Gold (3 page)

“
Esperanza,” she tried, “your brother men
tioned contests and dances at the wedding fiesta.
The dancing I understood, I love to dance and
sing, but the games are new to me. Bull and bear
baiting, drawing the cock. What are they?”

“
The men go to the woods,” Esperanza said,
“where they capture a bear and tie him to a tree. When he tires they cart him to the rancho and tie
his leg with a long rope to the leg of the bull.
Then
the men goad them until they fight. Diego says
you should always wager on the bear.”

“
And drawing the cock?”

“
Oh, it’s very exciting, Selena! Diego is always
the best. The vaqueros bury a live cock in the
ground up to its neck. Then one at a time they
spur their horses toward it. When they near it
they hold to their horse’s mane with one hand and hang almost to the ground to grasp its head. If the
vaquero
can draw the cock from the ground that
way, he wins a prize. And he keeps the cock as
well.”

Shuddering, Selena massaged her throat with
her fingers. What strange customs! Could she ever
become used to them? Her hands went from her throat to fleetingly touch her breasts. She remem
bered how she felt when Diego caressed them.
What did strange customs matter? The ways of the
English might seem strange to him.

“
We are most pleased to have you for our new
sister,” Esperanza said shyly. “You are
muy bo
nita
, very pretty.” She sat up in bed, her dark eyes
animated now. “And now we will not have to
leave the rancho and make our home in the great valley beyond Monterey.”

Selena said curiously,
“You were going to move
to Monterey?”

“
Si,
to the house of our uncle
, Senor
Garner.
He was an
Americano
who married the sister of our father.”

“
I’ve lived in Monterey. I would think you’d rather stay here. This land is so beautiful.”

“
We would stay if we could but we have many
leagues of land and many cattle and not enough
men to do the work. We are a family of daughters,
not sons. Diego, you see, is busy with his journeys
to places like Monterey and San Francisco to sell
hides and tallow to the ships. So he has no time
to do the work that must be done here. I should
not say this to you but it is the truth.”

“
I don’t understand, Esperanza,” Selena said
uncertainly. “How will my marrying Diego change
your plans to move to Monterey?”

“
Ah, we know of your lands across the sea in
England and of your wealth there. Your mother
spoke of these things to Diego while she lay ill at
the Mission of Santa Clara.”

What could her mother have said? Selena wondered. She loved to reminisce about their onetime
estate in England, but how was it that she chose
Diego to tell her stories to? And did Diego actu
ally think they still owned the estate? Believe they
were still wealthy? Selena smiled to herself. Diego
had a surprise in store! It served him right too—
the way he’d assumed she would marry him with
out even asking!

“
In years gone by,” Esperanza went on, “the
Indians worked the land. They have become untrustworthy, my father says, for they are always
running away to the mountains of the Tulares.”

“
Perhaps he doesn’t pay them enough,” Selena
suggested.

“
Pay? I do not know pay.”

“
The money your father gives the Indians in
return for their work.”

“
Oh, he doesn’t give them money. If they have
money they buy wine and drink and cannot work
for many days. My father gives them food and a
place to sleep and the padres teach them the ways
of Christians. Yet they are ungrateful, most of
them. In the spring when the rains stop they run away to the mountains, many times stealing our
horses to eat on the way. If they can, they steal
our cattle as well. I don’t understand the ways of
the Indians, I only know what they look like.
Some of the young men are beautiful to the eye,
so strong and lean and dark. The women are ugly.
Don’t you think so?”

Selena nodded. She too had found many of the
Indians she’d seen attractive. Not the Indians of
the towns—they were slack with large bellies and
were often drunk. But on the plains and in the
mountains the braves had been lithe and sinewy.

“
When the Indians run away,” Esperanza con
tinued, “the
vaqueros
must ride to the great valley to the east and into the mountains beyond to bring
them back. Or to bring others back in their stead. And when the
vaqueros
are gone the cattle roam
wild because there are neither Indians nor
va
queros
to tend them. Many times the women must
do the work of the men as well as their own.”

“
And what is woman’s work?”

“
All that cannot be done from astride a horse,”
Esperanza said, shrugging with resignation. “Of course, when one is with child, the women do not
work as hard.”

Selena pondered this information.
“You have
such a large family. I have no brothers or sisters.
I’ve always wondered if I’d like to have some.”

“
My mother bore nine girls and three boys.
Seven of the girls lived and two of the boys. My
mother, may her soul be with God, died two
months after giving birth to Juanita, who was
born dead.”

“
Twelve children. So many.”

