by Win Blevins
Sam would help out. He would tell Jedediah that Sumner had stolen away, and no one knew where he was. If Jedediah insisted on going to the authorities, Grumble promised to buy Sumner from Jedediah.
“I don’t care if it costs a hundred dollars,” he told Sam confidentially.
Sam gave him the eye. A hundred dollars was half a year’s wage for the average man.
“Or two hundred,” Grumble insisted. “He will be worth it to me.”
Sam smiled to himself. Grumble could not admit that sentiment played any role in his doings.
“Mr. Grumble,” came the accented voice, “Miss Abby, will you and your friends join us?”
It was Don Francisco Avila, former alcalde of the pueblo and a friend of Father Sanchez whom they’d all met briefly. He rose courteously and opened his arms in welcome. His wife, Doña Emilia, and two granddaughters surrounded him.
The six joined the Mexicans. Room could always be made for the guests of the don of a great rancho, though the doña looked queasily at Coy.
“What great seats,” Sam said. “Close to the orchestra.” He tied Coy’s leash to his chair leg.
Brandy, wine, and tequila flowed in the more expensive cantinas, mescal in the cheaper ones. Smiles flashed, songs were raised, and the plaza roared with color. Sam noticed that several wives and daughters of the big ranchos danced with their men. Sam had never seen women more in love with finery. Their gowns were silk, crepe, or calico, short in the sleeve and loose at the waist (Abby said something tart about the absence of corsets). They wore dainty shoes of satin or kid leather, mantillas, combs in their hair. Bright-colored sashes cinched their waists and extravaganzas of silver jewelry gleamed on their fingers, earlobes, and bosoms.
Suddenly Sam heard Gideon’s fiddle play a solo introduction. The bear man was on his feet, swaying to his own magic. The orchestra was giving him a chance to show his stuff. A plaza full of dancers stood still, breath held.
Gideon launched into a vigorous jig. After a little hesitation, the orchestra pitched in with him, everyone catching the tune and harmonies. Before long the dancers bounced with the rhythm.
“A rhythm is a rhythm the world over,” said Sam, feeling a tinge of envy.
Meadowlark held out her hand. “Let’s dance.” She and Sam knew this one.
They neat-footed niftily, smiling at each other. Sam had a fine time. For the thousandth time he thought, How lucky I am to have such a woman.
Then they heard the sound of another familiar instrument. Evans, the Irishman, had joined the jig with his whistle. He and Gideon faced each other like duelists. For a verse Evans drove the tune fiercely, adding ornamentation along the way. They rang out the chorus together. Then Gideon bowed the next verse, making it faster and at the same time more flirtatious, more fun. They roared through the chorus together, and Evans charged into another verse. The orchestra felt the fever and pitched in wildly.
Irish, French-Canadian, and Mexican all together. Sam danced exultantly.
When the jig ended, the dancers burst into applause. Men and women leaning against the plaza walls, or seated at cantinas, joined them. The two trappers took a deep bow.
Sam led Meadowlark back toward the table. He was breathless. “Over there,” Meadowlark said, “I want to stand right next to the orchestra. To hear it better, the … whistling? Piping?”
They drew close to Evans, and when they did, Sam became entranced. It was like birdsong, the melody of this little instrument, high, pure tones with lots of turns and curls, a thrush’s ornate, warbling style. He liked it.
“I love music,” said Meadowlark.
He knew she meant not the music of her own people, but this kind of music, in her mind what white people played.
“Me too,” he said. Sam had loved to sing as a boy. His father played the Welsh harp, and the whole family sang together each Sunday evening, their equivalent of going to Sunday worship, because Morgantown had no church.
The orchestra raised up another song, unfamiliar, entirely Spanish in spirit. Sam and Meadowlark rejoined their party.
As they did, a table and chairs were being brought onto the patio of the next cantina—room was being made for … Don Cesar Rubio and his family.
Rubio threw a contemptuous glance at Flat Dog, Sam, and Meadowlark. Sam nodded to him. Flat Dog pretended not to see him, but turned his chair so his back would face the don. The back sported a beautiful new calico shirt and showed no sign of injury.
