by Gwen Bristow
Marny pushed her hand across her smoke-stung eyes. “Right now, Hiram, my head isn’t working very well.”
He glanced toward the tottering remains of the Calico Palace. “You poor girl,” he returned, “no wonder.”
Marny looked up at him. “Besides, Hiram,” she retorted, “if I’d been hiding, nobody would have seen me, not even you. I might have had to stay here till day after tomorrow.” She gave him a smile. “I’m not so stupid.”
He smiled back at her, this time with admiration. “You’re taking it mighty well, Marny.”
“No I’m not,” she said. “We opened it the first of September and now on Christmas Eve it’s gone. I feel sick and sore. But I’m glad you found me, Hiram. I’ve got—” With the toe of her mud-caked shoe she touched the bundle on the floor. “I’ve got something worth saving. Which means, worth stealing.”
“Good,” said Hiram. “I’ll help you save it. Let’s try to get to Chase and Fenway’s.”
She exclaimed hopefully, “Then the store is still there?”
“I don’t know,” said Hiram. “That’s what we came to find out.”
As he spoke, Hiram made a gesture toward the foot of the steps. She saw Pocket, looking up at her with his shy endearing smile, like a boy about to escort a girl to a party and hoping he was going to do everything right. Marny blew him a kiss and he blew one back to her. Hiram gathered up the bundle. Its weight told him what was in it, and he smiled his congratulations.
“You have your gun?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“Keep your hand on it. Let’s go.”
Marny gave a sigh of relief. She did not know how long ago the fire had waked her, but she did know this had been one of the hardest periods she had ever lived through and she felt drained of strength. She wanted to put her money into a safe place, and she wanted to get out of sight of the wreckage. She went down the steps, and with Hiram and Pocket beside her, their own guns in evidence, she began making her way through the multitude.
She noticed that Hiram and Pocket were fully dressed, even to rubber boots to help them through the mud. Evidently they had not, like herself, rushed out with no minutes to spare. “So the St. Francis Hotel is all right?” she asked.
Yes, the St. Francis was all right, they told her, and so was the rest of Clay Street. There was not much wind tonight, but what wind there was had been coming from the south, blowing the fire away from that side of the plaza. They did not know yet whether or not they had lost anything. Their gold, like her own private fund, had been stored in a safe at Chase and Fenway’s, and they had been on their way there when they had caught sight of her on the platform. “So,” said Hiram, “we turned aside.”
“I love you both,” said Marny.
She said nothing else; it was all she could do to struggle ahead. They had each given her an arm, and were half leading, half helping her away from the fire, toward Clay Street. Their progress was slow. She was not, like them, wearing high boots to support her ankles, and the long full skirt of her robe trailed in the mud and held her back. But the crowd on Clay Street was not so thick as that in the plaza. Once there, they would be able to walk more easily, down to Montgomery Street.
“We’ll cross here,” said Hiram.
Marny gathered up her hampering skirt, and waded through the miry mess of the road. At the corner of Clay and Kearny was a restaurant calling itself by the lordly name of Delmonico’s, not on fire but in danger. Men were swarming over it, beating out sparks, throwing mud over the walls, hanging wet blankets on the side toward the flames and changing the blankets as they dried in the heat. While they worked to save the building, other men had pounded the door open and now were running off with armfuls of loot—chairs, lamps, liquor, anything that came to hand.
“What a pleasure it would be,” Marny murmured, “to shoot them.”
“Yes ma’am, it would be,” Pocket agreed gently, “but please don’t. There’s enough trouble around here already.”
Marny wondered bitterly if anybody had had time to steal anything from the Calico Palace before it fell in. As the men dragged her farther from the fire she thought she saw a glimmer of dawn in the sky, though in the confusion of flame and smoke it was hard to be sure. Remembering what a happy time they had had yesterday she wondered how Kendra was, and the baby. She could not tell if the fire had climbed the hill, but if Kendra’s house was in danger she would have had plenty of time to get out. Only this would not have been good for the baby, taking him out of a warm bed into the chilly dawn. As she thought of this, above the noise she heard Pocket exclaim, “Well, of all people—Loren!”
