The City, Not Long After Read online

EVERY WEDNESDAY, MS. MIGSDALE printed the New City News, San Francisco’s only newspaper. Tommy assisted her with production, cranking the hand-operated press, helping to fold the two hundred and some copies of the News, and delivering the folded papers to the public library, where Books distributed them to the city’s residents, and to Duff’s, where farmers and traders bartered for copies.

  In exchange for Tommy’s help, Ms. Migsdale tutored the boy. Ruby, his mother, thought he needed schooling, so Ms. Migsdale taught him small things that she thought might prove useful someday. On sunny afternoons they studied botany, identifying the wild flowers and grasses that grew in abandoned yards and vacant lots. Together they caught tadpoles in the creek that flowed past the library. For weeks, Tommy kept the tiny creatures in a fish tank, watching with amazement as they grew legs. As the days passed, their tails shrank down to nothing. Finally Ms. Migsdale and Tommy released a dozen tiny frogs by the creek. On summer nights, when Ms. Migsdale taught Tommy the names of the constellations, they could hear the frogs calling in high thin voices, barely louder than crickets.

  Ms. Migsdale felt vaguely guilty sometimes, because she knew that she learned as much from Tommy as he did from her. He knew where edible mushrooms grew and where watercress floated on still water. When she could not find her way through the city’s shifting streets, Tommy knew the route to follow. He explained to her that Randall became a wolf on nights when the moon was full, and told her about the ghosts he saw in the downtown streets. She had difficulty accepting all the things he told her; he took the city’s strangeness as a matter of course, an attitude that she found faintly disturbing. But he was her best source of news. If something interesting had happened anywhere in the city, Tommy would know about it.

  On the Wednesday after Danny-boy found the stranger, Tommy could talk of nothing else. “My mom says she’s a wild woman,” he shouted over the rhythmic thumping of the press. “She said Danny-boy ought to throw her back.”

  “Seems funny that Danny-boy found her downtown,” Ms. Migsdale yelled back. She sat on a stool at a battered wooden drafting table, folding copies of the News. “Most people get scared off before they get that far.”

  Tommy stopped cranking the press and squeezed a little more ink over the rollers. “She didn’t get scared off,” he said. He seemed proud, as if he had had a hand in the woman’s arrival. “She was right in the heart of downtown.”

  “Did you talk to her at all?”

  Tommy hesitated, as if wondering how far he could push the truth. Then he admitted, “Naw. Tiger made me leave. But I asked Danny-boy and he said that she came from Sacramento.”

  Ms. Migsdale nodded thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. I wonder if she has news of what Fourstar is up to. She could be important.”

  “Sure, she’s important,” Tommy said, cranking the press again. “The city wouldn’t have let her in otherwise.”

  Ms. Migsdale shook her head, struck by the boy’s unswerving faith in the city. His trust seemed, at times, to border on religion. “Don’t you think it could just have been an accident?” she suggested.

  Tommy laughed. “Naw. The city likes her—that’s all there is to it.” He cranked the press with increased energy. “She had a crossbow. Do you think she’d show me how to shoot it? Maybe I could make one.”

  “You can always ask,” Ms. Migsdale said.

  “She doesn’t have a name,” Tommy said. “That’s what Dannyboy said. No name at all. Why do you think she came here?”

  “I’ll ask her,” Ms. Migsdale promised. “I’ll be interviewing her for the next issue of the News. I’ll let you know when I find out.” Late that afternoon, when Tommy pedaled toward Duff’s with his bicycle baskets filled with copies of the News, Ms. Migsdale headed for Danny-boy’s, which was just a short bicycle ride from the Mission Street print shop.

  The woman sat in an easy chair in front of the Saint Francis Hotel. Three monkeys perched among the carvings on the hotel’s stone facade. Whenever they came down to the sidewalk, Jezebel began barking and chased them back up. Now the dog lay panting by the woman’s chair, gazing expectantly at the animals and waiting for another game.

  The hotel fronted on Union Square. From her chair the woman could look across what had once been a small park. A stone pillar rose from the center of the square, where four curving cement paths intersected. On top, the bronze figure of a young woman stood in a graceful arabesque, one arm reaching out ahead of her, one leg extended behind.

