by Daniel Knapp
Strangely, it was she who had nearly wavered, not Solana. The Indian woman had grown as attached to Moses as she was to her own son, and at first she wept uncontrollably. Moses, too young to know or have anything to say about what was happening to him, nonetheless seemed as totally accepting of the change as an ancient shaman. He stared calmly over Solana's shoulder, first at Miwokan, then at Esther, and then, comfortingly, almost patiently, he stroked Solana's hair as though he was the parent and she the child.
"You see? He knows this is best," Solana said, standing up, wiping her eyes, and taking Esther's hand as she walked out of earshot.
"But now I don't," Esther whispered, holding back tears.
"You know that I love him as my own."
"Yes."
"But I must be strong in this, as you must be. I must live with the pain of his going away, accept the empty place in me that will be there all the years he is no longer here. As you must, in your own way. I cannot know why you will not have him with you, but I know you. And I know you would not do this unless the reasons in your heart are strong."
"Someday I will tell you what those reasons are."
"It does not matter to me. I believe you do what you must. And I know that Moses, as much as he is loved here, is different. He will always be different here, not an Indian… Not a stranger—he could never be that. But never completely one of us."
"That wouldn't be good for him."
"No it would not. I hope it is not too late for him to be one of his own. But what you are doing will be a chance for that."
Esther gazed off for a moment, wondering if the four years here had already shaped him enough to make him a permanent outsider in the world he was about to enter. She turned back to Solana and smiled sadly. "You and Miwokan always remind me, when I least expect it, of how much wisdom and strength I lack."
"Come," Solana said gently, putting her arm through Esther's. "We will go back to him now. And there will be no tears. We must do what is for him and not ourselves."
When she rode out of the village with him, his expression was as blank as it was now. She brushed at his hair with her fingers as the stagecoach finally rocked him to sleep. He probably knows there is nothing he can do about what is happening to him, she thought. No more than I can alter the emptiness and increasing uncertainty I have felt in Joaquin's absence.
He is accepting it as I must accept. But God, the lack of Murietta is so dreadful.
It was not the same palpable, hollowed out longing she had experienced during her year without Alex at Bent's Fort. That had been like the absence of a limb and a lessening of the warmth of the sun. Aside from what the loss of Joaquin meant concerning Mosby, this was more like an increase in weight around her heart; and an unexpected unsteadiness, a feeling that the earth was about to shift beneath her feet, to open and swallow her up. Until now, she had not been aware of how much she had come to rely on Murietta. She sorely missed his honest, objective advice about her business dealings, his confirmations and gentle corrections of her judgment, the way his calm reason cut through her often emotional reaction to things and helped her see them more objectively. She could almost feel the absence of him, see the gap where a living, physical barrier once screened her from loneliness. She also recognized now how important he had been in providing a focus of attention outside herself.
Magnifying her disquiet was the strange disbelief that began when she glanced at the accountings Murietta had hurriedly left with her that final day. Inventory, Blue Star holdings, and mining properties aside, $501,475 was deposited in her name at Adams and Company. When she translated the figure into the words "more than a half-million dollars," she had begun laughing hysterically. She had watched the figure increase on each bank statement over the past four years, but now she wondered whether there had been some simple but enormous mathematical mistake somewhere along the line. She was only twenty- three years old. She could not comprehend how she had come to be a rich woman. During the hours when she believed the figure, she was not sure she could continue playing such a game without faltering, committing some disastrous error, and losing everything.
As the day she planned to take little Moses to the school approached, an unsettling hollowness grew within her. Vague fears and sieges of inexplicable remorse drifted through her mind like patches of ground fog, all the more unsettling, puzzling, because they did not last.
Thinking of it now, as the stagecoach jounced over a rough stretch of road, she wondered whether the source of that additional disquiet was Moses himself. She had long since accepted the impossibility of having him with her, she told herself. She was sad about separating him from Solana, but she was sure that she was doing the best thing for Moses. The thought buoyed her spirits until the boy spoke to her for the first time.
