by Paula Scott
“There isn’t enough brandy in California to satisfy these bandoleros burning fires practically on our porch,” said Tia Josefa. “The men are chasing the chickens. Most certainly to roast them on their fires. The dogs are scared and the servants terrified too. Please, my husband, think of your familia. Who will protect us from the Osos if they come here to pillage while you are off with these highwaymen?”
“These are not highwaymen, Josefa,” Tio Pedro spoke passionately. “These are sons of the country, Castro’s finest. I will drink with these men tonight and ride with them tomorrow. Viva California!” Tio Pedro shouted. Then he stomped through the hacienda yelling, “Viva California!”
Tia Josefa began to weep.
“Please don’t cry, Tia.” Roman took his aunt in his arms to comfort her.
“You must go with him, Roman. Promise me you’ll ride with my foolish old husband,” Tia Josefa begged him.
Roman let out a long sigh. “Tia . . . I cannot ride with these men.”
“Please. You must! We have raised you as our very own son all these years. Please, mi hijo, you must take care of my husband,” Tia Josefa pleaded tearfully.
“Enough. I will go.”
Tia Josefa had always been kind to him. She did her best to keep the hacienda running smoothly, even with her husband often drunk these days. Once Tia regained her composure in his arms, Roman resumed his search for Rachel upstairs.
He found her in her room quietly reading her Bible in a chair.
“What has happened?” she asked as he silently closed the door behind him upon entering without knocking. He wanted no one else to hear their conversation. Especially not Sarita.
“A band of Americano adventurers calling themselves the Osos have captured Sonoma. They’ve taken General Vallejo prisoner. The ruffians claim to be Castro’s soldiers. I doubt they are, but Tio is hell-bent on riding with them, so I have promised Tia Josefa I will look after my foolish uncle.”
“You will be leaving with these men?” Rachel’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Tia Josefa has hidden Maria and Isabella away. She has even concealed the maids for the night. I want you to come to my room, where I can protect you.”
“I cannot stay in your room.” Rachel sat her Bible down on the table beside the carved wooden chair and straightened her skirts quite primly.
“Then I will wait out in the hall and guard your door. Give me your chair. I know several of these men. They are desperados who hate Americanos. One of them has taken an interest in you.” Roman did not want to say more. He only wanted to frighten her enough that she would agree to stay in his room tonight.
“Where will you sleep if I am in your bed?”
“I will not sleep.”
“You cannot go without sleep if you must leave with these men in the morn.”
“Will you accompany me to my room, then? If you come, I will try to sleep tonight,” he promised.
# # #
“I hate the gringa. I want her dead,” Sarita told Luis out in the darkness that night. She pulled out a golden cross, holding it upside down in the firelight as she handed it to him. “If you kill Rachel, I will give you this cross. It was given to me by Chula who taught me the dark magic of Tohic. She stole it from the mission the day the Indians rose up and murdered the padre. It is the death cross.”
Lopez took the cross, weighing the gold in his hand. “I cannot kill the gringa right now. I must ride north with Padilla. But I will come back, and we will decide how to get rid of her then.” Holding the cross upside down, just as she had, Lopez returned it to Sarita.
“You must kill her now,” Sarita insisted.
Lopez laughed. “I am not so wasteful. I will not kill her until I have had my fill of her. Perhaps then I will kill her.”
PART THREE
“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.”
1 Peter 5:8
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Neither Rachel nor Roman undressed that night. They slept in their clothes. Outside, the men’s raucous laughter around the campfires kept the dogs barking till well after midnight. Roman went to the elaborately carved chair in the corner of the room and tried to make himself comfortable. After kneeling in prayer beside the four-poster, velvet curtain-draped bed for some time, Rachel finally lay down on the feather-filled mattress. Roman blew out the candles and returned to the chair. They remained silent for a while before he quietly spoke, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, pequeña.” With moonlight pouring through the window, Roman could see her lying on her side, wide awake, watching him.
