Into the Firestorm (14 page)

Nick stood back and read the words out loud:

Shakespeare’s Scribes

Quality Stationers

Open for Business in the New

San Francisco

With a New Name and

Expanded Management Team

N
OW THAT YOU’VE SURVIVED

THE FIRE AND THE QUAKE
,

IT’S TIME TO TELL THE FOLKS BACK HOME

YOU’RE SAFE
,
FOR GOODNESS
’
SAKE
.

S
O STOP IN HERE FOR POSTCARDS
,
PAPER
,
AND A PEN
.

W
E’VE GOT SOME FOR WOMEN AND SOME FOR MEN
.

A
ND IF YOU CANNOT WRITE
,
DON’T WORRY
,

FOR WE CAN FIX THAT IN A HURRY
.

P
AT AND
N
ICK WILL BE YOUR SCRIBES
,

WITH WORTHY
S
HAKESPEARE AT OUR SIDES
.

Shakespeare barked three times and grinned. He wagged his tail, his whole body wriggling with joy. Pat Patterson wrote his name on the bottom of the sign with a flourish and handed the pen to Nick.

“Sign your name, Nicholas Dray, boy hero and businessman of San Francisco.”

Nick threw his cap into the air and then took the pen in his hand to begin.

E
PILOGUE

One afternoon in late fall, when the air was still full of hammering and pounding and trucks and carts unloading supplies, Nicholas Dray came down Montgomery on his way home.

He was about to turn the corner onto Jackson Street when he saw a man pacing up and down the sidewalk, muttering under his breath.

To Nick’s surprise, the man suddenly threw himself on the curb and buried his head in his hands. His shoulders heaved. At first Nick thought he might be drunk—after all, Hotaling’s whiskey was pretty popular these days.

Nick knew that although liquor had been banned in San Francisco for ten weeks after the disaster, the stash that Ed Lind had managed to save had been sold elsewhere. It had given the company a boost. Best of all, Ed Lind had been promoted for his extraordinary efforts in saving the warehouse.

Nick wasn’t that surprised to see the grief-stricken man on the curb. For a long time after the disaster, people had been desperately seeking their lost relatives. It wasn’t easy to find survivors, especially among those who had lived in the rooming houses south of the Slot.

Now the city was being rebuilt, with new businesses opening every day. Most of the relief camps had closed. Some people without homes had left the city altogether. Others had moved into small wooden houses—shacks, really—that folks called earthquake cottages.

Thanks to Pat and Mr. Lind, Annie’s family hadn’t had to live at the camp at Golden Gate Park for long. Mr. Lind had found them a room to stay in at the back of the warehouse until the rooming house on the corner was rebuilt.

Seeing this man on the curb now made Nick think about Annie’s father. How she had worried what would happen if he came back to look for her! And for a moment, Nick’s heart lifted. But then he realized the truth—this man was too old to be Annie’s father.

Nick knew Annie hadn’t given up hope that her father would come back, but she didn’t talk about him so often anymore. She was busy helping her mother, for one thing. Mrs. Sheridan managed the rooming house now, a job that allowed her to take care of baby Will.

“As I climb the stairs ten times a day without any pain in my side whatsoever,” Mrs. Sheridan told Nick one day, “I often think how I would never have made it out of the building without you.”

“You shouldn’t thank me, ma’am,” Nick said. “I…I don’t really deserve it. The truth is, I forgot about Annie that day. If she hadn’t shouted for me…”

“Have you been feeling guilty all this time?” Mrs. Sheridan smiled. “Don’t worry about Annie Sheridan, Nick. Like this city, my girl is a survivor.”

Sometimes Annie, Shakespeare, and Nick walked through Chinatown. After a long struggle by the Chinese people of San Francisco, Chinatown was being rebuilt in the same neighborhood.

“Do we come here so often because we’re still looking for your friend?” Annie asked once.

“I guess so. But I have a feeling he’s not coming back,” Nick told her. “I went looking for him at the relief camps, but I never found him. He had a dream of being a singer. Maybe he’s onstage somewhere.”

That’s what he told Annie. But Nick knew the truth was probably a lot different. More likely, Tommy had ended up living in a home for Chinese orphans or working for another greedy relative.

Annie nodded solemnly. “Well, I’ll fly to the North Star tonight and help him find his way. You never know.”

You never know.
Nick remembered Annie’s words when, many months later, he came home to find a letter on the store counter addressed to
Nick, The Stationery Store, Jackson Street, San Francisco.

“Hullo, my boy,” said Pat, coming out from the back room, followed by Shakespeare, who jumped up and licked Nick’s face. “Glad to see you’re home from school. I’m just back here doing the books. Come tell me about your day.”

“Hi, Pat,” Nick replied with a grin. “I’ll be right there.”

Nick put his schoolbooks down on the counter and opened the envelope. Inside was a small newspaper clipping. He unfolded it carefully as Shakespeare leaned against him, and smiled when he saw the headline, “All-Chinese Barbershop Quartet to Perform in New York City.”

