Janet Quin-Harkin (34 page)

Poor Hugh, she thought, looking down at the crude wooden cross and the fresh yellow earth. It’s not fair that your last place on earth should be so far from what you wanted. She seriously considered having his remains shipped over to England to be buried with his family, then she dismissed the idea. Hugh wanted to return home in triumph or not at all. If she took the children to England later, she would take him with her. Not that it mattered very much. She felt very strongly that Hugh was not there. He was already very far away, probably laughing at the irony of his stupid, unnecessary end.

When she came home again she was strangely lethargic, unable to show any interest in the profits which came in from the garden or for Ah Fong’s great ideas for expansion.

“You going to leave this ground doing nothing, after I put all that good dung in it?” he asked her.

“We might not be here next year,” Libby said. “It doesn’t make any sense to plant stuff now.”

“Doesn’t make sense to leave good ground for the weeds,” Ah Fong said. “How about we put in winter cabbage? Then if you go in winter, still get some money.”

“If you like, Ah Fong,” Libby said. “Do what you like.”

The one positive outcome of Hugh’s death was that it brought her community sympathy for the first time. Men made a point of stopping off at the cabin on their way to and from town, expressing their condolences, cursing “them varmints,” and often leaving a present or even a gold nugget “for the girls and the little one that’s coming.” She had offers of firewood for the winter and a replacement for the mule which had been lost in the heat of battle. Libby never did hear whether the skirmish had been a success. She didn’t want to know. If she had any emotion at all it was anger at the stupidity of wanting to punish a whole tribe for what must have been the anti-social actions of just one or two members, and was most likely a justifiable retaliation for brutal treatment by settlers in the first place. She knew that many of the miners talked of shooting Indians for sport, just as they would talk of shooting deer, and in her heart, she was on the Indians’ side.

Among the procession of men who stopped by at the cabin was Mark Hopkins, looking very prosperous in a city suit with a gold watch chain and riding on a fine-looking horse.

“I just heard the news when I got back to town,” he said, mopping his brow with a white handkerchief as he dismounted. “I came to say how very sorry I am. I really thought things were going well for you at last.”

Libby nodded. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

Libby stared out past him, over the golden hills. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. I suppose I should take the children to England, because that’s what Hugh wanted. . . .”

“But you don’t want to go?”

“I’d be a foreigner there,” she said. “I wouldn’t know anybody. I’d have to wear a corset again.”

Mark laughed.

“You know what I mean,” she said, smiling too. “I’ve become so used to living out here with no restraints and no formalities. I’m beginning to wonder whether I wouldn’t suffocate with all the restrictions of English upper-class life. I wouldn’t even know which fork to use after eating from tin plates with spoons for all this while.”

“If you don’t go, will you stay on here?”

“I don’t know about that, either,” she said. “I can see that this is not an ideal place to bring up children. It’s very isolated, there’s no school, but at least I’m providing well for my family here.”

“For the time being,” Mark said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we’ve already had the gold boom,” Mark said. “From now on it’s all downhill. Too many men and not enough gold. It will peter out and then they’ll all drift away again.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“San Francisco,” Mark said, his face lighting up. “I’m on my way there now. I’ve come to say goodbye. I’ve sold my store here and I’m moving down to the valley. I’m having a store built in Sacramento to supply the mines, but I’m also looking for a home in San Francisco. Sacramento is no place to spend the winter, unless one is a duck. I’m also considering putting money into property down there, where the boom’s just starting. You might consider doing the same.”

“Me, buy property in San Francisco?” Libby asked.

“Why not?” Mark Hopkins asked. “Right now you can buy lots for a song. I’m thinking of buying a large stretch of sand dunes.”

“What on earth for?”

He grinned, the same boyish grin. “Because the city has got to spread and when it does, my sand dunes will be worth millions.”

She looked at him admiringly. “You really do like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

“It’s the only way,” he said. “Risks are good. They make you feel as if you’re truly alive. Calculated risks, of course. You do need a smart head on your shoulders to start with. But I think you have that too.”

