Sacred Ground

by Barbara Wood

  The others came to join her as they all expressed their worry, insisting that Grandmother sit down, wondering if they should call a doctor, fussing and fretting while Angela stood stock-still and watched the lane.

  Presently everyone fell silent, and on the wind they could faintly hear the sound of horses’ hooves, the creaking of wagon wheels. Before they could even see who it was, Angela’s lips lifted in a smile, and she whispered one word: “Marina.”

  And in the next moment, as the crowd stood spellbound, they saw the wagons and the people on them, and the piles of luggage, signs of travelers from a great distance. On the seat in the first wagon, a one-armed man with white-gold hair and a white beard, and next to him a handsome middle-aged woman wearing an out-of-date gown and bonnet. In the second wagon, a younger man with a woman at his side, two children between them. And in the third wagon, a teenage boy holding the reins.

  “¡Dios mio!” declared one of Angela’s sons, a man in his sixties who bore a resemblance to Navarro in looks only, not in temperament. “Mamá!” he cried. “It is Marina! She has come home!”

  The company ran to greet the visitors, swarming upon the wagons like a village welcoming soldiers back from a war. Angelique stayed behind with Angela, at the garden wall, watching the scene through tear-filled eyes. Hooking her arm through her grandmother’s, she felt the older woman tremble with excitement and saw tears sparkle on Angela’s withered cheeks. “It is indeed Auntie Marina,” Angelique said in amazement.

  It was a jubilant procession that accompanied the wagons to the hacienda, with the adults cheering and children happily running about. Only a handful of them remembered Marina, but they had all heard stories about her. Her sudden appearance was like the appearance of a saintly apparition. Everyone, including the flustered photographer and the cynical reporter, sensed the magic of the day.

  Finally, the wagons pulled up to the stone wall, and Marina stayed for a moment on the seat, looking down at her mother. Then, with the help of her brothers, she climbed down and went into her mother’s arms as if they had said farewell only yesterday, instead of thirty-six years ago.

  * * *

  The ghosts were back. Whispering, teasing, reminding her of things long ago. Angela saw through the open shutters the position of the moon: it was nearly the midnight hour.

  She lay wide-awake in the four-poster bed where she had given birth to her children, and she thought what a full day it had been. The food, the music, and the dancing. All her friends who had come, the old Spanish rancheros, the Mexican craftsmen, the Anglo newcomers. Even dignitaries such as Cristóbal Aguilar, the mayor of Los Angeles, and a message of birthday congratulations via telegraph from the governor in Sacramento. And Marina coming home! A satisfying day for any woman. But even so, there was still the empty spot in her mind, the one she had woken with the previous dawn.

  In this dark and silent hour when her thoughts were clear, she began to realize that it was not so much something she had forgotten as something she must do. But what?

  Angela got out of bed and into her slippers. She smiled at all her birthday gifts. Her two most prized were the pink Aztec figurine from Angelique and watercolors Daniel had painted in China. When she had declared what a tragedy for him to lose an arm to a bandit’s bullet, Daniel had said, “Praise the Lord it wasn’t my painting arm!”

  Drawing a shawl around her shoulders, she slipped the jade statuette into her pocket, thinking that she would be needing the luck of an ancient goddess with her tonight, then she took a candle and walked down the dark and silent colonnade, past closed doors where people slept, until she came to a room at the end.

  This was her private study, with its massive iron chandelier, heavy furniture, bookshelves to the ceiling, and a fireplace so big a person could stand inside it. On the desk were stacks of letters waiting to be answered, people asking for money, for advice, for the opportunity to do business with her. As Angela’s eyesight was no longer what it used to be and her trembling hands could no longer write legibly, she employed a secretary to help her. But she never missed a day without sitting at this desk and going through the books, the accounts, the receipts and bills.

