Treasure of the Sun

by Christina Dodd

  “No, Don Damian.”

  He sobered at her words. “I have tried to show you, with words and with my body, how I love you. Now I need to know. Do you love me?”

  She wanted to say so. She wanted to. But her lips wouldn’t form the words. It would be too real if she admitted it. Perhaps the gods would hear and snatch him from her. Tremulously, she smiled at him. “Do you think we could host a fiesta? We could reaffirm our vows.”

  “Our vows?”

  “Our wedding vows. In front of Mr. Larkin.”

  “Larkin? Why?”

  “He’s the American consul, you know. And we could invite Alcalde Diaz to officiate, too. Fray Pedro’s already coming, as quickly as he can move, he said. That will make our marriage official in the United States, in California, and in the Catholic Church.” Encouraged by the grin that threatened to break over his face, she blurted, “No one would dare dispute it then, would they, Don Damian?”

  He stroked the line of her chin with his thumbs. “No, mi amor, mi vida. No one would dare dispute it then.”

  Damian was a man who appreciated respect. He appreciated the old ways and the use of honorary titles. Yet as he worked his way through the throng of wedding guests, he wondered when Katherine would dare to call him Damian. Not Don Damian. Just Damian.

  Probably about the same time she gave him a real answer to his question. He’d tried to be satisfied with her unspoken affection. She was from Boston. Perhaps she couldn’t say what was in her heart. Perhaps she would never say what was in her heart. He’d never realized what an unabashed sentimentalist he was until he’d been blessed with a decorous wife.

  Julio caught him as he walked past, mingling with the people who stood in clumps among the trees. “We can’t wait much longer to begin the ceremony, or all your wedding guests will be fighting.”

  “I know. Have you seen Mariano yet?”

  “No.” Julio raised his voice above the noise. “None of the Vallejos are here, and I’ve never seen such a crowd as this. All the talk is about Castro, Frémont, and the Americans. There are more rumors than limbs on a tree.”

  “I know,” Damian repeated. “It’s been a mere four months since my fiesta. We’re here at Rancho Donoso, in the same place with the same people, yet it seems our world has changed.”

  “Not all the same people are here,” Julio said.

  “Who? Oh, you mean Smith. We won’t miss him.”

  “And Vietta and her parents. They’re still in mourning for their heroic daughter who tried to save you and Doña Katherina and tumbled to her death. That was a kind thing you did, Damian.”

  “There’s nothing to be gained by exposing the truth. Let the poor girl rest at last.” He didn’t want to talk about Vietta. He didn’t want to remember Vietta, or the treasure, or the cave. Inside him, he was a brew of frustration, worry, and just plain fear. It was bad enough that the Vallejos hadn’t arrived. That meant something awful had happened in the unstable world of California politics.

  On top of that, he was getting married.

  Somehow, sweeping Katherine off her feet and in front of the alcalde hadn’t been nearly so nerve-racking.

  Nothing had ever been so nerve-racking. A million preparations hadn’t distracted him from the fact that Katherine was becoming his official wife. His greatest ambition would be attained. He stared at the hacienda. Inside, he knew, the women milled around, preparing the bride with their female rites and their womanly warnings. He wished this wedding were over, that Katherine were back in his bed where she belonged.

  If only the guests behaved. If only no one threw up, or fainted, or cried so loudly he couldn’t hear the vows. If only Fray Pedro de Jesus refrained from admonishing him in front of the crowd and his guests.

  If only Katherine didn’t change her mind.

  He wiped his palms on his jacket. “Have you seen Señor Larkin, yet?”

  “No, he’s not here,” Julio denied.

  “Let’s wait a little longer.” Damian wondered if he were stalling for the Vallejos or Señor Larkin or for fear of the wedding ceremony.

  His guests were indeed drinking. The talk was loud and ugly in places. In other places, groups huddled in hushed, serious discussion.

  His father stopped him as he paced past the quiet ranchers. “These gentlemen say Castro’s on the move.”

  “Against whom?” Damian asked sarcastically. “Is he going south to fight Pio Pico or north to fight Frémont?”

  A ripple of laughter stirred the group. Don Lucian said, “It is indeed a question. Does General Castro consider the Mexican governor in Los Angeles a greater threat than the Americans?”

