by Kage Baker
“Well, listen to me, I’m going to ask you for it. My friend here is a kind gentleman who is being pursued by thieves. We had to flee Los Diablos last night, and he has had nothing to eat. We would go back to the inn for a meal, but I am afraid they may come looking for him there.”
“Oh, they have already,” Juan Bautista said.
“What?” What? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?
I thought you knew. “Yes, señora, two Yankee men. They said they were the friends of the Englishman who had been there. They came to collect the valise he left behind. I pretended not to understand them because, as you know, I do not trust the Yankee oppressors of our people.” Juan Bautista gave the rifle a dramatic flourish.
I turned to look at Edward. His face was a perfect mask of polite incomprehension, but he had turned pale. “Señor,” I told him, “the boy says that two Yankee men came to the inn asking for the valise an Englishman left there. He doesn’t like Yankees, so he wouldn’t speak with them.”
“Really,” Edward drawled. He made an odd little gesture that I would have taken for a shrug, if I hadn’t known where all his concealed weapons were. He was quietly assuring himself each was in place. “Ask him when they were at the inn.”
“When was this, Juanito?”
You’re scared, aren’t you? What’s wrong? “It was this morning, señora, just after first light.”
They’ll kill him if they find him. “And are they still there now, boy?”
“No, señora, but I think they did not go far away. I think they are hiding to watch the stagecoach come and go, but, as you know, I am an Indian and white men cannot conceal themselves from me.” Can I help? Can 1 be your Indian guide? Please? I could throw the bad guys off the scent if they followed us.
God damn it, this isn’t a movie. “He says they were here at dawn,” I told Edward. “He says they left, but he thinks they’re still hiding in the pass, waiting for you to come.”
Edward just nodded. I was feeling a slow anger building in him, sullen and exasperated. Not much fear, though for all he knew the Yankees might have had him in their sights at that very moment. But I was terrified for him, señors.
“I think you ought to ambush and kill those Yankees, Juanito,” I said. “I assure you they are very bad men.”
Juan Bautista did a good job of looking crafty. “Perhaps that can be arranged, señora.” So what do you want me to do about them, really?
Like I said.
That shook Juan Bautista’s little world. Even though Einar had been nailing mortal hides to the wall for months. After all, wasn’t this Los Angeles, where such things were done every day? The boy shuffled his feet and looked at the ground. Mendoza, I can’t kill mortals.
Why not? James Bond does.
Edward apparently came to some kind of decision, because he looked up at this point and said, “Thank the boy and tell him to go on with his business. If he meets the Yankees again, on no account is he to mention that he’s seen me. But he should avoid them if he can, because they are very dangerous men.”
“Give me that food now,” I told Juan Bautista. “My friend offers his thanks and says to stay away from those Yankees, but don’t tell them about him if you do encounter them. I assume this means he does not wish them to die. What a pity. However, your soul is free of two mortal sins. How fortunate for you.”
Juan Bautista was too unnerved to play back. He just handed me the lunch basket and muttered, “Good day, good fortune on your journey,” before vanishing into the sagebrush.
I hefted the basket and flashed Edward a brittle smile. “The boy has kindly surrendered his luncheon repast to our greater need. Poor fare, señor, but sustaining. I suggest we find a secure place to eat and revise our plans.”
He shook his head grimly. “If I were a free man, we’d be riding for San Francisco this moment. Unfortunately I have a duty to salvage what I can from Rubery’s incompetence.”
This gave me an idea, but all I said was “One cannot make decisions on an empty stomach. Let us ride back to the high ground, señor.”
We returned to the vicinity of Fremont’s outpost and stopped in a grove of oak trees on the saddleback ridge just below. We still had a good view of the north end of the pass, but from a more sheltered spot. If anyone tracking us should find our previous night’s camp, we’d have warning of their presence and a reasonably clear shot at them.
