Chapter 3
San Francisco
My eyes opened the next morning at Bess’s Place. Bacon sizzled on the cookstove, and the aroma of strong coffee drifted on the air from the large pot. Bess stood near the stove, her back toward me, as her son, Johnnie, sat on a three-legged stool, where he’d been watching Hazel and me sleep.
“Good morning, Johnnie,” I said as I sat up on the pallet, my neck stiff from the hard floor.
“He doesn’t speak,” Bess said without turning.
Johnnie continued to stare at me with his large brown eyes but didn’t move a muscle.
“He doesn’t speak? How old is he?”
Bess flipped the bacon and glanced at her son. Her troubled face was filled with regret. “Seven.”
“Does he hear?”
Bess finally turned and nodded at the pallet. “Best get that rolled up and put into my room before Sam comes in. He won’t like that you slept in here last night.”
“He doesn’t know?” I shook Hazel awake gently, then got off the pallet.
Bess frowned. “How would he?”
I shrugged, confused. Didn’t he sleep with his wife in their room?
Hazel moaned. “I don’t want to get up.”
I didn’t want to make Sam upset, so I physically lifted Hazel off the pallet. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.”
The door to the front room opened, and my heart leapt as I glanced up. But it wasn’t Sam who entered. It was Paddy.
He tipped his hat at me, kindness in his green eyes.
“Good morning,” I said to him.
“M-m-morning,” he stuttered, letting out a frustrated breath at the end of the simple word.
Bess took a plate off the back of the stove, where it had been warming, and put it on the table, then smiled at Paddy. “Your food is getting cold.”
Paddy seemed relieved to be done talking as he moved across the room and took a seat at the table.
With tenderness, Bess placed her hand on Paddy’s shoulder.
I started to roll up the pallet, but the back door opened, and Sam Kendal walked inside.
He looked from me to the pallet to Bess, his jaw tightening. “I told you I didn’t want them sleeping in the kitchen.”
“Where else was I supposed to put them?” Bess asked without looking his way.
“Not here.” His voice was gruff, and he was taller and more muscular than I remembered.
The movie had portrayed him as a typical villain with a mustache, shrewd and calculating eyes, and a menacing scowl.
Sam Kendal was nothing like the actor who played his part.
His handsome face had a well-trimmed beard, his eyes were hooded and concerned, and he did not scowl.
Without another word, Sam went to the table and took a seat across from Paddy.
Johnnie jumped off his chair and climbed into Sam’s lap, his gaze never leaving mine.
Sam put his arm around Johnnie as Bess brought another plate to the table.
She didn’t lay her hand on her husband’s shoulder or offer him a tender look like she had Paddy. Instead, she was stiff and cool as she set his plate down.
“Get ready so you can help serve in the front room,” Bess said to me. “Your sister will be safe enough in here with Johnnie while we work. Paddy will keep an eye on them.”
I didn’t know Paddy any better than I knew the other men in the building, but he had been kind, and I had little other choice. “May I check on my father first?”
“Go ahead. I’ll feed the girl.”
I nudged Hazel toward the table, and then I put the pallet and blankets in the bedroom just off the kitchen before I ran my hands over my disheveled hair.
Our trunks and bags had been brought in the afternoon before and were stacked in the corner of the kitchen, but I had chosen to sleep in my dirty traveling dress, ready to go at a moment’s notice if need be.
I tried to smooth down the wrinkles as I entered the front room—and paused. Every table was full, and there were men standing along the edges.
And each one was watching me.
“I said she was a pretty one,” a man in a flannel shirt said. “Look at that blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Good morning,” said a chorus of men.
“I—” I pointed toward the stairs. “I need to check on my father.”
Without waiting, I hiked up the stairs, praying none of them would follow me.
The room was wide open, with bunk beds filling the space like a maze. There was only about a foot between each set of beds, offering very little room to move.
A few of the bunks were still occupied, and more than one man was stirring as I entered. In Massachusetts, if I was caught in a dormitory like this with men, my reputation would be ruined. But here, I doubted anyone would care.
They had placed my father between two of the bunks near the farthest wall, where there was a little more space. He was on a pallet, much like the one Hazel and I had slept on.
My heart pounded hard as I moved toward him, worried he hadn’t made it through the night. “Father?”
“Aye,” he said, his voice weak. “I’m still in the land of the living, though barely.”
