by Scott O'Dell
"My land is worth ten times that," Grandmother said sharply.
"Before the drought, maybe," Mr. Thomas said. "Not now. Everything's dried up at this moment—range, pasture, meadows, hills, streams. And the Lord knows when it will be any better. Perhaps never."
Doña Dolores rolled a cigarillo and Rosario brought her a live coal. She puffed away and said nothing.
Mr. Thomas said, "What do you think, señora?"
"I am not thinking," my grandmother answered.
"I can offer you twenty-five centavos an acre," Caleb Thomas repeated.
"Two hundred centavos," said Doña Dolores, "and I will begin to think. Not much, but a little."
"Ridiculous," cried Mr. Thomas. "How about fifty?"
"Two hundred," Doña Dolores said firmly.
Mr. Thomas took off his spectacles and polished them on his sleeve.
"Fifty-five centavos."
Doña Dolores did not bother to answer. She turned to me and asked what we were having for supper, saying that she was becoming very tired of peppers and tough meat.
Mr. Thomas began to walk up and down in front of us, hopping like an angry bird. At last, when Doña Dolores went on talking as if he weren't there, he stopped and pulled a piece of paper from his jacket and held it out in front of my grandmother. He gave the paper a shake and then pointed at it with a long finger.
"Madam," he said, "what do you propose to do with this?"
Doña Dolores puffed on her cigarillo and glanced at the paper through the cigarillo smoke.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's a bill for the goods and supplies your granddaughter bought some three months ago."
"Bills we pay once a year," Doña Dolores said. "On All Saints' Day."
"This bill," said Mr. Thomas, "must be paid immediately."
Doña Dolores planted her cane, leaned upon it, and lifted herself to her feet. "On All Saints' Day we pay our bills," she said.
Mr. Thomas folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. "Unless I hear from you by next week," he said, "I'll turn the bill over to the sheriff and attach your property."
"I will speak to the juez de campo," Doña Dolores said. She raised her cane as if she had a mind to strike him over the head. "He will attend to you."
"Juez de campo," said Mr. Thomas with a trace of pity in his voice. "Is it possible, señora, that you have not heard that Americans are now in charge of California? That the juez de campo has long since departed? Is it possible, I inquire?"
My grandmother tossed her cigarillo on the ground, crushed it out with the tip of her cane, and stumped off to the sala, slamming the door behind her.
Mr. Thomas looked startled for a moment, as he settled his long gray riding coat around his shoulders. He reminded me of a little gray sparrow ruffling its feathers. He coughed and took the paper from his pocket and held it under my nose.
"You bought these things, did you not?" he said in a pleasant voice.
"Yes," I answered.
"And you intend to pay for them?"
"Yes."
"Good," Mr. Thomas said. "Bring the money to the store when you come again."
He smiled and got on his horse and tipped his hat.
But as he rode away a sudden suspicion took hold of me. I doubted that he would wait for the money we owed. I had no idea what the American law was, but what if he took the bill straight to the American authorities, whoever they were, and somehow got the right to seize our property? I became certain of it as he paused for a moment on the rim of the mesa and gazed around at the rolling hills of Dos Hermanos.
The next morning I took two extra horses and Rosario and rode down the canyon to the lagoon where the wreck of the galleon lay.
The stream was low but the tides had piled up many logs and heaps of seaweed around the cavelike hole I used to reach the ship. It took us until noon to clear away the debris.
As I tied the riata around Rosario's waist, I remembered the day when I had nearly drowned in the jaws of the burro clam. And I remembered it as I let myself down into the hole. The water was cold and murky. I kept the end of the riata wrapped around my hand. I had told Rosario to keep tight hold of the other end and his mind on what he was doing.
Everything looked the same—the thick layers of silt, the big rocks, the floating strands of seaweed, the chest. Nearby stood the gray burro clam, its jaws half-open to embrace anything that strayed near. A film of river mud concealed the gold coins. When I had scraped it off, my lungs were hurting and it was time for me to go above. A small shark followed me.
The sun was overhead but it gave off little heat. I stood on the riverbank and swung my arms, trying to get warm, but I was really trying to get up my nerve to go back again. Rosario wasn't interested in the coins but he wanted to explore the wreck. I had a good notion to let him.
A shark trailed me down, floating off as I raised the hand that held my knife, but turning just out of reach to watch me. I could see its gills opening and closing. It was only half my size but it had mean little eyes set close together and flecked with red, and three rows of teeth, one row set back of the other.
Small fish were swimming around the chest. They darted away as I pried the first handful of coins loose. I put the coins in the sack that was tied to my waist, carried them up, and laid them out on a log.
