Bride of the Baja (21 page)

That night they camped along a stream. After she ate Alitha went to her saddlebag and found the cake of yellow soap she'd brought from the rancho. Skirting the fire where the men were singing sad love songs to the music of a Spanish guitar, she walked along the bank of the creek until she was almost out of earshot of the camp.

She stopped beside a small pool. After undressing she placed her clothes on a rock and stepped into the stream, lowering herself until the water just covered her body. She began soaping herself vigorously, though she still shivered from the cold.

"I would be glad to help."

Startled, she looked up and saw Esteban standing on the bank. He jumped from rock to rock until he was above her, then reached down and took her hand, drawing her to her feet. He took the soap from her hand and stood behind her, soaping her back, his hand gliding from her shoulders to her buttocks and down her legs to her feet.

"Turn around," he ordered.

Closing her eyes, she faced him, feeling his hands soap her breasts, fondling each in turn until her skin quivered under his touch. Kneeling before her, he started at her feet and soaped her legs, then the soap was set aside and his fingers fluttered between her thighs, teasing her.

A trembling began in her legs, growing until she shuddered with passion. Reaching down, she took Esteban's hand and guided it up between her legs. When his fingers entered her, caressing her, she put her hands to the nape of his neck, drawing his head to her breasts. She sighed, her head going back, her breath coming rapidly.

Suddenly Esteban stepped away from her, tore off his clothes and threw them to the bank of the stream. He came to her, pulled her against him, hard against him, and, with both of them still standing, he entered her. She moaned with desire as he thrust within her

Esteban groaned, his fingers digging into her buttocks as he throbbed inside her. Finally sated, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bank, where he laid her on a blanket, kneeling between her legs, and then gathering her into his arms. When she felt him grow hard against her she opened herself to him, whispering his name again and again, pressing herself to him until her passion was released in an overwhelming crescendo of ecstasy.

They rode inland to the Pueblo of Los Angeles and stayed overnight in that village of more than four hundred inhabitants. Turning their horses to the south, they felt the cool breezes off the sea again as they neared the mission at San Juan Capistrano. After pitching camp in the late afternoon just outside the mission walls, Esteban and Alitha rode to the sea.

When they approached the top of a high cliff overlooking the Pacific, Alitha was startled to see four men throwing objects down to the beach.

"What can they be doing?" she asked Esteban.

"Probably they're members of a crew from a ship anchored offshore," he told her. "Those are cattle hides—the mission here has thousands of head of cattle. The men are throwing the hides down to their shipmates who load them in a boat to take them to the ship."

As they dismounted a short distance from the men, Alitha saw that he was right: the men were throwing large, stiff hides, and there was a ship anchored a few cable lengths from the beach. When the sailors had tossed the last of the hides from the cliff, they rigged a line to a boulder and one of them descended with the rope tied to his waist. Alitha leaned over the edge watching as the seaman swung back and forth the face of the cliff, freeing hides that had lodged behind rocks. By the time he had sent the last of the hides plunging down to the beach and had been hauled back to the top of the cliff, the sun was on the horizon.

The four men tipped their hats to Alitha. As they trudged off to make their way down to the beach, one man turned and shouted, "
Adios
."

Alitha waved.

What must they make of us, she wondered. Do they think I'm Spanish as Esteban so obviously is? Do they take us for man and wife?

Sighing, Alitha sat on a grassy verge at the top of the cliff with Esteban standing behind her. Leaning back, she rested her head against his legs as she watched the golden rim of the sun dip below the waves. The only sound she heard was the throb of the surf. It was as though, she thought, they were the only two people on earth.

"I wish it could always be like this," she said. "Just the two of us, together. No one else, Esteban, just you and I."

He leaned forward and put both of his hands on her shoulders. She reached up and covered his hands with hers.

"Alitha," he said. "I—" He hesitated. For once, she noticed, words didn't come easily to him.

"Alitha," he said again, "it has never been like this with anyone. The way it is with you."

"Esteban, do you love me? Do you truly love me?"

"I do, yes, I do, with .all my heart."
He knelt behind her, and when she tilted her head back, he kissed her, his hands circling her waist to cup her breasts through the cloth of her dress. The night was darkening around them, already pinpoints of light shone from the ship offshore. Below them, Alitha heard the shouts of the sailors as they launched their boatload of hides into the surf.

"Undress me, Esteban," she told him. His fingers went to the buttons on the front of her dress. He removed her clothes, garment by garment, and when she lay naked before him, he stood and took off his clothes and lay beside her, not touching her.

"Esteban," she whispered, reaching for him. Could he hear the pounding of her heart, she wondered. He took her hand in his and rolled her over so her back was to him. His arms came around her, caressing her breasts, his fingers brushing over her nipples. She felt his chest on her back, his legs to hers, his sex hard against her buttocks.

His hands slid down her body, across her stomach to her thighs until his fingers stroked the soft folds between her legs. She tried to turn, wanting to hold him in her arms, but he rolled her away from him until she was on her stomach. He knelt behind her, between her legs, his hands lifting her hips slightly so she rose to her knees. He reached around to take her breasts in his hands.

When she pressed back against him, his hands left her breasts and again went to her sex. Without warning her body began to tremble. He thrust into her, his hands still caressing her, and she moaned, wanting to clasp him to her but at the same time more aroused than she'd ever been before. She shuddered and then she felt an uncontrollable trembling shake her body over and over again. She drew in her breath in what was almost a scream, afraid she might never be able to stop the spasms of desire quivering up and down her body. Esteban turned her over and entered her, gently this time, and she felt the tremors gradually lessen. When her trembling stopped, she lay exhausted in his arms, still joined to him. She wanted to stay like this, she thought, forever.

"Oh, Esteban," she whispered, "I love you so much."