  “I don’t know,” a young man said, “but the Americans say Castro is stirring up the Indians in the Sacramento Valley.”

  “Isn’t that asking for trouble?” Damian asked. “Do the Indians care whether it’s a Californio or an Americano scalp they take?”

  The ranchers nodded agreement.

  “There aren’t many Californios in the valley,” one offered.

  “Cold comfort for the one who loses his scalp.”

  Don Lucian slapped his son on the shoulder, and Damian moved on to the boisterous group.

  Rico grabbed him by the arm. “Have you heard? Frémont’s on the move. The Americans in the Sacramento Valley are gathering.”

  “Not surprising, if they’ve heard that General Castro is raising the Indians against them,” Damian answered.

  “That’s just a rumor,” Rico said with scorn. “The truth is that some Americans stole a herd of horses that were being transported for Castro.”

  “Stole them?” Damian was stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Zeke Merritt led a bunch of wild Americans on a thieving spree,” Rico insisted.

  “Zeke Merritt? That explains a lot. Zeke Merritt hates Mexicans, and he’s a man to hold a grudge. I’m not surprised to hear that Merritt’s behind the trouble. Let’s hope he stops with the horses.”

  “We’ll see.” Alejandro snorted.

  “Yes, we’ll see.” It was Hadrian, coming from the stables, sweating and smelling of horse and looking not at all like a wedding guest. “I’ve just come from Sonoma, and by the saints, you’ll never believe this.”

  “What?” the group asked in unison.

  “Some Americans—the ones who stole the horses—they captured Sonoma, taking Mariano Vallejo prisoner.”

  A silence fell over the brash group, a silence that grew and overlapped into the other groups. Whispers ran through the crowd; everyone pressed closer.

  “What have they done with Mariano?” Rico asked in alarm.

  “Drunk him under the table, for one thing.” Hadrian lifted his hand and dropped it. “I rode in the day after it happened, or I would be a prisoner, too. I heard all about it from one of the residents of Sonoma, you understand, but I believe Alcalde Berreyesa is a reputable source of information.”

  Don Lucian struggled into the center of the men. “The alcalde is not hurt?”

  “No one was hurt! The Americans just rode into Sonoma early one morning and took the post. Not a shot was fired.”

  Rico stammered, “How?”

  “They rode in the back way,” Hadrian explained. “No one was on lookout at Sonoma. What for? There’s no war, and except for Mariano’s home, it’s not a rich place. There aren’t even many guns.”

  “You said they took Mariano prisoner?” Damian reminded him. “Why him? Why Mariano? He’s said that we must throw off Mexican domination. He has spoken out for annexation to the United States.”

  “Why any of this? They rode him away along with another seventeen citizens to Sutter at Nueva Helvetia. They tried to make it look official by drawing up documents of surrender, and they put up a flag.”

  “They’re experts at putting up the American flag, aren’t they?” Damian asked in exasperation.

  “Oh, it’s not an American flag,” Hadrian corrected. “It’s a flag they made themselves.”


  Damian cocked a brow at the undercurrent of amusement in Hadrian’s voice.

  Hadrian smothered a grin. “I saw it. The raiders call themselves the Osos—the Bears. So they got this white cloth, put a red stripe and a star on it. Someone drew a grizzly bear. He was not an artist.” Hadrian chuckled, rubbing his side with his palm as if he had a stitch.

  “No?” Damian encouraged.

  “It looks like a pig.” The crowd tittered, and Hadrian laughed out loud. “They wrote ‘California Republic’ on it and spelled ‘Republic’ wrong. They had to change it.” He laughed some more. The crowd’s hilarity died, but Hadrian’s merriment grew all out of proportion. “I had to slip into Sonoma like a thief and leave like a hunted man because I held a gun. What has California come to?” His laughter stopped, cut by pain. “What has my home become?”

  Damian wrapped both arms around him in a restraining hug, and Hadrian dropped his hands onto Damian’s shoulder. Slumping against his friend, Hadrian mumbled, “Have I lost my home?”

  Turning him away from the sympathetic faces, Damian asked, “How long have you been riding?”

