Young Zorro

by Diego Vega

  As she walked off with the horses and the pelt, Diego said, “The worse she talks about her cooking, the more she’s worked at it. I wonder what she’s made us?” Bernardo smiled, thinking how hungry he was.

  A few minutes later, wrapped in rabbit-fur blankets, they walked to the sweat lodge.

  As always, a happiness came over them in the village. It was like no other place. Every villager knew them. But it was more than just knowing their names: they knew their mothers and their grandfathers, their family histories, and the long lines of ancestors many generations back. Though the village was made up of many clans, it was one ritual family. What Diego and Bernardo felt here was acceptance, a loving embrace.

  A sure thing about Gabrieleños: they were either taking a bath or thinking about taking a bath. When they weren’t eating or thinking about eating. They were a humorous, comfortable people, and part of their religion was staying clean. Next to Gabrieleños, the pueblo vaqueros were pigs in the mud.

  Outside the sweat lodge, they hung their robes on pegs driven into a pine trunk. Naked, they poked through the hearth embers next to the lodge. There were still some hot rocks. They picked them up with wooden tongs and carried them into the lodge. They dropped the rocks onto the inner hearth and sprinkled a bit of water onto them, then sealed the door again.

  They sat in the hot darkness. Their eyes began to accept the dim light from cracks in the mud-plastered rushes. Diego didn’t speak, because the sweat lodge was a place to think and turn inward. They sat in the sweltering air, their labored breathing making a companionable whisper.

  The sweating cleansed their skins like nothing else. But their time in the heat and darkness was an important meditation, too. Diego found himself remembering his tribal initiation rites when he wandered the forest in a kind of trance, searching for his special spirit guide. He had found his totem animal—the sharp-eyed fox—el zorro—with its clear sight and wily ways. The fox was surely a part of his soul. Bernardo found the horse—strong, reliable, loyal, and brave.

  After a time, the heat became too intense. Just as they burst out of the sweat lodge, ready to leap into the sweetly cold water, Light-in-the-Night emerged, quietly disappearing like a shadowy forest creature. Bernardo found it hard to breathe, but Diego pushed him in the water. Soon they were diving and splashing and dunking each other. Diego loved being with Bernardo in his grandmother’s village. His milk brother seemed freer, more playful here, as if some invisible cloak of sadness were lifted from his body.

  They waded out of the pool, dried off, and walked toward White Owl’s hut wrapped in their furs, glad for the warmth against the evening chill.

  If White Owl cooked something wonderful, it would be impolite to make it only for her boys. So they ate with Trout Spot, the tomyaar, both of his wives, and his family in the tomyaar’s big lodge beside the holy circle.

  They ate tender little quail stuffed with piñon nuts, sage, and acorn meal. There was a hot soapstone bowl of cattail roots, wild onions, rosemary, and berries. A bowl of herb tea was set out, and little pots of tangy sauces. They ate from White Owl’s best dishes: big, gleaming abalone shells, their holes closed with carved wood plugs and pitch. They ate with lip smacking and grunts of pleasure. These were polite noises of appreciation.

  “White Owl, you are a true sorceress. You have made these quail sing in my belly,” the tomyaar said. “You are an argumentative old woman and a pain in my hip, but you have your moments.”

  This was the kind of nipping tease that Gabrieleños enjoyed.

  “I don’t know how you can tell good food from bad food,” the old woman said without looking at him. “You drink so much corn beer that you could be eating horse dung.”

  Everyone laughed, including the tomyaar. He and White Owl were old adversaries, but they respected and needed each other.

  When everyone had eaten and washed themselves, the rest of the village began to arrive. This was why the tomyaar had a large house. There were games and songs, many old jokes, stories, and gossip.

  White Owl was gathering up her abalone shells. Diego motioned to her and to the tomyaar. They sat against the wall with Bernardo, a little outside the celebration.

  Diego said, “There is some serious business in the pueblo. High on the hill here, you see a long way. Sometimes you know things about the pueblo we don’t hear or see.”

  “I’m a shaman; I see everything,” White Owl said.

  “Not everything,” Trout Spot growled.

