Waltzing In Ragtime (48 page)

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: Waltzing In Ragtime
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Wise, almond eyes with paper-thin lids blinked in the room’s dim light. The little mouth opened, gasped for air. Matthew held the legs higher. The baby gasped again. Kicked.
“A bold new son you have,” Annie proclaimed as she and Olana helped Mrs. Henley to turn and lie back on the mattress. The mother’s hands shook as she reached out for her child.
As he sat back and waited for the placenta to be born, Matthew realized that Annie’s voice was not conciliatory, the way it generally was when she had little hope for an early child. She barked instructions to keep the little boy close against his
mother’s warmth, to be gentle with the delicate, easily bruised skin.
“So small,” Mrs. Henley said.
Her son found, latched onto her nipple. He sucked vigorously. “You’ll remedy that together,” Matthew promised as the placenta came. He tied and cut the chord. When Annie Smithers examined the woman’s perineum, her voice changed.
“Look,” she whispered. “There’s no tear.”
“No? That’s good. This poor lady’s been through enough without —”
“Not even a small one.”
His grandmother’s eyes were as bright as he’d ever seen them. “It’s her seventh child, Gran,” he argued.
“Matthew, look. Look at how deep you were inside her.”
He glanced up his right arm and saw blood and vernix smeared halfway to his elbow. He was glad they’d both scrubbed it, was glad for the hot water. When he looked at Annie Smithers again she was weeping.
“Hey Gran, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing. You did well, Matthew. You did real well.”
He took her in his arms. “Am I a journeyman at last?” he whispered into her fine silver hair.
 
