Janet Quin-Harkin (42 page)

All through October the Indian summer continued, and Libby was glad to learn that her case would come up in the district court in Sacramento during the first week of November.

“Finally I’ll get this matter sorted out,” she said to Don Miguel, who was having water troubles of his own. The streams he used to water his cattle had dried. In the past he had also made use of Libby’s river in such dry years. “The water carts have just about kept me going, but if we have a dry winter, my new fruit trees won’t survive. It will give me great satisfaction to claim lost income from Mr. Rival. Let’s see his face when he has to pay me for lost profits.”

“And if you lose,
Señora
Libby?” Don Miguel asked softly.

“Lose?” Libby asked in surprise. “How can I lose? You and I both know that morally I am in the right. Water belongs to everyone. An individual cannot deprive a whole valley for his own selfish needs.”

“I hope this is so, for both our sakes,” Don Miguel said.

Libby gave him a convincing smile. “Don’t worry, Don Miguel. If necessary I will turn my feminine charm on the judge and melt his hard old heart.”

“Your lawyer, he is a good man?” Don Miguel asked.

“So they say,” Libby said. “I have only corresponded with him so far, but I understand he is very clever, and honest, which are not a usual combination in the lawyers one finds out here.”

“Then I would ask a big favor,” Don Miguel said. He turned his hat over nervously in his hands. “I would ask you to speak to this lawyer for me.”

“About your proof of ownership, you mean?”

Don Miguel nodded seriously.

“I have talked with my wife
Señora
Libby. We think you are right, we need Yankee lawyer to make Yankee judge listen.”

“I’ll be happy to speak to my lawyer about you,” Libby said. “I hope he can help.”

“I am very grateful,” he said, bowing. “I know if you think he is honest man he will not try to cheat me.”

The week before Libby was due to go to court, the rains began. One evening the sky was flecked with bars of cloud, hard dark lines among the pink of the setting sun. The wind sprang up, brisk and cooler. The next morning Libby woke to hear pattering on the roof. She ran outside in her nightdress, standing on the dry earth and letting the cold drops spatter all over her.

“It’s rain, we’ve made it,” she shouted, dancing around wildly. “Now all we need is enough of it.”

As if in answer to her request, the skies suddenly opened and rain fell in a solid sheet. Libby gasped and scrambled back inside, her hair and garments sodden in that moment. The rain now drummed rather than pattered on the roof. Gusts of wind buffeted the house.

She had just finished dressing when Ah Fong appeared. “You don’t think it will flatten the fruit trees?” Libby asked anxiously. “You did stake them well?”

“You know I did. You were there. You helped.”

“I know,” Libby said, “but it would be terrible if rain flattened all the things we’ve fought to keep alive all summer.”

“I go inspect them now,” Ah Fong said.

“I’ll come too,” Libby agreed. She pulled her cape over her clothing and they made their way, slithering and sliding through the new mud and rivulets, down to the fields. The wind and rain were so strong that they almost took her breath away. It was hard to see more than a few feet ahead of them and Libby’s clothing was sodden and muddy. They went from tree to tree, tightening stakes and straightening saplings that had started to lean. By the time they got home they were both unrecognizable, caked and plastered in brown mud, their hair making rivers down their faces.

“Good job no man come courting missee right now,” Ah Fong said. “He turn right around and go home again.”

“You’re right,” Libby said. “And it’s a good job your bride hasn’t arrived from China yet, because she’d sail right home again too.”

He and Libby looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Ah Fong, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said at last. “I’d never have made it without you.”

“I know,” he said with his usual lack of modesty. “Now go get hot bath before you catch death of cold.”

All day long the rain continued unabated. The new pond began to fill. It rained all night too and when they woke in the morning the water had risen significantly.

“If it keeps on like this, we’ll have the pond filled in a few days,” Libby said as she and Ah Fong went out to inspect it. “I’ve never seen it rain this hard for this long.”

“In China it rain like this,” Ah Fong said.

“It does?”

“And then we have big flood and many people get killed.”

“Then I’m glad we decided to build above the valley floor,” Libby said. “I wonder if the Sacramento River is flooding yet.”