“You look uncomfortable in that chair,” she said. “There is room here for the both of us.” She scooted as far as she could to one side as he came and stretched out beside her.
The whoops and hollers and boisterous laughter outside around the fires carried through the open window. Roman felt sick inside. He knew how Lopez had treated women in Texas, saw how Lopez and the rest of the men leered at Rachel this afternoon. She was an enemy woman, desired and hated at the same time. To those men, this made her irresistible. If the desperados stormed the hacienda, he could not stop all of them. He closed his eyes. Do not let them come, he prayed. Please keep Rachel safe tonight. Keep all the women safe, God.
After the simple but heartfelt prayer, he opened his eyes, turning his head to look at Rachel lying beside him so quietly. Why should God answer his prayer? As a boy, he had prayed for God to save his mother from the dreaded fever. She died anyway.
Did God merely toy with men when they prayed? Sometimes granting them mercy, sometimes taking away what they loved most in this world?
He felt toyed with tonight while staring into Rachel’s soft blue eyes, knowing that if she died, he would die too.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That God entertains himself with mankind.”
“Satan entertains himself with mankind. God intervenes on man’s behalf.”
She looked toward the window. “Satan is entertaining himself tonight with those men out there. The devil will tempt them to do evil. If God does not intervene, wickedness will have its way tonight.”
Roman reached out to feather his fingers down her cheek. “You are so full of goodness and light.”
She turned her cheek into his hand and pressed it there, closing her eyes, appearing to savor his touch.
He cupped her face. She smiled against his fingers. His throat tightened. He realized he no longer cared that she was American. Looking at her face, all he cared about was keeping her safe. Circumstances unfolding now had turned destiny against them. War had come to California, just as he’d known it would. And then there was Sarita’s claim that she carried his child. Perhaps Sarita did have his son or daughter in her womb. He removed his hand from Rachel’s face. “Buenas nochas, Yanquia pequeña,” he said, rolling onto his back, aching inside like he’d never ached before in his life.
“Do not doubt God’s goodness,” she whispered.
Not knowing what to say, he lay there until he knew for certain she’d fallen asleep. Once her breathing evened out, he rolled over onto his side and tried his best to memorize her sleeping features. Light from the full summer moon poured into the window, turning her blond hair silver. Turning his heart inside out by her beauty. Tomorrow he would leave her. The wheels of war and his sin with Sarita turned sharply now. Tearing them apart. How he wanted to hold her. Love her. Never leave her. All these things that could not happen now.
He thought of Steven. The man of God who loved her too. He should send for Steven. Ask him to take Rachel back to New England, where she’d be safe from war and Sarita’s wrath. Ask Steven to marry her and protect her forever. That would be the right thing to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
During the night, Rachel had a nightmare. He pulled her close and cradled her in his arms. “Shush, chica,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s just a bad dream. I won’t let anyone hurt y
ou. I would die to keep you safe, mi amor.”
He kissed her temple, wondering why someone so full of light would have such dark dreams. To his surprise, she fell back to sleep like a trusting child in his embrace. He lay there holding her, with sleep eluding him.
Just before dawn, he kissed her lips lightly. He did not want to wake her. Then he rose and, without making a sound, gathered his things and departed the hacienda.
# # #
The band rode hard, bent on destroying the Osos in Sonoma. Tio Pedro, on one of Rancho de los Robles’s finest palominos, galloped in the rear of the party. Roman rode at his uncle’s side, cursing the dust, his uncle, and these ill-bred Californios they accompanied north.
He tried to pray for Rachel’s safety, but this ride with Padilla’s band troubled him so much his thoughts careened in all directions. Every twenty miles or so, the band stopped and traded out horses. Roman was grateful he’d left Oro at home. The horses on this journey were being ridden into the ground. The ones that broke down were left on the side of the road.