I unpacked the basket. Left to himself, Juan Bautista had grilled beef and made severely deformed tortillas for supper last night, and we had lots of the leftovers. He had also included a jug of water, a jar of olives, some cheese, a can of sardines, and a couple of cakes of Theobromos.
I should mention that I didn’t have to explain any of the food to Edward, or show him how to roll up a filling in a tortilla. He’d learned how, somewhere. Perhaps in secret agent school; more likely in Veracruz, whatever he’d been doing there. From his saddlebag, he drew out an immense white handkerchief and spread it across his lap. I watched in amazement as he made himself sardine tacos and ate them without getting one spot of oil on those immaculate clothes.
“As regards this plan, señor,” I said at length, when we’d consumed half the contents of the basket and neatly packed the rest for later. “As I said: my honor will not permit me to leave you. But clearly we are dealing in matters of life and death now. For your sake, I will be my father’s sword at the throat of your enemies. Yet I begin to question whether your government is wise enough to rule the world. What fool ever trusted your Mr. Rubery with important papers?”
Yes, that touched a nerve. What a cold, bleak look in his eyes as he stared out at Cahuenga Pass, and how well I remembered the bitter anger that pulled the corners of his mouth down. He mastered his temper, though, and turned to face me with a rueful smile and a shrug.
“I can’t deny the truth, my dear, particularly in this instance, since we’re facing considerable danger as a result of it. I have at least the satisfaction of pointing out that well-born imbeciles tend to get themselves killed before they manage to breed, leaving room for men of ability to replace them. And not all well-born men are idiots! I can assure you that there is an office in Whitehall where a very wise and noble man makes national policy, one whose judgment I’d utterly trust, for all that he’s seldom quoted in the Times. That same man who made the decision to give Alfred a task he was barely fit for had the foresight to send me after him, guessing no doubt that Alfred would make the wretched mess he has.”
I shook my head. “Why send the boy in the first place? If your people think you’re expendable, their aristocratic brains are no better than Mr. Rubery’s. I’ll grant you, the idea of this land in peace and prosperity under British rule is a splendid one. I’d die myself if that would bring it into being. But I don’t see how it can be accomplished now, do you? Martha must have gone straight to the Yankees and told them about the valise; or if she did not, some other indiscretion of Mr. Rubery’s put them on the scent. They surely know everything now. I don’t see how your masters can blame you for pulling out and saving what you can of the affair.”
“Ah, but the Yankees don’t know everything now,” he said. He pushed his lank hair back from his forehead with the flat of his hand and set his hat straight on his head. “If they did, they wouldn’t be after the valise. Whatever else we do, it mustn’t fall into their hands.”
“Shouldn’t we destroy the papers, then?” I asked.
“No. If we can salvage any part of this, we’ll need them. And, my dear, the game’s not over yet. Alfred’s an idiot, but at least he’s a British idiot, and despite the business with the valise he’s managed to accomplish successfully another part of his task.” He glanced down involuntarily at his watch pocket. “So. All we need do is evade our Yankee opposite numbers until we can get across to Santa Catalina Island. My compliments to Abraham Lincoln, I must say. Certainly no one thought he had the resources to spend anything on counterespionage in this corner of the nation. But he can’t keep
it up for long, I think. And if the Union loses to the Confederacy, it won’t matter whether he knows about us or not.” He rose to his feet briskly and extended his hand to me. “We’ll triumph yet. Are you still game, my love?”
My love. The earth wobbled in its orbit, just for a second, there. Against all my better judgment I let him pull me to my feet, and tried to look every inch the fearless secret agent’s girlfriend. “I’ll go with you, señor!”
So much for my attempt to seduce him away from his duty. He was unstoppable, señors, and he always had been. What an operative he’d have made for Dr. Zeus, eh? Our agents are always so adroit at stepping in and whisking away unwanted children. Where were they when Nicholas Harpole made his unwelcome entrance into this world, or Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax? Sublime bastards both of them, with a courage and determination and nobility of character I’d never possessed. What imbecile chance selected me for immortality, when he could have made so much better use of an eternal life? He didn’t fit the optimum physical parameters, I’ll admit; and that was absolutely the only bar I could see.