Nick laughed as he scanned the article. So, Tommy had made it! He was singing in New York.

The envelope felt heavy. Something else was in there. Reaching inside, Nick’s fingers closed tightly around a silver quarter. Then he drew out the other quarter from his pocket.

For a long moment, he stared down at the two shiny coins in his hands. He had both together again, just like when he’d started out on his journey. But so much had changed.

Nick wondered if anything had changed for Rebecca. Most likely, though, she was still working in Mr. Hank’s fields.

And then there was Gran. Thinking of her made his heart ache. It probably always would. Yet Nick could imagine Gran looking at him now and giving a satisfied nod.
Although,
he thought,
she’d probably want me to cut my hair.

At that moment a bell tinkled and the door behind him opened.

“Good afternoon. I’m looking for an inkwell as a present for my wife,” said a tall gentleman with a black umbrella. “Can you help me, young man?”

Nick folded up the clipping so he could show it to Annie later. He slipped the two coins carefully into his pocket.

“I certainly can, sir,” said Nick with a grin, giving Shake a pat. “Welcome to Shakespeare’s Scribes.”

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE

Into the Firestorm
is fiction, but it is set during real events. In 1906 San Francisco was the largest city west of the Mississippi, with a population of 410,000. The San Francisco earthquake and fire, one of the worst natural disasters in American history, began at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906.

Today we understand more about how earthquakes occur than people did at the time. The top layer of the earth is called the crust. It’s made of several thin and rigid pieces called plates, which move and push against one another. As they do, weak spots or breaks, called faults, may develop. When pressure along the faults builds up, the plates jerk and slip, releasing waves of energy that cause the shaking that occurs in an earthquake. The San Francisco earthquake occurred along the San Andreas Fault, which extends about 290 miles along the California coast between the Pacific plate on the west and the North American plate to the east.

Although the earthquake caused major damage to buildings, the worst destruction occurred from fires. Many began as a result of open gas mains or faulty stoves. One of the largest, called the “Ham and Eggs Fire,” broke out shortly after the earthquake on Wednesday morning when a woman began cooking breakfast, unaware that her stove was damaged.

The city’s firefighters fought valiantly. San Francisco had a professional fire department of about six hundred firefighters, with more than three hundred horses to pull fire equipment. But the firefighters couldn’t control the flames. The fire alarm and telephone systems were down, and many streets were blocked by rubble. And while there was water in some of the reservoir systems, firefighters often couldn’t make use of it because the earthquake had ruptured underground water mains and other pipes. Since the firefighters couldn’t get water flowing through their hoses, they used dynamite to create firebreaks. But because the dynamite was often used incorrectly, instead of stopping the fire, it caused the fire to spread.

As the fires spewed huge plumes of dark smoke, thousands of people took refuge in city parks in large tent cities. San Francisco lost most of the downtown area. By the time the fires were finally controlled on Saturday morning, 28,188 structures and 508 city blocks, or 4.7 square miles, had been destroyed. During the disaster, soldiers patrolled the streets with orders to shoot looters.

For many years, the official estimate of the number of deaths was about 450. Collapsing buildings probably caused most of the deaths. Now, however, thanks to the efforts of city archivist Gladys Hansen, it is thought that about three thousand people perished.

Into the Firestorm
was inspired by a story I came across while researching the disaster. A boy named Charles Nicholas Dray had run away from a county poor farm and been taken in by a local merchant just a few days before the fire. Left alone while his new employer was away on business, Nick braved a soldier’s gun to rescue business records and his employer’s dog, a retriever named Brownie.

I decided to set the story on Jackson Street, near Hotaling’s whiskey company and government offices called the Appraisers’ Building. This was one of the few downtown areas that survived the fire. Today it is a historic district filled with charming old buildings, art galleries, and antique stores. The cashier for Hotaling’s, who really was named Ed Lind, left a fascinating eyewitness account of how the neighborhood was saved.

The character of Tommy is also based on an eyewitness account. Fifteen-year-old Hugh Kwong Liang lived in Chinatown at a time when Chinese people faced much discrimination. Abandoned by his cousin when Chinatown was evacuated, Hugh escaped the city to live with a distant relative and eventually pursued his dream of becoming a singer and entertainer. After the fire, efforts were made to prevent the Chinese from returning to their old neighborhood, because it was in a desirable downtown area. After an international protest from China, residents were allowed to return and rebuild.

There are many books, photographs, and Web sites about the San Francisco earthquake and fire. Here are just a few:

For pictures and eyewitness accounts, including one by author Jack London, visit the Virtual Museum of San Francisco at
www.sfmuseum.org/1906/06.htm
.

Gladys Hansen and Emmet Condon’s book,
Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
(San Francisco: Cameron and Company, 1989), contains many rare photographs of the disaster.

Books for young people include
Quake! Disaster in San Francisco, 1906,
by Gail Langer Karwoski, illustrated by Robert Papp (Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 2004), and Laurence Yep’s
Dragonwings
(New York: Harper Trophy, 1977).

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