“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, quickly rising, rubbing one hand with the other.
I took a deep breath, suddenly too weary to say more. There might be time in the days to come for me to woo Maria…to show her that although I might appear a “lady,” an esteemed visitor to this fine house, I was really no more than a girl who could dice ten onions in ten minutes.
Awkwardly, she curtsied and left me. I leaned to my right, grabbed the first volume that I could lay my fingers on, and opened it. A Brief History of Alta California. I blinked. Here was the perfect book for me. The Cliff Notes of early California history, giving me everything that everyone around me would assume I knew or remembered. Except printed on, you know, thick, soft rough-edged paper and bound in a soft leather cover that felt like it had been an animal hide not too long ago…
Hurriedly, I opened the pages, took another quick sip of tea, and began reading. The language was formal, archaic even, but I could follow along well enough. The author began back more than a hundred years ago and clearly thought the Spanish had some divine right to this land. The missionaries came then, led by Father Junípero Serra, establishing their outposts and presidios all the way up the coast. There’d apparently been one up north, in Santa Cruz, that I didn’t remember from my history class, but it had been abandoned in the 1820s…
“What has caught your attention so?” Doña Elena said, striding into the library.
I started and stared at her a moment before finding the words to respond. “A volume on California history,” I said, lifting it up. “I’ve always liked history.”
“Hmm,” she said, bustling over to the table. “An odd choice for a young woman.”
Is it? I wondered silently. Then you don’t know the half of it, lady…
She bent to pour herself a cup of tea and then sat in the other chair beside the table. I stifled a sigh, realizing that it’d be a while before I could check out the safe but also glad that I hadn’t been doing so when my hostess walked in.
She took a sip, staring at me over the rim the whole time. “So you are an educated girl,” she said.
I nodded. Not a college girl, not yet. But educated? In comparison to a few years of tutoring and governess for her girls? “Yes,” I said.
“How many years of schooling have you?” she said, setting down her cup in her saucer. Her thick silver hair was in an immaculate bun, and she held her chin at an angle that told me she was The Boss. I could see that some of Javier’s good looks had come from her, despite the losses she’d suffered that had left her forehead a mass of wrinkles and deep frown lines around her mouth.
“Years of schooling? Uh…almost twelve.”
Her lips clamped together, and her eyes flashed with disbelief. “Twelve?”
I paused. Apparently this was the wrong answer. “My…my abuela was a firm believer in a proper education,” I tried, hoping to reach out to her, bonding one old lady to another. “She sent me to the local school.”
“A school, you say? Where?”
It was my turn to clamp my lips in a thin line. I gestured toward my head. “I don’t remember, Doña Elena.”
“And yet you remember receiving twelve years of tutelage,” she said, squinting at me.
“I do,” I said.
“Even my own Javier only had eight years of tutelage, before heading to university,” she said doubtfully. “Perhaps you’ve dreamed it. Or it’s a part of your head injury?”
“No,” I returned, feeling as if this was a line I had to hold. “I am quite certain. I know quite a bit of literature, math, science. History and language too.”
“Science!” she scoffed. “They do not teach such things to girls.”
“They do where…I came from.”
She stared me down a moment, then sniffed. “A most odd occurrence. Your family must be very well-to-do.”
This made me want to laugh aloud. But I managed to hold it back. “You might be surprised.”
She took this as affirmation that I was some rich chick, apparently, rather than absorbing my note of sarcasm. I let it go, aware that it was likely safer for her to think that way.
“So you are beautiful,” she said, looking over my face as if seeking any imperfection, “and clever. You lack certain social graces, but it isn’t anything that we cannot overcome. A few weeks under my wing, and I can train you well, my dear.”
“Train me for what?” I blurted out, thoroughly confused.
“Well, is it not obvious?” She set down her cup. “To be my future daughter-in-law.”
And for the very first time, I saw a full smile on her lips.
