by S. L. Hawke
“Thank you Sheriff,” Her husband, Mr. MacAree answered. There was a moment of awkwardness. “Same to you.”
“She lived a long life, my aunt. ‘Twas time.” The Sheriff put his hat back on his head. “Well, I’d best attend here.“
A scream broke the mourning of the graveyard.
“SHERIFF!!! COME QUICKLY!!!”
The Hawaiian Princess suddenly came out of her grief and looked to where the scream had originated. It lay beyond the boundaries of the far west edge of the cemetery, where the road ended and the farm’s field began. All of her party became alert.
“Liam-go see. Please!” She gestured frantically as if she knew what they might find.
The men left her Royal Highness and her mourners to investigate. It was not long before the Sheriff, looking fearful, had a quick word with the sexton and then left just as quickly. Liam, his brother Seamus, and the two Japanese servants returned, looking troubled.
“It’s another lady of the night. Dead, like the others,“ Liam looked even paler than he had been.
“Tortured?” The Princess offered. Liam nodded and looked at the ground. “The Sheriff is useless!” She hissed. She saw that the sexton had begun to dig a grave outside the fence. No inquest, no investigation, the Princess observed with anger and dismay. “Does he even care who is killing them? They might try to kill us!”
“Emma, please, don’t talk about this right now-” Liam pleaded as he reached out to hold her but was rebuffed. Emma wept.
“When will someone care about the poor in this town? Who will find their murderer? Who will give them justice? How many need to die before someone takes a stand?” Emma cried out as she shook. Liam opened his arms. She fell into them, keening at the loss of their babe.
“Whoever is doing this is someone everyone fears,” Seamus said quietly, but his younger brother did not hear him. Liam was tense as a violin string, distracted by the presence of a tall man in a rancher’s coat lingering outside the gate.
“What’s that mercenary McKenna doing here?” Seamus growled. McKenna tipped his wide brimmed hat at them.
“I think he might know who could have done this-” Liam mumbled. He held his wife to him as if she were about to be taken away.
“My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al.
March 4th 1861
CONTENTS
Knights in White Linen
1863
Letters Never Sent
Hidden Truths
Beautiful Lies
Welcome To Evergreen cemetery
The Main Gate
Up the Glory Path
Haunted Pass (Or Fawn Path)
Elk Path, near the Main Gate
The Old Section
Myrtle Path
The Extension, no longer outside the Fence
Santa Cruz Township
Understanding
Indefensible Positions
Wanting Beautiful Things
And I love you…
Actions Undone
EPILOGUE
Love is Evergreen
Acknowledgements
Author's Note
Bibliography
Preview:
Knights in White Linen
Spring, one year later…
Rodriguez Gulch
They came in the early morning, while Emma and her servants were keeping vigil with Liam’s body. Wearing only a plain cotton shift, Emma went to the curtain covered window. Peering between the edges of its heavy velvet drapes, she could see the intruders. They were six men on horseback; two were her neighbors.
“No one touches the woman. She’s mine.” McKenna’s voice was unmistakable, heavy with its Scottish accent. As Emma peered through a break in the curtains, she saw the glint of a gold embroidered jacket. Yes, Faustino Lorenzana, her closest neighbor, was out there as well. So was John Towne. The outline of his bowler hat was a round darkness amid the arcs of the others.
“Burn the barn first!” John Towne yelled at the rest of the men.
Three days ago, McKenna had argued with her husband Liam about his formula for gunpowder. Then they argued about Liam giving McKenna contained shells for blasting. They especially shouted when Liam refused to use mercury to leach out gold they had found in the upper creek on Rodríguez land. Do you want to kill the Rancho’s folk? It will contaminate their land!
Emma remembered McKenna’s smile in response to Liam’s compassionate plea. But they are our neighbors! Liam had shouted back, the look of horror plain on his face. Liam wanted to ‘wash’ the silt out, let the gold settle on special mats made of Tule fibers woven so tight you could not see anything but the gold as the sand and dirt washed away. Liam wanted to share the gold with his landlords, The Rodríguezes. But McKenna, he wanted to know the true location of the claim. Liam refused. Now he is dead, and only I know where the claim is, Emma thought. That’s why he’s here now. To find the map to the claim.
Emma was barely fifteen when she met her husband. His name was Liam MacAree. He was a young talented mining engineer who was visiting his brother, Seamus, the husband of Emma’s cousin, sister to the Queen of Kaua’i. They married quickly. Liam and Emma returned to Santa Cruz with their son, hoping to help Emma’s father, the cousin to Czar Nikolai of Russia, realize that his land was safe from American seizure. Liam could manage it with help. He could grow their holdings even more from the money he made from his machines.
