by Jae
“Are you all right?” Giuliana whispered to her.
“Yes, just thinking,” Kate answered.
Giuliana was doing a lot of that too. Her thoughts were racing faster than an automobile heading down one of San Francisco’s steepest hills. She still hadn’t figured out that strange conversation back in the hospital tent. Neither had she decided what she’d do once they actually reached the ferry building. New York City meant a way to earn money in a safe, undestroyed city, but could she really get on a ferry and leave Kate behind?
Well, maybe she’ll be the one leaving you behind. So far, neither Kate nor her parents had invited her to come with them to Belvedere Island. Would Kate say anything as they got closer to the ferries? Giuliana was afraid to let herself hope. Instead, she focused on where they were going.
As they approached Van Ness Avenue, the smoke started to become denser. It wasn’t just coming from the east now, but from the south and the north too. Diu miu! It looked as if the entire city, including the Mission District and Russian Hill, were in flames. Dynamite blasts made the cobblestones beneath their feet vibrate. The air was hot and thick with dust from falling buildings. Giuliana almost wished herself back to Golden Gate Park with its chilly wind.
Then the curtain of smoke parted for a moment, and she caught a glimpse of Van Ness Avenue.
“Hell and darnation,” Mr. Winthrop muttered. “What are they doing?”
The eastern side of the avenue was in ruins, not from the earthquake or the fires but from dynamiting. Where once some of the most elegant mansions of the city had stood were now only piles of bricks and masonry. The field of rubble spread north for at least a mile.
“It’s the only way to save the rest of the city,” Kate said.
“But did they have to blow up all these mansions?” With a shake of his head, Mr. Winthrop pointed to a tottering wall. “Look, there’s Arthur Chapman’s house…or what’s left of it. Couldn’t they have used some of the cheaper houses for a firebreak?”
Giuliana’s mouth slackened. Had he really just said that? “Poor people suffer the same than the rich when they lose their homes, Mr. Winthrop,” she said quietly.
His eyebrows pinched together into a thick bar as he studied her.
Giuliana refused to look away. She hadn’t said a thing whenever he or his wife had behaved as if they deserved better than the rest of the refugees, but now she’d reached her limit. Since she would likely never see them again, she might as well speak her mind.
“I wasn’t implying that they don’t, girl,” he said, his tone gruff. “I’m talking about the monetary worth of these buildings.”
“It makes no difference to the fire how much a house has cost, Father.” Kate stepped between her father and Giuliana. “How are they supposed to create an effective firebreak if they’re leaving all the fine mansions standing?”
“I don’t know; it’s just such a waste,” her father muttered.
Two blocks to the north, a blast of dynamite echoed along the avenue, making them cover their ears. A shower of bricks rained down to all sides. A horse squealed and reared, throwing off the soldier on its back. Reins fluttering, it leaped over a pile of rubble and raced up the avenue. The rest of the dynamite squad followed more slowly, on to the next building.
“Look!” Mr. Winthrop pointed to the ruins of the collapsed building.
He was shouting, but Giuliana could still barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. She looked where he was pointing.
The dynamite blast had felled the house, but there was no water to wet down the ruins or the surrounding buildings. Sparks from the explosion made new fires break out.
Soot-covered firemen and volunteers rushed forward and beat at the flames with blankets and rugs. Others threw shovels of sand onto the smoldering rubble in an attempt to stop the fire from reaching the other side of the avenue.
“Should we help them?” Kate asked.
Her mother gasped. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”
“No.” Her father patted Kate’s arm once. “You mean well, but we don’t even have a handkerchief to beat at the fire.”
For once, Giuliana had to admit that he was right. If they tried to help, they would only get in the way.
Another blast shook the ground beneath them. Dust flooded toward them, like fog rolling in from the bay.
Giuliana coughed and covered her mouth and nose with her good hand.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Winthrop shouted.
