A Race to Splendor

by Ciji Ware

“Father! Oh my God…”

  How in the world had Ezra Kemp been sitting in the same spot and walked away from this disaster? She had no idea where she found the strength to yank the brass gasolier to one side and push the heavy wooden table off her father’s body. Henry Bradshaw lay face down in the wreckage. His left cheek was black and blue and blood had congealed over nearly every inch of visible skin.

  “Is he breathing?” Thayer called out hoarsely.

  “I don’t know,” Amelia mumbled. “I can’t tell.” She moved several chunks of plaster to kneel by her father’s side. “He’s badly injured. His face—”

  A low moan interrupted this exchange.

  “He’s alive! Father!” She bent close to his ear. “It’s me, Amelia. I’m here. Please, Father—”

  “I… need… a whissss-key,” slurred the injured man.

  Amelia raised her head and stared across the expanse of debris at Thayer.

  “Your father was… shall we say… in his cups at five a.m. Perhaps he’s—”

  “Still drunk!” she finished, pulling more debris off her father’s back.

  Just then, Henry’s eyes opened wide. “Whiss-key! A cele-bray-shun izin order!”

  Amelia’s relief turned to despair, then to anger. “Oh, Father!”

  “Pour me a glass, daughter,” he growled, “and be quick about it!” Then, he slipped back into unconsciousness.

  Amelia closed her eyes. Her father had survived after all. But as always, Henry Bradshaw—when intoxicated—had turned belligerent. He was a regular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Everybody said so. Where was the laughing young man who had built castles in the sand at the rim of San Francisco Bay and joyfully lifted his little daughter high in the air? After everything that had happened, here he was, behaving appallingly, even after the world had collapsed on top of him.

  Amelia sank deeper among the debris, wrapped her arms around her knees, pressed her forehead into the folds of her filthy skirt, and, like J.D. Thayer had a few moments earlier, began silently to weep.

  ***

  J.D. never knew how he managed to push away from the doorjamb and stumble toward the two figures in the center of the little that remained of the club, but when he got there, he placed a hand gently on top of Amelia’s head, brunette wisps of her upswept hairstyle cascading about her shoulders.

  “Who can judge why bricks fall on some heads and not others?” he said.

  Barbary had managed to follow him and stood between them, as if he were waiting to hear their next plan of action. Amelia raised her head from her knees. “I’ve taken my father home from scores of saloons, but this… this…” Her words drifted off.

  “This isn’t like anything we’ve ever known.”

  “No, it’s not.” She nodded toward her father’s prone figure. “Perhaps it’s just as well he passed out again.”

  She made no protest when J.D. gingerly knelt beside her and wrapped his right arm around her shoulders, but she soon pulled away. He winced and put the palm of his hand against his rib cage. For a moment, he thought he might faint with pain.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said in a rush, “but my father wouldn’t even be in the Bay View Gentlemen’s Gambling Club right now if you and Kemp hadn’t goaded him into wagering—again!”

  Yes and no, J.D. thought, too weary and sick at heart to explain the origins of the previous night’s insane contest. Or its outcome.

  Amelia leaned toward her injured parent. “Father, I’m going to try to find someone to help us. Do you hear me? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Henry’s eyes suddenly opened wide.

  “Can’t move…” he mumbled. “Can’t… move… anything…”

  “Not anything?” she asked. “Not even your fingers?”

  “It’s likely he’s broken his back,” J.D. said under his breath, each word sending a stab of pain through his chest. “The Winton is garaged on the Taylor Street side of the hotel. I know an army doctor. A friend who lives at the Presidio. If we can get to it and the engine will start, can you drive?”

  “No.” She stared down at her father for a long moment. “But I’ll try.”

  They could hear the persistent clanging of fire bells coming from many directions. J.D. felt sweat beading his forehead and feared he might keel over before they’d even taken a step. “Allow me to lean on you and we’ll see if I can get the motorcar running,” he said.

  Just then a slight tremor shook the room, followed by a crash of plaster somewhere in the hotel itself. Barbary gave a yelp while Amelia crouched near her father’s prone figure, her arms held over both their heads for protection.

