by Win Blevins
Then everyone inspected the mission, two thousand acres under cultivation with wheat, beans, peas, and corn; a vineyard, several orchards, a grove of about four hundred orange trees; two thousand horses and an amazing forty thousand cattle, plus mules, sheep, pigs, and goats. The mission compound itself featured not only buildings for worship and for living but storerooms, and shops for making blankets, soap, liquor, barrels, and other commodities.
“Incredible,” said Sam.
“How many Indians you think they have?” asked Flat Dog.
“The corporal said twenty-five hundred,” answered Sam.
“Treated as slaves,” said Flat Dog.
“White men living good on the backs of other men,” whispered Sumner. “That’s what I see. Black slave, red slave, what’s the difference?”
Sam noticed that Sumner loosed his tongue and spoke more freely when the captain wasn’t around.
“We can speak as we want,” Gideon said, half reading Sam’s mind. “These Indians sure as hell got no English.” Sam’s friend rose out of his depression now and then, just enough to correct the behavior of others.
“You know what’s strange,” said Sam. “These people don’t know who we are or what we do. They hardly know what beaver are, don’t know why we trap them, don’t know anything about life in the mountains.”
“Don’t know what way the stick floats,” said Gideon. “Don’t know what a possible sack is, don’t know poor bull from fat cow.”
“They must think we’re madmen,” said Sam.
“Maybe you are,” said Flat Dog, laughing.
“Yeah,” said Sumner, “maybe you are.”
“Hell, even I don’t know what we’re doing,” said Flat Dog. He shrugged and grinned.
Sam, Meadowlark, and Flat Dog went with Gideon to inspect the smithy. Gideon was interested in blacksmithing. The brigade had two blacksmiths who kept the horses shod. But this smith was doing far, far more. Right then he was hammering out intricate door latches with locks. On the benches behind him were door latches, an iron gate, candleholders (some to be fixed to walls, others to be carried), and one big chandelier. Gideon fingered them, and the smith proudly took the time to show Gideon his craft.
The smith was a man who appeared to be both black and Indian. He started explaining his work in what seemed to be excellent Spanish, but Gideon replied with the only Spanish he knew, “No comprende.” So the smith wordlessly pulled out hundreds of practical items he’d made, nails and screws, sickles, axes, hammers, wheel rims, and the like. Then he took time to show everyone how the finer work was done, not just the hammering on the anvil but the cutting, shaping, flattening, and welding.
Sam could see Gideon was fascinated, and he was glad for the bear man to be interested in anything, anything at all. Gideon kept looking into the fire, especially when the smith brought it up hot with the bellows, like fire was a magic crucible where transformations took place, rough shapes into useful objects.
The fire scared Coy, though—he kept jumping back away from the sparks and getting behind Sam’s legs. Meadowlark and Flat Dog were getting itchy. “Gideon,” said Sam, “suppertime.”
“See you later,” said Gideon, bending toward the anvil.
The entire brigade assembled, except for Gideon. The mission Indian women served up food, and plenty of it. Meat, vegetables, fruits—everything. The friars took care of guests right.
The women frowned at Coy, sitting on the floor next to Sam and looking up expectantly for food. “Coyote,” they said with the Spanish pronunciation. In the end they decided to let the Americans have their strange ways.
Sam thought he’d never get enough to eat. He’d probably lost twenty pounds on the journey from the Salt Lake.
Meadowlark, worse, looked like she hadn’t gained a bit of weight in five months with child—she worried him. He’d say this for her. When food was in the pot, she ate. Or on the table. Seated at the first dining table she’d ever seen, on her first chair, with her first eating utensils, she was doing fine.
“Does look like the Indians do all the work,” said Flat Dog.
“That’s how the friars improve them,” said Sumner.
“I saw a man whipped yesterday,” said Sam. “Bad whipping.”
“They whip them any excuse they find, I bet,” said Sumner.
Meadowlark put in, “Those two boys who guided us, they threw them in jail. Said it was for running away from the mission.”
