Scent of Tears

by M. Juan Knecht

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I sat in the corner of the cabin waiting for Lucinda to return. With some kindling stacked by the fireplace, I made a fire. I kept turning the small note in my hands, hoping that I was right. I fed the fire while I waited. Eventually the wagon pulled up and stopped outside the cabin. I stepped out into the blackness.

  “What happened to Tiburcio? Did you get the safe open?”

  Lucinda wrapped the driving lines around the brake on the wagon. She stepped off into the dirt.

  “The safe is still closed. Whoever instructed Tiburcio in the art of safe cracking must not have practiced on that model. When we were leaving Monterey, Tiburcio sees Matt Tarpi, the head of the vigilante committee walking up the street with two other men. Tiburcio disappeared into the night. Didn’t even say goodbye to me. He simply turned into a dark alley and left. I think Matt Tarpi is the only man alive that scares Tiburcio.”

  “Tiburcio is no fool. The Monterey Vigilante Committee hangs a bandit first and holds the trial later. They hang them especially quick if they have brown skin.”

  Lucinda took a stray strand of hair and fixed it back up behind her ear.

  “You were certainly gone long enough.”

  “Yes, Charlie, you have found me out. Tiburcio and I stopped alongside the road and have been fornicating these many hours. Can we quit this nonsense? I have thought of some more questions for the lawyer. I will get what I need from him or he will pay the price. “

  “I turned him loose,” I said.

  Lucinda drew herself up to her full height and took a small step to the side like she was going into shock. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. “I must have misunderstood. You were not so weak as to release our hostage before he has told me what I needed to know?”

  “Would you rather crucify me with your stare or hear about what I have discovered?”

  “What made you decide you could turn that cancerous liar loose before I was done with him?”

  “You were going to carve up his other ear so he had a matched set.”

  Her voice was harsh. “That was one possibility. Enough about my ideas. What plan have you concocted in the little, tiny brain that sits between those big, floppy ears?”

  “We return to Monterey. Perhaps your father can save his ranches and his family from the grave,” I said.

  “In the past, all you ever did was run from me. Suddenly, you are taking charge?”

  “I can run away from you again if you don’t calm down. I see no justification for torturing someone, no matter how corrupt they are.”

  “Then you are weak,” she said and lifted her nose in the air. “You are not a Californio but a Yankee.”

  “Or perhaps I am not a savage. Come with me to the wharf.”

  “First you turn our captive loose. Now you want to take me on a wagon ride. I have long suspected you were dropped on your head as a child, Charlie. That would explain a lot.”

  “All the sweet talk in the world isn’t going to keep me from taking the wagon to the wharf. If you want to go, get in. If not, squat here in the dirt and vent your anger until you feel better,” I said and climbed up onto the wagon seat. I had the reins unwrapped and the wagon brake released before Lucinda scrambled up beside me.

  She crossed her arms over her breasts and put her pretty nose in the air, again. For a second I could see the distraught, angry girl who rode stiffly to a marriage she didn’t want to a husband she didn’t like all those years ago.

  “What do you think you have found?” she finally said after the wagon had bumped along for half a mile.

  The wagon creaked and groaned as we swung back onto the road leading to Monterey.

  “Do you have the piece of paper your father gave you with the numbers written on it?” I asked. I pulled out my slip of paper and handed it to her.

  “Did it look like this?

  “Yes, it did. So what?”

  “He gave you part of the puzzle and he gave me part of the puzzle. I don’t know what the numbers mean. Perhaps we can find out when we get to the wharf,” I said.

  She stomped her foot on the floor of the wagon several times.

  “This is a clue to where your father hid his gold and yet, you remain upset. What is the matter now?”

  “That silly little man. He could have trusted me with the whole map. He didn’t need to give you half and make this into a child’s game. He always liked you better than he did me.”

  “Anyone who knows you would understand that.”

  Lucinda drew back her fist and punched a shockingly painful blow to my shoulder.

  “You had better be right about these little pieces of paper. If you are wrong about this you may find yourself tied to the chair.”

  “Same old Lucinda.”

  We pulled up at the warehouse. A night-watchman heard the wagon and came out of the office. The watchman wasn’t there because of theft, so much as the chance of fire.

  “Can I help you?” the guard asked. He was a very old gentleman dressed in a long overcoat and holding a lantern. The warehouse dock was also hung with lanterns to provide light.

  “We need to check something inside the warehouse.”

  “Miss, we are closed. You will have to return in the morning,” he replied.

  I stepped off the wagon and reached in my pocket. I came out with a five dollar note.

  “We would appreciate it if you would look on your bill of lading and tell us if the late Don Topo had anything stored in the warehouse.”

  “I don’t have to look on any bill of lading for that. He has thirty barrels of beans stored inside. We weren’t quite sure what to do with them now that he has passed on.”

