California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1)

by Daniel Knapp

  In the morning, before they left, he stood next to her on the lip of the ice as she scattered John Alexander's ashes at the waterfall.

  Sixteen

  Near the Rio de

  Los Americanos

  April 7, 1847

  Do not know why I bother writing. So difficult to keep track of my thoughts. Encouraging—my lucid moments either last a bit longer or are more frequent each day. Sick to my stomach again this morning. Dizzy now...

  There, that is better... Remember now that I wish to reconstruct what happened after we left the lake with Stanton and Eddy. Terrible. Unbelievable, really. See it all in my mind, fleetingly though. As if I do not want or have the strength to deal with all of that now. Wait until you are coherent... Wait until the thought of Mosby—

  Later in the day. I have torn this page out of Journal and copied it further on, leaving sufficient space before it when I am able to think clearly on what happened... and put it all down. For now, record what has happened since. Perhaps the mind is like a muscle... Exercise may do it good after injury? Can think of no better word. Must rest again now.

  Sunset. Strange, spectacular. My eyes tell me it should fill me with awe. The colors. But I feel nothing. I simply see it. Refreshed after sleeping on the remarkably comfortable bed of stretched hides the Miwoks who work for Captain Sutter made for me. He came this morning, Sutter. Remarkable man. Flawed. Vain to a detriment. But helpful... generous... And kind.

  It is so difficult. The simplest words escape me still. And facts. And dates. Perhaps it is a blessing. It seems to take forever to complete the writing of a sentence. Can only read a page or two of the novel, Pride and Prejudice, Captain Sutter gave me. Then nothing makes sense and must go back and read pages again to understand. Dr. Marsh told Sutter that will pass, he hopes, with... with what? Time. Pass, he hopes...

  Asked Sutter why he was willing to keep my secret, after thanking him again for doing same. Remarkable. Said he understood. Guaranteed he would continue to by telling me one of his own. That he was in debtor's prison in Switzerland when he was younger! Somehow caused by his mother-in-law! Made me laugh by telling me the best thing he likes about Alta California is that his wife is in... foreign country? Yes. Switzerland. Pass, he hopes... and that it is probably a result of the fever, the long fever and the shocking events...

  Told me also...? I seem to have been lucid for a long period, except for one spell, during Captain Sutter's visit. That augers well... yes, told me that there have been recent battles to the south and west of here and that...

  Had to rest again. It is dark now. Should eat something. California is now an American territory is what I was trying to remember earlier.

  This cabin built by Miwoks... Crude, but all I need. I know Sutter has them watch over me without intruding... my wish to be rid of human company. Strange that so-called savages bring gifts of food—ground acorn mush sweetened with seeds that is not altogether unpleasant to the taste—and small wrought utensils, artifacts. I hear them at night. They found me... I found them, rather. Tired. Oh, wish so, Alex, that you could be here at my side to care for me.

  But that part of my life is over. OVER! I could not let you see me the way I look now. And I could not bear to look at you and tell you of...

  You must learn to deal with this... the death, the death the death, of his son. Your son. There. I have said it, thought it, written it for the first time. He is gone. John Alexander is gone. It grows easier. The ink stains from the tears... I will not cry. I will NOT cry. John Alexander Todd and Elizabeth Purdy Todd are dead. Oh, God... THEY ARE DEAD! And only Esther Cable survives...

  Esther Cable must eat something. Esther Cable will survive. Esther Cable will grow stronger and think clearly again.

  I am Esther Cable.

  I am Esther Cable.

  Esther...... CABLE. And I remember now why I

  continue to write and why I am alive.

  If it is the last thing I do on this earth, I will see Luther Mosby either ruined or dead.

  Seventeen

  Two Indians, a male and a female, watched Esther from a discreet distance at all times. Sutter had seen to this. By now, mid-April, they were familiar with her patterns. She still slept many hours, both night and day. She rose well after sunrise, ate a little, used the privy immediately afterward, then unfailingly took a short walk along the river. Sometimes she became dizzy and had to brace herself against the trunk of a tree, holding her hand over her eyes. Increasingly during the last few weeks she became sick in the mornings and sometimes vomited.

