Hers the Kingdom (65 page)

     "I am sorry that I was so rude to you," Willa said, "and of course I remember telling you to come any time. I'm pleased that you did."

     I made an excuse to leave then, but later on Willa would confide in me what happened.

     She said to him, "You asked what I intended to do about the trouble here. I'll tell you. There is a young man, Ignacio's son Pablo, who is the same age as my son Thad. Well, Pablo has been a soldier in Mexico for the past several years—but he was born on this ranch and raised here, he knows it well and feels some affection for it, I believe. He is going to recruit a group of men—
vaqueros
—to serve as protectors."

     "Whoa!" Philip interjected, squinting at her in a curious way, "
Banditos
—hired guns. That could be rough, you know."

     "Have you been talking to Joseph?" she said, accusingly.

     "No, I promise I haven't. But I know Joseph wouldn't like it."

     "I said
vaqueros
, not
banditos
," she replied.

     "Men handy with guns and knives," was all he answered.

     "They aren't here yet," she came back. "Pablo won't be back with them for two weeks or so."

     "So you are declaring war, then?"

     "Not war," she answered, "why do you put words in my mouth? All I want to do is protect my people and keep my land free. I want to be left alone, that is all."

     "By alone, do you mean you want to keep the settlers from passing through, as well?"

     "Yes," she was definite. "We offered them a reasonable right of passage and they refused, saying they should be able to come and go as they please, using any route they wish. That is unacceptable, and now I am tired of arguing with them. Especially since I feel sure they are aiding the rustlers."

     He looked at her and said, "I'm afraid you're asking for trouble, my friend."

     "Are we to be friends, then?" she answered, in the same offhand way.

     "I hope so," he said.

     "Then I will try once more to make you understand—I'm not asking for trouble, I'm simply answering it."

     "I wonder what your friend Mr. Roosevelt would have to say about your big stick."

     She touched her hand to her hair in a gesture that was, somehow, delicate. "I know Mr. Roosevelt thinks this coast to be one of the most beautiful he's ever known. I know he hopes it might survive man's intrusion. He told me as much."

     "Is that why you want to keep everybody out?" Philip asked.

     "It's at least part of the reason . . ." she said, thinking. "Perhaps you know that I have a particular fascination with raptors—for peregrine falcons especially. Like so many other birds, they are being forced out of their nesting grounds . . . It seems to me that we must leave some places on this earth where the hawks can fly."

     "Are hawks more important than people, then?" he asked.

     She answered truthfully. "I don't know. Perhaps you expected me to say 'of course not,' but I'm not sure that man is inherently so much more important than other living things. No, it's not even that—it's that I believe man has to take some notice. I am so often appalled at the havoc men wreak when they move into a beautiful place. I don't want that to happen here."

     Philip Bourke turned the conversation back to hawks. As it happened, he knew a good deal about peregrines. His uncle had been a falconer and he had been fond of that particular uncle.

     After that, the talk ranged over a wide number of subjects—people they both knew, places they had been, amiable talk that happens when two people are becoming acquainted. In the course of the conversation, which went on for better than an hour, Willa happened to ask, as if it were of no consequence whatever, "How did you happen to know about the killing of the rustlers?"

     And Philip had answered, with as little concern, "I read about it in the papers."

     "The
Times?
" she asked.

     "Not at all," he laughed. "I try never to read Mr. Otis' sheet—his hatred for the Southern Pacific is genuine enough, but so too, I'm afraid, is his contempt for reformers, in which class he happens to put me. No, I think it was one of the local papers—perhaps the
North County News.
I can't remember, for certain."

     "So you are another of the wild progressives, are you? I'm not sure my reputation can withstand association with any more radicals."

     "I promise not to try to convert you," Philip had said.

     And Willa answered, "I am not a political person, Mr. Bourke. You should know that."

     "Philip," was all he said.

     "Philip," she agreed.

Philip Bourke came often after that. Sometimes he rode out with Arcadia and Joseph in Joseph's new Oldsmobile, other times he turned up on horseback. He was one of the most unassuming men I think I've ever met. From Joseph, we knew that Philip had made a small fortune in real estate, enough to allow him a certain freedom. He was far from wealthy, but then wealth had never been his goal, he told Willa.

     "Do you think that odd?" I asked her.

     "Why, yes, I suppose I do," she answered. "Don't you?"

     I could only shake my head at her. "Sometimes I wonder, sister, how you can know so much about the behavior of hawks, and so little about the behavior of men."

     This conversation took place during our mid-morning session as she sat at the edge of my desk. As usual, when she tired of a subject, she simply changed it.

     "Aleja plans to stay on here with her mother, she says—if there is some work she might do."

     "What kind of work?" I asked, worried. We had been trying—Willa and Joseph, and Sara, even—to find Aleja a business position, but without success. What had become eminently clear was that if we forced the issue with the companies in which we could wield power, Aleja would be employed, but only under duress. It would not be pleasant for her, we knew. Aleja was too shy to endure the kind of unpleasantness she would most certainly have to confront. Even Joseph was amazed at the resistance to hiring a woman. "A college-trained woman is bad enough," Philip had said one recent evening, "but a college-trained Mexican woman, well . . . you might as well ask them to hire an Eskimo."