  “I’m getting old,” she said. “I once saw everything.”

  “I’m sure you did,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “Someone is stealing cattle, and someone is stealing people,” Diego said. “The rancho is missing hundreds of cattle. So is the mission. And many skilled workers have disappeared. Men with families. Men of trust who wouldn’t just leave.”

  “What does your father make of it?” White Owl said. She had great respect for Don Alejandro, perhaps because he had tamed her wild warrior daughter—something she had never managed to do.

  “He’s puzzled. His best guess is that someone or some group is trying to set up a colony. They need craftsmen to make the colony self-sufficient. The don worries there may be some kind of slavery going on.”

  “So where does my son-in-law think these colony makers are going?” White Owl asked.

  Diego shrugged. “He doesn’t know. He knows only that if they are kidnapping these men, it can’t be a legal colony.”

  “And where are all these cattle going?” Trout Spot asked. “We’d be fatter if they were coming here.”

  “No one knows. Cattle rustling is one thing, but slavery is an evil matter.”

  The old woman and the tomyaar nodded strongly.

  Trout Spot opened his palms as if he were laying out a plan. “Many animals or people must be moved by sea,” he said. “The roads are bad, and it would be too easy to spot them or track them on roads. I’ll ask some of our coast brothers. They are on the water at all hours. If something moves, they’ll see it. And I’ll ask our brothers in the mountains behind us, in case I am wrong about moving by sea.”

  “Too often wrong,” White Owl said, poking him in the ribs.

  “They killed a man,” Diego said, “our potter, Señor Porcana.” This news left a silence after it.

  “Wicked!” Trout Spot said. “Slavery and murder. Tell Don Alejandro that the tribes are with him in this thing. We will be watching.”

  White Owl slipped out quietly a little later. When Diego and Bernardo walked back to her hut, she had their reed mattresses laid out beneath her raised bed shelf. Their vaquero clothes were neatly laid out for the morning, and their rabbit-skin blankets were folded down, ready for them.

  The fire in her hearth was never large, and now it was little more than a few embers. The house was dim, and White Owl was taking the horn pins out of her white hair.

  “Grandmother,” Diego said, sitting down on her high bed beside her, “I love being with you.” She gave a little shrug as if it was fine for him to say this, but she really didn’t care that much. Bernardo sat down on her other side. They put their arms around her and she put her hands over theirs, so that the three of them sat and rocked quietly for a few minutes.

  When she had crawled into her sleeping platform and pulled the deerskin curtains around it, Bernardo and Diego lay down on their mattresses with just their heads pushing out from under the platform. The domed house had a smoke hole open to the stars. White Owl’s shaman tools hung on pegs with many other things: a cloak of feathers, charms and rattles, bound bunches of herbs, skulls of animals, baskets, deerskin bags. It smelled smoky and herbal and familiar.

  “You like Light-in-the-Night. I see the way you look at her,” Diego said.

  Bernardo kicked his milk brother and rolled away on his side.

  “Hey!” Diego complained.

  “Hush,” White Owl barked above them, “or I’ll wet the bed.”

  The boys giggled, pulle
d the rabbit blankets up, and closed their eyes.

  10

  THE TALLY

  THE HERD WAS ENORMOUS now. They could see the dust cloud above it long before they saw the cattle. Closer, they heard it, loud with a constant bawling.

  A herd this size, thousands of cattle, was difficult to move. Every rider the rancho had was in the saddle. From the shoulder of a rise, Diego could see Don Alejandro working beside the vaqueros, keeping the big, dark mass together. Crews were turning back cattle at the sides of the herd. And coming up behind was the drag—the vaqueros who pushed and worried at the tails of the bawling cattle, keeping them moving in the choking dust. Everyone in the drag had their bandannas wrapped around their noses and mouths.

  Bernardo pulled his bandanna over his nose and glanced toward the back of the herd.

  Reading his movements, Diego said, “Yes, you’re probably right. We’ve been up in the mountains taking it easy. Scar will put us on the drag all day.”

  And he did. “All rested?” he called over the noise. “Get back to relieve a couple of Juan Three-fingers’s boys in the drag.”

