Agatha slid an arm around her waist. “They will talk about what a devil Hugo Bolivar is. They won’t talk about you.”
“Santana!” Dominic called out to his daughter as his driver, Enrique, halted the elegant Alcala coach in front of the theater. Dominic climbed down. “What is it, mi hija?”
“Hugo.” She sniffled. “He was in the lobby and he came over and spoke to me before I could get away. I answered him only to be polite, but then he insulted me.” She closed her eyes, angry with her own lack of self-control. “I slapped him, and it drew everyone’s attention. I wish I had not done it.”
“The bastard! I will go and—”
“No, Padre! Please do not make even more of a scene. Let us just go. I will tell Will about it when he comes home and he will decide what to do. Please. I just want to go.”
Dominic sighed in disgust. “Come then. Let us go home.”
From inside the theater lobby, Hugo watched out a window as Santana climbed into her father’s coach, followed by Dominic and Agatha. He had not seen Dominic in years, and thought the man did not look well. That was good. He hoped the old man who had betrayed him was dying. Dominic had been a good friend to his father, but he had not been a friend to Hugo Bolivar, and for that Hugo never wanted another thing to do with Dominic. Perhaps once the old man was dead, he could make trouble for Hernando and La Estancia de Alcala. After all, the Alcala ranch and Rancho de Rosas shared a border several miles long. He was always looking for ways to get his revenge on both Santana and that gringo husband of hers. He hated them with a great passion, and he hated Dominic Alcala for turning his back on the long friendship he had shared with his father. Santana, though, may have opened a pathway for him that night so that he could find his revenge.
Fury enveloped him as he recalled his first sight of her across the theater lobby. Santana already had four children, yet she looked as slender as ever, and even more beautiful, while his own wife was apparently barren, and was gaining weight besides. He had sex with her only to try to get her pregnant, but his true pleasure came when he visited the whores. Still, there was only one woman who could have truly pleased him, and she shared her bed with a stinking gringo, spreading her legs for him, taking his life into her belly, giving him the pleasure and the children that should have belonged to Hugo Bolivar!
“Hugo, how about a late supper?” one of his business associates asked.
Hugo turned, putting on a smile. “Yes, of course.”
The other man smiled. “That woman seemed quite a spitfire. I’ve heard of your reputation with women,” he joked. “She wouldn’t be one of them, would she?”
Hugo rubbed his cheek. Yes, this was indeed something to consider. With Santana’s husband gone, it would be easy to sully her reputation, especially among the Americans, who were so ready to believe that all Spanish women were hot-blooded lovers who enjoyed men…all men. He would have to think carefully about this before he made any moves. He would not soon forget Will Lassater’s temper, or the feel of the man’s hatchet blade cutting into his forehead. This would have to be a very subtle matter, a situation where it was left to Santana to do the explaining.
“I will let you guess,” he answered with a sly grin, as though suggesting the man could be right. “She is the wife of Will Lassater.”
“The lumberman? Lassater Mills?”
“The same.”
“Lassater and his brother went back east to join the Federals, I believe.”
“Si. He has left his poor wife alone. I suggested that perhaps she would like the company of an old friend, but you see how she reacted. I think perhaps she was just putting on a show for others. I saw something else in her eyes.”
The second man chuckled. “You’re a devil, Hugo. Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”
As they walked to the lobby doors, Hugo noticed a few women of San Francisco’s high society standing together, watching him and whispering. Were they also talking about Santana? It would serve her right. She had brought this on herself this time, and if he could find a way to fuel the fire, he would do it.
Nineteen
Gettysburg. Will remembered it, the fiercest fighting he had ever seen. Someone had joked to him that the entire siege had been instigated by the fact that the Confederates needed shoes. A large supply of shoes was supposedly stored in that tiny town, and when the Confederates had tried to take the town, they had run into Union troops by accident. Both sides had called for reinforcements, and the battle was on. Will’s battery had been among those called in to help.
Yes, he remembered Gettysburg, and all the battles since. Bloody sieges that had left thousands dead and wounded. Gettysburg had been nearly a year ago, and the days since then had all been the same; march, try to sleep, eat wormy biscuits, fight diarrhea, attack, retreat, attack, guns and cannon roaring, the earth shaking, men screaming. One battle after another, until he could no longer remember their order.
The numbers of men involved were difficult to grasp. At least sixty-five thousand Confederates at Gettysburg alone, supposedly twenty thousand more than that on the Union side. The fighting there had lasted four days. The most heated fighting had been to claim a hill called Little Round Top. Back and forth the battle had gone, first the Rebs taking the hill, then the Yanks, then the Rebs, then the Yanks. The noise had been almost unbearable, and he’d never forget the sights of the wounded and dead.
Wounded himself in the head in whatever battle he had fought in last, Will could only piece together bit by bit how he he’d come to be marching south with several other captured Union men. Many of them were hurt much worse than he; some had died on the road and been left there. The Rebels who urged them on with gun butts and bayonets seemed to enjoy letting them know where they were going, a prison camp in Georgia called Andersonville. Will had already heard that Andersonville made going to hell seem like a vacation. He tried to think of ways to escape, but he was too weak, his mind too fuzzy, and the group of men with whom he marched was too well-guarded.
