California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1)

by Daniel Knapp

  The heavy-set deputy looked at Esther, shook his head, and pulled the gaunt man aside. "Looks to me like them miners down the ways come up here to get even for somethin'. What do you think?"

  "We better go have a look in at South Fork," the gaunt deputy said. "Might could be touchy."

  Esther stared at them as she wiped at her mouth with her sleeve. She started to tongue-lash them, but she was too numb, too tired to even cry, let alone speak. She knew it was no use anyway. They would believe what was easiest to believe. Later, when the inconsistencies were more apparent, they would know it had been rigged. But by then it would be too late. For a moment the only positive thought she could muster consoled her. Had she waited another few days, Moses also would have been lost. She grasped at that fact as though it were a buoyant piece of wood in the wake of a shipwreck. But even it did not keep her from sinking further into the numbing horror and grief that enveloped her.

  The black miner stayed and helped her build a small, makeshift pyre over the dead campfire and the remains of Miwokan. She tried not to look at the body but found that impossible. It was as though her brain were forcing her eyes to the focus of her guilt-ridden thoughts. If only I had begun thinking of them sooner—acted more quickly, taken them away from this place, they would not be dead.

  Solana was too weak to participate, too shocked to speak, so she simply watched through dulled eyes as Esther placed Mwamwaash's body on top of the stacked branches and set them ablaze. At first, Esther had in mind to wait until the fire died, cooled, and then take a handful of the ashes to the waterfall. But the sight and the stench of the charred, smoking village, the sorrow and grief rocking her, and the vivid memories of the larger, even more emotionally devastating pyre upon which she had placed little John Alexander, were simply too much to bear.

  The snow will soon do the same thing, she thought. It will fall in a month or two… It will be essentially the same purification… It will all be gone by spring…. Oh, God…. Forgive me, Sunbrother. I cannot… I cannot… I simply do not have the strength to stay—even until the fire reaches its peak.

  She waited limply as the black man brought back one of the scattered Indian ponies for her, then lifted Solana up onto Esther's horse. At Negro Bar he helped her purchase a wagon for the remainder of the trip back to Sacramento. When they parted, she gave him every ounce of gold, every coin she had.

  Fifty-three

  Sacramento

  May 7, 1869

  8:45 a.m.

  Esther looked up from the account of the massacre in her diary and realized she was coated with a light film of sweat. The air in the parlor car was close. She could hardly breathe. She got up, still thinking about how, years earlier, Solana had finally recounted that terrible morning at the village, mentioning only Claussen's name. She walked back to the rear of the car. Pulling the bolt free, she opened the door and stepped outside onto the open observation platform. Shutting from her mind all thought of what might take place on this small metal rectangle later in the day, she took deep breaths to regain her composure.

  Settled, cool again in mind and body, she glanced across several sets of railroad tracks toward Front Street. Down near the station, members of a band were gathering at a wooden stand decked with patriotic bunting, arranging sheet music and taking seats. Already passengers were headed toward the train from Front Street. Some, Esther guessed, had already boarded the forward cars. She looked the other way and saw Solana and young Todd in the distance, near the riverbank. She wondered if Solana had ever seen Mosby during the massacre. She knew he had been there; a chance remark had told her that. But the Indian woman had never described anyone but Claussen, who had sold his ranch and vanished. But what if she had seen Mosby and simply never said so? It suddenly registered with Esther that Solana had seen Mosby last night, when she delivered the rendezvous message at the hotel. Esther chided herself for not thinking of the possibility that Solana might remember him, of what seeing him again might have provoked. But Solana had said nothing. Undoubtedly, Esther thought, she was unconscious during the massacre and never really got a good look at him. Thank God, considering the complications that might have developed and crippled my plans.

  Memories of the two years following the massacre unfolded in Esther's mind as she gazed out over the river to her right. Numb with guilt and grief, she had sold the mining properties and the Mariposa ranch in early 1853, had bought and moved to a farm on the outskirts of Sacramento. She had nursed Solana back to health and then virtually collapsed from mental and physical exhaustion. In all, nine months passed before she was even remotely herself again.

