Kipper snatched her arm before she could fall. “Well, if I ain’t the stoopidest! Going ’long with my noggin buried in the fog. I plain forgot you ain’t ever been on these streets before.”
Emily was happy to feel Kipper’s warm reassuring hand close around her cold one. But it was still impossible to keep from feeling frightened as they plunged through the dark streets. And the journey became even more treacherous when they left the part of the city that had long since gone to sleep and arrived at the part that would not go to sleep until dawn.
The streets there teemed with life, but a kind of life Emily would not have recognized from her darkest dreams. She could almost wish she were back in the Remembrance Room as Kipper pulled her past dingy store windows, dark, evil doorways, and doors that swung open to let escape bursts of coarse laughter. She felt a terrible chill inside at the sight of the faces swirling around her—brutish bearded faces under strange-looking caps; pockmarked faces with slanted eyes; hideous flat faces without noses and with too-thick lips; and ladies’ faces as brittle and bright as painted china plates.
Emily shuddered and then felt Kipper’s hand tighten around hers. “Told you ’bout this part o’ town, Emily. Ain’t the best at any time, but night is when the rats come up from the sewers o’ San Francisco. But we’re ’bout there, so don’t give up.”
Kipper was right. Soon they reached the waterfront and a row of shops which, unlike the others they had just passed, had been put to bed for the night. Here it was quiet enough for water to be heard lapping softly against the wharfs.
“And here ’tis!” Kipper pointed proudly to a small darkened shop with a sign over it in the shape of a fish so large it looked as if it could swallow the shop and everyone in it in one bite. Kipper let go Emily’s hand to unlock the door.
“Come ’long, Emily, this way!” Kipper beckoned to a staircase at the back of the little shop. Only one dim light burned inside, so Emily could gather the barest impressions of wooden kegs and vats neatly laid out in front of a tiny counter, but she could feel the friendly sawdust under her feet like a welcoming carpet. If only her first visit to Kipper’s Pa’s shop could have been under brighter circumstances!
“Pa! Pa!” Kipper called out softly as he climbed the worn treads, with Emily close behind. “Pa, are you there?” Silence was his only reply.
Now they entered a small, cozy room that could have passed for a ship’s cabin, except for one bright pink geranium blooming in a round window over the sink. The window looked so much like a porthole Emily was surprised not to see waves dashing against it. A ship’s oil lamp on the wall and a fluttering candle on the table lit the room. But the only sign of life apparent was a small boy seated on a bench by the scrubbed pine table, his head laid down on it, and his tousled blond hair tumbling over his hands. He was fast asleep. Was this the scary, nameless “indiwidual” Emily had been brought to see? It was almost a cause for laughter.
“Little Shrimper! Little Shrimper, wake up!” Kipper shook his shoulders gently. “Where’s Pa?”
Little Shrimper rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Gone for someone, Kipper. Don’t know who, ’cause it were a name whispered to him by …” He jerked a thumb toward the bunk beds in a corner of the room.
Emily’s eyes followed the direction of the small thumb, and she began to tremble. What she had thought was simply a mountain of bed quilts and blankets on the lower of the two bunks, now suddenly rearranged itself into what it truly was, the figure of a man!
“It’s who you come to see, Emily,” Kipper said soberly. Then he turned back to Little Shrimper. “He ain’t dead yet, is he?”
Little Shrimper’s eyes widened into big, round O’s. Clearly, death was not something he had bargained for. “Pa didn’t say so.”
“Then he probably ain’t.” Kipper strode toward the bunks and lit a small oil lamp that hung on the bedpost. Then he leaned over the lower bunk to hold out a testing finger. “No, he ain’t,” he concluded matter of factly. He beckoned to Emily.
“This ain’t going to be pleasant, but you best come see what you was brung for, Emily. This here’s the indiwidual what wants to speak his case to you, though don’t look like he’s able right now.”
Emily hesitated, but she knew that in the end she would have to make that short but terrible journey. Slowly, she crossed the room. When she arrived at the bunk, she took one quick look at the man lying stiff and still as a log, and her breath stopped in her throat.
She had seen his face only twice before, but on her mind had been carved forever the rubbery lips, the bulbous nose decorated with a large black wart, and the hideous gash running from cheek to chin. Now, under this face turned grey as an oyster shell, a stain on the chest of his seaman’s uniform was opening up like a swift-blooming blood-red rose.
“Captain Scurlock!” Emily whispered. She had to turn her eyes from the sight.
“No other,” said Kipper. “Sorry to o’ had to do this to you, Emily, but he was ’fraid if you knew who ’twas wanted you, you might likely not o’ wanted to come.”
“But how did he get here?” Emily asked. “What is this all about?”
“Well—” Kipper rubbed an ear thoughtfully. “Since the Cap’n ain’t in a present condition to speak his piece, and Pa ain’t back yet, I guess I can tell you what I know. Let’s set at the table with Little Shrimper. Pa’s got water boiling, so I can fix us a