By the fitful glares they saw Loren walking uphill from the direction of Montgomery Street. He was carrying a child, a small child crying and struggling in terror. Marny saw Lolo running behind him, sobbing with fright, and as she recognized Lolo she also recognized Lolo’s little boy, Zack.
Pocket and Hiram called to Loren. He saw them and came on. As he reached them Lolo caught up with him and tearfully held out her arms, and with a gurgle of joy little Zack held out his.
“He’s all right,” Loren said encouragingly as he gave her the baby. “Just scared, like the rest of us.”
Sobbing her gratitude, Lolo took her squalling child. Loren patted her shoulder.
“You’re still too close to the fire,” he warned. “Better take him farther away.”
But Zack was heavy and Lolo was out of breath. Loren indicated a packing case that somebody had dragged outdoors. “Here, sit down and rest. Look out for that nail—it can give him a nasty scratch.”
Glad to be told what to do, Lolo sat down on the packing case, holding Zack away from the nail that stuck out of one corner. Pocket spoke to her. With a comforting smile, he suggested that she take Zack to the porch of the City Hotel. He and Hiram had just passed the City Hotel, he told her, and it was not even scorched, for the wind was blowing the fire away from it. A lot of people, including several women, had taken refuge on the porch.
Lolo nodded, promising that as soon as she felt able to carry the twenty pounds of Zack any farther, she would go to the City Hotel. Now that he was safe in his mother’s arms Zack’s tears were subsiding, and while Lolo soothed him Loren had a chance to talk.
He said both the Blackbeards were fighting the fire. Troy had told Lolo to wait here at the corner, but as the fire drew nearer she was frightened, and with Zack in her arms she ran down Montgomery Street. That street too was full of men, some of them bent on looting, others defending their property from fires and looters alike. Zack, in Lolo’s arms, fought in panic. Struggling to hold him, Lolo ran on, hardly noticing where she was going, knowing only that she had to get him away from the fire. As she neared Chase and Fenway’s, she bumped into a looter with his arms full. Lolo and baby, looter and loot, fell down in a heap together.
Loren, helping to guard Chase and Fenway’s, heard her scream and ran to give help. The looter was swearing at her in rage. He had no interest in her or the child, he wanted to rescue his plunder, and as she tried to rise he knocked her down again.
Loren cracked the looter on the head with his gun, picked up the baby, and when he could make out Lolo’s frantic appeals he carried Zack back to the spot where Troy had told her to wait for him. But Pocket was right, this was dangerously near the fire, and he was glad she had agreed to go to the City Hotel.
“How is Chase and Fenway’s?” Hiram asked anxiously.
“Safe,” said Loren, and his hearers exclaimed in relief. Loren went on, “The fire hasn’t come that far and I don’t think it will. The problem in that section is looters. I’ve got to hurry back, to help guard.”
“We’ll come with you,” said Pocket.
“And meantime,” said Marny, “how is Kendr—”
“Look!” burst out Hiram. “The El Dorado—look!”
They looked along the street, past the wreckage of nearly everything that had been here yesterday. Next door to the El Dorado the wooden Parker Ho
use had crashed in, but the tall brick El Dorado was still standing. Except for the whirls of smoke their view was unbroken. The walls were there, but columns of smoke and fire were rolling out of every window of the four stories. And they saw what Hiram had seen first—a sheet of fire rising from a building behind the El Dorado. The flame rose higher than the roof and towered above it, curving over the El Dorado like a great grasping hand. For an instant, the whole mob in the plaza seemed transfixed. Hiram and Pocket, Marny and Loren, stood where they were, staring in fascinated horror. The brick walls of the El Dorado would not burn. But inside the walls, the heat had risen to a terrible force. As they looked, the El Dorado exploded.
The four walls broke with a boom. Sparks burst out like a magnificent display of fireworks. Bricks, lumber, flaming scraps of every kind of debris, shot up and out in all directions.
