Mission of Hope

by Allie Pleiter

  “Is your tent number on the scroll? Your uncle Martin needs to know where to send the clothes.”

  “Don’t know,” the boy said, turning the scroll over in his hands. He held it up to Nora again. “I don’t read. Is it?”

  The scroll held none of its sender’s information. “What’s your tent number?”

  The tiny lip trembled. “It’s over there.”

  The boy pointed across the street to the very large “unofficial” encampment that had taken over Dolores Park. Nora bent down and took the boy’s hand. “Which…” she hesitated to even use the word in front of him, “…shack is yours?”

  He pointed to a line of slapped-together shelters just across the street. “There.”

  The shack stood near the edge of the camp, but still, he was so small to be here by himself. Nora looked around for someone to send back with him—the unofficial camp was not a safe place to go—but everyone was engrossed in their own tasks. The little boy looked completely helpless and more than a little desperate. It was by the edge, not forty feet away, and perhaps it wasn’t as dangerous as Papa made it out to be. Taking a deep breath, Nora made a decision and hopped down off the wagon. Five minutes to help one little boy couldn’t possibly put her in any danger, and her father looked too busy to even notice her absence. Nora held out her hand. “Let’s walk back together and we’ll sort it out. We can ask your mama to help us.”

  The little boy looked away and swiped his eye bravely with the back of his other hand. “Mama’s gone,” he said in an unsteady voice. “My daddy wrote it.”

  Nora gripped the little hand tighter. “All the more reason that note should get through. We’ll do what it takes to reach your uncle. It’ll be all right, I promise. What’s your name?”

  “Sam.” The boy headed into a small alleyway of sorts between two of the shelters.

  The official refugee camps were surprisingly orderly. Straight rows of identical tents, laid out with military precision in specific parts of the city. Pairs of white muslin boxes faced each other like tiny grassy streets.

  The sights and sounds of another world rose up, though, as Nora crossed the street into the unofficial camp. An older man to her left coughed violently into a scrap of bandage he held to his mouth in place of a handkerchief. The thin material was already red-brown with blood. He looked up at her clean clothes with a weary glare. Even though the blouse she wore was three days old and the hem of her skirt was caked with dirt, she looked nothing like the people she passed. The scents—so full of smoke and char everywhere else—were also different here. Intensely, almost violently human smells: food, filth, sweat. A hundred other odors came at her with such force that she wondered how she had not smelled them from the other side of the street. She realized, with a clarity that was almost a physical shock, that her concept of how bad things were paled in comparison to how bad things actually were. Nora felt a powerful urge to run. To retreat back to the official, orderly camp and its neat rows of tents before the depth of the unofficial squalor overtook her like the beast in her nightmares. This felt too close to the awful hours of that first morning.

  It wasn’t as if Nora didn’t understand the scope of the catastrophe before. She did. But she’d somehow never grasped the sheer quantity of lives destroyed. Walking down this “alley,” the real-life details pushed her into awareness. The air seemed to choke her. Her clothes felt hot and tight.

  The lad pointed to what passed for his front door, saying, “It’s just there.”

  Nora’s brain shook itself to attention just enough to notice a small crowd had gathered at her appearance. It was not a friendly-feeling crowd—it had an air that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end—and she understood all too clearly why her father had not allowed her to venture off the cart before.

  A young man to her right fitted scraps of cardboard into the holed soles of his shoes. Sam rattled off a list as he pointed to the surrounding shelters. “Elliot went for bread, Mrs. Watkins for bandages, Papa for water and me for mail.” It seemed an awful lot to manage at his young age, but he spoke the list with such an everyday dryness that Nora’s heart twisted to hear it.

  “Papa!” Sam ducked into the shack, calling for his father. It left Nora standing in the aisle alone, listening to the shuffle of feet come to a stop behind her. “Papa!” Sam cried again from inside the shack, but no one answered.

  A man came out from the next shelter. “He went back for more water, Sam.” He eyed Nora, his expression confirming how out of place she already felt. His eyes fell to the scroll in her hand.

