“If you would like to learn, I will teach you,” Reva offered. I smiled.
“That sounds a marvelous idea. And there are other things you can teach me, Senorita Gutierrez. I would like to know all about El Día de los Muertos.”
Reva looked pleased. “We will talk much... later. First, we must drag Diego from the corrals. Jordan is breaking horses today and Diego loves to watch. Ven conmigo," she signaled me to follow.
Walking with Reva, I looked about the neat ranch complex. The barn doors were open and I could see a man working inside, pitching hay into the horse stalls. Riding gear was hanging on the wall. Going past the barn and around to the right, I could hear excited voices shouting encouragement and the sound of a horse battling furiously, whining and snorting in outrage at the man on his back.
Reva stepped up onto the fence railing to watch the scene. I moved closer and gasped as I saw a huge sorrel stallion rear on its hind legs and paw furiously at the air while twisting its head fiercely against the bit. Jordan Bennett was astride and grinning like the very devil.
Coming down onto all fours again, the stallion bucked back and forth, twisting frantically to remove the man from the saddle. Jordan moved with the horse easily, shifting his weight to maintain his expert balance. He seemed part of the animal, even his expression mirroring the wild, untamed will as his arm rose and fell with the movement of the stallion.
Moving closer yet, I stared through the rails of the fence fascinated. Horse and rider bolted closer and I jumped back, sure the two were going to pitch right over the railing on top of me. For just an instant, Bennett’s narrowed eyes caught my rounded ones. The stallion, sensing his rider’s momentary lapse of attention, whirled suddenly to the side and sent Jordan heaving through the air into the dust.
“Jordan!” I cried out, pulling myself up on the fence next to Reva. My heart lodged in my throat as I stared down, sure that I would see him broken and dead in the dust, or being trampled by that rogue of a horse. But he was up almost at once. Dusting himself off with his hat, he glared at the prancing, snorting horse as ranch hands needled him.
“Hey, boss. That ain’t like you to get tossed like a babe,” one shouted in friendly banter.
“The sorrel isn’t as easy as you thought, eh, Mr. Bennett?” another called.
Several men had already jumped down from the fence to help Jordan trap the furious stallion. One man made a leap and grabbed the animal’s rearing head, reaching hastily up to hold tightly to the ear. The stallion made a lunge tossing the man up but unable to break him loose. The bared teeth snapped shut just missing the man. The other cowboys held tightly to the saddle while Jordan vaulted up again. The three ranch hands let go at once and made a ran for the fence before the infuriated animal could trample them.
More cheers broke the quiet morning air. Jordan’s face was fierce with determination. He never once glanced my way again and I felt curiously hurt. I prayed that he would not be killed and suddenly without the least doubt I knew that I loved him.
The contest between man and animal continued, with neither gaining from the other. The magnificent stallion snorted, pawed, bucked and kicked to be free of the man now once again grinning with obvious enjoyment of the animal’s spirited challenge. Minutes passed and I watched in awed silence, hardly able to breathe. Once I thought the stallion intended to ram Jordan against the fence but turned back as Jordan set the reins whipping into his hind quarters, making him veer away at the last instant.
Tiring, the stallion reared again and again, lower each time. Then it began to gallop in wider circles around the corral. Jordan let the horse have its head and then after a while drew in the reins slowly, but firmly. The animal slowed and finally came to a prancing stop.
Still maintaining his masterful hold, Jordan pulled back slowly. The stallion snorted fiercely and yanked hard, but was unable to break Jordan’s grip. Then, the horse stepped back trying to ease the pull on its mouth. One step and then another. It was what Jordan wanted, and satisfied, he loosened the reins slightly, pressing his knees against the stallion’s sweating sides.
The stallion moved forward again, controlled and heeding the rider’s command. Jordan rode the horse around the corral again several times and then finally drew the animal in and dismounted. I expected him to look exhausted, but he looked invigorated, blue eyes shining as he swept the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand.
