California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1)

by Daniel Knapp

  Before that, a half hour after we have left Dutch Flat and Mosby is forward, in his seat in the passenger car, Sutter shows the note to the conductor. Sutter stays with me until I ask him to leave—so I can "freshen up a bit." He leaves five minutes or so before Mosby arrives—unbeknownst to anyone—by the roofs. I will have already asked Sutter to return after we have passed Donner Lake. He will understand why I would want to be alone passing that place. And that will give me time enough to… it will be done by then. And afterward, the conductors will know the doors have been locked and only Sutter has been here. As time passes, it will amount to having someone with me during the entire time it happened… if it ever comes to that… In the unlikely event I would even be suspected… If his body is ever found…

  There. I am satisfied. The rest is in the hands of…

  She was wondering whether "God," "the Devil," "Fate," or "Luck" was the appropriate word when the train lurched once, then again, and finally started rolling forward. The sound of the bandsmen, outdoing themselves now, grew louder. She got up, pulled a shade aside, and watched the passing faces of the noisy well-wishers and celebrants gathered at the station. She sat down again and raised the shade by her side; as the train continued to move forward, Esther raised the shade farther. To her left, smoke rose from thousands of chimneys in the sprawling state capital. The river, close by to her right, was lined with streamers, launches, barges, small boats, and at least a half-dozen paddle-wheelers. It was a far cry, she thought, from the days when there were only a fort and a few ranches. And even farther, mentally and spiritually, from the night Miwokan and Solana had brought her to that fort. Miwokan… John Alexander… Moses… Murietta…

  She bit her lip. I would not die, she thought. I did not die, you scum. You will learn that today, and it will be the last entry in your vicious brain.

  She glanced at the time as the train picked up speed beyond the station and began circling eastward around the city. Opening the journal, she began scanning quickly; turning, scanning, then turning again. Oh, God. What the years in hiding had done to Joaquin… She knew there would not be enough time to read every word now. The significant entries would be enough. Her mind would recapture all the rest. By the time the train left Dutch Flat, all that would be left would be the rereading of the ribboned entries. She would relive every word of those during the half hour before Sutter knocked on the forward door of the parlor car. Every single word. And then she would be ready. Ready… and waiting.

  Fifty-nine

  San Francisco

  May 18, 1856

  Solana and I buried "Jack Marin" today. On a quiet knoll beneath a sycamore on his property just to the west of Twin Peaks. He would have liked being interred away from the city, in one of his beloved quiet places, no matter how changed he was during the year and a half we were intermittently together after we chanced to meet again. How shocked you must be, Alex, to read of Murietta's survival. How surprised this city would be if it knew "Jack Marin's" real identity! I dare say the double hanging that took place today would have been postponed indefinitely while William T. Coleman's resurrected mob of vigilantes and Luther Mosby's opposing "Law and Order" hoodlums recovered from the stunning knowledge that Joaquin Murietta lived among them, sold goods to them from his profitable saddlery, for more than two years!

  I have not written of "Jack Marin" or Joaquin in these pages in a year and a half for fear that, had this journal fallen into the wrong hands, it would have spelled his doom. Nor have I addressed myself to you, Alex, since shortly after your marriage to Judith Britten. It was a comfort once, and I tried to continue writing “to” you. But I found that doing so, late of an evening, as is my habit, knowing you might at the same moment be in Judith's arms, stirred longings and jealousies within me that were intolerable. (Is that not remarkable after all this time?) And so I have written since only as one does normally. That will explain the inclusion of so many things you should know about. Your dear friend Billy Ralston's rapid rise to a position equal in importance at Blue Star with those of William Kelsey and Warren Barnett, for example. You might be surprised to know that I was introduced to him at one of the few Blue Star board meetings I have ever attended. Did not expect him to be there. Heavily veiled. Even had I not been, I seriously doubt he would have recognized me after so many years.

  So, too, would you have known about Warren's reelection to the state assembly at the same time you, not six months admitted to the bar, also joined that august body. (I was so proud for you.)

  I have written little of Luther Mosby, who this very moment languishes in the Committee of Vigilance jail. Believe me, I have not forgotten him, nor my intentions, as you will soon discover in these pages. But beyond my comments that he has been virtually untouchable since Gwin engineered his rise to a seat on the California Supreme Court, there has been precious little to say, until today.

  You know, undoubtedly, that Mosby had a hand in "Jack Marin's" death, even if he did not strike the killing blow himself. But what you, and everyone else in San Francisco, cannot know, is that "Jack Marin" was actually Joaquin. Let me go back over the events of the past week, nay, past year and a half. Let me recount it all, so that you will understand… and so that I can share the burden of a grief so deep it cannot be described… other than to say it could only be deeper had you been the one killed this past Friday.

  Sixty

  The morning sun warmed Esther as she waited for Murietta in the swing seat on the porch of her two-story house. Mayflies swarmed above the oval of green lawn and the circular driveway bordered with lavender Johnny-jump-ups. She could smell the fragrance of the flowering shrubs skirting the porch and the thick blanket of white alyssum blossoming between the house and her carriage stable. The warmth lulled her. She nudged a toe impatiently at the Evening Bulletin lying near her feet. Murietta was due at nine sharp; she would read the paper when they returned later in the day.

