A Light For My Love (31 page)

She tried to fight her way through the crowd
to Dalton but was pushed back again and again. In the falling
twilight, the torches glittered around her, bobbing like gargantuan
fireflies. Over the shouting and swearing, she heard more glass
breaking. Finally, miraculously, Dalton saw her and struggled
against the tide to reach her.

"China," he shouted over the din, "you
shouldn't have come. This has gotten out of hand."

"But the house—they'll destroy it."

They became separated again by the surge of
the crowd that wedged between them and widened the breach. Fearing
not only for the house, but also for their safety, she tried to
find her way to the edge of the pandemonium. But with the darkness
and the moving sea of humanity surrounding her, she was losing her
sense of direction. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders,
flying free from its pins.

Suddenly China felt a hand grab her arm, and
she swung around, ready to wrestle free from whoever held her, by
whatever means it took. She turned and saw Jake, his jaw tight. The
orange torch flames reflected in his narrowed eyes and gleamed on
his blond hair.

"I might have known I'd find you here!" he
shouted over the noise, fury in every line of his face. "Did that
goddamned jackass Williams bring you down here? Is he trying to get
you both killed?"

China would have challenged his remarks, but
things were moving around her so quickly that she felt as if she
was being sucked into the whirlpool of the shouting, angry mob.
Real terror began to envelop her, and she was grateful for his
strength beside her. That feeling of safety that she'd known before
with him returned now.

Jake put his arm around her shoulders and
pulled her to him protectively while he looked up to scan the
nearby crowd for Dalton. When he spotted him, he shouted for him in
a voice trained to carry over the roar of a gale. "Williams! Over
here!"

Dalton plowed a path to them. "Did you come
down to join the party?" he snapped at Jake. The three of them were
pushed together by the swarming pack as it lunged and fell
back.

Jake glanced behind him when someone bumped
him, nearly knocking him over. He turned back to Dalton, his
expression venomous. China felt certain that if he could have
gained enough room in the tightly packed mass, he would have pulled
his fist back and smashed Dalton's face.

"This is no place for China. You take her
home," Jake ordered, raising his voice over the surrounding roar.
"I'm going to my ship to keep an eye on her. God knows what you've
started with this flashy stunt."

"Look, Chastaine," Dalton started, bristling
at Jake's commanding tone. "I'm not one of your hands that you
can—"

"Get her out of here,
right now
,
mister."

"Stop it, both of you!" China demanded.
Ignoring the press of bodies around them, the two men stared at
each other in a fierce battle of wills, rage in their eyes.
Finally, Dalton grabbed China's hand and pulled her out of Jake's
embrace.

"Jake," she called, "aren't you coming with
us?"

But as soon as a gulf opened between them,
the mob rushed in like the ocean into a tidal pool. China lost
sight of Jake, and Dalton maneuvered them down the street.

"You can't just leave!" she said. "Don't
sacrifice everything we've worked for just to see me home."

"We're doing what he wanted," Dalton answered
as he elbowed a man out of his way. "I have to get you away from
here. And I'm coming right back."

As he pulled her from the brawl, China
twisted around, trying to see over her shoulder. "Dalton, Jake
could be killed," she declared.

"Not Chastaine," he said. "He knows how to
take care of himself."

They trudged over the sidewalk, and China saw
frightened faces at the windows of the houses they passed. She was
rattled herself and wished she could sit down for a minute to get
the strength back in her legs.

All the while, Dalton kept up a steady,
intent monologue, thinking aloud more than speaking to her. He
seemed exhilarated by the energy and anger of the people they'd
left at the boardinghouse, and his mind raced forward with
plans.

"A few more demonstrations like this and
they'll have to take us seriously. I just need to keep these people
incited—Christ, I hope that a poor chump's death isn't the only
thing that will budge them from their apathetic asses. If the
Astorian
prints a story about this—"

Distracted, he kept her hand in a hard grip
and dragged her along as though she were a child. When they neared
the house, China looked up at the second-floor hall window and saw
that it was dark. She hadn't had a chance to light the lamp before
she left.

