Heaven Is a Long Way Off

by Win Blevins

  “Too many Christians around here,” said Sumner.

  “Not including yourself?” the priest asked.

  “Got better sense. But I can read and write English.”

  Father Enrique nodded. “You are three exceptional…men,” he said. They all wondered if he’d been thinking of saying “savages.” “Nonetheless,” he said to Flat Dog, “your soul is not yet made safe in the hands of God.”

  He looked at the ormolu hands of the ornate clock on the wall. The pendulum ticked like a nun correcting their ways. “It’s getting late. I wanted to wait for our friends, but…

  “Flat Dog, I will give you your freedom on one condition.”

  All three “exceptional men” tensed.

  “Before you leave, you must be baptized, make your first confession, and take Holy Communion.”

  “Why?”

  “I will save your body. God will save your soul. Are you willing?”

  Flat Dog hesitated.

  Sumner was grinning broadly.

  “Remember your marriage vows. Father Sanchez consecrated your union with Julia on the condition that you become a Christian.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Flat Dog.

  “Now,” said the priest.

  GRUMBLE AND ABBY sat Sam in a chair. They brought out a corked bottle of a brown liquid. One portly figure and one slender figure bent to the task. “Walnut juice,” Grumble said.

  Coy gave them a peculiar look.

  They rubbed it firmly into the skin of Sam’s face, even the corners of the nostrils, the lips, and the edges of the eyes. “The craft is demanding,” Grumble said.

  Abby smiled. “This is what women do every day.”

  It was what she did, Sam knew. As a provider of liquors, games of chance, and seductive women, she had to look splendid, and she always took pains.

  Sam forbade himself to wonder exactly what was going on. Walnut juice?

  “What are you two doing here?” He’d last seen them at the Los Angeles pueblo. They headed north on an American sailing ship, looking for a home for their chosen enterprise. Abby managed the booze and ladies, Grumble the gambling.

  Grumble began painting the grottos of Sam’s ears with a fine brush. “We disembarked here, looked around, and discovered the town was in its infancy, though the setting is very beautiful. We sailed on to San Francisco Bay and found even less of a town.”

  “I’m building a home here, an adobe, and then I’ll open my usual sort of business.” Abby gave an impish smile. “The mission is all holy men, but the presidio is all soldiers.”

  “I’ll join her eventually, but the building period is boring. I want to go back to Los Angeles pueblo for a while. It’s vulgar, but alive.”

  Abby said, “I like to sin in a beautiful place.” She checked Sam’s face. “Those white eyebrows will never do.” With a tiny brush she dabbed something greasy and black onto them.

  Grumble went back to the corked bottle. “Now your hands.”

  Sam stuck them out, and Grumble colored them. “Walnut juice?” whined Sam.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s a little dark for most Californios. So handy. Too dark nips suspicion in the bud. The missions grow orchards and orchards of it.” He smeared the juice up over the wrists. “You must not show your arms,” he said.

  Carefully, Abby covered Sam’s neck with the brown liquid.

  “Why were you ready with my disguise?”

  “Didn’t your captain say he’d return by September 20? Flat Dog said you’d show up here. You’re a few days early.”

  Sam smiled to himself. Flat Dog knew I would come.

  Abby said, “Now use this mirror.” She handed an ornate one to Sam. “Look for white spots. The costume will be the coup de grace, but we mustn’t have any of those nasty little white spots.”

  Costume?

  Coy tapped his tail on the floor. Sam understood the wagging was anxiety, not delight.

  Sam studied himself in the mirror. I’m a darkie.

  Abby piled his white hair on top of his head. With Sam’s wooden hair ornament and long pins such as she used in her own coiffure, she fastened it up, stood back, and surveyed her work.

  “No white spots except the hair,” said Sam.

  “Excellent,” said Grumble. “Now…”

  He draped a black wig on Sam’s head. The hair was shoulder length and gleaming. Grumble made careful adjustments.

  “You’re not making me into a woman!”

  “Scarcely.”