Liam had invented many wonderful machines. One separated boulders from dirt, another used water to drive a pick into the rock and break it up without the use of your arms. Some delivered oil through a small tube and made instant cooking flames appear in a ring over which you could hang your cooking pot. An engine, small but powerful, could run a flat blade into the water and push a small boat along the water or wash clothing in a tub. Others heated and stored water without the use of wood. A flame burned from a gas made from storing cow manure in a tight bin. He hoped to continue to sell them to miners. Liam, his sea green eyes, wide with happiness, as he ate his pineapple. Liam, always eating whatever Emma cooked, claiming it to be of the Gods. Beloved, my Liam…..
Emma looked at her servants. They were mostly Hawaiian Japanese farmers from her mother’s household and could barely speak English. She faced them. “Hurry, go into the gulch. Follow it straight up to General Sweet’s land. Mrs. Sweet will help you. Tell them what has happened. Leave everything behind.” She spoke rap
idly in Japanese and gathered them all down into the basement.
They knew of the secret tunnel that ran out into creek. They shook their heads, refusing to leave her. She found her sandals and put them on. Liam and she had planned for this moment. General Sweet, living on the ridge up top, had told them to always have a way of escape if you anger the Knights. You don’t live on top of the hill, like I do.
General Sweet had watched, with anxiety, many other attacks the Knights had made on other farmsteads, attacks they blamed on the Spanish. He had warned Liam and Emma that eventually they would come here. Liam had dared wed a woman who wasn’t white. They tried to come after him, General Sweet cautioned, so he took his young Ohlone wife and three daughters to Salinas, until the wagon got caught in a flash flood at the very river of his wife’s birth. Being a seer, Esperanza took charge and, (Emma remembered the story well), Esperanza said it was sign that they must turn back, and live as they were meant to, on the hill. They would simply defend it because, the future, (Esperanza always sang a prayer here), demands it. “Your name will become the road on which many living and dead will travel and experience joys, sorrows, and justice.” She would remind Paul with an affectionate pat.
Emma would owe General Paul Sweet everything if she survived today’s ravages.
The barn exploded. They all screamed, including Emma. “My Lady, you must come with us!” Her head butler pleaded. Emma hesitated. She did not want to leave Liam behind, unburied. She crept back up the steps to the kitchen and went into the hallway, compelled by the need to look at the intruder in the face, to convince herself that she could fight him, that she could stop him. How dare he enter this house! Emma shuffled across the planked, oiled, and varnished floors, and stared down the long hallway that faced her front entryway. Let them come, she decided.
Boom! Something heavy slammed against the old European Oak doors. Her aunt, the Dowager Duchess Leonovna of the Russian Royal Court, had those doors made and sent from England. She could hear McKenna’s voice tell the men to hit the doors again. Faustino wouldn’t be one of them, she knew. Faustino had agreed to look like he was on McKenna’s side, to guide him away from Emma, and to keep them busy with looting, if they ever came. If I am there, run. I will distract them long enough for you to get away. If I look like I am helping them, they will stay away from our adobe too. Trust me. Go to Don Alejandro at Carbonera.
Emma started to shake, in rage, fear, she couldn’t feel the difference. Faustino was her friend, she told herself, trying to stay calm. ‘Tino’ was someone she could trust, despite the way he lived. His secret is safe with me, Emma thought, please let him remember that now and not betray me!
CRACK!
The front door splintered. McKenna pushed through the broken timbers. His rancher’s oil coat flared around him like wings of an evil creature. She saw the outline of his hat, its crested points looking like the horns of a demon. He hovered in the hallway, his head turning back and forth, as he gestured for a torch. Emma crouched down behind a sideboard.
“Princess? I know you are in mourning, but ruffians have attacked. You must come with me,” McKenna trilled, as if flushing out a lost family pet. “You need protection. Please, come to me. “
She smelled and felt fire. Emma choked, closed her eyes, and bit her knuckle as coughs threatened to expose her. She heard fire catching on her lace curtains in the drawing room. Emma heard a sick thud. Something had toppled over. It must be Liam in his casket. She closed her eyes.
“Princess, where are you? Please, you must come with me. Let me help you. You can count on me to do the right thing,“ McKenna continued to trill, just like the first time she had met him.
Emma went swimming in the traditional manner, naked beneath a shift of cotton, and standing upon a board of redwood, shaped like a tongue with a small keel on its underside. She held herself relaxed, letting the wave carry her to shore. The board she stood upon was designed by her new husband Liam, as a wedding gift. Today was her first day on the ocean, trying out the wave top board on the cold, sharp surf of Santa Cruz.
She came out of the wave, riding the low curl. The ocean’s swell was not so high today. The water seemed warm and glassy, like Kaua’i in midsummer when the winds die. The best waves in Santa Cruz were always in the winter, but the water was too cold for Emma to bear. Today the sun was hot and the icy grey waters of the beach head felt brisk and refreshing.
They were picnicking on the sandbar beach near her Cousin Eliza’s home. Eliza was also there in her swimming shift, and like Emma, missed the warmth of the oceans of Hawai’i. But she would not try Emma’s redwood board. Eliza’s father had forbidden her to surf here, as the whites would see this as savage and unrefined. But such talk never bothered Eliza. Eliza simply did not like this ocean.