The animal was breathing hard and shook its head, showing that its spirit was still intact, though curbed by this one man. Moving to the stallion’s head, Jordan dug into his pocket and pulled out some treat for the animal. I held my breath again, expecting the stallion to take a large bite and a couple of fingers off Jordan’s hand. But the animal’s nostrils quivered, and it accepted the lump of sugar, allowing Jordan to stroke its soft nose. I breathed again. Smiling, I felt proud of Jordan Bennett, even knowing I had no right to feel that way.
Sitting at the table in the kitchen, I insisted on helping Reva shell peas for the ranch hands’ dinner. Diego was working on a test in another room.
“Your hands are as quick as mine,” Reva commented in some surprise, watching me split a pod and shoot the young peas into a bowl with my thumb, then flick the shell into a nearby waste dish.
“I’ve had my share of practice.” I laughed, flicking another empty pod away and picking up a full one.
“You have?”
“Why should that surprise you?”
“Oh, something Jordan said to me last night about Boston ladies,” she admitted casually, her own hands moving quickly. I stiffened slightly, but managed to maintain my light smile as I worked on. The thought of Jordan Bennett making disdainful remarks about me during a quiet evening with his mistress hurt unbearably.
“Is Mr. Bennett that well versed in Boston ladies?” I asked disparagingly. Gwendolyn Bracklin-Reed Bennett hardly qualified him as an authority on the breed, I thought agitatedly.
“Jordan went to school in Boston. He said the women there were haughty and lifeless.”
Then why did he marry one? I asked myself silently, feeling furious. Reva was watching my face.
“I hope you are not taking this personally, Miss McFarland,” she said smoothly. “You are not at all like that.”
“Perhaps Mr. Bennett just moved in the wrong circles,” I said indifferently, shelling peas with a vengeance.
“Oh, he moved in the best circles,” Reva said. “He even married one of the primest stock Boston could offer.” Her cold tone drew my attention. “You’ve been in Sycamore Hill for two months or more, Miss McFarland,” she said. “Don’t pretend you have not heard about Jordan’s wife, Gwendolyn.”
“Yes, I’ve heard a few things.”
“Never have I met a more arrogant woman, nor hated one so much.”
Reva’s veracity embarrassed me, but my averted look did not prevent her from continuing.
“She treated me like so much dirt under her feet. She wanted Jordan to send me and Diego away, but he wouldn’t agree.” Her hands halted in their mutilation of the peapods, and she spread them on the table, staring toward the window.
“Diego was just a little boy then... a beautiful little boy. Gwendolyn Bennett wanted to possess Jordan, but she could not. She hated Diego because Jordan loved him.” Reva looked at me, eyes flashing. “Why should he not have loved Diego?” she demanded fiercely.
“Señorita....”
The dark eyes lost their anger and glittered with anguish and confusion. “She called us an embarrassment. My beautiful little boy ... an embarrassment.” Her eyes filled, and her voice softened. “She called him ‘Jordan’s little bastard,’” she went on, her voice barely audible, and I felt a pain cut into me.
“How could she have been so cruel, Miss McFarland? I was young and foolish once. I fell in love with the wrong man. But she had no right to hurt my boy like that. To say those things about him....” I reached across to touch her hand, not knowing what to say to her.
> “Before she came, people thought I was married,” Reva told me. “Now they know about Diego, and it is just one more thing they use to hurt him. I would rather they threw stones at me than hurt my son.”
I felt my own eyes filling with tears, and I sought uselessly for something to say. Reva looked at me then. Her hand uncurled, and she clasped mine.
“I’m sorry I have upset you. I did not mean to speak to you about this. It is only since Diego left school that I have thought much about it. Perhaps I should take him to Mexico, where he would be among his own people. There no one would doubt me if I said I was a widow. It would be my secret and my son's.
“Surely Mr. Bennett would not allow you to do that. You belong here,” I told her.
“Jordan would let me do whatever I wish,” she said tiredly, and I wondered if what she really meant was that he did not care enough to stop her from taking his son away.
