by S. L. Hawke
“You should not doing anything about it yet. It will give away our position.”
“I know, but I need to know, how many, when, and how it’s done.” I placed my hat on my head. And then I will take my revenge.
The kitchen was warm and smelled of baking bread, cinnamon, bacon, and coffee. Cynthia was pouring out cups for more than just both of us.
“Ah AyJay. Have some coffee. Sophia made sweet buns with cinnamon.” Cynthia pointed to the table. My stomach lurched a bit at the sweet roll, but I grabbed the coffee and took a deep inhale. A boy carrying wood kindling came in. As he put the kindling into the bucket, I saw that it was the young woman from the stables. She did not meet my eye. “AyJay, this is my private carriage driver, Juan Arana. You can have him for today. He knows the town and can take you wherever you need. Juan has told me that your horses still need to recover from their long journey but that they are doing well despite it all. I also have a few errands for you to do with my wagon.” Cynthia took a scrap of paper out of her apron pocket and handed it to me.
On the paper was the time of John Towne’s talk. There was also a note to visit the newspaper office and inquire after the status of a delivery of linens to a ‘female boarding house’. But first things first, and that was to speak with Andrew to see how he was faring.
Juan left the room, silently. No doubt she would be seeing to the horse and wagon. I hesitated, then drinking up the coffee, I turned without a word and went across the hall to see how Andrew was this morning.
There was a young woman in his room, bent over his stomach.
“A.J.!” Andrew cried out, more startled than in greeting. The young woman straightened abruptly, but with a smile on her face. “Uh, this is Camille. Uh. Camille, this is A.J...”
“Miss!” I growled. She giggled and curtseyed, then left quickly. I frowned at Andrew who grinned as he adjusted himself into an upright position.
“I can’t help it if you have a dirty mind. She was changing the bandage. Take a look. Lam’s medicine has done a helluva lot of good. Better than our crème.”
The bandage was clean and pinned in place. Andrew was still pale but his eyes were clear and his smile hearty.
“Any pain while relieving yourself?”
“You are no doc, but no, because you have to send my mother a report. There’s a whore house with a telegraph down on the main street inside the hotel Pacific House.”
“I have errands to do; one of them is seeing my dying mother. I’ll send the message from a regular telegraph office.” My headache was all that existed. I put on my dark glasses.
“Let me guess, whiskey. Your sis stocks the good stuff.” Andrew smiled slightly. “When you get back, I’m gonna move upstairs. Everybody knows I’m here, so I’m gonna have to either leave so you can get done what you need to, or go stay at someone’s house.”
Suddenly I remembered Cynthia’s request.
“Cynthia is concerned about whores being murdered and buried without questions.”
Andrew frowned. “I’ll look into it.” He shifted in his bed. “Our safety net may have been exposed.”
“You mean as an intelligence gathering place?” My head throbbed.
“Possibly. When did the first murder occur?”
I shook my head. Andrew shifted again in bed. “Never mind, I’ll look into it. Do you still have Pete’s letter?” Andrew beat me to voicing my next thought.
“Why don’t you make a call on the Russians?”
“Say again?”
“Pete the chef told me that the Russians have an embassy or estate here. Offer to be security or some such shit like that.” Andrew visibly brightened when Camille returned with a breakfast tray for him. “Hangovers and you are not good bedfellows.”
“Heal up.” With that I left my young namesake to the pleasurable ministrations of Camille.
4
Juan was waiting on the driver’s seat of the buckboard like a footman. I grabbed the lead reins from her and climbed up. Juan moved to the back of the wagon while I drove the buckboard around the side of the hotel, down the muddy, rutted streets of the edge of Santa Cruz.
Wagons bearing crates of chickens, barrels of salt, lime, and charcoal were making their way towards the wharves. I wanted Juan next to me, for company, and to find out more of my ‘companion’, and this place where I found myself.
“You back there, come forward.” I tried to sound harsh, but my head ached too much.
Juan carefully climbed forward but sat at the very far edge of the bench. “You lived here all your life?”