  They reported this to Miwokan. The remainder of her day was unchanged: walking and resting, reading briefly, preparing small quantities of food, talking to herself out loud quite often, occasionally working the earth beside the cabin where she had set off a small plot for a vegetable garden. She wore a man's hat, baggy shirt and overalls, and work boots the Indians had seen Sutter bring to her earlier in the month. Sometimes she fell asleep sitting in the doorway after vacantly watching the scores of small animals and birds that now filled the budding woods within view.

  Miwokan weighed what the watchers said and decided to wait until Solana visited the cabin on the day she planned to help Esther plant seeds. Solana could then inquire about the sickness. He sent his man back to watch, instructing him to continue reporting anything that was new or different in her activities.

  The two Indians peered through pine boughs now as Esther picked up a small, bright stone that glinted in the sunlight in a shallow recess along the riverbank. She turned it in her hand, studying it. Several ducks, fighting the downstream current to reach shelter behind an outcropping of earth on the opposite shore, distracted her for a moment. She turned her attention back to the stone. Suddenly she dropped it and doubled over, folding her arms against her stomach and vomiting. When it was over, she washed out her mouth with a handful of water and returned to the cabin and stood staring at the mountains to the east for a long time. Suddenly her face contorted in anger.

  "Oh, God, how I hate you, Mosby!" she cried, tears spilling down her cheeks. Wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, she finally went into the cabin to rest.

  Sutter visited her again that day. He noticed that she seemed plumper. He attributed it to ample food and regained health. Physical health, at least, he thought. But then he noticed that in profile most of the weight was in her stomach. She could not have gained that much in so short a time. Her belly was obviously swollen.

  He did not mention his observation to her, shifting instead to an expansion of what he had already told her about the American take-over of California. He noticed a hardening of her expression as he spoke of Frémont and his party of "explorers." But it passed, and he forgot it quickly.

  Frémont had come to California peacefully, Sutter explained, but then, as the war with Mexico began, he encouraged American settlers to revolt. The first sorties, skirmishes, and ambuscades were farcically one-sided American victories. The tenor of sporadic battle remained essentially the same after the U.S. Navy and Army entered the conflict. The Americans drove southward by land and sea from Monterey in a series of virtually bloodless takeovers from the ill-equipped and dissension-ridden Californios. On January 13, 1847, the day before Sutter spirited Esther off to Miwokan's village, General Andres Pico had surrendered northwest of the Pueblo de Los Angeles and it was all over.

  Holding her breath, Esther asked him what had happened to Fremont's men.

  Sutter was placing logs in the fireplace for the evening. "Disbanded now. Carson left for his home on the Cimarron but plans to return to California. Many stayed with Frémont through it all. Scattered to the winds now, I think. All but a handful who will settle here. Some tired of the confusing, childish game it was at first and left early. Luther Mosby, a Southerner, was the first to go. I am told he trapped in the Sierras last fall and winter, but I doubt that. There was a rumor that he was seen not long ago at Isaac Claussen's ranch between here and San Jose."

  Sutt
er, intent on his fire building, did not see Esther press her eyes shut and fight to regain control of her voice. "Why do you doubt it?"

  "Because Mosby spoke to me once, when they were all encamped at the fort. He did not like California or the mountains. He told me he was thinking of going back to Texas. He was once a law officer there, an important one, from what I gathered. He did not like taking orders from Fremont. And he did not think he could quickly obtain a similar position here." Sutter turned to her. "Why do you ask?"

  Esther clenched her fists around the arms of her chair and resisted both tears and the sensation that the room was beginning to spin. "I... spoke to him briefly at Bent's Fort... Just curiosity."

  She could not control the dizziness much longer. When she got up and staggered, Sutter helped her to the bed.