She was saying good-bye to him outside the entrance to the school. The old priest who met them when they arrived stood watching. She was certain the Jesuits would provide him with a good home, moral guidance, proper food and care. He would have an education. Barnett had spoken highly of this new school once, when she had drawn him into a general conversation about California's educational needs. Esther realized that in all likelihood, the end result for Moses here would probably be a seminary and the priesthood. Although the prospect went against her Protestant grain, no other denomination had established a similar institution in northern California. And the thought of Moses once-removed from what she knew of the world made up for her reservations. But then he said his first words to her.
"Are you my real mother?" he asked, eyeing the gold, heart-shaped amulet hanging next to her locket watch.
She was suddenly sure he remembered it from their time together. Guilt stabbed at her as she saw that he could not look her in the eye.
For a moment she was about to answer, "Yes. Oh, God, yes, I am your mother," and sweep him up in her arms and kiss his little face and take him back with her.
The priest who had come out to greet them took Moses' hand, turned him, and pointed to a hand-carved Virgin near the vaulted door of the Spanish-style school.
"That, my son, is your real mother."
Esther fought down mounting doubt, self-recrimination, and anguish as Moses' face brightened. The boy walked over and hesitantly touched the wooden woman whose outstretched arms and loving smile were directed toward three small children carved at her feet. Esther felt a brief but shocking twinge of jealousy. She had not seen Moses smile at her like that since his infancy. But now, as he stood there mesmerized, he was beaming.
"When will I see her?" he asked the priest.
Two voices argued in Esther's mind: "He is Mosby's son and you cannot bear the constant reminder when you are with the boy for more than an hour." Then softer, but almost as powerfully: "Moses is your son as well. And you are his mother."
Moses turned again to the statue.
She took a step toward him, but the brown-robed, aging friar gently laid a hand on her arm and held her back.
"She comes here every night," the priest said to Moses. "When we are all asleep."
Esther's expression had become a plea as well as a question now. But the gray-haired Jesuit wisely shook his head. A small voice within her whispered that he was right. Surely it was better for Moses to be here rather than with her, seeing, every day, the loathing that he could only think was directed at him. Surely, not telling him that she was his mother, rather than telling him and leaving him here, wondering how his mother could do such a thing, was best. For a moment the logic was almost overwhelmed by emotions that seemed to pull her apart.
"Will she ever come in the day?" Moses asked.
The priest sighed. "Yes… one day… one day you—all of us—will see your real mother."
"I would like to go inside the great hut now," Moses said.
"Go," the priest said, smoothing the boy's wild black hair. "Father Bernardo is waiting for you inside the door."
The boy stared at Esther for a moment. Her moist eyes and the resignat
ion in her face confused him for a moment. He saw her try to smile and innocently interpreted her tears as happiness for him. His huge brown eyes were no longer wary. She thought she saw the beginning of a grateful smile at the corners of his mouth. But then it and he were gone through the solid oak door.
She wiped her eyes and bit her lower lip until she thought she would draw blood. The priest strolled with her briefly, recounting the contents of her letter, reaffirming the wisdom of what she was doing, then bade her farewell.
In the hired buggy on the way back to Marysville, she refused to break down and have the driver see or hear it. She knew, now, that no matter how much she missed Murietta, this had tied her mind in knots, torn at her even more. She held herself in check until she was alone in the stagecoach, headed south again. Once the tears started, she thought they would never stop.
Fifty-one
It was late in the day when Esther debarked from the stagecoach in Sacramento. She was immediately reminded of Murietta and, tangentially, of Mosby. The city was buzzing with stories of how the bandit and four companions had stopped a stage near the mining town of Angel's Camp, then inexplicably let it pass untouched. It had been one of Alex Todd's expresses, carrying gold from the southern mines. On board was a shipment from Frémont and another from E. Cable's Southern Sierra Mining Company. Some wags had it that Murietta was in the employ of the two mines. Others thought it possible that the bandit and the Todd cousins were in league with one another.
