The great floods continued for years. The Los Angeles residents almost became accustomed to the annual inundations. People simply did not build near the river’s edge. During the rainy season they only went to view the water rushing down to the ocean. Abelardo Ríos’ family and one or two more, who for generations had lived by the river, still maintained their homes there, and Abelardo still farmed his land as had his father, living in the same house in which he was born.
Abelardo’s most intimate knowledge of the river’s ways came from his willingness to associate with and listen to the ancient people. The Indian fishermen talked to the abundant steelhead trout and asked of the fish permission to catch and eat them. The Indians knew how to listen to the trout that had traveled the length and depth of the river, the trout that had swum against currents and around every turn of lush vegetation crammed with wild roses, grapes and spices that perfumed the air and calmed the spirit, the trout who had explored the underground beginnings of the river’s natural sources. The Indians listened to plenty of water, to plenty of trout, to plenty of animals, and to plenty of vegetation, and to plenty of wind and rain, to all that combined to understand the river’s voice, to sing the river’s cycles, to know the river’s space and to sense the river’s movement. Excitable, like a child, every year the Los Angeles River played with its banks like toys. Every year the river carved out new toys, and as time progressed the river created its story. Abelardo learned how to detect the river’s feelings by sitting for hours, sometimes for days, listening to the Indian elders, the wise men, the wise women, whose culture, stories and language had survived thousands of years, enduring even the brutal invasion and conquest by Spanish soldiers and Spanish priests.
In 1769, Spanish Franciscan brown-skirt missionaries, accompanied by soldiers, traveled north from missions in Baja California and began to convert the Indian population. During this process of conversion to Catholicism, the missionized Indians were also converted into a dependent labor source to be exploited to the limits of human decency. Upon their arrival, the Spanish soldiers took all their European hands could grab, but mostly they demanded women, who became permanent slaves at the military posts. Repeatedly the Spaniards raided the villages, carried away old and young women and forced them to clean, wash, cook and produce food. The younger women were raped and made to understand that at any time they had to acquiesce. Once the soldiers tired of their young concubines, they released them into the forest, expecting them to die of exposure, but some found their way back to their villages and families, unaware that they had been infected with European diseases. For the ancient tribe of the Village of Yangna and their offspring, syphilis was the most horrible and devastating disease the Spanish soldiers had brought. In his lifetime, Abelardo had observed the dazed stare of Indian men and women who had been subjected to the tragic and violent transformation of people from freedom to slavery. Abelardo’s understanding of his people’s history came from what had been spoken but not written.
Embedded in his memory were scenes from the lives of the earliest inhabitants of this place, vivid stories of intruders who had arrived on the banks of this river and imperiled his people’s survival. Abelardo knew that the brown-skirts had forced all of the Indians, including the children, to stay at what they called the missions, but many native people resisted and ran away to the mountains or into the chaparral on the hills and lands leading to the sea. Their way of life brutally disrupted and threatened, the Indians had lost almost complete control of their land, language, religion and bodies. They were in danger of disappearing as a people. Those who had survived lived robbed of their land, their way of life and their dignity. They lived in the open fields, in the forest or along the river in inhumane conditions.
The old and the young, no matter how destitute, carried with them a hope. The shamans encouraged this hope, because they were convinced that the Indians who disappeared were not dead but taken to another place by brothers and sisters who had existed for thousands of years. These ancestors were the earth spirits, so powerful that they could move mountains and transfigure their bodies to trick the evil invaders. They could be as minute as the smallest particle, as big as the tallest human and as imposing as a mountain. The earth spirits transformed their physical human likeness into reptiles: the lizard people.
Whenever they desired, the lizard people appeared to humans. Neither space nor time could contain them. Usually they came during times of distress, but they also showed up in happy times. The people of Yangna told stories about a race of ancient and intelligent lizard people who had built great underground cities near the Pacific. According to legends, one of the magnificent cities was located underneath Los Angeles. The Indian nations that had vanished from the face of the earth had not perished, but were with the lizard people underground. Indian men, women and children who had suffered tragic deaths were selected by the lizard people to live with them in their clandestine communities. At times they sent people back to the surface to save humans who were in trouble. Those chosen were returned to the exact site of their rescue and salvation. What they had experienced living with the lizard people was quickly supplanted by the memories of the daily paths and sites of the place they had left. The marvelous life of the underground city became faint moments, glimmers in their dreams and reveries.
