the Lonesome Gods (1983) Read online

  "I tell her I don't have any such skins and she gives me that smile and says, 'But I do, Captain. I have three hundred and forty-two otter skins, some beaver, marten, and two hundred cowhides.'

  "Lad, I was flabbergasted. Here was this handsome young woman who should be settin' at tea with some other young ladies, tellin' me she had all those skins for sale.

  "Next thing I know is, I'm makin' a deal to sail to China. I warned her there was risk. She said she understood that. 'Nothing is gained without some risk, Captain.' "We talked a bit and she asked questions, very sharp questions about markets, products, and shipping matters. I tell you, lad, there's a shrewd woman!"

  Jacob came in, chose a bunk, and then came over to the table. "Weather changing," he commented. "We're in for some rain, and we can use it."

  He paused. "Cap, have you heard any talk about war with Mexico? Nobody out here knows anything, but some men came through from Texas who say there's a lot of hard feeling."

  "I've heard rumors. What's the feeling here?"

  Jacob chuckled. "These are good people, Cap. Good-natured. They want no trouble with anybody, but right now they have closer ties with us than with Mexico. They want to be known as Californios and only that. Push 'em, and they'll fight ... there's always cuttings and shootings among the rougher crowd in Sonora Town ... but mostly the people here just want to go their own way. If it comes to trouble with Mexico, I believe California would stay out of it unless some hothead starts trouble. If it becomes a matter of honor, the Californios will fight." "Their trade is mostly with the States," the captain commented, "and I hear complaints about governors appointed from Mexico who don't understand conditions here."

  "They want a California man for governor," Jacob said, "and you can't blame them. It takes too long to get word back and forth from Mexico City, and some of their rulings don't make sense here. These are good people. Let them alone and they'll be all right."

  "They won't be let alone, Jacob. You know that. It is too rich a country. Jedediah Smith showed the way across the desert and mountains. Ewing Young and his party got through also, and there have been others. They were just a beginning."

  Far into the night they talked, often of things my father and mother had discussed. Everything about California, that mysterious place of menace, had fascinated me, yet finally I fell asleep, curled in my bunk.

  When I awakened, Jacob had already saddled the horses. "Sleep well? There's a place up on the trail where we'll breakfast." He stopped, one hand on the saddle. "They have hot chocolate. Figured you'd like that for breakfast. "The captain, he went back to his ship last night." Jacob pointed toward it. "He's anchored about three-quarters of a mile out. When the weather's right, he can come right in over the bar, as he doesn't draw more'n about nine feet. Someday folks will get busy and deepen that channel, and you'll see ships in here, dozens of 'em. "Miss Nesselrode, she thinks this is going to be a big city."

  "San Pedro?"

  "Well, that or Los Angeles. Get aboard and we'll get going. It'll be nearly a day's ride as it is, us stoppin' to cat."

  We rode our horses up the slanting trail from the shore. When we reached the top of the rise, we could see another ship beating in toward the bay.

  "Now, don't you be talkin' about Miss Nesselrode an' all she does. First place, folks would think you were storyin', because she kind of keeps it quiet. Womenfolks aren't supposed to be into what she is."

  "Don't people know?"

  "Here an' there. Don Abel Stearns knows. He's maybe the richest man around. Owns a lot of land. There's a few others ... men.

  "She's canny. Nobody ever really sees her talkin' business. Womenfolks wouldn't approve; neither would most of the men. I do some of it, but mostly it is just a word or two on social occasions.

  "The captain, he's been out to China and Japan twice now. He carries other goods, of course, but he does better with the furs he carries for Miss Nesselrode. Otter hides are much in demand there, for they are beautiful furs. "It was a canny thing, to begin with them, but a frightful risk, too. She could have lost it all, had the ship gone down."

