Gold Mountain (36 page)

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, Sgt. Cook,” I told him.

The words brought Jake’s injured face to mind and forgetting how I must have appeared, I took several steps toward the sergeant. The door of the room toward which I’d been headed slammed shut, but from behind it I caught one or two muted cries and the shuffle of many hurrying feet before all was silence. The same Jesse Cook that had been instrumental in the rescue of several Chinese girls and who would later become San Francisco’s respected and honored Chief of Police stood immobile and speechless.

“I’m Dinah Hudson,” I continued, wanting to be helpful. “I think you might be looking for me. I’m not hurt, not really, but Jake Pandora is down the hall and he’s terribly injured. He needs help right away.” All the policemen remained still and staring, and I thought they were waiting for me to show them where Jake was. “He’s this way,” I said, but the grandiose motion I made with my hand, a woman leading the cavalry into battle, seemed to break the spell that held Sgt. Cook and his squad so unnaturally still.

“We are indeed looking for you, Miss Hudson. Here now, put this on. The night’s too cool for a lady like yourself.” He slid out of his uniform jacket and dropped it gently onto my shoulders before giving an abrupt nod to his officers in the direction of the hallway.

“I’ll show you where Jake is,” I volunteered.

“We’ll find him, Miss. Everything’s fine. Why don’t you come with me outside so we can get some help for you?”

I realized that he supposed from the blood on me that I was injured or that I had been assaulted or abused in some shameful way. Certainly he thought I was, if not completely unbalanced and deranged, at least hysterical, and he was doing his best to pacify me. I took a deep breath in order to speak calmly.

“I don’t need help, Sergeant. I’m starving and I’m filthy, but otherwise I’m right as rain, and I don’t intend to let Jake Pandora out of my sight until I’m assured that he’s getting the best medical care San Francisco has to offer.” I pulled Sgt. Cook’s jacket more tightly around me—he was right, the night was cool—and turned back into the same dark hallway I had crept down several minutes before. More to myself than to any of the policemen behind me, I muttered, “I think the man proposed marriage and I think I accepted and I intend to talk with him further about the idea. Now are you coming, Sergeant?”

“Yes, Ma’am, we’re coming.” The sergeant, a small smile of relief on his face, stepped beside me and added in a low voice meant only for me, “And if it isn’t premature, let me be the first to offer my congratulations.”

The next few hours passed as a blur. I sat next to an unconscious Jake as we were driven to St. Luke’s Hospital. There I met the resident physician, Dr. Allen, who after a keen look at my face, did not ask a second time about my injuries. Instead, wise man that he was, he devoted the rest of his energies to taking care of Jake. When I attempted to follow him into a private room sealed off by a heavy wooden door, the doctor stopped, turned, and gave me a stern and unsmiling look.

“No, Miss Hudson, You may not come past this door. It’s for doctors and nurses only.”

“But—”

“I know you are concerned, and I can appreciate that, but in your present state of—” he gave me a long look and wrinkled his nose slightly in response to my close presence, a humbling gesture coming from the austere man in his pristine doctor’s uniform— “dishevelment, shall we say, your current appearance would do the patient more harm than good. Go home, soak in a steaming bath, eat a hot meal, take a good nap, and then come back. Your Mr. Pandora has undoubtedly lost a great deal of blood, but from what I observed of his injuries and his constitution, I believe he will still be here when you return.”

His words, the most positive thing I’d heard in a day and a half, made me feel like weeping. “You mean he won’t die?”

“We will all die, Miss Hudson. Eventually. But barring a serious infection or some other unforeseen follow-up to his injuries—which can happen; I can’t make guarantees at this point—I believe your Mr. Pandora will recover. From my brief examination, he seemed in overall excellent health, which is what will prove most helpful to his full recovery.” Dr. Allen looked past me and added, “I see there’s someone here to meet you. Come back later, Miss Hudson, and you may see the patient then.”

