The Forever Tree

by Rosanne Bittner

  Will grinned. “I’d had too much whiskey and had gone too long without. I was still feeling a little off my feet that night. All I’ve ever known is Maine and working with my father. It’s a whole different world out here.”

  “That it is. A very different life-style, very genteel among the upper-class Spanish. But then there’s the craziness of this city. The gold rush has totally changed California. A lot of Californios haven’t quite gotten used to it yet.” He leaned against the wagon. “By the way, you seem a bit too concerned about the senorita. What’s her name?”

  “Santana Maria Chavez Lopez. How’s that for a name?”

  “All the Spanish girls have names like that. Something about taking the father’s first last name and the mother’s first last name. I don’t know. I get confused. That’s why the child’s last name isn’t the same as the father’s. It’s the first last name that matches the father’s. She’s Santana Chavez Lopez, and I believe you said her father’s name is Dominic Chavez Alcala. See what I mean?”

  “I think so. Takes some getting used to.”

  Noel laughed. “Well, my friend, what concerns me is the way you said her name, with a bit of worship in your voice. You aren’t having romantic thoughts about the senorita, I hope.”

  Will shrugged. “She isn’t anyone’s wife yet.”

  “She’s as good as married, Will. Let me tell you something. You don’t get mixed up with the promised wife of a man like Hugo Bolivar. You’d better stick to what you came here for, to expand Lassater Mills. Stay away from Spanish women who are promised to someone else, especially the high-born ones.”

  Hugo reappeared then, holding Santana’s arm. She wore a lace veil over her face so that Will could not see her eyes, but he felt her looking at him through that lace. She said nothing as Hugo led her to the carriage. Two women climbed in after her, one of whom Will recognized as Santana’s tutor and chaperon. Hugo himself climbed inside then, and his driver snapped a whip. The two white horses pulling the carriage were off.

  “Promised or not,” Will said to Noel as they climbed on to their wagon, “it isn’t right to force a woman to marry a man she doesn’t love. And although I’ve only met that woman once, I can tell you she holds no love for Hugo Bolivar. She’s afraid of him. I hope the marriage isn’t taking place anytime soon. Once I get to know her father better, I intend to have a talk with the man.”

  “Stay out of it, Will.”

  Will snapped the reins to the four mules that pulled his wagon. Two more were tied behind. “We’ll see,” he answered. He followed after the carriage, heading away from the city and into the quiet foothills.

  Five

  Will walked to a hemlock tree outside the home of Enrique Valdez, a ranch hand who worked for Dominic Alcala. He breathed deeply of the smell of pine, enjoyed the sound of a soft wind whirring through the branches. Somewhere in the distant hills, wolves began to howl. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about Santana. On their trip to La Estancia de Alcala, Hugo refused to make Santana camp outside and sleep in an uncomfortable bedroll. He’d timed the journey so that they stayed at people’s homes each night. The first night it had been the home of a moderately wealthy Spaniard who owned a ranch, and who had practically stumbled over himself to be ingratiating to the much wealthier Hugo. Will suspected the man feared Hugo would force him to sell out if he offended him in any way. This night, like last night, they stayed at the humble home of a ranch hand. Will could tell neither man was pleased about having Hugo Bolivar in his house, lording his wealth and importance. But they worked for the father of the man’s novia, and they were gracious because they knew Dominic Alcala would want them to be.

  For the last two nights Will and Noel had been relegated to sleeping in barns because there was no room in the small stucco homes of the ranch hands. These were men who rode the outskirts of Dominic Alcala’s vast holdings, men who did not own much but, Will guessed, were glad to have the work and a place to live.

  He could hardly believe that for two days now they had been on land belonging to one man. Apparently Hugo Bolivar’s ranch was not as big, but it was big enough, and he was wealthier than Dominic because of his other investments. From what Will could figure, Hugo had more open farmland and farmed more fruits and vegetables and grain, which had made him a very rich man when the thousands of gold seekers had come to California and started buying food at outrageous prices. Dominic had also made a great deal of money growing food for the gold towns, as well as selling horses and cattle, but much of his land was still forested. Now that Will realized just how much land the man owned, he was almost giddy with excitement that he might be able to secure the rights to Dominic’s vast acreage of timber.