  “I need Sam’s tent number so I can add it to his father’s letter.”

  “Who’re you? The postmaster?” It was more a hollow joke than any kind of inquiry. The man took a step closer while two more even shadier characters came out from between two battered structures on the other side of the alley.

  “My father’s office is doing everything they can.” She had to work to keep a calm voice.

  “He is, is he? And how about you?” A skinny, greasy-looking young man smiled as he wandered closer. “You doin’ all you can?”

  “Of course,” Nora answered, until the glint in his eyes turned the question into something she didn’t want to answer. The wind picked up and made a shiver chase down her neck.

  The man twisted a piece of string around his fingers in a fidgety gesture. “Really?” He stretched out the word in a most unsavory way. “You sure?”

  “I am,” came a deep voice from behind Nora. She spun around to see Quinn Freeman step solidly between her and the leering man. He hoisted a large piece of steel in one hand with a defensive air. “I’m really sure, Ollie. Want to find out how sure I am?”

  “Charity’s a virtue, Freeman.” Ollie grinned, but it was more of a sneer.

  “Just make sure it’s virtue you got in mind. Miss Longstreet was just helping out, I imagine, and I’ll make sure she gets back to the mail wagon safe and sound, don’t you worry.” Quinn nodded at Nora, taking the scroll from her as if to personally see to its security.

  “You do that.” Ollie kicked a stone in his path and started walking back down the alley. “You just go ahead and do that.”

  With Ollie’s retreat, Nora felt the rest of the gathered crowd sink back to wherever they had come from. She let out the breath she had been holding. “It seems I owe you yet another debt, Mr. Freeman.”

  He put down the piece of steel and handed her back Sam’s scroll. “I’m not so sure it was a smart idea for you to wander over here like that. Even to help Sam. Things can get a little…rough around here if you’re not careful.”

  “My father would agree heartily. He’ll probably be rather sore at me for trying. I hadn’t realized…thank you again. First the locket, and now this. Surely there’s some way to thank you.”

  He smiled the engaging grin he’d shown her back at the rally. His eyes were a light brown, an almost golden color that picked up the straw shades of his hair. He had a strong, square jaw that framed his easy grin—the sort of face at home with a frequent smile. “Like I said, Miss Longstreet, I was happy to see something find its way home.” The sadness in the edge of his voice—the sadness that caught the edge of so many voices all around her—undercut the cheer of his words. “But there is something I’d like to show you. Something you ought to see before you leave with Ollie’s version of how things are in here.”

  “Do you live nearby?” She realized what a ludicrous question that was, as if he had a house just up the street instead of a shack somewhere in this makeshift camp.

  He tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded over his left shoulder. “Two rows down. The charming cottage on the left.” When Nora blushed, feeling like an insensitive clod for asking such a useless question, he merely chuckled. “It’s okay, really. I’ve seen worse. My uncle Mike says we might get back into a house next month. Just come see this and I’ll walk you back across the street before your papa begins to worry.”

  He led Nora thr
ough one more row of shacks to where a cluster of children gathered. The gaggle of tots surged toward Quinn when they saw him, parting the crowd to reveal a rough-hewn teeter-totter pieced together out of scrap and an old barrel. She knew, instantly, that the makeshift toy had been Quinn’s doing.

  “Mister Kin, Mister Kin!” a chubby blond-haired girl greeted. Nora guessed it to be her approximation of Mr. Freeman’s given name. “It works!”

  Quinn hunched down and tenderly touched the tot’s nose. “Told you it would.” Nora smiled. How long had it been since she had heard children’s laughter?

  The girl giggled. “You’re smart.”

  “Only just. Go ahead and take another turn, then. It’ll be time to get on back to your ma soon, anyway.”

  Nora stood awed for a moment. Quinn Freeman had handed her the smallest patch of happiness, but it did the trick. “Thank you.” She looked up at him, for he was a good foot taller than she if only a few years older, and thought that he was indeed clever to recognize a slapped-together toy would do so much good. “I did need to see this—you were right.”

