by Diego Vega
“Diego!”
“Yes, Mamá?” he said, but he was looking at Esmeralda Avila.
“I asked if we might have the pleasure of watching you two dance.”
“I would sooner be eaten by ants,” Diego meant to say, but what came out was, “With delight, if the señorita will endure my stone-footed attempts.”
Don Alejandro beamed. Regina bowed. Esmeralda fluttered her black lace fan. Diego remembered to raise his left hand so Señorita Esmeralda could place her hand on his arm and be led to the floor.
The orchestra leader announced the paseo. Diego ran through the dances he had learned at home and was sure he had never heard of this one. But the ladies formed a circle in the center, the gentlemen another circle outside. A dim picture of the geometry came back to Diego. He bowed, his pants didn’t split, and the music began. At that instant he noticed the face of the young hidalgo beside him: the tightness, the quivering lips. He saw the same painful fear he felt. Are we all full of panic? he asked himself, but the dance had started.
And once again it was a game. Once again—perhaps because the perfect face of Esmeralda reappeared as the dancers’ circles revolved and met—it was fun. He discovered that being naturally athletic helped.
The dance ended. Against all expectation, Diego was sorry. His face was red and eager. He wanted to reach for Esmeralda’s hand and linger on the dance floor. Instead, he hid his happiness and held out his arm to lead her back to the crowd.
They walked a few paces. She looked at him with expectation. Diego realized with a start that he was expected to say something. What? he said to himself. I don’t know what to say! This is the trouble with having a brother who doesn’t speak!
Diego shouted to his brain, Say something…good!
“You…,” he began, and she looked more carefully at him, waiting. “You dance like a crane.”
She blossomed into laughter, high and delicate. Her fan hid her smile for a moment. “Are you telling me, Don Diego, that I dance like a long-legged bird?” She laughed again.
“No, no! I mean, yes! You do. But have you ever seen cranes dance? Have you seen them dance for each other in the spring on the marshes? It’s beautiful. Marvelous. They lack only the music.”
She thought a moment. “No, Don Diego, I have never seen cranes dance. Until I do, I will presume that I have received a compliment.”
At this moment Diego’s worst fears came true. He tripped over his own feet and fell onto the floor like a sack of corncobs.
On the floor Diego noticed an embroidered boot being quickly withdrawn. He hadn’t tripped over his own feet, but over the cleverly placed foot of Rafael Moncada.
15
A SPECIAL DANCE
DIEGO WAS TOO MUCH of an athlete to hurt himself in a little fall. But his ribs ached from a pocket full of almonds he had stashed there for the ride to the hacienda. There was startled silence. He had to recover some shred of dignity! He had one of his sudden ideas.
He rolled onto his back and in the same movement threw his legs in a tuck toward his head. On his roll he hid a handful of almonds in his palm. With the rolling momentum he landed on his boots and bobbed up like a comical child’s toy. There were a few titters of surprise. But he didn’t stop there.
Whipping out his silk kerchief, he bent over Rafael Moncada’s fancy boot. “Rafael! How stupid, how clumsy, how inexcusably rude I’ve been! I stepped on your boot, poor thing!” He whacked at the fancy boot as if it had all the trail dust of the drag on it.
“Stop that!” Rafael said testily.
“Let me assure myself that it isn’t scuffed or torn!” Diego looked up with a particularly sweet smile and said, “I think it will still hold your foot.”
Rafael began to sputter, but Diego said, “And every wind blows a little good. See? I’ve retrieved your nut where you dropped it when I cruelly injured you.” He held up the almond. “But it’s too soiled for a fine hidalgo.” He popped it into his mouth. “Delicious,” he said. “I compliment you.”
“I wasn’t eating nuts!”
“But of course you were, my dear Rafael! See?” He reached to Rafael’s coat lapel and seemed to pluck an almond from behind it. It was White Owl’s simple trick again.
“Dear Rafael,” he said, “they are tasty. But has your grandmother never told you ‘Don’t put nuts in your ears’?” He plucked a nut from Rafael’s left ear, then his right ear, and popped both in his mouth.
