Four Winds (River of Time California, Book 2)

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “You shall be off for the rancho, along with seven of my men. I shall take the rest, track down the scoundrel, and see him to justice, as well as recover your lamp if he has it.”

  She stiffened. “I will say it again. I prefer to remain with you. Am I not safer by your side than anywhere else? I might return to the rancho, but then Lieutenant de la Cruz, Gutierrez, and their companions might come to call. Am I not as much in danger with him as I am with the pirate captain?” She stepped closer to me. “Please, Javier, consider my wishes as well as your own. Can you not see the value of my opinion, too?”

  I sighed. She was headstrong. But also clearly used to having her way. I reached out and tucked a coil of her hair behind her ear, unable to resist touching her. “Is it commonplace, in your time,” I whispered, “for women to insist on their own way?”

  A devilish smile lifted the corners of her lips. “For certain,” she said, tapping my chest. “But you cannot tell me that your mother or sisters ever hold back their opinions or desires. Not for long anyway.”

  I covered her hand, capturing it against my chest, and staring into her eyes. “So it will be, then. Together, tomorrow, we travel north. You need a night’s rest, as do I, before we encounter Mendoza again. And I am certain that Rafael and Patricio will ensure that he does not escape Monterey before we arrive.”

  But, as we walked hand in hand up the hill to watch the sun set, I couldn’t help but wonder what Monterey would bring us. And while I had the best intentions, with the feel of her hand in mine—after all we’d been through—I found myself silently praying, Lord, let us find the lamp. But please Lord, please, let her choose to not use it.

  CHAPTER 22

  ZARA

  After hours in the saddle, my backside hurt. I had not slept well—agitated over all that Javier and I had and had not discussed—and on top of my injuries from the kidnapping and shipwreck, I knew no feverfew tea could soothe every pain. But I forced myself to sit upright and not let my face betray it. It had taken a great deal for Javier to allow me to accompany him; I didn’t want to give him any reason to second-guess himself. I knew he was likely doing that already.

  We passed ranches more often as we approached town. In my day, I knew Monterey was famous for the aquarium, and a friend’s dad had been stationed at the naval base, but I’d never been this far north. Abuela and I had never traveled farther from home than Santa Barbara, because she never wanted to travel faster than fifty miles an hour on the freeway for more than half an hour. I smiled, thinking of her, barely taller than the steering wheel, driving her huge, wide Buick.

  The coastline was rugged alongside the road here. Craggy black-rock cliffs stood sentry against battering waves that crashed against them. One after another roared up and nearly over, sending up a shower of white foam and spray as the cliffs denied them entry and sent them scurrying into retreat. We paused at an inlet, watching as otters played in the wash of surf and turned on their backs to hold mussels in their tiny paws, expertly cracking them open.

  I wondered if we paused so long because we couldn’t decide how eager we were to reach the town…or encounter Mendoza.

  As we entered town, I knew there likely weren’t any buildings here that would survive to my own era. Most were one-story wooden buildings, hastily erected. Horses ran wild along the streets, with men capturing and riding any stray they could and then releasing them to graze. The first sort of public transportation, I laughed to myself.

  There were many men but also a fair number of women, dressed in far more elaborate gowns than anything I’d seen in or near Santa Barbara. Clearly, these women had more access to imports from around the world. Many of them looked me over as if I were so much riffraff, with my matted hair and filthy, torn gown. Maybe they even thought I was a prostitute, riding with all these men—though I hardly acted like some of the girls I’d seen walking by, boldly making eyes at Javier’s company.

  All the posturing made me want to laugh. It was like girls being in the coolest outfits possible, back home in my own time, but walking along the sidewalks of the poorest neighborhood. Except, you know, these were boardwalks. Honest-to-goodness boardwalks. They were a thing. Not just in Abuela’s spaghetti-Westerns.

  “We’ll find a shop near the hotel,” Javier said, watching me and clearly noting my discomfort. “There you can get a dress and boots—whatever you need.”

  I smiled at him, grateful. And a brush, I thought. I so need a brush and soap. And maybe some lotion of some sort.

  Javier divided the men into two groups. One was to find Patricio Casales, the shipping agent, and the other Rafael Vasquez, to see what each of them had learned. “Keep an eye out for Captain Mendoza,” he demanded. “Be certain he doesn’t catch sight of you. Then return to us here at the hotel and we shall take a meal together.”