CHAPTER 7
“Wh-what?” I sputtered, gaping at her. “Doña Elena,” I hurried on, “I am more than honored that you should think of me in such a way, but—”
The grand old lady stood, hands held before her, and turned and looked down her nose at me, as proper and imposing as a portrait. “It is as good as done,” she said. “One look at my son, and I knew he was smitten.”
I blinked several times, knew my mouth had fallen open. Did she just say what I thought she’d said? Javier, smitten? This is the second time I’ve heard that…
She lifted a single finger, shushing me when I tried to speak. “I have prayed to Our Lady, night after night, for years now, for the right woman to capture his heart. And here you are,” she said, gesturing toward me, eyes wide. “A gift from God, as assuredly as each of my children were to me, as well as my own husband.” With this last word, she crossed herself. “Delivered to the sands of our very beach!”
I, too, rose, distantly aware that my legs were shaking a little. “Doña Elena, thank you,” I said, using my old skills at reading people. This woman needed to know she was respected, more than anything else. I brought a hand to my chest. “The thought that you would consider someone like me, as the…bride of your dear son is an honor beyond any I could imagine.” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts.
“Forgive me, but I cannot remain here. My home is somewhere else. Somewhere my mind has forgotten. But surely you understand this,” I said, reaching out to her. “If your own family were lost to you—the town of your birth,” I added, trying new phrases on for size that sounded vaguely historical, “as they have been to me, would you not wish to find them? After all, how can I press forward when I do not quite fully know what I’ve left behind?”
“I understand it more than you can imagine,” she said with an odd quaver to her voice, her eyes moving to the window, as if lost in memory. Her eyes shifted back to mine, as if she was trying to ferret out the truth within me, and I saw a glimpse of where Javier got it. But then she relented, thank God. At least I thought she had.
“We shall summon a doctor,” she said, ignoring me as I narrowed my eyes. “From Santa Barbara. He shall tell us whether your memory will return,” she said confidently, “or whether you simply need to press on from this point forward, knowing what you know. But realize this, dear girl,” she said, stepping forward and taking one of my cold hands in both of her warm, soft ones. “The honor of my son’s hand in marriage is something that daughters of many nobles have sought for years, and even more in this last year when he became the leader of this household. Yet I wanted something else for him. Something as unique and special as I shared with his father.”
I gaped at her. She didn’t even know me. She was crazy. And yet she seemed so, so sure that this was right. Why?
“And Javier?” I managed, the only civil thing I could utter. “What does he wish?”
She let out a hollow laugh. “He wishes for the extraordinary to capture his heart. Settle him.” She lifted one brow and then my hand. “And here you are. Trust me, you are the answer to both our prayers.” I gaped at her, and she dropped my hand. “Go and explore with Estrella and Francesca. My daughters will show you the bounty that God has bestowed at your feet. All here,” she said, lifting her hands, “for the taking. You need only accept the path that the Lord has opened to you.”
&n
bsp; With that she strode out, and I continued to stare at the empty doorway. I let out a hollow laugh and turned halfway around, palms on my cheeks. What had just happened? What in the heck had just happened? And how was I supposed to get myself out of it? When Javier found out, he’d be furious. At his mother. Even with me. The last thing he wanted—the last—would be me, some poor chick who, when the truth came out, everyone would think was loca. If Doña Elena was right…if every girl was after Mr. Ranchero with his hot good looks and steamy eyes and brash ways…then why on earth would he choose me? The girl who had hit him in the face and nether regions…
I turned back around and found the girls waiting for me with expectant faces. They’d been quick about their chores. Or maybe Doña Elena had let them go early—part of her whack-a-doodle plan to make me an insta-member of the clan.
“Ready?” Francesca asked crisply, her hands folded before her waist. “What part of the rancho do you wish to see? Do you wish to ride? Or simply see the closest buildings on foot?”
“I’d like to see all of it,” I said, trying to concentrate on the girls, who led me out, rather than the strange things their mother had just told me. “But we can begin here, close in.”