     "She says she is willing to do anything—cleaning, cooking . . ."

     "Oh, Willa, she can't," I groaned, "not after all that training. We must find something better than that."

     "What do you have in mind?" Willa asked, quietly.

     I understood at once. "We've run this ranch office in the most slipshod manner possible," I came back. "I'm always so rushed with everything, and you have more than you can manage with the other businesses. Why not make her office manager here? I can train her, then she can take it all over and it will be handled ever so much better."

     Willa hugged me. "I just didn't want you to feel pushed out," she said.

     "I'll gladly dance out of here," I answered, feeling especially fond of Willa for the way she had told me.

     "Thad seems to be doing well as the head boss man now," Willa went on. "He doesn't command the respect they gave Ignacio, but I'm not sure that anyone can. And Ned Lattimore has been surprisingly helpful. Thank goodness for Ned."

     "He's worth two men," I chuckled, "and it's a good thing too, because his brother has been drunk for three days now—or had you noticed?"

     "I noticed," Willa sighed, "but he's harmless enough when he's drunk, and as you say—Ned does the work of two, so I guess we needn't complain."

     "I think you'd better tell Thad, then," I said, "because I heard him complaining to Ned the other day—and I don't think Ned liked it one bit."

     "Oh, dear," Willa answered, "I do wish Thad would grow up and discover the meaning of compromise."

     "Maybe," I said wickedly, "the two of you can learn together."

     She was still too pleased with me on the matter of Aleja to be angry.

Pablo returned as he said he would, within a fortnight, bringing with him sixteen men, who, in turn, were followed by a dozen women—some walking, some on wagons—as well as half a dozen dirty children. The men wore sombreros and had cartridge belts crossed on their chests. Willa's army had arrived. She went on to review the troops, feeling a mixture of excitement and fear.

     To Pablo she said, "Who are these women? Why are they here?"

     "
Soldaderas
," Pablo answered. "In Mexico they go to war with their men. They cook, they provide all their needs, it is easier that way."

     "These men are soldiers, then?"

     "Most were
rurales
—what you call federal police. They worked for President Diaz."

     "Diaz is in exile," she reminded him.

     Pablo nodded.

     "So these men are deserters?" she asked.

     Pablo did not answer.

     All the while the men sat their horses, staring at Willa. I knew, by the way she held herself, that she was struggling to maintain a presence. She was playing
La Patróna.

     "Put them in the far bunkhouse," she ordered, "I've had it cleared. There should be enough room."

     "They want to make camp on the beach—at Indian Point."

     The
rurales
watched her, their dark eyes waiting.

     "The bunkhouse," Willa said firmly. "If they want to camp there's a clearing behind it, but tell them to mind their fires. Be firm about that, you know the fire danger here."

     Pablo did not like it, she could see. For a moment she was afraid he would argue with her, and she would have to explain to him that she did not want those men close to the schoolhouse, which Sally now shared with Aleja, and where the children were each day.

     But Pablo seemed to think better of it, and simply repeated what she had said. The men talked among themselves. They were not pleased, it was easy to tell. The women and the children moved closer, staring at us with bold eyes.

     "They are called
Adelinas
, sometimes—the women," Aleja told us under her breath. "Those with the very dark eyes and blue-black hair are Indians, those with paler skins, Spanish. They actually go into battle with their men, sometimes the children act as gunbearers. They say that when a man falls, his
soldadera
will pick up his gun and fight on."

     "What a barbaric life," Sally said, staring back at the women without blinking.

     "Pablo told me the government allows it to save money. The women feed the men—they steal or barter or, when they can, buy food, they nurse them when they are hurt or sick, they keep them happy."

     At this, to Aleja's great embarrassment, Sally guffawed.

     "In other words," she said, "the government uses the women to do their dirtiest work."

     "It is a hard life for the women, and for the children," was all Aleja would allow herself to say.

     "It is barbaric," Sally said again, unwilling to give in, "and it produces barbarians." As she said this, one of the children—a boy, perhaps nine, with two long streams of mucus running into his lips—walked purposefully over to a lemon bush at the edge of the courtyard and proceeded to pick three of the largest fruit. What was amazing about the act was that he looked at us the whole time; clearly, it was an act of aggression. The men were still occupied among themselves, trying to decide if they would accept the order to repair to the bunkhouse, but the women saw, and they waited to see what we would do.

     Porter came slamming out of the house at this critical juncture. He saw what had happened and, without breaking stride, headed for the boy saying, "Put those down!"

     Sally put her hand on my arm, a silent message.

     Porter was at least two years younger than the boy—and a full head taller. Still, I knew he loathed the idea of physical conflict. I had never seen him confront another child in this manner.

     "I said put it down," he repeated. The message was clear, it did not have to be translated. (Later, I wondered why Porter didn't speak in Spanish—he knew well enough how to.)