Snow Mountain Passage

by James D Houston

  From somewhere back in the thicket he hears other horses, American voices. To the ranchero he says, “Get out of here. Get away.”

  The man stares at him, at the pistol.

  Jim flings his free hand outward. “Go! Go! Vamoose!”

  The ranchero doesn’t hesitate. He turns and is gone. Jim plunges back into the mustard grove, calling to his men, cursing his luck, filled with shame for he knows not what.

  THE TWO PATROLS emerge from the thicket. Valentine and Carlos heard muffled voices and sounds of movement, saw no one. Another futile outing. They all yearn to rejoin the fray, but there is nothing to rejoin. Out on the swampy plain the taunting horsemen have twice more charged, each time riding nearly into range, turning back, repulsed by muskets and by grapeshot from the mired cannon. Now, after a final charge, serapes and sombreros are once again retreating. As horses disappear among the oaks, heading toward the foothills, the Volunteers watch their common enemy dissolve.

  The encounter lasts two hours, with one mule lost and one American injured, burned across the face and chest when the cannon backfired. On the wide field of battle no bodies can be seen, no sign of any casualties from the other side. Valentine would ride after them, while they’re on the run. So would the men who marched down from Yerba Buena. But the senior officer here, the red-bearded captain of marines, observes the darkening sky. With more snow likely, it’s too late in the day to give chase. They can’t get far.

  “We’ll wait,” the Captain says. “We’ll ride to that mission, to dry ourselves off and quench our many thirsts.”

  Spoils of War

  NEXT MORNING, in the early sunlight, a patch of white appears across the field. It could be a patch of snow, caught among oak limbs, except that it moves a bit. Now the upright lance is seen. The white flag flutters from its tip. A bundled rider carries the lance, and his horse seems to walk on water, as a far-off delegation skirts the edge of a glistening pond. Eventually they stop under the limbs of a massive, ancient oak that occupies its own island among the ponds and puddles.

  From the mission yard another white flag moves out to meet them, carried by the captain of marines. Riding with him are Valentine, the militia leader, and Jim Reed, his lieutenant, and the Alcalde, who will repeat in Spanish the Captain’s words and repeat in English the words of the delegation’s leader, a grizzled man of sixty or so, known to the Alcalde, the patriarch of a ranching clan. The leader’s eyes are darkly circled. All night he has been debating with his comrades about their next move. Behind him three young Californians sit straight in their saddles, pistol butts showing at their belts. Among them sits the ranking hostage, the mayor of Yerba Buena, in poncho and naval cap, age twenty-six and looking ten years older, the line of his muttonchops almost obscured by two weeks’ growth of dense black beard.

  The Captain says, Are you prepared to surrender?

  The leader says, We have come to talk.

  There will be no talking until this man and the others are returned to us.

  We will return our hostages when someone returns our horses.

  You seem to have your horses under you.

  I refer to our stock. How do we live without the horses and saddles and all the rest your soldiers have taken from us?

  You have provoked an attack on the territorial government of the United States.

  On the contrary, Captain. I believe you have provoked us.

  It is not your place to accuse me, sir!

  You tell us horses are needed for the war and cattle to feed your soldiers. Yet in those mountains to the east I have seen some of my own horses under guard and grazing …

  “Captain,” Valentine mutters at his ear, “I have never heard such insolence.”

  “At ease,” says the Captain. And then to the leader, This is a serious charge, an outrageous charge.

  You brought this war into our land …

  “These men should be whipped,” says Valentine, “and dragged through the plaza!” He touches his pistol, as if to draw.

  Jim grabs his arm. “Let’s hear them out.”

  On both sides, men raise their voices, place hands on their weapons. The Alcalde removes his hat.

  “Señores! Señores! Por favor …”

  As the voices subside, the leader continues. “We have no desire to do battle with your troops, or to demean your flag. We do not speak for Mexico. We speak only for ourselves, as ranchers, as common men.”