  This had once been Navarro’s seat of power, where he had received important visitors and dispensed favors like a king, or meted out punishments like a despot, where he had reprimanded his children and upbraided his workers, and signed contracts and agreements involving great amounts of money, and traded in goods both legal and illegal. He had helped his friends and destroyed his enemies in this room. He had once even received the Governor of California here and had had the arrogance to remain seated when the man entered. Navarro had sat upon this magnificent thronelike chair and worked his balance of good and evil, and in all the years he ruled here he never once allowed Angela across the threshold.

  She recalled now the night she had visited Navarro as he lay in bed recovering from the stab wound. Although he had lived, he had lost a lot of blood, and a subsequent infection had rendered him bedridden for weeks. In that time, Angela had taken over the temporary running of the rancho, as was the local custom which allowed for wives to act as rancheras during a husband’s absence. She had gone to his bedside and looked down at him as he had lain helpless, and she had said: “This land is mine. I do not care what you do after this, but you will never run Rancho Paloma again. And if you ever touch me or one of my children again, I shall stab you until you are dead.” When he had finally recovered and had gone into his study to resume his work, he had found her behind the desk, going over the ledgers. Their eyes had met in a brief, silent challenge. Then Navarro had turned and quietly left. He never entered the study again.

  She now unlocked a drawer and took out an oilskin bag, tucking it under her arm. Then she left and padded silently along the colonnade until she reached the bedchamber where Marina and Daniel Goodside slumbered.

  As she tapped lightly on the door, knowing that middle-aged women slept lightly and middle-aged men slept like the dead, Angela marveled again at her daughter’s story. The first ten years she was married, Marina had stayed home in Boston to give birth to four children. Then Daniel was called to the ministry and they had joined a mission to China. They went, babies and all, and there they spread the word of God for twenty-five years. Marina had explained that when she thought it was safe to write home, that she decided Navarro was so old that he was no longer a threat, she had tried to get letters out, but it was difficult. Many Chinese did not trust foreigners. One letter that Marina saw personally aboard a ship went down with the ship in a storm.

  And then, just a year ago, Daniel’s term of service had come to an end and he was retired from the mission. They sailed first to Hawaii, where Marina began again to send a letter, but decided after a first effort that it was better to just come instead. She hadn’t had much hope that her mother was still alive or that the Navarros were even still here. But… to arrive on her mother’s birthday!

  Angela took this as a sign. It was all meant to be. Just as Marina was now meant to accompany her on a final journey.

  When Marina opened the door, Angela said, “Get dressed. You must come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “We will need a carriage.”

  “But Mother, it is late.”

  “The night is warm.”

  “Can it not wait till morning?”

  She said, “Daughter, the past is a very insistent voice inside me tonight.” And she added, “We must take Angelique as well.”

  * * *

  Angelique, forty-two years old and plump from seven pregnancies, had taken the time to slip into a wide, cumbersome crinoline which left almost no room in the carriage for the other two women. But Marina, at fifty-four, was thin from years of hard work and sacrifice, and she wore a simple dress that was twenty-five years out-of-date, and Angela was small and frail. There was just enough room.

  Her daughter and granddaughter protested as they were helped up into the carriage by Angela’s loyal coa
chman. He had been driving her around the rancho for fifteen years, and he asked no questions now, roused from sleep in the middle of the night, to take his mistress on an urgent errand. And yet they did not refuse to go, for both Marina and Angelique knew that if they did not agree to go, Angela would make this journey on her own.

  “Let us at least have Seth and Daniel accompany us.”

  But Angela shook her head. This was woman’s quest. Let the men sleep.

  When they reached the Old Road and the driver turned eastward, Marina said in alarm, “But Mother, it is dangerous to go into the town at night!”

  “We will come to no harm.”

  “How can you know?”

  When she didn’t respond, Marina exchanged a fearful look with her niece. Then they both sought comfort in the sight of their driver, a large burly man wearing a long sheathed sword, with both a knife and a pistol tucked into his belt.

  They rode through the countryside in silence and when they passed a familiar oak grove, Angelique explained to her aunt that the Quiñones rancho no longer existed. Pablo, who was to have married Marina thirty-six years ago, had recently sold the land to an American named Crenshaw.

