Scent of Tears

by M. Juan Knecht

  Chapter Nine

  Several days later, just before dawn, there was a terrible ruckus behind the lean-to that held the grain and blacksmithing tools. The two mongrel dogs living at the camp barked and howled like demons. I came out of the dirt floor cabin with my wedding-present rifle and chambered a round.

  A very large, black shadow moved up the draw behind the camp, rattling the brush. It didn’t move like a cow and it was bigger than a mountain lion. A thrill ran up my spine. The only thing left that would appear as big as a wagon was a bear.

  Genero came out of the lean-to where he slept, pulling the cord that held up his pants. He stopped next to me and put his hand on the gun barrel.

  “In this light, you might not get a clear shot. Let’s make some coffee. When the sun rises, we’ll look for tracks and see what we’re after.”

  It turned out that we were after a large grizzly bear. Genero picked up the track and seemed astonished at the size of the print.

  “What a magnificent animal. He must weigh two thousand pounds,” Genero said. I felt my butt pucker.

  Grizzlies were not prevalent in the area, so I’d never seen one before. The size of the claw marks caused me to grip my rifle hard enough my hand ached.

  “This is one big bear. He maybe stands up two feet taller than you,” Genero said.

  I was secretly relieved when, after following the tracks for three miles, Genero called a halt to our hunt. He said he believed the bear was leaving and if we valued out health we should let him go.

  “He is headed out of our range, Charlie. I thought for a minute he might be doubling back, but I don’t think so.”

  This offhand comment caused me to turn around to look behind me in such panic I nearly fell. As I spun, my rifle barrel swung in Genero’s direction. He put a calming hand on my shoulder.

  “Why did he come here?” I asked, trying to sound confident and manly rather than scared.

  “From now on, we bury our garbage,” Genero said in way of an answer.

  “You think he will come back?” I asked.

  “Bears don’t like dogs barking at them. Let’s hope he was just passing through. A bear that size can only be a grizzly. Maybe you shoot a grizzly six or seven times but he keeps on coming. We leave him alone, and hope he leaves us alone.”

  We walked back to the camp and brewed some more coffee. Genero was much calmer than I was, but the stoic old Indian was still thinking about the bear.

  “I have been told that if you run up to a bear they will rise up on their back legs and embrace you with their front paws. If you get your head close enough to their neck so they can’t bite you, it is possible to stab them to death.”

  “I worry enough about getting bucked off a horse. I’d rather not try stabbing a bear,” I replied.

  Genero’s talk about killing a bear with a knife made the rifle Tiburcio had given me was even more appreciated than before. Grizzlies were known to kill calves, but unless Genero and I found a carcass, I wouldn’t hunt it. Few things were more dangerous to a man than a wounded predator in a brushy canyon.

  And one of those more dangerous things arrived at the ranch that same morning.

  At around nine, Genero called to me and pointed out someone approaching. It was Lucinda, driving up in a wagon pulled by a team of fine bay horses. She was accompanied by Gotch-Eyed Juan, as Don Topo’s personal bodyguard was known. Juan was mounted on a horse and riding alongside the wagon. A tall, well-kept black stallion was tied to the back.

  Without any sort of a greeting, Lucinda pulled a sealed envelope from a pocket in her skirt and looked at me. She was dressed in a short jacket over a ruffled white blouse. She wore buckskin gloves on her hands, a flat-brimmed hat on her head and a stern look on her face.

  “Have you learned to read well enough to understand a letter from my father?” she asked.

  Since no one answered her, Lucinda slit the envelope open with a fingernail and read it silently to herself. After doing so, she fixed Gotch-Eyed Juan with a stare until he reined his horse over to the wooden water trough some distance from the cabin.

  Genero got the hint and walked over to the lean-to where the sacks of grain were stored.

  “My dear Charlie,” Lucinda said, reading from the letter as she sat in the wagon. “May this letter find you in good health. Lucinda is coming to pay you a visit. Her little one is old enough to get along for a few days without her, so she will spend a week with you and then return to Monterey. All my love and respect, Topo.”

  Lucinda shook her head, frowned and folded the paper, slipping it back into the envelope and handing the envelope to me.

  “What my father meant to say was, my mother thinks it is her duty to run my life. Our screaming became too loud for my father to tolerate, so he ordered me to come stay with you for a while. If he hadn’t sent that cross-eyed ex-soldier with me, I would have gone to the Mission to join in the feast they are holding, but....” She used her thumb to indicate the bodyguard and sighed with annoyance.

  “We’re glad to have you. I wish we had advance notice you were coming,” I said, taking a stab at gentility. I would have cleaned the cabin if I’d known she was paying a visit, rather than risk her judgment on my personal hygiene.

  “I brought food from Monterey. What do you eat around here anyway?”