Libby smiled to acknowledge the compliment. “But from what I hear, San Francisco is hardly the place to think of bringing up children right now. All that corruption and violence and bawdy living . . .”

“It will outgrow all that soon enough,” Hopkins said. “In the meantime, why don’t you speculate a little. I’m sure you’ve made a tidy profit this summer. Let me put some of your money into lots for you. It doesn’t have to be a great deal and I think you’ll be surprised how quickly you can double and triple your investment.”

“I don’t know,” Libby said. “I seem to have been saying that ever since Hugh died. I just can’t make up my mind anymore. I was so decisive and headstrong when I came here and I seem to have turned into one of my own vegetables.”

“You’re still shocked and grieving,” Hopkins said gently. “It’s understandable. Healing takes a while.”

“I think I’m more angry than grieving,” Libby confessed. “And guilty too. I keep thinking I could have done more to stop them from taking him. He wasn’t fit to ride all that way and I knew it. I tried to stop them, but I should have done more—got a doctor to forbid it or even lain down in front of the horses. He looked so frail when he set off. . . .” Her voice trailed away.

Hopkins put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “This country wasn’t meant for people like Hugh,” he said. “It eats people like him for breakfast and spits out the bones. You have to be tough like us to survive.”

Libby looked down at the ground. A line of big black ants was attempting to move a grass stalk across the sandy trail. It seemed like a hopeless task but they kept going back patiently every time the stalk got stuck behind a pebble. “I used to think I was tough,” she said in a small voice, “but I don’t think I am anymore. I don’t know what I want or where I want to be. Nothing seems to matter to me.”

“Give it time,” Mark said. “Take care of yourself. Have the baby and then decide. I’ll give you an address in San Francisco where I can be reached. Look me up if you decide to come down there. Maybe you’d do better to spend the winter there if the baby’s due soon—better doctors and less chance of getting stranded in the mud or snow.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t leave it too late.”

“I know. I’ll make up my mind soon.” Libby said.

“Take care,” he said and shook her hand warmly.

After he had gone the lethargy returned, enhanced by the Indian summer which came with a vengeance in late September. The sun beat down mercilessly, bleaching the dry grasses ghost white and shrivelling any plant that dared to show its head. The winds that came up from the Sacramento Valley were fierce, hot winds that seemed to snatch away breath.

“Now are you glad we didn’t start a whole new garden?” Libby asked Ah Fong. “We’d have had to sit by and watch it shrivel.”

“This not good place for garden,” Ah Fong said. “We need place near big stream or good well. Then dig lots of little ditches and plants grow all time. We go find place like that, yes?”

“I can’t decide anything until after the baby is born,” Libby said. “It’s too hot even to think.”

She spent her days sitting under the biggest oak, splashing herself with water and fanning herself. She was sitting there when she saw a spiral of smoke rise from the valley below. It looked too substantial for the usual campfire smoke and was soon rising up and spreading out across the sky.

“Ah Fong, look. There’s a fire,” she called.

Ah Fong came running. “That down in town,” he said. “Too bad. Wind’s coming too.”

As they watched, the spiral turned from white to gray to black, billowing out into angry clouds. Red tongues of flame could be seen dancing among the smoke billows and the smell of burning wood was carried to them on the hot wind.

“I no like,” Ah Fong said, sniffing the wind like an animal. “Wind getting stronger and fire comes this way.”

“Surely they’d put it out before it gets all the way up here?” Libby said, not feeling too much alarm. They continued to watch as the black smoke spread. They could hear the first sounds of fire; the clang of a bell, the neighing of frightened horses, and then the crackle and roar. The wind had live sparks in it.

Libby was just wondering whether they should do something when a horseman galloped up the trail. “All Hangtown’s burning and it’s racing this way almost as fast as I could ride,” he shouted. “Get out while you still can.”

“Where should we go?” Libby yelled back. The whole countryside was tinder dry and the wind was gusting as it always did at late afternoon.

“Get down to the creek,” the man shouted. “Where it’s all dug up and there’s no vegetation. At least you can get in the water if you have to there.”

He galloped on to warn the next settlers. Libby looked at Ah Fong. “Are the children still down at the creek?” she asked. The two little girls had found a favorite wading pool where they spent the hottest days.