  When they neared the town they could smell the stench from the irrigation ditches into which plumbing from houses and shops all drained by means of wooden pipes. The streets were lit by lanterns hung outdoors by homeowners and shop owners, required by law. But the word was, gas lighting was coming to Los Angeles. The saloons were still brightly lit with honky-tonk music pouring out. Gunfire could be heard in the distance. Two men were fighting on the wooden sidewalk.

  And they saw Indians sleeping in doorways, or staggering down the street, drunk on white man’s liquor.

  The carriage passed Public School Number One on the corner of Spring Street. On Temple and Main Streets, where the town used to have only adobe buildings, they saw how Yankees were taking over with new buildings made of wood and brick. Spanish patios and fountains were being replaced by architectural styles with fancy names such as Romanesque, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and using pillars, gables, and mansard roofs. Street names had been changed: what was once Loma was now Hill, Accytuna was Olive, Esperanzas, Hope, and Flores was now Flower. Changed because of the Yankees.

  As they rode around the Plaza, which stank of a recent bullfight, Angelique told Marina that there was word of a new hotel that was going to be built here and that it was going to have a bath on every floor, gas lighting, and a French restaurant. At three stories high it was going to be the tallest building in Los Angeles.

  But Marina wasn’t interested. “Mother, why are we here?”

  Angela didn’t know, only that she must keep going.

  They left the main town and continued on the northeast road, three women in a carriage driven by a silent driver. They passed Chavez Ravine, a canyon where the town had put its potter’s field, a cemetery for strangers and the friendless poor, until finally they arrived at the Mission, its long narrow windows between tall buttresses making it look more like a fortress than a church. When Mexico had taken possession of Alta California, the new governor had abolished the Mission system and had either given or sold the land to his friends and relatives. San Gabriel had stood neglected for years, its Indians living in squalor, the walls and roof falling in, vineyards going to seed, until 1859, when the new American government restored the property to the Church. But it wasn’t the same anymore. Shacks and shanties surrounded the once-beautiful church.

  As they sat solemnly in the carriage, the driver waiting for his mistress to issue further orders, Angela entertained a dim memory of a garden that had once been here, and an Indian woman tending herbs, humming softly in the sunshine. But then fever and a coughing sickness had taken her, and she had stood weak and ill during the dedication ceremony at the new Plaza. After that, a donkey ride to the mountains by the sea—

  Angela gasped. Suddenly she knew. Knowledge that had been buried in her heart for eighty-five years broke free of its prison and soared like a bird.

  I was born in this place. Not in Mexico as my mother told me. Or rather, not as Luisa had told me. For Luisa was not my real mother.

  And now she understood why her thoughts throughout the day had been filled with memories of her childhood. Perhaps when we draw near to the end, we are also drawing near to the beginning.

  She also saw clearly what it was that had been haunting her all day— the feeling that there was something left undone, a final duty she had to fulfill. Now she knew what it was and why she had taken a midnight ride through Los Angeles.

  She had come to say good-bye.

  * * *

  As they neared the foothills they could smell the sea. They knew they were riding across Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, owned by the Sepúlveda family. They heard the bells on sheep grazing nearby.

  When they arrived at the canyon, Angela saw the rocks with the petroglyphs but she had forgotten what they meant. She had a dim memory of being brought here has a child, someone telling her that she was going to learn stories. But Angela was never taught those stories. She didn’t understand the significance of the cave, or its paintings, or why she felt that at one time this had been a very important place. She remembered riding here on her wedding night, and cutting off her braid.

  Marina and Angelique accompanied her up to the cave. They unclamped a lantern from the carriage to light their way, and assisted the older woman, one on either side of her. Marina remembered this place. It was where Daniel had found her the night they started their life together.

  They helped Angela inside. The cave was cold and dank, and smelled of centuries. The carriage lantern threw golden light upon walls covered in strange graffiti, and words carved into it: La Primera Madre. When they saw the painting of the two suns they gasped, it was so beautiful.