  They found Juan using his whip to encourage the slowest cattle, popping it behind them. But now and then, they saw a particularly stubborn cow leap forward, stung.

  “Scar sent us to relieve you and a couple of your crew.” It was surprising how loudly Diego had to shout to be heard over the sound of the moaning, jostling cattle.

  Juan nodded and started to ride off but spun his pony back. “Here,” he said to Diego. “Give it a try.” He handed Diego the coiled length of the black whip. Then he disappeared into the wall of dust.

  “Hoo hoo!” Diego called, and hefted it. He tossed the whip out behind him and gave it an experimental flick, almost knocking his own hat off. “This will take some time to learn,” he shouted, then leaned into his pony’s turn as it moved across to block a wandering cow.

  Both boys were standing beside fresh ponies, spitting, trying to get the feel and the taste of the dust out of their mouths. Diego was gargling a big mouthful of water when Don Alejandro rode up with Scar.

  “I’m not sure, caballero, but you look a little bit like my son. Hard to tell with the dust and the dung. But maybe.” He grinned from the saddle. “And you, vaquero, I know a boy named Bernardo who resembles you. But his skin is darker, not so dusty white.”

  Bernardo slapped his jacket, raising a cloud of dust.

  Diego spit out the mouthful of water. “We’re working in the drag, Papá. Hundreds of cattle try to sneak past us, but we hide in the dust and leap out, howling like wolves. They run back to their friends. Bernardo and I are learning to be shape-shifting sorcerers in that dust. We turn into wolves and bears. Anything that will impress the cattle. But you know what frightens them most?”

  “What’s that, my dusty shaman?”

  “We turn into mayordomos with big mustaches. It scares even big bulls silly.”

  Scar raised one critical eyebrow and puffed through his mustache.

  “How is the herd shaping up for numbers, Papá? Did we have a good spring for calves?”

  “Not as good as we’d hoped. With this much grass and the mild winter, we should have hundreds more cattle than we’re driving. It’s puzzling. We’ll sort it out.”

  “Will the branding begin tomorrow?”

  Don Alejandro swung down from his mount and tightened his saddle girth, speaking as much to Scar as to the boys. “Don Honorio is the administrador this year, and a few of the garrison sergeants are his jueces de campo. I hope they’re at least sober. I have no faith in mataperros as field judges.” He used the rude term for the garrison soldiers: “dog killers.”

  Scar snorted. It was his short and complete opinion of the soldiers.

  “But with this many cattle, they can’t go far wrong. God has been good to us. God loves California.”

  “Yes, and so do we,” Diego said, slapping a cloud of California soil from his chaps and jacket. “We love it so much we carry it around with us.”

  Don Alejandro shook his head. “My son the clown. I would love to sit and laugh at your antics, caballeros, but there is this rancho I must run, so adios, and have a good lunch of dirt, yes?” He and Scar rode off.

  Diego and Bernardo spat a few more times, tightened their bandannas, and rode back into the dust behind the herd.

  The de la Vega herd for this year’s apartado was assembled. More than eight thousand head of cattle made a satisfying display. Not every cow, bull, and calf had been gathered. There were some wily cattle still grazing in the hills or hidden in cottonwood thickets. Not all of them were de la Vega cattle, either. The herds mixed and wandered. A few hundred of these cattle would carry the cross-and-G of the mission’s brand. Some would be branded with Don Moncada’s elaborate poppy brand.

  When the jueces de campo sorted them out, they would find cattle belonging to ranchos far and wide. But the big plain V of the de la Vega rancho would be on most of them.

  And there would be this year’s increase, too. Every unmarked calf the de la Vega vaqueros rounded up would become de la Vega cattle as soon as the branding iron marked them. This was the law of the range.

  The herd was backed against the Santa Monica hills. It was time to brand this year’s calves. Instead of the great dust cloud of moving cattle over the plain, there were individual plumes of smoke rising from dozens of small, hot fires where the iron brands had been heating in the coals since first light.

  But the field judge had to signal for the start. Scar was impatient but reluctant to question the juez de campo’s authority. “Sergeant Figueroa is still damp from soaking in a bowl of wine last night. We’ve got to persuade him that he’s alive enough to get things rolling. Diego, take him a big mug of coffee.”