  After several seconds of quiet, she pulled herself to a standing position beside J.D., who hadn’t had the strength to move an inch. “I can’t stand these aftershocks,” she confessed on a shaky breath. “Put your arm around my shoulder and let’s try to get the Winton started. You’ll have to tell me every single thing to do, but we must hurry. The fires look as if they’re spreading rapidly.”

  J.D. could barely make the effort to nod in agreement. “We’ll bring Dr. McClure here,” he murmured.

  He could tell that she was loath to leave her father alone with the neighborhood ablaze, but what choice did either of them have? He was forced to lean heavily on her for support while they struggled out of the club’s wreckage and up the steep Jackson Street slope with Barbary following along behind. When they turned the corner, they discovered to their surprise that, with the exception of its collapsed chimneys, the Taylor Street section of the building was relatively undamaged.

  Likewise, the enormous six-seater Winton, parked in the subterranean former stable at the north end of the old hotel, had come through the earthquake amazingly unscathed. J.D. marveled at the good condition of its polished, midnight blue fenders, tufted black leather upholstered seats, and steering wheel so formidable it threatened to impinge on his damaged chest. Amelia located the crank under the driver’s seat while Barbary jumped into the back seat in the normal fashion he’d adopted as J.D.’s shadow since Charlie Hunter’s death. It was strange that the dog had taken such a liking to him, considering how J.D. had succeeded his original master at the Bay View.

  “If you can… get the crank to turn,” he proposed to Amelia, each breath an effort, “ I think I’ll… be able to… drive.”

  Appearing vastly relieved to hear this, Amelia followed his step-by-step instructions and started the automobile’s engine after only a few rotations of the crank. A small crowd of hotel guests gathered as J.D. backed the touring car onto the street. A number of injured scrambled for seats when Amelia revealed that they were off to find a doctor.

  “Get in! Get in!” he called to her urgently as nearly all the places were quickly claimed.

  Amelia remained where she was, apparently torn by indecision. “I can’t leave Father alone. I just can’t! What if he should die while I’m gone?”

  J.D. glanced at the smoke from downtown that billowed in their direction. The odds that Nob Hill would be next to burn were fast increasing. The sooner he left, the sooner he or McClure could come back for her and her father.

  “Then I’ll return as fast as I can.” He was wheezing now and had difficulty putting the car in gear. The effort to extricate himself from the basement annex and climb into the car had only aggravated his rib injury. Pain pulsed throughout his rib cage, making it hard to focus his thoughts. “Blankets are… in the hotel…” he directed hoarsely.

  “I know,” she said. “In the housekeeper’s pantry.”

  Of course she’d know, he reminded himself. She grew up there.

  By now, he was practically speaking to her in code. “Careful… more ceiling… collapse… other… shocks. Watch out.”

  “I will,” she assured him. “Now go!”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “Good! Hurry!”

  She was holding her left forearm as if it pained her. Blood had dried on her pale skin and soiled the sleeves and front of h
er shirtwaist. Additional strands of her dark chestnut hair had escaped her topknot and hung limply against her flushed cheeks. She gave a brief nod to indicate that she would be all right, despite his leaving her in the midst of such terrifying chaos.

  He wondered suddenly if he would ever see her again. Would this courageous woman survive the terrible Act of God that had befallen San Francisco?

  Or would he?

  Should he tell her about last night, he wondered suddenly.

  Tell her what? said a voice in his head. He wasn’t completely sure, himself, what happened. Exactly. It was all such a jumble.

  “Please!” he said, infused with a sudden surge of energy. “Get in the car. At least save your own life if we can’t save your father’s!”

  Amelia glanced at the darkening skies. Flames and funnels of smoke dotted the landscape at scores of locations near the waterfront. In the distance, a series of loud concussions punctuated the air.

  “Explosions,” she murmured. “Gas boilers, do you suppose?”

  “Dynamite. Army work. Creates firebreaks.”