From the crowd came screams and howls as fiery pieces of the El Dorado fell and struck. Instinctively, Marny put her arm over her eyes. At the same instant she heard a wordless sound beside her. She moved her arm and looked, just in time to see Loren falling at her feet, close by the packing case where Lolo was clutching little Zack to her bosom. Marny dropped on her knees, thinking she might grab one of these wet blankets to restore him. But Loren was not unconscious. Already he was passing his hand over his forehead with the bewilderment of shock. She heard Pocket exclaim,
“Don’t try to move yet, Loren—how are you?”
“All right—I think,” Loren answered with a half stunned attempt to take it lightly. “Something hit me—a piece of brick, I guess—help me stand up—”
“Not yet,” Hiram was saying sternly. “Here, we’ll make a cushion.”
He was setting Marny’s bundle on the ground, raising Loren so that the shawl with the money-bag inside would make a pillow for his head and shoulders. A trickle of blood was oozing out of the wound on Loren’s temple. They could see burnt flesh around the cut, for the brick that had struck him had been as hot as a blazing coal.
Pocket had already pulled a bandana out of some pocket or other and was holding it over the cut to check the blood. But just then, Marny saw with alarm that the cut in his head was not Loren’s only wound. He had fallen against the packing case where Lolo sat, and as he fell, the nail sticking out of the edge had torn a gash in his side. She saw a bloodstain spreading around the rent in his shirt.
“Hiram, look!” she exclaimed. He gave a start and she hurried on. “This is worse than the other. Can we stop the blood?”
“We can sure try,” said Hiram. “Damn you, Loren, lie still!” he ordered as Loren tried again to stand up. Hiram was pulling off his own shirt to make a dressing.
“Do you need mine?” Pocket asked. “Here it is.”
He took off his shirt and tossed it to Marny, saying, “Tear this up.” Loren mumbled some apology for giving them so much trouble, and while she tore one shirt to make bandages Pocket and Hiram used the other to stanch the blood. Watching them shirtless, Marny noticed what splendid muscles they both had. Gold digging and rocker making, while not parlor employments, did build handsome men.
She remembered that neither Pocket nor Hiram had ever made an amorous gesture toward her. The thought brought her a touch of surprise, because there were so few men hereabouts who had not. Much as she liked men, it was refreshing to have a few of them treat her as a human being and not merely as a desirable body. What an absurd time to be thinking about such things, she thought as she held out the strips she had torn from Pocket’s shirt so he and Hiram could finish bandaging Loren’s wound.
“There,” said Hiram, having tended Loren as well as he could. “Now if we can get him back to Chase and Fenway’s—”
“I can walk,” said Loren. He sat up, almost angrily, protesting that he was grateful for their help but his wounds were not serious and he was not a baby. “I can walk,” he said again.
Pocket grinned ruefully. “Looks like you’ll have to,” he said. “I don’t think even Hiram could carry a grown man through this mud, and certainly not down that sidewalk.”
The sidewalk, like others in town, was narrow and shaky. The planks were uneven, with gaps here and there where boards had come off. Hiram and Pocket helped Loren to his feet. Though he said he did not need any more help they could see that he did, and they took his elbows and walked on either side of him. Lugging her bundle, now muddy and bloodstained, Marny trudged beside them.
With Hiram and Pocket supporting him, Loren did manage to slog through the mud, but his steps were slow and painful. He stumbled, he tried not to groan, he did the best he could, but after a little while Hiram and Pocket were not supporting him so much as they were dragging him. It seemed a long, long way. Marny thought of how often she had walked briskly from the Calico Palace to Chase and Fenway’s. How easy the walk had been, how agreeable, with Blackbeard proudly holding her elbow, men stepping aside to make way for her, taking off their hats, exclaiming, “Howdy, Marny!”
How short the walk had been then. Now it seemed as if she would never get there. The mud clutched at her shoes, the heat of the fire scorched her face, the smoke was nearly choking her. Men bumped into her and went on without seeming to notice.
But there could be no pause for rest. They had to get Loren to Chase and Fenway’s, they had to, they could not let him fall down here and be trampled on.
By this time daybreak was clear in the sky over the bay. Marny saw the masts of the stranded vessels sharp against the dawn. She wondered what Captain Pollock was doing. It had been a long time since she had thought of Pollock at all. There had been so many pleasanter things to think about. She dragged herself along.