  There was a small patch of trees ahead, and off to the left a much larger bunch, a sort of a wild forest of scrub oak and sycamore mingled with what they called chaparral, which was a kind of mixed growth of brush and small trees, all entangled. The trail skirted wide around it. "Bears," Jacob said. "California's grizzly country, an' a grizzly ain't afraid of nothing. Tackle a man soon's he would a rabbit, but they eat mostly roots, berries, leaves, and suchlike. They'll feed off dead animals, sometimes make their own kills--it depends on the bear. Grizzlies is notional."

  We rode over a slightly rolling plain covered with sparse brown grass and patches of brush or trees. Ahead of us there was a low adobe building, some corrals, and a lean-to shed. The roof of the adobe was of red tile.

  "See that tile? Injuns made it. Taught by the folks at the missions. The missions are closed now, and the Injuns who made the tile have gone back to the hills, most of them. There's no tile to be had nowadays."

  "How big is Los Angeles?"

  "Oh, maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand. Varies some. A few years back, 1836, I believe it was, they taken a census. Came to two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight in the whole county, and more'n five hundred of them were tame Injuns. They figured there were forty-six foreigners, twenty-one of them considered to be Americans."

  He turned his horse in through the gate and drew up at the hitching rail. "I don't pay much mind to such things, but Miss Nesselrode, she wants to know everything." Jacob dismounted. "Come along, Hannes. Out here folks eat breakfast at ten o'clock, usually, and what they call dinner at about three. Sometimes they eat supper, mostly they don't.

  "I know these folks. Pablo won't be here, most likely.

  He works on the zanja. You know, the irrigation ditch that runs through town. Isabel ... that's his wife ... she's a Mexican girl. Pablo's Californio.

  "Let's go in. Isabel feeds folks who come along and prob'ly makes as much as Pablo does. Maybe more." It was cool and still in the stone-flagged room. There were three tables with benches beside them, and as we entered, a young woman came in. She was plump and quite pretty, with very large dark eyes.

  "Senor! It is not often you come this way! Would you be seated? I have not much, but ..."

  She left the room, returning in a moment with hot chocolate and some tortillas. "Wait! You like the quesadilla, senor, and you shall have it." She paused, looking at me. "And you? What would you like?"

  "The same," I said, embarrassed. It was not often that I talked to a woman.

  The hot chocolate was really hot and it tasted good. I had drunk chocolate but once before this and liked it very much.

  When she returned with the quesadillas, she said, "You come from the sea?"

  "He does"--Jacob gestured to me. "I have just met him at the ship. He will live in Los Angeles and go to school there."

  "Ah? You have family?"

  I shook my head.

  "Miss Nesse!rode was a friend of his family. She asked me to meet him and bring him to her."

  "She is very pretty, Miss Nesselrode," Isabel said. "I wonder that she is unmarried."

  Among the Californios, who often married at fourteen, an unmarried woman of thirty was a puzzle. Yet I had not read romances for nothing. Between bites of quesadilla I said, "He died ... or was killed. I do not know."

  Immediately she was all sympathy. Who understands a broken heart better than those of Spanish blood? "Ah! I see! When she was very young?"

  "She was in love," I said solemnly. "He was very handsome. She thinks only of him."

  When Isabel had gone to the kitchen, Jacob glanced at me from the corners of his eyes and said very softly, "Now, I never knew that before."

  "Neither did I, but she will tell the story and they will have an answer that pleases them. Now they will understand and ask no more questions."

  He grunted. "For a youngster no older than you are--" "
It is in many of the stories, and the Spanish are a romantic people. My father knew many of their songs, and so did my mother. They all seem to be of broken hearts and lost loves. I just said what is in the songs." He chuckled. "Boy, you're a caution! You surely are!" It was sundown when we came within sight of the town. It lay on a wide, undulating plain, and to the north there was a line of low hills; on the east there were mountains. There was a river flowing near the town, and there were vineyards and many trees. Within the town itself the streets seemed to have no plan or system. The houses were mostly of adobe, flat-roofed and low, yet here and there was a larger frame house or an adobe of two stories. There was a government house and a church. Jacob Finney led the way through back streets to a pleasant house surrounded by a hedge of willows. The zanja ran close by.

