America’s Last Emperor: Fire
Chapter Five
December 24th, 1849, 7:30 am
Norton came across Tom Sawyer in the chaos of the fight against the fire. Norton was part of a bucket brigade, passing buckets of water in a line that snaked from the muddy fen at Jackson and Montgomery to the fire at Kearny and Montgomery. The buckets were commandeered from a local store that was in the line of the fire and hastily emptied of goods. Another group of men pumped an ineffectual spray of water from a poorly built wheeled pump that had been brought up from some other merchant. Half of the block on the Washington Street side was starting to catch fire, even though the men with buckets were soaking the sidewalks and plastering the exterior walls with mud. It was upon this haphazard response that Sawyer came upon. The sun was just beginning to peek over the hills across the bay to the east.
“Boss, we had some trouble,” said Sawyer.
“We have trouble here!” said Norton, out of breath and grabbing yet another bucket. “I don’t think any of these men have the faintest idea what they are doing. I know I don’t.”
“I am going to to to the fore. I was a volunteer fireman back east,” said Sawyer.
Sawyer ran to a man that Norton recognized as Broderick. Mr. Broderick appeared to be directing the fight, and Norton kept passing…