 
Matthew stared hard at Sister Justina, trying not to think of his many obligations toward her and the sisters, the latest of which was blessed relief for his sleeping grandmother as they fanned out to offer assistance to the birthing families here in the park. Firm. He must remain firm, obeying the instinctual terror that her request provoked.
“No.”
“Take our wagon,” Mrs. Amadeo pleaded. “God will smile. Perhaps he will keep my husband safe. From the fire. Ah, Matthew, do this thing for the sisters. The babies will wait for your return.”
“No,” he said again.
“Now, Matthew,” Sister Justina tried. “You know how close the Mission chapel is. It will only take an hour.”
“Where are the priests?”
“Called away to administer Extreme Unction to the dying. The relics in the chapel are holy to us. As are the sacred hosts, the chalices, the patens, the ciborium. Gold, Matthew. So much gold, that is all thieves will see. We cannot trust anyone else to help us remove them.”
Matthew thought of Possum’s shining eyes during processions honoring the Blessed Sacrament that wound through their neighborhood. These women had welcomed his daughter into the parish, though she was of Yuork blood, and he a non-believer. And, much to her own embarrassment, this irritating woman had pushed and prodded him into finding Olana again. Still, the prospect of leaving the mothers and the babies gave him a clawing pain in his stomach, from the terror. He watched the two women in early labor reading to their children, their faces calm and serene between contractions. He walked to them.
“My grandmother is the best midwife in California. Wake her when you need her.”
They nodded, smiling.
He reached Olana in three strides, the nuns still at his heels. “Want to take a ride, darlin’?” he asked.
Her cheeks flushed pink at his familiarity in front of the sisters. “Sure,” she said.
When the wagon was ready, Possum buttoned up her father’s shirt collar. “There’s a storm coming, Daddy,” she said.
Matthew looked into the soot filled sky. “I wish there were, little one,” he said.
She pressed her lips to his unshaven cheek. “Not a rainstorm,” she whispered close to his ear, “a storm of fire.”
The red wall of flame rose high over the Mission District. Two days. The fire had been raging two days, started by broken gas pipes, by cooks frying ham and eggs on stoves connected to damaged chimneys, fed by the shifting winds, the close together frame buildings, the dynamiters and arsonists. Would it ever end? Olana slipped her hand in the crook of his arm. Matthew urged the horses on. He should have left her in the shade of the willow tree with his sleeping grandmother. He should have broken his promise not to leave her, rather than have her here.
On his other side, Sister Justina smiled at young Sister Ursula. “We’re almost there, Matthew. Don’t grind your teeth.”
The ancient bell in the mission’s tower began ringing with mad urgency. Sister Justina pursed her lips. “We’re coming, Gertrude,” she said. “Sometimes Gertrude takes her devotion to the Sacred Heart a bit too seriously,” she confided.
Matthew lifted Olana down from the wagon. “It will be cooler inside,” he promised. “And I’ll find you water.”
She touched his face. “I’m well, darling. Just don’t leave me.”
They followed the two sisters’ heels down the cobblestone path to the sacristy. Sister Justina’s annoyance echoed. “If they’d
brought the sacred items through the courtyard for us to load instead of ringing that bell … oh, Jesus.”
Matthew’s head shot up at what sounded like a blasphemy from the nun’s lips. Sister Justina stood inside, Sister Ursula in the sacristy’s doorway. “Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Sister Justina finished her incantation.
Matthew recognized the scent that assaulted his nostrils. Blood. Not the blood of life that had sustained him through his toil over the hours of birthings. The blood of carnage. He took the young sister’s arm and pulled her out of the doorway. Her eyes were glazed in shock, but he had to trust Olana to her care. He shook her.
“Sister! Would you take my wife to the courtyard for some air?”
She blinked. “Yes, yes of course.” She reached for Olana’s hand. Olana stepped forward. “Matthew, what is it?”
“I’ll be right out. Go, darlin’.”
“No. Matthew, please!”
He shut the door on her frightened face, but could not shake its image, even as he walked silently among the four downed nuns. He knelt beside each, felt for a pulse, shook his head. He watched Sister Justina drape each raped and cut-open body with a bloodsoaked veil or cast-off skirt. The old nun began a litany as they worked. She invoked saints, virgins, martyrs, confessors in a dizzying array that finally dropped him to his knees and clouded his eyes with tears. She halted, then pressed his head close against the crucifix at her heart. It cut into the wounds in his scalp.
He yanked the words through his constricted throat. “I’ll do the births with you women. Not this. I don’t have the strength for this.”
“It’s all right, son,” Justina whispered. “Rest.”
The bell above them pealed once more, feebly. “Gertrude,” Sister Justina cried. “Matthew, Gertrude.”
Matthew yanked in a steadying breath as he stood. He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands as he ran to the bell tower.
Sister Gertrude swayed against the rope in her hands. When she saw them, her pale face broke into a smile. She pulled a gold chalice from the torn bodice of her habit and offered it to Matthew.
“Father?”
“Take it,” Sister Justina whispered at his ear.
“No,” he whispered, remembering his dreams.
“Take it.”
He did, handed it to her, and caught the falling woman. Her skin was cold and clammy, her breathing shallow. But if he could find the bleeding. Stop it. Get help. He stumbled down the stairs, ran through the labyrinth of halls. Finally, outside to the street.
He searched for the Amadeo cart. Was it gone, or on the other side, at another entrance? He turned the corner. There was an ambulance wagon waiting there. He placed his burden in Sister Justina’s arms. “Find the bleeding, press hard. Stop it,” he instructed. “I’ll get help.”
“Matthew,” she said gently. “She’s dead.”
“No.” He backed away from them, and ran to the wagon.
“We’re filled up, padre.” The voice, thin, wheezing, familiar. From the driver’s seat. “No room.”
“Make room! She’s the only one left!”
Matthew ran to the back of the wagon, threw open the doors. He could feel his own heartbeat as he stared at the chests, paintings, ornate chairs, jewelry. At the top of the pile were bloodied church fixtures, gold-encased relics, chalices.
“Oh God,” he whispered, turning. Cal Carson blocked the dim sun. pointing a pistol between Matthew’s eyes. “One step and I’ll have Ezra break your woman’s neck, Ranger.”
Matthew stood, his fingers aching, watching his enemy. For damage. The sisters did not go to their deaths gently. One had torn at Cal’s eyes. Tracks of bloody tears were crusting on his hollow, jaundiced cheeks.
Ezra Carson dragged Olana and Sister Ursula out from the shade of the wall. The nun was limp, her eyes closed. “Cal, I
didn’t break her, honest,” Ezra said. “She just went all jelly jointed.” Blood spurted from Olana’s nose. “And his woman bites,” Ezra complained, rubbing his inflamed ear against her hair.
“Hold them steady!” Cal barked, before he smiled slowly at Matthew. “Which shall we trade for you, Hart?” he asked.
“Both.”
“Both? Do you hear him, brother? Thinks he’s worth both. Maybe, at one time. When we had our sheep, or our mining equipment, or our toes. Before you crippled me with that hole in my side. Before we lost McPeal. Before Mr. Hopkins put us in a madhouse, all for stealing your woman’s nightgown.”
“Hopkins?”
“Also known by Moore, back when he was flinging young China girls out windows, and marrying troublesome heiresses. Yes. You were worth thousands to your woman’s lovelorn husband then! Not now. But we’ve hit some of our own pay dirt at last! Why, we’re so rich we’ll kill you and your two ladies for the sheer pleasure of it.”
When Olana kicked Ezra he dropped the nun. Matthew twisted the wrist of the big man’s distracted brother. Cal Carson fired two shots, one through the toeless part of his own shoe, another grazing Matthew’s leg and embedding itself in the wagon’s wheel. Finally the pistol hit the ground. Matthew kicked it in Sister Justina’s direction.
Olana’s scream changed into one of warning. He turned to detect the flash of something gleaming. Too late. It entered his side. The shovel was next, catching him square on the side of his face. Don’t fall, the child inside him pleaded. Or was it Leland, looking for help for his sister? Matthew heard more erupting gunfire, before even that was extinguished in a cold darkness.
 