* * *
Two blocks past the burned ruins of City Hall, Kate paused. With all the street signs and many of the familiar landmarks gone, it was easy to get lost. It took her a minute to realize that she was standing in the middle of what had once been the busiest intersection of San Francisco. She stared down the street toward the bay, unable to grasp what she was seeing.
Market Street had turned into a scorched valley flanked by tottering walls and piles of smoldering debris. Hot bricks, charred beams, and blackened scraps of metal covered what had once been the sidewalks, leaving only the very middle of the street free.
A steady stream of San Franciscans headed along that pathway toward the ferry building. Under layers of soot and dirt, their faces were pale. No one spoke, as if they were wandering through a graveyard—which they were.
Oh dear Lord! Kate gagged as they passed a charred body, its mouth open and forearms sticking up into the air as if pleading for help.
Warm fingers slid into hers and squeezed.
Blinking, Kate looked away from the burned body. Giuliana was walking next to her and held on to Kate with her uninjured hand. Gratefully, Kate squeezed back and continued down the street with a firm grip on Giuliana’s hand.
Feeling as if trapped in a nightmare, she followed her parents past block after block of skeleton buildings. In some places, the heat of the fire had been so intense that the glass from shattered windows had melted into puddles that had solidified into bizarre shapes. Carefully, Kate stepped over the warped iron of the cable car tracks that stuck out from the middle of the street. Once she’d passed it, she paused and helped Giuliana across. When their gazes met, they nodded at each other, but neither managed a smile.
Where exactly were they? Kate looked around. Was this Fourth Street?
Then she caught sight of the Spreckels building to the right. It was still standing, held up by its steel frame, but the interior was completely burned out. The once-proud home of the San Francisco Call was now only an empty shell.
She clutched her carrying case with the camera a little more tightly as she tried to remind herself that this was not the end of her potential career as a newspaper photographer.
Giuliana rubbed the back of Kate’s hand as if she could guess Kate’s thoughts.
The touch chased away the hollow feeling in her chest. She brushed her thumb along Giuliana’s wrist and attempted a smile. The Call had found a way to print newspapers, and she’d find a way too. It was even possible that some of the big newspapers on the East Coast would be interested in printing her photographs.
Comforted by that thought, she stopped in the middle of the street and looked left and right.
No soldiers, policemen, or militia members as far as she could see.
Quickly, she took out her camera and slid a glass plate holder into the back of it. The light wasn’t the best, since the looming clouds of smoke obscured the sun, but she hoped it would be enough for a decent picture. When she put her eye to the ground-glass viewfinder and adjusted the lens standard, her father put a heavy hand on her arm, forcing her to lower the camera.
“What are you doing, Kate?” he whispered sharply. “Didn’t you hear what Mr. O’Brien said? If they catch you taking photographs…”
“They will not,” Giuliana said before Kate could even open her mouth. She stood her ground next to Kate, looking him in the eyes. “Not if we all help her and watch for soldiers.”
Kate’s chest expanded with pride and gratefulness. Where was the
meek servant who had curtsied and averted her gaze when she’d met her in the hall? Surviving the earthquake and the fires had changed Giuliana.
Her father hesitated. He stared at Giuliana for several moments before taking his hand off Kate’s arm. “Be quick about it.”
Kate grinned at Giuliana and ducked her head to look through the viewfinder. She took a photograph of the Call building and then, quickly replacing the glass plate, one of the length of blackened Market Street.
Just as she was about to lower the camera, she caught a glimpse of another familiar building through the viewfinder. She nearly dropped the camera as her grip went limp. Slowly, she peered up, hoping the upside-down image would look different when not viewed through the lens of her camera.
No such luck.
William Jenkins’s words echoed through her mind: Did you know that the Palace Hotel is entirely fireproof? They even have seven reservoirs with thousands of gallons of water on the roof. Nothing can destroy this place.
Well, William had been wrong about more than just his assumption that Kate would make a good wife.