She nodded. “That is good. If we go far or wish to ride, we’ll have to bring the boys or a guard with us. Javier and Mamá don’t like us riding alone.”
“Kidnappers might get us,” Estrella added, eyes round and earnest.
“Kidnappers?” I smiled, thinking she was joking. But in a sec, I realized she wasn’t.
“It’s why we cannot go to boarding school in Mexico,” Francesca said, obviously reading my expression. “Coming from Rancho Ventura, we could be kidnapped and held for ransom.”
“I think it would be an adventure to be kidnapped,” Estrella said, looping her arm through mine.
“Estie! Such silly words!” her sister chastised her.
“It’s not silly, Frani. To want to see other places, meet new people. Why, Zara is the first new person I’ve met in years.” She drew out that last word in dramatic fashion.
“That is only because you are not yet of age. When that day comes, you’ll be able to meet many people. Many boys too.” She bumped her sister with a teasing hip. I liked seeing this new, softer side of the girl. Obviously, her little sister brought out the best in her.
“It is not boys I wish to meet!”
“Of course it isn’t,” her sister continued to tease. “That’s why you read every novel, yes? For the setting, correct? Never the love story.”
Estrella frowned, and I hid a smile. It was clear that her big sis had nailed it. But the young girl was so adorable…I hated for her to think that I was anything but her staunch friend. We moved to the stables, and when Francesca turned to enter, I said, “Oh, it’s all right. I’ve been in there already.” I wasn’t ready to relive the memory of my heated discussion with Javier in there—for many reasons.
So we went on to one of the four other outbuildings, all as big as the stables. The first proved to be a butchering shed, where we didn’t linger long. I quickly saw the blood and recoiled at the horrendous odor of piles of red meat for drying and cubes of fat—to be rendered into tallow, Francesca explained, confused by my utter lack of knowledge—as well as hides being scraped and taken out to dry flat in the sun. I hurriedly urged the girls onward. In the next shed was the second stage of curing hides, which appeared to involve covering them with disgusting, mashed cow-brains and working them smooth, and again, I rushed them on, practically gagging over the smell.
“Do you have a sensitive stomach, Zara?” Estrella asked, staring up at me in concern as we walked.
“I suppose you could put it that way.”
“Was your father not a rancher?”
“No,” I said. “I never knew my father or mother. I lived with my abuela, and she ran a restaurant.”
“A restaurant!” Francesca said. “Then you must come from a very big city.”
“It wasn’t all that big,” I said.
She turned to me excitedly. “So you remember it? What was the name?”
I lifted a hand to my temples and rubbed. To answer her truthfully might only lead to more questions, and then still more when Javier and his mother learned of it. No one would recognize it. The town probably wasn’t even founded for another fifty or a hundred years. “I remember what it looked like. That’s all I can share,” I said, lifting my hands helplessly. It was true. It was all I could share.
The girls looked upon me with sincere empathy.
“What kind of food did your abuela cook?” asked Estrella, walking through the next doors. She took my hand. “And how sad for you, that your parents died! I’m only glad that you had your dear abuela.”
“She cooked many of my favorites,” I said, choosing to let them think my parents were dead. “Tamales y arroz con pollo y lentejas con fruta… And she made the most delicious tortillas.” It was with some relief that I saw this next building was a storehouse, with stacks of congealed tallow, candles, and hides, as well as barrels of salt, flour, and sugar and a few crates of fruit and nuts. We walked down the length of it, and I admired the amazing stores of goods, stacked to the ceiling in places. “Is this all for trade?” I asked.
“It’s mostly for the rancho,” Francesca said. “We have over a hundred workers who depend on us for at least one meal a day. And then with the needs for tanning the hides and rendering the tallow…”
“It takes a great deal,” I put in, understanding. This was a serious business, from start to finish. But then, if you didn’t have a Walmart down the road, it all would be pretty much up to you. We exited the end of that building, and I saw there was an arc of smaller shelters, open to one side. In three, men were working on various leather goods, creating rope and bridles and, in one, what appeared to be a saddle. In the next two, fires blazed, and two blacksmiths hammered across their anvils. In neither shelter could I tell what the end product might be.