  Abby circled to Sam’s front and let the bundle in her arms drop full length. It was a brown Franciscan robe. “The cowl,” said Grumble, “will even hide your face from prying eyes. Put it on over your clothes while I change.” The con man disappeared behind a folding screen. “Be sure to replace the moccasins with sandals,” he called.

  Sam donned the robe. He tied it with the tasseled belt. Abby slipped the pectoral cross over his head and dropped it onto his chest. He fingered the rosary. He started laughing. They both laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop.

  Grumble popped out from behind the screen, arms wide in the declarative gesture of an actor. He wore an English gentleman’s riding outfit, knee-high boots, leggings close-fitting on the calves and blousy around the thighs, a beaver hat in a serious business color. “Every inch a blue blood,” he intoned in a plummy voice.

  They hooted and clapped each other on the back.

  Then Sam said, “You in costume? You’re going with us?”

  “Sumner and I,” answered Grumble, “are your escort. You require our protection.”

  FLAT DOG STUDIED the water in the font.

  “Holy water,” said Hannibal.

  “Wu-wu juice,” said Sumner.

  Flat Dog held these two odd thoughts, as though rubbing a stone between his fingers. “It’s a relief to be in here,” he said.

  “Far away from the altar,” said Hannibal.

  “That thing done give me the willies,” said Sumner.

  None of them looked through the entryway down the length of the church at the huge, painted statue of the Christ, nailed to the cross and dying.

  Now Father Enrique approached in white and gold robes. He looked into Flat Dog’s eyes and spoke with gravity. “Do you understand that with these words you are embraced by the arms of the holy catholic and apostolic church of our Lord Jesus Christ?”

  Flat Dog pictured Julia’s beautiful face, her golden skin, her tawny hair. “Yes.”

  The padre put his hand into the shadowed water.

  “Ego te baptismo in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.” As the priest spoke, he sprinkled holy water on Flat Dog’s head three times—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

  Flat Dog thought, Now I am a Christian. It gave him a chill. I promised Julia.

  “Come to the confessional.”

  Flat Dog knelt in the small box and spoke of his many sins. He had killed people. He had fornicated. He had lied. He had taken the name of the Lord in vain. Since he was well prepared, he enumerated these sins quickly. The priest gave him a psalm to say as penance and absolved him.

  Flat Dog shivered.

  Father Enrique disappeared.

  Flat Dog, Hannibal, and Sumner went into the nave and sat, as instructed, on the front pew, in front of the altar. Now the new Christian looked up at the God with the bleeding hands and feet. To him it was not credible or right that a father should sacrifice his son for the sake of strangers.

  At the far end of the nave Grumble and Abby entered.

  Father Enrique appeared in front of the altar with a flagon of wine and a gold plate that bore the bread.

  “Christians are invited to the sacrament of the Eucharist,” said Father Enrique.

  Grumble and Abby genuflected before the altar and knelt at the table bearing the host.

  The priest at the rear, oddly, slipped into a back pew.

  Flat Dog came to his knees beside his roguish friends, who were apparently Catholics.

  Father
Enrique spoke words. Later Flat Dog remembered only “body and blood of Christ.”

  As the party treaded to the rear of the church, a brown robe came in and tossed back his cowl. It was Sam.

  Flat Dog laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “You’re a Christian now?” said Sam.

  “Yes,” said Flat Dog.

  “Dumb slave religion,” said Sumner.

  “Christian and Crow,” whispered Flat Dog. “Both.”

  Six

  IN THE HALF-LIGHT before dawn they met by the corral. Shadows flitted across the dust and the rails. Horses stirred, restless.

  Sam was bleary-eyed. Grumble, Flat Dog, and Sumner looked worse. Flat Dog dressed as an Indian slave.

  “Black man don’t need no outfit to make him look like a slave,” said Sumner. But then he got an idea. Suddenly he spoke in an upper-class British voice. “I want to be a proper British servant,” he said. “Once I am properly dressed, no one can deny me.”

  Grumble’s chest provided the broadcloth of an English manservant, breeches buckled below the knee, stockings, and a dark coat. The wide-brimmed hat was a logical addition for a sun such as never shone in England.

