Scent of Tears

by M. Juan Knecht

  Chapter Nineteen

  After sending Tiburcio on his way, I camped at the stable until I could catch a ship back to Oregon. Retrieving my horses, I went back to the cattle. Three months later, a letter arrived from Don Topo requesting that I come back to California. I hired two more hands, made sure the ranch was stocked with provisions and headed back.

  I brought three horses with me when I came back from Oregon to the Monterey ranches of Don Topo. One of them was Luna and the other two were just horses. They were all gentle because they were wore out. After I reported to Don Topo I went to the Chualar Ranch.

  At the Chualar Ranch the horses were older and worn out as well. There were five head of four-year-old geldings in the horse pasture that were not worn out but vigorous and wild. They were big, stout, fractious horses that Topo had bought from a ranch down south. They were also untouched by man except for when they had been roped, branded and castrated. After the horses had been choked down, they were not looking forward to anymore interaction with people.

  It was my job to help put together a group of cattle to take back to Oregon. To do that, the vaquero crew were going to need fresh mounts. The five rank colts were the only candidates.

  Being one of the younger vaqueros, it fell to me to get on the horses first. I wasn’t looking forward to climbing on these eleven-hundred-pound wild animals but the other vaquero’s were more crippled up and older than I was. I started with the rankest acting gelding who was a big, jug-headed palomino. The yellow horse had an elk neck and no slope to his shoulder which meant he would be very rough to ride. A branch was caught and hanging in his tail that no one had been brave enough to remove. Every time the branch hit his hocks, the horse jumped. Genero, who was on a large, gentle gelding, had him blindfolded and snubbed up to a stout saddle horse. I slipped up behind Genero and then over onto the back of the bronc. The horse froze and I sat there for a moment. I got ahold of the halter rein and nodded to Genero who pulled off the blindfold. Genero then led the yellow horse on a trip around the corral. To my surprise, the horse accepted me on his back and followed Genero as we went around the log enclosure. The pine logs were notched and cut so that the walls were seven feet tall.

  After a few turns around the pen, I nodded. Genero unwrapped the halter rope from the bronc, handed me the rope and I was free of Genero’s saddle horse. The pen was a high, semi-round corral we had built at the corner of the working pens. As I came by the corner, Lucinda suddenly stood up over the top of the corral with her parasol held high. At the sight of the parasol billowing over his head, the golden gelding came uncorked. With a grunt he swallowed his head and took a violent turn into the center of the pen where he made a serious effort to buck me off. He jumped so high it seemed I could see most of Monterey County in the distance.

  It wasn’t honorable behavior in that country to grip the saddle horn when a horse bucked. In fact, I had seen other riders hit a man for riding a bucking horse by holding on to the saddle horn. Though I wasn’t in danger of being slapped about the head and ears with a rawhide quirt, I heard Lucinda yell at me to let go of the saddle horn and ride like a man.

  The last time I had seen Lucinda was the evening I led Tiburcio Vasquez out of Monterey draped over the back of a pack saddle. Don Topo had sent me back up to the Oregon ranch the next day to tend the heifers. After watching Lucinda gaze longingly at Tiburcio while he played guitar for her, I had no desire to see her before I left. I was lucky enough to catch a ship back to Portland the following morning, so I didn’t have to.

  That summer, I received a letter from Topo telling me to ride back down to California to take another herd of heifers to Oregon. Tiburcio had been caught and sent back to San Quentin. No one had informed me how the romance between Tiburcio and Lucinda had progressed. I didn’t think about them more than five or six times a day during the months I spent in Oregon. The unexpected sound of Lucinda’s voice sweetly screaming at me to be a man and let go of the saddle horn caused such a surge of anger I felt my eyes bulge.

  As the horse violently pitched across the pen, I took my hand from the saddle horn and threw it in the air above my right shoulder. The palomino bucked into the corner, jumped to his left and nearly unhorsed me before he jumped the other way and came back under me again. When the horse finally started to tire, I snatched my hat off my head with my free hand, fanned the horse, then spurred him twice for show and then let him quit bucking. The horse stood there heaving. Being careful not to get cow kicked, I slipped off the horse’s back.

  “When you get another one saddled let me know. In the meantime I will see what Don Topo’s daughter wants,” I said to Genero in a low tone.

  Lucinda had walked over to stand underneath an Oak tree.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached her. Lucinda had on a calico dress that was cinched tightly at the waist. It was a conservative dress, yet she managed to give it an air of carnality. Her eyes were bright and flashing, like always.

  She twisted a strand of black hair in her fingers and teased me: “Why, my darling wife, you are looking as splendid as ever. What a delight it is to see you on this sunny morning.”

  “What are you doing here?” I repeated.

  “I hear you are a killer of cattle thieves,” she said.

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

  “Gotched-eyed Juan.”

  “He embellished.”

  “Juan hardly speaks at all, much less embellishes. He told my father when you got to Oregon, you killed three cattle thieves. That seems quite out of character for you, given you are so careful with yourself. If I hadn’t been here to chastise you, you would have ridden the bucking horse while holding on to the horn and embarrassed yourself and everybody else.”

