FIRE AND FOG (3 page)

"What do you mean?"

"Come to the window. Now," he said as he joined me there and put
his arm lightly about my shoulders, "lean out and look down the
street." I did so, Michael leaning with me. His lips near my ear,
he asked quietly, "Now do you understand?"

Eastward, toward Chinatown and the Bay beyond, the sky was black
with smoke. The smell of it was thick on the air, I could almost
taste it on my tongue. Bitter, ashen, horrible, it tasted like
death. "They'll stop it," I whispered.

"Not soon enough," said Michael.

All the people who had gone in that direction were now
returning, walking rapidly but in an orderly fashion. No one was
panicked. I said, "But-"

"But nothing. Come, Fremont, or I swear I'll carry you bodily
out of this place and your typewriter be damned!"

"Really, it is not necessary to be rude!"

Michael rolled his eyes but made no rejoinder. He picked up the
heavy typewriter with a good deal more ease than I had done when
moving it from the floor. "Bring only your most important papers.
And hurry!"

I hurried, grabbing from the drawer my files in their folders,
and cramming typing ribbons, pencils, pens, etc., down into my
purse. I had caught Michael's mood of urgency and emerged rather
breathless from the building. Then I blinked in disbelief.

"Where did you get that-that
thing?"

"This
thing
is a Maxwell, and I've had it for a short
time. There is no place to keep an auto at Mrs. O'Leary's, which is
why you haven't seen it before. Here, hand up those folders to me
and get in."

"Well!" was the only comment I could summon. I'd never ridden in
an automobile before; I thought them unattractive and completely
unnecessary, given that the world was full of horses needing
employment. Still, I am always ready for a new experience, even one
I have been somewhat opposed to. I put my foot on the running
board, gathered my skirt in one hand-and paused. About half a block
away two blond heads stood out above the crowd streaming toward us.
The Sorensons, surely, as they were both taller and blonder than
most people.

"Come
on,
Fremont!"

"But the Sorensons are coming. They own my building. I must
speak to them, Michael."

"Believe me, there is nothing to speak to them about. This whole
block will be nothing but cinders and ashes before the day is
out."

"You are so certain," I observed as I climbed in reluctantly and
settled myself. The area behind the seats was piled high with
Michael's possessions, mostly books, and my typewriter rode on top
of them.

"Regrettably, yes." The engine of his automobile was already
running, making a sound like a giant percolator. He did something
with a lever near my knee, and we were off.

"I think you are wrong," I said. "Where is your faith in the
fire department?"

"While you went to your office, I scouted around the city, and I
learned a few things," said Michael, setting his mouth in a way
that I knew all too well.

"Things you do not intend to divulge," I said with some
asperity.

"Later."

I had to content myself with that; usually he did not promise
even that much.

It was quite remarkable how the Maxwell took the hills all on
its own, in a sturdy, chugging fashion. I began to revise my
opinion of automobiles. (I am not often wrong, but when I am, I
hope I have the good sense to admit it!) The sensation was like
riding in an open carriage with the horse at a gallop-but without
the horse, which, of course, was what had given rise to the name
"horseless carriage"- though the vehicles were seldom called that
anymore. Nowadays one said "automobile," or "auto" for short.

I said, "I must admit, I've been unreasonably opposed to this
manner of transportation. The ride is not at all unpleasant. Where
do you stable your auto? Though I suppose 'stable' is the wrong
word."

"Ah, now you are about to learn some of my secrets," said
Michael, turning briefly toward me. He smiled, more with his eyes
than his lips. Michael has nicely shaped lips, well framed by his
beard.

"Is that so?"

"It is. I have space in a garage at the Presidio-one garages an
auto, Fremont. I also have a room at the Presidio. This is an
emergency, so I doubt anyone will object to my storing your things
in the room, along with some of my own."

How very interesting! Glancing over my shoulder as we chugged up
Van Ness and past Vallejo Street, I said in a deliberately offhand
manner, "The Presidio is a military establishment."

"United States Army."