  Sumner looked down at himself, pirouetted proudly, and made a low bow to Grumble.

  Coy barked vigorously at Sumner. Sam laughed out loud.

  “You don’t understand art,” Sumner told the coyote.

  “We clever gents,” said Grumble, “now present the world with a British aristocrat and his attendants—a servant, a priest, and two mission Indians.”

  “The fair-skinned people of this continent are overfond of class distinctions,” said Sumner.

  “The don will be looking for three American fur trappers,” said Padre Enrique. He sounded dubious.

  Grumble surveyed them all. “All the actors are dressed for their roles,” he said happily.

  Coy barked at Flat Dog again. Then he dashed at the wagon wheels—it was more wagon than carriage—and pranced back, barking, eager to go.

  Sam and Flat Dog got into their saddles. The rising sun was still behind the Santa Lucia Mountains. “Time to move,” said Hannibal.

  Abby gave Sam a good-bye peck on the cheek. When Sumner presented his face, she pinched his bottom.

  The Delaware dressed as a mission Indian drove the wagon, Sumner beside him, Grumble seated behind and above the two of them, the gear in the box behind. The Franciscan priest had outfitted them generously—wagon, two draft horses, casks for water, dried meat, fruit, even a cask of wine. At Hannibal’s request they also had a small keg of gunpowder, because their powder horns were half empty.

  On the plank seat between Hannibal and Sumner perched the most visible weapon, a scattergun. Grumble had a pistol in his belt, which he might brandish foolishly at anyone who confronted them. The mountain-style rifles belonging to Sam, Hannibal, and Flat Dog were behind the passengers, laid loose under canvas, in case of emergency. No one knew what weapon Sumner might be carrying, or dared ask.

  “Everyone clear on our story?” repeated Grumble. It was that the British blue blood, Grumble, was seeking contracts with the various missions for cow hides and tallow. The missions away from the coast were not yet involved in this commerce, very profitable for both sides.

  “Go,” he told Hannibal. The wagon lurched forward. “This cursed conveyance may bump us to death,” Grumble said to no one in particular. In his pouch, to show anyone who asked, he carried the letter of safe passage from Padre Enrique to the heads of the nine missions where they would stop. Sam and Flat Dog had protested that the niceties of reception and hospitality at each mission would slow them down. Grumble insisted they’d need all the niceties they could get. Hannibal added that the party needed the safety missions offered.

  As they rolled, Hannibal said, “You’re a mystery.”

  Sumner smiled. “I done worked at it.”

  Hannibal laughed at the lapse back into slave English.

  “And I assure you I can perform like a trouper.” This was fancy talk again.

  So they traded stories. Sumner said, “I was born near Santo Domingo, on a cane plantation. Since my mother worked in the big house, I grew up there, and played with the white kids. Our master was the second son of a viscount, or some such foolery. I grew up speaking the king’s English. By serving meals, I even learned elegant table manners. I could pass myself off as, perhaps, the third son of a viscount.”

  Hannibal laughed.

  Sumner shifted back to slave speech. “At night, though, down at our hut, we was with the other Niggers, including my father and his brothers and their wives, and they all spoke Spanish, nothing but Spanish. So I grew up talking both tongues.”

  “Two roles,” said Hannibal.

  “When I was sold to New Orleans, I done caught on to bow-and-shuffle English.”

  After Hannibal told about being born to a professor of classics and a Delaware student, raised speaking two languages and reading three, they agreed that they didn’t know who had the stranger life.

  SAM WAS NERVOUS about Grumble’s little game. He didn’t like not having The Celt in his hands. It made him feel naked. He’d concealed his other weapons. A butcher knife and his belt-buckle blade were covered by his robe. The hair ornament blade was hidden in one sleeve. He wished he still had the pistol he traded to the Serranos.

  He fussed with the robe between his legs and Paladin’s saddle. He hated the damn thing—it made riding embarrassing. He glanced sideways at Sumner, and saw that the black was tickled at the modest white boy. Inside Sam’s robe was folded Father Enrique’s map of El Camino Real, its towns, and its missions. Grumble carried another copy in his coat.