  "Are you all right?"

  She lay down and closed her eyes. "Yes... I will be... We have talked for a long time... I just need to rest a bit."

  "Of course," Sutter said, pulling a fur over her. "I'm sorry."

  "It was not your fault. Will you come back after you visit with Miwokan? I'll be fine then, and I will cook something for you before you go back to the fort."

  Sutter brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. "We will cook it together—niece."

  After dinner, as they drank coffee and nibbled at the English toffee Sutter had brought, Esther asked him of the latest news about the Donner people. Only slightly more than half of them had survived. Five separate relief parties had gone to the rescue. One group, led by James Frazier Reed, almost perished in a storm on the return trip from the lake. A sixth, led by a man named Fallon, was now on its way to bring back the last few who remained alive. When Esther asked him for more details, he told her that some of it was unspeakable, horrible. He did not, would not talk of it further with her until she was stronger in mind and spirit.

  "One good thing has come out of it," he said. "My story—about the injured 'Californio' woman who was retrieved and taken south by her husband—has been accepted and quickly forgotten. Suffice to say," Sutter mentioned in the doorway before he left, "that you are a very fortunate, very lucky woman, just to be alive."

  Lucky, she thought, as she closed and bolted the leather-hinged door and prepared for bed. Lucky to be alive, when I would rather be dead and do not have the courage to take my own life and risk eternal damnation. She took the loaded Colt revolver out of the holster hanging on the far wall and contemplated it for a long time before placing it within easy reach under the bed. Lucky to be alive when my wits may never return to normal and physical strength flows back into me as slowly as water dripping from an icicle. She got under the furs and blew out the lamp.

  Lucky. And almost continually numb to everything. Lucky. With my beloved son dead, and with—if my swollen stomach contains what I think it does—with the issue of Luther Mosby inside me. Growing. I am not rid of him... He is still with me... And I am too weak, too powerless, too scattered of mind to even construct a plan to avenge myself. The coffee had not slowed her increasing drowsiness. She felt fatigue rapidly overtaking her. Alex, she thought, forming the name silently, lovingly on her lips. She was too tired to cry. A last thought crossed her mind before she plummeted into sleep. She was too weak, too mentally exhausted to challenge it, examine it any more than by constructing the thought in the form of a question: Could it be that God is punishing me for my wanton behavior with Alexander before we were married?

  She was rolling in Alexander's arms along the riverbank in Ohio. They were both naked, and he was deep inside her. As she began to tell Alex how marvelous it was that he could move in and out of her while they were rolling down the long bank, how wonderful his being in her made her feel, the dream shifted. Suddenly it was freezing cold and Alexander had the face of Mosby. She turned away from him and saw God standing on the flowing waters of the river, frowning. God had Alexander’s face. God gestured and the waters under Him turned to motionless waves of solid ice. She was too terrified to move. When she did not attempt to break free of Mosby, God... Alexander... God raised his right arm and threw a small, jagged stone of solid gold that struck her squarely on the nose.

  The almost constant numbness of feeling did not abate. The morning sickness increased in duration and frequency. Within a week Esther was positive she was pregnant. She thought carefully about what she would do. When the plan took its final shape and she acted, the change in her daily pattern almost went unnoticed by the Indians.

  That morning, she went toward the river as usual. They didn't see the kitchen knife she was carrying. She stopped halfway and vomited. A short distance from the river she veered off the trail to a small clearing and searched the open ground and the edges of the surrounding woods. They watched until she selected five or six very narrow, straight, and smooth fallen branches. They saw the knife only when she began cutting the branches to a length of a little over a foot. She removed a few small twigs, smoothing the nubs until they were even with the surfaces, then sharpened one end of each short stick to a long, slender point.

  When she headed again toward the river, the female watcher followed. The warrior was already running. Covering ground rapidly in a fast, smooth gait, he met Solana halfway to the village. He told her of the sharpened branches, then continued on as Solana, heavy with child, lumbered toward the cabin as quickly as she could.