Dalton took her as far as the front steps.
"Well, I've got to go back. I can't leave Harbor House alone.
Anything could happen. And those people need a leader."

"Those
people
are trying to tear the
house down!" she emphasized, trying to tuck up her hair.

He shook his head. "No, it wasn't one of our
group who threw the brick. It was one of Turk's men."

She put a hand on his arm, horrified. "You
mean they were there too? Dalton, please be careful. You could be
hurt, or arrested, or—"

"Arrested," he said, seizing upon the word.
His cobalt eyes gleamed speculatively. "That might have some value.
I'll have to give some thought to that."

"I don't think that would be a good
idea—"

He leaned forward suddenly and pecked her
cheek. "Thanks, China. You shouldn't have come tonight, but I'm
glad you did."

He trotted down the steps, and she watched
him as he ran under the gaslight on the corner. Then he disappeared
into the night.

*~*~*

China sat at the kitchen table, then rose and
went to the back door for what seemed like the hundredth time since
Dalton had dropped her off.

The yard was silent and dark except for the
whisper of rain falling on the trees. The wall clock marked the
time. Ten forty-five. It had been hours since she last saw Jake,
just before he was engulfed by the flood of insane humanity
swirling around him. Had he escaped that morass and made it back to
his ship? Worry and dread had her listening to every creak the
house made, wondering if she heard footfalls on the back steps.

She scolded herself for not having enough
courage to go down to his ship at the waterfront to see if he was
safe.

Just as she sat down again, she heard a key
scraping in the lock. She jumped out of her chair and flew to open
the back door. When she saw Jake standing on the porch, she bit
back a scream of horror.

"Oh, God, Jake," she exclaimed, pulling him
into the kitchen when she thought he might topple over. Wet and
dirty, his heavy blond hair was darkened by water and blood in a
gory mix that ran down his face in thin streams. Sometime during
this endless night he'd lost his coat, and he stood before her in a
torn, rain-soaked shirt and dungarees. His clothes smelled of
smoke, and his face was sooty. He lifted his eyes to look at her
with an expression of silent appeal and such utter exhaustion that
she hoped she could control the tears that threatened to make her
voice shaky. She thought her heart would break just to look at
him.

"What happened?" she asked in a spare
whisper. Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed a towel and pressed
it to his face, trying to mop up the blood and rainwater to
determine the extent of his injuries. She took his hand and held it
on the towel, then turned to reach for her shawl. "I'm going for
the doctor."

He sank into a chair and closed a hand on her
skirt to stop her. "No, don't go. I was going to go back to the
Katherine Kirkland
, but I wanted to see you—uh, so you could
fix this. I'll be all right."

"But you're hurt," she said.

"Please, China. You can take care of it."

She hesitated, but maybe he was right. She
really didn't want to leave him anyway. "Okay," she agreed. Then,
eyeing him for a moment, she went to the pantry and brought back a
bottle and a glass. "Here, drink this."

"Thank you," Jake whispered and uncorked the
whiskey bottle, not bothering with the glass. He tipped his head
back and tossed a swallow down his throat.

China gave him a questioning look. He nodded
and she moved doser, letting him clutch her skirt in his fist again
while she examined his scalp. The significance of this wasn't lost
on her. Jake was a natural leader, accustomed to being in command.
She'd never known him to show any apprehension or weakness. To hold
on to her skirt like a child was a kind of surrender for him.

The one wound she found looked to be just a
nasty gash, but she'd have to get him washed off to see what other
damage had been done.

"How did this happen?" she asked, gently
probing his head, feeling for swelling.

He touched a careful hand to his scalp and
looked at the blood on his fingertips. "I don't know for certain. A
lot of angry, yelling people were in the street, with all kinds of
weapons. Well, you saw what it was like. At least no one was shot,
I don't think. After a while I couldn't tell who was fighting who.
I'm not sure they could, either. There was a fire," he said
wearily, then took another drink. "I can't say how it started. But
the boardinghouse caught first, then the next two houses. I knew I
had to stay."