  I looked at Lucinda, winked at her and got a frown for my troubles.

  “This is Lucinda Topo. She will be acting as the administrator for the Topo Estate. Perhaps we could take a look at the beans?”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  I held the five spot in front of him and in a flash it was gone from my hand and deposited in the man’s pocket.

  “I suppose it won’t hurt. There isn’t anything in the warehouse but lumber, some sacks of salt and those beans. If you need me, I’ll be in the office. Sorry for your loss, Miss Topo. Your father was a fine man.”

  “Leave the lantern if you would?” Lucinda added, now smiling sweetly. The old man slowly shuffled over and handed me a small kerosene lantern.

  I helped Lucinda down from the wagon and we climbed the stairs to the warehouse dock. The large sliding door wasn’t padlocked. I slid it open. In the corner stood thirty barrels of beans arranged in a square. I took the note from my pocket.

  “My note said four. Your note says three. Would that be four over and three back?” Lucinda asked. The interior of the warehouse seemed vast in the dark.

  I picked up a stave that was leaning against the wall and counted three over and then went back down to the fourth row. Using the stave, I hit it against both the barrels that fit the puzzle and the barrel next to it. There was a definitive difference in the sound the stick made from one barrel to the next.

  “That would be four over and three back,” I said, smiling with relief.

  Looking around to see if the watchman was still out of sight, I pried the lid off the barrel. Reaching down into the barrel through the hard, loose beans, I felt the solid heft of a burlap bag containing coins.

  “Did you find it? Is there gold in there?” Lucinda asked excitedly. Her anger has dissipated. The tension drained out of her body as she hung on my arm. “Are we going to be able to keep our property?”

  “We have found your father’s gold. Tomorrow, bring someone to claim the barrels of beans. Stop by the house and leave three of the barrels in the pantry like you were keeping them for use at the house. Don’t make a big thing of it. When no one is around you can open up the barrel and see what you have to work with.”

  “Why do you continue to think you can tell me what to do?”

  I
had put the cover back on the barrel of dried beans and was walking out of the warehouse.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Oregon to take care of my livestock.”

  “Why tonight? Why must you always leave in the night? You say I don’t make sense. You are the one who is crazy. No ships sail until the morning.”

  “One sails before dawn on the morning tide. I will sleep on the ship tonight so I don’t chance missing it in the morning.”

  “Why go back to Oregon at all? Your life is in Monterey. Your life is with me. Why are you leaving again?” she said in a plaintively. I had never heard her sound like this.

  “Beside of the fact that Genero was right and you are possessed by the devil?”

  “Don’t joke about this,” she said. As I looked at her, I wondered how so many emotions could exist in me at one time.

  “Why would I stay here? So you can insult me further by making fun of my ears? So you can cajole me into another one of your lunatic schemes? I believe I scared that lawyer into leaving the country, but I don’t know that for sure. He could be pleading his case to the Sheriff as we speak. Every time I am around you, I barely escape with my life.”

  “Don’t you want a share of what is in the barrel? You have earned it and as much as it hurts me to say so, my father would have wanted you to have a part of it.”

  I took three steps and was standing in front of her. I placed both my hands on the sides of her face.

  “I would rather calve out heifers in the middle of a snowstorm than try to make a life with you. Every time I think I have gotten over you, you show up like a grease stain on a good shirt. I have never known how to handle you.”

  “You could accept me as I am.”

  “Or, you could behave like a conventional woman. Neither one is likely,” I said.

  “You are man enough to drag Procopio Bustamonte, the most dangerous brigand in the Alto Sierra, out of a whore's bed, then turn him over to a constable, yet you are not enough of a man to be with me.”

  “I wasn’t in my right mind when I did that. That is often the case when I am in your presence.”

  “Bustamonte has said he will kill you on sight.”

  “Another reason to go back to Oregon. I doubt Bustamonte could find the energy to ride a horse all the way to Oregon just to shoot me. He may get around to it if I stay in California.”

  “You are not afraid of him or anyone else. That is just an excuse to leave me.”

  I was about to argue, then remembered who I was talking to.

  “It’s late,” I said and started to walk away.

  “Charlie, if you weren’t so simple minded you could understand why we will always be in each other’s’ hearts. When your mother died, you were left alone with no one to care for you. I have come to represent your mother and the abandonment you suffered when she passed away. That is why you have followed me around like a whipped puppy when you know you could have other, safer women. No other woman will be able to fill the hole in your heart like I can. No other women will give you the satisfaction I can give you.”

  I took my hands from her face and shook my head in amazement.

  “You need to start wearing a bonnet when you go in the sun. You have suffered sun stroke,” I said.

