Until the Day Breaks (California Rising Book 1)

by Paula Scott

  “What an angel. Listen to her sing. Have you ever heard a sweeter voice than that?”

  “She is magnificent,” another upper-class, hot-blooded young man answered the first. “Look at her. She sings for God, amigo.”

  Roman stared at the criollos for a moment before muttering, “Beware, boys. The beauty has the cross on her chest and the devil in her actions.”

  Everybody knew this saying; many claimed to serve God in California, yet their dealings often displayed a different bent. He couldn’t pin any wrongdoing on her yet, but she was Tyler’s daughter. Though he had to admit he agreed with the drunken sons of the gente de razón. Rachel Tyler looked and sounded like an angel with her face tilted toward the sky. For a second, he too turned his face upward in search of something greater than himself, but only the stars piercing the darkness filled his plaintive gaze.

  After several uncomfortable moments contemplating the heavens, Roman left the courtyard to continue his search for Sarita. He recognized many people at this fandango, some more influential than others. General Mariano Vallejo of Sonoma stood among the partygoers. Outrage burned through Roman that a man like General Vallejo, commander of the northern forces, would patronize this gringo gathering. Then again, many prominent Californios were here, thronging together like trusting sheep as the Yankee wolves prowled among them.

  Roman shoved a hand through his hair, his hatred boiling over as he recognized Thomas Larkin. The wealthy, mutton-chopped merchant from Monterey stood under a large oak in conversation with several buckskin-clad frontiersmen. Noting the large bowie knives strapped to the frontiersmen’s belts, Roman rubbed a hand across his shoulder, which now ached in cold weather. He knew the damage those big knives could do.

  He tried to put Rachel Tyler from his mind, but her voice pursued him. Striding faster, he weaved through the fiesta until he could no longer hear her singing, the wound on his thigh pulsing with pain as he skirted the crowd, carefully avoiding those he knew.

  He wandered behind the hacienda to the walled garden, where the fountain reflected the moonlight. Tonight it was filled with flowers instead of the Yankee pequeña with her shoes and stockings removed like a cantina girl. Far too often, she’d occupied his thoughts since finding her here alone last night.

  In the tiny courtyard, he found dark shadows and lit a cigarillo, lounging impatiently against a cool adobe wall, pondering how to manage a meeting with Sarita. Should he even seek her out now that she was another man’s wife? In the south, he’d learned from cousins that his family thought him buried in Texas after a number of men died in his regiment and a false report of his death made it all the way to California. Apparently the news of his return to the living hadn’t made it this far north yet.

  The scrape of wood as someone entered through the courtyard gate interrupted his contemplation. He crushed out his cigarillo, hoping the girl slipping into the walled garden hadn’t noticed him. Rachel Tyler ventured so close he could smell the scent of her. Fresh and sweet and vexingly memorable.

  She continued on through the walled garden, out another gate, and down a narrow path into the darkness. Against his better judgment, he followed her. The screech of owls came now and again, and music from the fiesta lingered faintly in the distance. He worried the scent of roasting meat might bring in a grizzly or two. Didn’t she know how dangerous it was to wander off alone in these woods? Not only were wild Indians about, bears, wolves, cougars, and coyotes roamed these hills. The grizzlies proved especially fierce. The only safe place for women and children on the frontier, especially at night, was inside the hacienda’s thick adobe walls. He edged closer to the foolish young woman, staying in the tangle of trees and vines along the path, where he hoped she wouldn’t notice him.

  The full moon on the horizon made it easy to navigate the surrounding countryside. This was the kind of night when Indians from the Tulares thieved horses and killed those unfortunate enough to interrupt their thievery.

  The girl walked to the riverbank and stood at the water’s edge, staring out at the moonlit current, a silver strand running all the way to the sea. She looked like a marble statue, the blue silk of her dress turned silver like the river under the moon, her blond hair shining silver as well. Roman waited in the trees, doing the very thing he said he would never do, watching over Tyler’s daughter.