There was no answer, so I looked over at the young woman who stared straight ahead. She gave me the briefest of nods. I let the horse go on the track once we cleared the rest of the river crossing. “I imagine all this must come as a shock, lands being overrun, stolen from what I heard. So which Rancho do you come from?”
“Stay to the left up here, sir,” she said, voice matter of fact, even though I jerked the reins a bit too harshly.
“I appreciate the care you gave my mare.” Still she gave no response. I decided to try something else.
“I’m looking for a guide into the mountains. A man named Lorenzana. I hear he’s like a fox.” I used the Castellano word for fox and watched her reaction.
“There are many Lorenzanas here, sir, but none know the mountains better than Pedro. But Pedro doesn’t do anything without his cousin Jose Rodríguez. So you would need to hire both men. “
“That’s a thought. What about you? Do you know the mountains as well as they do?”
“No, sir,” she answered too quickly. Well, maybe Lam wanted me to guard her secret because she did know the mountains. Yet, somehow, that didn’t seem to be all of it. Why, was my main curiosity. I could tell she did not do this as a means to keep herself in shoe.
The thought of Miles intruded. No, this woman was finding something out, or worse yet, working for Cynthia to find out the dangerous connections to the rebels.
“Take the reins, boy!” The growl in my voice was deliberate as I clambered back into the wagon. Juan quickly moved to grab the reins while I looked under the tarp to see what it was that we were taking to my mother.
“Take us to my mother’s place. Mrs. Eliza Sloan.” She must think me some sort of drunken cur, I thought. But headache notwithstanding, I thought about the rest of my day and the difficulties that would come. First things first, my brother’s rage, my mother’s dying, and then the job I was sent here to do.
I sat against the back board with a groan. I nodded off in a matter of minutes. The sounds of a foreign language startled me a few minutes later. Juan had driven down into the Soquel Township and was now heading alongside the creek.
Bearded men wearing grey caps on large white horses were shouting Russian commands to several carts in front of us. Juan wisely let them pass. I jumped forward to the bench, as my presence might be needed with the strange European men cantering back and forth between the laden carts of the caravan. Juan had the reins waiting, as if she knew I were coming forward and gracefully handed them to me without betraying slack to the horse.
The dark tint of the glasses gave me better vision in the miasma of activity. The men wore uniforms, Russian ones, but of the old court.
Juan gestured for me to turn the wagon down into the road off this main drive. A man stood there and waved at us to stop. I did not recognize him until he hailed me.
“Sloan Farm!” was all he said.
Uriah had no height to speak of, and for a moment I saw my father standing there, hale and hearty again. But the blond hair was trimmed close, the youth clean shaven, and the clothing his Sunday best.
Juan scurried away, seeing to the horses and avoiding my younger brother. Perhaps only Cynthia knew Juan’s secret. I was too irritable to worry for now.
I walked up to the young man and removed my glasses. Uriah stood rigid and grim.
The last time I had seen him, he was a small boy. I looked down at this stranger and ext
ended my hand.
“Uriah, do you remember me?”
Uriah took my hand and clenched it. His grip was strong and firm. He looked up at me with Margaret’s blue eyes, but Beth’s temper. He let go of my hand and placed both arms rigidly at his side.
“Mother’s inside” was all he said to me.
“I’ve supplies. Let us unload them first.”
Uriah nodded, teeth clenched. We worked in silence, unloading supplies of food, seed, oats, and other items for Mother, but not as many as I thought would be found this way.
“What crop do you lay down here?” I said, trying to break the silence.
“Alfalfa, some wheat,” Uriah said with a grunt as my strong-backed younger brother lifted two casks of beer as if they were pillows.
“You try fruit? Apples, maybe grapes or apricots?” I offered, but Uriah slammed the casks down. He looked up at me in anger and rage, I could see.
“Don’t presuppose that coming here gives you the right to tell me how to run my farm.” Bitterness shot out of Uriah like blood from a severed artery.