With ironic humor, she recalled that Loren was not the only one of them who had to get to Chase and Fenway’s. She had to get there herself. She had to go inside, and whether or not Mr. Chase approved she would have to stay there a while, sheltered until she could get some clothes. How often she had said, “I’ve nothing to wear.” Now this statement was not a girlish lament, it was a fact. Her robe was torn and filthy, and scorched in places where sparks had struck it. Under the robe she had on nothing but a wisp of a nightgown, ragged from being stepped on in her flight. She could feel her thin party shoes, broken to pieces under the mud that covered them. And she had the dirty shawl that held her bag of money. Nothing else. Every other garment she had possessed was gone in the ashes of the Calico Palace. She did not own a dress nor a suit of underwear nor a pair of stockings.
As they turned into Montgomery Street they met more desolation. The fire had swept down the hill, and had been moving toward the waterfront when the fire-fighters had destroyed a row of buildings near the corner of Washington Street and Montgomery, blowing up some and tearing down others, to clear a space too broad for the flames to cross. They had halted the fire before it reached Montgomery Street, but the road was strewn with the wreckage they had made. Along the street men stood with guns in their hands. Other men prowled about, looking for anything that might have been left unguarded, while others, as in the plaza, were running about to no purpose except to get in the way.
Marny heard Hiram say to Pocket, “I don’t think Loren can walk any farther. If we could make a basket seat out of our hands—”
“Try it,” said Marny. “I’ll hold Loren on his feet.”
Loren murmured again that he was sorry to be such a bother. He leaned on Marny while Pocket and Hiram, gripping each other’s wrists, made a carrying seat between them. With Marny’s help, Loren managed to sit there. He put his arms around them to keep himself in place.
“Hold your gun, Marny,” Hiram ordered, now that his own hands were occupied. “And use it if we need help.”
“I’ll use it,” she answered. She did not add that she had seen blood spreading again around the tear in Loren’s shirt. Hiram and Pocket were doing all they could. No use frightening them any more. Keep going.
They kept going. They clumped through the mud, in constant danger of being knocked over by some man runni
ng away with stolen goods. Marny held her bundle under her left arm and her gun in her right hand. The bundle felt as if it weighed half a ton. Her arm ached, her legs felt almost numb. —One step at a time, she told herself as she put each foot into the mud and pulled it out again. The longest journey has an end. One—step—at—a—time.
They plodded through the area piled with the fragments of buildings destroyed. At last, they came to the store of Chase and Fenway, windows lighted, plank walk intact. Marny thought she had never seen anything so welcome. Mr. Chase and Mr. Fenway were both standing guard at the main door, and at an upper window she saw the bucktoothed visage of Foxy, on lookout for would-be thieves.
Messrs. Chase and Fenway came forward, full of concern. Loren was not only their most valued employee but a man they liked for his own sake, and they needed no words to let them know he had been badly hurt. Moving with unaccustomed speed, Mr. Fenway unlocked the door. They helped Loren inside, through the front salesroom and into a stockroom behind, while Mr. Chase bellowed to Ralph Watson, guarding a side door, to fix a mattress or something back here so Loren could lie down.
In the front room, Marny leaned against a counter. She let her bundle slide to the floor. She was so tired that she nearly slid down with it. Ralph was saying they had better send one of the boys to find a doctor, and tell Mrs. Shields what had happened. A pity it was, said Ralph, for Mrs. Shields to have her husband get hurt, and her with a baby hardly a month old.
—Maybe I ought to go and tell her, thought Marny. But I can’t. I simply can’t fight my way up that hill.
“Well, Marny,” said a dolorous voice at her side.
Marny looked up and saw Mr. Fenway. He wore a nightshirt and trousers, the tail of the nightshirt stuffed into the top of the trousers, and he looked as doleful as if he had lost everything instead of nothing.
“This is a grievous occasion,” murmured Mr. Fenway. “Grievous.”
“Yes,” said Marny. —For once, she thought, there’s so much trouble around that even old Gloom-face must be satisfied.