. . . TRIAL BY FIRE

Somewhere a siren wailed. Pressing along Market, Quinn figured to head up Stockton, guessing it would be less crowded. Wait for Levi Hayes, knowing the man would be lured by his own greed.

Fires bloomed at his back, his shirt and jacket wet with sweat. The people in the street packed tight, pressing for the waterfront, the whole godless city burning to the ground. Some looked resigned, some spooked like livestock in a storm.

Florence would be alone in that big house up on Nob Hill, her servants around her. As far as he could tell, there was no smoke over that part of town. He would deal with Hayes and Lewis, get the gold and the cockfight money, then go to her and tell how he set things right. Let the woman be grateful, hoping to pick up where they left off, Quinn remembering the feel of her, the smell of her hair. He hoped Levi Hayes had got killing Marvin right.

Stepping around a corpse skewered on an iron rod, pinned between sections of sidewalk, Quinn didn’t give the man a second look, breaking from the crowd then, climbing a piano school’s fire escape, stopping on the iron landing, seeing what lay ahead, the mass moving steadily, but slow. A billboard topping the hotel advertised Knox Hats.

A couple of men climbed into a storefront, where the front window had been, looked to be looting jewelry. A couple called up to him, pointing, wanting the copper to do something about it. Climbing down, Quinn advised he was on an errand of the highest order, suggesting if they wanted something done, they could go about it themselves, that or mind their own business and just keep moving. Turning from them, he had second thoughts on heading to Stockton, guessing Mission might be a better bet. From the glow and smoke over the rooftops, there were more fires in that direction, meaning fewer people in the street.

. . . OUTFLOWING

Trudging past Church and Fourteenth, then Dolores, the women showed exhaustion, the rubble in the street made the going slow. Hadn’t made much more than a mile in the past hour, twice detoured by fire and wreckage blocking the streets. The air was hot and thick with smoke. Mounds of bricks lay scattered ahead, blocking a Peerless auto from going forward, water pooling around its wheels.

Splashing in the knee-deep water seeping and swirling from a fractured hydrant, turning the street into a river, Levi sloshed his way, grabbing the wheel of an overturned hansom cab. A chunk of brick cut into his bare sole, Verna catching his arm as he stumbled, forgiving him for his cursing.

Agnes slipped in the water, too, garments clinging to her skin. Reaching an arm, Mack helped her along, guiding Mabel with her baby, careful she didn’t take a tumble, offering again to take the child. Mabel insisting she was alright.

They were moving too slow for Levi’s liking. The heat felt stronger at their backs. The roaring and crackling making it sound alive.

A man in a drooping sombrero led his daughter, calling the name of a lost loved one. Wading through the water, not heeding a merchant on horseback. The man coming at a gallop, saddle bags slapping the chestnut’s flanks, the man’s long coat flapping behind him. Slowing through the water, he yelled warning about the curtain of fire coming, wanting the crowd to clear a path. Knocking the man with the sombrero, the rider reined the horse, Mack towing Mabel out of its path. The rider clipped Verna, the woman reeling headlong, her hat knocked into the swirl.

Cursing, the rider slapped and urged his mount over a mound of bricks damming the street, his horse’s hooves slipping, man and rider tumbling against the Peerless, the rider pitched into the stream.

Towing Verna to her feet, Agnes handed her the shapeless hat, Verna coughing, clutching her birdcage. The rider splashed before her, full of fight, the horse unable to rise. Spitting a mouthful of water, the rider yanked a pistol from his belt, aiming it wildly about, yelling for the horse to get up.

Jerking Agnes and Verna by their collars, Levi pulled them clear, the rider turning on the Peerless, shooting out a headlight, then aiming at the driver, the driver and passenger raising their hands. The crowd parted around the pool, the rider turning around and challenging any man.

Climbing past the windscreen and onto the hood, the driver dove at him from behind, knocking away the pistol, then throwing punches. The passenger, being an ample woman, struggled out her door, waded in and laid fists into the rider, punching like she was John L. Sullivan. Flanked, the rider fought back, swinging at one, then the other, before buckling under the blows. Other men waded in and tried to break it up, ended up throwing punches of their own. Most of the crowd kept moving.

Nudging Verna and Agnes through the water, Levi felt around, hoping to bump the rider’s pistol with his foot. The suffering horse jerked to keep its head above the rising water, eyes wide with panic. Nothing anyone could do.