“I’d run far, far away,” said Sumner.
Sam wondered whether, now that they were in a foreign country, Sumner would run away from Jedediah. He looked about seventeen or eighteen. Sam had run away from home at eighteen.
They could already tell that the mission days would be dull. Nothing to do but wait. The captain was negotiating for permission to stay in the country, and the Mexican authorities didn’t seem to be able to give him an answer. Jedediah said he might even have to go to San Diego, several days’ ride south, to see the governor.
The next day, while Gideon went back to the smithy, Sam, Meadowlark, Flat Dog, Sumner, and Coy headed for the pueblo ten miles away. The mission, managed by men of God, was comfortable but boring. The pueblo, full of low types, might be a lot of fun.
The Pueblo of the Angels, as people called it in English, seemed to be fewer than a hundred houses, not counting the surrounding ranchos. The tale was that the original settlers, about fifty years ago, were blacks and Indians. Now a few rich Spaniards adjoined the pueblo on their grand ranchos, with fancy houses, beautiful saddle horses, and fine herds of livestock. The ordinary citizens irrigated their fields, grew a few crops, and fenced a few cows on sparse grass.
The streets were lined with hovels and cantinas that offered raw-tasting booze, whores, and gambling.
The first cantina swept the four of them out as soon as they sat down. “Coyote!” the woman cried, brandishing her broom.
“Coy probably got better manners than she do,” said Sumner.
“I want to teach him more,” said Sam.
“What?” asked Sumner, curious. “That’s practically a trick dog now.”
“I want to teach him to do flips.”
“That be som’p’n to see.”
They found a table in another tavern, exchanged coins for a little food and some brandy, and Sam pondered the impossible task of explaining to his wife and brother-in-law what was going on in this place.
First he had to tell them about money. The closest he could come was to compare it to beads.
“You know how you might give a trapper a buffalo hide for some beads?” They nodded. “Then, instead of using the beads yourself, you might trade them to another woman? Say, maybe for a tanned hide?”
They nodded.
“Then you’re using the beads like money. Not something to use for yourself, just some, some … thing to trade for something else.”
He didn’t know how to interpret the looks he got back. Right now he hated the word “thing.”
Flat Dog inspected the silver coins carefully.
“Reales, eight reales to a peso,” said Sam. He added hopelessly, “A peso is the same as an American dollar.”
Even Gideon had never seen an American silver dollar until Rogers, the clerk, had issued some to the men as back wages, everyone but Meadowlark and Sumner. “You’ll need coins in town,” he said. He added to Flat Dog, “Ask Morgan to help you with them, if you can trust him.”
Flat Dog laughed.
This was the first money Sam had seen since he left St. Louis more than two years ago. Rogers said there weren’t many coins in California anyway. Also no banks. For money people used receipts for cow hides. These hides, which the sailors called “California banknotes,” were the fundamental commerce of the country, what the visiting British and American ship captains traded for. The province’s paper currency was these receipts.
Sam decided, out of sheer stupefaction, to try another subject. “That woman at the bar,” he said, “is a who
re.”
The Crows waited.
“Don’t all women be whores?” teased Sumner.
Coy yipped, looking at Sumner and trembling with excitement.
Sam gave Sumner a dirty look and went on. “You give her a coin, probably a peso, and she takes you into the back room for fun in the blankets.”
Meadowlark and Flat Dog looked blankly at Sam. What did coins have to do with this?
“I mean, she doesn’t just do it because she wants to. She does it anytime with any man. For a peso. To her it’s work, like blacksmithing.”
Meadowlark made a face.
Flat Dog stood up. “Work?”
Sam nodded.
“Anytime?”
Sam nodded.
“Show me a peso.” He held out his hand with coins.
Sam did. Meadowlark looked amused.
Flat Dog marched right up to the woman, who was dressed sexily but showed wear and tear. When he stuck out the peso, she took it without hesitation and led him to the back room.
“I got a peso for you,” said Sumner, with a teasing eye on Meadowlark.
“I’ll throw you over the moon,” said Sam.