  On the bank, she didn’t move for a long time. Had she not been standing, he might have thought she’d fallen asleep. When she finally raised her face to the stars and began to sing, his suspicion melted away. He hadn’t been sure about the song at the fiesta, but he knew for certain this song was religious. A plea to God. And he was mesmerized.

  The frogs and crickets and night birds stilled as her voice carried down the river. Goosebumps rose on his arms in response to her singing. A gentle breeze arose, whispering through his hair, cooling his fevered cheeks. He touched the bullet wound on his thigh, felt the hot dampness of the infection seeping through his trousers.

  In Texas, he’d removed the ball himself with a white-hot knife and a bottle of brandy. He should have used more brandy on the wound instead of drinking most of it to ease the pain. It hadn’t been much more than a flesh wound four months ago, but the lingering infection brought fevers he couldn’t shake. The wound looked worse than when he’d acquired it.

  With a deep sigh, he sat down, leaning his back against a large cottonwood tree, where he could watch her from the thicket. The peace that overcame him allowed him to close his eyes and rest like he hadn’t rested in years as she sang that beautiful song.

  How could this girl be Tyler’s daughter?

  His eyes snapped open when her song ended. She did not sing another, which disappointed him. He rubbed the back of his hand across his clammy forehead. Lupe would know how to treat the infection, but he wasn’t ready to return home yet. He needed to speak with Sarita. And much to his chagrin, he’d grown utterly distracted by his enemy’s daughter.

  When the crickets and frogs reclaimed the night, joined by a nighthawk calling somewhere down the riverbank, Rachel Tyler slowly made her way back to the hacienda. He kept his distance, trailing silently in her wake like a shadow.

  Once she reached the hacienda, the location of her bedroom surprised and incensed him. Her room was downstairs, near the walled garden where he first met her. The upstairs proved the most fortified part of any hacienda. Women and children always lodged on the second floor for the greatest protection.

  She strolls alone to the river. Has no dueña. Is kept in a downstairs room. Was her father a fool as well as a bandido?

  Why should this upset him so?

  Scores of people were here to keep an eye on this slip of a girl who had sung his demons away. Certainly, this was how she found the freedom to come and go as she pleased—a person could disappear in numbers. Wasn’t he here at this fiesta doing the exact same thing?

  A battle waged within him as he went to her bedroom door. If he frightened her enough tonight, perhaps she would return to New England before the U.S. soldiers arrived in California. After that, it would be too late for her to travel safely anywhere. Too late for any woman to venture out on the roads. He’d seen it often enough; men had two sides, good and evil, especially in war. What happened to women in war was unspeakable.

  The Yankee pequeña wasn’t much older than his sister. And just as foolish as Maria. But unlike Maria, chaperoned night and day by her diligent dueña, with every man in her family more than willing to die for her, Tyler’s winsome daughter went wherever the wind blew, like a fawn without its mother. This wasn’t the civilized east. Or even Monterey. This was the frontier. Tyler’s folly in the wilderness.

  At least her door proved solidly constructed. Planks of timber a foot thick. A man without a hatchet would have a difficult time getting through this entry when it was barred. To his relief, her latch string was pulled in when he checked for it.

  Sweat trickled down his chest, and he shivered. Perhaps his fever was affecting his mind, s
tanding here at her door like a besotted suitor. That he found her so appealing filled him with frustration. He needed to see Sarita. He knew she’d married Tyler because she thought him dead. He wanted to show her he was very much alive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Upon awakening to a room full of sunshine, Rachel lay in her bed, remembering that autumn day six months ago with Steven on the dock in Boston. It had been sunny that day too. A breeze off the ocean billowed her sky-blue skirts. She squeezed fists full of satin, willing her gown and spirits into order. Steven’s trembling hands cupped her face. She couldn’t believe he would finally touch her in the midst of so many. After all these months—years really, after it was too late to linger in his embrace. She opened her eyes to look up at him, and the tears slipped free, though she tried her best to rein in her emotions. Steven’s thumbs captured the drops of grief and brushed them away, but he didn’t remove his hands from her face. More tears coursed onto his fingers.