  “It looks as if it also starts fires.” She pointed to a puff of smoke rising in the area of the latest explosion. “I have to stay with my father,” she said, holding his glance. “Send us help if you can.” And they both knew how slim the chances of that would be.

  Then she added, “Godspeed, Mr. Thayer.”

  For a split second, as he stared into the depths of her brown eyes, J.D. suddenly felt a kind of intimacy more potent than anything he had ever experienced. It was as if they’d been lovers and he’d never played her father for the fool while her admirable grandfather lay upstairs in the resplendent Bay View Hotel, dying of a thrombosis.

  Then the moment shifted back to the harsh reality bearing down on Nob Hill. “I’ll bring the doctor,” he wheezed, barely able to speak for the pain in his chest.

  “Or just send him to us. You need to lie still as soon as possible.”

  Grimacing again, he shifted gears, applied the gas, and the Winton sputtered away.

  Chapter 7

  Amelia stared at the cloud of dust kicked up by the retreating automobile. Then she turned toward the phalanx of flames converging from several directions at the bottom of the hill and advancing northwest. Where were the fire brigades? Surely Mayor Schmitz and his City Hall cronies would mount a defense of Nob Hill.

  By now, she began to wonder what she would do if she were J.D. Thayer. Wouldn’t she simply drive that fancy automobile as far away from San Francisco as the fuel in the tank would take it? The question was: would he?

  By the time she returned to her father’s side, he was groaning in agony. The numbing affects of the alcohol from the previous night were fast wearing off.

  “My hand…” he moaned. “My hand…”

  “Your hand pains you, yes?” She gently covered him with a blanket that she’d found in the housekeeper’s closet in the main part of the hotel.

  “My hand!” he grunted. “A flush…”

  “It’s been crushed by the table. It’s bound to hurt quite a lot and turn red.”

  “Noooo!” He pursed his lips in frustration. “A royal flush. I won! I won it back! Look at my hand!”

  Startled, Amelia lifted a corner of the blanket and gently slipped three playing cards from between his palm and thumb. On the backs of each card, the words “Bay View Hotel” were etched in bold script. The initials “JDT” were also stamped in a corner.

  “There are three cards here, Father.” She turned them face up. “An ace, queen, and ten. All diamonds. J.D. Thayer’s initials are on the backs.”

  “Jack… king too…” he murmured. “Had all five of ’em. I won the Bay View back. Fair and square. Just as I lay down the last card… hot damn! All hell broke loose.”

  “You mean the quake hit? Where are the other two cards?”

  “I grabbed all of ’em when I dove for cover,” Henry said with sudden strength. “Look around, damn you!”

  Amelia scanned the chaos and shrugged helplessly. “We’ll never find two playing cards in this rubble, Father.”

  “I bet it all… and won it all back! Find them!”

  “Oh, Father…” She shook her head in disgust. “Mr. Kemp wasn’t exaggerating. You wagered your last sou last night… and for what!?”

  “For you! And I won! Everything’s ours again! You tell that J.D. your pappy’s a rich man again.”

  So Thayer and Kemp had once again competed to divest their favorite pigeon of his last cent in another winner-take-all poker fest. And she had just helped Thayer escape from the fate that was certain to overtake her father and her in the next few hours if the fire lines didn’t hold.

  She scanned the jumble of debris where Ling Lee’s lifeless arm made her wonder if there were other women buried in the rubble piled on top of several additional sofas and chairs.

  “Mr. Thayer isn’t here anymore,” she said dully. “Neither are the two cards.”

  “You don’t believe me?” her father demanded.

  Amelia had reached beyond her ability to cope with her belligerent parent.

  What difference does it make now? she wanted to scream, but closed her eyes instead and whispered “Seven times four… seven times three…”

  Amelia could not count the number of times her father had sworn that he would have nothing more to do with gambling, spirits, or whores. Neither could she, her mother, nor her aunt tally the occasions when Henry Bradshaw claimed he’d triumphed in some great endeavor—save for an untoward event that was never his responsibility. And each time, her father’s excuses proved to be an endless series of lies and self-deceptions. No wonder Mother had finally fled to Europe, filing for divorce before she left. At least she’d saved herself, which was a great deal more than Amelia could say for her own plight.