  They agreed and departed, leaving Hector, Rodrigo, and Felipe with Javier and me. We entered the hotel, and Javier booked six rooms. He then told the black-haired hotelier, a short Mexican man in a fine suit, that he was searching for a seaman named Santiago Mendoza. “Have you checked in any male guests that are about my height? He is about thirty or thirty-five, with a mustache and beard. He’d likely be carrying a bag of some sort and a small, heavy chest.”

  I tensed as we waited. I knew that there were probably more than ten hotels in a town this size bordering the harbor. But what if Mendoza was right here, in this very building? The thought of it made me feel oddly faint with dread—and with hope, too, for the lamp…and kept me on the lookout.

  The hotelier frowned, considering, and then shook his head. “None have arrived that fits that description. As you can see from the registry, only an older couple and four young men have checked in over the last two days. It’s been a slow week for us, but I hear tell that three sails have been sighted on the horizon, heading our way. That will certainly bring some new guests to our hotel. It is good you secured these rooms before they arrived.”

  Javier nodded. “Both Señorita Ruiz and I are in sore need of a bath. Might you arrange for a tub in each of our rooms before we take our noon meal?”

  “Consider it done,” said the hotelier.

  Javier passed me a key and then handed the rest to Hector, Felipe, and Rodrigo, quietly telling them to figure out the sleeping arrangement for the rest of the men. I studied the big brass key, thinking about the magnetic key cards of my own time. There was something enormously satisfying about slipping a classic skeleton key into a big lock.

  He instructed the men to go together and do as he’d just done with the hotelier, covering the other hotels and boardinghouses in town to see if they might turn up Captain Mendoza. “One of you keep watch as you question each hotelier,” he said. “I do not want him to overhear that you’re seeking him if he’s about. Rafael has likely already done this, but I want to be certain we find the pirate as fast as we can and that no stone has been left unturned.”

  They set off, and Javier offered his arm. We moved down the wooden boardwalk, and half of me expected the Magnificent Seven to emerge, guns blazing. But I supposed that was more likely to happen in forty or fifty years. In 1840, guns only had one or two bullets in them, and men still favored swords, from what I could see. I’d feel the same. It took far too much time to reload if you missed.

  Javier paused at the window of a mercantile and then moved on, obviously thinking we might do better. “I think I recall Mama liking a store around the corner,” he said.

  “You brought Doña Elena here?”

  He smiled. “She and my papa brought me and Dante here a year before I left for university. That trip along the coast, weighing anchor here, was part of what sparked my passion for the sea and sailing. I was just a boy, but it made me wonder what it might be like to travel the world, exploring new harbors and ports, meeting people from far-off lands.”

  I squeezed his arm. “And you still might get that opportunity. Someday. When Mateo is of age to keep watch over the rancho? Or Francesca or Estrella.”


  He looked at me as if I were crazy. Or joking. “My sisters? Running the rancho?”

  I nodded. “In my day,” I whispered, “women run companies with hundreds, even thousands of employees. Do not doubt your siblings, any of them, just because they wear a dress rather than pants.”

  He didn’t disagree, but his expression clearly told me he thought this idea preposterous. It didn’t bother me. If I were to remain with him, there would be time enough to change his mind about what women were capable of. And yet I had to admit there was something romantic, reassuring about some of the gender roles of this time. Far too confining for women, absolutely. But it felt good to be looked after. I liked how all of Javier’s men automatically protected the women, as if it was part of their genetic code. And it made me feel girly in good ways, while at the same time agitating me a little. Yeah, I thought. Figuring all that out will be a challenge, if I stay.

  If I stay. Not that I’d have much option if Captain Mendoza had sold my lamp or lost it at sea. Still, the question in my own mind chafed. Had not God made it clear, the night before the attack? I’d tried to leave, hadn’t I? Tried every trick and prayer possible? And I’d awakened in Javier’s arms on the beach.

  “Here we are, just as I remembered it.” Javier reached for the handled edge of a carved door at the center of the next shop, with the Spanish MERCANTIL hand-painted in ornate golden lettering above the door. I peered in, blinking as I waited for my eyes to get used to the relative dark. There was really no “window shopping” in this town. Perhaps glass was too expensive to import or not yet mass produced. Even the windows at the rancho were empty except for shutters, I recalled.