Esperanza raised her hands in another shrug.
“Our women are strong and able to have many
babies.
Senora
Estella Castro of Monterey bore
twenty-six children, of whom twenty lived.
Senora
Maria de la Guerra bore twenty-four children. My
uncle,
Senor
Garner of Monterey, who is a
scholar, told Diego that women of California have
a baby every fifteen months for twenty and more
years. Diego said this is as it should be. But I
think that it is not good to have so many babies. Often the babies of a woman’s old age are weak
and grow sick and die. I only wish to have twelve
children, like my mother, nine girls and three
boys.”

Twelve children! Did Diego intend her to bear
him twelve children? What did Diego expect? Involuntarily, Selena looked down at her slim body.
She shuddered. No! She wanted no babies.

Selena took a deep breath. After a moment she
blew out the lamp. “May all your wishes come
true,” she said.

Esperanza yawned.
“Each night I pray to God
they will,” she said.

Selena lay in bed a long time listening to Esper
anza’s steady breathing. Then when the noises of
the rancho had quieted and the night was still, she
went to the window and looked out at the tendrils
of fog reaching toward the ranch buildings from
the fields and woods. Her body still tingled at the
thought of Diego’s kisses. She had thought no
further than the pleasure. If they married, chil
dren would inevitably follow.

Suddenly she felt as if she were suffocating, as
though the fog had encircled her with its cold
dampness.

Quickly changing into the dress she had been
given earlier in the day, she slipped from the door
and made her way on bare feet to the stables. She
took a bridle and saddle and carried them to the corral. There she saddled a horse and quietly led
him away on foot until she’d walked through
patches of fog, to a point at least a mile from the
rancho. She hiked up her skirt, mounted and rode at a gallop toward the trail to San Francisco.

CHAPTER
THREE             

Selena tapped on the door. She waited, then
tapped again. She heard muffled sounds from in
side.

“
Who is it?” Lady Pamela called.

“
Selena.”

The bolt slid back and the door opened. Her
mother was in her blue dressing gown, holding a
candle. With a cry of relief Selena threw herself
into her arms, sobbing and laughing simultane
ously.

“
Selena, Selena, are you all right? Your hands
are so cold.”

Selena nodded.
“I’m all right, mother,” she
said.

Pamela hugged her. She put the candle on the table and, after rebolting the door, opened the
wardrobe. “Put this on,” she said, coming back
with one of her pink flannel nightgowns
,
“you’re
going to sleep here with me.”

When Selena stepped from her dress, Pamela
picked it up. “This skirt is so muddy,” she said.

“
I fell from the horse. I was riding along a trail
to the south of here when the fog began pouring
over the hills like a great wave. I ran into a branch
of a tree and fell.” She raised her nightgown to
show her mother the bruise on her thigh.

“
I’ll get some arnica liniment.”

Selena sat on the edge of the bed watching her
mother rummage in the trunk. “Didn’t Diego tell
you? He said he would.”

“
Here, I’ll rub this on.” When her mother
rubbed the lotion in with her palm, Selena winced.
“Yes, he sent someone here with a letter. He said
it was what you wanted, Selena. He said he’d come
for me tomorrow—that’s today now—and bring
me to the wedding fiesta. The way you behaved
with him in Santa Clara convinced me that it was
what you wanted, Selena. Now tell me what hap
pened.”

Something in her mother
’s tone made Selena
suspect she wasn’t telling her the full truth. Pam
ela, though, kept her head bowed and Selena
couldn’t see into her eyes.

“
Oh, mother,” Selena said. “I didn’t know what I wanted. I still don’t know what I want. I thought
I loved Diego. I felt so good when he kissed me.”
She saw Pamela stiffen and went on hurriedly. “When he kissed me, I did want to marry him, to
be with him always, but do you know what he
asked me to do?”

“
Are you certain you want to tell me?”

“
Oh yes. He said I had to become a Papist.
I
might have too, I think, for him. But do you know
what else he wanted?”

“
Selena, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“
He expected me to watch while they buried
cocks in the ground and rode past and pulled their
heads off. Can you imagine? Ugh! Yet Diego
is a wonderful horseman, the best I’ve ever seen,
better than any of the men on the trail. Better
even than Barry Fitzpatrick.”

“
Californios
are known for their riding,” Pam
ela said, trying to hide a smile over her daugh
ter’s expressed concern. “Now lie down, Selena, and let me cover you over.”

“
Leave the light on, mother.”

Sliding into bed, Pamela put her arm around her. Selena, feeling warm and protected, like a
child again, snuggled close.

“
He called me a child,” Selena said, “and I was so angry.” She pulled up her legs and clasped her
knees in her hands. “But he was right,” she said brooding. “I must still be a child. When you’re a
woman you know what you want. I don’t know what I want. I think I do and then I change my
mind.”