  There was something else he wouldn’t mind securing the rights to, but she belonged to someone else, and he felt like a fool for being so infatuated with a young Spanish girl he hardly knew. If he thought she was truly happy, maybe he wouldn’t give Santana Lopez so much thought, but—

  “I suppose you’re planning that sawmill already,” someone said.

  Will turned to see a figure approaching him in the moonlight. He recognized Noel’s voice and his stocky build. “Can’t help it.” He looked up at the scraggly pine on which he was leaning. “I do hope the trees you’ve been telling me about are bigger than this.”

  A speck of red glowed in the darkness as Noel drew on a cigar he had lit. “These sparse woods we’re driving through now are nothing, just a few skinny hemlocks and white pine,” he said. “Oh, they’re tall and straight enough. White pine is easily worked, and it weathers well. I promise you, though, that you’ll drop your jaw when you see the Sierra redwoods. According to Hugo, that’s mostly what is on the northern section of the Alcala ranch. I’ve been through some of this area myself, and I know there’s a lot of open, rolling hills between here and the redwoods. We have a way to go yet to reach them.”

  “Where is your family located?”

  “I’ve got a little cabin northwest of here. Not too far. Hugo claims some of Alcala’s land reaches nearly to the coast, which means you’ll also be able to work with the coastal redwoods. The Sierras have the thickest trunks, but the coastal redwoods are almost as thick, and they’re even taller, two to three hundred feet. They say some of the redwoods aren’t just hundreds of years old, but thousands of years old. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Will looked up through the branches of the hemlock under which he stood, studying the stars above it. “Sure is. Seems a shame even to cut them.”

  Noel laughed. “You could cut for a hundred years and never run out. The entire Northwest is covered with millions and millions of acres of forest. There’s an almost endless supply—red cedar, western white pine, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, redwoods. And most of it is damn good wood, easily worked, resistant to rot. If a man knows what he’s doing, he can practically overtake the world market, put Australia, Chile, Norway, and the eastern United States out of business. I think you’re that man, Will. You have the know-how and the backing…and the desire. You’ll be as rich as the mine owners, maybe richer.”

  Will laughed. “You sure know how to encourage a man.”

  “I have to. The richer you get, the more you’ll pay me.”

  Both men laughed, and Will took a puff on his pipe.

  “By the way, be careful with your smoke,” Noel said. “Back east you get more rain and dampness. Not out here. It’s dry as a bone most of the time. California is basically pretty arid, you know. One little ember can wipe out hundreds of thousands of acres, especially if the wind is right. We’re sandwiched here between the sea and the Sierras, and we get some pretty strange weather. Sometimes it’s cold in July and hotter than hell in January.”

  Will breathed deeply again of the sweet-smelling air. “I love it already, now that we’re away from the noise and bedlam of San Francisco. I kind of hate to have to go back there, but I’ve got to get more men. I hope Derek keeps his promise not to go sailing off on anot
her ship.”

  Noel grinned. “I wonder if he’s still with Rosy.”

  “That’s quite possible.” Will leaned his back against the tree. “Did you marry a Spanish woman?”

  Noel walked over and sat down on a boulder he could see by the bright moonlight. “I was already married when I came out here in ’49,” he answered. “Brought my wife and two sons with me from Pennsylvania. Bernice is a good woman, left her own family to come with me. It’s been hard on her. It wasn’t long before I decided I didn’t want to subject my family to the miserable life of living in a gold camp, so I came this way and found work at the sawmill I told you about. Then that fell through, so I went to San Francisco. Left Bernice and the kids at the cabin near the sawmill. The poor woman probably thinks I’ve left her for good. I’ve got to get back there. I’ll probably leave you once we reach Alcala’s place and go spend some time with her while you get things straight with Alcala.”