From behind came a voice. “Hello, my friend, would you permit a stranger to interest you in a small game?”
Sam recognized the speech, soft and silky, like a dove’s coo. He whirled around.
“Grumble!” he shouted. Sam jumped out of his chair and clapped shoulders with a round, gray-haired man with a cherubic face. “Sam Morgan, Pilgrim,” said Grumble, making it sound like a high title.
“Grumble, sit down and let us buy you a drink.”
“I wish to make the acquaintance of the barkeep myself,” said the cherub. He went to the bar, spent a minute or two chatting, and came back with the house brandy. Here you had a choice of homemade brandy, homemade brandy, and homemade brandy.
Sam introduced his wife Meadowlark proudly, then his friend Sumner, and reminded Grumble of Coy’s name.
Coy wagged his tail eagerly, but Grumble gave him a jaundiced eye. The big cherub was not fond of animals.
“Grumble is the first person I met when I ran away from home four years ago,” Sam told his wife and Sumner. “He got me out of trouble right off.” Sam looked fondly at his friend. “And then got me into a lot of it.”
“Not a bit of trouble,” said Grumble. “Perhaps some adventure.”
“You sound kind of like a friar,” said Sumner.
“I was raised to be devout, and perhaps I am a sort of friar, a priest of low sacraments in vile places. Like cantinas and gambling houses.”
Sam put in, “What are you doing in California?”
“Had to leave St. Louis,” said Grumble. “In a hurry. Difficulties with the constabulary.” He gave a conspiratorial smile. “Stopped and did some business in New Orleans for a month or two, but I had the gold for passage and came around the Cape. I’d never been at sea, and I wanted to see California.” Now the smile turned mischievous. “New opportunities. How did you get here?”
“Horseback across the country.”
Grumble repeated it musically—“Horseback across the country?”
Sam nodded. “A lot of us mountaineers, we’d been up north toward the British territory, and down south to Taos. A little travel west said that was no way. There has to be a river going from the back side of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. So we tried southwest. My friends and I, twenty-four of us to start with, took off from the Salt Lake and came across the country.”
“The St. Louis newspapers reported the discovery of the Great Salt Lake, and other new geographical features,” Grumble said gently. He raised an eyebrow at Sam. He lifted his glass. “Here’s to your splendid achievement.”
They all drank.
“Was it an appalling trip?”
“The worst a man ever set out on.” Sam launched into a description of the red-rock desert, then of the Amuchabas, and last of the white sand desert. Sumner poked in quite a few words, and even Meadowlark added some, all to the effect that it was one nasty, stinking journey. Coy whined right along with them.
Flat Dog walked back in, holding hands with the woman. Then he said something to her and walked to the table and sat. Introductions were made. Flat Dog bore a very self-satisfied look. Grumble looked at him and the woman, understanding.
“What will you do now?” Grumble asked Sam.
“We don’t have any damned idea. What will you do?”
“Look for opportunities.”
After some odd looks around the table, Sam said, “Tell my friends how you make your living.”
“We who are quick of mind live by our wits.”
“All right, Grumble, show them. Start with the boy with a hoop.”
Grumble reached with a crimped-up hand into a leather pouch he carried on a thong.
“Flat Dog,” said Sam, “you play. And tell us what you see.”
Grumble drew out three playing cards.
Flat Dog eyed Grumble’s hands and said, “His hands are …”
“Say it.”
“They’re … crippled.” As a Crow he was embarrassed to mention such a thing publicly. “Also, they’re small, delicate, and very clean. The nails are close-clipped and look polished.”
The cherub with the monkish fringe of hair showed three cards, calling them out. “Gentleman, lady, and boy with a hoop. Now, Mr. Flat Dog, keep your eye on the boy with a hoop. If you can pick him out, you win. We’ll pretend we’ve each put a coin in the middle of the table.”
Flat Dog grinned. He loved to gamble, either the Crow hand game or trapper card games.