  Lucinda gripped my wrists with her hands. “You fill a void in me. My father was disappointed in me, as you are disappointed in me. Deep down I wanted both of you to accept me. Why do think we are so explosive together no matter how long we have been apart? I sleep with you and win your approval, then you become discouraged with me and I lose you. You want a woman who doesn’t act like she loves you. In your heart you are trying to be good enough so that your mother won’t abandon you. We are part of each other’s secret pain. You need me.”

  Her eyes had lost the blackness and turned blue again.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You are here now. Why not stay? It will be no less thrilling now than it was the first time in the ship’s cabin.”

  “If I am not at my ranch, everything will fall apart. Ten years of hard work will melt away like ice in the Spring. I can hear the men that work for me; ‘Hey Patron, there is snow on the flats. The cows, they look weak. Should we feed the rest of the pasture grass we put up in the barn? Hey Patron, the neighbor says your cattle got in his wheat and he wants money for the damages or he is going to start shooting your cows. What should we do?” If I want to keep what I have built up, then I need to go back and take care of things.”

  “Same old Charlie. You don’t care about me,” she declared and turned away in a pout.

  “That must be it. Whatever my failings are, I am off to look after my holdings. At least on the ranch I understand what’s going on. No one is making me watch while they mutilate a lawyer or have me sit in the corner by myself while they ride off for hours with a famous bandit.”

  “You are such a child,” she replied. Her posture became rigid and she took a step back from me.

  “We have to take care of the things we are responsible for. I wish you the best.”

  “No. Come spend the night with me, Charlie. That part of our lives has never failed to make me happy. Let me escape my fears and responsibilities for one night. What if we never see each other again?”

  “There’s not another ship sailing for Portland till next week. If I spend the night with you I will never get to the boat before it leaves in the morning. For all I know, Peperich went straight to the vigilante committee and they are looking high and low for me right now.”

  Lucinda stamped her foot. “You would have done the same thing to Peperich I did, if it would help you save your family.”

  “I don’t have a family.”

  It looked for a moment like her eyes were wet with tears. “Since my father is dead, I am your family.”

  “I don’t even know what to call you. My step-sister? My former-wife? My partner in murder? Flip a coin.”

  I needed to put the wagon horses away. It was a short walk from the wharf to the Topo House and if Lucinda wanted to continue arguing, she could find her own way home.

  I climbed in the seat and clicked to the horses when she cried out to me.

  “Stay with me, Charlie.”

  I turned and looked at her forlorn figure pleading with me from the warehouse dock.

  “Here is an idea. Let us go to your house and pack your trunk. You can come with me to Oregon and help take care of the ranch. Your life would be about the way you described it to me a long time ago at the Chualar cabin. Up before dawn to cook for the vaqueros. No social life, no entertainment and no shopping trips, save going to Portland once a year. It would be a life of abundance. All the dirt, wind and cow shit a woman could want. Are you ready for the isolation, the harsh weather and the loneliness of a life with me on the ranch? Come with me to the wilderness if being with me is so important.”

  Lucinda seemed to shrink. She drew deeper into the shadows.

  “I didn’t think so,” I said and started the team.

  “Think about what I have said tonight, Charlie. You belong in Monterey.”

  “I will think about it, Lucinda. I always do.”

  “If I never see you again, Charlie, I regret nothing,” I heard her say into the night. It wasn’t exactly I love you, but it might be as close as she could come.

  It wasn’t until I unhitched the horses that I suddenly bent over, struck with such a desire to go back to her that I couldn’t get my breath.

  When I had recovered enough to stand up straight, I went back to my hotel room and packed my valise. After settling the hotel bill, I went to the pier and found a man with a small boat to row me to the ship that would be taking me back to Portland. I went down below and stowed my case under the bunk. Settling into the bunk, I tried to doze off. However, I kept running Lucinda’s words over and over in my mind. As always, I was at a loss to understand the balance between her manipulations and the reality of her feelings for me. I listened to the creaking of
the ship’s timbers and the scurrying of the rats.

  At five in the morning, I heard the night watch coming off shift and the morning watch making their way to place the ship under sail. As I came up on deck, the snap and pop of the canvas being put up was as loud as the screams of the gulls overhead. I walked back to the bow of the ship and looked back at the shores of Monterey. Just to the side of the warehouse stood alone figure in a dress. The woman had a scarf around her hair and a maroon cape covering a white dress. I squinted my eyes, wondering if the small figure was Lucinda. Almost against my will I raised my hand and waved.

  The ship came about as the wind filled the canvas. We slid out toward the open ocean, creaking and swaying as it took me away from my birth place. I stood at the railing and waved my arm in a big arc. The woman on the shore stood still, her arms clutched together against the early morning breeze. Just when I decided it wasn’t Lucinda, she shook her head and let her black hair spill loose from the scarf. She shed the cape and ran her hands up the side of her face until she had raised her hands high in the air.

  A mist floated across the ocean and she was gone.

  Scent of Tears