  Esther stepped to the back railing and sighed as she remembered how the abating grief and lethargy had returned in full force when she learned that Harry Love and his rangers had finally caught up with Murietta and killed him. After two months of keeping to her bed she had decided that activity and absorption were the only things that might heal her almost incapacitating sorrow. She established a school for orphaned and abandoned children, plunging into the work with an almost maniacal fervor. She insisted that the school be open to Indian as well as white students, and for a time the project and its problems had preoccupied her. But then, after six months, Esther found herself becoming short with her young wards, slipping back into apathy and, finally, indifference to almost everything.

  Turning from the railing Esther caught sight of Alex Todd coming out of the hotel on Front Street. As he tipped his hat to a passing woman in a full-bustled dress, Esther thought about Judith Britten, the lovely young teacher she had found to run the school in her place. Even now, the similarity of their facial and bodily appearance seemed remarkable to Esther. She had taken Judith to San Francisco during the summer of '54 and introduced her to the Kelseys. It had occurred to her that Alex might well be attracted to Judith. He was still unmarried after seven years; and her resemblance to his "dead" wife, Elizabeth, might prove an overpowering lure.

  They were having dinner with the Kelseys and Warren Barnett. Esther had simply asked Bill Kelsey how well Alex was looking after Blue Star's interests in his new post as vice-president of Wells, Fargo and Company. Judith was sitting directly across the dinner table from Kelsey, and as he responded to Esther's question, he glanced at the young woman. Esther had virtually seen the wheels in the inveterate matchmaker's mind begin to turn as he put together the thought of his friend Alex Todd and the sight of Judith Britten's lovely face.

  Esther turned and went back into the parlor car now, absently leaving the bolt on the rear door open. She sat down and stared at the journal, thinking about how much had developed at that otherwise unremarkable dinner gathering. Beyond what had been set in motion for Alex and Judith, it had been the first time Esther had had any idea that Mosby was involved in the massacre. Barnett, commenting on the terrible incident over coffee, had thought for a moment, then cryptically shaken his head.

  "No," he had said absently. "I don't suppose it would have made any difference."

  "What wouldn't have?" Esther asked.

  "Another man. A marshal. There was another peace officer in Sacramento the day you told me of Claussen's suspicious behavior. A man from Galveston who had pursued an escaped prisoner, caught him here in California, and was preparing to take him back to Texas."

  "What of him?" Esther said.

  "I was just wondering if it would have made any difference, if the marshal had gone with you, considering how few men my aide was able to round up."

  "Perhaps. But Claussen had too much of a head start, I think."

  Galveston, Esther thought. South-central Texas. She upbraided herself silently for such a ridiculous notion. Still, the question would not go unasked, unanswered. "I don't suppose you remember the name of the peace officer from Texas, do you, Warren?"

  "I don't think so. So much time has… Mosby. His name was Mosby. I remember it because someone mentioned he had escaped death at the Alamo by taking a message to an officer encamped some distance from the old missi
on."

  Esther clenched her fists and bit her lip to keep from crying out in astonishment.

  "Remarkable luck, don't you think?" Barnett said.

  "Yes, remarkable," Esther replied, almost faint.

  "Is there something the matter? You don't look well."

  "I've been feeling poorly all day," Esther said, excusing herself. Upstairs in the Kelseys' guest room she had lain awake all night, filled with rage and frustration.

  Footsteps on the gravel separating the railroad tracks just beyond the window of the parlor car jarred Esther from her recollections. For a moment, she thought she had imagined the sound. But then she heard it again—someone moving down the side of the parlor car. One of the trainmen, she thought. She stood up, cracked the shade beside her, peered out, and saw Luther Mosby walking slowly toward the rear of the car.

  Paralyzed with surprise and sudden fear, Esther watched as he walked to a point just below the rear-platform railing and glanced back toward Front Street. In the midst of wondering why he was here now, rather than later in the day at Dutch Flat, Esther saw Mosby turn again, glance up at the windows of the car, and start around the rear platform to the obscured side of the car.