  “I’d like you to stay long enough to come out into the big timber with me, explain a few things. After that I’ll go back to San Francisco and find more men, wait for the rest of my equipment.”

  “Sure.” Noel rose, grunting a little. “I’ll do my best for you, Will. I’m getting older, but I can still fell one of those giants, and I think I can teach other men to do it. I need this job. I took Bernice away from her family, and she deserves something better than I’ve been able to give her so far. I’d like to build a regular house for her, something with more room.”

  Will nodded. “If things work out the way I plan, you’ll be making damn good money eventually. We’ll get her and the kids set up proper. How old are your sons? Come to think of it, I don’t even know how old you are.”

  Noel grinned. “I’m forty, but I didn’t marry till I was thirty. Tommy is nine and Mark is six. Maybe someday I can get them into the business.”

  “I envy you, having a family and all. I was going to marry once, but my fiancée drowned at sea coming back from visiting relatives in England.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Noel answered, frowning.

  “It was over two years ago. Maybe it was supposed to happen. I don’t know. Maybe I was supposed to come out here and start over. My father died a year ago, and he’d been talking about sending me here anyway. He had big dreams about getting into logging out here. He’d heard stories about the redwoods too. I felt obligated to come in his memory, to realize his dream for him. But I’m doing it for myself as well. Someday my brother might join me, once our mother is gone. We might move the entire business out here. Depends on how things go. I guess for a while I won’t have time to think about women and marriage. I’ll be too busy. This would have been hard to do if I’d had to bring a wife and family with me.”

  “Well, as far as women go, about the only kind you’ll find out here are Spanish,” Noel said. “Before the gold rush there were almost no white women at all, and most of the men who came out here to look for gold were single, or they left their wives and families behind, so there still aren’t many white women. When you come out here, you fall into a whole different way of life, and the basic culture here is Spanish. Wife or not, I have to admit some of these Spanish women are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. And don’t tell my wife I said that. And if she ever found out I spent the night at a whorehouse…”

  Will laughed softly. “Quit worrying.” He looked over at the house where Santana slept. “I do agree about their beauty. I find myself deeply fascinated by women like that one in there.”

  “Santana Lopez?” Noel shook his head. “You’ve got to get your mind off that girl, Will. She’s untouchable, not just by a gringo, but by any man. Do you think Hugo Bolivar doesn’t know you’re enamored with her? Why do you think he hasn’t given you one chance even to look at her since we left? He’s either kept her hidden away in that carriage, or he’s rushed inside a house with that veil over her face. He won’t even let her dine with us. We haven’t talked with her or even seen her face since we left San Francisco.”

  “It isn’t just us. I think it’s his way of punishing her for talking to me. He’s been angry ever since that morning she came rushing outside to meet us. That bastard is making sure she understands her place as the future wife of Hugo Bolivar.” Will walked a few feet away, sighing deeply. “The better I get to know Hugo, the more I can’t stand him, and the more convinced I am that that poor girl doesn’t want to marry him. She’s terribly unhappy, and it just isn’t right, Noel. Whatever the reason for promising her to Hugo, her father must know she detests the man and doesn’t want to marry him.”

  “I’m telling you, you’d better stay out of it, Will,” Noel warned him. “You’re asking for big trouble, and you could lose your chance at rights to that timber. Even if Santana didn’t marry Hugo, her father would never allow his daughter to marry a gringo. I doubt she’d agree to it, even with his permission. A woman like that is expected to marry her own kind.”

  Will faced him. “I’m not saying I’m interested in her myself. It’s just that she’s so young and innocent, and anybody can guess what that sonofabitch would be like on their wedding night. Have you seen how he looks at her? He can hardly wait to get her in his bed. Thank God they can’t marry until she’s eighteen. I got that much out of Bolivar. That won’t be for another year and a half. That gives me time.”

  “Gives you time?” Noel folded his arms and shook his head again. “Hugo Bolivar has a lot of power, Will, a lot of connections. He could find ways to ruin you and all your big dreams. Would you give up all of that for one little Spanish girl you hardly know and who probably isn’t even interested in you?”