"Aha!" I pounced on the word in my most Sherlockian fashion.
Mrs. O'Leary and I are of the opinion that Michael Archer is some
sort of spy. Of course, he will neither confirm nor deny it. He
says he is retired, but his "retirement" seems of an intermittent
sort; when he is not busy being retired I am sure he is spying. For
whom, and on whom, he spies are questions that I have been able
only to speculate upon-though he did once admit that he is of
Russian descent, so one suspects that Russia figures into it
somewhere. I asked baldly, "Are you a military spy, Michael?"

"It's called military intelligence, and the answer to your
question is no. I am not in the Army, Fremont."

"Not in the Army? Hmm. Actually, I never thought you were.
However, I note you do not deny being in some sort of
'intelligence.' And you must be in government service," I insisted,
"otherwise you would not be given space in the Presidio."

"Um-hm."

"And if you were anything other than a spy, you would not be so
secretive about it."

"As usual, Holmes, your reasoning is without flaw."

"Thank you, Watson," I said graciously.

"If you ever repeat any of this, especially to a particularly
nosy landlady, I will-I will-"

"You'll what?"

"I'll think of something."

"Something unpleasant, no doubt." I smiled. It is so gratifying
to have one's suspicions confirmed, and all the more so when those
suspicions are of long standing.

The gates of the Presidio were before us. Michael stopped the
auto and showed some identification to a uniformed guard. I scanned
the area with interest.

"Look behind us," Michael said softly.

I half rose in the seat, turned, and looked. From the heights of
the Presidio, the view was astounding. And far, far more terrible
than I could ever have imagined. I gulped, and said the obvious.
"San Francisco is burning!"

That night Mrs. O'Leary and I climbed to the top of Russian Hill
and watched the fires. Michael was not with us. The police had
pressed every automobile they could find into service as an
ambulance. Hospitals had to be evacuated and people injured in the
quake or the fire transported. This effort included the Maxwell,
with Michael as its driver.

The hilltop was elbow to elbow with people. When anyone spoke it
was in hushed tones.

"It is fascinating, in a horrible way," I said to Mrs. O.

"I see wotcha mean," she replied briefly. She had spent the last
of her garrulousness on convincing Michael that she would not leave
her house and take shelter in the Presidio. I was glad to stay with
her, for I thought she was right, and Michael-for all his good
intentions-was being an alarmist. Before being summoned for
ambulance duty, he had removed a large number of his books, his
papers, and all of his clothes from the house to his room at the
Presidio. Because he insisted, I had done the same. We made more
trips back and forth than I could count. But Mrs. O'Leary would let
Michael take none of her things.

Now she muttered, as she had done at least twenty times before,
"The fire won't come up on these hills, they'll see to that." There
were more mutterings around us in the same vein.

All humans are fascinated by fire. I suppose it is an atavism, a
soul-deep remembrance of ancient times when fire was worshiped for
its heat and light and held in awe for its destructive properties.
We stood awestruck on our hilltop for hours. The clear weather had
held all day and into the night; visibility was good, and we could
see for miles. The sky to the south and east blazed orange,
brighter than dawn. Below us, in a direct line from Russian Hill to
the Bay, North Beach lay dark, untouched. But a mere few blocks to
the south the entire business district was dotted with more fires
than I could count-and these were but the remains of a general
conflagration that had consumed the area during the day. Farther
south, a wall of fire raged, seemingly limitless. I dared not think
how much of the unfortunate area South of the Slot had burned, and
was burning still.

The wind shifted, and a great gasp came in unison from our crowd
as a curtain of fiery sparks billowed in our direction. But they
did not reach us on top of Russian Hill, they showered down over
Chinatown, which was already gone. We all sighed in relief. Mrs.
O'Leary crossed herself. I wondered if I should get religion before
this was all over.

When I judged it to be well past midnight, I put my hand on Mrs.
O'Leary's arm. "We should go home and try to get some rest. We
don't know what we'll be called upon to do tomorrow, and certainly
we will need our strength."