  Gazing instead toward the new houses being built on Rincon Hill, south of the city, she smiled ruefully. Fitting, she thought. Sides were being taken in Congress on the increasingly explosive issue of slavery, and they were being taken there as well. The houses barely visible in the distance on Rincon Hill were being built for a dozen or so of San Francisco's wealthy Southerners, the Gwins among them. Set apart from the rest of the city, the area was to be called South Park.

  The Southerners were not the only hostile faction in the city. Editors railed at one another, at corrupt politicians and businessmen, even personal enemies. The newly named Republicans vilified every Democrat, including Barnett. Esther knew Warren was above the rapaciousness, election rigging, and strong-arm tactics of his fellow party members, but her conviction didn't matter. A rising malice was transforming San Francisco into a savage arena. Daily there were insults, brawls, challenges, and duels. There was talk of reviving the Committee of Vigilance, which in 1852 had taken the law into its own hands and rid the city of numerous criminals—as well as innocent people—in a series of beatings and lynchings. This time, if the rumor was true, the target would be political exploiters.

  But here, on her blossom-covered hill far to the west of the city, Esther felt protected from it all. Her gaze swept northward past a hill too steep to be settled, then on to the clapboard and brick dwellings that sprawled south and west toward her ten acres. Some of the new Romanesque, stone business buildings were four stories high. She knew the land she owned would hold the city at bay if the growth reached out and surrounded her, but the prospect rankled.

  She traveled into the city with Solana regularly now, enjoying the visits, the myriad diversions San Francisco had to offer. The reassuring knowledge that she had more than enough breathing room here had been a major factor in once again abandoning her semi-reclusive ways. But she knew that sooner or later this hilltop retreat would be lost to "progress." And that was the main reason she was faintly excited and expectant about accompanying Murietta to see the acreage he had purchased to the west of Twin Peaks today. She w
as eager to look over the surrounding land. If it was as beautiful as he said it was, perhaps she would purchase some herself as a hedge against the day the city engulfed her.

  There had been a hint of something else in Murietta's tone when he asked her to inspect his purchase. She wondered if he were planning to propose marriage. She doubted that, but it was not beyond possibility. She had no idea how she might respond, although she guessed her answer would be no. True, they were more married than many legally bound couples she knew of; Alex was married, and she still cared about Joaquin. But changes in him had prompted a gradual lessening of her feelings.

  "Not the physical changes," she said out loud to the cat curled in a chair on her porch, as if it would nod in agreement. He did look different, had shaved off his moustache and grown a bit plump in the face. There were deep lines around his eyes, he limped slightly from a bullet wound in his left leg, and he stooped a bit to one side, like a much older man. No, not those outward and visible signs. Nor the store-bought suits and top hat he wore. Esther thought they looked ridiculous, but she understood their value. Combined with the facial differences, they made him virtually unrecognizable to almost anyone who had known him in the past. Even Solana looked at him disbelievingly during the first six months he had come visiting her in the new house.

  The inward changes were the ones that had dampened her regard for him. They were not total, and for that reason her feelings were still ambivalent, rather than entirely gone. She remembered a day a year earlier, when one part of the old Murietta emerged clearly, sharply defining all else that was gone in him.

  They were picnicking on the boulder-braced cliffs to the west of the Presidio, on the Pacific. Below them more than a hundred seals blanketed a jagged outcropping just offshore. Waves crashed against the rocks and sent sunlit spray thirty feet up the cliffs.

  "Why won't you tell me about the years you were—away?" She toyed absently with the edge of a cucumber sandwich, knowing full well how uncomfortable the same question had made him in the past. "Why won't you share that with me? Do you think I would tell someone about it?"

  He stared off at the horizon. "No. I have told you many times. It is simply a time of my life I wish to forget."

  She knew she was being unreasonable, but still it piqued her that he would not share that information, help her to understand more fully why he behaved more than carefully now. In spite of herself, she prodded him. "It seems obvious that you were not herding sheep," she said almost waspishly. She tried to stop herself, but the slender thread of bitchiness and sarcasm she hated in herself would not be silenced. "The saddlery you own, the building itself, let alone the inventory, would require a considerable outlay of money."

  "And where did I get it? Is that what you want to know?" He turned to her and the sight of her face triggered in him a surge of love that checked his anger. He had pictured that face countless times in the mountains, in caves, at night, alone on a bedroll in the wilds, and longed to hold it, kiss it. He did not want to lose it again. He laughed, and for a moment displayed his once casual ability to sidestep almost any issue through sardonic amusement. "There are such things as banks, Esther. They lend money to men who wish to establish a business."

  "But not without—"

  He put his hand to her lips, smiling again, patiently. "No more," he said. "All right?" Finally, he took his hand away.

  "All right," she said guiltily, subduing unreasonableness and wanting to make it up to him. "But if you've borrowed money, why don't you let me pay you your fair share from the sale of the Southern Sierra Mining Company? You could—"

  "I have told you before. I asked you to hold that money for me in your account at Adams—"

  "I don't remember you ever asking me that."