Abelardo believed that his wife Toypurina’s mother was happily living beneath the surface of the earth. He accepted the existence of parallel worlds where humans and animals originated together and could speak to each other. He remembered his grandparents speaking what he considered a sacred language with other native people in the area, but it was the voice of the river, the language of the river, living next to the river, possessing the secrets of the river that had protected his family from the Spaniards, that had protected the women of the Ríos clan from invading Spanish soldiers and Anglo foreigners, from the priests and from other Indian groups. Abelardo’s knowledge and love for the river spared the Ríos family and their property even from the fickle river itself. The river had always gone around them and their porciúncula. Abelardo had the Indians to thank. He never forgot and was never ashamed of who he was. For years he visited the Indian villages, and even later when the Indians lived impoverished in hovels, filthy, hungry and sick, Abelardo did not fail to provide some food, medicine and, if he could, work.
Especially during the Christmas season Abelardo provided for as many families as he could afford; however, he never put his family or his possessions at risk of economic loss. From his land, he looked out over the river and prayed to the Great Spirit: “Your people, who still love and praise you, can no longer protect you. Their hearts have been broken, and it is a difficult task to mend the fleshy pieces!” Abelardo considered himself a member of the Indian population. He felt connected to its spiritual traditions, thankful that his understanding of the guardian spirits of the river offered protection and gifts so abundant that they could sustain not only his family but could be shared with neighbors and newcomers as well.
IN 1882 ABELARDO Ríos stood contemplating the river, watching a family of new settlers getting ready to cross the river. Abelardo waved his arms.
“¡No crucen ahora! ¡Esperen! Don’t cross now, later!”
The settlers looked at him, waved back and continued to prepare for the crossing. Like the Norris family years ago, this family did not take Abelardo’s warning seriously. They did not pay attention to the Mexican or Indian waving a warning. The current increased in speed and the water seemed to get thicker and heavier. There was still plenty of snow as thunder clouds loomed over the San Gabriel Mountains. Across the river the man handed up a little girl to his wife, who was sitting on the back bench of their wagon. The older boys, with reins in hand, sat up front holding the two horses steady. The boys watched Abelardo waving to the man to stop, yelling at him not to cross. The man smiled, waved back, climbed on the large family wagon and whipped the horses. The two beasts slowly, carefully advanced. The horses neighed and hesitate
d, but another two lashes from the oldest boy got them moving forwards. At the point of crossing, the river was about three to four feet deep. The bottom was muddy and rocky. The water level reached three quarters up the wheels. They advanced almost to the middle of the river, where the current grew stronger. Abelardo waved his hands vigorously toward his chest, encouraging the man to cross faster.
“¡Pícale a los caballos! ¡Vamos, rápido! ¡El río sube!”
Abelardo encouraged the horses to head toward the shore. The water lapped at the top of the wheels. The horses began to struggle, not finding solid footing on the shifting sand, on the rolling rocks on the river bottom. Abelardo’s wife joined him in attempting to guide the family to the river’s edge. Now the water splashed into the wagon and pushed against the horses’ bodies, pushing the desperate beasts one against the other, making it harder for the animal downriver to hold his head above water and stand. The younger children cried out, the mother called her husband’s name, seeing him with all his strength pulling the reins to steady the horses. The sound of rolling rocks—snapping, cracking over and over on the river’s edge—grew. As the man stood up, pulling at the reins to control the horses, the river had risen to where he and his wife were now standing on the wagon. Abelardo felt the water around his feet. He moved back to higher ground. A sensation of weakness moved through his arms, his heart registered hopelessness. The family was in desperate trouble. The horses were soon gone, and the water slowly pushed the wagon onto its side. Downriver one boy clung with his father to the edge of the wagon. Mother and daughter floated together. She looked toward the shore where Abelardo ran, waved and coaxed her to make the effort to come closer. From her eyes and arms a frenzy of strength moved them nearer to the edge. With great effort and determination the woman kicked away from the center of the current and swam with her daughter toward the shore. The woman looked back to see her husband still holding on to the side of the wagon. He submerged as the wagon went down, completely overturning once, twice, then disappearing under the churning brown water and finally emerging in thousands of pieces. Downriver the water had swept the horses out of sight. The boys and their father were gone. Sadly, Abelardo thought about where the river would release their bodies, allowing them to float after the current calmed down and allowing their loved ones to retrieve their bodies. But maybe they had survived; maybe, as it had happened before, they would crawl out soaking wet, seeking help. Abelardo smiled, thinking that maybe the river had pushed the man and the boys ashore, to safety, to life. At times the river had spared lives; at times it was merciful and gave people a second chance.
