Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (43 page)
The hall clock, stopped forever at 5:12 A.M., lay diagonally along a length of stairs.In the kitchen, the dust still rose from Mr. Morgan’s collapsed house. Matthew scanned the room the way he scanned the horizon of the Sierras. He stopped at the fallen-over stove, the spatula gleaming amid the dust. “Gran?” he whispered.
Nearby, her hand emerged, beaconing. Soon they were all flinging debris away. Annie Smithers reached her arm around her grandson’s shoulder and spoke to her rescuers. “Careful. The boy’s beneath me. I felt him breathing.”
Matthew cradled her in his arms. They shared the same, winsomely slanted eyebrows, Olana realized, wondering why she’d never noticed it before. Olana took Possum’s hand and followed him through the now byzantine passageway to the backlot garden, then through the narrow alley to the street.
There, Olana retrieved a quilted bedspread from her wardrobe and laid it over the cobblestones. Matthew set his grandmother down on it. Annie Smithers took his shaking hands while they were still probing the bones in her shoulders. “Stop fussing,” she commanded. “Help them get Basil out.”
“I can’t do without you yet,” Matthew breathed.
“Did Joe Fish heed you when you hauled him out of that tub?”
“He told you about —”
“Sure he told me. We had scant secrets by then left between us. I’ll stay awhile, darling boy. But you got to stop shaking now. Plenty of work ahead.”
“I love you, Gran,” he whispered.
Mr. Morgan and the babies struggled through the crowd of wandering survivors and sat with them on the bedspread. Matthew planted a kiss on his grandmother’s forehead, another on Olana’s lips. He touched Possum’s cheek before he disappeared behind the alley. Annie Smithers took Olana’s hand. “The child?” she whispered.
“Moving.”
“Good. That’s good. Don’t be frightened for Matthew. A touch of shock plaguing him, is all. He saw this day coming, you know.”
“Yes.”
“To know, and be powerless. What a curse his gift sometimes is.”
Sidney’s shout punctuated their quiet conversation. Olana stood, unsteady. Possum rested in Annie Smithers’ embrace. That was strange, wasn’t it? Why? Because Matthew’s child hadn’t touched her grandmother since the day Lavinia died, Olana remembered. Sidney called her again.
A stream of dust people appeared from behind the converged houses. Olana counted them, like lost jewels from a broken strand. Coretta and Patsy embraced their babies. The men gently placed Basil Hamilton on the street, hammocked in Olana’s best white linen tablecloth.
“Go,” Annie advised.
The circle opened to admit her. Basil’s head was in Sidney’s lap. Matthew knelt on one side of him, Serif on the other. Basil murmured in Sidney’s ear. Sidney chatted back. It was as if they were up to one of their schemes, except for the tears that ran down Sidney’s cheeks. Olana didn’t think Basil could see the
tears. She didn’t think he could see anything.
tears. She didn’t think he could see anything.
Serif gave his place to her.
Her husband looked the way the rest of them did, except for how still he was lying. He coughed. There, another difference. Blood stained the front of his best cutaway opera formals.
Basil’s hand found her face. “Olana. There you are,” he breathed out. “And, Matt?”
“Here, Basil.”
They didn’t focus, but something devilish sparked her husband’s eyes. “Now you won’t have to kill me.”
“Kill you?”
“As you did her first husband.”
“I didn’t kill him. My grandmother did.”
“Ah —” Basil began to laugh a crushed, splintered version of his own laugh, until the fresh blood choked back that. But the bemused expression stayed on his face even in death.
“America,” Sidney finished for him, closing the lids over his vacant eyes.
The five-story fortress that had been Agnews State Insane Asylum lay in ruins. Surviving patients were being tied to the small trees that somehow remained upright while the brick and steel lay all about them.
“Jesus of Nazareth is passing,” yelled one. “I’m going to heaven in a chariot of fire — don’t you hear the rumbling of the chariot wheels!” proclaimed another. Cal Carson sat up and looked over the small ridge. He smiled at people as demented as the new landscape after the earthquake. Why were the trees still standing? They could have quite a party if it weren’t for the trees.
Cal bashed the dying attendant’s head against the tree trunk, crushing bone. A last moan escaped the ruined face. No good. Cal was still entangled in his chains. Ezra rose from his work, ten feet away, his attendant dispatched with a single twist of the neck.
“Bloody murder!” came a shriek from a tree-bound woman, pointing up the hill, to them. Cal grabbed his brother’s collar and
pushed him down in the high spring grass. “Fuck her!” he spat out.
pushed him down in the high spring grass. “Fuck her!” he spat out.
“Who?” Ezra asked, raising his head, “now?”
“Later,” he promised.
“When?” his brother whined.
“Later. Get the key.”
“Key?”
“In mine’s pocket, dunderhead!”
The bigger man found the iron keys, unlocked his brother’s chains and his own. They exchanged clothes with the dead men, then scraped away their beards and hair with the attendants’ pocketknives.
Pleased, Cal sat back against the tree and surveyed the landscape behind them. They’d arrived at this place in the dark, in the rain, and had not been outside in all the months they were locked away in padded cells, restraint wings. On the single road that led to the asylum’s isolated location, dust rose. The attendants stopped chasing their escaped charges and ran for the rescue team from San Jose. Fortuitous. Cal Carson stood.
“Well, brother dear, our way to an assignation with that wild-haired damsel is now clear. Though we will have to settle for vertical, rather than horizontal refreshment. After you,” he said, with a mock sweep of his hand. Levity was lost on his brother, who was already running wildly down the hill.