  Esther was still at the river when Solana reached the other watcher. She had done nothing with the sticks. She stood gazing at the water rushing past the riverbank and bubbling over a fallen tree trunk. Absently she rotated the sharpened branches with her thumb and forefinger, then turned and walked quickly back toward the cabin. Solana and the Indian woman followed.

  Esther went in and sat on the bed. Solana silently moved closer, to a point where she could see through the unbolted and open wooden window nearest the door. Esther slowly took off her clothes and lay on the bed with the sticks in her hand. Solana glanced at the door. It was closed but not snug against the jamb. Perhaps it was not bolted.

  Esther stared at the sticks, then gazed out the window nearest the door. She did not see Solana. Blurred by her tears, the opening was only a brilliant square of sunlight tinged with the green of the coniferous trees beyond the small corral. Why am I crying, she thought numbly. It doesn't make any difference. Even if the idea that God is punishing me is not absurd, I do not want this thing in my womb. And if I should die doing it, it will be a blessing. An accident, God. For that is not my intention and you cannot blame me if that happens.

  She lay all but one of the sticks down beside her. Pulling herself up to a sitting position, she drew her legs inward, knees apart, until the soles of her feet touched. She stared at the point of the stick and gulped in a deep breath. Spreading the folds of her vulva, she found the entrance and began, slowly, carefully, pushing, angling the slender shaft up inside her.

  Solana burst through the unbolted door.

  Startled, Esther involuntarily jerked the stick out.

  "You must not, you cannot do this thing!"

  "It's none of your business," Esther said evenly. "Please go away."

  "You must not do it!"

  "Why?"

  "It is the worst thing we can do."

  "I want to do it."

  Solana moved a little closer. "How can you want this? You have already lost one child. I know what that has done to you. You are broken, as I was, when my first was born silent and blue."

  "But this one isn't mine!" Esther shouted.

  Solana took another short step, puzzled, weighing, sifting. "You knew this could happen if you lay with the man, did you not?"

  "I did not lay with the man."

  Solana thought for another moment, puzzled again. Then she understood. "You could not stop him?"

  "No." Esther began crying, swinging her head back and forth. "No. No... NO!" Miserable, she let her right hand drop to her side.

  Solana moved to Esther and sat down beside her. The stick was still in Esther's
hand, on the opposite side of the bed. "Then I understand why you do this."

  "Now will you go away?"

  "It was not the fault of the child in you, any of this."

  "Of course not," Esther said.

  "Then you punish it, kill a living thing for something it has not done. Women of other tribes do that and they are cursed."

  Esther had not thought of that aspect. She fought the truth of it. "I don't care. It isn't mine!" The injustice to the living creature inside her did not go away.

  "I will hate you if you do it. You are my friend, and I will hate you."

  "I don't care."

  Instinctively Solana used truth to gain time, stall the act she might not have the strength to prevent, allow the seed of what was fair to the child to grow—she had seen it take root in the fleeting change in Esther's expression. "I will hate you for what you have done and for making a fool of me."

  "How will I do that?"

  "My people will laugh at me, speak to me no more."

  "In God's name, why?" Esther's attention was on Solana now.

  "Because I have told them you are Miwokan's sun-sister. That the sun made you at the same time; as with Miwokan, the sun has given you large work to do. Even Miwokan believes it. And that you also carry the strong spirit of the great bear in your heart. That you flew over the mountains and the snow and ice because the sun will not call you back until you have done what you have to do for him. That you are the woman who would not die."

  The thought of Mosby, of what she wanted to do to him, swelled in Esther's mind. She fought it. She was breathing fast, and the exaggerated sight of her swollen stomach rising and falling caught her attention. She thought of the unborn innocent. It was not fair to the child.

  "Do not do it—for me," Solana said, touching her shoulder.

  "It wasn't the baby's fault," Esther said, crying once more. "The poor thing didn't do it."