Gold (2 page)

At last Selena slept again, a troubled sleep, for
how long she did not know. She came awake with
a start—someone was in the room. Her forehead
was damp, the air close and oppressive.

A
ll
around her the hotel slept. Her eyes searched the
darkness. She saw nothing. Even the window was
now dark.

Selena sat up, her legs against her chest, her
hands gripping the nightgown below her knees.
When a board creaked, her stomach tightened and
a scream rose in her throat. But she held back the
cry. Foolishness, her mother would tell her. You
were the one who insisted on a room of your own, she would say.

A horse whinnied outside
--a man shouted in the
distance. Vaguely Selena remembered hearing,
when she’d awakened this second time, the clip-
clop of horses from the street. She relaxed. She
was being foolish. What was the matter with her
lately? So restless, so quick to lash out at others, particularly at her mother. Now she felt an unde
fined longing. Tears came to her eyes.

A hand suddenly closed over her mouth, stifling
her gasp.

A hand grasped her shoulder.

“
Senorita
Selena.” She knew that voice. “It is
Diego,” he said even before she could think the
name. “I have come for you.”

A light flared. Selena, wide-eyed, saw Diego
’s
dark face close to hers. Behind him were two
other men. All three were dressed in black. A
rolled kerchief was thrust between her lips, part
ing them, and she felt it being knotted at the back of her head. Then Diego was lifting her, carrying
her to the door.

“
Do not have fear,” he whispered. “I will not harm you.” He cradled her in his arms with one
hand gripping her legs, the touch of his fingers
seeming to sear the thin cloth of the nightgown.

One of the men brought her scarlet cloak from the
wardrobe and Diego let her stand, wrapping the
cape around her before taking her in his arms
again.

“
My mother,” she tried desperately to say. But
her words were muffled by the cloth in her mouth
so that not even she could hear them.

“
Vamos
,” Diego said to the others.

One of the men went ahead, signaling to them with a wave of his hand when he found the hall
way deserted. Diego carried her down the stairs
with the third man following. In the empty lobby
a single oil-lit chandelier glowed overhead. The
gambling rooms were dark and quiet. The Seth
Thomas ticked loudly. Four-thirty, it was; Selena
saw that now.

The three men crossed the lobby with their
shadows rising and falling demon-like on the
walls. In the street three horses waited quietly at the hitching rail, the light from the hotel glinting from their silver trappings.

Diego lifted Selena so that she sat side-saddle, then swung up behind her. With one arm circling
her waist and the other on the reins, he turned to
his companions. “
Ay, amigos
,” he whispered.

Urg
ing their horses forward they crossed the square
at a walk, starting a gallop only when on the hill
leading from town. Then they sped up a trail silvered by a full moon haloed by fog.

At the top of the first rise Diego reined in and Selena found herself gazing back at the scattered
lights of San Francisco. She did not know what to
think or what to feel about her abduction, her
mind was a jumble.

A blast roared in her ear. She
cringed against Diego. When she smelled the acrid
odor of gunpowder she realized one of the men
had fired his pistol in the air. Diego laughed, then
turned his horse to the south.

As they rode, Selena became increasingly aware of Diego
’s body pressed to hers, his chest hard on
her back, his leg hard on her buttock. He had
wanted her, she thought, suddenly thrilled. Like a
knight errant of old, he had carried her off, risking
the wrath of the world, defying all for love.

As the motion of the horse lulled her, she imag
ined them coming to a sylvan meadow, the other
two vaqueros riding on, leaving her alone with
Diego. The two of them would stand on a rocky
crag watching the sun rise over the Sierras, his
arm about her waist, his lips teasing her hair as he
confessed his love. She would enter the circle of
his arms, her body straining to his, her lips yield
ing.

Diego. He was a man. He was confident. Not
like those she’d known on the wagon-trail west,
awkward, fumbling. . . .

She felt Diego
’s hand at the nape of her neck seeking the knot of the kerchief. The cloth loos
ened and fell from her mouth and she rubbed her
sore lips.

“
My mother,” she said. ‘‘My mother will be furious.”

Yet it was mock rue only.
Her mother,
who always had men hovering around her, Barry
Fitzpatrick on the trail and now that stuffy Robert
Gowdy, wasn’t the only one attractive woman men
found desirable.

Diego laughed.
“You are such a child. Do not
fear. I will tell your mother.”

Selena stiffened. A child! He thought of her as
a child! Wasn’t she nineteen? When the time came
she would show him she was a woman! When
they reached—where?

“
Where are we going?” she asked.

“
To Rancho de la Torre. There, in two days
time, we will be married.”

“
Married?”

“
Of a certainty. You will become Senora Selena de la Torre.”

Nonplused, she could think of nothing to say.