  Now Sam spotted the first place marked on the map, Montalban’s rancho. “Be watchful,” Father Enrique had warned him. “Don Joaquin is vengeful.”

  Actually, the rancho looked like nothing much.

  The grounds were handsome, a fine lay of land on the far side of the Salinas River. The don had planted fields, orchards, and a vineyard visible from the road. Probably herds of horses, cattle, and sheep grazed the hills beyond. These hills were brocaded with grasses that looked too rich and tall to be real. They were bright as brass, thick as hair, and stood as high as a horse’s withers. Sam had never seen such grass. But he was no herdsman.

  The house, on the other hand, was unimpressive, an ordinary-looking adobe of modest size, without a courtyard or other beautification.

  Coy drank out of the creek that ran through the property as though nothing was amiss.

  “Father Enrique told me,” said Grumble, “that the don complained greatly about having to build his house of mud. But there’s not enough timber around here.”

  “He’s rich,” said Sam irritably.

  “But he doesn’t enjoy it,” said the cherub. “The old man was a great landowner in Mexico. Montalban was one of the younger sons. When his wife died and his daughters were married off, he accepted exile to this miserable province to make his son what he could never be, the master of a grand estate.” Grumble gave Sam and Flat Dog a look.

  “The son of a bitch was trying to steal my wife,” said Flat Dog.

  “The pistol was his, and it went off accidentally,” said Sam.

  “What a comfort that must be to Don Joaquin,” said Grumble.

  Sam couldn’t see any sign of life around the place. There must be Indians working the fields, but he saw no one.

  “WHO ARE YOU and where are you going?”

  From Paladin’s saddle alongside the wagon, Sam had watched the four riders coming from the south, growing in his field of vision and on his nerves.

  Immediately Sumner picked up the scattergun from the wagon seat. No one of either party misunderstood the threat. At that range it would be a devastating weapon.

  Coy walked in front of Sam, growling, his spine hair sticking up.

  Rising next to Hannibal, Sumner said in his fanciest English, “My master wishes to know who dares to ask such questions.” When
they just stared at him, he repeated it in good Spanish.

  From behind, Grumble spoke in plummy tones, and Sumner translated. “Good sir, I present this letter of safe passage from Father Enrique Hidalgo, head of all the Franciscan missions of California.”

  He gave it to Sumner, who held it out. The lead rider had to dismount and look at it. Sumner kept the paper in his grip.

  Sam knew damn well who this was, one of the ruffians from the time the young don tried to abduct Julia, the man Sam had slit from collarbone to balls. Too bad he’d lived. Sam kept his head down, his features hidden by his cowl.

  Flat Dog recognized the fellow too. Sam could feel the anger radiating from Flat Dog’s body. The two mounts minced nervously.

  “I represent Don Joaquin Montalban y Alvarado. On the authority of the commandante of the Presidio of Monterey we are searching for two criminals who have escaped from Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo.”

  Sam got enough of the Spanish to be offended at this arrogant ass.

  “We have every desire,” Grumble said, Sumner still translating, “to cooperate with the authorities. I am Edward Muddleforth, second son of the Viscount of Piddleston.”

  Sam was surprised Sumner could translate this foolishness without a grin.

  “These men comprise my retinue.”

  “Where are you going?” repeated Collarbone to Balls.

  “We travel to Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad and other missions on business.”

  “I see.” His disbelief curled his lips. But the sneer was probably a pose, Sam thought. Beneath it Collarbone to Balls seemed to be accepting the story.

  “Have you seen other travelers on this road today?”

  Coy barked once.

  “None,” Grumble answered truthfully.

  “Three Americans dressed as hunters? Carrying long rifles?”

  “No travelers.”

  Collarbone nodded slowly, thinking. “We ask you to be on watch. We will probably see you again as you travel south.”

  “Glad to be of service,” said Grumble.

  Collarbone pulled his reins to the side to ride around the wagon.