She merely nodded, and came with me.

Many people sat on their steps, not wanting to go back inside
their houses for fear another quake would come and trap them
inside. The lurching aftershocks we'd felt from time to time fed
that fear. While I shared it to a certain extent, I thought it
unreasonable, owing to the comparative mildness of the aftershocks,
and I wanted my bed.

I asked my landlady, "Will you come in?"

She shook her head and sat down heavily on her own front steps.
I started up them. "Ain'cha afraid, Fremont?" she asked in a
querulous voice, quite unlike her normal tone.

"Not very," I replied gently, "but I
am
very tired and
I'll sleep better in my bed. At least this time the wardrobe can't
fall on me-Michael helped me shift it off the bed, and it's flat on
the floor. Good night, Mrs. O'Leary."

I did not know what time it was when I went to bed, for every
timepiece in the house was broken. Unhappily, this included the
pendant watch my father had given me for my twenty-first birthday.
Only two years ago, yet it now seemed another life altogether.

As I curled on my side and lay waiting for sleep to come, I
thought I must find a way to get word to Father that I was all
right. San Francisco's telegraph lines were down; I wondered about
Oakland, across the Bay. Surely from there, or somewhere, the rest
of the world would have heard by now about our earthquake and the
fires raging.

"Fremont, Fremont, wake up!"

I opened one eye, then closed it again. "Michael, you are
becoming a bother."

"On the contrary, you're the one who's a bother, and Mrs.
O'Leary is worse!" He shook my shoulder.

I opened both eyes and grumbled, "You shouldn't be in here."
Then I awoke more fully. "Michael, what are you doing in my room?
What time is it?"

"It's about five o'clock, and I need your help. Are you awake
now?"

"Yes." I sat up, holding the blanket modestly up to my chin.

"Then get dressed, please, and join me downstairs in my living
room. I've brought some coffee and rolls. I have many things to
tell you. We've a rough day ahead."

"It couldn't be rougher than yesterday," I grumped, but the
effect was lost on Michael. He'd already gone.

I stumbled to the bathroom, where I discovered there was no
water pressure. The toilet would not flush, and the faucet in the
sink produced only a thin trickle. This was all so inconvenient!
Nevertheless, I managed to make myself look presentable enough in
the skirt and blouse I'd held back so that I might have a clean
change of clothes.

"Early morning is not my best time of day," I confessed a few
minutes later, sniffing at the coffee Michael handed me. It smelled
delicious.

"So I observed." He sounded amused.

Suddenly I was ravenous. We ate and drank in silence. By my
second cup of coffee, I had begun to think, and to feel. My primary
feeling of the moment was deep concern for Michael Archer. His face
and clothes were smudged with soot, and there were deep circles
under his eyes.

"You look exhausted," I said. "Did you sleep at all?"

He smiled. "No, I didn't. Thank you for your concern."

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes." The smile faded.

"What can I do to help?"

"First, you can persuade Mrs. O'Leary to leave this house and
come with us to the Presidio. We'll be safe there."

"She won't go."

"She'll have to. The fire has reached the foot of Nob Hill,
Fremont. All the houses on this side of Van Ness are to be
evacuated. Soldiers from the Presidio have joined with the police
to keep order and to enforce the evacuation. They've already
started knocking on doors. It will be far easier for her to come
now, before they get here. I have the Maxwell outside and we can
take one load of her things if we leave soon, but if she waits
until they force her out, she'll have to leave with nothing. I
think you'll have more success making her understand than I
could."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we'll have to leave her to the authorities. I tried to
tell you both yesterday evening: the firemen can't keep up with
these fires. Many of the water lines are broken, the underground
cisterns are inadequate, and there's no way to pump water from the
Bay. Last night I learned that Fire Chief Sullivan was knocked
unconscious in the earthquake and is not expected to live. Without
him, there was no leadership for quite some time yesterday, which
only exacerbated an impossible situation. The firefighting is more
organized now, with the deputy chief in command. I know today they
plan to begin using dynamite."