Mission of Hope

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.

Chapter Six

“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?”

Quinn winced. There was only one place he ever wanted to be at two in the afternoon, and it wasn’t anywhere near the army base. “I’ve got someplace to be at two, but make it three and I’ll be there.”

“Two minutes after three,” said a dark-haired man in uniform with a precise mustache and an even more precise snap of his pocket watch. “He’s punctual, at least. That’s something.” Quinn found himself nose to nose with a meticulously dressed man with dark, sharp eyes.

“I’m told you run fast.” The man pocketed his watch.

“I do.”

“Have you a steady hand?”

Quinn wasn’t entirely sure where this was heading. “So they tell me.”

“Quinn Freeman,” Reverend Bauers cut in, “may I present Army Major Albert Simon. Major Simon, this is Quinn Freeman, the man I’ve been telling you about.”

Major Simon walked around him, appraising him as if he were buying a horse. “Tall, strong, good reach, I’d expect.” He turned to Bauers. “He’s had some training in fencing?”

“Two years,” Quinn stepped in, not liking the idea of Bauers and Simon talking about him as if he weren’t in the room. “It was a long time ago, but I still remember most of it.”

Simon stroked one hand down either tip of his mustache. “Ever shot a pistol, Freeman?”

“I’ve been fired at,” Quinn offered, “but I don’t own a gun.”

“It’s harder than you think.”

“So is a lot of life, Major. Especially now.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Bauers declared. “Major Simon,” he said in a lower tone, “has agreed to be in on our little scheme.”

Quinn looked at the man. He was fit but a bit on the heavy side, somewhere in his late thirties from the looks of it and alarmingly serious. He didn’t seem at all like the scheming type. “The Bandit—”

“Is not a name I’d mention in loud tones around here,” the major cut in sharply. “Not everyone in the army is a fan of such…resourceful measures.”

“I think you’ll find Major Simon a most extraordinary fellow.” Reverend Bauers walked over to a large sack Quinn only just then realized sat on a table in the center of the room. “With some very considerable resources.” He pulled open the drawstring and tilted the top for Quinn to peer inside.

The sack held half of what had been on his list. On Nora’s list, that is. Bandages, iodine, salt, a few tins of meat, needles and thread and half a dozen other various supplies. Major Simon went up a few notches in Quinn’s book, to be sure. More than a few.

“Where’d you get all that?”

“No need for you to know,” Simon said slyly.

“You stole it. Why else would you answer like that?”

“Would you take it no matter where it came from?”

“I’m smarter than that. I don’t know you, even if Reverend Bauers does.”

“They were ‘procured,’ perhaps, or more precisely, ‘diverted,’ but ready for you to put to good use.” Simon pulled the string shut, placing the sack into a crate that sat under the table. “And no, you don’t know me. Yet.”

“The major has arranged a discreet drop-off point,” Bauers said, clearly enjoying the adventure of it all. With that look in his eye, Quinn could easily imagine the days when Reverend Bauers had been the Black Bandit’s trusted accomplice. He seemed delighted to step into those shoes again. “You’re to return tonight and get it back to camp by…well…whatever means you find necessary.”

His first mission. It hummed through Quinn’s veins. Suddenly, he couldn’t get the Bandit’s old gray shirt on fast enough. He longed to strap on the sword and take the world by storm. Now.

“You have a fire in your eye, Freeman,” Major Simon said to him. “I’ve found our friend the reverend is rarely wrong on such things. But you’ll need far more than good intentions if you really want to do what you say. You’ll need training and cunning and several very particular skills. Skills I’ve offered to teach you. But you’ll have to be both patient and discreet.”

“I am.”

“You don’t strike me as patient in the least.”

“Would you be patient if your family didn’t have enough to eat or a real roof over their heads?”

Simon chuckled and clapped Quinn hard on the back. “Bold as brass. You’re right, Bauers, he’s just the man for the job. If he doesn’t get himself killed first.”

“You’ve no idea where all this came from?” Nora asked as she peered at the supplies that had appeared overnight at the Freeman shack.

Mrs. Freeman squinted at the cut on Sam’s foot, paused, and then dabbed it with a bit more iodine. “None at all,” she said over the resulting protests from Sam. “Quinn said he’d put the list up on a fence post across the street last night, asking for help. That’s all we know.” She turned to the boy. “Hush, lad, it’ll hurt far more than that if it don’t heal properly.” Her words were harsh, but her eyes were kind.