by Jae
Giuliana wondered what had become of Mr. Winthrop’s automobile. Was it still waiting for them outside? But she didn’t have time to think about it.
A smoking wooden beam crashed down not far from her. She cried out and threw her arms up to protect her head.
“Giuliana.” A gentle grip on her arm calmed her. Kate’s face swam into focus as she leaned close to study Giuliana. “Are you all right?”
Giuliana’s gaze tracked a drop of sweat running down Kate’s temple. She shook her head to get rid of the buzzing in her ears. Slowly, the weight on her chest, that awful feeling of being trapped, faded away. “I am good.”
Kate studied her for a moment longer, then nodded.
Another beam crashed down in one corner of the pavilion, where dozens of patients were lying on the floor. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten about them.
“Darn. Help me,” Kate shouted. “We have to get them out!”
Ducking their heads, they ran toward the corner.
Madonna and all the saints, please don’t let me be crushed, Giuliana prayed while she ran.
“No!” Lucy blocked their path before they could reach the patients. “Leave them.”
“Leave them?” Giuliana couldn’t believe Lucy would leave behind any patient.
“They’re dead. We had to stack them in the corner because the morgue is full and we don’t have one here in the pavilion.”
Giuliana’s stomach threatened to revolt as she stared at the pile of bodies.
Another burning beam came crashing down, smashing into an operation table and setting the sheet covering it on fire.
“Out!” Lucy shoved them toward the exit, where orderlies were carrying out the last of the patients.
Burning wood shingles rained down all around them as they ran to the door.
Fresh air had never felt so good. They stood in the middle of the street, bent over, gasping for breath. She reached for Kate as the memory of being pulled out of the collapsed boardinghouse, into fresh air, rushed over her.
Kate patted her arm. “We made it.”
Slowly, Giuliana straightened and looked back at the Mechanics’ Pavilion. The roof was a sea of flames, which quickly engulfed the entire building.
“Thank you,” Lucy said, and then she was gone, disappeared into the jungle of mattresses still strewn around the burning structure.
Kate and Giuliana looked at each other. Without Kate having to say a word, Giuliana knew she felt the same admiration for Dr. Sharpe that she did.
Then Kate’s eyes widened as she stared at something behind Giuliana. “Hey! Stop! That’s mine!” She started to run.
Giuliana whirled around.
A soldier was climbing behind the steering wheel of Mr. Winthrop’s automobile and was about to drive off with it.
“Oh no!” Giuliana hastened after Kate as fast as the aches and pains in her body allowed and stepped in front of the automobile so it couldn’t go anywhere.
Kate put her foot on the running board. She looked ready to whack the soldier with her camera case if need be. “Listen, I’m willing to help transport patients, but you can’t just take my father’s automobile. Not without letting me come along.”
The soldier let go of the steering wheel with one hand and pulled a large revolver from his belt. “Take your foot off the automobile, miss, or I’ll shoot it off.”
Giuliana gasped. He was threatening violence against a woman? She clutched Kate’s dress and tried to pull her back, but Kate hung on to the automobile with her free hand.
“You can’t take the automobile,” she repeated.
“Oh yeah?” The soldier kept his weapon trained on Kate. “I’m authorized by General Funston, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to take it?”
“Because I’ve already confiscated it for myself,” came a firm voice from behind them.
When Giuliana turned her head, a welcome sight greeted her.
Lucy marched toward them. Her gaze calmly took in the soldier and his weapon. She didn’t flinch back and stopped just behind Kate.
The soldier eyed her up and down. His brow furrowed when he took in the blood on her apron. “And you are?”
“Dr. Lucy Sharpe. I’m in charge of evacuating four hundred patients, and she”—Lucy pointed at Kate—“is my personal driver. Unless you are ready to take her place and spend the day driving me all over the city, I suggest you hand over this automobile, Corporal.”
The soldier hesitated, the muzzle of his revolver still aimed at Kate.