  Bean plants surrounded the base of the pillar. Tomatoes, potatoes, and summer squash grew between the curving paths; shiny-leafed chili pepper plants filled wooden boxes that had once held rhododendrons; cucumber vines meandered across the sidewalks, hiding the cement beneath prickly leaves. A few scrawny chickens and a bedraggled rooster scratched among the plants. On the far side of the square, blackbirds squabbled in the apple trees.

  The woman noticed a small figure riding a bicycle down the street toward her. She felt for the knife that she had slipped between the chair’s cushion and the arm, out of sight but in easy reach. Danny-boy had assured her that she did not need to worry; no one in the city would hurt her. So far, he seemed to be right, but she felt better with her knife nearby.

  “Hello,” called the old woman on the bicycle. She stopped in front of the hotel, got off her bicycle, and leaned it against a lamppost. Jezebel ran to greet her, tail wagging furiously. “I had heard that Danny-boy had a guest. I’m Ms. Migsdale.”

  The woman relaxed, releasing her grip on the knife. Ms. Migsdale seemed harmless enough.

  “Is Danny-boy around?”

  The woman shook her head. Ms. Migsdale smiled, obviously waiting for more. “He’s gone to find Randall,” the woman said at last. “My horse ran away after she threw me. Danny-boy says that Randall might know where she ran off to.”

  Ms. Migsdale nodded, settling into the other easy chair. Jezebel laid her head in the old woman’s lap with a happy sigh, and Ms. Migsdale rubbed the dog’s ears. “If anyone knows, chances are Randall does.” Ms. Migsdale smiled at the woman. “You don’t mind if I wait a bit and see if he comes back, do you?”

  “If you like,” the woman said. She studied the older woman curiously. Leon had said that artists lived in the city. She did not know exactly what an artist looked like, but she knew that this old woman did not suit her vague imaginings.

  Ms. Migsdale stroked Jezebel’s head and returned the woman’s scrutiny. “I hear you come from Sacramento,” Ms. Migsdale said. “You know much about the fellow they call Fourstar?”

  “More than I want to,” the woman said. “I came here to warn the artists about him. He’s planning to come and take over San Francisco.”

  Ms. Migsdale nodded slowly, but did not show any sign of alarm. “He’s been planning that for years, from what I hear. But I’d like to hear more about it. I publish a newspaper, the New City News, and I thought I might interview you for it, if you’re willing.” The woman nodded, realizing suddenly why the name had sounded familiar. “I’ve heard of you. I met a trader who mentioned your newspaper.”

  Ms. Migsdale leaned forward eagerly. “You must have met Leon. How wonderful! I was beginning to worry about him. When did you see him?”

  The woman looked down at her hands, wondering what to say. She did not want to talk about Leon and what had happened to him. One of her hands picked nervously at the stuffing that bulged through a rip in the easy chair’s upholstery. The sun had faded the cloth’s floral pattern, leaving dark gray patches where roses had once bloomed.

  “Tell me.” Ms. Migsdale’s voice was soft and encouraging.

  “When did you see him?”

  “A week back, I guess.” The woman’s voice was small and her chest felt tight. “The army took him for questioning.” She glanced up, meeting Ms. Migsdale’s eyes, then looking away. Her fingers worried at the frayed edges of the tear in the upholstery. “They took my mother too.”

  Ms. Migsdale laid her hand over the woman’s, stoppi
ng the busy fingers. “Tell me what happened.”

  “They let my mother go, but they took Leon to headquarters. I don’t think he’ll ever come back.” She kept her head down, refusing to look up. “My mother was sick when she came back. I nursed her as well as I could.” She heard a defensive note in her own voice. Ms. Migsdale’s hand tightened on the woman’s.

  “She died,” Ms. Migsdale said.

  “No!” The woman pulled her hand away from Ms. Migsdale’s. “One night the angel came and took her to San Francisco.” She glared at Ms. Migsdale. “I came to the city to find her. And I know she’s here. I saw the angel.”

  Ms. Migsdale nodded slowly. Her hands were knotted in her lap. The woman straightened up in her chair, watching Ms. Migsdale. “I’m sorry to tell you about Leon,” she said. She waited for a moment, but Ms. Migsdale did not look up. The woman reached out and touched her shoulder lightly, a hesitant reassurance. “I liked Leon.”

