Free A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware Page B

gigantic brass gasolier that once hung overhead had made a bull’s-eye landing on the top of its green baize surface.
    “Dear God!” Amelia searched for a path to make her way across the shattered room where the city’s high rollers had entertained themselves, and where her father apparently lay entombed.
    “Don’t go over there!” Thayer grimaced each time he spoke. “There’s nothing you can do… on your own.”
    Amelia ignored his directive and, instead, worked her way on all fours until she reached the middle of what was left of the room.
    “This table?”
    Battling panic, she didn’t hear Thayer’s response for she had caught sight of a gentleman’s dress shoe and spats covered with a layer of white powder.
    “Father! Oh my God …”
    How in the world had Ezra Kemp been sitting in the same spot and walked away from this disaster? She had no idea where she found the strength to yank the brass gasolier to one side and push the heavy wooden table off her father’s body. Henry Bradshaw lay face down in the wreckage. His left cheek was black and blue and blood had congealed over nearly every inch of visible skin.
    “Is he breathing?” Thayer called out hoarsely.
    “I don’t know,” Amelia mumbled. “I can’t tell.” She moved several chunks of plaster to kneel by her father’s side. “He’s badly injured. His face—”
    A low moan interrupted this exchange.
    “He’s alive! Father! ” She bent close to his ear. “It’s me, Amelia. I’m here. Please, Father—”
    “I… need… a whissss-key,” slurred the injured man.
    Amelia raised her head and stared across the expanse of debris at Thayer.
    “Your father was… shall we say… in his cups at five a.m. Perhaps he’s—”
    “Still drunk!” she finished, pulling more debris off her father’s back.
    Just then, Henry’s eyes opened wide. “Whiss-key! A cele-bray-shun izin order!”
    Amelia’s relief turned to despair, then to anger. “Oh, Father!”
    “Pour me a glass, daughter,” he growled, “and be quick about it!” Then, he slipped back into unconsciousness.
    Amelia closed her eyes. Her father had survived after all. But as always, Henry Bradshaw—when intoxicated—had turned belligerent. He was a regular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Everybody said so. Where was the laughing young man who had built castles in the sand at the rim of San Francisco Bay and joyfully lifted his little daughter high in the air? After everything that had happened, here he was, behaving appallingly, even after the world had collapsed on top of him.
    Amelia sank deeper among the debris, wrapped her arms around her knees, pressed her forehead into the folds of her filthy skirt, and, like J.D. Thayer had a few moments earlier, began silently to weep.
    ***
    J.D. never knew how he managed to push away from the doorjamb and stumble toward the two figures in the center of the little that remained of the club, but when he got there, he placed a hand gently on top of Amelia’s head, brunette wisps of her upswept hairstyle cascading about her shoulders.
    “Who can judge why bricks fall on some heads and not others?” he said.
    Barbary had managed to follow him and stood between them, as if he were waiting to hear their next plan of action. Amelia raised her head from her knees. “I’ve taken my father home from scores of saloons, but this… this …” Her words drifted off.
    “This isn’t like anything we’ve ever known.”
    “No, it’s not.” She nodded toward her father’s prone figure. “Perhaps it’s just as well he passed out again.”
    She made no protest when J.D. gingerly knelt beside her and wrapped his right arm around her shoulders, but she soon pulled away. He winced and put the palm of his hand against his rib cage. For a moment, he thought he might faint with pain.
    “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said in a rush, “but my father wouldn’t even be in the Bay View Gentlemen’s Gambling Club right now if you and Kemp hadn’t