  I started to tell her about the wild onions, corn and tomatoes, but she ignored me and climbed down from the wagon. In the back of the wagon were canned food and dried fruit. I helped carry the food into the cabin.

  Later that night, after Genero had gone back to his lean-to, Lucinda told me that I should figure out a way to level the wagon, since that was where I was going to sleep.

  “I’ll sleep wherever you want,” I replied, “but check your boots in the morning. Scorpions often crawl inside.”

  I stood wondering how anybody could be so heartbreakingly beautiful. Her flawless skin, her comely figure and crystal blue eyes made me afraid my mouth might accidentally fall open.

  “There had better not be scorpions around that bed,” she said, in a way that let me know she would hold me responsible if there were.

  I was momentarily rendered mute by Lucinda’s presence. Without saying anything further, I walked outside to sleep in the wagon.

  When I entered the cabin the next morning, Lucinda had made a fire in the stove and was watching an iron fry pan to gauge when it was hot enough to fry the eggs she’d brought. When she thought the pan was hot enough, she cracked an egg.

  It was spring, so the shutter was open on the glass window. Luna, my personable roan mare, peered in through the window and silently stuck her head through to inspect the bucket of grain I kept for her in the corner.

  Oblivious to the horse, Lucinda picked up the skillet and turned around, almost bumping into Luna’s nose. She screamed, dropped the pan, and ran into my arms. I felt the weight of her breasts bump my chest.

  We stood there for several seconds before Lucinda released herself and started cursing at the mare, swinging her arms wildly as she drove the surprised horse back from the opening. She reached down, picked up the skillet from the floor, and glared at me before going back to fixing the eggs, seemingly embarrassed that she had been frightened by the horse.

  I stood there savoring the moment.

  “You are more of a barbarian than I thought if you have horses sticking their heads into the kitchen,” Lucinda said, shaking her head.

  After frying some toast in the grease from the eggs, she put the food on two plates and sat down at the table to eat.

  I found myself being very careful not to spill my coffee or drop part of my eggs on the floor because concentration was so difficult with her sitting across from me.

  “I kept the coins you gave me, Charlie. Considering your lack of education and your station in life, it was a nice thing to do,” she said with her customary manner of mixing a compliment with a slap.

  “How is your baby doing?” I asked. It was a strange e
xperience sitting at a table with my wife, talking like regular people. Of course, the fact that her baby was by another man kept it from being completely normal.

  “He is teething so there is no sleep. The maid seems to love him, which is good because she is the one who changes his diapers. He is blessed with Tiburcio’s eyes, which helps me to endure the drooling and runny nose he seems to be perpetually cursed with.”

  “And Don Topo? How is he?”

  “Off trying to keep what we have from being confiscated by the tax collector. People in California are taxed on the land they own, not the money they have. It is a tax designed to take the land that rightfully belongs to the Californio and give it to the Yankees. We are probably one year with no rain away from losing everything. Because I am a woman, my father thinks I don’t know all this.”

  She sipped her coffee. Most women I had seen while living in Monterey put on weight on after they gave birth, but Lucinda’s waist was as trim as before she had become pregnant. I sighed.

  “Are you wondering what will happen if there are no more Topo Ranches for you to work on? Your sacrifice for my father will become pointless if he loses the ranchos.”

  “Being able to help Don Topo is no sacrifice,” I replied, and was rewarded with an appraising look rather than the usual cutting sarcasm.

  After we ate breakfast, Lucinda announced that I could show her around the ranch. I agreed, and we went out and saddled our horses.

  Luna stood behind an oak tree a ways off, her feelings obviously hurt from being yelled at. Lucinda was riding a stallion, so I caught a serviceable, if common looking, gelding.

  As I saddled him, Lucinda appraised me.

  “My father is right. You really aren’t that homely. If someone were to shave off the peach fuzz you have growing on your face and give you a haircut and a bath, you might even be handsome. In Monterey, all the little girls would be giggling behind their fans when you walked by.”

  “Are you feeling all right? I’m not used to you saying anything nice to me.”

  “I will give you a shave the next time I come to visit,” she said. “We will see if your wit is as forthcoming with a straight-edged razor dancing around your throat.”

  We mounted our horses and rode out into the bright morning light at a trot. Though I was familiar with the country, Lucinda led the way until we topped a ridge. As always, she moved as if she was as one with the horse. Her riding was almost a form of poetry.

  We sat on our horses overlooking the flat where five head of steers were peacefully grazing. Lucinda stood up in her stirrups and stretched.

  She pointed at the steers, and her eyes seemed to brighten. “If we can ease down to the flat without the cattle hearing us, we’ll have enough space to run up on them,” she whispered.

  “Why would we need space to run up on them?” I asked, immediately alarmed.

  “Haven’t you ever tailed a steer?”

  I wondered how to respond in a way that wouldn’t dampen Lucinda’s good mood. It was only the second or third time I had ever seen her happy, and it was a warm place.