“Mm! Even more serious: never, never put nuts in your nose!” He plucked an almond from Rafael’s nose and was about to pop it into his mouth but made a little face and said, “Excuse me, but I don’t think I’ll eat this one.”
Everyone around them was laughing. Esmeralda’s laugh was especially delightful to Diego.
Rafael was seething with anger. “Shut up, fool! You have no right to shame the house of Moncada!” Rafael had a tendency to spit a little when he was shouting. It was not a pretty thing.
Diego put his hand to his head in a show of distress. “No! I’ve stepped on you and now I’ve shamed you! How can I bear the grief?”
More laughter from the circle of guests. This made Rafael even angrier. He spluttered before shouting at Diego, “Insolent puppy! Clown! Play your tricks on Indians in the hills and pay some respect to your betters!”
Diego looked around him with a worried expression. “My betters? My betters? If I can find them, I’ll certainly do my best.” More laughter.
Rafael was now so angry that he couldn’t control himself. “You’ll find out soon enough, you stinking peasant. The Moncadas will rule their own kingdom without half-breeds like you in their way! The day is coming when—”
Don Miguel Moncada’s hand came down hard on his son’s shoulder. “Rafael!” he boomed in his most charming voice. “You are overexcited, my boy. Contain yourself.” The room had gone silent.
Diego’s eyes were sharp on Rafael’s face. What had he said about a kingdom?
“This filthy Indian…,” Rafael hissed, though his father’s hand was tight on his shoulder.
One of the many extraordinary things about Don Alejandro was that his soft, pleasing voice could cut through a crowd with enormous authority. “Rafael,” he said, not loudly, but in the hush it sounded like a trumpet. He came to the edge of the circle. “Rafael, perhaps you will explain yourself.”
Señor Moncada’s white-knuckled hand turned the reluctant Rafael toward Don Alejandro. The hand shook him slightly, and the boy blurted, “I meant nothing by it.”
“I grant you, young Moncada, that my foolish son is often filthy.” The don looked about to the guests and said, “Young boys are generally filthy creatures. It is their nature.” A few laughed nervously, and he continued to Rafael, “But you may wish to explain how his Indian blood and your”—a small smile came to his lips—“more refined blood affect us here in this room. Many of our families take pride in their connection to those who lived here before us.”
He raised his hand and brought Doña Regina up beside him. She made a graceful curtsy, surely the most beautiful woman in the room. Her expression was mocking, confident—a strong woman who placed herself second to no one.
Rafael opened and closed his mouth. His father’s hand tightened even more on his shoulder. “I meant nothing at all….”
“I’m sure you did not,” Don Alejandro said, “for a true gentleman would never give such an insult. I’m sure you have an interesting view about what you’ve said. Perhaps we can discuss it another time, in another place.” These were dangerous, pointed words to Rafael Moncada. He stood on the polite but sharp edge of a duel, and no one in the pueblo was foolish enough to cross swords with Don Alejandro.
“I beg your pardon, Señor. I have offended you without meaning to.”
Don Alejandro bowed his acceptance of this apology.
Rafael then bowed to the circle of hidalgos and rushed away. He headed toward a side room where the coats were hung.
Rafael was still shaking with ra
ge and relief. He had been humiliated. If Don Alejandro had insisted on a duel, he would have been close to death. He walked on rubbery legs toward the cloakroom, happy to have some simple thing to do. His anger was just beginning to surface again. He seized the wrought iron handle of the door and tore it open to get—
A grizzly bear! Huge! Fur bristling, teeth like daggers, shaking and letting go a terrible roar!
Rafael spun and ran back into the courtyard. “Aaaaaah!” he shrieked. “Help! Help! Bear! Big! Help!” He could hear the bear’s awful feet pattering on the stones behind him. He had one object, the fig tree in the center of the courtyard. The guests parted like curtains. He was almost there!
He caught the toe of his embroidered boot on a stone’s edge and fell forward!
The bear roared again.