“Have to wait for rain to come down from mountains,” Ah Fong said. “That’s when water get real bad. In China river rise to banks and then water come rushing down from mountains and flood all over.”

“At least we don’t have a river to worry about anymore,” Libby said. “I wonder if the rain’s getting close to Mr. Rival’s doorstep.”

“Maybe it come right through his house,” Ah Fong said.

The rain continued unabated for a second day, blurring the horizon into a gray haze in all directions and turning the ground around the house into mud, so that the passage between house and kitchen was very treacherous.

“If this keeps up, I don’t know that I’ll be able to get down to Sacramento,” Libby said to Don Miguel as he rode by to check on her. “How ironic that my case should come to court and I might be prevented from appearing because of too much water.”

“That is often the way of God,” Don Miguel said. “He mocks us sometimes, I fear.”

“I don’t think God is like that,” Libby said seriously. “I can’t believe that He is responsible for weather. And if this is a heavenly warning that I shouldn’t go to Sacramento, then I’m ignoring it. If I can’t get the buckboard through, I’ll take the mule.”

Toward the end of the week the rain did ease to a fine drizzle, interspersed with periods of watery sunshine and mild temperatures which brought out every insect known to man. Inspecting the fields meant constant slapping at mosquitoes and swatting away flies.

“But at least I think I dare risk the buckboard,” Libby said. “I’d hate to see that corn go moldy sitting here.”

“You like Chinese market woman,” Ah Fong said, grinning at her. “You go crazy if you can’t make sale.”

“It makes sense to take the wagon,” Libby defended. Hitch up the horse and the mule for me. “Maybe I can pick up new plants to put in this winter.”

“Take care, missee,” Ah Fong said as she set off.

She kissed the children goodbye, adjusted the oilcloth over her clothes, and splashed away in the buckboard. The going was tedious with large areas so deeply flooded that it looked as if the buckboard were travelling across a lake. Several times along the way she had to get out and use old sacks to get the wagon wheels through the thick mud. She looked down at her mud-encrusted skirt. Her legs were a most unfeminine brown to the knee and she was glad that her case did not come to court until the next day.

The fine light rain continued all the way down to Sacramento. It was almost evening by the time Libby arrived. By that time the rain had stopped and white mist curled over the wet fields with a blood-red sun setting above it. Over the city itself rose thick black smoke, mingled with the mist and flattened into a low cloud with clear blue evening sky above it. As she approached she could see that bonfires were burning on almost every city corner. The new levee had kept the city from becoming another lake, but the streets were still deep in foul-smelling mud and pools of flood water dotted the surrounding area. Elegant white egrets decorated the scene but insects rose in clouds and Libby slapped at mosquitoes which whined around her face.

Farther into the city, the air became so thick and heavy with evil- smelling smoke that the horse became alarmed and Libby was forced to get down from the buckboard and lead it and the mule. She was glad to see Mark Hopkins’ new store ahead of her through the murk and tried to scrape off the worst of the mud as she tied the horses to the rail. The new store, Hopkins and Hutchinson, Purveyors, looked very impressive and civilized with its burning lamps and brick frontage. Mark Hopkins came hurrying through from a back room to greet her, a quill pen stuck behind his ear.

“My dear, what a surprise to see you,” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. You caught me in the middle of accounts.”

“A pleasant pastime, I hope?” Libby asked.

Mark smiled. “We have done well—very well indeed. I’ll be looking at sites in San Francisco this winter. I aim to build myself a very fine house. But what brings you down here at this worst of times? It must be important, to take such a risk.”

“What do you mean, worst of times?” Libby asked.

“My dear, haven’t you heard? The city is riddled with disease. All this rain and the mild temperatures—every fever imaginable is raging through the town: typhus, cholera, smallpox. . . .”

“Is that what all the fires are about?” Libby asked.

“They are hoping that they will stop the sickness from spreading if they can eliminate some of the garbage in the streets,” Hopkins said. “To my mind the fires are worse than the garbage ever was. Before, at least one could breathe. I wouldn’t stay the night if I were you, unless you really have to.”