  “Do you even know what tailing a steer is?” she asked impatiently.

  I sat up straighter in the saddle.

  “All vaqueros know what tailing a steer is, though it is a stupid sport,” I replied. A steer would be let out of a small pen and chased down a fence. The vaquero would lean down, pick up the running animals tail and dally the tail hair around his saddle horn. Throwing his stirrup leather over the tail, the vaquero would then rein his horse sharply to the left, spurring past the steer. Keeping the tail dallied to the horn caused the steer to lose his balance and fall. That was the hoped for outcome. Sometimes the rider’s saddle would slip from the weight of the steer and the horse would start bucking. This particular pastime was only done during fiestas and the participants were nearly always made brave by spirits.

  Grabbing a cow’s tail to knock it down was a dangerous when done on flat ground. Out in the open country in bordered on lunacy.

  I watched Lucinda study the steers standing in the flat and saw where this was leading.

  “Why would we tail one of your father’s steers?”

  Lucinda wrapped her reins around the saddle horn. She dropped her head and let out a big sigh, then lifted her head toward the sky as if God himself might make this clear to me.

  “We are going to tail a steer, Charlie, because it’s a beautiful spring day, our horses are fresh and a person is only young once.”

  “So, we are going to risk damaging a valuable steer for no good reason?”

  In the middle of my speech, Lucinda had moved off down toward the cattle.

  She stood up in her stirrups and loped smoothly down the hill. When the cattle scattered, Lucinda broke the stallion into a run and moved up behind one of the spotted steers. With surprising ease, she leaned down, grabbed the steer’s tail, and trapped the tail with her leg. Giving a loud yell, she drove her magnificent black horse past the bovine, spilling the steer onto the ground.

  Lucinda slowed the big stallion down to a trot, circled around, and rode back up the hill. She reined him around to face me.

  “See, Charlie? Everybody survived.” She turned and, with a dramatic flourish, pointed down at the steer, which was now trotting off after his friends. “The steer is fine, I’m fine. My stallion is fine. Why don’t you see if you can do it? Put some color into your cheeks.”

  “The steers have run off into the brush.”

  “Are you not mounted on a good Topo Ranch horse? Are you not a skilled vaquero? You saw where they went. Ride around the ridge, gather them back to the flat, and tail one of the steers.”

  There was another long moment of silence, and then Lucinda erupted, “Do you think I want to be married to a man who has no spirit and no courage? For once could you do something for the joy of it? I am using your last name now, Charlie. Do you want me to be ashamed of that?”

  It was the first time Lucinda had mentioned our marriage or called me a man. I had no desire to break my neck, but her comment was like a slap in the face. With the deep groaning sound a man makes when he is about to do something pointless and foolhardy, I gathered up my horse and moved down the ridge line to get around the steers.

  After five minutes of hard riding through the trees, I managed to break one the steer free of the brush and got him headed back into the flat.

  This steer didn’t run in a straight line the way Lucinda’s did. Every time I got close enough to grab his tail, he veered off. I would spur my poor gelding up close and the steer would change directions again. My gelding was trained to run to the steer’s hip and rate, waiting for me to cast my lariat around the animal’s neck. The horse was unsure about running up close enough for me to grab the steer’s tail.

  The steer ran under my horse’s neck and, for a stumbling, hoof-clicking second, the whole tangle of horse, cow and rider nearly went to earth. From the corner of my eye, I saw Lucinda bring her black stallion alongside the steer at a high gallop to block him from moving away from me.

  The steer slowed down as he ran out of air, and I saw my chance. I leaned off the side of my horse and made a grab for the steer’s tail with my right hand. As I bent down, I saw a snake lying coiled up directly in our path. My horse saw the snake at the same time and made a frantic leap over the rattler just as it struck. I was holding the saddle horn with my left hand and stayed in the saddle. What proved my undoing was my horse, distracted by the snake, the horse stepped in a gopher hole. There was a sharp crack and he fell to the ground, throwing me over his head before tumbling over and landing with his entire weight on my back.

  After that everything went black.

  I woke up in the bed made of wood and rawhide straps at the vaquero camp. Coming to, I felt the urge to throw up.

  Lucinda was sitting on the bed. When she saw I was about to get sick, she grabbed my hat and held it under my chin. I tried to roll over, thinking I would rather puke on the floor than on Lucinda an
d screamed with pain. Something seemed broken in my lower back. I passed out again.

  When I came to the second time, I managed to lie there without the nausea causing me to gag. Someone had taken off my boots and spurs. I tried to wiggle my toes, but the pain in my spine burned so brightly that I nearly cried. I would have, if Lucinda hadn’t been watching.

  “It’s good you can move your toes, Charlie,” Lucinda said. “It means you will be able to walk again. Genero and I thought perhaps the horse had severed your spine when he rolled on you.”

