The fire and the gold (14 page)

Quent nodded, wasting no time as he busied himself with Dolly, the mare. Tony helped too, and Melora recognized that he had made himself one of the rescue party.

The boy Matt was no longer interested in escape, but was now eager to help with Alec's rescue. A thin, wiry boy, he squeezed himself on the floor against the dash at their feet, leaving the seat for them.

The constant noises of dismantling and rebuilding were a part of everyday existence now. The ring of the hammer could be heard day and night, even from Lafayette Square, and as the buggy crossed Van Ness and started up the hill, the din increased. Dolly had grown used to the racket and hardly twitched an ear, but the grotesque angles of the ruins still worried her and she had a tendency to shy. Now and then she snorted furiously as if the very smell offended her.

As they plodded up Nob Hill the racket lessened and the streets were deserted again. The nabobs of Nob Hill were not returning to build anew with quite the speed of the rest of the city. Only on the Fairmont Hotel had rebuilding begun.

Matt craned this way and that, trying to recall the zigzag trail his gang had followed early that afternoon.

"Seems to me this place had a big garden at the side," he recalled. "The fence was all twisted and I think that's the place where some of the kids shied rocks at statues. There was a statue of a lady holding a bow, only her head was cracked off."

"Diana,'' Quent said, flapping the reins over Dolly's back. "I think I know the place you mean."

But even knowing it didn't make its discovery any too easy, thanks to the wrecking of most familiar landmarks. The rose and purple ruins all about bore little resemblance to the mansions which had once graced Nob Hill.

"From now on," Tony said, 'T think every nightmare I have will be haunted by piles of brick. Did you ever see so many bricks in all your life?" He straightened in the seat. "Look, Quent! Along the hill there—is that our headless Diana?"

Quent nodded "That's the place I was thinking of."

The once beautiful garden with its ordered flower beds was a bare expanse of burned and blackened stubble. Mosaic tile marked the remains of a fountain and Diana stood headless on her pedestal, poised on one toe, a bow in her broken hands.

Up the hill beyond the garden rose a steep flight of steps leading nowhere. A single stark chimney was all that remained of the sumptuous house.

"That's the place all right!" Matt cried. He wriggled out from under their feet and swung down from the buggy.

"Wait, Matt," Melora said quickly. Those steps may not be safe."

Tony came with her, while Quent secured Dolly. They started cautiously up the flight of steps. The rail was twisted and bent outward, the bricks along the outer edge had crumbled, offering no support to a careless foot. As usual when the wind blew over the hill a fine white dust stirred above the ruins.

The steps jogged upward, turning at right angles in two places. If one kept to the center they looked safe enough and Melora picked up her fraying gray skirt and climbed to the first landing, with the others right behind her. From above a sudden yelping and whining greeted her and Smokey came dashing frantically down the steps toward them.

Melora caught him in her arms and let him lick at her face in excitement. There was no doubt now that this was the right place and that Alec was somewhere nearby. At the top landing Melora put the little dog down and looked over the drop into space beyond. Here everything had crashed through into the cellar and there was indeed a jumping-off space such as Matt had described.

"This is right," Matt said. "He—he said he wasn't afraid to jump off here."

Melora shivered as she looked down into the piles of brick and masonry, of every sort of nibble. Nothing moved. There was so sign of any living creature.

"Alec!" she called. "Alec, where are you?"

Hollow walls on the hillside threw back the echo mockingly, but no boy's voice answered her call.

Quent looked over too, bending to stroke Smokey's head and quiet him. "A jump wouldn't be too bad. That's loose stuff down there, and if he landed on the stone ledge that broken pillar makes, he'd be all right. It could be that he's down there exploring."

"Don't forget that quake this afternoon," Tony reminded them.

Quent turned to Matt, shaking him by the collar.

"Where were you boys when the quake came this afternoon?"

Matt squirmed under his grip. "Leggo! Lemme think. I guess we were part way home by that time. Yeah—we'd just got to Van Ness, because I remember we ran out into the middle of the street in spite of all the wagons and things."