“Now, Corporal! My patients can’t wait!”
Mumbling under his breath, the soldier shoved his weapon back into its holster and climbed from the driver’s seat. After one last glare back at Kate and Lucy, he walked away.
Giuliana’s knees weakened as the excitement and terror of the last half hour faded away. She drew a deep breath, but the smoke hanging in the air made her cough.
Kate swayed a little too and clutched the ash-covered fender with one hand. “Now it’s my turn to thank you,” she said to Lucy.
“No need to thank me. I meant what I said. I never learned how to handle one of these devil wagons, so I need you as my personal driver.”
“Devil wagons?” Kate chuckled.
Lucy shrugged. “They’re loud and spook the horses, so I never had much use for them.”
“Seems like that’s about to change,” Kate said. “Get in.”
* * *
Kate had long since stopped counting how many times they had driven back and forth between the Mechanics’ Pavilion and Golden Gate Park, where thousands of people were camping out in tents or just huddling in the grass. Every time they returned with another patient, the crowd in the park seemed to have grown.
Finally, the last patient had been carried into the large tent serving as a makeshift hospital.
Lucy didn’t follow him, though; she remained in the backseat of the automobile, where she had held on to the patient. “Do you mind driving me one last time?”
“Where to?”
“The Southern Pacific Hospital,” Lucy said. “I have a patient there that I want to check on.”
That meant they would have to drive all the way across the city, into the conflagration south of Market Street. Kate’s cheeks were still burning from driving past the blazing heat of the fire and her throat ached from the smoke and plaster dust hanging in the air, but helping Lucy save her patients was worth it. She gave a terse nod. Her gaze flickered to Giuliana. If they were to head into danger, she didn’t want Giuliana anywhere near it, especially after what she had been through that morning. “Why don’t you stay here and wait for us?”
Giuliana clutched the leather seat with both hands. Lips compressed to a tight line, she shook her head. “I come with you.”
“Giuliana…”
“I said I come with you.” Giuliana raised her chin at a stubborn angle.
Somehow, things had been easier when Giuliana had been their maid, obliged to do whatever she was told. Kate gave a wry smile. Oh well, at least they wouldn’t be separated. Who knew if they would find each other again in the chaos that was Golden Gate Park? “All right.”
Once again, it was slowgoing as they drove east on Fell Street. Kate constantly had to dodge piles of debris and objects that exhausted people had abandoned as they were fleeing up and down the hills of San Francisco. A constant stream of people lined the street. The army had confiscated all automobiles and horses, so men and women used whatever they could get their hands on to transport their most precious possessions. Kate even saw a soapbox mounted on roller skates, piled high with canned goods, a gold-framed mirror, and a glass globe with goldfish.
Most people didn’t even have that, though. They dragged heavy trunks along the street. The scraping sound drowned out the hum of the engine and vibrated through Kate’s every bone, until she thought she’d never forget that awful noise.
She braked as two men pushing a piano crossed the street in front of them. Finally, maybe aft
er having labored for miles, they abandoned the piano at the side of the street and continued on without.
“Must be what it was like along the Oregon Trail,” Lucy muttered from behind her.
Kate turned her head. “Pardon me?”
“My grandparents came west on the Oregon Trail fifty years ago. From the stories they told me, this”—Lucy swept her arm wide, indicating the abandoned trunks and household items—“is what the side of the trail looked like.”
Kate couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose your home and then leave behind what little you still had. Thank God Nob Hill was safe—at least for now.
When they approached Octavia Street, where she had wanted to turn south toward the hospital, the rumble of dynamite blasts became louder. To the east and south, the plumes of smoke had now united to form one black curtain that blotted out the sun. Several of the columns were drifting in their direction.
“Diu miu,” Giuliana whispered. “The fire grows.”
“Turn right here!” Lucy called.
Kate wrenched the steering wheel around. They bumped down a street that was heavily scarred by the earthquake. Kate prayed that the tires would hold and spared a glance at her carrying case, making sure it was still safe at Giuliana’s feet.
