The Californios

by Louis L'Amour

  “Buenos noches, señor…señorita.”

  She could make out little in the darkness except that the man was old.

  To Sean he said, “There is much trouble, señor. They came to take the ranch, and they will come again tomorrow.”

  “Who came?”

  “Señor Wooston, the big one. Fernandez was with him, and Tomas Alexander.”

  “A pack of thieves.”

  “There was another one, señor. A man called Russell.”

  “Ah?”

  King-Pin Russell, renegade, freebooter, and all-around bad man. A man who would do anything, stop at nothing.

  “How did Wooston get into this?”

  “I know only what I hear. I believe he bought debts from others, threatened them in some cases. I heard from my people that he went to people from whom you had borrowed. Some did not know he was a bad man. Valdez did not. With some he threatened force.”

  “That sounds like Wooston…and Russell.”

  “Señora waits for you. She has confidence.”

  Sean felt a pang. She was expecting help from him and he had brought her only trouble. Yet there had to be something…some way.…

  * * *

  ON A BRUSH-COVERED knoll, overlooking the trail up the canyon, Tomas Alexander waited with Russell.

  “I tell you, Tomas, this here’s no good. He ain’t comin’.”

  “There was a rider. A man who comes from the port to the pueblo. He said a big schooner had come in and Mulkerin left ahead of them, so he should be here.”

  “We looked in the cove. There was nothin’.”

  “He is a shrewd one, Sean Mulkerin is. He knows this coast and might anchor elsewhere. Anyway,” Tomas shrugged, “he might not come in until after dark.”

  Russell took a pull at his bottle and put it aside. Sitting out in these dark hills was not what he considered a good time. He dug out more of a hollow for his hip and then settled down to sleep. Yet it seemed he had scarcely closed his eyes when Tomas spoke.

  “They come, amigo. I hear a cart.”

  Russell eased himself forward to a selected firing position. Wooston had said to kill Mulkerin, and that was just what he intended to do.

  He peered along the rifle barrel, then stopped. “There’s three of them!” he said exasperatedly. “How do we know which is him?”

  “He won’t be driving, and he has very broad shoulders.”

  Russell could see the three figures taking shape, suddenly he heard low laughter. “Hell,” he said, “there’s a woman with him!”

  “Careful, amigo,” Tomas warned, “if it is a woman it is a lady. He would bring no woman to his mother unless she was a lady.”

  Russell had been lifting his rifle to fire, but now he hesitated. One could be sure of killing one, and with a bit of luck, two. But the third one? There was too much risk that one would get away, and people who live talk. He relaxed slowly.

  “A lady? Who would that be?”

  “I do not know, but we must be careful, amigo. They know many important people. The Señora has many good friends, and it could be the wife or daughter of some important man. If you shoot, she might be hurt.”

  Russell waited, then withdrew his rifle. He was just as pleased, for he did not like the odds. Suppose he killed the woman? That could be a hanging offense, and if it was somebody important he would get no help from Wooston. Zeke did not like mistakes.

  Also, he had no wish to have a live Sean Mulkerin hunting the chaparral for him. Undoubtedly Mulkerin knew this area better than he ever would, and a man had little choice of trails. You couldn’t push through chaparral very easily, it was all so tightly woven together, and in any case, it would be noisy. Usually you had to stick to trails, and Sean Mulkerin had grown up here.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Tomas hesitated, wanting to go yet not liking the prospect of facing Wooston, a man he feared. Finally he said, “To my cantina. We will have a bottle of wine and talk of this. Maybe there is another way.”

  Working their way back down the path, they reached their horses.

  * * *

  EILEEN MULKERIN HAD been awakened by a voice outside her window. It was Montero’s voice and she had been expecting it.

  “They are here, Señora,” he said, speaking softly. “They come from the sea.”

  “Gracias, Jesus.”

  She lay still for a moment, thinking of her son. He had sailed away with very little, and the market for pelts and hides was always uncertain. She did not expect him to return to her with enough money to pay off what was owed. That was impossible.

  But just that he be here, to stand beside her, to help her face what was coming.

  “Jaime,” she said softly, but aloud. “Jaime, I need you.”

  Sean was like him in so many ways, yet was his own man. She thought again of this son of hers, who each time he returned from the sea seemed somehow older, wiser, more sure of himself, yet different, too.

  That was what experience did to a man, experience and time. Sean had always been slow to express opinions, careful in his judgments, and the sea had done that for him also. The sea demands consideration always, no man upon the deep water may make decisions without careful consideration of wind and wave. She remembered Sean telling her how the Polynesians could tell when an island lay over the horizon and out of sight by the currents or the condition of the water.