China stared at him. "Is it gone? The
boardinghouse, I mean?"

He shook his head. "Williams and I managed to
keep it under control until the fire department got there. There's
some damage, but it can be fixed."

Relieved, she looked into his tired eyes.

"Thank you, Jake. I—I know how you feel about
the league and—well, thank you." She resumed sifting through his
hair, searching for other wounds. "Um, how was it that you found me
there?"

She felt him flinch when she touched a tender
spot on his scalp. "I was at the Blue Mermaid when I heard about
the riot. News like that travels fast. I figured you might be
foolish enough to jump into the thick of it, and I was right."

"Oh," she murmured, not entirely displeased,
despite his unflattering observation. "Do you think you're hurt
anywhere else?"

He reached up and stopped her hands, pulling
them away to hold between both of his own. Through the soot and
blood, she saw his earnest expression.

"China, listen to me. You've got to stop
working with Williams. Next time it could be your house that burns.
And it wouldn't be just you who got hurt. Think of Aunt Gert and
Cap and Mrs. Price. Think of having no place to live at all."

China bit her lower lip, his words painting a
hideous picture in her mind. She could imagine yellow-orange
tongues of flame licking out through every heat-shattered window,
the roof crashing in, the family trapped. But then she thought of
that poor man this afternoon who had drowned trying to escape the
slavery that had been imposed on him.

Right now, though, none of that mattered. She
had to take care of Jake.

"We can talk about that later. Do you think
you can climb the stairs?" she asked. "We need to clean you
up."

After a moment he gathered what strength he
had left and hoisted himself out of the chair. Too tired to stand
straight, he seemed shorter than usual to her. He put his arm
around her waist as if it was the most natural thing in the world,
and she led them up the back stairs. That arm at her waist became
heavier with each step they took until they reached the second
floor.

China steered him into the bathroom and sat
him down on a low upholstered bench. "You can take a bath after I
look at your head, but I need to wash your hair now so I can see
what I'm doing. If I push this bench to the tub for you to sit on,
do you think you can manage it?"

He made a face of some kind; it was hard to
tell through the soot. "I guess," he replied. He stood and she
moved the bench. He reached for his shirt buttons with hands that
looked as heavy as lead and were no more effective. Finally China
nudged them aside and opened the buttons. She moved behind him and
stripped off his wet, bloody shirt, the sleeves turning inside out
as they peeled away from his muscled arms and shoulders. The chain
holding his Saint Nicholas medal winked at the back of his neck in
the gaslight.

She tossed the ruined garment into the corner
and, pulling a towel from the towel bar, pointed him toward the
tub. "All right, come sit down over here and—" His bare, muscled
arms came into full view and she stopped dead, her breath suddenly
gone from her lungs. She put a hand to her throat as she stared at
his left bicep. Jake turned to look at her and followed her gaze to
what she'd found.

It was a tattoo. Not so odd—lots of sailors
had tattoos of all kinds of things. Sweethearts' and wives' names,
nude women, hearts, serpents, anchors, crucifixes to guarantee last
rites in case of fatal illness or accident. But Jake's tattoo was
nothing like those. This was a personal talisman that he carried
with him, apparently in hopes that it, in turn, would eventually
carry him back to Astoria.

The needle of the tattoo artist, in thousands
of punctures, had driven black ink under Jake's skin to draw an
accurate reproduction of the lamp in the hall window. It was
encircled by the words LIGHT THE LAMP FOR ME.

China lifted her eyes to meet Jake's. He
moved away self-consciously and slumped on the bench with his back
to her, his head down. She heard him sigh, then he spoke. His
usually smooth, rich voice sounded tired and papery, as though he
recounted an ancient tale.

"It was that first trip out. We'd been around
the Horn twice, counting both voyages, and we anchored in San
Francisco. We were so glad to be back in America, and Quinn wanted
to celebrate. So we went ashore and stopped in a lot of dockside
bars. After a while, we were three sheets to the wind and the
fourth one shaking. Quinn found, um, a lady to keep him company, so
I left him to walk the waterfront and clear my head."