Relief washed over me as I knelt beside him. His gray hair needed a cut, and his face needed a shave. Deep wrinkles lined his forehead, and his skin was a sickly white. “The doctor was here—do you remember?”
“Hardly a thing since the ship docked in the harbor.” He reached for my hand. “When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was or where you and Hazel had gone. Thankfully, the Good Lord provided a gentleman in the next bunk who told me what happened.”
“I’m sorry, Father.”
“Don’t be, Ally. You did your best, and God has been faithful.”
“But we’re in Sydney Town,” I whispered as I glanced over my shoulder.
Father frowned. “What is Sydney Town?”
Of course he wouldn’t know. He wasn’t a time-crosser and didn’t know I was one. If I didn’t live in 1929, I wouldn’t know what Sydney Town was, either. “Never mind. I am going to look for a better place for us to live today, and hopefully we can get you more comfortable.”
He sighed, his eyes shining from the fever, but didn’t respond.
“Do you think you could walk on your own?” I asked. “If I found a place for us to live?”
“I’d try.”
His weak voice didn’t instill confidence in me.
“I’ll bring something for you to eat and drink in a little while.”
He offered a feeble smile and nodded as his eyes shuttered closed again. “No need to hurry. I’m so tired, I don’t think I could eat right now anyway.”
I pressed my free hand to his forehead. He was burning up and would need someone to take care of him. How would I leave his side to find somewhere else to live and work?
But how could we stay? According to the movie Gold Rush!
, the fire would start sometime before midnight, which meant I had eighteen hours to get Father and Hazel out of Bess’s Place.
Could I leave him for several hours this morning, after breakfast was served?
Perhaps Bess would see to his needs while I was gone.
Yet, why would she if I wasn’t able to pay her?
I went down the stairs again and passed through the front room.
The canvas walls rippled with movement each time someone entered the building, and the thin wood floors were hollow as I walked across them.
Why couldn’t a man like Cole Goodman get out of a building like this if it was on fire?
Unless he was trapped in one of the brick or adobe buildings in town.
I hadn’t considered that. Perhaps the fire wouldn’t affect Bess’s Place.
I didn’t want to stay around and find out.
The men were louder as I passed through the dining room and stepped into the kitchen. Sam, Paddy, and the children still sat at the table. They ate quietly as I closed the door, shutting out the ruckus in the front room.
Johnnie was now in his own chair.
“You can start hauling out the plates of food,” Bess said, nodding at the simple white plates sitting on a side table. They were filled with a hearty portion of bacon, scrambled eggs, flapjacks, and fried potatoes. “We don’t have enough plates for all the men, so they’ll have to take turns.”
“I saw Cole.” Sam didn’t look at Bess, but there was a warning in his voice. “I told you I didn’t want him coming back here, Bess.”
She paused as she put eggs on a plate—and then kept going. “I didn’t invite him.”
Paddy lifted his gaze and looked between Bess and Sam.
“I want him gone.” Sam cut his flapjacks and then stabbed a piece onto his fork. “If you don’t tell him to leave, I will.”
Bess kept working at the cookstove, and I was certain she wouldn’t respond, but then she said, “I’ll take care of it.”
Did Sam mean Cole Goodman? Was he aware of Bess’s relationship with the other man? Was something supposed to happen today that would push Sam over the edge?
Again, I didn’t want to be here when it all happened.
“Go on,” Bess said to me. “Start serving at the front of the room and work your way toward the back.”
I wasn’t sure which was the front and which was the back, but without another word, I grabbed as many plates as I could and hurried out of the kitchen.
“I’m hungry,” Hazel complained again as we trudged toward Portsmouth Square. The hills in San Francisco were steeper than I had first anticipated. It was exhausting to walk from one business to another looking for a job and a place to stay, but worse climbing the impossible hills under the hot sun.
“We’ll get something to eat soon,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how I would make good on that promise.
We’d been trekking around San Francisco for hours after lunch and had no more prospects than when we started.
After breakfast, I had helped Bess clear and clean dishes, sweep the dining room, and wash some of the bedding from upstairs.
She had helped me care for Father and put him on one of the bunks so he’d be more comfortable.
We had made and served lunch, and then I had taken Hazel to find another place to live.
But it was nearing suppertime, and we had been turned away from one hotel and restaurant after another. I had one more place to call on, but I had no hope we would find work.
“Can we go back?” Hazel asked, pulling on my hand. “My feet hurt, and I’m hot and thirsty and hungry.”