When the woman saw them she screamed. But all of the madmen and women tied to the trees around her were screaming, too. Cal hoped Ezra wouldn’t be long at it, as he was feeling the hot excitement, even while his brother fingered the madwoman’s scraped and bloody arm as if she were a high-priced whore. Cal felt a hand at his shoulder.
“Attendant?”
He kicked his brother’s shin before turning to the man.
“I’m Sheriff Ross.”
Ezra turned. The woman shrieked louder. “I w-was trying to loosen her up —” he stammered.
“Your compassion for these poor souls is commendable. But
you’ll have to leave them bound. We’ve got the first batch of the worst injured ready for transport to San Jose. Can you drive the ambulance wagon?”
you’ll have to leave them bound. We’ve got the first batch of the worst injured ready for transport to San Jose. Can you drive the ambulance wagon?”
“We can, sir,” Cal said.
“Good. Follow me.”
They fell in step behind the officer. Cal’s fingers itched.
“Sheriff?”
“Yes?”
“The road to San Jose will be full of escaped lunatics. Mighty violent. Oh, my brother and I could show you some scars!”
“Got but seven toes between us, sir!” Ezra tried to be helpful.
His brother shot him a murderous look, before he continued. “We’d want, if it came to it, of course, to protect the injured.”
“I’ll see that you’re armed,” Ross agreed.
“My brother and I thank you, sir.”
“Murderers! Rapists! Murderers!” the woman bound to the tree shrieked.
Olana hooked the last of her light cape’s closures within the privacy of the circle of women and girls all, caught, like her, in their nightgowns at the time of the earthquake. Only lark risers like Matthew emerged even somewhat clothed. No matter. Now they were made decent by her wardrobe’s crash to the street. She lifted the lid of the small chestnut box and drew out her brother’s long-ago railroad car passenger version of her. She looked in the cracked mirror and smiled at her reflection. The clothes she wore almost matched the ones on the tiny doll, down to the peacock colors of the hat. She put the doll in the deep side pocket of her skirt and turned. “All finished, thank you,” she said.
The women stepped back to reveal Matthew sitting on her vanity chair, his daughter on his knee, his grandmother blotting up the last of the crusted blood from his hair, his pale face. His plowman’s nightshirt was now reigned in by a maroon vest that he must have borrowed from Mr. Morgan’s eccentric wardrobe. The single-breasted cutaway sack suit with its rounded lapels looked
ten years out of fashion, and was too big. But it couldn’t make him less handsome. Possum slipped off his lap. He stood slowly, taking her hand, looking at Olana as if he’d never seen her before.
ten years out of fashion, and was too big. But it couldn’t make him less handsome. Possum slipped off his lap. He stood slowly, taking her hand, looking at Olana as if he’d never seen her before.
Hoofbeats thundered in the debris-strewn street. The old black phaeton was drawn by a team of two fearless cab horses. Sidney Lunt, who had left wordlessly with Serif and the death wagon, had returned. He yanked two hastily clad men from the carriage, one short and bespeckled, the other lean and solemn. “Livermore and Wallace, clerk and reverend,” Sidney announced.
The men looked at each other. The smaller one adjusted his spectacles. “I’m Wallace. This is the Reverend Livermore,” he corrected.
Sidney frowned. “The papers,” he instructed. “Hand them over. I’m on deadline.”
“Papers?” Olana asked.
While the men searched, Sidney returned to the carriage and brought forth a huge bouquet of yellow roses and purple hyacinths. He approached, yanked a handful from his load. “Bride,” he said, assigning them to Olana. He moved to Coretta. “Matron of Honor,” he declared, shoving flowers into her hands. “Maid of Honor,” he told Patsy, and “Best … Woman,” honors went to Annie. “You get to give the bridegroom away. Flower girl,” he said more softly, bending down and filling Possum’s small arms with the remaining blossoms. Then he plucked single flowers for groomsmen Selby, Serif, and Mr. Morgan to pull through their buttonholes.
“What about the Best Man?” Matthew asked him quietly. Sidney emitted a quick shudder of a sigh. “He’s … at another engagement. But I’m following his orders.”
Olana touched his sleeve. “Sidney —”
He brushed her aside, scrutinized Matthew’s suit. “You look like a damned organ-grinder,” he pronounced. “Where’s your watch?”
Matthew retrieved it from his vest pocket.
“Here’s your wedding present. From Spense and me.”
He handed over a gold chain that had belonged to Olana’s husband. “Now you won’t lose your watch. And you’ll be on time for everything.”
Matthew took the gift, then embraced the giver. Olana realized she’d never seen these men she loved best in the world do that, hug each other.
Word of the impromptu wedding of the peacock bride and her patchwork bridegroom had spread among the refugees of Stockton Street. They were closing in, whispering. Olana began to feel unbearably warm in her suit. Was this right? When Sidney reached for her, she backed away. He advanced. “You’re not getting cold feet are you?”
“No. Warm. It’s too warm.”
He exploded. “I won’t have it! Spense won’t have it! This was all his idea, right down to where I might still find flowers! Are you going to refuse your dying husband’s request?”
Olana ignored the heightened whispers. “My parents, Sidney. Aunt Winnie —”
“They were at your other weddings. Bring them some cake from this one. It’s in the carriage.”
“Cake?” She began a skittering giggle that she had to stop with her hand. He came closer, backing her further into the crowd. “Come on, sport. Wedding breakfast at your parents’ house. Race you there. All right?”
“I don’t even know if they’re alive!” she almost screamed.
The sad-eyed reverend took her arm, searched her eyes. “Your generosity notwithstanding, Mr. Lunt, if this young woman is not up to it, I cannot possibly allow —”
“Up to it? Up to it? This is what she should have been up to two husbands ago, and she knows it!”
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