Calico Palace

by Gwen Bristow

  47

  MARNY HAD NOT GONE to bed as early as Kendra that night. She was not used to early hours, and she was looking forward to the luxury of an idle evening.

  At a side entrance of the Calico Palace she said goodby to Pocket and Hiram. They walked on, and Marny went into the little dark hall from which the stairs led up to the living quarters on the third floor. As she reached a door leading into the public room, she paused to open it a little way. Standing back in the darkness, she looked in.

  The public room was full of men. Their voices were loud against the clang of the band and the clinks of bottles and coins. But the racket was good-humored, and everything seemed to be in order. There had been a murder recently at the Bella Union. Four o’clock in the morning, everybody had been drinking for hours, two men at the bar had had an argument, and one of them had pulled out his knife and stabbed the other. And then an inquest, and a lot of ugly stuff in the papers. Bad for business. This, Marny had said proudly to Norman, was what came of keeping the bar open till four in the morning. They hadn’t had any murders at the Calico Palace.

  She closed the door silently and went upstairs. From Lolo’s room she could hear the baby, Zack, murmuring in baby-sounds that Lolo seemed mysteriously to understand. The noise from below did not bother Zack. Nearly a year old now, he hardly knew what quiet was.

  Her own room was cold, but as she lit the candle it looked peaceful, and she did not hear any rats scuttling about. When she had undressed she put on her wrapper, a fluffy woolen robe lined with silk; she slipped her feet into a pair of soft cuddly slippers tied with ribbons, and sat down before the mirror to brush her hair. Marny liked to brush her hair. She liked sweeping the brush in long hard strokes and watching the ruddy lights that followed its path.

  After a while she began to yawn. It was still earlier than her usual bedtime, but she remembered that she had been up early this morning to help with the presents; or maybe it was Loren’s excellent brandy. Anyway, a long night’s sleep never hurt anybody. Making sure her door was bolted, she put her little gun on the table by her iron cot.

  Marny always put the gun within reach. Besides the fact that she was a tempting woman, the Calico Palace had to keep a fortune in coins on hand for the gambling tables. The coins were kept on this floor, in two safes. The safes were strong, and Norman and the Blackbeards were first-class guards. But with all precautions the Calico Palace was still a dangerous place to live.

  Marny blew out her candle, and stored this and her cake of soap in a tin box with a tight cover. The rats liked to gnaw on soap and candles. Having done all she could to assure herself of a tranquil night, she slipped in between the sheets and drew the blankets up around her. The cot was narrow. Marny reflected that it was just as well she was sleeping alone. Drowsily she wondered if she were in the mood for another gentleman friend. —No, she thought, if I were in the mood I shouldn’t be wondering. She went to sleep.

  When she heard the noise of the fire her first thought was that the sounds meant trouble downstairs, and in her mind she cried out—Don’t tell me we’re having a murder here too! But almost instantly she heard the bells, and bangs of the gongs that hung at restaurant doors to announce mealtimes; she smelled smoke and saw the weird swirling light, she heard rushing footsteps outside her door, and from somewhere she heard voices yelling “Fire!”—as if anybody needed to be told.

  Marny sprang out of bed. When she thought of it later it seemed that in those first few seconds she had acted without any conscious plan, because she could not remember doing anything. She only knew she had done it, and had done it with the speed of terror. She kicked aside her pretty slippers and without pausing for stockings she pushed her feet into the shoes she had worn to Kendra’s dinner party. They were not stout shoes, but she had no time to look for thicker ones. She threw on her fluffy woolen robe, and snatching up her gun she put it into a pocket. What roaring of flames, what shouts and screams! The whole town must be ablaze. Marny jerked a drawer open and swept up her nugget necklace and dropped it into the other pocket of her robe. Most of her ornaments were in her safe at Chase and Fenway’s—if only the store were not burning too! Tossing back her hair, she thrust in a pair of combs to hold it out of her eyes. The night was cold. With one hand she snatched her cashmere shawl from the wall hook where she had hung it before she went to bed, and with her other hand she pushed back the bolt of the door.