The girls led me up a hill. Across from it, in a shallow valley beside a stream and a grove of oaks, was an entire village, with hundreds of small huts. “The Indiancera,” Francesca explained. “This is where the workers live.”
“And you said you have over a hundred people who work for you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “They work in the fields and orchards, or across the hills as goatherds and vaqueros. Others, as you have seen, work at tanning or tallow-making—”
“And tooling leather!” Estrella put in.
“And others work in the villa,” Francesca went on.
We walked down the dusty path and into the village. Chickens scattered before our feet, and doleful looking little children stared at us as we walked by. A mother pulled one into a hut, glancing back at us, partially in fear. “Do they like it here?” I asked.
“Well enough,” Estrella said, looking momentarily sad for them. “They are dreadfully poor, but they are better off than when we weren’t here. Now they have some steady food, work, shelter. When my grandfather came, they had none of that.”
“But were they…happier?”
Her delicate brows rose and met in the middle. “Happier? How would I know that?”
“Of course,” I hurried on. “I suppose I was only musing aloud.” Unless you’re a time traveler too and can tell me for certain…
“The priests brought them the sacraments, introduced them to the Holy Writ. If they were solely graced by that, then they are better off than before.”
“Of course,” I repeated, but as I stared into the dark, dusty doorway at a woman with a tiny baby at her bare, sagging breast, I wasn’t certain at all.
On the far side, by the stream, were big cauldrons full of boiling water, in which women dipped clothing and then set them steaming on big rocks to rub clean. Some held bars of soap, scrubbing into the cloth—dresses and shirts and sheets and long underwear. Others carried the clothing to a long line strung between the trees, clipping them against the breeze to dry. Nev
er had I been more thankful for my abuela’s old washing machine and dryer that took forever. This, this was work like I’d never considered before.
You put a hundred-plus people together on a ranch, and there’s some serious laundry. But the women here were singing, in a low, dissonant tone, which made me feel oddly welcome. It was as if I knew the tune, but couldn’t quite place it. Children ran through the laundry hanging over lines, shrieking in glee, and mothers swatted them away but smiled as they did so. Here was a more familiar form of family, of work, of joy, which comforted me and made me smile with them. Maybe it was just that jobs on the ranch varied, as they did everywhere, and some were happier than others. Those in the big villa, after all, seemed pretty content.
The girls walked me through the oak grove and then up the next hill. Before us were acres upon acres of corn and wheat, planted as far as the eye could see, with irrigation trenches running in neat lines at perfect intervals. Men and women alike moved in and out of the crop parcels, carrying baskets for gathering and hoes and picks and shovels. Now that I thought about it, this was what the blacksmiths had been working on—more farming tools.
“This is about as far as we can go and still get back before noon,” Estrella said. “We should head back now, or Mamá will become worried.”
Thoughts of Doña Elena—and her last words to me—made me shift uneasily. I wasn’t so anxious to get back. “What of the orchards? Could we not just take a quick peek at those? Aren’t we close?” I could smell orange blossoms on the breeze.
Francesca hesitated, and I remembered talk of kidnappers and bringing a guard with us. But seriously, there didn’t seem to be anybody but rancho workers for miles.
“We’ve come this far,” I said. “What’s the harm?”
“Well, maybe,” she said reluctantly. “Just a quick peek.” Together we set off again, climbing a steep path that gave way to a rocky valley. The orange blossom scent surged before the trees came into view, and I covered my mouth. The green—the beautiful green of the leaves—was in such sharp contrast to the brown, rocky soil and rocks around the trunks that it surprised me. The trees were not the perfectly trimmed, round, fat trees I remembered from my own time, but they were very pretty in their own rustic way. Again, neat irrigation lines ran between the trees. Clearly, this ranch was blessed with an abundance of fresh water. Maybe there’d always been enough water in California, until millions of people moved in.
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