A glance told Sam that the Avila family knew. Probably the whole town knew.
“Señorita Julia is not with her family tonight,” said Avila. His eyes were on Flat Dog, his face compassionate.
“A toast!” cried Flat Dog. He jumped to his feet and raised his glass.
Everyone at the table raised their glasses.
“To love!” cried Flat Dog loudly.
Grins lit up the table. “To love!” they all responded.
Sam resisted turning his head to see Rubio’s reaction.
Avila changed the subject deftly. “Do you know how to dance our fandango?” His English was precise, each syllable carefully enunciated.
None did.
“It is a dance of courtship, very … exuberant. No one knows its origin, perhaps Moorish, perhaps Gypsy. Watch carefully.”
Couples faced each other. The music began slowly, its rhythm accented by castanets. Dancers clapped their hands, snapped their fingers, and stomped their feet. Gradually, now, the tempo picked up. Sam noticed that it was three-beat music, like a waltz, and it was getting fast.
Stop. A total pause in the music. Dancers froze wherever they were. Tension thrummed.
Music again! Animated by the notes, the dancers got wild. Passion surged through their poses. Arms and faces teased. Eyes, torsos, and hips challenged. Back and forth they soared, faster and faster, ever more passionate, ever more daring, and yet again faster.
When the orchestra stopped, silence clapped the ears. The dancers stopped—sexual electricity charged the air.
“When we open a cantina,” Abby told Grumble, “we need musicians who play the fandango.”
“Ah, romance,” said Don Francisco, “it is the essence of this dance.”
“Romance,” said Abby, “I like to hear it called that.”
They all chuckled with her.
Sam noticed that several couples, after the dance, joined arms and disappeared into nearby streets and alleys. He looked into Flat Dog’s face. Normally, the Crow might have been heading down one of those alleys. Now he sat, apparently content. But Sam knew his friend. Flat Dog was on some kind of edge—he needed watching.
Sam looked at Meadowlark and saw that she was worried about Flat Dog too.
Yes, your back hurts, and your heart aches. What else?
Sam looked from Flat Dog to Rubio and back, so close together. He said softly to Meadowlark, “He’s got to be boiling.” Sam took a breath. “You think maybe he wants to get revenge?”
Meadowlark made a face Sam couldn’t read.
“The only thing Flat Dog told me about it was, Rubio kept yelling out, ‘Indio! Indio!’”
Meadowlark said softly, “I wonder if we will ever see Julia again.”
The music lifted, round and round, forever bubbling.
Sam grasped Meadowlark’s hand and led her out to dance.
She looked back at her brother. “It is a kind of madness, such love.”
“He might do something that isn’t smart.”
“Let’s dance.”
When the song ended, she led him back to the table. Rubio sneered as they passed, and Meadowlark gave him her most dazzling smile.
Sam noticed that some couples came back into the plaza, separated, and danced feverishly with new partners. A shadowed corner, a useful serape, an act of love …
“Only the peasants behave like this,” commented Doña Emilia to the whole company. Yet her eyes said she was tickled by the idea.
Sam saw the men of the brigade mixed through t
he cantinas and among the dancers.
Evans and the two blacksmiths, James Reed and Silas Gobel, were sharing a bottle. A couple of days ago Evans and Reed got into another donnybrook, a knock-down, drag-out affair, each man cursing the very breath of the other. They quit when each was too battered to go on, Reed angry and Evans cheerful. Tonight they were fandango compañeros.
Whiskey, thought Sam, whether they’re clapping each other’s shoulders or busting each other’s noses.
He liked Gobel. The fellow had brutish strength, a face that blazed with brute passion, and a mind that was straightforward, if slow. He looked like a man born to bear arms, to protect women and children. If Sam had to leave Meadowlark in someone else’s care, he would consider Silas.