At Dolores and Market, two brothers grappled an upright Bechstein, the name on the piano’s fallboard. Both with rolled shirtsleeves, they lifted it across the broken ground, getting as far the middle of the intersection. Setting it down, they mopped at their foreheads, muscles aching, looking at each other, knowing they’d gone as far as they could, the citizens passing on all sides. The brothers laid hands on the top, said some words, then left it and joined the movement for the waterfront. Leaving it to burn.

“Think Quinn had a hope?” Mack asked Levi.

“With the roof coming down?” Levi shrugged, shoving at a man cutting in front of him. The man turned and sized him up, saw Mack and thought better of starting anything. Keeping on his way.

“Think we used up whatever luck we had getting busted out,” Mack said, looking at Mabel, realizing his mistake.

“Busted out?” She looked at him.

“Just a way of talking, ma’am.”

“You men busted . . . saying you’re convicts?” She stopped and drew back.

“More of a slight mix-up, ma’am,” Levi said, looking at Mack.

“He said they got busted out.” Mabel turned to Agnes and Verna, saying, “We’re walking with convicts.”

Taking her flask from a pocket, Verna uncapped it, saying to Mabel, “You got something they can steal?”

“Think our intent’s plain, ma’am,” Mack said. “At the Mission, not two days back. That drunk tugging on your arm . . .”

Her look said he was no different from the men along that wall.

“You ladies will do just fine on your own,” Levi said, telling them to just keep moving for the ferry building.

“Come on, child,” Agnes said to Mabel, dropping her ironing board, saying to Mack, “We do thank you, gents, and Verna and I will see them the rest of the way.”

“They’ll be fine,” Levi said to Mack. “You forgetting we got business of our own?”

Mack looked at woman and child. Agnes and Verna helping her to the abandoned upright, middle of the street, water washing in from the broken main. The glow showing brighter over the rooftops from the south and east, smoke heaviest over the Mission. Windows that still had panes reflected the coming blaze. Air was getting hotter and harder to breathe. Ahead of them, the dome of the City Hall stuck up through the smoke, looked like it was sitting on a burned-out skeleton.

Half a block back, the motorist couple were back to beating on the rider, the woman holding him, her man punching away, the horse struggling to keep its head above rising water.

Another rumble, the ground shaking — this time from a dozen steers stampeding from the south. Faces turned and the crowd split, some jumping clear, one man knocked aside. Eyes wide and white with terror, the steers stampeded through, a young man swept under the hooves.

The motorists clambered for the hood of their auto, leaving the thrashing rider in the water. Agnes and Verna yanked Mabel and child up onto the upright.

A captain led his mismatched squad of Guardsmen in wake of the steers; one of the men stopped to put a bullet in the drowning horse, his corporal kneeling and firing his rifle up the street, into the steers.

Watching the craziness unfold, Mack left Levi standing there and dodged his way to the piano, grabbing Mabel down by the arm, saying, “You want to bury your child, that it?”

“Get your hands from me.” She slapped and fought him.

Guardsmen ran by, ignoring them.

Nothing nice or gentle about it, Mack wrested the baby from her and sloshed through the water, Mabel hurrying in her slippers behind him, yelling for help, Mack telling her, “Be a hard-head all you want, but one way or another this child’s going to safety.”

She slapped and grabbed, but it was doing no good. The two women took hold of her, helped her past a longhorn lying in the street, a bloody hole in its throat. The crowd moved around it.

Levi waited on the steps of the church, its spire knocked out of plumb, the cross at the top gone. Cracks running through the word Adventvs chiseled into the stonework above the entrance. The quake had spared them from the rope, but out in the open, they were fine targets, Mack tempting fate, playing the hero with a child in his hands.

Soon as the Guardsmen had gone pursuing the steers, two men stepped from the wrecked Bank of California across the street, holding rifles and sacks, walking south, the opposite direction of the crowd.

Watching the world go crazy, Levi told the women, “You want to get to safety, then you keep close. That or you get left behind, that simple.”

Between Agnes and Verna, Mabel stood and nodded, looking down at her ruined slippers, her feet hurting.

“Got no time for the stubbornness of women.” If Quinn was alive, he’d get to the money first; it was that simple.

Agnes and Mabel looked at each other and shrugged.