The once-white walls of the large hotel were blackened. Every one of its many windows had burst, revealing the gutted interior. Not even its water reservoirs had been able to save it from the inferno.
With trembling fingers, Kate used another glass plate to take a photograph of the Palace Hotel’s shell and then put her camera away, not sure she could stand to take even one more photograph of the destruction in her beloved San Francisco.
No one said a word as they passed the burned-out building and continued down Market Street, which consisted of blackened ruins along this part of the street too.
The office building of her father’s shipping business had suffered the same fate. He stared at it with damp eyes as they passed the burned-out shell. Good thing he had stored all important documents in the fireproof vault of a bank.
“Look.” Giuliana squeezed Kate’s fingers and pointed ahead with her bandaged hand. “The ferry building is good.”
Kate looked up. The ferry building towered at the eastern end of Market Street. The familiar sight was a balm for her nerves. But as they came closer, she realized that the building hadn’t escaped the earthquake unharmed either. The upper portion of the tower seemed to be intact, but parts of the sandstone facade had fallen off at its base, exposing a flight of stairs. Wire cables had been wrapped around that part of the building to keep more of the masonry from peeling away. Even the flagpole atop the tower was tilted to the right at a sharp angle.
Bent but not broken, she told herself. But then she caught sight of the large clock, which had always run three minutes fast, and swallowed heavily. The clock’s hands had stopped at a quarter past five—the moment the earthquake had struck—and were still suspended in time.
She kept staring up at the clock and its unmoving hands as they approached the building.
The closer they came, the more crowded the street became. Now that the fires in this part of the city were out and Market Street was passable again, many San Franciscans wanted to escape the burning city.
They ducked below wires dangling down from a leaning pole and crossed the street right in front of the ferry building.
Giuliana stopped at the entrance to the main building, bringing Kate to a stop too. “The wind!”
Kate paused and lifted her face into the breeze—or she would have, had there still been one. The north wind that had blown all morning had died away. For a moment, the smoke hung motionless over the city. Then a sharp, cool wind sprung up from a more western or northwestern direction. “You’re right. It shifted!”
“That is good, yes?” Giuliana clutched Kate’s hand.
Kate squeezed back. “It’s great. It could turn the fires at Van Ness Avenue back on themselves. The rest of the city might be saved!”
They looked at each other, both grinning like fools.
“Maybe.” Her father’s gruff voice brought Kate back to reality. “But this section”—he waved at the area surrounding the ferry building—“could burn down if the wind drives the fires from the waterfront toward us. If that happens, the ferries can no longer dock. We’ll be trapped. We should hurry.”
As they passed through the arched entrance of the main building, a gasp escaped Kate. The ferry docks behind the building were so crowded with people that she couldn’t even glimpse an inch of the planks beneath their feet.
Where were all the people coming from? She’d thought that half of San Francisco was camped out in Golden Gate Park, but now it seemed thousands of people were waiting to board the next ferry. How could the ferries—if they were even running—ever transport them all?
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Kate stepped outside, into the crowd. She was glad that she was still holding Giuliana’s hand so she couldn’t lose her in this chaos. Well, you’ll have to let go soon—forever. At the thought, the sinking feeling became a wild spiraling. For a moment, she thought she’d faint for the very first time in her life.
A sharp squeeze to her hand stopped the spinning sensation.
“Are you all right?” Giuliana asked, holding Kate’s hand so tightly as if her grip alone could keep Kate on her feet.
Kate nodded. “It’s just a little crowded here. I couldn’t catch my breath for a moment.”
“A little crowded?” Giuliana shook her head and glanced around. “Everyone wants to leave the city.”
“Do you?” Kate asked before she could stop herself.
A sigh escaped Giuliana. She pulled up the collar of her stained shirtwaist, visibly shivering in the heavy fog. “What other can I do?”