“Stop!” Lucy shouted.
What was it? They hadn’t reached the hospital yet. Reluctantly, Kate stepped on the brake.
Lucy jumped down before the automobile had fully come to a halt. She rushed to a pile of rubble at the side of the street.
A horse! Kate’s eyes widened. The poor thing had been buried beneath the debris, trapped in place by a steel joist. One of its legs was obviously broken, but it was still trying to get free. As Kate watched, its struggles began to weaken. Who knew how long it had been trapped there?
Lucy approached the horse slowly from the side, her voice soft as if she were talking to a patient. She knelt next to the injured animal and touched its heaving neck that was sticking out of the rubble.
The horse let out a nervous snort, then quieted under Lucy’s soothing caress.
After a minute, Lucy got up and returned to the automobile. Without a word, she grabbed her black doctor’s bag from the backseat and carried it to the horse.
Was she trying to treat the horse? It looked beyond help to Kate, but she said nothing. She expected Lucy to take out a couple of bandages or maybe a syringe, but when Lucy pulled her hand out of the bag, she was holding a revolver.
“Oh no!” Giuliana whispered next to her.
The sound of the revolver being cocked sent shivers down Kate’s spine. She reached over and gripped Giuliana’s hand.
Immediately, Giuliana clutched Kate’s fingers with her other hand too.
They clung to each other as Lucy aimed the revolver at the horse’s head.
Kate squeezed her eyes shut and looked away, not wanting to see the inevitable.
When the shot echoed along the street, Giuliana gave a soft cry and buried her face against Kate’s shoulder.
Her eyes still closed, Kate pressed her cheek to the crown of Giuliana’s head and tried not to think of the poor horse or of how Lucy must feel. Just think of Giuliana and how good it feels to hold her. Usually, that was easy to do, but now her imagination tortured her with cruel mental snapshots. She wrapped her free arm around Giuliana and held on.
The sound of Lucy climbing into the backseat finally made her let go and turn around.
Lucy’s expression was stony, but a single tear clung to the corner of her eye. When it spilled over and ran down her cheek, cutting a track through the soot from the fire, she wiped it away with an almost angry flick of her wrist. Her other hand still had a white-knuckled grip on the revolver.
Slowly, Kate reached out, took the weapon from her, and put it beneath the driver’s seat.
“I couldn’t let it suffer,” Lucy whispered.
“No.” Kate squeezed her hand. “Of course you couldn’t.”
They were all silent as they continued on toward the hospital.
* * *
While they drove south, Giuliana kept glancing over at Kate, who seemed entirely focused on the street ahead. Was she still thinking of the poor horse too? Giuliana couldn’t get it out of her head. Neither could she stop thinking about the way it had felt to bury her face against Kate’s shoulder. She glanced at Kate’s hands, resting on the steering wheel, and remembered how they had felt holding her own.
Amazing how natural it had felt to seek comfort with Kate.
Just yesterday, she had thought she’d never see her again, and now this disaster was chaining them together, forming an even deeper friendship. Well, them and Lucy. She turned her head to peek at the doctor, who rode along in silence.
Lucy met her gaze without smiling and gave her the tiniest of nods.
Giuliana could only imagine what it had cost her to shoot the horse. When she turned her head to face forward again, something caught her eye. Oh Madonna, was that…? Her heart started to pound. “Kate! Look!” She pointed at the white steam billowing up from the automobile’s hood.
“Darn!” Kate pulled the vehicle over to the side of the street and turned off the engine. “That’s not good. Not good at all.” She jumped down and opened the dark blue hood.
More steam billowed up, so Kate had to take a quick step back to avoid being burned.
From her position in the passenger seat, Giuliana stared down into the engine compartment. But, of course, she had no clue about motorized vehicles and what might be wrong with this one. She could only hope Kate was a little more knowledgeable.