Grumble interleaved the three cards clumsily. Flat Dog had learned to shuffle a deck from trappers, using the waterfall method of shuffling, so it was weird to see a man have difficulty mixing up just three cards. Certainly it was no trouble to keep track of the target card.
Flat Dog gathered his curiosity and spoke as boldly as a white man. “Do you have arthritis?” That’s what older white trappers called stiff joints.
Grumble gave a long-suffering smile and spread the cards on the tabletop facedown. “Pick out the boy with a hoop.”
Flat Dog pointed to it immediately, the card on the right end.
“Turn it over—show us.”
Flat Dog turned over the gentleman.
Meadowlark gasped.
Sumner snickered.
Merrily, Grumble turned over the boy with a hoop, which was the card on the left end. “Mr. Flat Dog, you’ve got to keep an eye on that boy. Or would you care to try, Mrs. Morgan?”
Sam whispered to Meadowlark that Grumble meant her. “Oh, yes,” she said.
Sam saw Flat Dog watching intensely this time. His expression said, If my sister doesn’t get it, I will.
Somehow Meadowlark picked the lady, Flat Dog pointed to the gentleman again, and the boy with a hoop was the middle card.
Flat Dog looked completely perplexed.
Sumner tried twice, with determination, and got the same result.
“Maybe you would like Coy to take a try?” said Grumble with a big smile.
Then he fetched a full deck out of his leather pouch. He waterfalled the cards. With fingers as nimble as any of them had ever seen, he turned up the ace of spades, buried it, cut the deck very rapidly a half-dozen times, and turned over the top card—the ace of spades, followed by the other three aces of the deck.
“Wow,” said Sumner.
“And that’s the least of what he can do,” said Sam.
“The very least,” agreed Grumble jovially.
Sumner asked carefully, “You can do about anything with a deck of cards, win near all the time?”
“And much, much more,” said Grumble.
“I want to learn to be sly like that,” the black man said.
“Sly?” Grumble drawled. Suddenly, interrupting himself, he rose to his feet, looking toward the door.
Sam turned and saw a female figure. In the dark cantina, with the figure agains
t the bright light of the doorway, he needed a moment to realize who it was. Then Sam yelled, “Abby!”
He knocked over his chair jumping up, hugged her, and then the two of them did a little jig.
Meadowlark frowned.
Sam turned himself and Abby toward the group. In embarrassment he took a step away from her. “Meadowlark,” he said, “this is the friend I told you about. Abby, this is my wife, Meadowlark.”
Abby, in a lovely gown and carrying a parasol, made a small curtsy.
Meadowlark managed a smile.
Sam ordered a bottle of brandy for everyone.
Meadowlark was fascinated by the stories. Already she knew that Sam had come from a place called Pennsylvania down a great river on a boat for a long time, more than one moon, to a big village called St. Louis where they had buildings in the shape of boxes, like this village. She knew he’d had adventures on that journey, but had not imagined such an entrancing creature as Abby.
Abby was the most beautiful human being Meadowlark had ever seen. She wore a dress of pale, gleaming green, a silvery hat, and a handheld parasol of light blue. The parasol actually opened and closed—amazing! The dress had a very, very full skirt—you couldn’t tell Abby had legs—and was form-fitted above the waist.
Sam said, and Meadowlark could tell from the stories they were telling, that Abby had no man or family. Instead she worked like white men did, what they called making a living. And the ways she made it were … Occasionally Abby had given men love for money, according to the conversation. Often she had other women as employees, as Jedediah employed Sam and the others for money, and rented them out to men for sex. Often she had gambled with cards as Grumble did. Mostly she had owned cantinas and sold men the mind-spinning whiskey.
In fact, that’s what got her into trouble.
“Why did you leave St. Louis?” Sam asked. Apparently she owned the fanciest cantina in town.
“You remember Cadet Chouteau?”
Sam nodded.
“My protector found a new woman. Egged on by her, he turned into my persecutor.”
So she had operated by running a drinking, gambling, and whoring house under the protection of a powerful man. And she looked innocent as a mountain flower. Well, until you looked very closely.