“¡Abelardo! ¡Abelardo! ¡Abelardo!” Toypurina was shouting.
Downriver on a rocky edge, he managed to grab onto the woman’s arm and struggled to pull her out of the water. Abelardo dragged the woman and her daughter to high ground and forced the sobbing woman to release her child.
“¡Suéltala! Let her breathe!”
“You’re squeezing too hard!” Abelardo’s wife pried the woman’s arms from around the child, then slapped the girl on the back, making her cough up water and take a deep breath. The child’s cry overcame her mother’s sobbing. This was a good sign, Abelardo thought, wrapping his coat around the woman’s shoulders. For an hour they waited and watched the river’s surface become glass. That night, the woman and the child remained with Abelardo and his wife. The Ríos fed them soup, fresh-baked bread, warm tea and sweet milk for the child. The woman could not be consoled. With her daughter next to her, wrapped in a warm blanket, she cried herself to sleep.
WHEN, BEFORE THEIR eyes the river had taken away any trace of a father and his boys, Abelardo remembered Toypurina’s advice: “Build a big ferry raft, charge a fee to take wagons across the river. The gringos, everyone—farmers and families—will pay for the service.” In the earlier tragedy, except for Mr. Norris, the river had given up all that family’s bodies. The last one was found at sea. The Norris family catastrophe had happened twelve years earlier when Toypurina was pregnant with their second son, Otchoo. To demonstrate their reverence for the river, the elders named the Ríos child Otchoo in honor of the trees that grew near the river, sentinels of the river’s eternal transformative energy. Some trees had survived the river’s unpredictability for decades. Others were torn away by heavy currents or by a change in the river’s path to the sea, but Toypurina’s people believed that the river always brought the trees back to rise again on its shores as guardians voicing warnings: young trees meant a newly formed riverbed and shore, old trees meant established shorelines. Although some trees were tall and strong, this only meant that they would probably survive the next flood or new river course to the ocean. At any time, the river did what it pleased. Their firstborn son had been named Sol, because at the instant he was born a sunray found its way into the house and kissed the newborn’s face, made him cry and reach out toward the sun. At the time of the second tragedy, Abelardo’s sons were old enough to help him build and operate a raft.
Not only homesteading families, but farmers as well were increasingly making crossings. On yet another tragic day, Abelardo and his wife felt certain the timing was right for a raft ferry service when they saw thousands of small bunches and individual grapes intermingled with wood from an overturned farm wagon floating on the slow current of the river. Minutes later, Toypurina pointed to more grapes moving faster on the surface. A six-mule team and their grape-filled canastas had been caught in a flash flood. Across from them on the other side of the river, a big grey mule struggled to climb up onto the edge. One mule survived, wondering where the others would rise. In the sky a large black form glided, circling the river. Abelardo followed the condor’s rise toward the San Gabriel Mountains. Upon seeing a majestic condor Abelardo considered himself blessed. As long as the condor survived, Abelardo believed, his family would thrive. Abelardo prayed as the condor flew over the site where he planned to build his rafts.