“I have lived here on this ranch since my father and mother came from Mexico to work for Jordan’s parents,” Reva explained. “I was eight, a skinny, little, big-eyed girl. Jordan was fourteen then....” She sighed. ‘Twenty years ago... such a long time.” She looked at me and smiled. “My son was born in this house. But perhaps all that is not enough to make me belong here. You must be part of the people in order to belong, and the people of Sycamore Hill want no part of me or my bastard.”
“Please don’t call Diego that.”
“It’s the truth.” Her face contorted in pain.
“But don’t you love his father?”
Reva took a long time in answering. There was a distant, sad look on her face. “Even after all this time, and all I’ve been through because of him, I still love Diego’s father.”
“Then you must not do anything rash. Whatever anyone says, Diego belongs here. Mexico is a long way from here, and Diego is not a Mexican. He is an American. He was born here and raised here. You can’t take him away.”
“Tell the people of Sycamore Hill that,” Reva said bitterly. “He has brown skin. And everyone around here thinks that all brown people are Joaquin Murietta, riding to steal and kill.”
“Fear makes fools of people.”
“And fear makes them cruel as well.”
“It wasn’t the children who wanted your son expelled, señorita. A few adults used one child’s jealousy to their own purpose. It won’t always be that way.”
Reva shook her head dubiously. “Jordan was right about you, señorita. You know very little about people.”
I sat back, stung by her remark and reminded again of her closeness to Jordan Bennett. Reva spread her hands in an apologetic gesture.
“It is true. Some people will change... those that wish to do so. But James Olmstead? Reverend Hayes? Branford Poole? Never.”
“You blame all for the actions of a few,” I said.
“The many allowed the few to do as they wished, did they not?”
I could scarcely deny that, but I wondered if everyone even knew what had happened to Diego, or if they had only heard a twisted view of the incident in the schoolyard. “Perhaps things would be different if everyone was aware of the true circumstances,” I said thoughtfully. Reva stared.
“What are you thinking, señorita?" Her usual smooth, cream-brown forehead was puckered. I smiled, unable to suppress an impish twinkle of mischief.
“The idea hasn’t yet formed itself completely....”
“Please do not get yourself into more trouble because of Diego,” she protested, suspicious.
“I’m in trouble most of the time anyway,” I shrugged.
“Well, Jordan will be furious with me if you find yourself in further trouble because of us.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment, señorita. Mr. Bennett’s sense of humor thrives on my predicaments.”
Reva frowned at my taut expression. “You are wrong.”
“Well, don’t let’s worry about what Mr. Bennett thinks. What I do is my own concern and none of his.” I launched our conversation into questions about El Día de los Muertos, and relieved, Reva gave me a colorful and enthusiastic narration of the holiday rooted in pre-Columbian Indian and Spanish tradition. She explained for how several days she had been preparing for the festive holiday. She showed me several dozen calaveras she had made for other Mexican families employed on Eden Rock, as well as loaves of sweet bread twisted into elaborate shapes. One loaf was a serpent, complete with forked tongue and tail and decorated artistically with red and green icing. Most of the others were shaped into human bones.
I accepted Reva’s invitation to her room, and was surprised at the modest quarters she and Diego inhabited at the back of the ranch house, just beyond the kitchen. I had expected Bennett to provide her with more comfortable rooms.
Her room was pleasant enough, and far more spacious than my own. It was painted ivory and draped with lacy curtains and panels of thicker brocade. It was well-equipped with functional furnishings. There were two beds, one on either side of the room. One wing chair covered in brocade stood near the window overlooking the back garden.
Late roses on the lattice just outside the window filled the room with sweet fragrance. A smaller, straight-backed chair stood by a desk in one corner, where Diego’s books were stacked beneath a brass lamp.
