by Diego Vega
Diego looked away and tears came into his eyes again.
Both of them sat beside the splashing pool without speaking for a long time. They watched the shadows of the vines stirred by the Pacific breeze and signed with each other. They had made a pact.
A little later Bernardo got up and made the sign for hunger.
“Me too,” Diego said, and they went to the kitchen.
13
BLACKBIRDERS
“I HAVE BUSINESS IN THE pueblo,” Don Alejandro told the boys the next morning. “I must arrange for more workers if we are to supply our Boston captain with tons of hides, tallow, dried beef, and salt beef.”
Diego nodded and said, “Sí, Papá,” but there was a sullen silence around his words. Regina looked up from the tea she was pouring, hearing the tone in his voice.
“I would be happy for your company,” the don said.
“Sí, Papá, I will ride with you,” Diego said. A cool curtain had fallen between father and son since Diego had learned Bernardo wasn’t welcome at the ball.
“Both my boys,” the don said, “I would like both my boys with me. I value their company. This would please me, the three of us together.” He left the room, leaving Regina, Diego, and Bernardo standing at Estafina’s worktable.
“I need a few things from Señora Vestido’s shop in the pueblo,” Regina said. “Perhaps you will pick them up for me. I’ll make a list.”
Diego nodded, not speaking, hardly looking up from his plate.
Regina reached in front of him and rapped her knuckles on the table. “Listen with more than your ears, boy. It can be more difficult for a warrior to say some things”—she nodded her chin toward the door that had closed behind Don Alejandro—“than for a tailor or a carpenter. Sometimes you must listen very hard to hear an apology.” She looked at both boys. “You may learn this someday. Or you may be too hardheaded. I’ll make my list.” She too left the kitchen.
The pueblo was almost crowded. Lanterns were being hung for the fiesta, and the shops were busy.
The boys tethered their horses and loosened their saddle girths. Don Alejandro turned from his big mount. “Scar has been talking to his crews, arranging”—he laid a finger on his lips to indicate a secret—“what must be arranged for our Boston friends. He will join us here. The four of us can sit down to a meal. Both of you go ahead to the inn and see to it. Perhaps they will make us some chicken tamales or some beef steaks. Whatever you choose. I have business with Señor Pérez.”
The boys walked toward the plaza. Bernardo touched his heart and looked back toward the don: I love that man.
“And he loves you. I know he does. But he is set in his old ways. Old Spanish ways. Old hidalgo ways.” Diego shook his head, angrier at social fences than at the don.
They walked along the line of carts and stalls at the edge of the plaza. Farmers and craftsmen sold fruit, dried beans, chiles, rice, dyed leather lacing, horn combs. They could have walked all afternoon, talking to their friends and hearing the news of the pueblo. But a shriek came from the inn. The boys broke into a run.
A young woman ran out of the shadows of the vine-trellised tables, sobbing. Five deeply tanned men ran after her, grabbing at her skirts, laughing and crowing, “Come back, chica! Come sit on my lap! I like little girls!” They were loud, showing off, drunk enough to be dangerous. “Come back, chica, and we’ll whisper sweet things to you! Come back and bring your mamacita.”
They were not vaqueros, not soldiers. With their pigtails and tattoos, they had to be sailors, strangers to Pueblo de los Angeles.
The girl ran right past the boys, not even seeing them in her fear. Diego had the spark of an idea. He pushed Bernardo right into their path. Bernardo was surprised but suspected some Diego trick. He stumbled to a stop just in front of the sailors, holding up his hands sternly: Stop right there!
The sailors were startled. They stopped for a few heartbeats, then the biggest sailor said, “So you’re bossing us around? What this Indian needs, shipmates, is some face decoration. I can give him some fancy stuff,” and he reached for the knife on his hip.
Now Bernardo looked worried.
Diego grabbed Bernardo by the shirt and began to beat him, blow after blow. Whap! Whap! The sailors fell back, first in amazement, then they began to enjoy the sight of one Indian brat being beaten by another.