Esther had her bag taken to her rooms at the Hotel Orleans and headed for a real estate office owned by a sharp-faced man named William Sharon. She looked at two houses with him and found them unsuitable. Sharon showed her another, and she began to suspect that he was trying to unload at ridiculously inflated prices properties he probably owned himself. There could be no other reason why the houses were empty when they were in such short supply.
On the way back to the Orleans, Esther passed an eating establishment and could not believe the sign outside:
"The Donner Lake Restaurant. Proprietor: Lewis Keseburg."
She shuddered and shook her head in disgust. The sound of harsh male laughter drew her attention to an open-front saloon and beer garden just ahead. She started to cross the street, but then she had an even darker reminder of Joaquin. At one of the tables underneath a broad, striped awning, Isaac Claussen sat with his arm around a silver-haired Indian. Anger rose within her. As much as she hated Claussen for what he had done to Murietta, his association with Mosby made her wish even more that the red-bearded man were dead.
She had the urge to walk up to Claussen and smash his face with one of the whiskey bottles on the table.
She took a deep breath to quiet and control herself, adjusted her veil, and slowed her stride. The Indian was so drunk Claussen had grabbed his chin and propped his head up. Claussen was talking nonstop. Four other rough-looking white men nodded in agreement with him. Two of them braced another Indian much younger than the first. There was an empty chair next to Claussen. It was pushed back as though someone sitting there had left the table, but Esther paid it no mind. The pale-brown men wore miners' clothing. Their faces were partially obscured. For a moment Esther got a good look at the Indians. She could not tell if they were Miwoks or Maidu, but something about the older one, whose silver hair hung forward and partially obscured his face, seemed familiar.
She was almost abreast of the saloon now, and Claussen glanced out at her. Fear suddenly took its place beside her anger. I am only a woman, she thought. And there are five of them. What chance would I have? Quickening her pace, she looked away and hurried on. Turning a corner, she skirted a row of charred, empty houses that had gone up in a four-block blaze only two months before, and continued toward her hotel.
Luther Mosby looked at his watch as he stepped out of the privy behind the saloon. Absently, he brushed the back of a sleeve over the silver marshal's star pinned over the breast pocket of his coat. Working his way back through the pantry past a Chinese dishwasher, he went through the kitchen and the main room of the saloon toward the front door. Outside, under the canvas awning of the open, beer garden area that fronted on the street, Mosby started to sit down again next to Claussen. But the red-bearded man stood up and motioned with his head for Mosby to follow him out onto the wooden sidewalk.
Claussen waited until a man and woman passed out of earshot, then whispered, "It's him, Luther, it's got to be. Ain't no two Indians in California with a scar like that."
"It's hard to believe," Mosby said, looking back at the older Indian.
"It all fits together. I know it's there. I can feel it!"
"Well, you must of slept in horseshit last night, if it is him… I wish you luck," Mosby added with a touch of envy.
"You gotta come with us, Luther."
"I got a prisoner to think of."
Claussen glanced at Mosby's star. "Shit. You been gone how long comin' out here to find him?"
"Six weeks, maybe seven."
"Couple more days ain't gonna make no never mind."
Mosby pushed his hat back on his head and took in the bank across the street. He glanced up at the legal offices on the second floor and clucked his tongue against the inside of his teeth. "You think it could amount to more than just a piece of change?"
"You're damn right it could. I'm bettin' on it."
"I could use a stake like that," Mosby said, thinking. He glanced at the sign on the law offices again. "I got some plans go beyond bein' a marshal."
"Well, how 'bout it? You comin'?"
"I suppose I could let my man rest up in the jail for a few days more. It's gonna be a long trip back to Galveston."
"Now you're talkin'," Claussen said, putting his arm over Mosby's shoulder as the two of them headed back into the saloon.