“You could come with us.” There, she’d said it. She might not have the right to ask Giuliana to stay, but she needed to do it anyway. If she let her go without at least offering her an alternative, she’d never forgive herself. Kate studied Giuliana closely, taking in her reaction. Was that longing in Giuliana’s tired brown eyes?
“Kate, your parents—”
“There it is!” someone shouted.
Kate looked toward the bay.
A ferry made its way toward the docks, the smoke from its thin chimney mingling with the fire smoke looming over the bay. The paddle wheels on each side churned through the gray waters, quickly bringing the ferry closer.
Maybe the sight of the ferry should have made her feel as if escape was near and the nightmare was about to end, but it did just the opposite. She’d halfway hoped the ferries wouldn’t be running so that she and Giuliana would be forced to stay together for a while longer.
Instantly, the crowd started shoving and jostling. An elbow hit Kate in the side as someone tried to squeeze past her. Ahead of them, at the edge of the dock, one woman raised her umbrella and swung it down on the head of another, who stumbled back and landed in the water with a loud splash.
The crowd surged forward, immediately taking up her space on the dock.
Kate craned her neck and raised on her tiptoes to make sure someone had fished the woman out of the harbor so she wouldn’t drown in her water-logged dress and petticoats. But the people at the edge of the dock blocked her view, so she couldn’t see what had happened to the woman.
“It’s the ferry to Tiburon!” someone shouted.
The ferry they’d have to take to get to Belvedere. Kate squeezed her eyes shut. Why couldn’t it have been the ferry to Sausalito, giving her more time to convince Giuliana—or at least to say good-bye?
All around her, people surged forward or struggled back because it was the wrong ferry for them. The push-pull nearly dragged her off her feet and shoved her against Giuliana. She threw both arms around her. “Come with us!”
Giuliana hesitated and then peered toward Kate’s parents. “I want to. But your parents—”
Wild hope coursed through Kate. “I’ll convince them. No problem. You’ll see.” She whirled around, searching for her parents in the jostling crowd.
Other refugees had shoved between Giuliana, Kate, a
nd her parents. She caught sight of her father’s graying head ahead of them. “Father!” she shouted toward him. “Let Giuliana come with us. Please!”
“We have to go!” he shouted back. “Move, Kate—now!”
He reached past the people between them, grabbed Kate’s hand, and tried to pull her toward him, closer to the approaching ferry, but Kate dug in her heels and clung to Giuliana. “Not without Giuliana!”
The ferry bumped against the dock. Ropes were tossed down to secure it to the dock, and the gate started to lower. “Stand back!” one of the ferrymen shouted. “Outta the way, or you’ll be squished!”
People veered back a little, and the gate banged down.
Elbows, shoulders, and pieces of baggage hit Kate from all sides as people streamed past and onto the short gangplank.
Her father had to let go. “Kate, dammit! We’ll lose our place on the ferry. Move!”
She shook her head.
“For heaven’s sake!” Her father’s mustache trembled with rage. Then he huffed out a breath. “All right. Bring her, if you must. Now that Obedience is with her sister, we don’t have any servants around anyway.”
Yes! There would be time later to make it clear that Giuliana was a guest, not a servant. She turned toward Giuliana and looked at her with pleading puppy-dog eyes, not caring whether she seemed pathetic. “Come with us. Please.”
Giuliana’s chest lifted beneath a deep breath, then she blew it out and nodded.
“Thank you.” Firmly gripping Giuliana’s hand, Kate rushed forward.
The ferry had quickly filled up with refugees. Even the rear deck was crowded with shouting men, pale-faced women, and screaming children.
“Just three more,” the ferryman next to the gangplank shouted.
“That’s us!” Kate’s father dragged her forward by the shoulder.
Even as her heels slid over the damp ground, she never let go of Giuliana. “There’s four of us,” she called up to the ferryman.
He hesitated, glanced back at the rear deck, and then gave her a grim nod. “All right. On board with the four of you. But hurry.”
Kate’s parents rushed forward.