  “If you hadn’t waved your umbrella over the horse’s head there would have been no reason for him to buck.”

  “Same old Charlie.”

  “Same old Lucinda. It’s my hope that someday your appearance won’t put my life at risk.”

  “You’ll always come out all right, Charlie. We both know that. Tell me about the cattle thieves you shot.”

  I gazed at her erect carriage and proud demeanor. I wondered what I had done in my life to deserve the misfortune and heartache she brought to me. Lucinda was the catalyst for my mood the day I shot the three men I had found driving off twenty of the Topo heifers. It was their bad luck that I was imagining her in the arms of Vasquez when I rode up on them. Lucinda continued to look at me with mild expectation. Was there any other woman in the Alto Sierra who would anticipate the recounting of a shooting with such enthusiasm?

  “I was out one morning checking the cattle and I saw three men pushing your father’s heifers up a canyon. I got a little ways ahead of them, climbed up the canyon and laid down behind a rock. When they got close to me, I shot all three of them. Then I loaded them back on their horses, took them to the trading post and left their horses tied to the hitching rail. I hadn’t almost froze to death in the mountains or watched the Castro boy get his skull caved in so thieving vermin could drive off our cattle.”

  “Juan said you wrote a message and pinned it to the bodies identifying them as cattle thieves. It makes me proud that my efforts to teach you to read and write weren’t wasted. Did you get in trouble for your brash behavior?”

  “There isn’t much in the way of law in that part of Oregon. I didn’t tell anyone about it. If the men had relatives they didn’t live close enough or feel angry enough to take it up with me.”

  “You always survive don’t you, Charlie?”

  “Does my surviving disappoint you? How is your friend, Tiburcio? I heard he is residing again at San Quentin Prison.”

  “Tiburcio is busy being himself. It’s a consuming occupation. Was that why you left Monterey without saying goodbye? You didn’t like him playing the guitar for me?”

  “I can waste my time trying to explain myself to you or I can go back over to the corral and climb on those broncs. Why
are you here? What do you want from me?”

  “Maybe to say hello, my husband.”

  “If there is nothing else, I had better resume helping get the horses gentle. We have work to do and this ranch is about out of saddle horses.”

  Lucinda stood under the spreading oak looking at me. I felt like the palomino bronc, snubbed to the saddle horn. As long as her eyes were on me, I wasn’t going anywhere and we both knew it.

  “My father wants you to come back to Monterey. He has decided to send you to San Francisco to work as a cattle buyer at his slaughterhouse in Butchertown.”

  “What does that have to do with you? Besides, I don’t want to be a cattle buyer if it means living in San Francisco. I am happiest in the foothills and your father knows that.”

  “You answer your own question, Charlie. Don Topo figures if I go with you to San Francisco then you will accede to his wishes. San Francisco should be more exciting than Monterey. There is a good Catholic school for my son, career advancement for you and entertainment for me.”

  “Helping you find entertainment doesn’t sound safe. You go live in San Francisco if you want.”

  “I am asking you for something and you are going to say no?”

  “I will talk to your father. Let me tell the men where I am going. Then I’ll saddle Luna and we will leave,” I replied.

  My stoic resolve to ignore Lucinda lasted until we came to a mesa three ridges away from the vaquero headquarters. When the wagon reached the flat, I no longer had to fight the brake to keep the wagon from running into the breeching on the team. Lucinda leaned slightly closer to me and said in a low voice, she was proud of the way I rode the palomino gelding. I made no reply. She moved a fraction of an inch closer and said she didn’t know I could ride a bucking horse as explosive as that hammer-headed outlaw. The comment was followed by her resting her long, elegant fingers on my inner thigh.

  Five minutes later Lucinda was holding her calico dress up with one hand and hanging on to an Oak branch with the other. The buggy horse was loosely tied to a fallen tree trunk. The horse could have easily side-stepped the log and run away with the wagon in tow but neither that nor the prospect of having to walk back to Monterey didn’t matter to me. Lucinda was trying to stay upright while holding on to my shoulders. If anyone had ridden over the crest of the hill we would have been in plain sight. That didn’t seem to matter either. Lucinda contorted like an animal caught in a trap, crying and moaning and then in the midst of her contortions stopping to look into my eyes, smiling. My face was dripping with sweat and my breath came in rasps. I held her gaze for a moment and again wondered what I had done to deserve her.

  After we had finished, I sat down and leaned against the big trunk of the tree. My legs were shaking and I was drenched with sweat.

  “I am not doing this again,” I said.

  “Charlie.”

  “Don’t talk. You can’t just rub your hand on my leg and we go right back to where we were before I left San Francisco. I don’t like walking around, being in the clouds, only to watch another man catch your eye.”

  “Charlie,” she said.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Charlie.”

  “What?”

  “The tree you are leaning against is covered with fire ants.”

  I jumped up off the ground, cursing and knocking at the stinging ants on my back and legs. Lucinda laughed until she finally had to lean against the wagon for support. After she caught her breath and wiped the tears from her eyes, she regarded me.