  Again, she searched in the immediate vicinity for the two other cards, but to no avail. Once again, her father had lied to excuse his outrageous behavior. Numb with exhaustion, she tucked the three crumpled cards into the pocket of her skirt and curled up in the rubble near her father. Under a second hotel blanket, she wrapped her arms around her torso to keep warm as overwhelming fatigue pulled her into unconsciousness, oblivious to the distant sound of clanging fire bells and the acrid smell of smoke.

  ***

  Sometime later, Amelia was shaken awake by the rapid, jolting motion of another aftershock. The temblor rattled the debris beneath her, forcing her to her feet, her heart racing. Forgetting even her father, sheer instinct for survival propelled her up a mountain of bricks and onto the sidewalk on Jackson Street. By the time she found herself in the road, the tremors had stopped. She gulped for air and tried to calm her racing pulse.

  In the lot adjacent to the wrecked gambling club, a gray-haired woman stood beside a pit dug in her back garden. She clung to a shovel while howling an unearthly series of cries. Grandfather Hunter had written Amelia in Paris that a fabulously wealthy, reclusive widow had purchased the three-story house next door and made it abundantly clear to everyone in the neighborhood that she wished to be left alone. Even so, her emotional outburst cried out for attention, and Amelia stepped over a gate toppled by the latest tremor.

  At that moment, a Chinese man clad in black, pajama-like attire came around the corner of the house in a dead run. When the old woman saw that he was carrying a lifeless small dog in his arms, she began to shriek with despair. She pitched down her shovel and threw her arms around both the dog and the servant, clinging to them fiercely.

  Amelia drew near, exchanging looks with the Chinese servant.

  “I’m so sorry,” she began. “Is there anything I can—?”

  She hesitated at a look of warning that flashed in the servant’s eye. Before she could say anything further, the old woman reared her head and screeched, “Get away! Off with you! Chung, make her leave!”

  The distraught woman bore down on Amelia, wailing like a banshee. From the a pocket in her skirt she withdrew a revolver and po
inted it at her would-be savior.

  “I told you to leave us alone!” the woman shrieked.

  “But the fire is—” Amelia protested.

  “Get away, missy!” the Chinese house servant cried. “She no like—”

  At the sound of the pistol being cocked, Amelia flattened herself on the sidewalk. A split second later, a bullet smashed into the crumbled fence near where she’d been standing.

  “Come, Missy Lolly… come, come,” the servant demanded with surprising authority. “I take care… I take care of everything. No worries… come.”

  Amelia’s heartbeat thundered in her ears while the crunch of steps receded toward the center of the woman’s garden. On hands and knees, she crawled thirty feet uphill, reaching the gaping hole where she had initially discovered J.D. Thayer. Sticking out of the rubble, Ling Lee’s lifeless limb was now the color of slate.

  “Please…” Amelia called weakly, her knees beginning to fold, “somebody help me!” Her lungs strained against the smoke-filled air and in her ears, the incessant clanging of the fire brigades’ bells began to fade. For the first time in Amelia’s life, the world went gray as she collapsed on the buckled sidewalk in a heap of cotton petticoats and a stained serge skirt.

  “Someone just tried to kill me,” she muttered to the corpse buried under five feet of debris, “and I don’t even know why.”

  ***

  Amelia awoke to find herself slung over the bony shoulder of a redheaded man struggling up the steep incline of Jackson Street en route to Taylor. He deposited her unceremoniously on the Winton’s running board, propping her against the driver’s side door. About the same age as J.D. Thayer, he leaned close and squinted at her, his russet whiskers practically brushing her face.

  “Let’s see what’s wrong with you now.” He pulled down one of her lower eyelids and then the other. Then he extracted an amber vial from his medical bag and gave her a whiff of smelling salts that made her cough and sputter.

  “The woman next door… tried to kill me,” Amelia choked. Her terror came back in a rush and she reached for the man’s arm to steady her. “I was just trying to—”