  “Forever, I think.”

  Damian signaled Julio. Julio stepped to Hadrian’s other side and lifted an arm to his own shoulders. The three of them headed toward the hacienda.

  “I rode to warn you not to marry your Katherine,” Hadrian mumbled. “She’s an American, and they’re going to strip us of everything we own.”

  “Perhaps they are, but it was too late for me long ago.”

  Hadrian lifted his bleary eyes to the hacienda. “You say you fell in love with her on first sight, but that’s no basis for a marriage. You have to have things in common. You have to have a common heritage.”

  Hadrian was tired, collapsing now that he’d delivered his message, and Damian gripped his temper. “I did fall in love at first sight, but I fell in like when I got to know her. We have many things in common, if not our heritage. For one thing, we both care for our friends, Hadrian, and you need to sleep.”

  “You’re diluting your good Spanish blood with the blood of an enemy.”

  “So our sons will be leaders of a new part of the United States. Our daughters, too, for they’ll be Katherine’s daughters.” Damian urged him up the stairs to the veranda.

  “Katherine isn’t part of a conspiracy,” Julio added.

  “No?” Hadrian asked groggily.

  Damian said, “She’s part of my fate.”

  The threesome stepped over the threshold and into the feminine world of wedding preparations. A few screams, a few scoldings followed them as they weaved towards the stairway. Damian ignored them. “Katherine is your friend, Hadrian. You know she is.”

  “Yes.” The admission was dragged from the honest Hadrian.

  “Most of the Americans are our friends.” Julio sounded firm, like a man trying to convince himself.

  Damian nodded. “The ones who aren’t, the ones who have just arrived and make no attempt to honor our ways, Hadrian, those you should warn me against.”

  “Consider yourself warned.” Hadrian lifted his legs as if each step were too high. Reaching the top, he twisted his hands against the newel post.

  He didn’t see Katherine, peeking out of Damian’s upstairs study, but Damian did. He promptly forgot the American problem, Hadrian’s exhaustion, his own distress. Enthralled, he stared at the golden woman beneath the mantilla. As Doña Xaviera had predicted, Katherine’s creamy skin glowed beneath the black lace. The women had loosened her hair; it matched the silk of her dress in texture and color. Her smile was both enticing and shy, and she shone with the beauty of a bride—his bride.

  He stepped toward her; she reached out her hand.

  A ringed, beefy hand slapped onto her wrist, and Doña Xaviera’s bulk placed itself between them. “This is not acceptable.”

  Julio gave a bark of laughter at Damian’s frustration.

  Damian complained, “First we send out the invitations, then we slave like animals getting the fiesta ready. I’ve hardly seen her for a week.”

  “Another few hours won’t hurt.” Doña Xaviera pushed the resisting Katherine back inside the room. “What you mean is, you haven’t slept with her for a week. What your father permitted was scandalous.”

  “We were married,” Damian insisted, disgruntled with the way everyone ignored the civil ceremony.

  “Not in the Church!” Doña Xaviera shook her finger at him. “She is still Mrs. Maxwell.”

  “Katherine says she is Señora de la Sola.” He leaned toward Doña Xaviera. “You tell her she isn’t!”

  Doña Xaviera backed up and her little grin popped out. “Not I.”

  Oblivious to the little scene, Hadrian said loudly, discordantly, “Damian, do you know what Mariano Vallejo said to his wife when the Americans marched him off to their prison? Do you know what he said?”

  Damian glanced at the open door and sighed.

  “He said, ‘Quien llama el toro aguanta la cornada.’”

  From inside the study, Damian heard Katherine’s voice translate the phrase into English. “‘He who calls the bull must endure the goring.’” She asked someone inside the room, “What have the Americans done now?”

  Doña Xaviera shut the door, but Damian had no great faith that even that great woman could keep Katherine restrained within.

  Loosening the bow that strangled him, Damian wondered desperately if the wedding ceremony he’d been afraid of would ever have a chance to begin. The American consul and his wife had arrived, but that hadn’t freed them to start the wedding. It had created another barrier as the hidalgos crowded around Larkin and demanded explanations. The discussions had taken over the whole day, and the fiesta spirit was subdued as the men fretted.