 
Cal Carson yanked at Olana’s hair. Hard, though he was still having trouble controlling the frightened horses.
“That’s not how I wanted it!” he raved. “I wanted it slow! I wanted him to watch us fuck you inside out first! That was too good, too easy, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she said, numbly understanding completely. Hadn’t she been married to a man like this one? Empty streets glided by. She saw only Matthew. Still, so still, with the long knife rising up from his side.
“He saw what we did to the nuns,” Ezra offered to his brother in consolation. “Must have caused him no end of misery.”
“True. And no wonder I’m hungry. Let’s celebrate, brother mine.”
“But Cal, the fire —”
“We’ll stay ahead of the firemen!” Cal Carson reached across Olana to shove his brother’s massive shoulder. “I’ll even let you have her first,” he promised.
 
 
Matthew was thirsty. Thirsty like women get after childbirth, when they’ve given up so much fluid. He heard voices, saw hovering shapes. Giant loons, their wings black, white. A coat was folded under his head. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work. Then the little loon, the one who’d been so pale, Ursula, drizzled something along his lips.
“Holy water,” she whispered.
His locked jaw loosened, opened. He drank. The hazy sisters cleared, and then swiftly, unmercifully, so did his mind.
“Olana?”
Justina leaned over him. “They took her.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
He sat up.
“Matthew, don’t.”
He tried to smile at their concern, but his face was stiff and unyielding. He lifted the red cloth from his side and found clean entrance and exit wounds. He raised his head. “Who pulled the knife out?”
The pale sister’s quick blush gave her away.
“Good work,” he said, stuffing the cloth harder against the wounds and buttoning his vest over it. He felt hands at his back, pulling the drawstrings hard.
“Go with God, Matthew Hart,” Sister Justina said, releasing him.
 
 
The second-floor flat had been rocked soundly by the earthquake. Every framed picture lay smashed on the planked floor. An upright piano was overturned, sheet music scattered at Olana’s feet. Only the figurines — a petite lady in a huge skirt and powdered wig, and her matching dancing partner in brocade coat and knee breeches were intact, still delicate, in blue and white porcelain. They perched in the glassless bay window. Perhaps the most vulnerable objects of the flat, in the most vulnerable spot, they had survived. Was this the final miracle in these days of miracles and nightmares?
Olana heard the Carson brothers guzzling food in the pantry. At first they had made her join them, pouring wine down her throat until she’d vomited, disgusting them. They’d hit her, making her nose bleed again, but not enough to send her into the merciful oblivion of unconsciousness. Tired, Cal tied her ankle to the sofa with a silk maniple from the chapel. Then they’d gone to the pantry revels.
When they came back, before they started hurting her again, would they unfasten her? Would she have the courage to go through the bay window so no one would have to find her the way Matthew found the nuns? Would she remember to be careful of the small, perfect, dancing partners as she jumped?
She closed her eyes and saw Matthew’s fine, gentle hands. She leaned her aching head back, and thought she could feel him close, closer. Or was it their child who she felt hammering at her to stay alert, to survive?
She opened her eyes. There, on the sheet music to “The Blue Danube,” a jagged piece of glass glinted. Olana slipped noiselessly
from the sofa, watching, always watching the pantry doorway. Her hand reached the glass. She worked at the binding that held her ankle to the sofa leg, cutting until only threads remained. Then she allowed herself a small smile of triumph, for herself and her child. She put the glass into her pocket, beside her marriage papers. She had already dropped her brother’s gift like a bread crumb in Hansel and Gretal as they hauled her up the stairs.
What had Matthew told her, long ago? The head or the heart. She would kill them if she could. If she could not, she would inflict as much damage as she could before they killed her.
 
 
The overladen ambulance wagon’s ruts cut a deep path in the layers of cinders the encroaching fire had blown onto the streets. When Matthew’s lame side and burning leg kept him from running, he settled for an addling gait. The deep ruts turned into an alleyway. Yes. The wagon was there.
He began working on instinct then, walking slowly, scanning the three-story frame houses. When he stopped, rested in a patch of shade, he saw Leland’s miniature of Olana in a side entranceway. He raised his head and saw a glint of auburn hair through the house’s second-story windows. He surveyed the roofs, cornices, and finials for a pathway up to her.
 
 
Was the fire approaching? Was that the strange chattering sound, like the demented cries of numberless monkeys coming down Sixteenth Street? Or was it Olana herself going mad, now that she’d lost him, lost everything in this city drowning in flames? No. There was the child. She had to keep her wits about her, as he would have, for their child.

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