It was a game the boys played, pretending to fight fiercely but hardly touching each other. When Diego threw a punch with one hand, he struck his side with the other hand, making a meaty whap! The trick was to react to a punch that never landed. Bernardo jerked his head back as if he had been struck. They scuffled. Now Bernardo broke free and threw a punch at Diego. He slapped his side just as his fist passed an inch from Diego’s jaw. Diego jerked back, shouting, “Oof!” They couldn’t play this for long. The sailors would be expecting some blood with these mighty blows, but at least the girl was safely away. Diego wrestled Bernardo to the ground, shouting, “Grab at my sister, will you?”
The sailors were confused a moment longer. The Indian hadn’t been grabbing at the girl. They had.
But Diego dragged Bernardo to his feet and held him by the shirt collar. “We’ll see what the comandante says to a dog like you! Molesting young women and these fine sailors! Come with me, you hound!” He began to drag Bernardo back toward their horses.
It almost worked.
The boys had moved only a few steps when the big sailor kicked a chair over in their path. “Well now, shipmates,” he said to the others, “we come for a drink and get a show. These boys figured we’re just as dumb as farmers. But we aren’t stupid corn diggers. You country boys want some advice? Play your games on dirt farmers and Indians. Not blue-water men and blackbirders. We seen all kinds of games. We shipped a thousand blackamoors between Africa and Jamaica, and we seen it all. Every trick that can be played. Not so easy to fool us. Maybe you give us a show, but you’re going to pay for it.” The sailor moved toward them, slow and menacing.
“Aha!” Diego cried, trying another diversion. “The seafaring man is not amused by our little charade. And we worked so hard to please you! What can I do to gain your favor? Can I produce a coin from your pigtail?”
He reached behind the sailor and seemed to pull a coin from his hair. It was a bit of hand magic that White Owl had taught him to entertain the village children.
“And look”—he held the coin up—“there isn’t even a spot of tar on it!”
The sailors frowned in puzzlement.
“But I thought that tar ran in the veins of every sailor man! Every hair a rope yarn, every finger a marlinspike—isn’t that what they say? So every vein a tar bucket?”
One of the sailors actually smiled, but he may have been more drunk than the others.
“Why don’t he say nothing?” One of the sailors pointed suspiciously at Bernardo.
“There is a sad tale, friends,” Diego said. “Our mother told him, when he was very young, not to speak unless he had something interesting to say. He’s been waiting all this time—years it’s been!—to find something really interesting to talk about. This is one of the reasons we arrived to amuse you. I said, ‘If these far-faring seamen aren’t worth a comment or two, you’re hopeless!’ But, as you see, my brother remains unmoved and silent. Personally, I find you highly colorful and even awe inspiring. Your tattoos alone are worth a book. And there must be a story left behind from each of your missing teeth.”
Diego plucked another coin from behind the ear of the sailor who had asked about Bernardo. He polished the coin on his shirt. “They’re small coins, but bright enough to call for a pot of ale, don’t you think?”
“That’s enough out of your piehole!” The big sailor batted the coins out of his hand and they rang against the wall and bounced twice on the cobbles. One came to rest at the boots of Don Alejandro.
“Gentlemen!” His clear voice turned the sailors’ attention. The don stood tall in his fine suit and red sash. “Gentlemen, you have
us at a disadvantage, yes? We do not even know your names. You are strangers to us, and already you are displeased with our pueblo. Let me introduce you to some of our citizens. I am Don Alejandro de la Vega.” He bowed.
“This fine gentleman is my mayordomo, Esteban Cicatriz.” The sailors turned to see Scar leaning against a fig tree, with his short saddle-musket cradled in his arms.
“Behind you, there, is one of my high-spirited vaqueros, Juan Three-fingers.” Juan was coiling his long, black whip with close attention.
“The vaqueros on your other side, there, are part of his crew.” Four vaqueros in their spurs and chaps stood gazing at the sailors with their reatas over their shoulders.
“My large friend, Señor Ortega, is our blacksmith. You have not met him, but you must know his daughter, because you invited her to sit on your lap.” Ortega walked in from the street with his sledgehammer, his eyes as hot and angry as coals.