  She was wide awake now and her senses were alert. She had a cabinet full of clothes, but clothes were not important. Not even gold dust was very important. But the coins! Coins, brought all the way from the Mint in Philadelphia. Coins, so valued that they brought interest of ten per cent a month. There in the hall were the two safes, two, because Norman had said, “If anybody gets into one, we’ll have lost only half.”

  Norman, wearing shoes and trousers, was on his knees before one safe. A candle in a candlestick stood on the floor beside him; Rosabel, wrapped in a dressing gown, stood beside the candle. Even at this moment Marny felt a touch of thankful admiration that Rosabel was not screaming. Rosabel’s mouth was tight with fear, but her hands were steady as she held them out for the poke of coins that Norman was taking out of the safe. Marny heard a clatter of feet on the stairs, and cries from baby Zack as Lolo rushed down with him, not caring if she saved anything else or not. Marny noticed that Norman’s upper arms were getting soft. In fact, while he was not fat, his whole torso was a bit flabby. He was not like Pocket and Hiram, tough with the toughness of labor. What a foolish detail to notice at a time like this. Yet she was noticing everything else too, as though fright had sharpened all her senses.

  Norman thrust a leather bag of coins into her hand. “Can you carry this?”

  “Of course,” she said, and then thought—How? A leather bag would be snatched in a minute. She wrapped the bag in her shawl and tucked the bundle under her arm. Cries of terror rose from everywhere; she heard Norman say sharply, “Well, get out!”

  He was right, there was no use trying to save any more, they would die trying. Lugging her unwieldy bundle, Marny started to flee.

  She ran down the stairs, holding up the long skirt of her robe with her free hand. The wall beside her was hot; the fire was coming close. The staircase had never before seemed long or steep, but it did now. Though she was running as fast as she could her journey down to the first floor seemed to take an hour. At last she reached the hall, she rushed past the door of the public room, and then to the outside door by which she had come in, and then at last she was out in the air. Thinking of it later, she remembered that in her thankfulness the air for a moment had seemed cold and fresh, though in fact it had been hot and threatening and full of smoke.

  She saw the glare of shooting fires, and as far as her eyes could reach she saw hordes of people milling around. She heard the roar of flames, and voices shouting, and her own voice crying out, “Oh God, please make it rain!”

  A thousand others were sending up the same petition. But it did not rain that night. The rain had poured mercilessly upon them when they did not need it; now when it could have helped them it was not here.

  Marny pushed her way through the mob, across the plank sidewalk, past the mud-puddles bright with reflected fires. Beyond the sidewalk the mud clung to her shoes like an enemy trying to hold her back. She fought her way on, through the mud, through the teeming throng in the plaza. She had thought the night was cold; maybe it was cold elsewhere, but here near the fire the heat was terrible, and she felt sweat oozing under her woolen robe. She ran on, panting as she ran, and biting back sobs of rage as she thought of all she was leaving behind.

  —Stop it, she told herself, don’t think about what you’re leaving. Take care of what you’re bringing out. This poke of money—

  The poke, clumsily wrapped in her shawl, felt immensely heavy, though she was in no frame of mind to estimate how heavy it actually was. —Take care of it, she told herself again. And take care of yourself. Get away from the fire.

&nbs
p; Above the thunder of flames she heard the shouts of thousands of men around her, and as the dreadful glares came and went she saw them. Thousands. Where on earth had they all come from so suddenly? They were dressed, or in various stages of undress, all yelling, all rushing about in what looked like meaningless confusion. Marny hugged her bundle and elbowed her way among them, telling herself again and again that the only thing to think of now was how to get as far away from the fire as she could.

  A man’s voice said, “Howdy, Marny!” A rough hand gave her hair a yank. Marny said, “I’ve got a gun. Get away from me before I use it.” The man slunk aside. Marny pressed on. A minute later another man put a hand on her wrapped-up shawl, snarling, “What you got in that bundle, Marny?” Marny snapped, “Clothes. Let me get by.”