  “Most people are afraid to really build anything here, thinking it’ll make it feel like we’ll be here forever, but even I know lads with nothing to do usually find something bad to fill their time.”

  “You’ll be here another month?” Many families were talking of pulling up stakes and starting over somewhere else just as soon as circumstances would allow. Others refused to even think past their next meal.

  “That’s my guess. Don’t pay much to peer too far into the future these days. God’s got His hands full in the present, I’d say.”

  “He does.” And he talks about God. In a calm way. Many people—her own family pastor Reverend Mansfield included—were shouting about the awful judgment God had “sent down” upon the sinful city of San Francisco. It wasn’t so hard a thought to hold. With dust and destruction everywhere, it was easy to wonder if the Lord Almighty hadn’t indeed turned His head away.

  By this time they’d reached the mail wagon, and Papa was standing with a sour and alarmed look on his face. “Thank heavens you’re all right. Just what do you think…?”

  “I’ve seen her back safely, Mr. Longstreet, and told her not to venture over here like that again,” Quinn cut in.

  “Papa, this is Mr. Freeman. The man who returned Annette’s locket. Now you can thank him in person.”

  The announcement took the wind out of Papa’s scorn. Her father stepped down off the mail wagon and extended a hand to Quinn. “Seems I owe you.”

  The two men shook hands. “You don’t owe me a thing. I was glad to help.”

  Papa looked at Nora. “Don’t you go needing help again. I’ll not let you come back if you wander off like that again. It’s only by God’s grace that Mr. Freeman was here to keep you from any trouble.”

  “Grace indeed,” Quinn said, shooting a sideways smile at Nora as he tipped his hat at Papa. “Don’t let it happen again, Miss Longstreet.” As he turned, he added quietly over Nora’s shoulder, “At least not until tomorrow around two.”

  Nora climbed back on the wagon to join her father. Perhaps the mail would not be so perfunctory from now on.

  Chapter Three

  Ah, but she was a beauty.

  Quinn stood mesmerized by the way she held her ground. Tall and proud, with defiant lines he wanted to catch from every angle.

  Quinn was vaguely aware of an elbow to his ribs. “Nephew, ya look foolish just standing there like that.”

  Rough hands grabbed his face on both sides and pulled his gaze to the dusty, whiskered sight of his uncle Michael. “There’s something wrong with you, man. It ain’t natural, the way you look at buildings.”

  “Architecture. It’s called architecture. I’d give anything to study.”

  Uncle Mike snorted. “You need a wife.”

  Quinn shifted his sore feet as his mind catapulted back to the rows of tiny black buttons that ran up the sides of Nora Longstreet’s boots. He’d stared then, too, liking their lines as much if not more. “I need to learn,” he said impatiently to his uncle, who simply rolled his eyes at the speech he’d heard every day even before the earthquake. “Apprentice an architect. Only there’s no time to learn anymore. We need loads of builders, but we need them now.” Everything took so much time these days. Lord Jesus, You know I’m thankful to be alive, but this bread line feels two thousand miles long. I’m in no mood to learn no more patience, if You please. He felt he’d die if he wasn’t back at the camp edge by two. He had to see her again. Had to see that dented locket that he just knew would be polished up and hanging around her neck. He’d miss half a week’s worth of bread to make sure he caught that sight—even if it meant he’d catch a whole lot more from his ma for returning without bread.

  By the time the sun was high in the sky and the police officer on the corner said it was one-fifteen, Quinn still was looking at forty or so people in line in front of him. Without so much as an explanation, Quinn nudged his uncle and said, “I’m off.”

  “And just what do you think you’re doin’?” the man balked as Quinn strode off in the direction of home, his feet no longer feeling the holes that burst through his shoes yesterday.

  “I ain’t sure yet,” Quinn replied with a grin, tipping his hat as his uncle stood slack-jawed, “but I’ll let you know.”

  Nora sat beside her father in the mail cart, her heart thumping like the hooves of the horse in front of them. Since the earthquake, she’d barely looked forward to anything or been excited about anything.