“I knew there’s a reason why I prefer horses,” Lucy muttered from the backseat.
When the steam cloud dispersed, Kate bent over the engine compartment and peeked inside. “I think the engine is overheated. Must be from going up and down the hills for hours.”
“It will be good again if we let it cool down, no?” Giuliana asked.
“I think so.”
“I’ve seen my mother treat overheated horses,” Lucy said. “She always cooled them down with some water.”
“I hardly think that would— Darn, I think you’re right.” Kate whirled around. “The radiator—the part that cools down the engine—might be low on water.”
The mere mention of water made Giuliana realize how parched she was. She hadn’t had even a sip to drink since the glass of orange juice this morning. None of them had. Water was a rare commodity all over the city. If they hadn’t even found enough water to drink, where were they supposed to get water for the automobile?
Once again, Lucy opened her large, black bag.
“You’re not going to shoot the automobile, are you?” Kate asked with a grim smile.
“No. You’ve got the revolver now anyway.” Lucy handed her a silver flask. “Water.”
Kate looked at it as if it were gold. “What else have you got in that bag of yours?”
Lucy chuckled. For the first time since she’d had to shoot the horse, her expression softened. “Now, what kind of doctor would I be if I gave away all the secrets of my trade?”
They grinned at each other.
As Giuliana watched them, a strange feeling overcame her. It wasn’t a pleasant one. Shouldn’t she be glad that her friends got along so well? Was she feeling left out or jealous of their tentative friendship? She didn’t understand it.
Kate unscrewed the flask and then pulled off a cap from a complicated-looking metal part inside of the engine compartment. With a steady hand, she poured in a bit of water.
Hissing, the water spat back out.
Kate stumbled back, clutching her hand.
“Kate!” Giuliana jumped down from the automobile. Pain flared through her ankle for a moment. She ignored it, rushed around to Kate’s side, and clutched her shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
“Heavens, that was stupid. I should have let it cool off before pouring in the water.”
Holding on to Kate’s wrist with one hand, Giuliana gently tu
rned her hand around.
Patches of red formed on Kate’s palm where she’d burned her hand, but luckily the skin didn’t blister. Impulsively, Giuliana lifted Kate’s hand, about to kiss it. She stopped herself at the last second. Diu miu! What are you doing? It must be because she’d treated the scrapes of her younger siblings the same way—kissing them to make them better. But Kate was an adult, and they had a competent doctor with them. Her cheeks burning, she stepped aside to let Lucy take a look.
Lucy pulled an ointment from her doctor’s bag and spread it gently over Kate’s palm.
The sight made the tiny hairs on Giuliana’s neck prickle. She wanted to take the ointment away from Lucy and treat Kate’s burned hand herself. How stupid. Maybe she should take a sip from the flask. The lack of water was doing strange things to her head.
From her position bent over Kate’s hand, Lucy grinned up at her patient. “That’s one way to find out what else is in my bag.”
One corner of Kate’s mouth lifted into a half smile. “A pretty painful way, if you ask me. You could have just told me, you know.”
They sat at the side of the street, waiting for the ointment to dry and the engine to cool off. Clouds of smoke from a fire a few blocks away wafted over, and the boom of dynamite interrupted the silence every minute or two.
“Gosh,” Kate murmured after a while, “it sounds as if they’re dynamiting entire blocks.”
Not that it seemed to be doing much good. In pessimistic moments, Giuliana thought the fire wouldn’t stop before it reached the ocean. But that was nonsense, of course. A city like San Francisco was no little fishing village. It had resources and competent people like Chief Sullivan to keep it from total destruction.
Kate got up. “I think it’s safe to continue now.”
Giuliana climbed to her feet. “Can you drive with the hand?” She pointed at Kate’s burned fingers and then peeked at the intimidating machine. “If you teach me to drive, I can—”
“I’m fine.”
Giuliana sent her a doubtful glance.
“Doctor, tell her, please.”