“I had no intention—”
“No word, nothing for ten years. Ten years I listened to Mother talk about you. Ten years, our sisters wept FOR YOU. Ten years I broke my back trying to care for them, for Mother, while you gallivant in the arms of an oriental whore.”
“Uriah, I—”
“No, you have no idea what goes on here. Until you do, we are family in name only. You are not welcome here.” Uriah strode away. He didn’t speak to me for the good remainder of my visit.
Indefensible Positions
Harris House Hotel, Santa Cruz Township
Emma had made her way down to the hotel early in the morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of Jack Sloan again. Instead, this strange brother had already made a name for himself. Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Cahill were gossiping about a foul-tempered brother of Sophia’s visiting from the mines.
“He must be a criminal; after all a Marshal was escorting him into town. He tried to escape custody and hurt the poor man!” Mrs. Cahill said as she swept the steps of her shop.
“Really, Lydia, how come the Sheriff doesn’t know?” Mrs. Lynch had come for the early specials on canned goods today.
“Well, with Sophia and Henry being prominent in the community—” Here Mrs. Cahill pushed in her two chins with a silence that implied scandal. “He leaned out the window in his underwear, his hair all stuck out as if he had gone to Hades itself! He yelled at my Ruth to stop playing with her ball!”
Emma tried hard not to laugh. Ruthie Cahill loved to wake up the folks in the hotel with her ball bouncing. It wasn’t the first time she’d been yelled at by a guest. But this must have been the first time her mother had witnessed it. Emma snuck away from the gossip and returned in time to get the horses ready for the day’s trip out to the Sloan farm in the Soquel Township. She had planned to return to the estate and perhaps find a way to invite Jack and his sisters to the estate without looking brazen or obvious. Her Aunt would have a solution. The day was looking to be bright and sunny. The ocean, undulating outward, was a deep blue. Ships were anchored offshore but the sight became clouded by the lime kilns beginning their firing of the day’s work.
The mare was in good spirits, as was the gelding, though both were a bit stiff from the long journey they had suffered the two days previous. Emma brushed them both down, gave them more water and cake, then some green hay. Sing Lo had mucked the stables clean and put down good, dry straw. Emma also asked him to rub liniment on the horses’ knees. She saw that Cynthia had already arrived with her trap. Emma went inside to the kitchen.
“You are keeping an eye on Jack today.”
“Why? I can’t be that close to a man. You know that.” Emma trembled a bit. She was certain Jack knew she was not a ‘boy’, but perhaps, well, maybe he liked...the thought did not comfort her much either. One of the patrons at the hotel had tried to get Emma to give him “a yank, like a stallion, you boys do that don’t you? Milk a stallion?” But she was able to disappear for a while until the man moved on to another place. But this, this was Cynthia, asking her for a favor.
“My brother needs looking after, Emma. Please!” Cynthia whispered harshly. “Take him to see Mother, and give her some more of your medicine. I really don’t know how Uriah will be. Try to stay clear of that. Then take Jack to the general store. I am sure he will need some supplies for his stay here. Sophia wants him to stay at the hotel until the Marshal is healed. After that, perhaps Jonathan and I can put him up or he can go live with Mother and Uriah. All those things will sort themselves out soon. I thought he would want to think about what kind of profession he could take on after settling here a bit.”
And what of his son? Emma wondered, starting to feel a bit angry and disturbed that she would have to put up with this wayward, perhaps even prone to drunkenness, man. What was he like? His eyes were strange…
She followed Cynthia inside, carrying an armload of wood. Cynthia quickly offered her brother coffee and, try as Emma might, she could not avoid Jack’s eye. Again, he watched her closely, but looked away, a bit paled.
“Do your best, Juan,” Cynthia said loudly, making her brother cringe. “He’s a bit on the helpless side.”
Emma waited until the tall man came out of the hotel. Jack watched Emma with a sharp stare, then got up and took the reins. Immediately she jumped in the back. He started the trap off and headed out of town, towards Soquel. He navigated the cart well and she thought perhaps he would simply ignore her. Maybe she had misjudged him. Perhaps he didn’t know she was a woman. Did he know how to treat a Mexican person? But Cynthia said he had been in the Mexican War and could speak Spanish. Emma’s thoughts felt like a pinwheel in the wind.
