Into a Golden Era (Timeless #7)

Chapter 1

San Francisco, California

I needed help, and I didn’t have much time.

“Can someone assist me?” I held my father upright in the small rowboat that had taken us from the Eugenia to shore. “My father is not well.”

Hundreds of men moved along the shores of San Francisco.

Every conceivable race of humanity pushed and shoved as cargo was unloaded from the incoming ships and dozens of men scrambled from the boats to descend upon the city.

Countless vessels sat in the harbor, abandoned and forgotten as their crews made their way to the goldfields in the Sierra Nevada foothills a hundred or more miles to the east. Their masts reached toward the cloudless sky as their anchors dug into the muddy bottom of San Francisco Bay.

“Please,” I said as my father’s limp body weighed heavy against me. “Anyone.”

“Our daddy is sick.” Hazel’s small voice was lost in the din of confusion.

“Looksee here,” a man in a blue flannel shirt said as he stopped on the dock nearest our boat. “It’s a sunbonnet and a child!”

All the men who came with us from the Isthmus of Panama on the Eugenia had been so excited to get to California that they hadn’t stopped to ask if we needed help.

They’d recently been in the east with their wives and children.

But these men on the dock, clearly starved for the sight of a woman and child, were suddenly eager to assist.

“Do you need a hand up?” the first asked me.

“Yes, please. Our father took ill with malaria in Panama City,” I explained. “He hasn’t been well since.”

It was an understatement. Father had been near death for six weeks.

His illness had prevented us from taking the first ship that had come to Panama City after our arrival, and it had been another month before the next was available.

Thousands of people had been waiting because so many of the ships that sailed into San Francisco were abandoned by their crew and only a few made the return trip.

The space was so limited, the ship had three times the number of passengers it should have carried, and we had spent ten times the reasonable amount for passage.

Which meant we were late to California and had no money left.

Several men stepped into the rowboat and lifted Father out as Hazel moved close to me.

At the age of six, my half sister was far braver than I felt.

She’d weathered the voyage from Boston to Colon, the city on the northern shores of the isthmus, and then laughed and sang her way through the eighteen-day trek by boat and pack mules to Panama City. Not once had she complained or whined.

Even now, she stared at the teeming mass of men with a look of awe but not concern. I hoped it was because she believed I would take care of her, even though I was having my own doubts.

Thankfully, she was too young and na?ve to understand our dire circumstances.

Another miner in a red flannel shirt offered his hand to me, and I stepped out of the rowboat with Hazel not far behind. The sun scorched my neck as the brim of my bonnet shaded my eyes. From the dock, I had a better vantage point of San Francisco.

It looked nothing like the city I knew in 1929.

“This old man can’t be your husband,” one of the miners said as he motioned to my unconscious father.

“He’s our father.”

“You’ll be looking for a man, then.” He took off his stained bowler hat, revealing a tan line on his forehead and greasy, thin hair. “I’d have need of you, miss. We can go to the parson right now.”

I stared at him as my father was manhandled onto the dock. Not knowing what to say, I simply stepped around him and went to Father’s side. Though he was unconscious, sweat beaded on his ashen brow.

“Can someone tell me where I might find a room to rent?” I asked the men who were congregating around us. “Preferably close, since my father is unable to walk. And I’ll need a doctor.”

Even as I said the words, I had no idea how I would pay for anything. We didn’t have a single penny to our name.

Hazel slipped her hand into mine as the men crowded closer. Some touched her golden braids or patted her head.

“Please,” I said as I moved her away from one man who was far too familiar, “we need a place to stay. Preferably fifty cents a night. Could someone point us in the right direction?”

“You won’t find anything for less than ten dollars a night,” a rough-looking man with a British accent said as he stepped forward.

He had a strange gait, and ragged scars wrapped around his neck and into his jaw.

A large bowie knife hung from one side of a holster around his waist, while a pistol protruded out of the other.

The men parted, though whether in respect, awe, or fear of the menacing man, I wasn’t certain.

“Bess will put you up.” He nodded to the men who were holding my father by the arms and legs. “Take the old man to Bess’s Place.”