“We will have
una fiesta grande
” Diego was
saying. He spoke grandly, emphasizing his Span
ish words lovingly. “We will mount the best of the
horses, each decorated with silver, your horse cov
ered with a cloth sewn with silks of gold and with
pieces of iron and copper so the horse makes a
sound like many bells. The man who will be the
godfather of our first child will ride to the chapel
with you. The godmother rides with me. After
the ceremony we, you and I, return together, as we
ride now. At the rancho the vaqueros seize me to
remove my spurs. I must redeem them with the
gift of a bottle of
aguardiente.

“
We enter the
casa
and we kneel before my father
to ask his blessing. When he gives it I raise my hand and the guitars play and the
fandango
be
gins.”

“
The
fandango
?”

“
The dance. We dance and we drink and we
sleep and we dance and we drink and we sleep
again. We have contests, bull and bear baiting, drawing the cock. For two days, perhaps for three
days, who can say? My Selena, you have never
seen the like of such a fiesta.”

Picturing herself whirled from man to man,
hearing their admiring shouts, seeing the eyes of
the
senoritas
envying her as Diego claimed her and bore her off, Selena rested her head against
his chest and blissfully slept.

The sun was rising red over the hills when
Diego turned from the main trail. They followed
a rutted road through woods and fields, coming at
last to a sprawl of adobe buildings. Selena saw
horses in a corral behind the ranch and cattle
grazing in a field beyond the corral.

“
We are here. Rancho de la Torre,” Diego said
with pride in his voice.

They dismounted amid barking dogs and cack
ling chickens. Several dark-eyed young girls came
up solemnly to greet them. While one of the men unsaddled the horses, Diego led Selena past these
senoritas
, who were, she gathered, his sisters. He told her their names so rapidly she could remem
ber only three, Maria and Esperanza and Teresa. When she caught Esperanza’s eye the girl broke
into quickly stifled giggles.

Diego bowed Selena through the door to a small
bedroom. “I know you must be wearied,” he said,
nodding to the one large bed. “This is the room
of my sister Esperanza.” He smiled. “She will be
your chaperone until the wedding tomorrow.”

He might at least have asked her! When she
began to protest, he took her in his arms.

“
Ah, Selena,” he said. He repeated her name,
“Selena, Selena, Selena,” punctuating each utter
ance of it with a kiss, first on her closed eyes, then
the tip of her nose, finally her mouth.
She returned his kiss as his hands traveled from
her back to the curve of her hips and up beneath
the cloak to her breasts, the touch of his fingers
cold through her nightgown. He held her breasts,
cradling and caressing them until she moaned,
clinging to him, his hands warming, his body hard
against hers. Now, she thought. Now he will . . .

Diego stepped away, leaving her arms still ex
tended toward him. Disappointed, still with a feel
ing of feverish longing, she dropped them to her
sides. She had to take a deep breath to steady
herself.

“
We will go to the padre tomorrow morning,” Diego said earnestly. “You’re not of the Roman
faith, are you?”

“
We belong to the Church of England,” Selena
replied.

“
Father Hidalgo will explain what you must do. Do not worry. The Mexican priests are more sym
pathetic to converts than the Spanish ones were.”

He kissed her once more, tenderly on the forehead, then left.
“Diego,” she called after him, not
wanting him to leave, wanting his arms about her,
his lips on hers. But when she threw open the door
he was gone.

She lay on the bed with the cloak over her, ex
pecting to toss for hours. She fell asleep at once, however, not waking until early in the afternoon.

The rest of Selena
’s day passed in a blur of
initial impressions of the rancho. She tried on
dresses with the sisters helping, heard them laugh
ing as they pinned here and tucked there. She had supper with women who ignored her, whispering among themselves as they ate—though she liked the food itself, which was spiced and tasty.

She met Diego
’s father, was awed by this tall,
solemn-faced man who spoke so little English.
She met the rest of Diego’s sisters—he had seven
in all—and his one brother, a ten-year-old who
looked very much like him. She learned from the boy that their mother had died of influenza when
he was seven. Diego had made no mention of his
mother during their few passionate meetings in
Santa Clara a month before.

When at last she was alone in the bedroom she
shared with Esperanza, a panic swept over Selena.
What am I doing here? she asked herself. Am I actually going to marry this man tomorrow, this
man I hardly know? Even though I’m not a fre
quent churchgoer, am I ready to give up my faith
for him? Become a Roman Catholic? Will I have
to live out my life here on this isolated ranch, see
ing little of California and nothing of the rest of
the world? If only, she thought desperately, I had
someone to talk to! If only her mother were with her.

She turned, with that feeling of desperation, to
Esperanza, who lay on her own bed with the blankets pulled to her neck. She was so young, no
more than fifteen, but she did at least speak
English well. Perhaps talking to Diego’s sister
would help assuage her fears. And yet, Selena
hardly knew where to begin.