  “Rachel . . .” When he breathed her name, she sighed with regret so deep she felt it in her bones. Surely, he’d kiss her now, but when his lips landed, warm and full of longing, they settled on her forehead. “I will find you. No matter how far you go, I will find you,” he said after pressing his mouth to the vein that throbbed in the center of her forehead when she cried. She’d always hated that faint blue vein under her fair skin, revealing her anger or grief or any other deep emotion like a river pointing to the sea.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and wept uncontrollably for a moment with her face buried against his chest. He was tall and lean and felt like an oak, the solid presence of everything good and right in her life. How could she leave him? She couldn’t see how God meant for this to happen now, after all these years wishing in vain for a summons from California.

  Steven slipped his fingers into her hair and held her gently as she cried. Eventually, she settled down and looked up into his face, mapping his features into her memory. The aristocratic cheekbones and fine nose acquired from his English father. The dark, ardent eyes of his French mother. Never before had he taken her into his arms. Never before had he dared to kiss her or even put a hand to her hair. Even now, he touched her hair tentatively, like a shy child.

  She hated to broach the subject of his mother, but if Yvette Gains succumbed to the wasting disease ravishing her once hardy frame, Steven could have his pick of sailing ships come spring. It was such a dreadful thought, really. How would they reunite after his mother passed on with a twenty-thousand-mile ocean voyage between them? Mrs. Gains remained steadfast that Steven not marry while she was sick, but the fervent Frenchwoman wouldn’t live forever. She might not live a week. Then again, she’d lived several years now with one foot in the grave. The other foot was firmly planted on Steven, keeping him for God and God alone.

  Late October sunshine warmed Rachel’s back, but inside she shivered. She’d not felt warm since this unexpected journey was foisted upon her a month ago.

  “Our Lord works everything together for the good of those who love him.” Steven regretfully nudged her out of his embrace as he pointed to the vessel anchored in the harbor, soon to sail her away. “The Rainbow is new and fast, a clipper ship named for God’s eternal covenant with us. Look at her sails. Isn’t she grand, Rachel? We must search for our Lord’s good plan in all this. The same hand that has protected us on dry land shall protect you on the mighty deep, my dearest.”

  Tears cooling on her cheeks, she glanced at the ship. Two middle-aged women boarded the steamboat that would convey them to the Rainbow. A weary-looking, red-haired woman holding the hand of a little redheaded girl, both too thin and dressed poorly, trailed the well-dressed ladies. A horn sounded, startling Rachel with the last call to board the steamboat. Tearing herself away from Steven, she moved in behind the red-haired woman and child. Passengers, all men now, surged forward, pushing her out of Steven’s reach. Out of Steven’s life.

  After boarding the steamboat, she edged her way to the railing, searching for Steven where she’d left him on the dock. He wasn’t there and her heart sank, but soon she found him not far off, waving to her from the dock as if in welcome instead of departure. That gentle smile she so dearly loved brightened his face. She waved in return, fresh tears flooding her eyes.

  “Is that your husband?” The little girl, about seven years old, Rachel guessed, stood beside her, gripping the railing. The child’s mother hung back, looking bone-weary, resting on the steamboat’s deck near a pile of coiled rope.

  “Not yet, but someday, I hope.” Rachel blinked hard, her eyes stinging.

  “We’re searching for my father. He sailed for California three years ago. If we don’t find him, Ma fears we’ll starve to death come winter.”

  Rachel tucked a wisp of the little girl’s tangled red hair behind her ear. “Then we will pray you find him.” The girl’s wide, despairing eyes were the hue of a stormy sea.

  “Does God answer your prayers? ’Cause he don’t answer mine.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t answer?” Rachel did her best to keep Steven in view while acknowledging the child at the same time.

  “He don’t bring us more food. Don’t give us a warm place to sleep. We barely get by, and he ain’t brought my pa home. My sister just passed. God never done us any good. Ma had to sell her soul to purchase passage on this here ship for us.”