  She’s interested, all right, Will thought. He pictured her pretty smile, her satiny brown skin, and those big, innocent dark eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Noel muttered.

  “And maybe I won’t have to give anything up if I handle things right. I’ll get to know Santana’s father better first. It’s not that I’m interested in Santana herself, not romantically. I just don’t want to see her forced into a marriage with a man who will mistreat her.”

  “Don’t tell me you aren’t interested romantically. Hell, I only saw her for a brief second that morning she ran into you, and I remember how pretty she was. I also saw how you looked at her.”

  Will ran a hand through his hair. “It all sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I feel like a fool, a twenty-five-year-old man acting like he’s sixteen himself. I’ve never met a woman who hit me so hard emotionally and physically the first moment I laid eyes on her. I feel like an idiot. It must be my own confusion at being so far from home. Everything is so different out here. I feel disoriented. I guess I’m just not thinking straight.”

  Noel walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it from me, you aren’t thinking straight. I know how it feels to land here and be so far from everything familiar, from family, home. Give yourself some time, Will. Concentrate on the real reason you came here, building your father’s dream. Forget about Santana Lopez. There’s nothing you can do about her situation. You’ll only make trouble, not just for yourself, but for her, her father, everyone involved. Hugo Bolivar is not a man to cross.”

  Will breathed deeply, telling himself that the way he felt made no sense at all, that Noel was completely right. He nodded. “I guess you’re right at that.” He turned and faced the man. “Late tomorrow we reach Don Alcala’s home. I’ll get things straight with him and we’ll have one of his men take us into the big timber. Once I see those trees, I’ll probably forget everything else.”

  “That’s the way. We’d better get some sleep. Come on.”

  Will started after Noel, taking a moment to stop and look again at the house where Santana slept. Was she as disturbed with thoughts of him as he was with thoughts of her? Probably not. He was being a fool about this. Gerald hadn’t sent him out there to fall in love with a forbidden Spanish woman who was too young for him to begin with, and whom he certainly didn’t know well enough to hav
e any feelings for at all. He’d let her beauty appeal to his baser needs, and that had led him to believe he was interested in her. How could he be such an idiot?

  He followed Noel into the barn and set his pipe in a tin plate, then plunked down on a blanket in the hay. He would forget about Santana and concentrate on those big trees. Two hundred to three hundred feet high? He still didn’t believe it. This sure was different country out here, and in spite of the gold rush, it was still sparsely populated compared to the East. The people he had met seemed to have an easygoing life, quiet, relaxed, their hosts gracious and accommodating. The land was peaceful and soothing, and he realized there were hardly any insects, no mosquitoes buzzing and biting at night. Everywhere he looked he saw only beauty—flowers, rolling hills, the purple Sierras in the distance, their peaks covered with snow.

  He even found the Spanish language beautiful, and the people he had met, other than Hugo Bolivar, left him feeling warm and welcome. The men were handsome, and the women, even the older ones, had a lovely grace about them. The young ones…like Santana…

  He turned on his side. He had to quit thinking about her. He finally fell asleep to the call of the wolves.

  The entourage of Hugo’s carriage, his two guards, and Will and Noel in their supply wagon moved out of a stand of trees and into open foothills. According to Hugo, they would soon be at the Alcala home. On distant hills Will could see hundreds of cattle grazing.

  All was peaceful as the morning progressed, until men, horses, and wagon passed through an area where hills rose on each side of the road, boulders jutting out of the tops of them. Will caught the glint of steel to his right. He looked up just as a shot rang out; one of the guards fell from his horse. Almost instantly a second shot was fired, and the other guard’s horse reared as its rider cried out. In response to the surprise gunshots, the driver of the carriage quickly drew the vehicle to a halt. Will’s mules balked and brayed as he in turn yanked on his reins. He figured the carriage driver should probably have made a run for it with those two fine white horses rather than stop.