  She pushed past him too, and he troubled her no more. Around the plaza men had respect for Marny. They knew she was no helpless ninny who would crumple up without somebody to take care of her.

  By this time her shoes were so heavy with mud that every step was harder than the one before. Her legs ached. Behind her she heard a crash. A wall falling in, no doubt. She did not pause to look around.

  —Get away, her thoughts kept pounding, get away. A sudden glare lit up the sky; a flame must have leaped from the site of the crash. By its light she saw, ahead of her, standing a little higher than the heads of the men scrambling around, an auctioneer’s platform stacked with boxes and barrels. She pushed toward it. The glare faded, the platform stood almost in the dark. Another burst of flame lit up another part of the plaza. Marny did not look. She made her way toward the platform. Her strength was giving out. She had to rest somewhere, and catch her breath.

  A skeleton staircase, hardly more than a ladder built on a slant, led up to the platform. Marny pulled one foot out of the mud and put it on the step. She took her hand out of the gun pocket to support herself, and pulled up the other foot. Panting, she made her way up the steps. On the platform, there seemed to be no room for her to stand or sit. She might have knocked a barrel over the side, but it would almost certainly have fallen on somebody’s head, and the last thing she wanted now was to call attention to herself. With the hand not holding the bundle she managed to move several barrels closer together, leaving a small space among them. Here she dropped the bundle, and sat, almost fell, upon it. For the moment she was out of sight, hidden by the barrels around her, as safe as she could be so near the fire and in the midst of such a frantic rabble.

  Her breath was coming in such short pants that the air seemed hardly to go down at all. The struggle to get here had given her a pain in her chest and another pain in her side. For several minutes—she did not know how long—she sat where she was, hardly moving, trying only to breathe easily again and give her thumping heart a chance to quiet down.

  After a while she noticed that drops of sweat were running down her face. She had no handkerchief. Lifting her arm, she wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her robe, and as she did so she looked up.

  Huddled here among the barrels, she could not see what lay directly in front of her, but farther off she could see flames, and showers of sparks, and clouds of smoke swirling in the air. She could hear roars and crackles of fire, and crashes as timbers fell, and screams and shouts from many throats. The smell of smoke was thick in the air. Marny felt intensely hot, but it did no good to push back her woolen robe. There was no coolness in front of such a roaring fire.

  The last phrase caught cruelly at her mind. “A roaring fire”—what a cheerful, comfortable sound those words had always had!

  She felt stronger now. Taking a long breath of the smoke-laden air, she pushed herself up and stood looking across the barrels toward Kearny Street.

  For a moment the street seemed like a solid wall of fire. Then as her eyes accepted the dazzle, she began to distinguish among the burning buildings. Denison’s Exchange, near the middle of the block, was hardly anything now but a lot of seething flame. The front wall was gone—this must have been the crash she had heard as she ran toward the platform—and the fire was fairly eating what was left. Later, Marny learned that the fire had started there, and this was why Denison’s had gone first. There were a dozen tales about how it started, but nobody was ever sure.

  —If people, thought Marny, would only stop throwing matches around—but they won’t.

  Denison’s was wedged between a restaurant on one side and the Parker House on the other. They had both caught fire. The Parker House, built of wood, was burning like a matchbox. Terrified men and women were rushing out, in nightgowns, in their underwear, or holding blankets around them with apparently nothing underneath. In spite of the hideous confusion Marny felt a tickle of laughter as she thought of the embarrassments that were going to follow some of these disclosures of who had been sleeping with whom.

  Beyond the Parker House, at the corner of Kearny Street and Washington, was the El Dorado, now housed in a new building four stories high. The outer walls were brick. But Marny could tell that the inside—wood and cloth like other buildings—was fiercely on fire. Flames darted out of the windows, and smoke rolled after them in long harsh coils. Behind the El Dorado she saw the fire pouring eastward, toward Montgomery Street and the waterfront.