Esther turned into Second Street and made her way to the entrance of the Hotel Orleans. Walking past the reading and billiard rooms, the saloon and parlor, she climbed the stairs to the second floor. In her suite she tried to distract herself with how quickly and precisely the proprietors had duplicated the original Creole decor of the hotel. It, too, had burned to the ground in the conflagration that summer, but the owners had replaced the old wood-frame structure with a larger one of brick.
Esther's distraction could not compete with the hatred she felt for Claussen—and something more; an uneasiness that surfaced now, refused to be ignored. Something about his friendly expression, the brotherly arm over the Indian's shoulder, the grinning camaraderie of the other four men with a second "Digger" went beyond simply being incongruous, inconsistent. She thought about it as she took off her hat and poured water from a pitcher to wash her hands and face. As she was drying her hands, she realized she was so upset, so preoccupied she had forgotten she wanted to take a bath rather than just freshen up. As the hot water in the tub calmed her and soaked away the stiffness brought on by the long ride back from Marysville, Esther searched her mind for a clue about the old Indian. She found nothing and gave up.
The discomfiting feeling that Claussen was up to no good persisted as she ate a light, early supper in her room. Finished, she opened a book the priest at the school had given her after she'd paid a year's board, room, and tuition in advance. She gazed through the open connecting door at Moses' empty bed in the next room. She began to think about him and had to bite her tongue to keep from crying again. She got up and closed the door to shut away the reminder. The sadness and guilt did not abate. She turned to the book again to escape. The volume was a whitewashed history of the California missions. She started to read, but her thoughts wandered back to Claussen. No doubt, she thought, whatever it is Claussen and his cronies want, they will have before sunrise. She wished there were something she could do. But she knew there was no way even Barnett would come to the aid of the two intoxicated Indians unless she could somehow substantiate her fears. Realizing that was impossible, she forced herself to read.
On the road to Coloma, Isaac Claussen reined up in the darknes
s and waited with Mosby and two of the men with them. Two others, leading horses carrying the drunken Indians, drew abreast ten minutes later.
"Goddamnit," Claussen said, "I want to be there by this time tomorrow night."
"We got 'em tied to the saddles, Isaac," one of the stragglers whined. "But if we ride any faster, they liable to pitch out, and we won't have no guides."
Claussen belched and thought for a moment. "Shit, I know the village they's talkin' about."
"You sure, Isaac?" Mosby asked. "Too much at stake if you ain't."
"Sure I'm sure. Ain't no other place like the one the Digger spoke of. Sheer cliffs on both sides of the river."
"You think they got it hid in the village?" one of the men asked.
"Where else? Probably got it buried somewheres." Claussen laughed. "We'll know soon enough."
Another man hesitantly spoke up. "Why's it have to be tomorra night? Can't we take an extra day travelin'?"
"You blockheaded bastard," Mosby snapped. "This's got to be fast and clean. Anyone gets wind of it…"
"It's be your ass, you mean," the chastened man said. "You bein' a marshal and all."
Mosby lashed out and struck the man with the back of his fist. "You never heard that, never knew it," Mosby growled, his eyes glaring. "You understand, you stupid son of a bitch? You better. 'Cause if you don't…"
"Take it easy, Luther," Claussen said, looking up at the pale quarter-moon. "You ain't wearin' your star. And none of these boys ever laid eyes on you. Ain't that right, boys? Anyways, it'd be all our asses. We'll travel by night, both nights. Goin' and comin'. No one ever sees us anywheres near the place."
"All right," Mosby said. He glanced around at the four men. "But just remember. All of you." He turned to Claussen again. "Now, what do we do with these two Diggers?"
Claussen eased his horse around and edged in next to the younger Indian. He started to pull his pistol, then decided against using it. Unbuttoning his jacket, Claussen pulled his bowie knife from its sheath. He pushed the unconscious Indian upright and sliced smoothly and deeply across his throat. A gurgling sound rose from the pale-brown man as his jaw dropped open. He stared at Claussen in hazy disbelief until his eyes rolled up under their lids and he slumped forward. Untying the leather thongs holding the Miwok to his saddle, Claussen let him fall to the ground.