"Then Alec might have been down there at the time." Melora turned to Quent. "What can we do?"

Quent cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted Alec's name. His voice was stronger than Melora's and it sent the echoes crashing.

"There!" Tony cried, pointing. "Way at the back. Something moved."

Melora saw it too—an arm in a dark sleeve, waving weakly. "It's Alec!" she cried. "Listen!"

The faintest of calls came to them; a thin "Help me!"

Quent moved first "We can get through by way of the garden and reach him. Melora, you stay here and—"

But she was already running down the steps behind him.

Quent and Matt hurried ahead and Tony took her arm lest she stumble as they ran across the ruined garden. Smokey, wild with excitement, seemed to be under all their heels at once.

At the rear of the cellar there were no walls, but only one tall chimney which looked solid enough. Melora slipped and stumbled over loose bricks and broken stone, grateful for Tony's hand. Quent always left her to fend for herself. She had done so since they were children. She was comforted by Tony's thoughtfulness.

She could see Alec now, lying face down in the rubble, his eyes closed, his face white except for a streaking of blood on his forehead. Except for his head and shoulders, he lay completely buried, pinned amid the wreckage.

She knelt on the bricks beside him, scarcely feeling the sharpness as they cut into her knees and scraped the skin of her hands.

"Alec!" Her voice was faint because of the fear that shook her. He was so dreadfully quiet. But as she spoke his name, he opened his eyes and turned his head a little so he could look up at her. Smokey was whining about him, sniffing and nuzzling.

"I knew you'd come, Mellie." Alec's voice was weak but clear. "I told Smokey to go get you." He saw Matt then, standing miserably by. "I jumped, but you didn't stay to see. I jumped all the way."

"I know," Matt spoke with a choke in his voice.

Alec only said, "Pull me out, Mellie. It—hurts."

Quent and Tony were wasting no time on talk. With their bare hands they were trying to dig away the rubble, but the hopelessness of the task was evident at once. Some of the bigger pieces were wedged and there was too much to be moved by the slow hand process. Quent straightened and spoke to Tony.

"You stay with Melora and Alec. I'm going to take the buggy and go down where I can get some workmen with shovels, somebody to help. I'll make it fast" He bent over Alec. "You'll be all right, fellow. Just you hold on a while longer."

Alec tried to nod, but only moaned faintly.

When Matt went off with Quent, Melora quickly cleared a place near Alec so she could sit close to him and rest his head against her thigh.

"Mellie," he said, ''will they hurry? Will it take them very long?"

She wiped the perspiration from his face with her handkerchief. "I'm sure it won't They'll be back in a jiffy to get you out of here."

"Tell me a story, Mellie," he whispered. "Maybe they'll come faster if you tell me a story."

She tried to remember one of his favorite King Arthur stories, or a scene from Treasure Island — anything at all. But she was too upset to concentrate. The words came haltingly and she looked at Tony for help.

He sat on a pile of brick on the other side of Alec, with Smokey at his feet. There was nothing flashing and dramatic about him now. His eyes were dark with sympathy, but he managed a smile.

"Suppose I tell you a story," he said.

While Melora stroked Alec's forehead with gentle fingers, and rubbed the back of his neck, helping him to relax, Tony began his story. Melora hardly listened. What would they find when that heap of rubble was cleared away? How badly had he been crushed? Any movement caused him pain, and fear was a hard, tight ball inside her.

But as Tony's quiet voice went on, somehow compelling, Melora began to hear the words and realize that it was a true story he was telling.

It had begun many years before, when two young men had gone into partnership in the opening of a small bookstore in San Francisco. The city had always been a book-conscious town and the two young partners did well. Both earnestly loved good books, but they were not alike. One was more a businessman, practical and unromantic, preferring to read heavy tomes of philosophy and science. The younger man was as romantic as the stories he liked to read, and he was always dreaming himself into the role of hero in stories he made up. He even thought of putting those stories down on paper some day, but he never seemed to get around to it, though he had had a slim volume of poetry published. This younger partner had a second love besides books—he was a devotee of music and especially of the opera. He could not afford expensive seats, but he missed no opera which played the city.

