by Fools Gold
“Good job no man come courting missee right now,” Ah Fong said. “He turn right around and go home again.”
“You’re right,” Libby said. “And it’s a good job your bride hasn’t arrived from China yet, because she’d sail right home again too.”
He and Libby looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Ah Fong, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said at last. “I’d never have made it without you.”
“I know,” he said with his usual lack of modesty. “Now go get hot bath before you catch death of cold.”
All day long the rain continued unabated. The new pond began to fill. It rained all night too and when they woke in the morning the water had risen significantly.
“If it keeps on like this, we’ll have the pond filled in a few days,” Libby said as she and Ah Fong went out to inspect it. “I’ve never seen it rain this hard for this long.”
“In China it rain like this,” Ah Fong said.
“It does?”
“And then we have big flood and many people get killed.”
“Then I’m glad we decided to build above the valley floor,” Libby said. “I wonder if the Sacramento River is flooding yet.”
“Have to wait for rain to come down from mountains,” Ah Fong said. “That’s when water get real bad. In China river rise to banks and then water come rushing down from mountains and flood all over.”
“At least we don’t have a river to worry about anymore,” Libby said. “I wonder if the rain’s getting close to Mr. Rival’s doorstep.”
“Maybe it come right through his house,” Ah Fong said.
The rain continued unabated for a second day, blurring the horizon into a gray haze in all directions and turning the ground around the house into mud, so that the passage between house and kitchen was very treacherous.
“If this keeps up, I don’t know that I’ll be able to get down to Sacramento,” Libby said to Don Miguel as he rode by to check on her. “How ironic that my case should come to court and I might be prevented from appearing because of too much water.”
“That is often the way of God,” Don Miguel said. “He mocks us sometimes, I fear.”
“I don’t think God is like that,” Libby said seriously. “I can’t believe that He is responsible for weather. And if this is a heavenly warning that I shouldn’t go to Sacramento, then I’m ignoring it. If I can’t get the buckboard through, I’ll take the mule.”
Toward the end of the week the rain did ease to a fine drizzle, interspersed with periods of watery sunshine and mild temperatures which brought out every insect known to man. Inspecting the fields meant constant slapping at mosquitoes and swatting away flies.
“But at least I think I dare risk the buckboard,” Libby said. “I’d hate to see that corn go moldy sitting here.”
“You like Chinese market woman,” Ah Fong said, grinning at her. “You go crazy if you can’t make sale.”
“It makes sense to take the wagon,” Libby defended. Hitch up the horse and the mule for me. “Maybe I can pick up new plants to put in this winter.”
“Take care, missee,” Ah Fong said as she set off.
She kissed the children goodbye, adjusted the oilcloth over her clothes, and splashed away in the buckboard. The going was tedious with large areas so deeply flooded that it looked as if the buckboard were travelling across a lake. Several times along the way she had to get out and use old sacks to get the wagon wheels through the thick mud. She looked down at her mud-encrusted skirt. Her legs were a most unfeminine brown to the knee and she was glad that her case did not come to court until the next day.
The fine light rain continued all the way down to Sacramento. It was almost evening by the time Libby arrived. By that time the rain had stopped and white mist curled over the wet fields with a blood-red sun setting above it. Over the city itself rose thick black smoke, mingled with the mist and flattened into a low cloud with clear blue evening sky above it. As she approached she could see that bonfires were burning on almost every city corner. The new levee had kept the city from becoming another lake, but the streets were still deep in foul-smelling mud and pools of flood water dotted the surrounding area. Elegant white egrets decorated the scene but insects rose in clouds and Libby slapped at mosquitoes which whined around her face.
Farther into the city, the air became so thick and heavy with evil- smelling smoke that the horse became alarmed and Libby was forced to get down from the buckboard and lead it and the mule. She was glad to see Mark Hopkins’ new store ahead of her through the murk and tried to scrape off the worst of the mud as she tied the horses to the rail. The new store, Hopkins and Hutchinson, Purveyors, looked very impressive and civilized with its burning lamps and brick frontage. Mark Hopkins came hurrying through from a back room to greet her, a quill pen stuck behind his ear.