“I myself have no daughters. But these two rascals”—the don beckoned to Diego and Bernardo, who walked carefully away from the group of sailors—“they pass as my boys, foolish and troublesome as they may be.”
The sailors were looking about them nervously now.
“We all make mistakes. I believe we have begun on the wrong footing. My suggestion is that we start fresh another day. It is a long walk to the port of San Pedro, and this day is half gone. Perhaps you need to be on your way, yes?”
The sailors backed away from Don Alejandro. Without another word, they made a wide circle around Juan’s vaquero crew and started down the dusty street at a rapid walk.
Don Alejandro put his arms around his boys. “I have known good generals who don’t have your flair for delaying tactics,” he said, then laughed. “Señora Ruíz!” he called to the inn’s mistress. “Can you bring us pitchers of wine and juice and some bread for all these caballeros and for Señor Ortega? We are dry after chasing squirrels away!”
14
THE FIESTA
ALL DAY LONG THE pueblo had throbbed with music. Guitars, harps, flutes, and drums played vaquero songs, love songs, bandit songs. Little choirs of neighborhood children walked along the streets, singing church hymns in close harmony to earn sweets and coins. Crews of vaqueros, dressed in their finest, showiest clothes, competed with one another in singing. The crowds on front porches and sitting beneath the plaza’s trees voted for one crew or another with applause.
Diego and Bernardo were dressed in the new clothes that had caused so much anger. But now they had a pact: these were not clothes, but costumes for a play. They acted in a comedy as master and servant. Anyone who mistook them for an hidalgo and his ignorant servant was a part of the comedy. Anyone they could fool was someone to laugh at later: “Did you see that Spanish soldier bow to me and brush past you without a word?”
Diego played at walking haughtily in front. Bernardo walked behind holding Diego’s fine hat like a chalice from the mission church. Bernardo would stumble against a passing soldier so Diego could pretend to be furious. He smacked his clumsy servant in their game of fake blows. Diego punished him so severely that one visiting soldier said, “That’s the way to discipline these people!” When the boys walked around the corner, they collapsed in fits of giggling.
They thought these were games they could only play on visitors to the pueblo. But a few local hidalgos believed their game. Worse, they thought it was natural.
The boys sat under the canopy of a blooming pear tree. Diego wondered, “Do those people really think that we could grow up as brothers and just decide to be master and servant?”
Bernardo shook his head.
“Some of them do, though. This is California, not Spain! This hidalgo and peasant thing is unfair.”
Bernardo looked in the direction of the soldier they had fooled.
“Well, we seem to do a good job of deceiving soldiers and the duller hidalgos. Do you think we could have the last laugh on people like that?”
Bernardo thought a few moments. He nodded and put his hand on Diego’s shoulder: You bet we could!
And that became part of their pact too.
“Now we’ll hear some good singing,” Diego said.
Their friend José García stepped out on the porch and adjusted his sash. It had to be a very long sash to get around his big belly. He took a sip of water and began to sing. He had the voice of an angel. He sang an old love song from southern Spain. Everyone had heard it, but García made it new. The lovers in the song, separated by cruel fate, were so sad that tears rolled down many cheeks, and women sighed.
For all his belly, García was popular with the pueblo señoritas for his sweet voice, his manners, and his shy smile.
When he finished, the street broke into applause.
“More! More!” Diego cried, and the crowd took up the cry: “More, García!”
“Sing about the fox and the gray goose!” Diego called, and García beamed at him.
“That I will!” he called to him, and began the song. The crowd hushed instantly. García started the wily fox on his way to the farmer’s barnyard and almost got him to the pen where the ducks and geese were kept.
A big ripe melon dropped from the balcony above. It exploded over García’s head with a whop!
There was a cruel laugh from above. Diego and Bernardo saw Rafael Moncada disappear through the door to the balcony.
The crowd in the street scattered when the melon splashed. A few laughed, and one old woman seemed angry with García for getting her wet and sticky.