On the third trip below, I reached the bottom of the chest and saw that it was now empty. I put the coins in the pouch, stepped wide of the burro clam, and made my way up for the last time. I was very glad that it would be the last time.
We rubbed the coins bright, using the river sand, and took them back to the ranch. In the morning I set off for San Diego and traded the coins for American dollars, enough to pay Mr. Thomas, with a bagful to spare.
Mr. Thomas, I am sure, was disappointed that I was able to pay my bill but he didn't let on. He smiled and patted my arm, and tried to sell me a coat with a band of otter fur on the collar.
25
Rains came with the New Year and they lasted for more than a month. We had managed to save half our cattle, all of our working horses, and some of the mesteños. But most of these wild horses in our part of the country Don Roberto had rounded up, because there wasn't food for them, and had driven over the high cliffs at Punta de Laguna.
When the spring grass was just beginning to show, Mr. Thomas rode up to the ranch and announced that he had come for beef cattle. He bought seventy tough steers, paying us ninety centavos a head, and drove them off the same day to San Diego. About a month later I found out why he had bought the cattle. Juan Diaz, our mayordomo, came back from San Diego with a wild tale.
"Early in the morning," the mayordomo told us, "that was three months ago in January, a man named Marshall, who was a carpenter, was building a grist mill for a man named Sutter. He had just finished building a flume from the river to the mill. One morning he went down to the flume to shut off the water. There at the bottom of the flume he saw a piece of what he thought might be gold. He pounded it between rocks and when it changed its shape but did not break in two he was certain it was gold. Almost certain, that is.
"A few days later he went to Sutter's and showed him the pieces he had found in the flume. They tested them and proved they were gold. Right then the two men decided to keep what they found a big secret. But shortly afterward a man named Brannon found some gold and he galloped to San Francisco and rode down the streets, shaking a bottle of gold dust over his head and shouting, 'Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River.'
"Within a week all the sailors in San Francisco harbor deserted their ships. Carpenters dropped their hammers. A nearby town opened its jail. Thousands flocked to the mill and clawed it to pieces, looking for gold. Three Frenchmen pulled up a tree stump and found a fortune in gold hanging on to its roots. Imagine, if you are able, a fortune from a tree stump."
Two days after he had told us this tale, Juan Diaz took six horses from our corral and rode off at a gallop for the North.
; We all thought Juan was crazy but he was not crazy. The story he told us was true. Before the month of May was gone, a steady line of men on horses began to troop up the King's Highway, along the western boundary of Dos Hermanos. They were on their way to the gold fields.
When I went to San Diego, I learned that these men, about four hundred of them, had crossed the Isthmus of Panama and there bought passage to San Francisco. But the crooked captain of the ship carried them only as far as San Diego. He told them they were in San Francisco, and then sailed back to Panama to pick up another cargo, leaving the men stranded two hundred leagues south of the gold fields.
Our vaqueros reported that the gold-seekers stole a band of horses and slaughtered our cows during the first few days, so I went down to the Highway to move our stock out of reach.
A herd of cattle had strayed, and these we drove back. I had three vaqueros with me. As we crossed the Highway we encountered two men riding white geldings and leading two mares. I knew the horse by sight; they bore the Z brand of Dos Hermanos. As we pulled up in front of them, I thought of the time my father and I had stopped the band of gringo thieves.
"The geldings belong to Dos Hermanos," I said to the two young men.
I was still angry that we had found the carcasses of more than forty cows scattered along the King's Highway. The gringos at least could have slaughtered our steers and not our breeding stock. I spoke in Spanish. The one with the long blond hair and blue eyes looked puzzled. The other young man answered me in Spanish and I saw that he was a Spaniard.
"We bought the horses," he said.
"That story I am acquainted with," I said. "I have heard it many times and I am tired of hearing it."
"I repeat, senorita. The horses we have bought. We paid ten pesos apiece for them. Except one of the mares, which cost four pesos."
He turned away and spoke to the gringo in the gringo language. Whereupon the young man with the long blond hair fumbled around in a small bag he had tied to his saddle horn and pulled out a piece of paper. He swung his horse around, edged up to me, and handed it over. At the top of the paper were the words "Sunrise Grocery Store" and, below it, "Caleb Thomas, Prop." Farther down was a notation, and then a signature that I recognized as belonging to Thomas.
"Mr. Thomas," I said, "did not own the horses he sold you. They bear our brand."
The Spaniard spoke to the gringo, who continued to look puzzled. I noticed a name in gilt letters on the valise he had tied to his saddle. It read "Dr. John Brett."
The gringo fumbled around again in his valise and pulled out some paper money, a fistful, and handed it to me. "Perdón," he said.
The Spaniard said, "He wants to pay for the horses."