“My dear, what a surprise to see you,” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. You caught me in the middle of accounts.”
“A pleasant pastime, I hope?” Libby asked.
Mark smiled. “We have done well—very well indeed. I’ll be looking at sites in San Francisco this winter. I aim to build myself a very fine house. But what brings you down here at this worst of times? It must be important, to take such a risk.”
“What do you mean, worst of times?” Libby asked.
“My dear, haven’t you heard? The city is riddled with disease. All this rain and the mild temperatures—every fever imaginable is raging through the town: typhus, cholera, smallpox. . . .”
“Is that what all the fires are about?” Libby asked.
“They are hoping that they will stop the sickness from spreading if they can eliminate some of the garbage in the streets,” Hopkins said. “To my mind the fires are worse than the garbage ever was. Before, at least one could breathe. I wouldn’t stay the night if I were you, unless you really have to.”
“I’m afraid I do have to,” Libby said. “My case comes up in court tomorrow. I’m on my way to meet my lawyer as soon as I’ve had a bath at the hotel.”
“Could you not get it postponed?” Mark Hopkins asked with concern. “The situation here is very bad and a victory in court wouldn’t mean much if you came down with cholera or smallpox.”
“I can’t postpone it now, Mark,” she said. “Not after waiting too long and going through so much inconvenience. Besides, you chose to stay.”
“I am a free man with no dependents,” Mark Hopkins said, “and as you know, I am very particular in my habits. I do not eat or drink in public places anymore. I have been burning mosquito coils in my rooms at all times and I think that helps. I can give you some for tonight.”
“Thank you,” Libby said.
“Take my advice and don’t eat in public restaurants or go where people are,” Mark said. “There is a new hotel just opened in town which seems to be a very high-class establishment.
“Oh, really?” Libby asked. “What’s it called.”
“It’s the Orleans Hotel. I understand that they had it constructed in New Orleans and then taken apart to be shipped around the Horn. I don’t know how they managed it, but the quality of the workmanship and the service is definitely superior—why, Libby, what’s the matter? Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“No, I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” she managed to answer. How could she explain to an acquaintance like Mark Hopkins what memories his words evoked and the effect they had on her. Instantly, her mind swung back to the narrow back street full of puddles and a tall dark man stepping out of the shadows to rescue her.
“The weather is very unpleasant,” Mark Hopkins went on. “So humid and this terrible smoke. I would go straight to the Orleans and rest if I were you, my dear. And have them send food up to your room. Avoid all public places—that’s my motto.”
“I can hardly have the court session held in my room,” Libby said, smiling, “but I will take your advice and leave town as soon as possible.”
Afte
r Libby left Mark Hopkins, she was of two minds whether to go to the Orleans Hotel. She knew it made sense to go to the place with the highest standards of cleanliness, and yet, to spend the night in a room built in New Orleans. . . . This is all nonsense, she said to herself. No good comes from brooding over the past. I’m a businesswoman and I’ve come here to win a court case. Nothing else matters.
It was already dark by the time Libby arrived at the hotel, well lit with polished brass lamps outside and equally polished marble steps leading to a panelled foyer. She looked around with approval. The counter was of rich mahogany. There were ferns in brass pots. Definitely a civilized establishment. She rang the counter bell and a pleasant-faced woman, dressed in black, came out of a back room.
“Not the best of times to be visiting the city, ma’am,” she commented as she handed Libby the visitor’s book. “Will you be staying long?”
“I plan to leave tomorrow,” Libby said. “I understand that Sacramento is no place to linger in at the moment.”