  She dressed quickly and went into the kitchen. Always at such times her first thought was of food and a warm drink for the traveler.

  She made coffee from their small stock. Sean liked coffee but they could buy it rarely. Tea was the more common drink. The Indians often drank a tea made from ephedra, which she had come to like.

  She warmed a stew Carlotta had made earlier that day. Coming in at night? Why? It was unlike Sean, for as well as he knew the California coast he was a careful seaman, never taking unnecessary risks.

  Worried now, she went outside and stood in the chill of the night. California was a semidesert land and the desert cools off quickly at night. There was a breeze in from the sea, and she stood there, listening.

  Somewhere a mockingbird was singing his endless songs, frogs were croaking down by the little creek, but their sounds only emphasized the stillness.

  As the cart slowly emerged from the darkness, she saw three people on the seat.

  Jesus was there, and Sean, and a girl.

  A very beautiful girl.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  SEAN GOT DOWN, then helped the girl down. They turned toward the porch. Sean hugged his mother but before he could speak the girl stepped forward a little.

  “Señora? I am Mariana de la Cruz, and I am afraid I have brought you trouble.”

  “Trouble? Very pretty trouble then. Will you come in?” Eileen Mulkerin turned to the door, pausing only to say, “Thank you, Jesus. Gracias.”

  “Por nada, Señora.”

  “There’s coffee. Will you be seated? Riding that cart up from the ocean at night is not…well, perhaps it is not the best welcome we could offer.”

  Sean started to speak, but Mariana stopped him. “Let me explain, Señora. I was in trouble. I was being forced to marry a man I did not love, whom I did not wish to marry, and I saw your son and I saw his ship.

  “I needed help desperately, and he had a strong, kind face, so when night came I slipped away and swam to his schooner.”

  “Very romantic,” Eileen said, dryly. “And what will your betrothed say to this?”

  “He followed us,” Sean replied. “He is Andres Machado. I am afraid I have brought you trouble, Señora, when there is trouble enough.”

  “Andres Machado.” The Señora smiled a little grimly. “When you decide to make enemies, Sean, you do not pick them easy.”

  “It was my fault,” Mariana said.

  Eileen glanced at her, irritated at the new trouble but liking the proud, strong look in the girl’s face. “It was your fault, and my son could have and wo
uld have done nothing else, but we have had troubles before and will have them again. You are welcome here.”

  “If you wish, I can go away. I can find friends. My father had friends in California.”

  “You may stay here, and welcome. As for your friends, you may need them. I know a great deal about Andres Machado.”

  Over coffee, they talked of what lay before them, and after a while Sean said, “Is Michael here?”

  “He is.”

  “Then he will have to stay. I do not think they would dare to forcibly eject a man of the Church.”

  “And what do you expect me to do?” she demanded.

  “We must think of that, Señora. This is your ranch. You are in command here. However, we must never yield possession. I know Michael, and he is immovable. If he says he will stay, he will stay.

  “As for us, it might be better to disappear, to keep out of sight so they cannot serve you with papers.”

  “That does nothing but delay them.”

  Suddenly Win Standish appeared in the door, Michael behind him. “We heard voices,” Win said. “How are you, Sean? A good voyage?”

  “Only the weather. The hides went for a dollar and fifty cents. We did somewhat better on the pelts.”

  “You paid expenses?”

  “No more than that.”

  Turning, Sean presented Mariana. His explanation was brief.

  Win’s face stiffened. “The last thing we want is trouble with Andres Machado. He is a rich, powerful, and vindictive man. If you think we have trouble with Wooston, it will be nothing to what Machado can do.”

  “We must return her to them,” Win said. “She was betrothed to Machado. It was her father’s wish.”

  “I will not marry him! I will die first!”

  “It was your father’s wish,” Brother Michael replied gently. “Do you not respect your parents?”

  “My father was not concerned. My father is dead. This is my uncle who wishes to be rid of me, and of Andres, who wants a wife for his home.”

  “She should have something to say about whom she marries,” Sean said quietly.

  “We cannot afford this trouble,” Standish interrupted. “And if we lose the ranch, where will she go then?”

  “One thing at a time,” Sean said.

  “You are all forgetting the ranch,” Eileen said. “It is the first consideration.”

  “It has been a bad year,” Win Standish said, “and I have given all I can.”

  “It has been much, more than enough. You have been loyal, Win.” Eileen spoke quietly. “It was more than we had a right to expect of you.”

  Jesus Montero sat in a corner twisting his hat in his hands. “There is the old man,” he said, “Juan. He went with Don Jaime to the mountains.”

  “You mean,” Win turned on him, “when the colonel found the gold?”