I looked at the gringo, who was not much older than I. I glanced at his long blond hair and blue eyes and the way his long legs hung down out of the stirrups. I glanced at his valise, which was very new, and at the fresh gilt letters that spelled out his name. He was the nicest-looking gringo I had seen.
"With your permission, the doctor and I will continue the journey," the Spaniard said. "I have a long way to go."
"Where are you bound?" I said, though I knew.
"To seek fortune in the gold field."
"And the other?" I said, pointing.
"He is a doctor and will pursue his profession somewhere along our coast. Perhaps in Santa Barbara."
"Tell your friend," I said, "that there are no doctors in the pueblo of San Diego or the country around. And only one that I know of in pueblo Los Angeles."
"I will impart your information," said the Spaniard, who was one to talk importantly.
"Do not forget," I reminded him.
The white gelding the young doctor was riding had a bad way, I remembered, of shying at anything that moved suddenly—a twig, a bush, anything. I told one of the vaqueros to untie a gelding that we had with us. It was one of our best horses.
"Inform the doctor that the gelding he rides is not trustworthy. And ask him to dismount while my vaquero changes saddles."
The doctor got off his horse and stood holding his new valise. He looked much better standing on the ground than he did sitting in the saddle. When the new horse was saddled, he climbed up and tied his valise to the horn.
He said something in Spanish as they rode off along the King's Highway. He had a gringo's voice, but it was soft. I watched him bouncing up and down in the saddle, the small valise swinging from the saddle horn. I watched as he came to a little rise and then disappeared in the yellow dust and the bright sun.
26
My grandmother wanted to know what I had seen on my journey to the King's Highway. She was sitting in her sala, smoking Caleb Thomas's tobacco. Rosario stood nearby, waving a fan made of a manzanita branch.
"I found the carcasses of many cows," I said.
"The gringos?" Doña Dolores said.
"Yes."
"They are a swarm of insects."
"Not all," I said. "I encountered a doctor on the King's Highway. Señor Thomas had sold him some of our horses, and when I accused the doctor of stealing them he offered me a handful of money."
"Did you take it?"
"Yes," I answered. I decided to say nothing about giving the young gringo one of our best horses.
Doña Dolores said, "Horses and cattle should bring a price now that the gringos are upon us like insects. But what we need is someone to bargain with them. A man."
"I'll bargain."
"You would give the ranch away before the summer is out. A strong man should be in charge of Dos Hermanos, not a girl."
I said nothing more because I was too angry to trust my tongue.
Doña Dolores was watching me. "I do not mean to offend you," she said. "But I must speak the truth. The ranch is big. It has forty-seven thousand acres, all of them good. It is not a plaything. It requires strong hands. A man!"
I did not reply, but asked her permission to be away for a moment.
I went to the room where our leather goods were made. Here I picked up a footstool that had been lying around for a year and took it back to the sala and placed it on the floor in front of Doña Dolores.
"What is this?" she asked, eyeing the stool.
"A place for your feet."
"I have a place for my feet."
"Two more of our Indians have gone north to find gold," I said. "Rosario is needed."
My grandmother was smoking. She tossed the half-finished cigarillo in the fireplace and straightened herself. "He is needed here," she said, raising her voice. "Now and tomorrow. Here!"
The golden eagle was still screaming in the courtyard.
"Rosario is needed in other places," I said and, again asking my grandmother's permission, I left her to fume.
The big eagle was still screaming and Rosario was getting ready to feed him. It had always made me sad to see the great-winged bird sitting there in the courtyard, chained to a perch. Most of the time he sat with his feathers ruffled and his eyes half-closed.
I said to Rosario, "Let the eagle go."
"How? He has a chain."
"With a file, which you can borrow from the blacksmith, and use to file the chain."
"Would it not be better if the blacksmith filed the chain?"
"I wish you to file the chain."
"I leave," said Rosario.
When he came back we both used the file and cut the silver chain. The eagle did not know that he was free. He stood as he had stood before, drooping his wings, watching us with his golden eyes. I gave him a push and he fell on the ground. I pushed him again, which he answered with a claw. He craned his neck and walked away. He spread his wings and ever so softly rose above the gate and the roof. He made a circle above us and another still higher. Then he flew off toward the mountains, toward the high mesas beyond the mountains.
"He returns to the country he came from," I said.
"The Piute country," Rosario said. "Do you wish to follow him?" I said.
"Yes. But how?"
&nb
sp; "On a horse."
"What horse do you speak of?"
"A horse that I will give you."
"On Tiburón?"
The Piutes are not bashful Indians.
"No."
"On Sixto, señorita?"
"Sixto."
"And a saddle?"
"Yes."
"With silver?"
"With silver."
"A red poncho?"
"Red."
"When?"
"Now," I said, "because I have much work to do."