  Rachel didn’t want to hear the details of a woman’s soul selling. She put her hand on top of the child’s head, trying to stop the flow of heartbreaking information spilling from that rosy little mouth.

  As they steamed across the harbor, a bell ringing over the water from the ship reminded Rachel of bells across the snow. Just last winter, after an astonishing blizzard, she’d accompanied Steven in a horse-drawn sleigh to minister to snowbound parishioners about the countryside. She still thought of it as the finest day of her life, for he’d asked her to marry him that afternoon. Steven said she’d make a wonderful minister’s wife, and he wanted her by his side always and forever. But Mrs. Gains continued to stand in their way.

  Drowning in longing, Rachel waved to him one last time before kneeling beside the child unleashing her life story in spite of Rachel not wanting to hear it. “God is real, and he loves you. He will help you. I am Rachel Tyler. What is your name, young lady?”

  “Molly O’Brian.”

  “Well, Molly O’Brian, you will have a warm place to sleep on the Rainbow.”

  “Ma don’t think so. We’re stuck in steerage with the rats.”

  Rachel swiped her cheeks dry before taking Molly’s little hands in hers. “Well, we must see what we can do to remedy that. God has made us friends for a reason.” She squeezed the little girl’s hands in reassurance.

  It shouldn’t be too hard to tuck Molly and her mother into her stateroom. Paying to improve their meals would also help alleviate their misery. Her father had sent her plenty of coin to complete this six-month journey. She grew excited just thinking about writing to Steven to tell him how she’d rescued these poor Irish immigrants on the voyage.

  “Do you know I am going to California in search of my father as well? It has been many years since we parted. I don’t even remember what he looks like,” she told Molly.

  Molly’s wide eyes widened even more. “Your pa done left you too?”

  “He sure did. He went to make his fortune on that faraway shore, and he did just that. He’s a landowner now in California.”

  “A landowner?” Molly was awestruck. “Only the rich own land. Does he keep slaves too?”

  “I don’t think so. Indians care for his cattle and crops.”

  “Indians?” Molly’s eyes filled with fear. “Do they scalp white folks in California?”

  “Of course not. Your pretty red hair is safe and sound on your head.” Rachel stroked the girl’s tangled tresses, hoping it was true. California Indians certainly didn’t scalp folks, did they?

  She considered the two fine-boned, ivory-handled brushes that had b
elonged to her mother. They were her greatest treasure. Every night before bed, she brushed her hair a hundred strokes while saying her prayers. She should give one of her brushes to this deprived little girl, but her heart recoiled at the idea. “Do you brush your own hair?” Rachel inquired.

  “We don’t own a brush. Ma says luxuries like that are for women who don’t work their fingers to the bone. Ma’s fingers are strong as cedars from scrubbin’ folks’ wash. When she combs my hair, it feels like tree limbs scrapin’ my scalp off. Finola cried when Ma brushed her hair.”

  “Finola is your sister?”

  “She was five and small for her age. Measles took her a month ago,” Molly said in an adult-like fashion, as if it hardly mattered at all. “Mine weren’t so bad. Only got me one pox on my face.” Molly showed Rachel the small pinkish-white scar on her temple.

  Rachel glanced over at Molly’s mother. She could see the woman still grieved for her lost child. She had that hollow-eyed expression of having suffered a great loss. Helping Molly and her mother survive this ocean passage became Rachel’s utmost priority at that very moment.

  Rachel had nearly died on that voyage, growing weak and unwell as the journey progressed. Cocooned in a comfortable farmhouse with her grandparents outside of Boston, she’d never in her life faced trials such as on board the Rainbow.

  She’d parted ways with Molly and her mother in Monterey, leaving one of her cherished brushes with Molly, and now here she was alive and well in California about to be bartered away as a bride to a man she didn’t know and didn’t love. Perhaps death on the ship and a swift journey to heaven would have been better.

  CHAPTER FOUR