A look of concern crossed the woman’s face. “Indeed it isn’t, ma’am. We do our best in an establishment such as this, but one can never be too careful. I make the maids scrub everything daily and I’m boiling the sheets extra long in the copper, but these fevers don’t seem to care whom they strike. There was a gentleman came in here earlier this week, as fine spoken a man as you could wish and obviously well-heeled too. He complained of feeling unwell and in the morning he was down with fever. I had to have him taken off to the hospital, poor man. I’d like to have kept him here, but it wouldn’t be fair to the other guests, would it?”
Libby finished signing the book and her eye scanned the page as the landlady prattled on. Then she stood, transfixed, the cold creeping up her spine, as she saw at the top of the page the bold flourish of the signature: Gabriel Foster, arrived from San Francisco, November 3, 1851.
CHAPTER 37
LlBBY CONTINUED TO stare down at the flourishes of Gabe’s signature until she could regain her composure. She had almost perfect control of her voice as she turned back to the landlady.
“This gentleman,” Libby said. “He wasn’t, by any chance, the one who was stricken with fever?”
The woman leaned across the counter to read the name. “Why yes, that was him. Poor Mr. Foster. Such a nice man. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Libby said. “Was he here alone?”
“Quite alone, ma’am,” the landlady said. “That was part of the trouble. I asked him if I could get in touch with anyone to come and take him away and he said there was nobody, so I had to have him sent to the fever hospital. It fair broke my heart. That hospital’s no place for a gentleman, especially not now, the way they’re crammed in.”
“How do I get there?” Libby asked. “I have to see him right away.”
“Mercy me. You’re not thinking of going there yourself?” the landlady stammered. “That’s no place for a lady to go, especially not after dark. The hospital’s in the worst part of town. With all those drunks coming out of the saloons! I’d wait until morning if I were you. I hear the mud’s terrible out that way. A man fell down dead drunk and drowned in it only a few days ago.”
“Nevertheless, I still want to go,” Libby said firmly. “The directions please.”
The hospital was one of the few two-story buildings in town, built away from the prosperous merchants of J Street, back toward the ramshackle immigrant quarter. The wooden sidewalks and street lamps ended with the stores on J street and Libby had to pick her way through the ooze in almost total darkness, past open-fronted tents, low saloons, and gambling houses, out of which spilled raucous singing and coarse laughter. She shrank into the shadows as two men staggered out, one of them muttering curses. The scene brought back a memory to her; the wet streets of New Orleans, the singing in the piano bar, and the drunken men, when Gabe had first materialized to rescue her.
“I’m not going to let you die, Gabe Foster,” she muttered to give herself courage. “Not now. Not here.”
She recognized the hospital right away, not by any outward sign but by its smell. The odor of burning tar could not mask the more overpowering sickly smell of death. Libby put her handkerchief to her mouth as she went up the steps and pushed open the front door. Inside was cold and damp—a long unfinished brick hallway lit by one feeble lamp. From the darkness came groans and the sound of someone retching. As Libby stood shivering, one hand still on the front door, as if this were her last link with reality, a large man in a spattered apron came running down the hallway, carrying a pan. He started when he saw her.
“What are you doing here? No visitors,” he snapped.
Libby decided he looked more like a butcher than an orderly, adding to the nightmarish quality of the place. “I understand you have a Mr. Gabriel Foster here,” she said.
“Lady, we have close on three hundred people here right now,” the man said, wiping off his forehead. “They’re bringing them in faster than we can find them beds.”
“This man was brought in several days ago,” Libby said. “Is there someone I can speak to to find out where he is?”
“If he’s still alive,” the man said. “They don’t often last more than a few days.”
“All the more reason to find him quickly,” Libby said angrily. “Where do I find the person in charge?”
“There’s a doctor in the building somewhere, but he’ll be too busy to talk,” the man said. “I can look in the admitting book for you. They’re supposed to write in the names when they bring them in. What’s the name?”
“Foster,” Libby said. “Gabriel Foster.”