When I turned to discover the doctor’s meaning, I saw Ruth hurrying down the hallway, at least hurrying as much as her condition would allow—well, waddling really, but a beautiful sight nevertheless! When she caught sight of me, she stopped abruptly and tented both hands over her mouth to stifle a shriek. Martin, trying to keep hold of his wife’s arm, stopped, too, and simply stared. By then I had become used to the reaction, however, and didn’t give much thought to the way I looked. I couldn’t really remember how it happened, but somewhere along the way I had exchanged Sgt. Cook’s police coat for a fisherman’s long sweater, much too large for me and with a smell hinting that several old salmon remained in its pockets. I didn’t care at all that the sight and the smell of me was enough to stop cable cars in their tracks. What bothered me more was how all the color drained from Ruth’s face in horror.

“Ruth!” I cried, rushing toward her. “I’m all right. I just look awful. I’m all right. Martin, for goodness sake, find a chair for your wife. She looks like she’s going to topple over.” I took hold of my sister by both of her upper arms to steady her. “I’m really fine, Ruthie. Don’t look like that.”

My sister took a shallow, strangled gasp, swallowed hard, and tried to smile. “If you say so,” she said, valiantly trying to ignore my appearance.

“I do say so.” After giving me a searching look, Ruth threw her arms around me and despite her protruding stomach and my reek of filth and fish managed to pull me into a firm hug.

“We didn’t know what to do, did we, Martin?” My brother-in-law had returned to attempt to steer Ruth to a small side room that held a few uncomfortable looking chairs, but she was unwilling to move if it meant letting go of me. “When you weren’t home for supper, I sent Martin to the mission, and he brought back the terrible news that you had left hours before. Miss Cameron sent word to the authorities right away, and Martin even went to see Mr. Gallagher. We didn’t know what to do. Oh, Dinah, I was sick with worry. I prayed so hard for your safe return. We didn’t know what to think or what to do. How do you get yourself into these situations?” Ruth tried to hide her sudden wave of emotion by fussing with my hair but quickly realized the futility of attempting to make any part of me presentable. She had never been one to misread a lost cause. Finally, she asked one more time, still needing to be reassured, “Are you certain you’re all right?”

“Yes. I wasn’t mistreated, just kept prisoner in a tiny room.”

“But why? Why did someone abduct you and imprison you? And how did you escape?” Ruth’s questions dwindled away and finally stopped altogether as she thought matters through. Then she asked the question slowly, “But if you’re not at the hospital because you’re injured, then why—?”

I started to explain as much as I could, told her about the woman named Bea who risked her own safety to find Jake and about Jake’s arrival at the house on Morton Street, but when I tried to describe what it had been like to see Chong Lin’s saber slice into Jake’s perfect face, I couldn’t finish.

“Oh, Dinah.” Ruth, not any more used to seeing tears in my eyes than Jake had been, seemed speechless for a moment. “My dear, I am so sorry. Is Mr. Pandora—?”

“No,” I interjected quickly. “Absolutely not. I won’t allow it, and you know I always get my way. The doctor says he should recover, but his face, Ruthie, his beautiful face!” At that I began to cry in earnest and my sister once more wrapped me in her arms.

“Never you mind about his face, Dinah,” she whispered in my ear. “If you love him, that won’t matter. You do love him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I whispered back. “I’m afraid I do. You were right all along.”

Ruth wiped away my tears with her gloved fingers and linked her arm with mine as we began to walk down the hallway to the front doors of the hospital where a cab waited at the curb to take us home to Grove Street.

“Right about what?” she finally asked.

“About finding the right person. ‘You just know,’ you told me, and I do. I just know.”

Ruth patted my hand and tried not to look too gratified at being proved right. Martin opened the doors for us, and we stepped out into the clear light of an early and unseasonably chilly August morning.

“Well, good,” my sister said. “I can’t wait to hear more, but I’ll have to because first you’re going to take a bath and wash your hair. I will ask Martin to burn every scrap of clothing you’re wearing. You’ll have a nourishing breakfast followed by a long sleep, and then you and I will have a much overdue sisterly chat. How does that sound?”