Sam poured another brandy for Abby, Grumble, and himself. He looked into their eyes, first Grumble, then Abby, then back and forth. He raised a glass in silent salute, and they raised theirs. A few more days and he would be leaving these friends behind. He didn’t know when he would see them again, if ever. They planned to take a ship to Monterey and see if that town suited their talents better than the Pueblo of the Angels.
Among scores of couples, Arthur Black, the odd Scot, was dancing alone. The blankness in his eyes probably kept him alone. He had a twisted smile on his face, as if he were watching angels fornicate and enjoying it hugely.
Another trapper, John Wilson, danced furiously with any available woman, and went to the alleys at least twice.
Peter Ranna, a French trapper, danced elegantly with a young woman and conversed politely between songs, as though he was courting her.
Suddenly Sam saw that Harrison Rogers, the clerk from Virginia, was leaning heavily against a nearby wall. Bottle in hand, he looked at the crowd, a sardonic expression on his face. Sam never knew what was on Rogers’s mind. Rogers took a long pull on the bottle.
A young Indio woman approached him. All at Sam’s table listened sharply, but no one could catch the words over the music.
Rogers glared at the woman and muttered something.
Her face changed like he’d slapped her. Fire flicked through her eyes. Then she laughed, shrugged eloquently, and walked off alone.
Sumner rose, went to Rogers’s side, and in a moment came back.
“He said,” said Sumner, imitating the clerk’s Virginia mountain twang, “she asked him to make her a blanca pickanina. It would be an honor,’ she told him.”
Sumner stood there for a moment, grinning down at everyone.
“He told her,” said Sumner, still dead-on with the accent, “‘As you are so forward, I have no propensity to tetch you.’”
Abby laughed the loudest.
“Madam,” said Avila to Abby, “it appears that in this village it would be difficult to make a living as a madam.”
They all laughed again.
Sam looked across at Rogers, scowling, and chuckled again.
Then he noticed Flat Dog was gone. The chair was removed, to make his absence inconspicuous.
Meadowlark suddenly clamped Sam’s arm. She had just noticed too.
Sam whirled and glared at Rubio.
The don replied only with another sneer.
Twelve
A Ceremony
A rap on the door.
Sam rose blearily toward the surface of consciousness. He opened his eyes to a half-lit room, a candle still guttering. Meadowlark sat up and looked at him questioningly.
Two raps, softly.
Sam went to the door and spoke through the thick wood. “Who is it?”
“Jedediah.”
Sam opened the door.
“Get dressed and come quickly. Father Sanchez’s apartments.”
“Something bad?”
Jedediah gave a dry smile. “I think you’ll like it.”
Sam and Meadowlark took a couple of minutes, for they’d been sleeping deeply and happily. They’d left the fandango early, not long after midnight, for the lovely privacy of their bedroom, a luxury they wouldn’t have much longer. There they loved each other to weariness. That was another luxury soon to be lost, Sam guessed, because Meadowlark was approaching her sixth month.
Father Sanchez’s door was wide open. The good friar sat comfortably in a big stuffed chair. As Sam and Meadowlark stepped into the room, they saw the other visitors scattered on ladder-back chairs, Grumble, Abby, Flat Dog, Angel—Angel?—and Reina Obregon y Rubio—Doña Reina?
In the middle of this circle stood Flat Dog and Julia, holding hands. Julia wore a floor-length white dress, white gloves to her elbows, and a white hat. Within this frame her tawny hair and golden skin glowed. She looked like a translucent vase bearing the fiery liquids passion and beauty.
To Sam, Flat Dog looked so happy he couldn’t see straight.
Sam and Meadowlark sat in the chairs left open for them. Coy slipped between the chair legs and peered out quizzically.
“Welcome,” said Father Sanchez. The interpreter at his side rendered each language into the other for everyone. “Meadowlark, your brother has come with a request that deserves the most serious consideration.”
“We want to be married,” said Julia. Her strong voice vibrated with feeling.
Father Sanchez nodded at Reina. “And I support this marriage,” she said. “It was I who helped Julia escape the hacienda tonight, and brought Flat Dog to her.”
Sam smiled, thinking how that would rub Don Rubio exactly the wrong way.