“You his wife?”
“A close relative,” Libby said.
“Foster?” the man asked. He went over to a high table and flicked through a dog-eared book, reading through names so painfully slowly that Libby had to quell her desire to hit him. At last he looked up, evidently pleased with himself. “Ah yes, that’s him.”
“He’s still here?” Libby asked.
The man grinned, showing a gap where two teeth were missing. “Well, he ain’t dead yet. His name ain’t crossed out,” he said. “He’s down in the smallpox ward.”
“Smallpox?” Libby muttered in horror. “Can I see him?”
“I told you. No visitors.”
“But I have to get him away from here,” Libby said, her eyes pleading. “Couldn’t I just see him for a second?”
“It’d be more than my job was worth,” the man said. Libby caught his meaning. She opened her purse and took out a five-dollar piece. The man passed his tongue over his lips. “It’s your own funeral,” he said. “Every disease known to man running through this hospital at the moment.”
“I’ll risk it,” Libby said. “Just take me to him.”
“This way,” the orderly said, and trotted off ahead of her down the darkened hallway. At the end of the hall a large sheet was hanging over a door, smelling strongly of carbolic. The orderly stopped. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go in and find him for you. What name was it?”
“Tell him Libby is here to see him.”
The orderly disappeared behind the curtain. Libby waited, her heart hammering so loudly that she was sure she could hear it bounce back from the bare walls. After a while the orderly appeared, grinning more widely than ever. “He don’t want to see you,” he said, obviously enjoying her discomfort.
“He said that?” Libby demanded. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as you’re standing here. I said there’s a Libby wants to see you and he said don’t let her come in here. I don’t want to see her.”
“Rubbish,” Libby said, pushing past him. “I don’t believe you. Where is he?”
The man made an ineffectual grab at her but Libby had already passed through the doorway into the ward. It was a long, bare room with an unglazed window at the far end, letting in the smoke and fumes from the street. The lamp on the table at the far end threw little light. Each wall was lined with iron cots and between them
on the floor were straw mattresses, all occupied by tossing, moaning figures, wrapped, mummylike, in bandages. As Libby passed, one of them sat up, letting out a terrifying roar. “Let me get at ‘em,” he shouted, waving his bandaged hands. “They’re driving me mad.”
“It’s the itching, see,” the orderly whispered to Libby. “We have to bandage them and tie their hands so they can’t scratch. It drives ‘em crazy.”
“Where’s Mr. Foster?” Libby asked, shying away from the crazed patient.
“Third from the end over there,” the man said, pointing at a bed covered completely in a sheet. Libby gasped and walked slowly toward it. The figure under the sheet did not move.
“He’s not dead?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
“I’m not dead,” came Gabe’s voice from underneath, “and for God’s sake, go away.”
The man on the next bed thrashed, sending an arm flying into Libby’s back. Across the room someone was vomiting into a bucket. A feeble voice was murmuring, “Mom? Where are you? Mom?”
Libby looked down at the sheet-covered figure. As he showed no signs of removing the sheet, she didn’t quite know what to do. The orderly was grinning. “I reckon you’d better go, miss,” he said, “before you catch something you don’t want.”
“All right, I’m going,” Libby said loudly. “I came to see if I could help an old friend and get him out of this terrible place. But he obviously doesn’t need or want my help.”
“Don’t be a fool, Libby,” Gabe’s voice came, muffled through the sheet. “Get out of here while you still can. This is a place of death. Go away.”
“Very well, I’m going,” she said. “If you don’t even want to look at me to say goodbye, that’s up to you.”
Libby stalked to the door. As she left she thought she detected the sheet being lifted, but she didn’t look back. Once outside the door she reached into her purse and gave the orderly another five dollars. “Listen to me,” she said. “I’ll be back in the morning and I expect you to have Mr. Foster ready to leave. I’m taking him somewhere where he has a good chance of recovery, whether he likes it or not.”