“All right then,” Levi said. He looked ahead of them, hadn’t taken a step when he heard faint pounding from inside the church, a voice calling from behind the heavy door. Levi turning to Mack, his look saying, what the hell next?

Agnes Maier went and banged on the door, a voice calling from inside. Kicking away at the junk in front, she yanked on the handle but couldn’t budge it. Verna joined, sweeping with her foot, trying to free the base of the door.

Cursing, Levi grabbed the end of a board, Mack passing the child to Mabel, catching hold of the other end.

The door was of thick oak; the quake had fractured the framework, jamming the door. Mack bucked his shoulder against it, Levi joining, the two of them doing it in tandem, the cracked frame giving way. A couple more tries and the door caved inward, Levi catching hold of the frame, Mack tumbling into the darkness, Agnes and Verna rushing in after him.

. . . CLOSING THE GAP

Looked like froth seeping from the breached hydrant, wreckage floating in a whirling pool. Dipping his hat, Quinn drank without thinking about how dirty the water was, then tipped the hatful over his head. Shoving a fellow out of his path, he kept vigil, no time for the pain in his arm, holding the arm tight to his chest. Sharp-eyed, searching every face. His convicts were out here.

Out front of a store called the Emporium, four men rummaged like wild dogs through boxes of shoes scattered around the street. The blond one in a jacket of army blue was no more than eighteen. Full of drink, him and another man were holding bottles and shoes, one grabbing an armful of boxes, another trying on women’s shoes, all of them laughing like fools, Enfields at their feet. The blond one stiffened at sight of the copper, tossing away a pair of lace-ups, bending for his rifle, clucking to the others.

Cocking his pistol, Quinn told him, “Touch it and you can forget about puberty.”

Hands went wide in the air.

“Getting a jump on your holiday shopping, are you, boys?”

Holding his wine bottle, the blond one pointed to the Emporium’s broken front window, saying, “Chased away a pack of looters, think it was my jacket that done it. Just putting all this back, Officer. Doing the same job as you.”

All of them nodding, the one in women’s footwear teetering.

“Looking for two men,” Quinn said. “Grey-haired fellow, the other one younger, about my height. Both looking pretty beat up.”

“That could be just about anybody,” the one with the boxes said.

Belongings wrapped in a bed sheet, a heavyset man tripped into Quinn, sending a knifing pain. Quinn cuffed the man, knocking him to the ground, a rider on a bicycle swerving to avoid them, cursing Quinn, pedaling on.

The man on the ground squinted up, noting the number on Quinn’s hat. Quinn pulling the pinned badge from his jacket, holding the seven-sided star in the man’s face, letting him see the number real close, saying, “You got it?”

“Want no trouble,” the heavy man said, getting to his feet, brushing himself off and moving on.

Holstering the pistol, Quinn stepped past the four men loading the shoes back through the broken window and pinned the badge back on.

. . . SAMARITANS

Weak on his legs, the reverend stepped through the door, blinked at the daylight, caked head to foot in plaster dust fine as flour, looking like the statue of a man chiseled from limestone. Dried blood lined the creases of his forehead, more dried blood in his hair. Looking up and down the street, then at the tilted spire above him, the old reverend disbelieved the destruction. About to speak when his legs gave out.

Catching him and easing him onto the fragment of a parapet, Levi looked for help. Lots of people in the street, but none of them stopping. One couple dragged an overstuffed suitcase, the man on the bicycle shouting at them to clear the way.

Squatting and cupping the reverend’s head, Agnes brushed the dust from his hair, seeing to his wounds saying, “Verna, your flask,” snapping her fingers.

“Water would do him better,” Verna said.

“You got any water?” Agnes asked, holding out her hand. Snapping. “The flask, Verna.”

Looking at the flooded street, Verna pulled it from her skirt, handed it over, Agnes splashing whiskey on a fold of her skirt and dabbing at his gash.

Flinching at the sting, the reverend came awake and pushed the hand away. Caught the smell and took the flask from her and tipped a good swig; it set him coughing. Taking another swallow to ease the cough, he said, “Ah, God bless you, child.”

“Easy there, Reverend, that’s not milk.” Verna reached the flask.

“Amen to that.” His smile feeble, he let go of the flask.

Swishing the flask, Verna took a swallow herself, then tucked it away.

A couple, barely past their adolescence, pushed a baby buggy filled high with worldly goods. No baby, their faces hollow, their eyes vacant.

