Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [70]
Sorrow dragged like a lead weight on her heart as she remembered the sunny, beautiful baby, the mischievous boy, and the tall, graceful young man. She remembered his gentleness and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had never killed those women, no matter what Sammy had said. And if it were not for Sammy Morris, Josh would never have run away, he would never have come here to San Francisco, he would not have died alone and afraid in a shabby rooming house. She tried to imagine how he had felt when the earth shook and the walls fell in on him, burying him under the rubble. She thought of him trapped, choking for air, waiting and hoping for someone to save him and then the fire had come. She shuddered, putting her hands over her face. It was too terrible even to think about.
Francie hadn’t wanted to go to the saloon that day, but somehow her feet just took her there. She walked slowly, holding the boy by the hand, staring silently down at the toes of her stiff old leather boots, thinking of Josh. Lai Tsin had told her that if she was to get on with her life she must lay his ghost to rest too.
She noticed the young woman from half a block away. She was wearing a blue woolen traveling suit and a large hat with a russet plume and Francie thought she looked different, sort of foreign. She saw her put her head in her hands and then her shoulders shook with sobs and Francie’s heart went out to her. She hurried toward her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
“Believe me, I know how you feel,” she said sympathetically. Annie sniffed back her tears and looked at her. “I lost my fiancé. He was badly injured, then the earth shook again, a great slab of mortar came flying down and struck him on the head.” She closed her eyes as she said, “I had heard someone die before and I knew that sound. I knew he was dying.”
Annie gazed into her sad face and said, “I’m sorry, lass. I know there must be thousands of others grieving as myself. But my brother was such a special lad and I’ve come such a long way, hoping to find him still alive.”
Francie stared at her, puzzled. There was something familiar about the way she spoke … she had called her “lass,” just the way Josh did, and she said she had come from a long way to find him. Her eyes widened as she looked at her. She was small and rounded, she had big brown eyes with a fringe of dark lashes and there was something eerily familiar about her smile. Suddenly she knew. She said, “You are Josh’s sister.”
Annie’s jaw dropped, she clutched her arm, dazed. “You knew Josh?”
“It was Josh I was talking about, it was Josh I was with in the earthquake—”
Annie burst into tears again as she realized that Josh really was dead. She put her arms around Francie, and hugged her tightly. “I’m glad he met you,” she said between sobs, “at least he was with somebody who loved him when he died. I had nightmares thinking of him all alone, just lying there waiting for the flames. Now I know what happened, and terrible though it is, it’s not as bad as the unknown.”
She took a step back, holding Francie at arm’s length, seeing what Josh had seen in her. A thin, waiflike young girl with crazily cut pale blond hair, a sweet heart-shaped face with a jagged scar across her forehead, and huge sapphire-blue eyes. She mopped her tears and said, “So you were Josh’s fiancée. That makes you almost an Aysgarth, doesn’t it? I mean, if Josh had lived you would have been my sister-in-law. And I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Francie. Francie Harrison.” The little boy lurking behind her tugged at her skirts, and Annie stared surprised at the little Chinese lad in his coarse blue smock and the funny little cap with bunches of colored ribbons on the earflaps. He had a round face and almond eyes and he looked about four years old. She scooped him into her arms. “And who are you, little fellow?” she asked, pulling his cap straight and smiling at