“Come sit up front.” The words came out of his mouth like a command. Emma complied quickly but she sat as far away from him as she could. He asked probing questions such as what Rancho was she from, was she born here?
He does know, he just doesn’t know what to do about it. Odd, why doesn’t he simply demand me to expose myself? Emma wondered how long they could keep this up before he would know for certain, and then what would he do? She trembled some, in a pleasurable way, which made her cheeks warm.
“Look, my sister told me that you are my guide in these parts. So,” And this time he looked sideways at her with a mischievous glint. “What can you tell me about these roads? Has anyone gotten murdered or robbed along the byways?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Emma sat straight up, wanting to be far away from all this. Men were on horseback, coming this direction. They passed by tipping hats, farmers by the look of it. Emma relaxed slightly.
She told him about the family of Rodriquez and Lorenzana, and the sons who were guides for all the mountain trails. This news seemed to darken his mood. Did he hate Latinos? He fought in the war. Even though the war was fought on behalf of the Latinos, some men envied the royal connection, the land grants, and of course, what they saw as a pleasure-seeking lifestyle.
The way of the Rancho was to work when it was cool in the morning, rest in the heat of the day, work until evening, then eat, dance and begin a new day all over again. Most danced all night and rested mid-day. But the Protestant Whites saw this as lazy, or full of the devil. No wonder the white men beat the prostitutes at the brothels and drank themselves to death. There was no time to enjoy life in their world.
“Take the reins!” he growled and jumped in the back of the wagon to see what was under the canvas. Satisfied with what he found, he simply collapsed where he squatted (Emma was impressed with his ability to squat so deeply. Most white men were often clumsy and stiff) and rode the rest of the way in the back of the wagon like a small boy. When Emma turned around to see how he was faring, she saw that “A.J.” had fallen asleep.
The road out to the Soquel Township was busy with large carts. Many were headed to the Main Road to San Jose, carrying goods to the paper mill out there. Emma held her head down, as she saw her
Aunt’s men guarding carts that were headed up to the estate. Virofsky had told Emma’s Aunt that they needed to increase their supplies should the road wash out, but truly he seemed occupied with the idea that they might be under siege. Her Aunt did not mind.
The sight of the Cossacks roused Jack from the back of the wagon. He clambered forward with some ease, despite his long-leggedness. Emma passed him the reins, which he took. The ease of this action startled her. Jack wore dark lenses over his eyes now, something modern she did not expect from him. As if sensing her stare, he turned towards her and half smiled.
“Do you know my mother?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” Emma felt she was on dangerous ground. Something in her wanted, no yearned to trust this strange man. The fact that he did not smell rank, that he bathed and treated his Chinese servant with respect, made him intriguing. Perhaps he could not be with his son because he wanted to see how life would be here for him. Perhaps he had found another wife…
“How is she faring?”
“The cancer will take her before the year is finished. That is what Lam told me.”
Emma saw Jack had visibly relaxed, but also looked pained. Then she understood what was really wrong. Jack was simply hung over.
Men.
They approached the farm. Someone was outside to greet them. Emma quickly jumped in the back, then down on the far side of the wagon so that she was not seen by Uriah Sloan. Yesterday, while on an errand with her Aunt, she had seen him in the general store. He went out to the alleyway and Emma, tense and anxious that her clothing kept her within the Royal Barouche, wondered if he had gone to find and speak quietly to one of McKenna’s men she had seen waiting in the back livery.
Unable to contain herself any longer, Emma called for a guard to help her exit the carriage and strode into the store. As she joined her Aunt within the mercantile, she saw one of her Cossack guards draw a sword at a man approaching the barouche’s windows. He offered up a Confederate Flag to her guard who waved him away with some annoyance. The man was later joined by Uriah who then walked across the street and hung the flag in front of another merchant’s store front.
