Allie Pleiter - Mission of Hope

“I did,” Sam replied quickly. Under Mrs. Freeman’s suspiciously raised eyebrow, he added, “Sort of.”

Quinn hunkered down to Sam’s height as Nora tied off the end of Sam’s new bandage. “I’d change that ‘sort of’ into a ‘thank You, Father God’ tonight, if I were you. My ma talks to God all the time, so she’ll know if you don’t.”

Sam nodded.

“You’ve still no real bandages?” Nora asked, straightening up. She’d caught sight of Quinn staring at her hands as she wrapped Sam’s foot. Even though it was a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, she found it unnerving. That man watched things far too intensely. “No things to treat wounds? My father said supplies like that are coming in from the army all the time.” She handed back the bandage roll while Quinn tied the enormous sock in place with a piece of string. The makeshift footwear looked absurd, the toe of the sock flopping about as Sam jiggled his foot.

“Your father would know that more than I, miss, and it may be true.” Mrs. Freeman opened the trunk once more, tucking the roll of cloth strips inside. “The nuns and the official camps have supplies, surely, but they only come over here once a week. You can’t very well ask people to only cut themselves on Wednesdays, now can you?”

“It’s just iodine,” Nora said, amazed. “There must be bottles and bottles 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.

“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?”