“This water is too cold. How do you bear it, Hokua?” Her cousin shivered and draped herself in Emma’s mink wrap, a gift from Emma’s aunt. Hokua meant star, a shortened version of Emma’s Hawaiian name.
“That’s mink, Kei, and it is, as you know, from the court of my Uncle Czar Nikolai.” Here Emma elongated and emphasized the Russian accent, drawing a giggle from Eliza. Emma plopped down onto their blanket, salt water droplets spraying everywhere as she flopped her heavy braid over her shoulder. Eliza waved her hands towards Emma, exclaiming in Hawaiian how dirty Emma was.
“Those Niihau shell necklaces you wear, they are from our Royal household.” Eliza said with a frown. “Our royal connections in Kaua’i are just as important as your European ones. “
Emma reached into their lunch basket. She found the last of the guava they had brought back from the Islands. She took a large bite, enjoying the juice as it ran down her chin. Eliza crinkled her nose in disapproval of Emma’s manners and gave Emma a kerchief to wipe her chin. Emma complied, then took some kukui nut oil and spread some across her lips. She smelled coconut in this batch of homemade emollient.
“You like? I make more.” Eliza sometimes sold her own mixtures, discreetly, at the occasional Ladies’ Tea for Temperance meeting, when her fiancé permitted her. Emma was secretly glad Liam never cared where Emma went, or with whom she was spending her day time hours with.
“Well, this one is now my favorite.” Emma said as she giggled her approval, bringing a satisfied smile to Eliza’s face.
The sound of harsh laughter startled them. A group of men staggered out of the distant bushes and ran towards them, stumbling onto the sandbar.
“Who are they?” Her cousin stood, clutching the mink to her chest. Emma also stood, straight and with feet spread apart, as she stared them down.
“This is private land!” Emma shouted at them.
“Emma.” Her cousin whimpered. The men came closer, reeking of pig, horse, and alcohol. The girls didn’t know what that other smell was, but it overwhelmed them and Eliza choked on it.
“Lost your way from the whorehouse? Give us a kiss? Better yet, give us some pussy!” They lurched forward at Emma and Eliza. Two descended on the picnic basket like hungry wild pigs, one grabbed the mink wrap away from her cousin and grabbed Eliza’s wrist. Emma reached down and threw a handful of sand at the eyes of her attacker. He yelled and let Eliza go.
Horse hooves crashing through water made this group of marauders freeze.
Five armed men, a private posse, Emma saw, appeared, wearing long coats and dark hats. They rode down upon the men, one dismounting with an ease that made Emma gasp. This same man took up his rifle and fired at the man who had taken the mink. The next one he also shot. Emma’s cousin screamed and fell to her knees, putting her hands over her ears. Emma grabbed her terrified cousin by the shoulders and moved her away from this bloody scene. The other mounted men grabbed the remaining ruffians by the neck with smooth loops of their lariats. They dragged these struggling drunks off into the water and held them there until they were silent.
The man who dismounted and shot the two ruffians strode forward towards Emma, and Eliza, who continued to weep. Eliza screamed as the
man came closer. He stopped walking, stood still, and released his rifle with one hand. His other he held in front of him, in a gesture of calm. Like we are animals, Emma thought with disdain.
“I suppose you want your ‘reward’ too? “ Emma challenged, voice even, watching this well-dressed man with eyes the color of ice regard her just as coolly beneath the visor of his dark ranch hat. Emma stood in front of her trembling cousin, planting her stance wide into the sand. She would fight this man, if he tried to touch them. But he simply stared back at her.
Emma suddenly remembered that her shift was wet and her body could be seen by this man. She didn’t care. She was married and a mother. If he were a gentleman, he would avert his gaze, Emma hoped. But instead he continued to look upon her, his eyes following all that was visible. For a brief moment, Emma thought the ice in his eyes melted and became cornflower blue. His mouth parted in a silent gasp. Now she felt sad for him. It was obvious that he had never seen a naked woman before.
“I know who you are,” He said softly. His voice was like Liam’s, lilting and Scottish. “Her father sent us.” This man inclined his head towards Eliza.
Eliza’s father, Emma’s uncle’s voice could be heard screaming for them. Eliza got up and ran towards the voice, but Emma did not move, nor did this man in front of her. Instead, without taking his eyes off of her, he knelt down and picked up the mink shawl. He placed his rifle butt up in the sand, then grabbed the shawl, strode forward, and draped the mink around her shoulders.
Emma froze as he wrapped the fur tightly around her. His face, smelling of lavender, came too near her cheek. She felt him inhale near her hair, like horses do when they want to know you. Emma pulled quickly away, but was his gloved hand caught the back of her neck. She looked deep into the cornflower blue of his eyes, seeing anger, passion, and desperate unhappiness. He needed her, she knew, and found that she could not break away from his eyes. His lips touched hers. His tongue, like a serpent, flicked between her lips as if she was to be devoured. She dared not react. He pressed deeper with his mouth.