“Firestorm south of the Slot,” one fireman called from the street, a rolled hose on his shoulder, hurrying against the flow of the crowd, saying to them the fire was racing up Tenth to beat the band, guessing they didn’t have much time. Then he was heading for the worst of it.

Flames were higher now above the building tops, angry and dancing, the grey swirling above it. Levi helped the reverend to his feet, the man wobbling.

But his voice boomed: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone, and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”

People looked from the street.

“Walking would do you better than preaching right now, Reverend.” Levi got the old man stepping, not liking the attention.

Being led along, looking to Verna Culp, the reverend said, “I’d say amen to another dram of that heavenly milk, child. Lends strength to the limbs.”

Obliging, Verna asked his name as she watched him swig, more than half of it gone.

“Reverend Thadeus, ma’am. At your service.” Recharged, he told Levi he could manage on his own now.

“Reverend, my Milton needs words said over him, if you’re able.” Mabel started to say how he met his end.

“Fire’s not waiting on any last words,” Levi said, pointing at the flames. “No offense, ma’am, but your man would surely want you and the baby to safety.” Looking to Mack for help.

“That’s so, ma’am,” Mack said.

Assessing the flames, Thadeus said he’d keep it short, prayer knowing no distance or bounds. Being pointed in the direction of the fallen man, he took Mabel by the hand, Mack holding the child like she might break, having never held an infant. Levi scanning the crowd.

Smoke choked and stung their eyes, Mabel helped steady Thadeus, his words washing away sins and forgiving trespasses and temptations, ending with thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.

“Right, then,” Levi said, turning the old man to get them all moving, thinking he could be holding up the very reverend who’d be saying those same words over him and Mack if Quinn came along.

“You want, you go tend to business,” Mack told Levi. “I’ll see these folk to the Depot, then meet up later.” The baby crying, tiny and pink, Mack bouncing her, his face grimy and unshaven, cooing and going, shh, shh.

A steam pumper was shoved past them, its five-man fire squad heading south to do battle. A banker dragged a laden trunk on a cart, his pistol tucked in his waistband, moving north with the crowd. Looking at the man, Levi judged his chances of wresting the weapon from him without getting shot.

More flare-ups showed along Tenth, Levi getting the group as far as Market Square, the reverend barely on his feet. Flames in the upper windows of the Johnstone tower. A breeze was pushing in from the Bay, cool and holding the danger back, allowing rest for all those filling the Square.

The Victory Playhouse stood cracked open like an egg on the east side, its iron staircase spiraling at a strange angle, the roof crumbled, the upper floor exposed to the sky. A section of brick hung from an iron bar above the staircase, its fractured pillars rising to the roof beams. Bricks, plaster and shingles lay in mounds.

Perched on a marble step next to Mabel, Mack looked out at the milling folk, feeling his own weariness. Leaning against a pillar, Levi inspected his torn foot, looking back the way they had come, the spire of Reverend Thadeus’s church gone from view now, smoke hugging at street-level. He couldn’t see back as far as Van Ness.

The lodging house had been claimed, its sign declaring it the Fremont; a lumber store next door had caught fire and was belching smoke from its smashed-out windows. Smythe Bros. Wreckers stood next door; a billboard on the roof advertised building lots at Salada Beach for under three hundred bucks.

They had barely made more than a mile in the past hour. Mack getting all noble over the woman holding the baby. Levi not happy about it, pacing between busted pillars, leaving a bloody track in the ash and stone. If Quinn was alive, and if the Blazes was still standing, he’d beat them there and be waiting, wanting the gold, believing Levi and Mack had killed his brother.

Levi needed a gun.

Fixing Milton’s frock around baby Emma, Mabel took her from Mack, the child all that was holding her together. Unfastening a button, she said to Mack, “I’ll thank you to turn your head.”

Flushing, understanding what she was doing, Mack said, “Gonna do that in the open?” Turning away.

“Rather she go hungry?” she said. First time Mabel smiled, allowing Emma to nurse. Mother, her little one — all there was in the moment.

Reverend Thadeus handed Verna the flask, with his compliments, saying, “Next one’s on me.” Confessing he was partial to gin and vermouth.

Shaking the empty flask, Verna said, “Gin and vermouth’ll do fine.” Smiling at this reverend imbibing the spirits. She started to toss the flask into the wrecked Playhouse, then stopped, realizing it was about the only possession she had left. She watched Levi go down the littered steps, pushing through the throng, heading for the opposite side of the Square. Worried he was leaving them.