  The house was of adobe with red tile on the roof. It seemed better built than many of the others. There was a corral behind the house, with several horses.

  "You go knock on the door, Hannes. Miss Nesselrode will be anxious to see you. I'll put up the horses." Hesitant, I stood in the yard, trying to straighten my clothes and brushing them with my hands. There was a low roof over the porch, and a bench with a rocking chair beside it. Slowly I walked up, and just as I lifted my hand to knock, the door opened and a young Mexican girl was standing there.

  She stepped back, showing me in, and Miss Nesselrode came to greet me, both hands outstretched. "Johannes! After all this time! Please come in!"

  She stepped back and looked at me. "My! You've grown! And what a handsome boy!"

  I blushed, shifting from one foot to the other. "How do you do, ma'am?" I asked.

  "Sit down, Johannes. I can see we're going to have to get acquainted all over again." She smiled suddenly, beautifully, and I found myself grinning at her. "Tell me, now, what have you been doing? What is it like, this place where you've been living?"

  So I told her, slowly at first, then with increased confidence, about Agua Caliente, the Indians, the store, the forests of palms in the canyons, and the house itself.

  "A hot spring? Tell me about it."

  She had the girl bring us chocolate, and she asked many questions about the climate, the soil, what grew there, and who lived there.

  Later, I told her about my father's murder and how I had been left in the desert. "I heard of that," she said. "Johannes, we most be very, very careful! Your grandfather is a very influential man. He is also very wealthy. He does not mix with people here, and particularly not with the Anglos, but there is little he would not know if he wished. The advantage we have is that usually he does not wish.

  "He must not see you. You look very much like your father, only you are darker. The Spanish blood, I expect." She stood up suddenly. "It is late, and you must rest. Tomorrow we must find a tutor for you. Until then I shall see what I can do. In the meanwhile, Hannes, is there anything you want?"

  "Something to read?" I asked, and then added, "And when someone goes back to my house, I'd like to send some books back there."

  "But why, when you are living here?"

  So I told her about the house of Tahquitz and the unseen visitor who exchanged books with me.

  She sat down, hands clasped before her, elbows on her knees. "What a strange story! Just think of it! A monster who reads Scott and Bulwer-Lytton!"

  "I do not know that he is a monster. I do not know who built the house, or who comes to get the books, or even if it is the same ... person."

  "How long ago was the house built?"

  "Only five or six years ago, I think, but there was another house there, or some sort of building. Part of the walls are very old. My father said very, very old."

  "The Indians know nothing?"

  "Who knows how much an Indian knows? No Indian feels it necessary to tell what he knows about anything. They are good people, most of them, but they think differently than we do."

  "You've learned a lot, Johannes."

  "No, ma'am. I've learned a little, but I know there is so much more. My father always said that was the wonderful thing about learning, that there was no end to it." The Mexican girl came in from the kitchen. "Senorita?" "Yes?"

  "There's a man over there, hiding in the willows across the street. He watches the house."

  "Thank you." She glanced at me. "You are not afraid, are you?"

  "No, ma'am."

  She smiled at me. "You want to know something, Johannes? I am not afraid. either."

  Chapter 19

  Miss Nesselrode was slender and elegant. I never knew her to raise her voice or make a violent movement. Her dresses were simple, of gray or brown, in the lighter tones. Invariably, when she left the house, she carried a parasol. She smiled often, but her smiles were of several kinds, and I learned to know them.

  Of who she was or what she had been, she never said, nor did she ever speak of her plans or what she expected of life. When she came to California she had a little money. Far less money than most believed, although how much that was, I never knew, and I believe I knew more than anyone. It was very little.