  "Well, I did. And therefore it was the same as if I had been a depositor, too."

  "But—"

  "No 'buts.' When the bank failed, I lost my money just as you did. And I will hear no more about it." He smiled again. "Now, can we finish our picnic and enjoy this lovely afternoon."

  She sighed, ashamed that she had pried at him again but still slightly irritated with not having the information she wanted. "Yes," she said. "Let's enjoy it." For a moment she contrasted his independence and fairness with the solicitous mercantile life he was leading now. She understood the need for some of it, but…

  "Look at them," Murietta said, pointing to a bull seal and his mate, basking near the top of the offshore rocks. "Growing old together, sharing a life of peace. Perhaps that is in store for us as well."

  "Perhaps," she said, not convincingly, still half-lost in her own thoughts and betraying how much she was beginning to doubt such a thing would happen. When she became aware of the subtle change in his voice and turned, the look in his eyes made her feel as though an arctic wind had knifed through the hot summer sun and sliced a path between them.

  Getting up from the porch swing, Esther glanced again at her locket watch, and felt a twinge of irritation. It was well past nine. Murietta had not been like this when she first knew him. He had always been prompt. But in the last year and a half, he was late more often than not. Invariably, his excuse was the press of business. But she knew it was more often caused by extra time he spent ingratiating himself with customers. Their friendship, he thought, would make him more "respectable" and therefore less vulnerable to discovery.

  Even more annoyed now, she plumped back into the porch swing. That's all he seems interested in: mercantile stature, security, and creature comforts, she thought. His friends were so old, so stuffy; and he had adopted their ways, their attitudes, even their causes. It seemed as if he were attempting to become another person entirely! As though those few years spent in the mountains and on stagecoach trails, wearing a bandanna over his face and holding a gun in his hand, had aged him twenty years, robbed him of the better part of his sardonic humor and, worse, stripped him of his courage. It had all been brought home to her just a week earlier when she had decided to combine the need to replace a damaged buggy harness with the prospect of an unexpected lunch together at the little restaurant near Joaquin's shop.

  She paused at the entrance to the saddlery when she saw Murietta was just completing a sale to James King, the vitriolically righteous publisher of the Bulletin. Murietta had just convinced King that a snaffle bit would do less damage to a horse and be just as effective as a curb bit for the sort of riding he did. Behind him an array of hand-tooled saddles and brass-studded tack hung from pegs on the rear wall of the store. King—short, bearded, and wiry— did not notice Esther's entrance.

  "I thought you gave that fellow Casey exactly what he deserved in the paper this morning," Murietta said, deferentially nodding his head as he wrapped up the snaffle bit.

  "Ah, you mean the account of his ballot-box stuffing to gain his seat on the City Council." King turned. When he saw a woman was listening as well, he took on an even more theatrical air of indignation.

  "Yes," Murietta continued, coming around from behind the counter even though there was no need to. "The business about Casey having been in prison in New York State… that is true?"

  "True? Of course it's true! I would not have printed it if it were not. The man is a scoundrel of the first order."

  And the publisher of a rival paper, The Times, Esther thought.

  "Were it not for your editorials, God knows what men like Casey would get away with," Murietta went on, glancing somewhat guiltily at Esther.

  She sensed he was weighing whether or not to introduce her to his "friend." She had no interest whatsoever in meeting King, who so fancied himself above the average citizen he had legally adopted for himself the appellation "James King of William," to distinguish himself from a number of other men in the city with the same name. But she still felt slighted when he turned back to King.

  "You do the God-fearing citizens of this great city an unending service exposing those in high office who abuse power."

  Late for something, King looked at his watch
, then succumbed to holding center stage for just a minute longer. "Marin," he said, putting an arm over Joaquin's shoulder and walking him to the door, "good men like you have no conception of the extent of it. Ninety-five percent of the men holding public office in this city are tainted."

  At the doorway he paused and glanced over to be sure Esther was taking it all in. "And it goes beyond that. San Francisco is overrun with gamblers, prostitutes, pimps as well." He bowed toward Esther. "Forgive me, madam. Mark my words, Marin, a day will soon come when we citizens will take it into our own hands again, as the vigilantes did in '52. We will rid this city of the vermin our elected officials and police are either unable or unwilling to exterminate."

  "You know I will be on the side of right that day, Mr. King," Murietta whispered as the publisher started out through the doorway.

  "I'm sure you will, Marin. I consider you a friend, and I appreciate your support."

  Murietta watched him walk off, then turned to Esther. "A good man, a good man," he said, nodding again. "Now, what brings you into town?"

  She stood up. "A harness," she said, feeling slightly nauseated. "I need a harness to replace one—damaged beyond repair."

  "Then why are you frowning? Surely a broken harness isn't enough to darken that sweet face. Is something troubling you?" He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away.

  "No. It's nothing, Joaq—Jack. I'm just not in a very good mood."

  He looked at his watch. "Almost time for lunch. Would that cheer you up?"

  "No… I'd like to, but there is too much to do. Would you just pick out a rig for me and put it in the buggy?"