  Esther let go of the shade and fell back into her chair. She heard him walk past the window opposite and continue on toward the front of the car. There was silence for a minute, but then she heard him climb the metal stairs onto the forward platform. After another moment of stillness she saw the handle turning slowly as he tried the front door.

  When he found it locked, he went back down the stairs on the side of the car screened from Front Street and began walking toward the rear again. He was almost abreast of the window opposite Esther when she remembered she had not rebolted the rear door. Oh, my God, she thought, jumping up and moving quickly and silently across the compartment. It will all be ruined if I confront him now. I'm not prepared. I'm not ready.

  She reached the rear door just as she heard him step up onto the stairwell. Gripping the tiny bolt-handle firmly, she slowly began easing the metal cylinder into its socket, praying that it would not click and alert him to what she was doing. She had just slipped it home when she felt the door handle in her other hand begin to turn. Holding her breath and pressing her face to the broad shade covering the small window, she relaxed her grip as the force of his turning lifted her hand. When she realized suddenly that his face was no more than six or eight inches from hers on the other side of the door, she almost fainted. She let go of the handle, eased her head back carefully, then waited to be sure he had not seen the depression her cheek had made on the shade.

  "Mizz Carter?" she heard him say, her legs shaking uncontrollably. "Mizz Carter?"

  The door handle rattled as he tried it again, and she was so frightened she thought she would urinate. Slowly, she backed away from the door into the hallway, through the pantry and kitchen, and sat down on the bed. She heard him go down the steps and then cross the gravel as he started back around and up toward the passenger cars. Gathering her nerve, she peeled back another shade in the sleeping area and watched as he picked up two bags and boarded.

  Behind Esther, out of view, Solana approached with young Todd. When she saw Mosby her eyes narrowed, and she involuntarily squeezed the boy's hand so hard he let out a yelp. Esther neither saw nor heard. When her heart was beating normally again, she relieved herself in the bathroom, then retraced her steps to the chair she had been sitting in and picked up the journal. She wondered if her nerve would crumple the same way later that morning when she would need to be as firm as the steel tracks upon which the parlor car sat. I cannot know, she thought, until it happens. But I will do my best, and I will be prepared. The reading will steady and strengthen me. I know it will. It must.

  She looked at the entries tied with the black ribbon and clenched her teeth. He is on this train, she thought. And I will do what I have set out to do! Opening the journal, flipping past the ribboned entries and the pages she had already covered, Esther began reading again, letting go of the present as her handwritten sentences, some of them no more than skeletally descriptive, brought all of it back fully, clearly in her mind.

  Fifty-four

  San Francisco

  October 27, 1854

  Dearest Husband, it is difficult to believe that I was twenty-five years old yesterday! Almost as difficult to believe as the fact that Yerba Buena Cove no longer exists, what with the continuous process of land-filling and creation of new streets toward the east for this extraordinarily growing city! Have not written in this journal for so long a time. It seems fitting to begin again now that I have fully recovered from the after-effects of the massacre and Murietta's death. Moved here from Sacramento last summer, after being jarred back to a sense of purpose once again upon learning of Mosby's part in what happened to Miwokan and Mwamwaash. The thought of it fills me with renewed hatred for the man, along with the frustration that comes of knowing how impossible it would be for me to take revenge on him now. I have thought long and hard upon the matter. There is simply no way I could bring it off under present circumstances without giving up my own life in the bargain almost automatically. I not only must do the deed myself, I wish to savor such a retaliation. What good would it be, what satisfaction, if I were dead along with him? I would not know it, or feel it. It would be the same as if I had never done it at all. No, I will continue to wait. Time may bring the opportunity, unforced, to me.

  Moved here not a moment too soon, considering the fire that recently wiped out seven-eighths of Sacramento. My farm was not touched, but all the hastily built houses they so unexpectedly surrounded my land with went down. I must think about the substantial offer I received in the mail two weeks ago for the property. Perhaps I could sell off the acreage but keep the house. I would not like to dispossess the handsome and grave mercantile man, Leland Stanford, to whom I am renting the place, and his lovely young wife.