Tio Pedro had insisted on taking a dozen Rancho de los Robles horses along, all magnificent palominos. The farther they rode, the angrier Roman grew over the treatment of the horses. Riding hard this way was common in California. Horses were branded and, if found abandoned along the road, returned to their owners by helpful neighbors. But these men rode the horses so hard some would certainly die on this trail.
Hours into the journey, as horses began to break down, rather than leaving them along the road as they had earlier, both the three-fingered Garcia and Lopez began shooting the horses that could no longer run with pistols they kept in their waistbands.
When Garcia and Lopez chose Rancho de los Robles palominos to ride into the Sonoma Valley, Roman used every ounce of self-control he could muster not to interfere with the outlaws saddling his stallions.
“I will not tolerate the killing of our palominos,” he warned Tio Pedro.
“Horses are but horses, Roman. Do not fight with these soldiers. Save your fire to liberate General Vallejo.”
“These men are not soldiers. They are desperados. You should not have brought our palominos along.” Roman untied his riata from his saddle and laid it around his saddle horn as the band moved out once more.
“Do not draw attention to us,” Tio Pedro ordered. “Why do you prepare your rope?”
“You have already drawn attention to us by bringing our horses.” Roman spurred his mount to the front of Juan Padilla’s band, where Lopez and Garcia raced his palominos. If one of these men attempted to shoot his horse, Roman would use his rope. Dragging a man a mile or so behind a horse usually took the devil right out of him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
In Sonoma, the Bears had swiftly formed the Republic of California, flying their homemade flag with its pig-like grizzly over Sonoma square. Joshua Tyler found the whole thing wearisome but necessary. Sweating in their greasy buckskin hunting shirts under the warm June sun, the Bears gathered to discuss how to defend themselves against the Californios now that they’d declared war on the Mexican province. Unlike Joshua, who had come by ship years earlier and assimilated by patiently adopting the Catholic religion and Californio ways, many of these settlers and adventurers had made the long trek overland across the rugged mountains and unforgiving deserts and weren’t about to let Castro tell them what to do in California.
Especially not with Captain John Fremont with his impressive troops of mountain men and Delaware Indian bodyguards representing the United States of America, now camped in the north end of the Sacramento Valley, giving advice and egging the Bears on in their rebellion against Mexican authorities. Captain Fremont and his troops had just finished punishing the Maidu Indians along the Sacramento River, going from one village to the next, slaughtering men, women, and children as a precautionary warning that any Indians helping General Castro and the Californios resist the Americans would be dealt with in the same brutal manner.
Though emboldened by Captain Fremont’s war with the California Indians, their hero, Fremont, had not shown up in Sonoma as of yet to help the Bears, and the rebels were running short on ammunition and arms. Joshua warned the leaders they did not have enough men to defend themselves in a full-scale attack by Castro, but nobody wanted to hear about Castro’s forces running Fremont off Gavilan Peak. And after overtaking Vallejo’s garrison, the Bears quickly discovered Mexico had not sent arms to the Californios. The meager supply of ammunition in Sonoma consisted of nothing more than a nine brass cannon, two hundred muskets, and a hundred pounds of gunpowder. To Joshua’s quiet satisfaction, this dismayed the Bears. Certainly, the Sonoma stash wasn’t enough powder to hold off an attack from General Castro’s troops. He’d already told them that.
During the Bears’ meeting that warm June day, Lieutenant Henry Ford decided William Todd, the Bears’ young flag maker, would be sent to Bodega in search of gunpower. Two other Bears, Thomas Cowie and George Fowler, were sent toward the Russian River to contact Kit Carson’s half-brother Moses, majordomo of Henry Fitch’s rancho. Kit Carson was Fremont’s right-hand man. The Bears knew Moses Carson could help them.
# # #
Roman saw the two Yankees on the road ahead and felt relief and dread tangle inside him. Lopez and Garcia would not shoot Rancho de los Robles’s palominos now that they’d found more agreeable victims on which to vent their wrath. The band surrounded the two just outside of Santa Rosa, taking them prisoner there on the road. Padilla announced they would camp for the night in a nearby glen. The prisoners, Thomas Cowie and George Fowler, were tied to trees while the band settled into the camp.
