Mission of Hope. Allie Pleiter
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of it at the other camps by now. Papa says crates of supplies come through his office every day.”
“And you can see how much of it makes its way to us out here.” She softened her hard stare. “We can’t all fit into the official camps, no matter what those men in suits say. But that’s none of your doing, Miss Longstreet. I’ve not meant to grouse at you. I don’t know where they expect us to go or how they expect us to get by. So much making do and doing without wears on a soul.”
Obviously cued by Quinn, Sam stood up straight and extended a chubby hand. “Thanks for my licorice, Miss Longstreet. And for coming.”
Nora shook Sam’s hand with grand formality. “You’re welcome, young master Sam. And thank you for the invitation. I do hope you’re feeling better soon.”
Sam was evidently feeling better now, for he tumbled through the door as soon as Quinn’s hand released his shoulder. A limping tumble, but an energetic one just the same. Nora watched him go. “What else do you need? I have to think there is something I or my family can do.”
Mrs. Freeman planted her hands on her hips. “What don’t folks need? We need everything. Bandages, iodine, wood, water, socks, pins, string…I could rattle on for days.”
“Wait a minute.” Nora fished into her pockets for the bits of paper and the stub of a pencil she’d begun keeping in there during her mail cart visits. “Let me write this down.” Mrs. Freeman rattled off the surprisingly long list of basic items needed in the makeshift camps. Many of these things showed up regularly in the official camps. How had things become so segregated?—everyone suffered. It made no sense. Two or three of the items she could provide from her own household. Surely in the name of Christian mercy Mama and Aunt Julia—with a little help from Mrs. Hastings, perhaps—might scour up the rest.
“Could you make another copy of that list?” Quinn asked, holding out his hand. “Reverend Bauers could put one to good use, I’d guess.”
“Of course.” Nora found another scrap of paper—this one a page torn out of a cookery book—and copied down the list.
Quinn folded it carefully and tucked it into a pocket of his shirt. He had the most peculiar smile on his face, as if he’d just learned a great secret. “I should get you back, Miss Longstreet, before your father worries.”
Quinn stared at the list. Miss Longstreet did a funny, curvy thing with the dots on her i’s. A delicate little backward slant. He ran his fingers across the writing again, careful not to smudge it.
He had his first challenge. A list of basic supplies.
It was in her handwriting. That shouldn’t have mattered much, but it did. There was a generosity about her that stuck in the back of his mind. She was kind to Sam, but not out of pity—the sort that he had seen far too much of lately. That version—a superior, ingratiating sort of assistance—bred the hopelessness that was already running rampant in the camp. Nora’s kind of help was respectful. She grasped the truth that made so many people uncomfortable in this disaster: fire was no respecter of privilege. Those now without homes had done nothing but live on the wrong street corner at the wrong time. The firestorm and the earthquake destroyed nice homes as eagerly as they consumed shanties. Bricks fell just as hard on good men as they did on criminals. Certain people had begun to sort victims into worthy and unworthy categories. Official camp refugees and squatters. Implying reasons why the refugees were in the positions they were. It was, Quinn supposed, a perfectly human reaction to death and destruction’s random natures. A desire to seek order amidst chaos.
It was just very irritating to be on the receiving end. And Quinn, like most of Dolores Park’s residents, had come to see it a mile off.
Nora wasn’t like that. And yes, he had come to think of her as Nora, even though he’d always address her as “Miss Longstreet,” of course. Quinn felt as if he could read all her thoughts in those violet eyes. It seemed such a cliché to say “there was something about her,” but he could get no more specific than that—something about her tugged at his imagination constantly. Little details, like the gentleness of how she bandaged Sam’s foot. The delicacy of her handwriting or the way her fingers fluttered over the locket when she was thinking.
He could no longer lie to himself: Nora Longstreet had caught his eye.
Chapter Six
“I’ve laid it all out in my head, Reverend. It wouldn’t be that hard, actually.”
Reverend Bauers sat back in his chair, ready to listen. Quinn had once loved the meticulous order of the reverend’s study—it had seemed to him like an enormous library, although he’d never actually seen a true library. Today, Bauers reclined between tall stacks of linens and a tottering tower of pots and pans. The neatness of his study had been overthrown by the new demands on the Grace House kitchen, which had suffered damage in the earthquake but now had even more mouths to feed. As such, the study now doubled as an extra pantry, so the books shared their shelves with tins of tomatoes, jars of syrup, and whatever foodstuffs Bauers had managed to find to feed his flock.
“I expected as much, Quinn.”
Quinn again had the sensation of being the center of a story that had begun before he arrived. As if everyone around him knew more of his own future than he himself did. It was the kind of thoughts that could make a man edgy. And bold. “If we could get them from the army or the hospital, it’d be easy as pie.”
Reverend Bauers frowned. “If you could get them easily from those places, you’d have them already.”
Quinn leaned one shoulder against the wall. “You’re right. And that’s wrong. Even I can see we can’t fit in those official camps. Why bother to divide us at all unless someone wants the groups to start fighting each other?”
“Just to make things clear here, man, stealing will not be an option. I admit we might have to stretch our definition of ‘procurement,’ but there will be no taking of supplies against the will of those who have them. You must become an agent of expediting, not a thief.”
Quinn furrowed a brow at the long word. “Expediting?”
“The art of expediting is the art of getting things where they need to go quickly. Efficiently. And, I’ve no doubt in this case, rather creatively. You possess the creativity in spades. We just need someone very well-connected. And, you’ll be happy to know, God has been kind enough to present us with an ally. Can you be at Fort Mason tomorrow afternoon at two?”
Quinn winced. There was only one place he ever wanted to be at two in the afternoon, and it wasn’t anywhere near the army base. “I’ve got someplace to be at two, but make it three and I’ll be there.”
“Two minutes after three,” said a dark-haired man in uniform with a precise mustache and an even more precise snap of his pocket watch. “He’s punctual, at least. That’s something.” Quinn found himself nose to nose with a meticulously dressed man with dark, sharp eyes.
“I’m told you run fast.” The man pocketed his watch.
“I do.”
“Have you a steady hand?”
Quinn wasn’t entirely sure where this was heading. “So they tell me.”
“Quinn Freeman,” Reverend Bauers cut in, “may I present Army Major Albert Simon. Major Simon, this is Quinn Freeman, the man I’ve been telling you about.”
Major Simon walked around him, appraising him as if he were buying a horse. “Tall, strong, good reach, I’d expect.” He turned to Bauers. “He’s had some training in fencing?”
“Two years,” Quinn stepped in, not liking the idea of Bauers and Simon talking about him as if he weren’t in the room. “It was a long time ago, but I still remember most of it.”
Simon stroked one hand down either tip of his mustache. “Ever shot a pistol, Freeman?”
“I’ve