  Diego and Bernardo could see Sergeant Figueroa sitting against a tree, asleep. The vaqueros had long since finished their porridge and coffee, and the camp cook was clattering around in his wagon, starting things for the midday meal. Diego picked up a mug and was about to fill it with thick, sweet, vaquero coffee when Bernardo headed over to the cook’s camp box and picked up a pot. Diego stepped quietly toward Bernardo. The pot contained tiny chili peppers, dried almost black, hotter than the Devil’s pillow. Diego shook several into the mug and crushed them with a wooden spoon, then poured in the coffee.

  The sergeant was snoring. Diego put the coffee beside him and backed away. “Sergeant Figueroa!” he called. The fat soldier jerked awake and looked around, disappointed he was not back in the garrison kitchen, where he usually slept in the morning.

  “Shall I fetch you a cup of coffee?” Diego asked. “The one you have there may be cold by now.”

  Figueroa felt the mug. “No, young de la Vega. No, it’s just right for drinking now. I was waiting for it to cool a bit, you see.”

  Diego nodded and walked back toward the horses with Bernardo. When they had gone a dozen paces, they heard a bullish bellow behind them. “Whoo! Whoo!” The sergeant leaped up, threw the coffee mug into the fire, then began to dance around the tree. “Whoo! Whoo!” He was very lively for a fat man. He took off his hat, waving it to fan his mouth. “Whoo! I’m dying! Bring water!” He was waving both arms as he danced around the tree.

  Diego called to Scar, “The juez de campo is signaling us to begin, Jefe.” But by then every vaquero within three hundred paces had seen the signal and mounted up. Their tough ponies were moving toward the herd, reatas whistling above them.

  Back and forth. A hundred times, it seemed, each boy rode into the herd. His leather reata curled out and, when he was lucky, snared a calf. He dallied turns on the saddle horn and backed out, dragging the new member of the de la Vega herd toward the fire. The calf balked and bawled, jerked at the reata, and planted its short legs, but it was no match for the pony. By the fire, one vaquero seized the calf by its tail and back leg, another by the head and front leg, and toppled it. One would sit on its head while the other grabbed a rag-wrapped iron from the coals and pressed it into
the calf’s flank. For a moment it sizzled and smoked, and then the branded cow was released. They shooed it away from the herd toward the open plain. A few minutes later, it was grazing as though the morning had been uneventful.

  The boys roped and they branded. There was no comparison. As hard as the riding and roping was, the calf wrangling was harder. Some of these brutes had grown to the size of a dinner table, and not one of them was cooperative. Toppling a frisky cow was work, and the smell of burning hair was awful.

  They were sweating by the fire as Juan Three-fingers dragged an especially large calf toward them. Bernardo looked toward the mission with a wistful expression.

  “You’re right, Bernardo,” Diego said. “Today is the first day that being a padre seems like a better idea than being a vaquero.”

  11

  WILDFIRE

  AS DIEGO AND BERNARDO rode in to change ponies, Scar whistled for them. He was looking at a small book with Sergeant Figueroa. They stood some distance from the camp because the sergeant was still mad at the cook about the coffee that he was sure almost killed him.

  The boys stepped down from their ponies. Diego said, “Jefe?”

  Scar showed them the book. “Here’s the tally of cattle and calves so far. The good sergeant has agreed on the numbers. I want both of you to take this tally book to Don Honorio at his camp on the Moncada range, somewhere to the northeast of the pueblo. Bring the tally book back by way of the tar springs. Julio Castillo’s crew is herding there and may need a couple of extra vaqueros to finish up. We’ll see you by last light. The cook camp will be over by the river marsh then. Questions?”

  Diego repeated their chores, then Scar said, “Good. Vayan con Dios, hijos.”

  Sergeant Figueroa spoke up. “And if you see Sergeant Velásquez, tell him I’m out of wine.”

  The boys touched their hats in respect and replied, “Sí, Sargento,” though they had seen Scar’s lowered brow and slight shake of the head: No more wine for Sergeant Figueroa until the apartado was finished.