  “He was a good man,” Ms. Migsdale said. “He always brought me news of the Central Valley.” She wiped her eyes briskly with one hand, blinked, and looked up to meet the woman’s eyes. “I guess we’ll have to start taking Fourstar more seriously now. I suppose the time has come.”

  “My mother told me to come to the city,” the woman said. “Before she went away, she made me promise I would come and warn you.”

  Ms. Migsdale nodded. She reached into her purse and pulled out a small spiral notebook. “This interview will start people thinking.” Her voice had taken on a businesslike tone. “The power of the press, you know. Perhaps you could tell me a little about your journey from Woodland to San Francisco.”

  Prompted by Ms. Migsdale’s questions, the woman talked about the Central Valley, about the farms and the houses she had explored as a child, about the Woodland market and the soldiers who ran the checkpoint. Ms. Migsdale took careful notes. From the hotel’s facade, the monkeys watched.

  “Hey, dog,” Danny-boy said. The black dog looked up from the storm drain grating that it had been sniffing and eyed Danny-boy with suspicion. It was a wolfish-looking animal about the size of a German shepherd. “Look here.” Danny-boy tossed a piece of stale muffin in the dog’s direction. The animal nosed the food warily, then downed it in one gulp. Sitting back on its haunches, it studied Danny-boy with new interest.

  “Listen,” Danny-boy said. “I’m looking for Randall. You know him?”

  The dog cocked its head to one side and its ears swiveled forward.

  Danny-boy frowned, uncertain as to the meaning of the dog’s reaction. Whenever he needed to find Randall, he bribed one of the feral dogs that lived in the city to pass on a message. Sometimes his method worked and sometimes it didn’t. He figured that some of the dogs were on speaking terms with Randall, and others were not. But he could not distinguish between the two.

  “You sure?”

  The dog watched him intently, its eyes fixed on his hands, and made an eager noise low in its throat. Danny-boy broke off another piece of muffin and the dog leapt to catch it.

  “Tell him I’ve got to talk to him. He can meet me in Golden Gate Park, over by the big museum. You got that?”

  The dog took a step toward Danny-boy, its tail held high. Danny-boy shrugged and tossed the animal the rest of the muffin, which disappeared in a single gulp.

  “That’s it,” Danny-boy said. “Go find Randall.” He held up his empty hands and the dog’s tail drooped. The animal trotted away, glancing back only once.

  Danny-boy mounted his bicycle and headed for Golden Gate Park by way of Geary Boulevard, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. He took his time, figuring it would take the dog a while to find Randall. In a clothes store, he picked through heaps of shirts and jeans, looking for some that might fit the woman. As he examined the clothes, he found himself thinking about the woman. She intrigued him. He had never spent much time talking with anyone from outside the city. The farmers and traders who passed through Duff’s were skittish and careful around city dwellers. After some searching, he found a red shirt and a pair of jeans that had escaped the mildew and the moths.

  In the storeroom of a hardware store, he found a well-stocked paint department. Most of the graffiti artists in town lived in the Haight or in the Mission district and only occasionally scavenged in the stores off Geary. Danny-boy pried open can after can, checking the contents. More often than not, the cans contained only desiccated paint chips; but he did find five cans of enamel paint in various shades of blue, and three cans of blue spray paint. He added brushes and rollers to the load in his trailer, then headed for the park.

  Golden Gate Park stretched from the heart of the city out to Ocean Beach, over a thousand acres of open land. It had grown wild during the years since the Plague. White-tailed deer and horses, descendants of the Golden Gate Stables rental nags, roamed the park’s overgrown meadows and groves. Migrating ducks stopped to feed in the small lakes.

  The lawn in front of the great, glass-domed Conservatory of Flowers was lush and shaggy. Long ago, grass had overrun the flowerbeds. A herd of buffalo, descendants of animals who had eaten stale bread and sticky buns from the hands of tourists, grazed on the thick grass and sniffed the hardy exotics that had burst through the Conservatory’s glass walls to reach for the sun.

