the two astonishing opposites met was extraordinary. Even more remarkable was that they fell in love and married.
At the orphanage, they followed in Shawn’s wake, moving through throngs of dignitaries; everyone congratulating the Fitzgerald Rifle Works magnate for his philanthropy. Zach and Chen, a head taller than most strode in immune to raised brows,and condescending whispers. Shawn met his wife, Amanda, introduced her, and then was swept away to give a speech.
Obvious outcasts, Zach and Chen ambled to another room, meeting with a horrific outcry. Swarmed with a tight press of little bodies, they found themselves in the middle of worshipful adoration.
“Real cowboys!” the children squealed.
The children kept touching them. The stoic Chen froze like a statue. Zachary stiffened. Amid children, he was as out of his element as a fish on dry land.
“Can you lasso? Are those real six guns? Do you know Jessie James? Have you ever done a shoot-out? Have you ever seen an Indian?” The children peppered them with questions.
A little blonde girl broke free of the swarm and, summoning a redheaded boy, tore the riggings off platforms that had been set up for a painting crew. They dumped the ropes at Zachary’s feet. “Show us how you lasso,” she demanded.
He looked to the little girl with the beseeching and unusual violet eyes. Why did those eyes haunt him?
The redheaded boy said, “I told you he couldn’t do it. Those are probably fake guns, too.”
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without,” Chen encouraged.
Zachary narrowed his eyes on his passive friend. Chen spoke? The Chinaman possessed an eternal economy on words.
The little girl took hold of Zachary’s hand and squeezed. “Yes, he can. Please show us.”
Those violet eyes held him down to the belly of his soul, linked somehow. How could he resist such a plea?
