Three days later, on November 11, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation granting Washington Territory statehood, and Roslyn knew that she would see Quake. He arrived at her hotel just before noon, holding a newspaper.
“You and your kind are real Americans now,” he said.
“We were always Americans.”
“How would you like to celebrate?”
So it was that simple.
The weather still hadn’t cooled. They walked without coats. “What if there is no winter at all this year?” Roslyn asked.
“Then good riddance. Winter is a burden. We’re better off without it.”
“Doesn’t the earth need winter? Plants and animals, their whole way of being is based around the seasons. How will they live?”
“Splendidly. They’ll adapt. They’ll thrive in this new pleasant sameness.”
That was what Quake wanted for himself too, Roslyn thought. He’d been mad three days ago, but now he’d pushed it off in the name of pleasant sameness.
“There will be more fires,” she said.
“A natural hazard of warmth, yes.”
“It’s upsetting to think about.”
“The cities will rebuild. And the forests will survive. They’re meant to burn and regrow and burn and so on and so forth.”
“How do you know that?”
“I worked with an ecologist on a job in Port Gamble once. He told me.”
“You mean you swindled an ecologist in Port Gamble.”
“No, an ecologist helped me swindle other people in Port Gamble.”
“But surely there is a point at which it becomes too much. Too much destruction, not enough time for repair. What then?”
Quake only shrugged. She took this to mean it was not his problem, and if it was not his problem he couldn’t see why anyone else should care either.
They spent the afternoon wandering the streets of downtown, stopping for food periodically, browsing in shops. Quake carried on his breezy banter and it seemed little effort was required from Roslyn for him to keep going. Entertaining himself, as always. He said he was planning a trip up to the new Washington state the following week to pick up something he’d left (money, Roslyn assumed), but after that, he would be done with his work there.
“It’s not the Wild West anymore,” he said. “People aren’t going to keep falling for my shit.”
Roslyn smiled.
“What? I am capable of being honest about myself occasionally,” he said. Then he winked, a gesture guaranteed to undermine all claims of honesty.
“The place was already changing,” he said. “But when government comes in and works, when little towns get connected, get less isolated . . . people aren’t so willing to go along with just anyone who can string sentences together and tell them what they want to hear.”
“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Roslyn said. “People always want someone to come along and tell them what they want to hear.”
“Well, it’ll be a different game in San Francisco.”
“They’ve had statehood nearly a half century.”
“And become complacent in it. A system already well worn and failed. People don’t believe their officials truly protect them anymore.”
“Does all that really matter?”
“No,” he said. “Not in the slightest. But you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
She said she was still thinking about it, and for the first time all day he grew silent, as if finally remembering the complexity between them. Like a switch flicked. Why was Quake the one who got to control the mood of any conversation? Roslyn could no longer bear it. She announced she was tired, and though she allowed him to walk her back to her hotel, she did not invite him up.
She didn’t want to be with Quake. She’d decided that much. She didn’t want his body, or his company, or his cloying boyish needs, or his banter, or his big plans for his next con. The only thing about him that interested her anymore was San Francisco.
She’d seen the vision of the new fire twice more since the day they’d knocked on Barton’s door. She now felt certain it was San Francisco. Was this a coincidence? Or something predestined? She decided it didn’t matter. Each time, there was the burning city. People everywhere, the streets choked with human activity. The visceral sensations were overwhelming and would, in the past, have driven Roslyn to Mud Drink. Now she welcomed them. She wanted all the information she could get. The flames crowded in. She was fearful of this, for herself and for the people who lived there. But it wasn’t her job to stop the fire or to save those people. Quake had given her that freedom when he’d said maybe the visions were really about preparing her for what came after, and now she knew. What might have been different if she’d gone to the man in the horse cart after his accident? The woman with the shattered jaw? Her schoolchildren? Following them all their lives to pick up the pieces? She could not go back, could not help the people she’d known in Steilacoom or Spokane Falls; she could not help Kate. But she could move forward. There was more to do.
With the vision of this new fire, she could see it—the after part, her part. Not in the same way she could see the destruction, in all its consuming horror. This was a quieter sort of vision, couched at the edges of her sight, but she trusted in its truth.
In this city she’d never seen and knew nothing about, there was a place for her. A chance to do something right and good.
And so when Quake asked her, “Are you coming to San Francisco?” her heart raced.
She would go, she’d decided. But not with Quake.