  She met people easily, and they liked her. In the times of trouble, she was always ready to help, and seemingly always knew what to do. Invariably she took charge, quietly, efficiently, and without seeming to be in charge. She had what my father would have called a well-ordered mind. I mean, it was uncluttered. She seemed to have an ability to isolate a problem and examine it without anything else intruding, and above all, she could make decisions. She would have been a highly successful gambler. Indeed, that is probably what she was: at first she must always have gambled; later, only on occasion. She seemed tall. Even when I grew to my full height, she seemed tall. Men always looked at her, at first with hardly concealed excitement, then with respect. I believe that in the first year she was proposed to two dozen times, and often by men of wealth and power, but of that I only heard through gossip or the talk of the girl who worked for her.

  She had at once hired a girl. Wages in California were very low, but she looked carefully at a number of girls before she asked one to work for her. In the meantime, she hired Jacob Finney.

  I believe she had spoken to him before the wagon arrived in Los Angeles, or at the Bella Union Hotel, where she stayed for the first few days.

  Jacob liked California and had commented once that he thought of settling there. Somebody asked him how he would make a living, and he said he was not sure, but he would find something.

  She hired him for twenty-five dollars a month. It was as much as he would have earned as a cowhand in Texas, probably more than he expected.

  "What am Ito do?" he had asked.

  "Do as you please, but be there when I need you, and I will need you often. Above all," she had added, "I want a man who does not talk. I want you to say nothing of what we are doing, but not to seem mysterious in any way." First, she had him buy horses for herself and for him. Then she had him buy two cows for milking and some chickens for eggs. He planted some trees, tended some flowers, and he listened. At breakfast in the morning and occasionally in the evening, he told her what was happening in the City of the Angels and what people were talking about.

  She wanted the talk from the cantinas, from the saloon in the Bella Union, and from the corrals. She wanted most of all to know who was doing what when it came to buying, selling, or investing. She listened, and she visited. She attended fandangos, but rarely danced.

  She drank coffee with the women, listened to them talk. She watched the handsome young Californios ride into town in their magnificent suits, some of which cost several thousand dollars, and often astride saddles worth as much or more.

  After her early moves buying up sea otter skins from trappers she continued to buy more. She bought bearskins and other furs. She bought hides. In none of this did she appear or seem to have a hand. It was always Jacob, although often she sat a horse nearby and listened. They had signals by which they communicated, and when she felt the price was right, she bought.

  By the time I came from
the desert, she had bought an old adobe to use as a warehouse. She had also managed to buy several acres of land on the edge of the town. These she had planted to orange trees and grapes. On the second day I was there she had me read to her. When I had read for a time, we talked about the story. She had many questions, but it was mostly fun talk, about the people, their clothes, their horses. And for the next few days we talked a lot, about Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, things of which I had read or which I had learned from my father.

  She was, I know now, trying to judge my education, if it could be so called.

  "Do you remember Thomas Fraser?" she said one day. "Yes, ma'am. He was the man who took notes when we came west."

  "That's the one. He is here in town, still working on his book, and he has started a small school. I thought we might send you there. Although he knows your true identity I believe it would be worth taking that risk since I think he would be a good teacher for you."

  "Yes, ma'am." A thought came to me. "What happened to Mr. Fletcher?"

  Her expression changed ever so slightly. "He is here. I see him occasionally on the street, but he goes to San Francisco quite often."

  "I didn't like him."

  "Nor did I. And I like him no better now. He is a gambler at least part of the time. Avoid him, Hannes." Later, when we were alone, I asked Jacob about him. "Yeah, he's around. He's a bad one, boy, a real bad one. He's become a sort of leader for a small group of thugs, but so far he's done nothing anybody could catch him at."

  Jacob was currying a horse. He paused for a moment. both hands resting on the horse. "Your grandpa doesn't come to town too often. Only time he's seen much is ridin' to his house in town. Always has six to eight vaqueros with him ... tough men.

  "Rides a black stallion, big, fine-lookin' horse, and the old man can ride. Has to, if he handles that animal, and he does. Believe you me, he does.

  "Keep out of his sight. You look like your pa, but something like your mother, too, or so the Indians say. Ain't likely he'll see you. He pays no attention to anyone, seems like, but you never know."