Roman held on to his riata as Lopez and Garcia swung off the sweat-soaked palominos. The stallions had held up well under the hard riding. Roman breathed a sigh of relief when both men left the palominos without a backward glace, heading straight for the Americanos tied to the trees.
Gathering the palominos, Roman went about the camp collecting Rancho de los Robles horses. Some of the men silently watched him, but nobody confronted him as he rounded up his herd.
He came upon Tio Pedro lying on the ground, soaked in sweat like the horses.
“Tio, are you all right?”
Tio Pedro only grunted.
“After I feed the horses, I will return.” Roman was still too angry with his uncle to feel much sympathy for him. Tio deserved all the pain he got for making this decision to join with the bandidos.
Roman led the horses out into the fields to graze. He would not water the animals until they cooled off. All but one of the palominos were too tired to graze.
In the distance, Roman watched the band make camp as Lopez and Garcia tormented the prisoners. He turned away when Lopez kicked one of the prisoners in the belly as the Americano stood helplessly tied to the tree. The young blond-haired Yankee yelped in pain upon receiving the vicious kick.
Why did that boy have to be blond like Rachel?
A dozen Californios soon gathered around the trees where the Americanos were tied. The Californios began to throw stones at the prisoners. The tormentors laughed as the bloodied Yanquios begged for mercy.
Roman gathered the palominos and led them to the creek. The horses drank thirstily, as did Roman. He ignored the screams of the prisoners as best he could, washing his face in the cool water, trying to ignore the torture in the trees. Padilla’s band was probably seeking information about the Osos, torturing the prisoners to get it.
Roman reached into his pocket and pulled out the small golden rosary he’d carried all these years. He’d believed his mother’s rosary would keep him safe. And it had. Many times, he should have died, but he had not. He stared at the crucifix on the bottom of the string of beads. Jesus hanging on the cross. The sight grieved him.
One of the horses stopped drinking and looked at him. “The Americanos are the bears,” Roman said to the horse. “They kill, steal, and destroy like the grizzlies. The Americanos deserve what they are getting.”
But the torture of the prisoners weighed heavy on his mind. Especially the blond boy with hair like Rachel’s.
When they had their fill of water, Roman led the horses out of the creek and over to an open meadow. After picketing the palominos there, he returned to Tio Pedro. His uncle was lying on the ground where he’d left him.
Tio Pedro drank brandy from a bota he’d stashed in his pantaloons.
“I cannot move,” he told Roman. “Never have I traveled so far so fast. What is wrong with these men? Mexican soldiers do not ride this way. Killing their horses as they go. These men have gone mad.”
“You said they were Castro’s soldiers,” Roman reminded him.
In response, Tio Pedro drank more brandy.
Campfires now burned amid the trees. The men roasted and ate beef taken from a nearby rancho. The Americanos tied to the trees were still being tortured by Garcia and Lopez and others in the band. The rest of the Californios stood around the campfires with their leaders, Padilla and Carrillo.
Roman realized the Americanos would probably be killed because the leaders did not seem to care about them.
A sharp pang of remorse hit him when he realized those two men being tortured in the moonlight could, in a twist of fate, be Steven and Dominic. And that blond boy could be Rachel’s brother, had she a brother.
The Californios bragged at the campfires about how Garcia and Lopez no longer used stones to abuse the Yankees. Their methods had improved in brutality. Padilla’s men now sharpened their knives by the fire for the game of slicing without killing that they would play next with their Americano prisoners.
Roman did not attempt to eat the roasted beef he was offered by Padilla. With a sickness in his stomach that somehow reached all the way to his soul, he waved off the Californio leader’s attempt at friendship and returned to Tio Pedro, still lying in the grass where he’d dismounted when they first arrived at camp.