Miller’s Lodging House stood across and at an angle from the Playhouse. Most of its brick facade lay in the street, the interior exposed like a doll’s house, half its framework in peril. A mother and her girls gathering their possessions in what had been their second-story flat.

More folks funneled in, the Square starting to look like a cattle drive. Bodies merged, some standing, some sitting, some trying to move along Market. Two boys pushed a bed tied atop a pair of bicycles, asking folks to make way. On top lay their invalid mother, calling over to the reverend, “We’re blowing out of this town, right as rain, Reverend.” Adding they wouldn’t be at service Sunday.

Thadeus gave a wave, one of the boys saying it was too damn hard to eke a living with the good Lord causing such a thing.

“Wasn’t by the hand of the good Lord, son,” the reverend called back, thinking all these folks would be in need of church service come Sunday. And he would be there to give it, even if he had to stand in a field or on the end of a pier to do so.

Verna hadn’t noticed it past all the heads till then. The Dubloon Saloon on the northwest corner was doing a rushing business, men going in, men coming out, resembling an ant colony. Drunken men thinking if they were doomed, they’d toast the devil and be in fine form. Looking at the flask, she told Agnes she’d be right back and went down the steps and swam into the stream of people, setting course for the saloon. Agnes calling after her, wondering if she’d plumb lost her mind.

Levi stepped into Miller & Franklin’s Dry Goods, a single-story wood structure next door to the Dubloon. Otis Franklin clutched his double-barreled twelve-gauge, keeping vigil, nerves raw on account of the disorder next door: laughing and whooping men acting like it was any Saturday night.

Miller & Franklin’s had survived the depression of the nineties, got past Franklin’s wife dying of the influenza, and the earthquake shaking the whole city. Now it would face the fires, raging just a few blocks away, the Pacific breeze all that was holding it back. Otis Franklin hadn’t seen a fire squad in the past hour.

Stepping on the plank step, Levi kept his hands wide, showing the man he was unarmed, asking if he was Miller or Franklin.

Leveling the barrel, not exactly aiming it, Otis said, “Either way, we’re closed.”

“See, the hubbub took my boots.” Levi looked at his bare foot. “One of them, leastways.”

“Suppose it got your billfold, too?”

“Didn’t exactly allow for grabbing much of anything.”

“And how do I know you’re not one of these Barbary scum?” Otis nicked his head to the saloon, saying, “Drinking, likely to turn to looting.”

“I look like I’m drinking or looting?”

Otis shrugged. “Look at these crazies.”

Two juiced men do-see-doed, others clapping and stomping their feet, caroling the lyrics to “Sweet Rosie O’Grady.”

“You come along, expecting me to just hand over footwear.”

“That, and I could use a pistol.”

Otis huffed.

“You know, mister,” Levi said, “the fire finds this place, won’t make much difference, will it?”

“Wind’ll hold, and the fire brigade’s on the way.” Otis wagged the shotgun. “Now, get on with you, I got nothing for you.”

“Best of luck to you, then,” Levi said. Too tired to fight with assholes, he pushed his way back toward the Playhouse.

The baby was asleep, Mabel rocking and humming to her, Mack saying he’d be happy to hold Emma again for a while, let Mabel gain her strength. Looking at him, then letting him have the child, Mabel found humor in the way he held her, cradling Emma like she were the most unwieldy thing.

Coming up the steps, Levi looked doubtful at man and child, thinking this woman was working some mojo, having no problem with this jailbreaker now.

“Told you, go get on your way,” Mack said, feeling his uncle’s mood. “I’ll meet up at the Depot or anyplace you say.”

“Know you’re sitting out in the open, right?” Levi said, looking into the Square, leaning against the column and yanking off his one boot, flinging it into the wreckage.

“Yeah, I know it, and my money says that son got flattened by the roof beam. So go on, go and get what’s ours.”

Mabel reached for Emma, telling Mack she wouldn’t burden them any longer.

Swinging the baby from her reach, Mack said, “Don’t you start up again. Nobody said nothing about you being a burden.”

The baby began to fuss, Mack saying, “See what you done now,” bouncing and cooing to her.

Levi turned to go, looking into the crowd again, a bad feeling staying with him.