  To the weary, waiting hostage the Captain says, “Lieutenant Bartlett, your command of Spanish is fairly good, as I recall.”

  “I get by.”

  “What are these men up to, then? Is this a trick? Are there reserve troops in hiding?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Are we vulnerable to new attack?”

  “I’m afraid he speaks the truth.”

  “So you are being released today. Is that what’s going on?”

  “Not yet. They want you to see that I am well.”

  “And are you? Have you been tortured? Are they forcing you to speak?”

  “I’ve been treated rather cordially, sir, all things considered.”

  Valentine leans forward. “Sir, they have filled his head with nonsense.”

  “You hold your tongue, Mr. Valentine. I’ll do the talking here.”

  The Captain looks long at the leader and the men behind him. He looks at Bartlett.

  “What then do you recommend?”

  “Return as many horses and saddles as you can, with a guarantee of public safety.”

  “And for that they will return the hostages?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “We have orders to wipe them out, you know. The Commandant wants a clear and certain victory.”

  “It would be our loss, Captain.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “We could kill them all, I suppose, or put them in irons, and turn our own troops into cowboys. But what would be the point? We have relied on these men for beef to feed us and to feed the people of the port.”

  “So we send them all back home?”

  “I would recommend it.”

  “They will not turn on us?”

  “It isn’t likely, given what they have to fight with—half a keg of powder left, and that is damp and useless …”

  “Their weapons …”

  “… for the most part have already been confiscated.”

  “By us.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I see.”

  The Captain’s cheeks fill with a color to match his beard. His jaws flex and pump. To the Alcalde he says, “Ask him why in God’s name they forced us to the field of battle!”

  Our only desire, the leader replies, was to be heard.

  Why didn’t you take your grievances to Yerba Buena?

  We did so, Captain, several times.

  In person?

  Yes.

  And in writing?

  Yes.

  And what was the response?

  There has been no response.

  Nothing at all?

  We understand that two senior officers there cannot agree on who is in command. Perhaps this explains why certain decisions have been delayed.

  UNDER THE LIMBS of the great oak tree a truce is declared. They agree to meet again, and the Californians retire to their foothill encampment. The Americans retire to the mission compound. Three times they meet in the open field, while couriers gallop back and forth the fifty miles to Yerba Buena with terms and counter-terms. On the eighth day after the skirmish, two facing columns form outside the crumbling walls of the mission called Santa Clara. While a horse-drawn carriage passes between them, the rancheros, one by one, drop their remaining weapons in the wagon—forty-three rifles, nine pistols, ten swords, nineteen lances made of poles with hunting knives attached.

  A herd of horses is driven up from San Jose to the mission corral. The Californians walk among them, speaking to animals they recognize, touching their favorites, a reunion of lov
ed ones, as they sort out the horses they will ride, the ones they will lead away. Once the men are content with the return of animals most longed for, the hostages are ushered down out of the foothills, Bartlett and six unshaven young sailors damp and shivering in the clothes they’ve worn since their capture, but none wounded or mistreated. They’ve been fed well enough. Their eyes are bright with liberation.

  By early afternoon the insurgents have started home to their ranches. Some Volunteers head home to their families. Others join the marines riding into San Jose, where a keg of brandy has appeared. In the cantina they toast the release of their countrymen. There are toasts to the Union, to the flag, to President Polk, as all begin to brag, embellishing their exploits, the captives and the warriors, laying groundwork for the legend of this episode, the dogged pursuit of a determined foe, the daylong battle, the harrowing firefights, the armistice.

  While Jim’s voice is loud among them, his glass held high for every toast, he makes no mention of the sword-wielding ranchero. He takes no pride in the shooting of another man’s horse. In this dubious victory he can’t find much at all to celebrate. Yet in the end it gives him what he needs. Jim has new allies now, and the path ahead seems clear at last. They were riding in to the pueblo when this Bartlett fellow told him that he too has heard of the plight of the wagon company now talked about in every California town. Once he’s back at his magistrate’s desk in Yerba Buena, Bartlett said, he might be able to stir up some support for a rescue.