Consider his ability to inspire. I had been lost in the dark wood, on this wretched posting, and despair owned me. I’d seen at last the future we’d all been promised, and I knew it for the hard and ugly thing it was. I’d seen the madness that descends on older immortals, and it wasn’t an enjoyable prospect to contemplate for myself. Nevertheless, others of my kind have in their differing ways found a certain happiness, a sense of purpose, even love. I had my work; but the work dried up, like the seasonal streams of this accursed place, and in its absence I had glimpsed the hideous dry void it covered. What if the Company gave me new work? The void was still there. Besides, I had now the growing suspicion that the work was meaningless, a pointless series of tasks devised to keep busy a thing that couldn’t die, since its creators could find no way to unsay the spell that had set it in motion.
But this man walked back into my life and changed everything.
Surely, I thought, his mere existence argued that there was a greater power than the Company, that there was more going on here than our pitiful creators imagined! You see? There might be a point to this eternal life business after all, a purpose and a meaning I couldn’t see. Had he not come back to me, like a good angel in my darkest hour, and started my dead heart beating again?
Theobromos, please. Thank you. You want to know what we did next, not listen to my opinions. I see, though, that some of you recognize the feeling. Yes, and some of you are as frightened of the future as I am. Your eyes give it away. So much the worse for you. What’s the old saying, don’t rejoice at my troubles, because when they’re old news, yours will have just started? You have no refuge, any more than I; unbearable Time is master of us all, who thought we had defeated him. Will he treat you with more charity than he’s treated me?
We rode, señors, by devious and careful paths, down from that ridge and quickly across the grade to Dark Canyon Road. The plan was to work our way around behind Mount Hollywood, then cut across the lands of the old haunted rancho on the other side, crossing the river at some point. Los Angeles being what it was, this could be done with dry shoes most years; especially so in this year of drought. Edward looked around him in wonder as our horses picked their way through the sand and river cobbles.
“But—this is the principal river in southern California,” he murmured.
“So it is,” I said. “Not at its best just now, unfortunately. In a normal year, however, it is at least two feet across. Sometimes even three.”
He frowned and fell silent. I imagine he was wondering how even the most brilliant British engineers could irrigate this desolation to the point where cotton could be grown.
“Wheat might grow here, señor,” I said helpfully. “Cotton, never, unless you bring water down from the north. Plenty of water up there. It’s a green paradise; parts of it even look like your England. You would like it there.”
He wasn’t comforted. Perhaps he was beginning to doubt the feasibility of the grand design after all. In a pigeonhole in some fine antique oaken desk in Whitehall, there was a map of southern California; and some Briton had looked at this wavy line that described itself as a river and made plans accordingly, without understanding that Los Angeles never plays by the rules, whether of geography, law, or anything else.
And of course I knew, I who rode faithful at his side, that the whole business would fall to pieces anyway. Even now Alfred Rubery was probably sitting in a San Francisco jail, having been unable to get any part of his mission right. The British would never own California. Edward and I would at least enjoy a holiday on Catalina Island first. But when the piracy case hit the world newspapers, surely Britain would throw in the towel and call its operatives home.
And what would we do then? What would I do in England, on which I’d turned my back with the earnest hope that the island sink entirely into the sea? I hadn’t seen the place since before the Industrial Revolution. It had been crude, cold, and violent, still largely medieval then, with all the attendant lustful bawdiness that implied. What would I make of the new Victorian propriety? What would I make of the mill towns and mine towns that had turned the green fields black? There were railways there now, and canals, and no one was burned at the stake anymore; all peace and prosperity. Except for the workhouses, of course, and the children freezing in alleyways and drinking gin to warm themselves, and the typhus and tuberculosis . . . But what other nation in the world hadn’t the same problems, or worse? No gunfights in the public streets, at least.