Pictures on the wall were embroidered and framed in plain, polished wood. A large, square, cloth-remnant braided rug lay over the wooden floor. There was a pedestal table with a healthy fern near the windows. And just in front of the windows, where the afternoon sun streamed in, was a long, low table covered with a white cloth embroidered with brilliant colors. On the table stood a large, exquisitely carved white-stone crucifix. To the right of it stood a picture of a half-dozen people in somber attire and in a blank-stare pose. The men were hatless and standing behind two women who were seated, one higher than the other. Two children sat at the women’s feet. I recognized Jordan Bennett immediately, with his mane of tawny, sun-bleached hair and those magnificent light eyes. He looked no more than 14, tall and lanky and, with his devilish grin, much like Sherman Poole.
Reva picked up the picture. She pointed a long, slender finger to the taller of the two men. He had thick, dark hair that was brushed forward on a high brow. Piercing, hard eyes stared at me out of a ruggedly handsome face with a square, determined jaw. The thin lips were unsmiling and firm.
“This is Jordan’s father.” Her finger moved to the woman beneath the man’s hand. “And his mother.” The woman had the same light-colored eyes as did her son, and her hair was blond and braided in a large bun at the nape of her slender neck. She was a delicate-looking woman and seemed mismatched with the giant behind her. Jordan sat at her skirts, legs crossed Indian fashion and hands folded in his lap.
“This is my father and mother.” Reva indicated the people to the left of the Bennetts. The man was broad-shouldered and lean, with very black hair and eyes. He had a mustache, well-trimmed and complimentary to his long face. Reva’s mother was attractive, with her same darkness, but slightly heavy. The young girl at her feet was thin and big-eyed, as Reva had described herself.
“It’s the only picture I have of my parents. It was taken by a man passing through on his way to the goldfields. He was a journalist from the East, and he had a camera that stood on three tall, wooden legs. We’d never seen a camera before. He would set the contraption up and then get underneath all this black draping.” She laughed in remembrance. ‘Then there would be this great flash of light. It was wonderful!”
Reva looked at the picture again. “I heard that he wrote a book about the West, but I’ve never seen it. I wonder if this picture is in it.”
“Were you and Mr. Bennett both the only children in your families?”
“I had two sisters and a brother. My two sisters died in infancy. My brother, Raoul, died when he was ten. I was only three then, and I remember almost nothing about him.”
“How very sad.”
“It was not uncommon for families to lose so many ch
ildren. Measles took many. Fevers, dysentery, even hunger.” Reva carefully set the picture back on the altar. “It was different for Senor and Senora Bennett. The senora confided a great deal to my mama. They were amigas. My mother was strong and used to hard work. The senora was frail. She was kind to the people who helped her. She was a great lady. Nothing like that woman Jordan brought home with him from Boston,” Reva said, her tone a wealth of comment on her feelings about Gwendolyn Bennett.
“My mama did the cooking, canning, cleaning for Jordan’s mama. The señora did her sewing. She loved to sew. She taught me to do this work.” Reva fingered the exquisite embroidery.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I will never have the art of the señora," Reva said reverently. “But I try. She did such beautiful things. Once, she made me a white ruffled dress for my confirmation. She embroidered pink rosebuds all around the hem. I loved that dress.” She smiled. “I still have it packed away in case I ever have a daughter.”
Her dream sank painfully into my mind as I thought of Jordan with her, close and loving. An unpleasant feeling curled inside me. I had no right to be jealous, and yet I was. I looked at Reva and envied her so intensely, I thought I would cry. I swallowed hard, looking away.
“The señora was greatly admired,” Reva told me. “She would have liked to have more children.”
“Why didn’t she?” I asked, still not looking at Reva.
“The señor and señora lived apart.”
I looked back. “You mean they didn’t love each other?”
“Oh, no. They loved one another very much. But Jordan was a large baby, and the senora was a delicate woman. She had great pain in childbirth and almost died. She was afraid of having another baby, and the doctor said she would probably die if she did. So she did not sleep with her husband.”
My face burned with embarrassment at Reva Gutierrez’s intimate disclosure about Jordan’s parents.
Reva smiled. “I had forgotten how innocent you are. Of course, that is necessary to your position... that you be ignorant of the intimate activities between men and women.”
Sycamore Hill Page 15