  Tactfully, Don Lucian tried to frame the question on all of their minds without insulting his friend Larkin’s nationality or honesty. “The Americanos have different traditions than we do. Not long ago, a group of them insinuated they could take my property by staying on it. Squatting, they called it.”

  Alejandro blurted, “Will the American government respect our land grants?”

  Larkin tapped his fingers on the desk where he sat. “I believe

  “Pardon me, Señor Larkin, if I lack confidence in this assurance.” Damian shook his head. “We have heard that Americanos stole two hundred horses, that they imprisoned one of our prominent citizens and confiscated his property. These are not actions designed to make us feel secure.”

  A feminine voice broke through the babble that followed his comments. “Don Damian is right, Mr. Larkin.” Katherine stepped into the library, glorious in her wedding finery. The shocked men cleared a path for her, a path that led straight to Damian and Larkin. “What are the Americans thinking about? Is this all the work of Mr. Frémont?”

  Larkin answered her with ease. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Maxwell.”

  “Señora de la Sola,” she corrected.

  “Has the wedding already taken place?” Larkin asked. “I thought I was here to officiate.”

  “You’re to officiate at our second wedding.”

  “Of course.” Larkin nodded, calm and precise. “As far as I’m able to ascertain, Mr. Frémont had nothing to do with the regrettable incident at Sonoma, but I fear I recognize his method of planning.”

  “None at all?” Damian asked bitterly, remembering the aborted battle at Gavilán.

  “He plans, but recklessly and with no dependence on his informants. He’s made no attempt to contact me.”

  “Will the American government respect these land grants?” Katherine demanded, her mobile mouth serious. “Except for your own conduct, I’ve seen nothing to admire in American handling of California. Let me speak bluntly, Mr. Larkin. Will a Spanish name on the title put the de la Sola possessions in jeopardy?”

  Larkin hesitated.

  “Would an American name be more likely to secure the lands?”

  “That is a possibility,” Larkin allowed.

 
Katherine turned to Damian and Don Lucian. “I have an alternative. Put your family lands into my name.”

  An excited babble broke out. “That’s foolish,” Ricky protested. “You’re a woman.”

  Katherine turned clear green eyes on him. “I’m an American citizen. Throughout the American West, women own property. With the legal and economic training I’ve had, and the considerable monetary backing of the de la Solas, only an idiot would try to take these lands away from me. What do you think, Mr. Larkin?”

  Larkin rubbed his bewhiskered cheeks. “Well, it is a solution to a tricky situation. Mind you, I don’t know if it would work, but I believe it’s a good idea.”

  As one, the room turned and stared at the de la Sola men. Don Lucian nodded, but Damian stood frozen in place. He felt again as he had after he’d been shot. His skin felt stiff and pale, his eyes wide and staring.

  This was his family’s lands they discussed so casually. His family’s lands. How could they suggest such a thing? How could his father stand there and indicate agreement?

  His Californio lands.

  They would be Katherine’s lands. Seventy-five years of masculine Californio pride would be ground into dust. What kind of man would he be, living on his wife’s charity? He would owe her everything.

  Katherine was a strong-minded woman. She had indicated that she believed a woman could survive and thrive without the care of a man. Could he trust this American woman to marry him and not destroy his dignity by reminding him how much he owed her? He didn’t know another woman he could trust so far.

  His gaze was caught by a glow in the room. It was Katherine. Golden hair, golden dress, golden woman. His treasure. In a rush he remembered her pride. She’d agreed to marry him, regardless of Smith’s insinuations, accepting that he wouldn’t take advantage of her.

  How could he give her less trust than she’d given him?

  “Draw up the papers,” he told Larkin. “My wife’s going to become a landowner today.”

  Señora Katherine Anne Chamberlain Maxwell, soon to be the newest rancher in California, clung to her father-in-law’s arm and laughed at the good-natured teasing. She’d never seen a wedding procession as informal as this one. Don Lucian followed a circuitous route to the guests who ranged all over the yard. No one was solemn. The men predicted Damian’s subjugation at the least, the fall of civilization at the most. The women asked her if she would charge her husband rent, or kick him out during a fight. They seemed to relish it all, using the occasion to jab their husbands.