  “When things are settled here in San Jose,” he said, “you call on me. We’ll do everything we can.”

  In the crowded cantina, where revelers spread out toward the plaza in spite of the cold, the Alcalde takes him aside. His cheeks are rosy, his eyes merry with drink and relief now that his pueblo is safe again. He wears his Spanish hat. A black cloak lined with crimson hangs nearly to the floor.

  “We should have listened to you,” Jim says.

  “Yes, the navy might have saved itself a good bit of trouble. But things are taken care of now. And we’re grateful here.”

  “So am I. Glad it’s finally over.”

  Dropping his voice, the Alcalde says, “I want to add that our family thanks you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We know you spared our cousin’s life.”

  Jim looks away. “No need to spread that news around.”

  “Oh, we don’t gossip out of turn. Our cousin has no desire that the facts be known. Suffice to say, we’re thankful for your services in these days of crisis and uncertainty.”

  With a raise of his glass the Alcalde tells him it might not be a bad time to stop by the ranch house and draw up that petition for the orchard lands. Now that the United States has a firm hold, petitions have been coming to him thick and fast for parcels of every size and shape.

  “Fact is, Reed, another fellow has his eye on the acreage there. But I would much prefer the title go to you.” With a fatherly wink he adds, “Wouldn’t hurt to move the date back, you know, to give you the earlier claim. I’m sure the good Captain at the garrison will endorse it for us, on behalf of the command.”

  As their glasses touch, Jim says, “I’ll do that, sir, I’ll do that the very first thing.”

  The marines and the Volunteers are joined by gaunt emigrants whose wagons have been parked near the pueblo and by citizens who rode out to watch the armistice. All are relieved that hostilities have ended with no men lost and daily life can now resume. One fellow brings along a fiddle. Another has a banjo. Men with stiff hands tune up, breathe on their fingers, and begin to play. In some forgotten seam of his saddlebags a man finds a harmonica. Soon a clumsy square dance has flared around the room, lit by candles and dusky kerosene lamps.

  Standing at the bar Jim feels a hand upon his arm, and here is Valentine with his sly, conspiratorial smile.

  “Well, Reed, life is full of its surprises, wouldn’t you say? We knew the Californians had no stomach for the contest. Who would have thought our own marines would back down too? But in the end, it’s all the same.”

  His jacket is loose. His hat hangs down upon his shoulders. His black hair is combed straight back. His face looks gleeful, as if some secret dream has unexpectedly come true.

  “They were right about the horses, of course. On a ranch not far from here I have quite a number well secluded. Why don’t you come in with me? These are superior animals, well bred and broken. We can drive them inland and name our price. With your share you can mount the rescue team you’re going to need. I guarantee it. Then, when you’ve brought your family through, we’ll go into partnership. Out here it’s hard to find a steady man who knows what he wants.”

  “What sort of partnership?”

  “Why, buying, selling, trading. I know you’ve done some of that. It’s wide open now. There will be no more resistance in the north. Nothing stands in our way.”

  Valentine once again seems to know his mind. Here’s what Jim is searching for, the money to hire men, to buy supplies for a month or more. But does he dare rely on such a fellow? There is something perverse about Valentine. He should be in disgrace today. Yet he seems to revel in all this. He has no shame. Wasn’t the militia formed to solve the very problems he and others like him had created? Jim remembers their first meeting, when Valentine told him no man alone could get through to Yerba Buena. Surely he knew that wasn’t true. Surely he knew what the Alcalde already knew. If Jim hadn’t listened to him, he might long ago have traveled north and reached the port. And yet … and yet had he done so, the battle would not have ended any sooner, nor would he have seen the orchards or this long, fecund valley. Or met the good Alcalde. Or met Bartlett.

  Who can say, in hindsight, which route is the nearer or the better one? The route itself would seem to have a will, and each of us is bound to it.