Rafael couldn’t waste the time to leap up. He ran toward the tree on his hands and knees, like his aunt’s lap dog rushing toward a meal.
Roar!
Rafael Moncada swarmed up the fig tree like a squirrel, up into the topmost branches, hooting all the way and calling, “Help! Help!”
Why didn’t anyone help him? Why were they laughing? Why was the orchestra starting again?
He looked back down for the first time. There was something strange about the bear. Its back legs were white. Its front legs had buttoned seams. It was dancing!
One, two, three, kick to the side! One, two, three, kick to the other side!
Under the tanned bearskin, Diego and Bernardo were dancing a children’s dance to an old country tune. They danced around the tree to the enormous laughter of the crowd.
There was applause; glasses were lifted to them.
“That Moncada boy must have been in on the joke. Look at him up there, pretending to be frightened. No one could shriek like that and mean it.”
One, two, three, kick! One, two, three, kick!
To the crowd’s applause, Diego and Bernardo danced out of the courtyard, waving their floppy bearskin arms behind them.
Like any good ball, the celebration lasted all night. Diego returned to dance with Esmeralda, his mother, and many others. Bernardo returned to thank the orchestra leader and to play his flute. Don Alejandro was a grand figure on the dance floor. Big gatherings were not Regina’s favorite events, but she endured them with a grace and dignity that some hidalgos interpreted as aloofness. Rafael Moncada returned, pretending to be part of the joke, but he retired early.
In the gray first light, the de la Vegas and their vaquero escort rode north and west toward their hacienda.
Diego and Bernardo were happily tired, riding behind, letting their horses follow the others, almost dozing at times.
Don Alejandro reined his stallion and fell back with them. They rode a mile or so in companionable silence before he said to Diego, “Do you remember being bitten by a rattlesnake?”
Both boys immediately crossed themselves. “Sí, Papá. It was horrible!”
“How did you get the rattlesnake to bite you?”
“The rattler doesn’t want to bite,” Diego said. “But if you put it in a corner and force it to fight, it will use its fangs.” He shuddered a little, remembering the pain and fever he had endured at the end of his vision quest. He came close to dying in the forest, but was saved by Bernardo.
The don nodded. “Never corner a rattlesnake. With men, try to leave even the most offensive man a way to escape with some honor. Corner a man and deny him his honor, and he’ll bite.”
Bernardo nodded and looked back toward the Honorio hacienda.
“That’s right, Bernardo. You boys have made a serious enemy. He’s now more than annoying. He’ll do anything to hurt you. Don Miguel Moncada is a man of touchy honor as well. He may see your prank as an attack on his name. You denied Rafael a way to retreat with honor.”
“But—” Diego began.
Don Alejandro held up his hand. “I’m not saying he didn’t deserve to be knocked down a bit. He’s a nasty bit of business, young Moncada. And I’m not saying that either of you would hold a grudge if someone played the same trick on you. I know you both too well: you’d be angry, and then you’d laugh your heads off.”
The boys smiled.
“But the Moncadas have a thorn in their thumb about something. Perhaps something to do with the mother and her…circumstances.”
“I thought she had died,” Diego said.
Don Alejandro shook his head no. The boys looked interested, but the don was not going to gossip for them.
“Whatever the reason, they will go to greater lengths to ensure their honor than others might. Who knows? Perhaps I am wrong. But I want my boys to keep themselves safe. Beware, yes?”
“Sí, Papá,” Diego said, and Bernardo nodded.
“This may be of no consequence. Rafael travels to Barcelona this year for his schooling. He may not survive the experience. There are many honor-crazy young blades there, and they back it up with steel. If he matures, he may come back to us a changed man. God bless him.”
They crossed themselves and rode on in the first flash of the morning sun over the mountains.
16
THE POPPY BRAND
THE FIESTA WAS OVER for this year. There were dozens of stories to last until the next fiesta. They would circulate up and down the coast with travelers on the Camino Real and on the coastal boats. In San Diego and Acapulco and Panama, they would tell about the grizzly bear that had visited the ball at the Honorio hacienda and danced its way into the night.