Diego and Bernardo helped him to his feet. He was a bit dazed. “Big melon,” Diego said.
“What?” García said, still confused. He looked down at his wet clothes. He tried to brush the sticky seeds from his best frilled shirt.
They helped García to a fountain. Bernardo disappeared and returned with a borrowed towel. “Wrong song?” García asked.
“No, it was a good song,” Diego said. “You were just an opportunity for Rafael Moncada to show off. He dropped the melon. He’s long gone by now.”
Bernardo made the sign for sweet or ripe.
“We’re lucky it was a ripe melon,” Diego said. “A green melon that size might have snapped your neck.”
Bernardo nodded at the balcony and made a few signs to Diego.
“Bernardo says something larger than a melon should fall on Moncada’s head.”
García laughed shakily.
Diego helped him up and said, “We’ll walk over to your house with you,” Diego said, “and we won’t walk under any balconies.”
After sundown bonfires blazed all around the pueblo. Each bonfire lit its own celebration. Vaqueros danced high-kicking steps to the driving beat of guitars and drums. At other bonfires they danced with señoritas under the suspicious eyes of their dueñas, their chaperones. These were stern-faced aunts and grandmothers who would be furious at any displays of budding romance. Many of them would be furious over and over before the fiesta was finished.
Diego and Bernardo wandered from bonfire to bonfire, greeting their friends, celebrating this year’s apartado with vaqueros and Gabrieleños.
Late in the evening, they rode to the Honorio hacienda for the hidalgos’ ball, where Diego was expected to uphold the family’s honor on the dreaded dance floor.
“Well, I’ll do my best. That’s all I can do,” Diego said nervously as they unsaddled their horses outside the hacienda. He brightened up as he whispered to Bernardo, “Ready for the special dance?” Bernardo thumped a big package by his saddle and nodded with a mischievous grin.
The dancing scared Diego. He could fall over his own feet in front of his father’s friends. He might disgrace the de la Vegas. (“Their son is such a fool!”) His pants would surely split when he bowed. A thousand bad things could happen! The ball loomed like Judgment Day as he walked into the brightly lit courtyard of the hacienda, especially the fandango dance with its elaborate steps. Still, as he passed a large mirror he thought if he covered his large ears, he made a rem
arkably handsome Californio, with tanned skin, white teeth, dark hair, strong cheekbones, fiery eyes. Diego had discovered that he enjoyed wearing fine clothes.
Three things made the evening actually enjoyable.
The best thing happened much later.
The sweetest thing happened immediately: he saw his mother beneath the chandelier, lit by a hundred candles. It’s good for a boy to see how beautiful his mother can be. She wore a gown of pale ivory silk that made her skin glow like a burnished bronze bell. Her thick black hair was done up with combs of turtle shell. A mantilla of delicate white lace lay around her broad, strong shoulders. Diego felt proud to be her son.
The most painful thing happened next. He fell in love. The girl was talking to Regina and Don Alejandro, and for a moment he stopped breathing. How could he breathe, looking at this girl?
Regina saw her son and motioned to him with her fan. He would have been glad if Scar had called on him to ride the drag right now. He couldn’t possibly walk directly up to a creature like this and live more than a few seconds. He considered running. He could saddle his horse and make it to White Owl’s village by morning. He could live there from now on. This was a fine idea. Instead, he walked to his mother.
She kissed his cheek, but he was unaware of this detail.
Don Alejandro bowed to his own son, and then to the enchanting young woman. He said, “Don Diego de la Vega, I have the pleasure and honor to introduce you to Señorita Esmeralda Luisa Avila, come to us from Mexico City. Señorita Avila is the niece of Don Honorio. Alas, her parents have been taken from us by sickness, and she will now be one of our Angeleños, living at the Honorio hacienda. She is an accomplished…”
The don went on, saying many things, but his voice faded into the buzzing sound in Diego’s ears. The sound was caused, apparently, by the exact curve of Señorita Avila’s mouth, and perhaps by the painfully perfect shape of her chin.