  I babble on about such things to delay telling you how I really feel about your announced engagement to Judith Britten. Oh, God, Alex, I should not be jealous! I should be happy for you, grateful that my machinations have brought you a measure of comfort and joy after so many years. What a rare example of good nature your prospective bride is. But what is in me now, churning, tearing, keeping me awake each night, is a longing to be in your arms more powerful than I have felt in half a score years. Oh, Alex, I still love you as I did as a girl… Dear God, let this burning in my mind and my loins cease!

  There. I have wiped away the torrent of tears from my face, and I take some comfort in your happiness. After all, it was I who brought the two of you together, indirectly or not. And there is some small consolation in the fact that Judith looks enough like me to be a sister. I must be stronger, less selfish, Alex. This is the price I must pay for the course I decided upon when I came down out of the mountains. Even now, I still dream of the two of us together someday. But, of course, that is impossible. And I will stop thinking about it.

  It interests me, Alex, that amid all your activities at Wells Fargo, you are studying law at night… God, I cannot believe the meanness that just ran through my mind. As a measure of how strong my feelings for you are still, I took momentary pleasure in the notion that your studies will reduce the time you and Judith can spend together in bed! Forgive me. I will try to strengthen my resolve not to have such thoughts…

  In any case, Kelsey thinks you are secretly planning a political move, rather than simply arming yourself with legal knowledge to perform effectively in your post as vice-president of W, F & Co. I wonder. Are you simply acquiring an additional skill to use should you find yourself unseated someday? I suppose such could happen in the light of the fierce competition between Wells Fargo and Adams and Company.

  I want you to know I have left my money at Adams simply out of laziness and disinterest, drawing from my account only for my monthly needs and the purchase of this house. I truly love this place, situated as it is on the crown of this hill, which for some reason is
called Lone Mountain. It is far enough to the west of the city to be tranquil and unpestered by drummers, advertisers, and the like. The view is magnificent. One can scarcely hear the hum of the city, let alone the often boisterous noise of the crowds.

  But I wander. I must make a note to myself to transfer my account to Wells Fargo. The ridiculous figure— $991,087—is simply there, as far as I am concerned. But leaving it at Adams seems disloyal to you, since it might be of some use to Wells Fargo. I suppose if your fight with Adams comes down to the wire, it might even be a significant deposit, however much, W. F. already has in its vaults. I promise to begin transferring it next month, a portion at a time so as not to cause a ruckus and entreaties from the Adams management.

  I wish I could persuade Solana to ride with me into town. I do not cotton to going in alone. She is worse than I am, even more reclusive, sitting there in her rocker on the porch, day after day. Of course, she has much weighing upon her. At least when Emilio and Marianita were still with us, the old woman could occasionally bring Solana to life in the kitchen. I miss them. And I fear Emilio simply wanted to return to his home village in Mexico to wait for death.

  Still find it difficult to believe that Murietta is gone. Strange, but upon reading the news that Harry Love and his rangers had killed him, something in me said it was not Joaquin. Of course, that is more hope than realism, considering they exhibited his head – barbarians -- and the hand of his supposed accomplice, Three-Fingered Jack, in every town of any size in California. In jars of alcohol! Good God, there is no end to man's capacity for the vulgar and sensational.

  It is almost as difficult to believe that Billy Ralston, your old friend from Ohio, has been working these past five years in Panama as a manager for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. And that he is being transferred to the main offices here in San Francisco. (In a sense, he will work for me!) Barnett says he is an extraordinarily convivial and outgoing young man. Can you imagine! I have been invited to the dinner celebrating your engagement, at which Billy will also be present! I wonder if he would recognize me? Pointless question, since you certainly would. I have had to maneuver so many times in order not to be in the same room with you it begins to vex me. But I must find a plausible excuse for declining once again.