  I tried to turn my head, cried loudly with pain, and passed out again.

  When I awoke the next time, Genero was sitting on a stool by my bed. A tallow candle illuminated the small room. He offered me a gourd of water, but when I reached for it the pain ran from my neck to my hip with such ferocity that I gently put my hand back down on the blanket.

  Genero stood up and held the gourd to my lips until I swallowed a few sips of water. He patiently kept the gourd where I could drink until I had enough.

  “Where’s Lucinda?” I asked.

  “She rode back to Monterey to fetch a doctor, although I have never seen any doctor do much with a broken back.”

  The black spots were swimming before my eyes. I concentrated on taking shallow breaths, because a deep breath was going to cause me to lose control of my bladder.

  “What happened to the horse?” I asked.

  “He snapped his back leg and couldn’t get up. After she got you free of him, the blue-eyed witch took your knife and cut the horse’s throat. I think she also killed the rattlesnake, because I found a snake without its head a little ways from where you fell.”

  Genero took a gourd and drank some water.

  “After she got done killing things, she found some branches and built a shelter over your face so you wouldn’t be burnt by the sun. Then she walked three miles back to the cabin and loaded some water jugs in the spring board. She was hitching the horse to the wagon when I rode up. We loaded you into the wagon and brought you to the cabin.”

  “Her name is Lucinda. Please don’t call her a blue-eyed witch.”

  “As you wish, Charlie,” he said with a hushed tone.

  “Where is Don Topo’s gunman?”

  “Juan rode back to Monterey after you and the,” Genero paused. “After you and your wife went riding.”

  The following evening, Lucinda returned to the camp. She burst into the room and glared at Genero until he excused himself. Then, without bothering to ask how I was feeling, she launched into a monologue concerning her trip. In the dimming light, her face looked gaunt and burned by the sun. I could see the exhaustion in her shoulders and arms; however, her willpower was such that she kept any hint of exhaustion out of her voice.

  “There are two doctors in Monterey. One has gone to San Francisco, and the other was so drunk I couldn’t make him understand what I wanted. My father wasn’t in town, which is the case more often than not these days. So I went to the Chinese part of town and got you some opium for the pain. I think you should stay here. It could damage you more to lie in the back of the wagon for the thirty miles to Monterey. Besides, there weren’t any sober doctors in Monterey when I left, and there’s no promise there will be if we go back. So, you chew on the opium I brought you, and if you don’t die tonight, tomorrow I will teach you to read.”

  “The first and only time I drank wine it made me sick. What’s opium going to do to me?”

  “Your pain will go away, and the bed will become a cloud.”

  I held out my hands, and Lucinda dropped the brown ball into my palms.

  “How do I know what this really is?” I asked.

  “It’s not a dog turd, Charlie. You may have had reason to mis-trust me in the past, but I did ride to Monterey and get you something for your pain. A sixty-mile horseback ride just to play a joke on you is too much, even for me.”

  I put it into my mouth, and Lucinda picked up the gourd of water and handed it to me. The opium had a musty, bitter taste. I choked some down and relaxed back onto the bed.

  “What’s your father going to say when he finds out I broke his horse’s leg?”

  When Lucinda answered, she sounded tentative, like she was worried herself. “He won’t care about his horse. He’ll be worried about you. He values you, though I am not exactly sure why.”

  I tried to shift my weight on the bed, but the pain was too bright. I fought back a yelp.

  “When father finds out I have taught you to read, he will be pleased with both of us.”

  Lucinda moved to the bed and sat down. She leaned over and took my hand. Then she leaned forward and kissed my forehead. I felt dizzy, either from the opium or the close proximity of her breasts and feeling her lips touch my skin.

  Lucinda sat quietly with me for ten minutes, until I did feel the bed become a cloud. She looked out the open window at the moonlight as it illuminated the oak trees.

  “I worry that I was born too late to really enjoy life. If I had been born fifty years ago, I could have lived in the Alto Sierra before it became contaminated by Yankee trash with their greed and avarice. Did you know that when the Spanish first came here, they used to rope grizzly bears? A caballęro would rope the neck and another would rope the hind legs, and together, they would choke the bear to death. Now that would have been a feat worthy of Spanish nobility.”

  As the opium fog took over, Lucinda’s words stopped making much sense. I was so over whelmed by her sitting next to me I lost my fear.

  “You are the most beautiful woman in Monterey,” I said, my voice almost a whisper.

  “Just Monterey, Charlie?” she said, and for the first time in her life she smiled at me with no taunt to accompany it, her fine white teeth and bright eyes illuminating the room.

  I was thinking about how to reply when my eyes closed. My last thought was that it was fortunate that Lucinda hadn’t seen the grizzly bear that morning, for she most certainly would have wanted to rope it.

  Scent of Tears