I had left Jake in the best care to be found in San Francisco and knew there was nothing I could do for him but pray. He would live or he would die. God knew. I didn’t. But whatever happened, I had done the best I could. It was not my fault and his survival was no longer my responsibility. The knowledge caused an unexpected and comforting peace to settle somewhere in the general vicinity of my heart.

“It sounds perfect. Just perfect,” I replied and meant every word.

Ruth followed through on everything she promised with ruthless precision. Bath. Meal. Sleep. I followed lamb-like behind her, dressed in the clothes she gave me, ate the food she put before me, and crawled into bed without protest, asleep before she pulled the covers under my chin. I slept nearly twenty-four hours straight through and awoke to the vague memory that something wasn’t right before I remembered Jake lying in a hospital bed. The memory propelled me to dress and descend the stairs with lightning speed.

I found my sister sitting at the old kitchen table, a cup of steaming tea in her hand. When she saw me, she said with obvious relief, “Now you look like my sister again. Did you sleep well?” I poured myself a cup of tea from the pot on the table before sitting down across from her.

“Wonderfully. Not a dream. Not anything.”

“Good.” Ruth stood to gather a plate of warm breakfast from the pans on the stove, and when I tried to tell her that I didn’t have time to eat, that I had to get to the hospital, she set the plate in front of me, saying as she did so, “I fully understand that you are concerned about Mr. Pandora’s well-being, and I know that nothing could keep you from going to the hospital. I would feel the same way if it were Martin. I even understand that I will have to wait until you are back from the hospital to have my curiosity satisfied. However, you will eat breakfast before you go.” She sat back down across from me, smiled, and took a sip of tea, sending me a glance over the rim of the cup that for some reason reminded me suddenly of our mother.

“All right.” I was so hungry and the food so delicious that I couldn’t remain sullen or act ungrateful. We talked about inconsequential matters and avoided my experiences of the past two days because we both understood that that particular conversation would take more time than I was willing to spend just then. I finished the meal, took a last sip of tea, and reached across the table to put my hand over Ruth’s.

“You are the best sister in the world, Ruthie. I’m supposed to be taking care of you and look who’s doing the work and the worrying. I’m sorry.” She turned her hand palm up and clasped mine.

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m a grown woman, and I don’t need to be taken care of. When I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, I realized that it was my selfishness that had kept you here, that you never intended to stay and would have returned to China if I hadn’t asked for your company. I felt guilty and grieved and when I asked God to bring you home safe, I promised myself and Him that I would stop trying to make you into what I wanted you to be. You say you’re not a heroine and maybe that’s true, maybe you only acted as any other woman in a similar situation would have acted. That I don’t know. What I do know is that you are an exceptional woman and it’s not your sister saying so, Dinah. Other people see something special in you, too. That’s one reason you’ve always had male admirers. They get a glimpse of your energy and your passion and your intelligence and it catches them off guard. I hope your Mr. Pandora appreciates you.”

I remembered the look on Jake’s face when he first stepped into that awful room and saw me, the tone of his voice as he said, “I’ll give you that and more, Dinah, if you let me,” and thought that was about as close as any woman would ever come to knowing she was appreciated. More than that. To knowing she was loved.

“I think he does, Ruthie, but he’s a man I expect will keep me guessing for the next fifty years or so.” I gave her hand a squeeze and pushed away from the table. “He’s already got me guessing because I have to assure myself he’s all right. When I get home, we’ll talk.”

“Sgt. Cook wants to talk to you, Dinah. He mentioned something about Colin O’Connor and said he hoped to come by later today, and Miss Cameron has been very concerned, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she put in an appearance, too. Please try not to leave me with a house full of company and no guest of honor.” When I promised to return as quickly as possible, Ruth sighed. “That’s no guarantee, but all right. I still want some time alone with you sister-to-sister because I don’t understand everything that happened, but I can wait for now. I don’t feel the same urgency because your face was so transparent when you talked about Jake Pandora that—well, you already answered my chief question.”