To help him get started, the owners of houses on the hills who consulted with Abelardo—about the weather, crops and most importantly about the river—gave him wood that they had planned to burn. The millers offered him five large beams for future consultations. Abelardo gathered wood from homesteads whose owners ran out of money or perseverance, causing them to abandon their houses and farms. He went to several men who had built small boats, asking for guidance on constructing a raft with a steering mechanism that would allow him to depart from one side of the river, travel to the other, and then return to the original point of departure.
Sol and Otchoo helped in the framing, and when they had finished the raft, Toypurina joined her family in the painting of the eighteen-foot by twelve-foot by three-foot vessel that Abelardo and consultants predicted would carry a loaded ten-foot wagon and one- or two-horse team across the river. Longer teams would be disconnected and brought over separately. The cargo was what was important. Anglo businessmen who transported goods from farms and vineyards on both sides of the river depended on the safety of their cargo. Using river water, Los Angeles winemakers produced thousands of gallons of wines that they distributed far north to San Francisco and far south to Baja California. Abelardo’s raft would move the wine and other products east or west across the river.
Abelardo went to see Jonathan Cyland, a boat manufacturer, who at first had refused to meet him, but later on was willing to explore a business idea no matter whose it was. Abelardo explained his plan, and Cyland liked what he heard. Cyland then suggested that Abelardo call his vessel a barge, that he build two different-sized barges, that he construct four docks, two on each side of the river, that the crossing be controlled by ropes and cables attached to pulleys on each dock, and that he not hire any coolies. The crews would roll in the ropes and pull the barge across the river. Abelardo did exactly as Cyland instructed, and by the middle of the summer of 1885 Abelardo, Toypurina, Sol and Otchoo Ríos, along with Jonathan Cyland, inaugurated the Ríos, Sons and Cyland River Barge Transportation Company.
“Always
call your vessel a barge. It’s more professional to refer to them as barges. It inspires safety and confidence in your customers. Abelardo, remember: no Chinese laborers! We have too many coolies here already!”
The Chinese had constructed the track for the first railroad to Los Angeles in 1869. General Phineas Banning took all the credit, but it was Chinese labor that made it happen. Abelardo considered the Chinese good workers, and he would hire them. It was their labor that brought the first Southern Pacific rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1876. He was aware that the railroads were coming fast into the area and that they would eventually need to cross the river. Men from the railroad companies had come to ask him questions about the river and the land that bordered it. They wanted to know who owned the land, who lived near the river and how those people sustained themselves. They asked him to point out the solid, stable ground that bordered the river. The answers to these questions were obvious to Abelardo. Confidence developed between them. Abelardo cooperated with them, and they offered to pay him well for his knowledge.
The crossing enterprise proved to be a success. Abelardo, Otchoo, Sol and Franco Morretti, one of Cyland’s employees, operated the river barges from six in the morning to sundown. During high-water times, people went to the docks to cross the river. The barges, on schedule, were safe and dependable. After about a year of crossing people, horses and wagons, Sol proposed that the two small barges be used to transport passengers up and down the river. Traveling downriver with the current was easy, but navigating upriver was the challenge. They used poles to push against the current when it was light. When the current was strong, they used poles, ropes and horses to move upriver. More and more people requested transportation up and down the river, and Abelardo and Franco went to Cyland to arrange for more barges and to hire two more men. Cyland’s office was located in San Pedro, where his company warehoused the construction materials for a bridge being constructed at Macy Street. Cyland ordered two men, Paolo Morretti, Franco’s brother and their friend William Ross Henry, off the bridge project and assigned them to the barge company. Abelardo discovered that the three had years of experience building bridges in the East. Reassignment to work for the river transport company upset William Ross Henry, but he, like the Morretti brothers, had signed a five-year contract with Cyland, who had paid for their trip to California to work for Cyland. By October of 1887, two years after the establishment of the Ríos, Sons and Cyland Barge Transportation Company, Abelardo and Toypurina and their sons, Cyland, the Morretti brothers and Henry watched as Los Angeles Mayor William H. Workman cut the ribbon to open the new wood-covered bridge on Macy Street. After the last speech the mayor and a gang of politicians walked over to the east side of the river.
River of Angels Page 3
