The man and the girl rolled up the two windows, closed the air vents and locked the doors.

The dogs were German shepherds. They were tan and black. They kept circling the Volks and barking, and from time to time they jumped up, trying to attack the passengers.

The black cat, hiding under a seat, gave a muffled growl.

Jack started the engine and drove slowly away from the rancher’s house. The three dogs accompanied the Volkswagen for several minutes, then wheeled together as if someone had called them. Jack looked in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t see anyone at the house. They drove along in silence for a while.

Then the girl asked, “Want me to drive?”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

At the end of the dirt road they got back on Interstate 80 and the black cat came out of its hiding place.

“Our expedition wasn’t a success!” said the man.

“We’ll try again another time,” said the girl calmly.

“It’s true, not all people are dogs,” he said.

The girl gave him an odd look.

He realized his slip and corrected himself: “I meant, not all people have dogs.”

XXIX. The Ghosts of San Francisco

XXIX

The Ghosts of San
Francisco

“It’s made half of steel and half of dreams,” said Jack. “It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen in my life,” said the girl. “When I was little I thought it was made of gold. I was sure it had been built with the gold that was discovered in California.”

They were talking about the Golden Gate Bridge, which they had spotted in the distance on the right, emerging from a mass of fog, as they turned onto the Bay Bridge to cross the bay that separated them from San Francisco.

The journey was nearing its end.

They had set out from Gaspé, where Jacques Cartier had discovered Canada, and they had followed the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, then the old Mississippi, Father of Waters, to St. Louis, where they had taken the Oregon Trail and, following the trail of the nineteenth-century emigrants who had formed caravans of ox-drawn wagons to set out in search of the Lost Paradise, they had covered the vast prairies, crossed the continental divide and the Rocky Mountains, forded rivers and traversed the desert and still more mountains, and now they were pulling in to San Francisco.

The city was blanketed in fog.