The days grew warmer as they followed El Camino Real along the coast from San Juan Capistrano to San Diego, warm but never hot. Alitha woke most mornings to find their camp blanketed with a cooling fog, and often, in the evening, she saw the fog swirl inland from the sea.

She was more accustomed now to rising before daybreak and setting off in the early dawn, to ride all day with only brief stops to eat and rest their horses. Though her body was sore after a day's long ride, she no longer woke still tired from the previous day's journey. Now she met each new day refreshed and eager for whatever lay ahead.

As they traveled south, the country became drier, more stark. There were few trees—the low, grass-covered hills to the east basked in golden splendor under the summer sun. Though hawks might circle overhead and rabbits run from cover as they passed, and an occasional deer might eye them with curiosity from afar, the land was becoming more and more a desert—a desert bordering on a benign summer sea whose waves swept endlessly onto the sandy stretches of beach.

Esteban was never out of her mind as she rode beside the sea. She wanted to ride with him, to talk to him, to share her innermost thought with him. She learned, though, to be wary. She found that when they sat beside the evening or morning campfire he liked her to bring his food and coffee and to ask him if he wanted more.

But in the presence of the other men, he didn't like her to touch him. When she did, he shrugged her away without a word, and so she had to wait until they were alone at night. Then he welcomed her embrace, her kisses. Were all Spanish men like Esteban, she wondered. So conscious of how they looked in the sight of other men?

She was scarcely aware of the five other horsemen in their party. Although she rode with them all day, often exchanging a word or two, she found they avoided staying near her for long and cast guarded glances at Esteban as they rode off. The men treated her with respect, but there was no question that Don Esteban would tolerate no familiarities with this blond-haired woman who rode with him to Mexico.

They entered San Diego in the evening, fording a river and climbing a hill to the Presidio, the Spanish fort. The gate stood open and the lone sentry, his hair in a queue, waved them inside the twenty-foot-high walls. She noticed cracks in the wall and saw piles of rubble at its base.

They skirted three cannons guarding the entrance and rode into the plaza, where all the buildings—the chapel, guardhouse, stores and homes—faced inward. In front of the barracks Alitha saw a soldier lowering the Spanish flag.

That night they slept in beds for the first time since leaving Santa Barbara. Alitha knew that Esteban was tired, for he didn't signal her—with a touch or a lingering kiss or by the way his fingers curled the hair at the nape of her neck—that he wanted her to join him in bed. Did all lovers have these signals, she wondered.

She woke in the first light of dawn. Hearing Esteban sleeping soundly across the room, she went to the window and drew aside the curtains. In the distance she saw
the white tower and the tile roofs of the Mission of San Diego de Acala. Beyond the mission were barren hills outlined against a pale yellow sky.

She stretched, raising her arms to welcome the new day, knowing she had never been happier. All at once she shivered, seemingly for no reason since the morning was warm. She felt strangely vulnerable, as if some ancient god could see her happiness and, envious, would do all in his power to bring her low. She tried to smile at her foolishness. At the same time she found herself wishing she could believe that making the sign of the
cross, as Esteban did, would ward off evil.

She left the window and went to
kneel on the floor beside Eteban's bed, How peacefully he slept, she thought. Leaning over him. She kissed his eyelids and he opened his eyes, smiling up at her.

She pulled her nightgown over her head and dropped it to the floor. He threw the blankets aside and she saw he was naked. Esteban pulled her onto the bed so she straddled him, and, as he bent forward to kiss him, his hands found her breasts.

Alitha lifted her hips so that he entered her and he drew her down on top of him, turned until she was beneath him and, in the early morning light on the presedio of San Diego, they made love quietly and tenderly. When at last, fulfilled, she lay beside him to the sounds of the awakening fort, her unease gone and she smiled, content.

             
                            CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Do you mean to say, Captain Quinn, that you're asking me to take my ship and go hunting this pirate Bouchard?" John Cunningham, captain of the American frigate Independence, stared across his cabin table at Jordan.

"Yes, sir, that's exactly what I want. He's captured and looted at least one American ship—mine—and he's murdered American seamen. I submit that it's your duty to seek him, to find him and to destroy him."

"And who are you, sir, to presume to inform me of my duty?" Cunningham's voice rose angrily.

"Bouchard must be stopped." Jordan put his palms on the table and leaned toward Cunningham. "Have you ever lost a ship, Captain? Do you know what it's like?"

Cunningham rose, his voice shaking with emotion. "Sit down, Quinn. Did you hear me? Sit down!"

Jordan sank back.

"Lost a ship?" the gray-haired Cunningham asked. "In '08 the Puritan went down with all hands off Cape Hattaras, all hands save one. Her captain was plucked from the sea a week later by a British schooner. I was that captain, Mr. Quinn."

"Then you know my feelings."

"Yes, I do." Cunningham sat down and went on in his quiet Southern drawl. "But you must realize it's been more than six weeks since Bouchard anchored here in Santa Barbara. Surely you, as an experienced sailor, are aware that by this time he may be off the northern California coast. Or he may be anchored in the Sandwich Islands enjoying the favors of the native women. Or he may be sailing south, bound for Acapulco. You do realize that, don't you, sir?"

"I do, Captain."

Slamming his fist on the table, Cunningham stood up and paced the narrow confines of his cabin.

"You possess a tremendous amount of gall, Captain Quinn," he said. "The very day the
Independence
anchors off Santa Barbara you stomp aboard demanding an interview with her captain. Since I'm an accommodating man who's always willing to go an extra mile for a fellow seaman, for a man who's a compatriot of mine besides, I consented to speak to you. And then without so much as a by-your-leave or an if-I-may-be-so-bold, you propose I use a ship of the United States Navy to play a game of hares and hounds up and down the length and breadth of the Pacific. Do I state the case correctly?"