“I’m afraid I do have to,” Libby said. “My case comes up in court tomorrow. I’m on my way to meet my lawyer as soon as I’ve had a bath at the hotel.”

“Could you not get it postponed?” Mark Hopkins asked with concern. “The situation here is very bad and a victory in court wouldn’t mean much if you came down with cholera or smallpox.”

“I can’t postpone it now, Mark,” she said. “Not after waiting too long and going through so much inconvenience. Besides, you chose to stay.”

“I am a free man with no dependents,” Mark Hopkins said, “and as you know, I am very particular in my habits. I do not eat or drink in public places anymore. I have been burning mosquito coils in my rooms at all times and I think that helps. I can give you some for tonight.”

“Thank you,” Libby said.

“Take my advice and don’t eat in public restaurants or go where people are,” Mark said. “There is a new hotel just opened in town which seems to be a very high-class establishment.

“Oh, really?” Libby asked. “What’s it called.”

“It’s the Orleans Hotel. I understand that they had it constructed in New Orleans and then taken apart to be shipped around the Horn. I don’t know how they managed it, but the quality of the workmanship and the service is definitely superior—why, Libby, what’s the matter? Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“No, I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” she managed to answer. How could she explain to an acquaintance like Mark Hopkins what memories his words evoked and the effect they had on her. Instantly, her mind swung back to the narrow back street full of puddles and a tall dark man stepping out of the shadows to rescue her.

“The weather is very unpleasant,” Mark Hopkins went on. “So humid and this terrible smoke. I would go straight to the Orleans and rest if I were you, my dear. And have them send food up to your room. Avoid all public places—that’s my motto.”

“I can hardly have the court session held in my room,” Libby said, smiling, “but I will take your advice and leave town as soon as possible.”

After Libby left Mark Hopkins, she was of two minds whether to go to the Orleans Hotel. She knew it made sense to go to the place with the highest standards of cleanliness, and yet, to spend the night in a room built in New Orleans. . . . This is all nonsense, she said to herself. No good comes from brooding over the past. I’m a businesswoman and I’ve come here to win a court case. Nothing else matters.

It was already dark by the time Libby arrived at the hotel, well lit with polished brass lamps outside and equally polished marble steps leading to a panelled foyer. She looked around with approval. The counter was of rich mahogany. There were ferns in brass pots. Definitely a civilized establishment. She rang the counter bell and a pleasant-faced woman, dressed in black, came out of a back room.

“Not the best of times to be visiting the city, ma’am,” she commented as she handed Libby the visitor’s book. “Will you be staying long?”

“I plan to leave tomorrow,” Libby said. “I understand that Sacramento is no place to linger in at the moment.”

A look of concern crossed the woman’s face. “Indeed it isn’t, ma’am. We do our best in an establishment such as this, but one can never be too careful. I make the maids scrub everything daily and I’m boiling the sheets extra long in the copper, but these fevers don’t seem to care whom they strike. There was a gentleman came in here earlier this week, as fine spoken a man as you could wish and obviously well-heeled too. He complained of feeling unwell and in the morning he was down with fever. I had to have him taken off to the hospital, poor man. I’d like to have kept him here, but it wouldn’t be fair to the other guests, would it?”

Libby finished signing the book and her eye scanned the page as the landlady prattled on. Then she stood, transfixed, the cold creeping up her spine, as she saw at the top of the page the bold flourish of the signature: Gabriel Foster, arrived from San Francisco, November 3, 1851.

L
lBBY CONTINUED TO
stare down at the flourishes of Gabe’s signature until she could regain her composure. She had almost perfect control of her voice as she turned back to the landlady.

“This gentleman,” Libby said. “He wasn’t, by any chance, the one who was stricken with fever?”

The woman leaned across the counter to read the name. “Why yes, that was him. Poor Mr. Foster. Such a nice man. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” Libby said. “Was he here alone?”

“Quite alone, ma’am,” the landlady said. “That was part of the trouble. I asked him if I could get in touch with anyone to come and take him away and he said there was nobody, so I had to have him sent to the fever hospital. It fair broke my heart. That hospital’s no place for a gentleman, especially not now, the way they’re crammed in.”