  Danny-boy checked the snares he had set in the low shrubs behind the Conservatory and found one rabbit, caught and strangled in his noose. He gutted it quickly, leaving the entrails in the grass, and continued on his way.

  Danny-boy cycled around the circular drive that passed the Japanese Tea Garden, the De Young Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the California Academy of Sciences. He startled a flock of pigeons that had been quietly feeding on the seeds of grasses that grew through cracks in the pavement. “Hello!” he called. “Randall! You here?” A young bull buffalo glared at him balefully from the entrance to the Japanese Tea Garden. The ornamental plum tree that stood by the gate had scattered leaves on the ground around the buffalo’s hooves. “Randall!” Three white-tailed deer burst from the shelter of the trees at the center of the circular drive and bounded past the Asian Art Museum. “Hello!”

  Danny-boy circled again, calling out to Randall. His voice echoed back to him from the cement front of the Academy. The air was pleasantly cool and the shadows of late afternoon lay thick on the ground. Exhilarated by the beauty of the day, he circled a third time, weaving with wide exuberant arcs around the potholes in the drive and whooping with joy during each sweeping curve. The trailer bumped and rattled, threatening to overturn but remaining obstinately upright.

  He was rounding the curve by the Japanese Tea Garden when he realized he was being watched. Randall stood beside the grazing buffalo, watching Danny-boy impassively. Over one shoulder, he carried a set of leather saddlebags.

  “Randall,” Danny-boy said, braking to a stop by the gate. “Good to see you.”

  Randall dropped the saddlebags at his feet. “These belong to the woman you found,” he said.

  Danny-boy frowned. Randall always seemed to know more than he rightly should. “How do you know about it?”

  “The monkeys told me.”

  “Yeah? What do they say?”

  “Say there’s going to be some changes around here. Trouble coming. The woman’s a part of it.”

  “Part of the trouble?” Danny-boy shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Randall shrugged. “Part of the solution to the trouble, maybe. It’s not clear yet.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Danny-boy persisted.

  Randall shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “Trouble,” he said. “That’s all I know.” He stared at the saddlebags, rubbing his beard with one big hand. Then he glanced up, dark eyes distressed beneath his heavy eyebrows. “Her horse has joined the herd in the park. You can tell her that.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her.”

  “Be careful,” Randall said.

  “Careful of what?” Danny-boy asked.

  Randall shrugged agai
n. “When I know, I’ll tell you.” Then he walked away, somehow finding a path through the mass of trees and shrubs just inside the gate. Danny-boy was left with the buffalo, who shook his head and snorted. The expression in his small reddened eyes was distinctly unfriendly. Danny-boy backed away.

  The woman was asleep in the easy chair when Danny-boy came home. Curled up in the chair, she looked frail and vulnerable. At the nape of her neck, her dark hair curled to form little ringlets.

  Danny-boy touched her shoulder to wake her. Her eyes opened wide immediately. She reminded Danny-boy of the wild creatures he sometimes encountered while exploring abandoned buildings. The gray fox that slipped out the back door while he walked in the front. The family of raccoons that glared at him for disturbing them. The woman’s hands were small and clever, like a raccoon’s hands. Her eyes were the eyes of a fox—she knew secrets and kept them.

  “I’m back,” he said. “I brought you some clean clothes. And I found Randall. He says your horse is in the park.”

  She started to reach for the saddlebags, then winced and stopped. “Let me help,” Danny-boy said. He fumbled with the buckles, conscious of her eyes on him. He slung the bags over the easy chair’s broad arm and watched as she sorted through the bag’s contents, casting aside a sack of dried apricots, another of jerky, a third of almonds. Beneath the food, she found what she was looking for: a glass globe on a black base.

  “It’s San Francisco,” she said, holding it up for his examination. She shook it, and flecks of gold danced around the towers of the city. “I’ve had it for years.”

  He took it carefully from her hand. “Of course,” he said. “You can see Union Square.” He tapped on the glass, indicating the tiny rectangle of green. “And that’s the TransAmerica Pyramid.”

  She peered into the glass. “I walked by there,” she said. “Someone had painted designs on it.”

  “The Neo-Mayanists,” Danny-boy said. “Group of graffiti artists down in the Mission. They’ve taken over the Pyramid. They’re making it into a temple of some sort.”