One afternoon, well on toward closing time, when his partner was in the back of the store totahng up the day's receipts, a young woman walked in looking for a particular book on music.

"How many times I've heard my father describe just the way she looked when she came in that day," Tony said.

"You mean the younger partner was your own father?" Alec asked, and Melora could have blessed Tony for catching his interest.

"That's right. And he said Lotta Lombardi was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had shining dark eyes that could be kind one moment and angry the next. She wore her masses of black hair in a heavy coil on her neck, with a little tilted hat tipping toward her nose. Her perfume seemed as lovely and mysterious as the girl herself, and her smile did queer things to his heart. Of course he knew who she was the moment he saw her."

Tony paused dramatically and Melora glanced at him. He was plainly lost in his own story.

"Go on!" Alec demanded. "Who was she?"

The young man, Tony explained, had heard her sing in the opera the night before. Not that she sang a star's role—only a small bit. But her voice and the fire with which she performed had impressed the critics and she had been acclaimed in her role in the papers that very morning. So of course she was pleased and elated when this unknown young man in the bookstore confessed that he had heard her sing, remembered her well, and agreed with the critics.

It was a slow, rainy afternoon and no other customers came into the shop. When it was closing time, he simply fastened the bolt across the door and went right on with the discussion he was having with the lovely singer. They were by that time arguing the virtues and faults of a new opera which had lately played the city. Miss Lotta Lombardi sat upon a ledge with book shelves rising above her head and sang snatches of arias to prove her point.

"And do you know what she proved?" Tony asked.

"What?" demanded Alec, caught up in the illusion of Tony's story.

"She proved, of course," said Tony, "that she was the one girl in the world whom my father intended to marry."

"And he did marry her!" Alec cried. "She's your mother!"

Tony nodded and then turned his head, listening. I thought I heard a horse's hooves. But perhaps I was wrong. Listen to that wind."

It was rising now and it made an eerie sound whistling around chimneys and broken walls, blowing through windows that opened on nothing.

"Tell me another story," Alec pleaded.

"All right," Tony said, "listen to this one. Once upon a time many years after that day when Lotta Lombardi walked into the bookshop and caused my father to fall in love with her, another young man worked in that very same shop. And one day he too saw a young lady walk in. But this young lady was carefully guarded by her mother. Though she came with some frequency and he always watched her, it was difficult to speak to her alone. Until one day when he used a little trickery so that he could have a few moments to talk to her."

"And did that young man marry the girl too?" asked Alec.

Tony laughed and Melora looked away. "You're going a bit too fast now, young fellow. This time our hero had the misfortune to discover that the young lady who interested him so much was engaged to someone else."

Melora was conscious of the sparkle of the heirloom diamond on her left hand. She spoke without raising her eyes.

"Why did this young lady interest him?"

Tony was silent and she knew she had surprised him with the sudden question, even as she had surprised herself. But with the spell of that other story upon her, and the restraint of Quent's ring on her finger, she'd had to ask it.

Alec moved restlessly. Smokey jumped up and began to bark loudly.

"Here they come!" cried Tony. "Hush, boy. These are friends." Then his eyes met Melora's steadily. "If you'd like to know, I'll tell you sometime just what he saw."

Quent and the three men he'd brought back were there with shovels, and they all fell to work. Melora remained where she was with Alec's head against her leg. She closed her eyes, afraid to watch. She could feel Alec quiver and she winced at the sounds of rubble being tossed aside. She didn't look until she heard Quent's exclamation of relief.

"What luck! These two big stones seemed to have wedged together and held the full weight of the stuff away from him. But I think his leg is caught in the wedge. Easy now, Alec."

Alec cried out just once as they freed him, and then Melora had him in her arms. He was too heavy to lift and Quent took him from her. Alec's right leg dangled at a sickening angle, but whether he was otherwise hurt would take a doctor to tell. They carried him to the buggy as quickly as they could.