“Yes, missee,” Ah Fong said, staring at the approaching conflagration as if he were hypnotized.

“Then get down there and join them,” Libby said. “Take them out to that bar in the middle—the one that’s all gravel.”

“What you do, missee?”

“I’m just going to check the cabin first,” Libby said.

“Don’t wait too long. Fire run faster than horses,” Ah Fong said.

“I’ll be right down,” Libby shouted after him and picked up her skirts to run to the cabin. She stood inside, enjoying the semidarkness, looking at all the familiar objects. Two years ago she would have despised any of these things, thinking them too coarse. Now she looked with affection at the black stove which had kept them warm all winter, the rickety bed in the corner, the pans she had made her pies in.

“This is nonsense,” she said to herself. “I can’t risk getting burned alive just for a few objects. Objects can be replaced. People can’t.” She snatched the rifle off the wall and the ammunition pouch beside it, then impetuously took Gabe’s wolfskins and ran down the hill, clutching them to her. Ah Fong looked at her curiously as she waded the shallow water to join him, but he said nothing about the strange selection process of the western woman’s brain.

“The fire won’t get to our cabin, will it, Mama?” Eden asked.

“I hope not,” Libby said, “but we can’t take any chances.” She looked around in alarm. “Where’s Bliss?”

“She was right here,” Ah Fong said. “She was sitting there playing with the pebbles a second ago.”

Libby scanned the empty stretch of beach. “Bliss!” she shouted. The only sound was the distant roar of the fire.

“Where can she be?” Libby screamed in panic.

“Perhaps she went back to get her dolly,” Eden said.

“She did what?” Libby almost shook her.

Eden’s frightened little face stared up at her in alarm. “She asked me if all our stuff would get burned up and then she said she didn’t want her dolly to get burned.”

“And you let her go?”

“I didn’t see her go,” Eden said, starting to cry. “I didn’t know she’d go.”

“Just stay here with Ah Fong,” Libby shouted.

“Missee, you no go. I go for you!” Ah Fong yelled but Libby was already wading back, not attempting to pick up her skirts this time, which clung in a sodden mass around her legs. Gasping and panting, she scrambled up the hillside, steadying herself on the manzanita bushes which jutted across the path. The fire was all too real a danger now. She could hear the crackle of burning grass, the roar as it consumed a new tree and she could taste the smoke. Ashes floated and fell, some igniting new fires as they landed in the dry grass. When she glanced down the hill, it seemed as if the whole valley was burning and all the anger of hell was sweeping up to swallow her.

“Bliss!” she yelled hoarsely. “Bliss, come to Mama right now!”

The cabin door was open. Libby sprinted across the clearing. Bliss was crouched down on the cabin floor, her doll on the floor beside her.

“I can’t find dolly’s shoe,” she complained. “I think it fell down the side of the bed.”

“Come with me right now,” Libby said, grabbing her daughter’s hand. “Quickly.”

“But dolly can’t go without her shoe,” Bliss said, starting to wail. “I want dolly’s shoes.” She struggled to get away from Libby’s grasp.

“Damn dolly’s shoe,” Libby said, slapping her hard across the bare leg. “Do you want to get burned up?” She swept the crying child under one arm and staggered out of the house with her. Tongues of flame were licking up the hillside and sweeping along the creek ahead of them, barring the way they had come. Libby looked around in panic, then put down the frightened child.

“Don’t leave me, Mama. I’ll be good,” Bliss screamed in terror.

Libby had already run back into the house and came back with a bucket of water, which she poured over the little girl, then over herself. Then she ran with the trembling child to an old oak tree, hollowed on one side by a lightning strike. She thrust Bliss inside first then crouched next to her, holding her wet apron over both their faces. She felt the heat as the grass around them burst into flame. Flames licked hungrily at the tree trunk and sizzled against the wet cloth. The roaring was louder than a storm wind and the smoke choked them, making them cough and retch. She heard the crackle as a branch above caught on fire. Sparks rained down. Libby’s head was singing as she fought unconsciousness.