  Sparks like great handfuls of stars were blowing across Washington Street toward the Verandah and the Bella Union and Blossom’s flower garden and other structures higher up the hill. In spite of the mud, in several spots the plank sidewalk was already burning. Men had formed bucket brigades, to keep the buildings wet. Other men were piling wet blankets on the roofs, or tossing liquid mud up the walls. Some people were throwing their belongings out of windows, others had rushed out with their arms full, and were running away. Farther out, in areas that the fire had not reached, men were breaking the buildings to pieces. They were chopping at the walls with axes, using logs as battering rams, working with frantic force to make open spaces that would stop the spread of the fire.

  Marny saw all this without really looking at it. The sight was in front of her and her eyes saw it because it was there. What she saw with her thoughts and her heart and all the rest of her was the Calico Palace.

  The Calico Palace stood between a restaurant and another gambling house. They were all in flames. The Calico Palace was turning into a wreck. Its outer walls, like those of the El Dorado, were brick, but she knew—oh, how well she knew!—that here too the inside walls were thin and flimsy, and these could burn, and were burning, with a roar like thunder. Marny stood helplessly, and looked.

  She saw the fire, she saw smoke curling out of the windows. But she saw more. As though they too were there in front of her, she saw the paintings, the carpets, the mirrors, the costly chairs and tables, the sparkling chandeliers. She heard the rush of the fire. But with it she heard the clink of coins on the tables, the little bells calling the bartenders. She remembered the polished top of the bar under her fingers, the aroma of fine liquors as the barmen filled the glasses. She remembered all these, and she remembered the long hours and days and months she had spent at her card table to pay for them. Dealing cards was work. Marny had chosen her career and she had no wish for any other, but it was work none the less. She had done it well and she had the Calico Palace to show for it. Now it was all going up in smoke.

  And it was going for good. There was no such thing as fire insurance in San Francisco. Who would be so foolish as to insure a town made of cloth and tarpaper and splinter-thin boards?

  A part of herself was dying. She stood here watching it die. Marny did not intend to crawl off somewhere and wail that life was not worth living. But right now, she understood people who did.

  The front wall of the Calico Palace crashed into the street, scattering bricks and sending men fleeing in all directions. Now Marny could see the blazing desolation inside. She could not look. She turned her head away.

  48

  AS SHE TURNED, MARNY saw that the sparks had caught the Verandah roof again, and the fire-fighters were pouring buc
kets of mud on the flames. From somewhere toward Montgomery Street she heard an explosion. Bricks and pieces of lumber littered the air as men blew up a building, to break the march of the blaze.

  All around her, those thousands of people were still surging about. Some of them were fighting the fire, others were dragging goods out of doors; some were running here and there, spending much energy to accomplish nothing; still others merely stood around, enjoying the show, or watching for a chance to make off with goods other people had rescued. On another platform not far from where she stood among the barrels, Marny saw the plaza preacher. He was addressing the crowd, shouting to them that this disaster had come upon them because of their sins. It was a judgment of the Lord upon this wicked city, this Babylon of the Pacific, and they had better repent. Marny wondered if it had not occurred to him that the sinners would have been more inclined to listen if instead of blaming them for the fire he had gone to work to help them put it out.

  Just then, above the din around her, she heard a man calling her name. She could not find him at once, for the mob was seething and the light was not steady—a flash here, a dart of flame yonder, a billow of smoke somewhere else. But after a moment or two, with a start of joy she caught sight of Hiram, pushing his big self through the crowd.

  As he reached the platform he leaped up to meet her, taking the steps three at a time.

  “Marny!” he shouted again as he reached her.

  “Merry Christmas,” said Marny.

  Hiram threw back his head with a roar of wrath.

  “Stop making jokes, you damned halfwit. Come down!”

  He grabbed her with both hands.

  “Don’t you know with that light on your hair you’re a target for every scoundrel in town?”

  For once, Marny had forgotten her hair. Still gripping her arms, Hiram was demanding,

  “Why didn’t you crouch behind these barrels? What’s wrong with your head?”