Free Black Fire by Robert Graysmith Page B

make their fellows more careful about future depredations. “The floodgates of crime have been opened,” another editor roared, “and thieves and vagabonds can do as they please and it makes me damn mad. Someone should do something, anything, or burn the place down !”
    “Burn the place down!” the Lightkeeper agreed. “Now there’s an idea!”
    He moved along the pier, biding his time. At his waist he carried a small lantern. The arsonist felt some sympathy for the rabid editors. Reliably reporting on an unreliable police force must be tedious work. The new department was composed of so many ex-bandits and active bandits’ pals that it must be difficult to tell the cops from the crooks. The cops made sure, for a wink and old times sake, that no punishments ever fell upon their chums. If that failed, the corrupt courts set them free for the proper monetary consideration. One could not count on juries, either. Some men made a comfortable living as jurors whose vote was for sale. Should the Lightkeeper be captured, though his existence was barely suspected except by the wisest, the chances of his conviction were slim. He looked around. The waterfront was dangerous, but then so was he.
    Deeper inland Broderick One’s new ragtag band of torch boys, bunkers and ragamuffins, veered off the main street onto another road, their torches carving a sharp line in the night. The echoes in the ravines were confusing. The city was filled with baffling sounds that carried for miles. Searching for a burning house ahead, the runners saw not a spark. Many buildings were hidden in pitch-black canyons or behind hills. San Francisco was small, but its high cramped streets, endless dunes, and sand mountains made any fire invisible. They werealso learning that the going was tough. No level roads existed except for Washington Street.
    Washington Allen Bartlett, the first alcalde, ordered Jasper O’Farrell to lay out the city following the natural hilly terrain. The Council overruled his plan and insisted on a gridiron layout to give the most profits upon subdivision. O’Farrell complied, with one deviation. Market Street would intersect the grid at a right angle striking out from the waterfront to the Mission District, dividing San Francisco to this day. The model of the extended city was two sections of right-angle grids with streets running north/south and east/west above Market Street, and northeast/northwest and southeast/southwest below. Thus, San Francisco streets plunge forward as if they were on a flat plane, racing over mountains as if they were not there at all—straight ahead, straight ahead—Onward!—the San Francisco way.
    Above the roar of his forge, Othello the blacksmith heard splashing in the frigid blackness that was Montgomery Street. Someone was plunging through the thick mud toward his shop. He judiciously interspersed his blows by taps upon the anvil, always shifting his iron. He heated his tire to a bright red and deluged the rim in a water barrel to prevent it from being burned up. A cloud of steam rose. He pumped his bellows until the coals glowed white and began pounding. Iron-struck sparks flew over his leather apron, burning holes everywhere but his bare black arms and hands. “The flames know me,” he thought. “The flames are my friends.” He smiled, his face reddish brown against the fire and his teeth dazzling white. He wiped his glistening brow and walked to a barn door–like opening onto the thoroughfare to listen to the rhythmic slap, slap, slap of bare feet. He wondered how anyone dared tread at night, much less sprint, through the numerous unlit pits and obstacles of the potholed quagmire of streets. He heard the babble of many voices, the clank and creak of heavy machinery. An army was advancing upon him. A light brighter than the sooty glow of the nearby saloon danced erratically in the distance. Then a panting Olympian runner, a boy with a torch, broke abruptly through the mist, trailing a