He swallowed, his tongue thick with thirst. The heat was almost unbearable, and he supposed they were already in Georgia. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had wakened on a wagon amid the bodies of four other wounded men. Another prisoner, who walked beside the wagon, had told him he’d been unconscious for two days. Since then he had been herded with the others by wagon, on foot, by rail, ever southward, handed from one regiment to another as they drew closer to their destination. In some Southern towns, citizens had been allowed to get a look at them, to spit on them, throw garbage at them. Through it all, Will had moved in and out of consciousness, his head aching fiercely. Sometimes the pain made him vomit. He knew he had lost considerable weight, for his clothes hung loose on him.
He tried to think what year this was. He knew the battle at Gettysburg had taken place in July 1863. A year ago. Yes. The last battle he’d fought in had been at a place called Petersburg…thick forest called the Wilderness…May 1864. He remembered that as he’d marched his battery through the tangle of underbrush, they had walked right over the skeletal remains of men who had died there the year before, men left unburied. There was no way to know which were Union and which were Confederate.
How much longer would this war last? he wondered. The worst part about it was that he wouldn’t be able to write Santana and let her know what had happened. He had at least gotten a letter off to her just before being sent to Petersburg, so he had been able to let her know he’d been at Gettysburg and had survived. But now she would have no way of knowing he was a prisoner. If she didn’t hear from him for months—maybe years—she would think he was dead.
He wondered about Gerald. What had happened to his brother? He could only pray he was alive and well. Why had either one of them thought this would be a short war, or that it would be fought in the name of honor to preserve the United States? It had become a vicious dogfight, men risking life and limb out of pure stubborn pride without any idea why they were there. So many had come just for the excit
ement, to “kill a Yank,” or “kill a Reb.” Yet after soldiers on both sides were killed, a man could get closer and see the faces of the dead…boys, most of them, as well as men, men who were no different from any others, men with families waiting for them. Will had never seen such hatred and devastation, once-lovely and peaceful towns like Gettysburg and Petersburg turned into battered, bloody battlefields, civilians wounded and killed, pretty little farmhouses shelled to pieces.
He had done some of that shelling. His battery had performed well, and he had even been told he would get a promotion. He remembered moving forward to open his cannon on Petersburg. His men had pushed out of the Wilderness to shell a farmhouse where Rebels were holed up, then there had been an explosion near the cannon, where he’d been standing. Something had hit him in the head, and he knew now it must have been a piece of shrapnel. From that moment on, the memory of what happened had come back to him slowly.
He could remember now…could see the dead bodies all around him, men he had befriended, men to whom he had given orders, many of them so very young. He remembered being confused, unsure of where he was or even who he was. He had wandered off, seeking help, and had walked right into a handful of Rebels. Why they had not shot him down, he would never know. Perhaps they had seen he was staggering and wounded, no threat to them. They might also have realized by his uniform that he was an officer. Or, perhaps it had simply been a miracle of God…a God who might be gracious enough to keep him alive so that he could go home to Santana.
First, though, there would be Andersonville. He wished his head would clear so that he could think of a way to escape. He had to get home, get out of this mess, go back to his beloved California and his beautiful Santana and the children he loved so dearly. He should have listened to Santana, and he could only hope that when and if he made it home, she would forgive him for leaving her, that she would still love him, be waiting for him…that she would understand that he had thought he was doing the right thing when he left. His intentions had certainly been good, honorable; but the war itself had become dishonorable, men acting like animals.
“Keep movin’ there!” someone shouted. Something hit him hard in the back, and Will grunted and stumbled forward. He wondered if he was ever again going to taste water, or if he would die of thirst along the road and be left to rot like so many others. “We’re almost there, boys,” his antagonist sneered. “Almost home.”
Almost home. How he wished that was California, La Estancia de Alcala. Apparently “home” would be someplace far different from the peace and love he had known there. Home would be hell on earth for however long he would have to endure it. He would rather die from being crushed under a redwood than wither away and die of starvation or disease in some prison camp.
He straightened. The thought of California, those magnificent trees that stirred his blood, the beautiful woman who waited for him there, the smiling faces of his children…all of it brought a surge of new life and determination to him. He’d be damned if he’d let the Rebs win this one by dying in their prison camp. He would find a way to survive, and in the meantime the Union would win this war, and soon. In the past year the Union Army had won nearly every battle it had fought, and it had secured the Mississippi. Yes, the war would be over in just a few months, maybe weeks. He had to believe that. And when it ended, he would be free, free to go home to California, to Santana. He had promised her he would come back, and he was not going to break that promise.
Santana sat down on the ledge of the bay window in her father’s study and took a letter from the pocket of her skirt. It was the last letter she had received from Will. She carried it with her every day, no matter what she wore or where she went. The paper was getting worn, the folds weakened and ready to tear from her opening and rereading the letter so often. Somehow, keeping it with her helped her feel close to her husband, and it reminded her that when he wrote it he was still alive.