It occurred to me that I’d like to go to Rochester, to the open place near the cathedral where Nicholas was burned. To walk there in my Victorian clothes, on the arm of my Victorian Nicholas, and laugh in the face of Death.
I’d have to make some accommodation to the Company, explain my actions and propose a plan that would serve its interests as well as mine. Hadn’t they been understanding of Porfirio’s needs? After all the years I’d served them, surely they could afford to make some allowances for me. Yes, and it should even be possible to break the truth to Edward. What was the Company, after all, but the ultimate expression of the civilizing force to which he’d dedicated his life? And if he too should become a double agent? Oh, but of a much higher order than a flunky like Souza. It would have worked, señors. We could have made it work.
So I rode over that barren ground, with my head in the rainy clouds of England.
We went up into the foothills to avoid Sonoratown as we approached Los Angeles, though scanning from a distance, I could tell that it was virtually deserted. Best to be safe. We climbed, screened by laurel and oak scrub, until we were peering down on the city we’d left in such haste only the night before. It looked flat and desolate, the whole scene filtered through a yellow haze of dust raised by cattle and horses. Terrible dust, for of course there’d been no rain. And the smell of manure rose up, and of roofing tar, and mesquite smoke, and, faintly under all these, the smell of death.
But out on the horizon, what was that poking up blue into the high clean air?
“Catalina Island, señor,” I said, stretching out an arm. “If only we could fly there.”
His face was somber as he surveyed the distance, and his gaze dropped back down to the uninviting prospect below us. “I must warn you, my dear, that our road to the sea will be watched. It would be pleasant to think that they’ve simply posted a man to observe the stage line to San Pedro; but I rather think they know I’ve got wind of them by now. Is there a fairly straight route to the sea that avoids the pueblo?”
There would be, when the 710 freeway was built. I accessed information hurriedly and superimposed a twentieth-century grid over the present-day map. No reason why we couldn’t follow the freeway route through the sagebrush and sand. It would take us right down to the future site of Long Beach, just south of Souza’s landing. I plotted a course and nodded. “This way, señor,” I said, urging my horse forward, and Edward followed.
So we went
down across the wide plain, keeping the smoke of Los Angeles on our right, through a wilderness that would one day be East Los Angeles and various urban housing tracts called Maywood, Bell Gardens, South Gate, Downey, Compton. Such orderly Yankee names for a place that was now only a desert of trampled earth and bleaching cattle bones. Would there be an interval of little Yankee towns with gardens and cottages here too? And would they too vanish in their time, asphalted over, shadowed by the steel towers that would themselves vanish in the urban wars? And what pair of lovers would one day pick their way across a desolation not of sagebrush but of rust and broken paving, under a poisoned sky, past the bleaching bones of men? Full circle for this place, but not for me. With any luck I’d never see Los Angeles again. I’d be off to Great Britain. I’d have to find some way of persuading Edward to give up this nonsense about dying for Queen and country, though . . .
We had gone on our way about an hour when I edged my horse close enough to speak to Edward in a low voice.
“A question, señor. You understand that I have every confidence in your ability, and absolute faith in your word. To look at the matter coldly, however—what shall I do if we do not succeed? What will the Yankees do if they apprehend us?”
He gave a brief, humorless laugh. “My government is in no position to come to my assistance. The Yankees, for their part, cannot fight a war with Britain just at the present moment, being preoccupied with rather more pressing matters. They’d dearly love to obtain all the particulars of our business here, make no mistake about that. But I doubt very much they’ll go to the trouble of declaring me persona non grata and paying my passage home. Much more likely, I’ll quietly vanish into a shallow grave, and the contents of the valise will be forwarded to Washington. This is, you understand, the worst possible chance; but it is a possibility. All the more reason to avoid capture, my dear.” He looked up and gave me a brisk smile, cold and bright as the winter sun. “Are you reconsidering your offer? I should, if I were you. You see what it is to be a pawn on this particular chessboard.”