  “Charlie, why make it complicated? You are a man and I am a beautiful woman. I will always have an advantage. That is a natural law. I have blessed you with my affections and you want to dissect it like a child with a puzzle. Trust me, the puzzle is too much for you to grasp. Be happy and thankful.”

  “How do I compare with Tiburcio?” I asked, thinking of our interlude under the tree minutes before.

  “You don’t. You have no poetry in your soul. You can’t play the guitar and you can’t dance.”

  The air left my lungs.

  “Is there nothing you like about me? I am always ready to do your bidding. Doesn’t that count or would you rather I was locked up in prison?” I asked, feeling dangerously close to violence.

  Lucinda looked at me like she was explaining something to a child who wasn’t quite right in the head. “Tiburcio isn’t available. It’s part of his appeal,” she said as she pinned her hair back up. “Why are you looking at me like that? You will never understand me. If you try, it will just make you tired.”

  I looked off into the sky. The pain on my face must have been obvious.

  “I’m fond of you, Charlie. You think I would do this if I didn’t like you?

  The stink of your body doesn’t make me gag. I respond to your touch. Those things I have no control over, yet they are favorable.”

  My mouth was dry.

  “Do you think I would consider having you as my husband if I didn’t have some feeling for you?”

  “I didn’t know you wanted me as your husband. If you do, it is news to me,” I said.

  “All right, Charlie. Here is the good thing I see when I look at you. You are going to make it across the swollen river, you are going to find your way out of the burning building, you are going to survive the snowstorm. You have that aura, that smell of someone who will endure. That sense of invincibility would be attractive to any woman.”

  “And when we make love?”

  “I can’t tell you about that. If I tell you it’s nothing special you will sulk and perhaps cry. If I tell you how wonderful you feel inside me, you will think you can control what I do. If you start wondering about how exciting I find you and how you compare to other men, you will lose your wits. Better not to think about it.”

  We reassembled our wardrobe and continued on our trip. Three miles down the grade, the road crossed a running creek. Lucinda got off the wagon and, pulling up her skirt, washed herself in the water. The sight of that proved too much for me and I came off the wagon, not even bothering to set the brake. We started making love standing in the creek then moved to the wagon and finally ended up on a blanket spread over a little stand of grass.

  “Would you have come back from Oregon if I had gotten pregnant on our ocean voyage or would you have stayed to take care of your precious cattle?”

  “I’m here,” I replied.

  “You are here because my father sent for you. Would you have come back for me?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you will do whatever makes me happy, Charlie. The problem is, no one, including me, knows what that is,” she said and kissed the corner of my mouth.

  The sun was starting to cast long shadows.

  “We better get on the road back to Monterey. I would hate to get robbed in the dark,” I said

  In a rare display of non-sexual affection, Lucinda leaned into me and put her arms around my shoulders.

  “Anyone who wants to rob us would be in for the surprise of a lifetime,” she said and pulled herself over until she was snuggled next to me. I had seen another short barreled shotgun nestled under the seat of the wagon.

  “Why do you always seek out danger?” I asked.

  “There are always storms building in the future. I would rather meet them head on,” she said and lay back seemingly unconscious of her full nudity.

  “Let’s sit by the creek and listen to the wind as it passes through the willows,” she said.

  She stood and walked to the creek bank and settled down holding her hand up, not looking at me. I took her hand.

  “You are unlike anyone I will ever meet,” I said with a sigh.

  “We finally agree on something, Charlie,” she said and scratched the inside of her thigh with her fingernails.

  She looked at me for a moment and then lightly punched me in the arm.

  “Why do you look so sad? It is beautiful here. The sunset is shining through the trees and the running w
ater sounds like music. “

  “I am sad because I know I will always want things to be as they are now.”

  “Let go of the saddle horn. You can’t enjoy the full experience of what is happening now if you are worried about tomorrow,” Lucinda said as she took me in her hand and rolled onto her back.

  For a good long time she was right. There was nothing but the moment, and I was in it.

  “Are you good for anything else besides this?” I asked her later, after I caught my breath.

  “Only an idiot like you would ask a woman that question. Yes, Charlie. I am good for other things. If I had money or food and you had none I would share with you. If someone tried to harm you I would stop them if I could. I don’t disrespect you by lying. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. Few women can say that.”

  “You don’t lie to me because I am not important to you.”

  “In the beginning, perhaps. Once I got into the habit of telling you the truth it became a point of pride. We have been through too much for me to be indifferent to you. I don’t lie to you now, simply because I never have and don’t want to start. Being honest has its advantages. I would not be this free with my body if I were worried about what you thought of me. My sisters must be actresses about who they are or they will shock and disgust their husbands. At least that is what they tell me.”

  She looked at me and smiled. Anguish was painted on my face.

  “Poor Charlie. Once your excitement fades your insecurities dominate you.”

  Her comment fully deflated me. It was dark before I could bring myself to rise up and continue the trip to Monterey.

  Scent of Tears