She glanced at the doorway to the study before opening the letter again. She was anxiously waiting for Dr. Enders to come and tell her what was wrong with her father, if, indeed, he knew. Dominic had failed a great deal the last few months. He never went riding anymore, always too weak and tired, and Hernando had completely taken over running the ranch.
Lately a heavy grief had kept washing over Santana in waves that brought tears at unexpected moments. She didn’t want to think that her husband could be dead, for to consider such a horror on top of the fact that she knew her father was dying…It was all too much to bear. Thank God her children were all healthy, little Juan twenty months old already. Twenty months, and Will did not even know the boy existed. He had been gone two and a half years, a lifetime to her, and a lifetime for fast-growing children.
Glenn was seven, and what a difference between four and a half and seven! Will would be so surprised to see how big his son was getting, and he had lost all his baby fat. Ruth was five, so bright and sweet. Little Dominic was three, a chunky, solid boy with black hair and eyes just as dark, a child who was constantly getting into mischief. It hurt Santana to realize the boy had no memory of his father, and every day she talked about him and showed all of her children pictures of Will.
She blinked back tears as she watched the soft rainfall outside. The unusually gray day matched her emotions. It had been ten years since Will Lassater had first set foot in California…since that first time she saw him standing on the deck of the Dutchess Dianna. She was no longer the wide-eyed, curious child she had been then, but a woman. California itself had grown and changed so much in those years. San Francisco was a burgeoning city of many thousands, and the once-sleepy Spanish Territory was now a part of the United States and filling up fast with Americanos, in spite of the continuing war back east.
She wondered if Dr. Enders was right. He had predicted that once the war was over, California would explode on an even greater scale than in the first two years after the gold rush. He believed that the South would lose this war, and its economy would collapse. Many displaced and disillusioned Southerners would then head west. It would certainly be easier to get there now than it had been all those years ago, what with the overland stage making daily runs, and now a railroad under construction. It did not seem possible that those steel tracks could really be laid over mountains and across deserts and through Indian country, but Santana no longer doubted what could be accomplished with gringo money and resolve. The only reason the building of the railroad was going slowly was because Washington was too involved in the war. Many Californians believed that once the war ended, things would progress rapidly, and one day San Francisco would be linked by a transcontinental railroad to places as far east as St. Louis and Chicago.
If that was so, even greater changes would come to California, and even more people would flood into what was being called the Golden State, not just for the precious metal that lay beneath its mountains and in it streams, but for the abundant sunshine a man found there.
There was no sunshine this day, either in the sky or in Santana’s heart. The rapturous happiness she had known with Will might be only a memory for the rest of her life. The things she read in the papers about the war were so startling and so difficult to comprehend, she had told Hernando to stop bringing the papers to her. Agatha still insisted on reading everything she could get her hands on, but to her the East was home. Santana could not bear reading about the casualties, the bloody battles that left ten, twenty, thirty thousand men dead or wounded. Was Will part of those statistics? And what of Gerald? Agatha had not heard from her own husband in months, but she had remained stronger than Santana had thought possible.
It was the children who kept them both going, and the constant hope that each day when they awoke, they might see their husbands walking up the road toward home. Will had been gone so long, though, that her marriage to him seemed like a dream now, a wonderful dream, of lying in the arms of a man who never really existed, a man who would probably seem like a stranger to her when he did come home.
; She looked down at the letter again. Will Lassater was real. He had written this letter, touched this paper. He had been inside of her, had done wonderfully intimate things with her, and four times his life had taken hold in her and produced offspring. It was Will Lassater who had built the mill that Noel Gray had managed to keep in operation in spite of the loss of manpower, the mill that still brought in a great deal of money so that even in his absence, Will was taking care of her. The children had everything they needed, everything but the most important thing—their father.
“My dearest Santana,” she read for the hundredth time.
It is now August 1863, and each day that I awaken in one piece I thank God for my life and my health. After what I witnessed at Antietam and now Gettysburg, I will never be the same man. There are times when I agree with your first opinion that this would be a useless war.
Perhaps by now you have read about Gettysburg. It could be several weeks before you get this letter, maybe even months. I just hope you do get it so that you can relieve your mind that I was not one of those many thousands who died there. But I can tell you that whatever you are hearing about numbers of dead and the horrors of this war, it is many times worse than that, even for officers like myself. It is all too terrible to put into words. Perhaps one day, when I have come home and can bear to talk about it, I will tell you some of the things I have seen. The only way I get through every day is to think about you and my precious children constantly. Not a day goes by that I don’t pray for you, hoping that all is going well there; and pray that the day will soon come when I can go back to California, to the land that I realize now more than ever is my home. I ache to wrap my arms around my Santana and hear her sweet voice, ache to see my children’s faces and hear their laughter.
I love you, Santana. Always remember that, and forgive me for leaving you. I wanted to do the right thing, and I still believe that I did, but I am disappointed at the way this war has been handled, the ineptness of some of our military leaders, the way they have caused this whole thing to last far longer than it should have. If God should see fit that I am never able to return to you, please instill in the hearts of our children how much I loved them, and know in your own heart that I loved you as I have never and could never love again. You are my life, mi esposa, and I am determined to do all that is in my power to survive this ordeal and come home to you, to my children, to California…
The Forever Tree Page 26