  Bidding her daughter and granddaughter to sit, asking that they be silent, Angela eased herself down to the cold floor. The lantern stood in the center of the strange little circle, the faces of the three women cast in a surreal glow.

  Angela sat for some minutes in the silence until she began to feel in her bones and in her blood what it was that had been missing. She closed her eyes. Mama, are you here? And she instantly felt a presence, warm, loving and protective. She realized that all her life there had been a hole inside her, a small area of emptiness so that she had never felt complete, had always felt she should be searching for something. She knew now what it was: her bloodline.

  She suddenly understood why she had come here, why she had brought the oilskin bag with her, for it contained a parchment granting ownership of land to people who had no right to the land, whose ancestors dwelled far away. To the shock of her companions, Angela started digging into the floor of the cave, driving her ancient fingers into the hard earth. When Marina and Angelique tried to protest, she silenced them, and there was something in her voice, the set of her features, that made them obey.

  They watched as the hole grew until she seemed satisfied. They did not know what was in the oilskin bag or why Angela placed it in the hole. They watched in fascination as she slowly scooped the earth back over it, covering also the jade Aztec figurine that had fallen from the pocket of her shawl. Angelique opened her mouth, but something silenced her. The Aztec goddess, that had seen her through some strange and beautiful times, was being consigned to the floor of this strange cave.

  After she had finished burying the deed to Rancho Paloma, Angela felt a sense of peace steal over her. The land belonged to the First Mother and her descendants, not to the intruders, the invaders, but to the original people from whom it was stolen. As she patted down the soil, she thought: I must tell the others. Marina, Angelique. They have Indian blood. Daniel, Seth… their children descended from this First Mother.

  She started talking, urgently now because she knew her time was short: “We are Indian, we are Topaa, we descend from the First Mother who is buried here. We are the keepers of this cave. It is up to us to continue to pass do
wn the traditions and stories and religion of our people. We have to keep the memories alive.”

  They stared at her. “What is Grandmother saying, Auntie Marina?”

  “I have no idea. She speaks gibberish.”

  “Is it a language she speaks? It’s not at all like Spanish.”

  “You must remember this place,” Angela said, not realizing she was speaking Topaa, the language she had spoken when she was a child and her mother had called her Marimi and told her she would someday be the clan medicine woman. “You must tell others about this cave.”

  Angela took Marina’s hand, and said, “I named you Marina. I misunderstood the message in my dream. It was meant to be Marimi.”

  “Mother, we do not understand what you are saying. Let us take you out of this place. Let us take you home.”

  But Angela thought: I am home.

  “Mother, please, you are frightening us.” Angelique and Marina reached for her.

  But Angela’s thoughts were now upon the First Mother, who had trekked across the desert alone, outcast from the tribe, and pregnant. Yet she had endured. Angela looked at Marina, who had undergone rigors in China and endured much adversity yet had found the strength to work at her husband’s side, and Angelique, who had suffered a great ordeal in a mining camp up north. And Angela herself, no matter what Navarro did to her, she kept her pride and self-respect and dignity. We are the daughters of the First Mother. This is her legacy to us.

  Angela knew now why she had brought Marina and Angelique with her. Both would have, in another place and time, been clan medicine women for their tribe. But now they were married to Americans and had children named Charles and Lucy and Winifred. She closed her eyes and saw the silhouette of a raven against a blood-red sunset. He was flying to the land of the dead, where the ancestors had gone, and where they were waiting for her, Marimi, to join them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She never used tricks. The ghosts that appeared were neither illusions nor the products of chicanery and hocus-pocus— or so Sister Sarah claimed. She always welcomed psychic debunkers to come to her Church of the Spirits in Topanga and run any analysis on her séances they wished. They would arrive with their cameras and recording equipment, heat sensors and motion detectors, the most sophisticated scientific devices of the day, hoping to catch her in a fraud. But they never did. Psychiatrists and men of the Church claimed the apparitions were the result of mass hysteria— people seeing what they wanted to see. But Sister Sarah maintained that her spirits were real and that she was the human conduit through which they passed from the realm of the Beyond to that of the living.