Unease slithered up my spine as the men began to haul Father away without waiting for my consent. No one seemed to question the man with the knife.

“Wait.” I took a step forward and called out to the others to stop. “Is Bess’s Place respectable?”

A chorus of laughter erupted as Hazel pressed closer to me.

I knew what I was getting into when I talked Father into leaving Massachusetts, but I hadn’t realized it would take us this long or that we’d lose all our money getting here.

We needed to travel to the Yuba River by the end of September to be primed for the next big gold strike.

It was the only chance Father had to restore his finances, though he had adamantly refused to look for gold.

He thought we were coming to start a school.

I had other plans.

But the end of September was only a month away, and if he didn’t get better soon or I didn’t find a job to pay for the hundred-and-forty-mile trip to the Yuba River, all my plans would fail, and I would have put Father and Hazel at risk for nothing.

“It’s as respectable as they come in this city,” the British man said. “Tell Bess that English Jim sent you. She’ll treat you right.”

“Or else,” another man said under his breath.

English Jim either didn’t hear or ignored the man as he nodded for the others to continue.

“Do you have luggage, miss?” an old miner asked. “I’d be happy to carry it for you.”

I pointed to the trunks and bags we’d brought, trying to keep one eye on Father as I held Hazel’s small hand.

“Go on,” the man said in a kind voice. “We know where Bess’s Place is. We’ll be right behind you. I’ll make sure your things get to you without being mussed.”

I had little choice but to trust him.

The sound of hammers, saws, and shouts echoed across the dock as we followed the men carrying Father.

Hundreds of buildings climbed the hills of the city, several in the middle of construction.

There were a few brick and adobe buildings sprinkled throughout, but the majority were hastily built of boards and canvas.

Shelters made of sticks and clothing dotted the landscape, but very few trees softened the barren scene.

To the right was a tall, rugged hill, different than the others.

“That’s Telegraph Hill,” said a man near my elbow. His stench suggested he hadn’t bathed in months. “You’ll find Bess’s Place at the base of it.”

Thankfully we didn’t have far to go.

Father’s head lolled back, and I prayed the movement wouldn’t be the end of him.

He had started to recover from the malaria when we boarded the ship in Panama City, but the close, dank quarters of the Eugenia had brought on another bout of sickness.

He’d been feverish and delirious for the past two weeks and had passed out when they lowered him into the rowboat earlier.

If he died, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

Father needed to get well and go to the gold strike near Nevada City.

I knew about the discovery from my life in 1929, and though I couldn’t change history and have Father be the first to find the gold, I could have him there before thousands of other miners descended on the Yuba River.

If Father died or was penniless, who would look after my little sister? I couldn’t leave her to fend for herself as an orphan—but I didn’t want to forfeit my life in 1929, either. As a time-crosser, I would have to give up one life on my twenty-fifth birthday on November 2nd. I had no other choice.

The closer we came to the start of the dock, the more crowded it became with men of every shape, size, and color. Foreign languages mingled with unfamiliar English accents, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see a woman among them.

Hazel and I followed the men along a level, dusty street that ran parallel to the shoreline.

Signs on the buildings promoted everything from gambling halls and saloons to restaurants, banks, laundry services, real estate brokers, and general stores.

We passed several hotels and boarding houses, but No Vacancy signs hung on the doors.

As we approached Telegraph Hill, the crowd became rowdier and louder. Here, there wasn’t as much diversity. Most of the men looked like they were of western European descent. Their accents were English or Scottish or Irish.

And there were women, standing on porches, lounging at the ends of alleys, and sitting in upper-floor windows—all of them scantily dressed.

“Welcome to Sydney Town,” a man said, then spit into the dusty street. “Best watch your back, miss. This is the meanest piece of God’s green earth.”

Sydney Town?

My pulse began to race as I realized where they’d taken us.

The most notorious and dangerous place in the burgeoning city.

Perhaps in the world.

The men pushed open the door into Bess’s Place before I could stop them. A hand-painted sign at the front of the building said Hotel and Restaurant, but I wasn’t convinced that was all I would find.

“Please,” I said as I pushed to the front of the group, my hand clasping Hazel’s in a death grip. “Is there nowhere else we can—?”