The vaqueros had almost recovered from the sleepless nights of dancing and singing, too much wine and food, the easy life. They would grumble about returning to hard riding, but it was really what they did well, what they loved. Once a year they were obliged to stop riding for a few days and teach the townsfolk how to celebrate properly. Then it was time to mount up again.
Other ranchos would begin tanning and making tallow later, when the official Spanish trade boats came up the coast. The de la Vega rancho had its secret agreement with Captain Carter and the Two Brothers. Don Alejandro began the work immediately.
Butchers and tanners from the mission, the pueblo, and other ranchos moved into tents and de la Vega barns. Firewood was cut, hearths were set up, and the great cauldrons stood ready. New tanning pits were dug and lined. The big two-wheeled carts were repaired for the heavy hauling to come. The vaqueros began to single out the cattle.
It was a big, ugly business. No one could enjoy it. The best they could do was to be skillful and quick.
Diego and Bernardo walked beside Scar, watching one of the first cattle go through the process. A bull was cut from the herd and driven into a chute of woven saplings and branches. Alone in the chute, it was killed with one hard blow from an ax. It was dragged a few paces, and the skinning began. A pair of tanners working with short, quick strokes took the whole hide in one ragged piece, up to the ears and down to the ankles. Other tanners laid it hair-side down on smooth logs and scraped the fat and flesh into big tubs. The scraped hides were slid into the tanning pits, flooded dark brown with preserving oak bark.
The boys stepped back as the grisly carcass was swung up to the branch of a tree for butchering. With the first cut, the guts came tumbling out. Women picked through them briefly for a few delicacies—parts of the stomachs made tripe for menudo soup; the kidneys and sweetbreads went for other dishes. Creamy slabs of fat went into tubs. The rest went into barrels to be hauled off to one of the arroyos de la muerte, the ravines of death where bears, wolves, coyotes, wild boar, and scavengers prospered on the leavings.
Diego gagged a bit. The smell was awful.
“The smell of death,” Scar said. “The smell of every butchery and battlefield. We are brothers of the cattle. The smell is the same.”
Diego shook his head, both disgusted and fascinated by the intricate, intensely colorful insides of the bull.
Bernardo drew his hand across his throat: This big process, all death.
Scar nodded. “Cattle die; the pu
eblo lives. The cattle live a few easy years, grazing and resting, and they come to this. We accept their death, use their bodies, and make our living from them. It’s too easy to think of this sentimentally, as if it were a wicked thing.”
“What’s the way to think about it?” Diego asked.
“Gratefully,” Scar said simply. He motioned toward a cart filling up with barrels of guts and bones. “That’s a trip we all make. All of us, to the arroyo de la muerte. We have longer than the cattle do. We can be grateful for that. And we can be grateful for the cattle’s help.”
The butchers worked the big carcasses quickly, separating the cuts of beef with long, curved knives as sharp as razors. The big roasts and joints of beef had their fat trimmed into the tubs and were dropped into tight barrels of scalding, strong brine. The barrels would be sold to ships as “salt horse,” beef preserved in strong brine that would keep for years.
Other butchers at tables cut beef into thin strips, casting them into barrels of water, wine, and spices. When the strips had marinated in their flavorings, women would hang them on racks over smoky fires to dry as jerky. Some would be eaten in the saddle or on the trail. Some would be beaten and ground by Estafina into rich, spicy winter dishes. Some of the jerky would be sold in cloth bags to ships.
Carts returning from the arroyo de la muerte brought more firewood. Scar and the boys followed the fat tubs to the long line of fires under iron cauldrons. The smell here was meaty and rich.
“They look like hell’s demons,” Diego said.
Working in the smoke near the flames, smut-soiled neophytes from the mission swung long-handled pitchforks to drop fat, meat, and big bones into the boiling water. Several times an hour, the cauldron was skimmed for fat, which was ladled into a copper cooling vat. Thick and whitish-gray, this tallow was poured into hide leather bags, each weighing half as much as a man.