“The Rubio family will support it, that is, my sisters. Father will not.” Sam had met the four sisters of Julia and Reina. The mother had passed away. “We are tired, especially we sisters, of Father’s tyranny. Julia, the youngest, will be the first of us to follow her heart.”
“So we do not have the permission of the parents,” said Father Sanchez. He raised an eyebrow. “You two are Flat Dog’s only family in California. What do you say?”
Sam and Meadowlark spoke at the same time. “It’s great.”
They looked at each other in embarrassment. Sam added, “Whatever Flat Dog wants.”
Father Sanchez nodded slowly, turned to Julia, and regarded her for a long moment. “Julia,” he said gently, “I have known you for all of your seventeen years. I baptized you. I know you to be passionate. Look in your heart and tell me truly, beyond passion, beyond your excitement, do you find iron within yourself? Is there firmness of intention? Is there that which endures? My child, I tell you certainly, as a foundation for marriage, passion is not sturdy enough.”
Julia didn’t hesitate. “Father, I know my heart. This man is for me.” She turned and looked into Flat Dog’s eyes. “He and I will become one being, indissoluble, for all our lives long. I know that as I know the taste of my own breath in my throat.”
Father Sanchez considered for a long moment. “And you, Flat Dog?”
“I knew nothing of love until Julia taught me. With her I am full of life. Without her I am as a dead man.”
Father Sanchez pondered. “The rest of you, what do you say?”
Jedediah spoke immediately. “Will not Don Cesar send men after this couple, and take his daughter back by force?”
“If the mission decides to marry this pair, it has the ability to help them conceal themselves.” Sam noticed that the friar stressed the “if.”
Grumble spoke gently. “Father, I was raised most devoutly in the church. One of its teachings is that human passion is a reflection of divine love. I believe this passion to be so.”
Abby said simply, “I support it.” Sam thought he saw liquid in Abby’s eyes.
Jedediah said, “I support it.”
Sam wondered if Jedediah was taking pleasure in slapping the face of the Mexican establishment that had irked him.
Angel said, “I know Julia’s heart, and believe this to be a good marriage. I have made a ring for the bride.”
Julia glowed brighter.
“Let us talk of certain other obstacles to the union,” said Father Sanchez. “You must become a Catholic,” he told F
lat Dog. “That means accepting instruction in the holy faith.” The friar studied Flat Dog’s face and probably saw puzzlement. “It means you will be expected to participate in the life of the church, its ceremonies, and its customs.”
Flat Dog spoke with a surprisingly assertive voice. “I have seen my brother Sam join his wife’s people, adopt our ways, and walk our sacred paths. I will do the same for Julia.”
Sam was amazed and tickled, all at once.
Father Sanchez continued. “You must promise to raise the children of this union in the Catholic Church.”
“I also wish that,” said Julia.
“I promise,” said Flat Dog.
Father Sanchez looked slowly around the room at all of them. “Give me a few minutes,” he said, “to pray about this matter.”
“Father,” said Jedediah, “are there other questions we can answer? Fears we can allay?” He hesitated. “Are you afraid of offending Don Cesar?”
“That,” said the friar, “is not a problem.”
In the vast church the cluster of people before the altar looked tiny. The dawn light coming through the windows lit up the priest’s white and gold vestments brilliantly, so that everyone else seemed to be mere shadows.
The matrimonial couple knelt before the priest, each holding a candle.
A coyote crouched beneath the front pew.
First Father Sanchez exhorted the couple briefly. He urged them to realize that they would now be one person, joined through sanction of God the Father. He advised them to leave their families and make a new one, an entity with its own life, its own sanctity. He counseled them to learn from their differences in rearing and culture. “Such matters, instead of tearing at the fabric of union, can serve to strengthen it.”
Then he asked, separately, for the consent of the bride and groom to proceed into this holy sacrament. Each agreed.
“Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium,” said Father Sanchez, “in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”
The translator said quietly, “I join you in matrimony in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Sam blew his breath out. He didn’t realize he’d been holding it. Meadowlark squeezed his hand.
