“I’m not a child anymore.” Only two months from sixteen.
“Just so.” He frowned and returned to his cutting. Then he cleared his throat. “I have great plans for us. Mr. Trask and I—”
Mr. Trask again. I set the plate down on the cutting table, and one of the fragile custards broke. Father lifted an eyebrow.
“Only men who want to pound rocks go to California,” I snapped. “It’s rocks and nothing.”
“California’s not the moon.”
“It is to me.” Though I knew I shouldn’t claim the last word, I couldn’t help it. I was born in the Year of the Snake after all, 1833. Father looked at me with sad but forgiving eyes. My anger slipped a fraction. With a sigh, I carefully scooped the broken tart off the plate and left the shop.
? ? ?
Five o’clock: Keeping my chin tucked in, I hurried down the road, kicking up dust around my skirts. The smell of smoke was especially robust tonight. Maybe the smokehouse had burned the meats again. The boys who worked there were not particularly gifted, plus they were mean. I already knew they would overcharge us for the salt pork we’d need for the trek west, and Father would have no choice but to pay.
I marched past uneven blocks of mismatched buildings, longing for the orderly streets of New York City. There were actual sidewalks there, and the air always smelled like sea brine and hot bread, unlike St. Joe, which reeked of garbage and smoke and—
I lifted my head. The sky had thickened to a hazy gray, textured with particles . . . like ash? Something sour rose in my throat.
It was not the smokehouse meat that was burning.
I ran, my violin bouncing against my back.
Oh please, God, no.
I flew past empty streets and turned onto Main, where suddenly there were too many people, some standing like cattle, others clutching squirming children to them. Noise assaulted me from all sides, people yelling, animals braying, and my own ragged breath.
The Whistle was a charred heap, an ugly inkblot against the dusky sky. The heat made the air look wavy, but the bitter reek in my nose told me the scene was no mirage. Ashes fluttered like black snowflakes all around.
“Father!” I pounded toward the remains, scanning the area for his distinctive figure. His dark hair and small build. The worn jacket with the patches on the elbows that he wouldn’t replace because he was saving for my future. Maybe he had shed it, for surely he was hauling water along with the rest of the men.
Smoke filled my lungs, and burned my eyes as I rubbed my grimy fingers into them.
“Out of the way!” yelled a man carrying buckets. Water sloshed onto my skirt.
I trotted beside him as he carried the buckets to another man who threw them onto the smoldering ruins. “My father—”
The man barely glanced at me. “He’s gone.”
I uttered a hoarse cry. Gone?
“Lucky you weren’t there yourself or you’d have been trapped, too. Now move!” He trod on my foot as he shoved by, but I hardly felt it.
My God, I didn’t—I should have . . .
“How?” I asked no one in particular. Was it an accident? Father was the most careful person I knew. He always doused the stove after we used it, and strictly enforced our NO SMOKING PERMITTED signage. No, if it was an accident, it couldn’t have been Father’s.
Whoever was responsible, may he pay for it in a thousand ways, go blind in both eyes, deaf in both ears. Better yet, may he perish in hell.
I choked back a sob and tried to make sense of the fuming mess in front of me. There was nothing but jagged piles of charred fragments. I could make out a heap of ash in the spot where we kept our wooden safe. Though Mother’s bracelet was no longer inside, it had held other irreplaceable treasures. A photo of Mother. Father’s immigration papers.
A wall of heat stopped me from going closer than fifteen feet from our front door, or where it used to be. My eyes burned as I strained to find my father, still not quite believing the horror was real. But as the heat began to cook my skin, I knew as sure as the Kingdom hadn’t come that he was gone. My father burned alive.
I shuddered and then my chest began to rack so hard I could scarcely draw a breath. Smoke engulfed me, thick and unyielding, but the awful truth rooted me to the spot: after I’d given my last lesson of the day, I’d dawdled along the banks of the dirty Missouri, throwing stones instead of coming home directly. I should have been with him.
Oh, Father, I’m sorry I argued with you. I’m sorry I left with my nose in the air. Were you remembering that when the smoke robbed you of your last breath? You always said, Have patience in one moment of anger, and you will avoid one hundred days of sorrow. My temper has cost me a lifetime of sorrow. And now, I will never be able to ask your forgiveness, or see your kind face again.
Another man carrying buckets barreled toward me. “Move back, girl, you’re in the way!”
I stumbled toward an elm tree, and there I stood, even after the glowing hot spots had ceased to burn, and buckets were no longer emptied.
Still the black snow fell, bits of my life flaking down on me.