  “It was not much gold,” Montero said, “only a little bit. However, it was enough.”

  “I have never believed in the gold,” Standish said. “Nobody has found gold in California.”

  “That is not true,” Sean replied. “There was a vaquero who found some in one of the canyons. It was a few nuggets clinging to the roots of a wild onion. There is gold.”

  “Stories!” Win scoffed. “Just stories!”

  “Do you know the mountains, Montero?” Eileen asked.

  “Who knows them? Nobody. Not even the Indians know them. When you ride into them and think you know them you come back later and they have changed. My people do not go to the mountains, Señora.”

  “But you do know where the old man is?”

  Montero shrugged. “Perhaps. Who can say? He comes and he goes and if he does not wish you to see him you do not see him. I have not seen him since a year before Don Jaime died. He may be dead now…or gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “They disappear sometimes, the Old Ones do. They disappear and one finds nothing, nothing at all. Who knows where they go? One day they are here, and the next they are gone.”

  “The old man, Montero? Can you take me to him?” Sean asked.

  “I can try. If he is alive and wishes to be found, we will find him. If he does not wish it, we will not.”

  “What kind of Indian is he?” Michael asked.

  Montero shrugged. “Who knows? Some say he was one of those who named the land, those who were here before the Chumash and are gone now.

  “Who knows what Malibu means? Latecomers have tried to say it means where the mountains meet the sea, but it is not true. Nobody knows…nor Mugu…nor Hueneme. The names were given long ago to the land, and the people who gave them are gone. All but this old man.”

  “Have you seen him, Sean?” Michael asked.

  “Twice…once when I was only a small boy I met him near Sandstone Peak. He talked to me…for a long time.”

  “You never told me of that,” Eileen protested. “What did he say?”

  “It was something he was teaching me. A lot of words. He got up and left very suddenly, but before he left me he stopped to say, ‘wisdom must be shared, it must be given, or else it lies cold upon the rocks. I would give you my wisdom, young one.’”

  “And did he?”

  “A little, I think. I saw him only once more before I went off to sea. He talked to me again, for a long time.”

  “He is a strange one,” Michael agreed. “The Indians will not speak of him. Whenever I have tried to learn from them who or what he was, they have avoided my questions.”

  “They probably just don’t know,” Standish replied dryly. “Nothing mysterious there. He’s just an old man who lives alone.”

  Eileen looked at him. “Win, you’re the best nephew a woman ever had…but you’re not Irish.”

  “What has that to do with it?” Standish asked, a bit irritated.

  “Possibly nothing,” she agreed, smiling, “but the Irish are an ancient people, and they do not deny another world.”

  “Heaven? The Hereafter?” Win said. “Neither do I. I am a churchgoer. I believe in a Heaven and Hell.”

  “That isn’t what I mean,” Eileen Mulkerin said. “I mean we Celts are not inclined to be overly skeptical about the Little People, or the mysterious. Ireland was a haunted land, but the ghosts were friendly there, most of them.”

  “Señora,” Standish said, “I cannot understand you. Most of the time you are one of the most practical, sensible, down-to-earth women I have ever known or expect to know, but sometimes—”

  She smiled again. “But sometimes I am Irish, is that it?”

  “Can you take me to Juan, Jesus?” Sean asked.

  “Who knows? I will try.”

  “Tomorrow, then. Very early.”

  “What of Wooston?” Michael suggested.

  Sean shrugged. “Your problem, Michael. You are a strong man, a sane man, and you are of the Church. If I am here either they or I might become impatient of words, but you can speak, and you are not expected to be violent.

  “Let them stay if they insist, but you must not go! Stay…do not give up possession. That is most important.”

  “I will go, and—”

  “I shall go with you,” Eileen Mulkerin said quietly. “It is my ranch, and Juan knows me also. We will both go.”

  “And I,” Mariana said.

  “Not you,” Sean brushed the suggestion aside with some impatience. “It will be a long ride, a hot, hard ride, and we do not know what will happen nor where it will end.”

  “You seem to forget, Captain, that Andres will come. He will take me by force, and if you do not want Brother Michael to resist and be killed…for Andres would not hesitate, believe me.”

  “She can ride with me,” Eileen said. “She will be company for me, and I do not think she will wilt or fall by the way.”

  “I grew up on a ranch. I could ride a horse as soon as I could walk.”

  “This is ridiculous!” Standish protested. “Señora, what are you thinking of? Riding off into the hills after some nameless old Indi
an who knew your husband!

  “He probably knows nothing! In any event, your husband brought home very little gold. Don’t you think he would have brought more if there was more? And after all, the old man may be dead.”