  With his cocky smile Valentine says, “Believe me, Reed, no one is watching now. California is like a bank with the front door open and the safe unlocked and the banker gone away on a year’s vacation.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I like to know there’s a banker somewhere sitting at his desk. I want a county clerk who keeps the deeds and documents in order.”

  Valentine throws his head back in a laugh of disbelief. “And yet with a single nod from the snowy head of our dear Alcalde, you’d gladly snatch up the mission’s keys and all the orchard lands …”

  “Such fine trees deserve some care. Those lands belong to no one now.”

  “And how did you come to know that?”

  “Well … as a matter of fact, from you.”

  “That’s right! You learned it from me! I have gone out of my way to befriend you, Reed. And yet you would turn your back on me. An abandoned orchard is one thing, you say, but a surplus of horses is something else.”

  “Everyone knows where those horses came from.”

  “I suppose you disapprove.”

  “By God, I do!”

  “You draw a fine line. Too fine a line for me.”

  “Don’t sneer.”

  “You should have been a lawyer.”

  “I’m in no mood tonight for mockery.”

  “You have a very legal mind.”

  “I have a family. Can you imagine what that means? I want some safety for them here. I don’t want a lawless land. I’ve had enough of that.”

  “You are too cautious, Reed, far too cautious. The time is ripe. Ride with us and you’ll have all the money you need to bring your family out.”

  His blue eyes glitter with amused and erotic intensity, as if he’s just told a bawdy tale among cigar-smoking cronies.

  “Think it over, Reed. You and me and Carlos, we’d be quite a team.”

  “Why Carlos?”

  “Where we’re going he knows all the tribal leaders,” says Valentine with a rascal wink, as he moves out among the gangly dancers. “We’ll want to keep the tribes in line.”

 
In some nameless jig/fandango he begins to leap and strut, while the banjo strums and the fiddle whines and the harmonica hums and warbles. Valentine’s partner is one of the local women, bare-shouldered and vivacious. Her skirt flares wide. He does not so much dance with her as dance around her, grinning and prancing in the dusky light from candles and from the little tongues of flame inside the lamps.

  from The Trail Notes of Patty Reed Santa Cruz, January 1921

  “Over the mountains

  Of the Moon,

  Down the Valley of the Shadow,

  Ride, boldly ride,”

  The Shade replied,—

  “If you seek for Eldorado.”

  —Edgar Allan Poe

  SOMETIMES IN THE very winter of the year we will have a run of warm days here, five or six in a row, when it seems like spring has come along three months too early. The fruit trees in our yard will start to show their tiny blossoms, pink and white, and someone who has not lived here long, someone who recently arrived from Ohio or Alabama will shake his head and say it’s an enigma and perhaps a crime that nature would deceive these poor trees, get their hopes up and call forth these innocent shoots so soon, only to have the frosty nights come back and nip them in the bud.

  What such a person has not yet discovered is that the trees know more than we know about how they are to get along in such a place. Somehow they do just fine. They take advantage of the warm days, and get through the frosty days, and in due time the fruit comes, the pears and the apples and the plums and tangerines.

  If we get a warm day in January, we have to learn from the fruit tree to let some little bud of expectation peep forth. It’s not a trick of nature. It’s a gift. I’m past eighty, but I’m not too old to get outside on such a day, sit on the porch and let the light call things into the open. A warm day like this makes it easier to think back on the cold weeks of 1847 when our cabins were sometimes under ten feet of snow. Even though I was there, it’s hard to believe we had to cut ramps and ice steps to climb out of the cabins and get back up to the light. We were like Eskimos, I guess, but with our igloos down there below the surface. One day we’d have falling snow. The next day a roaring wind would come and a blizzard that penned us in for a week or more. When it was over we might have five new feet of snow to dig through. Then the sun would be so bright and the sky so blue you couldn’t look at it. You’d have to shut your eyes and let the tears run down your face and give thanks. It amazes me now, in spite of all we’d lost, how often we’d find something to be thankful for.