  She wanted to see him. To feel that tug on her pulse when he caught sight of her. He seemed so happy to see her. She knew, just by the tilt of his head, that she brightened his day. There was a deep satisfaction in that; something that went beyond filling a hungry belly. Still, that hadn’t stopped her from bringing a loaf of bread she’d charmed out of the cook this morning.

  He was a very clever man. He stood on the other side of the street, far enough from the cart to be unobtrusive, near enough to make sure she caught sight of him almost immediately. His eyes held the same fixation they had at the ceremony, and Nora felt a bit on display as she went about her duties.

  He watched her. His gaze was almost a physical sensation, like heat or wind. He made no attempts to hide his attentions, and the frank honesty of his stare rattled her a bit, but not the way that man Ollie’s stare had. She might be all of twenty-two, but Nora had lived long enough to judge when a man’s intentions were not what they should be. Simply put, Quinn looked exceedingly glad to see her again. And there was something wonderful about that.

  “You’ll stay by the cart today,” Quinn said, walking across the street when the line finally thinned out. “Mind your papa and all.”

  “I should,” she admitted. “However, I would like very much to see the teeter-totter again. It seemed a very clever thing to do, and I wonder if there aren’t some things back at my aunt’s house that we could add to your contraption.”

  A bright grin swept over his face. “My contraption. I like that a far sight better than that thing Quinn built.” He pushed his hat back on his head as he looked up at her, squinting in the sunlight. It gave Nora an excuse to settle herself down on the cart, bringing her closer to eye level with the man. “A contraption sounds important. I’ll have to build another just to say I am a man of contraptions.”

  They held each other’s gaze for a moment, and Nora felt it rush down her spine. It was powerful stuff these days to see someone happy—they’d barely left misery behind, and there was so much yet to endure ahead of them. She’d taken the streetcars completely for granted before. Now, everyone’s shoes—and feet—had suffered far too much walking. She imagined his smile would be striking anywhere, but here and now, it was dashing.

  “Still,” he said, “it’s best we don’t wander off today. I wouldn’t want your papa thinking poorly of me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he couldn’t do that.” Nora fingered the locket now fastene
d around her neck. Something flickered in his eyes when she touched it. “You brought me back Annette’s locket, and that was a fine thing to do.”

  “The pleasure’s mostly mine, Miss. I think it made me as happy as it made you. And good news is as hard to come by as good food these days.”

  “Oh,” Nora shot to her feet, remembering the loaf of bread tucked away behind her. “That reminds me. I know you said you didn’t need a reward, but I just didn’t feel right without doing something.” She pulled out the loaf, wrapped in an old napkin. “Cook makes the best bread, even missing half her kitchen.” She held it out.

  “Glory,” Quinn said, his grin getting wider, “You can’t imagine how glad I am to see a loaf of bread. Especially today.”

  “Aren’t you able to get any?”

  She thought she saw him wink. “That’s a long story. Just know you couldn’t have picked a better day to give me a loaf of bread.”

  That felt simply grand, to know she’d done something he appreciated so much. “I’m glad, then. We’re even.”

  “Hardly,” he said, settling his hat down on to his head again. “I’m still ahead of you, Miss Longstreet. By miles.” He bent his nose to the bread and sniffed. “I’d best get this home before it gets all shared away. Thank you, Miss Longstreet. Thank you very much.”

  “My pleasure,” Nora said, meaning it. Taking a deep breath, she bolstered her courage and offered, “Tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The only sad thing about the entire exchange was that three months ago, Nora would have rushed home to tell every little detail to Annette. Today, she didn’t mind the trickle of mail customers that still came to the wagon, for there was only Mama waiting at home. Nora laid her hand across the locket, hoping her thoughts could soar to where Annette could hear them. Is heaven lovely? I miss you so much.

  Reverend Bauers tried to lift the large dusty box, but couldn’t budge the heavy load at his advanced years. He huffed, batted at the resulting cloud of dust that had wafted up around him and threw Quinn a disgusted glance. “I’m too old for this.”