  But inside, an enormous chandelier with nine oil lamps illuminated the center of the store, and four other, smaller lamps lit up the corners. Sighing, I moved immediately to three premade dresses, each in multiple sizes. Not the ten or twelve options that my local Target carried, but a few that seemed like they might be possibilities.

  The proprietor, a fat Mexican woman in black finery, her hair in an elaborate updo held by an abalone-shell comb, moved toward us. “Buenos días,” she said in a fine Castillian accent. “May I be of assistance?”

  “Sí,” Javier said. “My dear friend here has survived a terrible shipwreck. As you can see, she is in sore need of a dress or two and much to go with it. Boots, too. I need a new shirt and jacket as well. Might you assist us?”

  The woman, perhaps fifty years old, sniffed and looked me up and down the way many of the fine ladies on the street had done. Did she suspect I was something more than Javier’s friend, with me being such a mess? But eying Javier and the thick bag of coins he casually weighed in the palm of his hand, she elected to pretend I was nothing but the finest sort of lady, regardless of her suspicions. In short order, she had me trying on a formal bronzed-brown gown, as well as a more casual one in a sunny yellow.

  She crowded into the tiny fitting room each time I changed, uninvited, and swiftly pinned the bodice of each, assuming we would purchase them. And I suppose we had little choice. Judging from Javier’s mother’s preference, these were likely the best I’d find in town. But she was pinning them like a tailor would. How long would it take to get one or both back?

  “You are tailoring the gowns for me?” I dared to ask the formidable woman.

  “But of course!” she said, frowning as if I’d somehow offended her.

  “I see. But will I then be able to pick them up tomorrow?”

  Her frown deepened. “Of course not. I shall have a boy run them to your hotel within an hour or two.”

  “I see,” I repeated as if that should have been obvious to me. I didn’t know whether some poor seamstress was chained to a machine in the back of the shop, but apparently this was just part of the deal.

  “By the time you finish with your bath,” she said with a sniff, not appreciating my B.O. any more than I did, “your gowns will be delivered.”

  “Wonderful. And I’ll need some underthings as well. A new camisole, stays, petticoat.”

  She waved me off impatiently. “Of course, of course,” she said. “All will be in order, señorita.”

  She left me then to dress again in my tattered gown, after which I padded out to look at fine leather boots. Javier had already placed a crisp white shirt, pants, and jacket on the counter. Together we added a horsehair brush, lilac-scented soap, and a jar of cream.

  “The girl needs this,” said the merchant, placing a small brown hat with netting on the pile, “to go with her new bronze gown. And this,” she said, reaching for a comb with freshwater pearls on it, “to go with the gold.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” I said hurriedly. It all must be adding up to a lot of money, and I didn’t have a dime—or whatever currency they dealt in here.

  “We can,” Javier said, opening his heavy purse and sliding out five gold coins.

  “Javier, it is too much,” I said, belatedly thinking it all through. “I can just get the yellow dress and the boots. And the…” I felt the burn on my cheeks as I searched for the right word to describe all the feminine unmentionables.

  “We’ll take it all,” he said firmly, staring straight ahead to the proprietor.

  Her fat cheeks spread into a Cheshire-like grin. “Very good, sir,” she said. As she slipped the coins into a box behind the counter and fetched his change, she seemed to think of us as people-people for the first time. “May I ask how long you plan on sojourning in Monterey?”

  “A few days,” he said. “We are to meet with a sea captain here. Captain Mendoza. Have you met him by chance?”

  “Captain Mendoza?” she repeated. “I fear not. But the town is not all that big. Ask about him, and you’ll likely be sipping port together within the hour.”

  “I hope so,” Javier said innocently, as if instead of slowly strangling Mendoza, he meant to toast his health. He wrote down the name of our hotel and our room numbers, and then we departed.

  I breathed a sigh of relief to once again have socks and shoes. You could make it in flip-flops in a beach town. But, with your feet cut up, and stirrups and dirt roads, barefoot-and-bandaged was pretty much the worst idea ever. A huge infection waiting to happen.

  But these boots felt tight and confining after those I’d borrowed from Hector. I hoped it was just because they were new. Probably would take a bit to break in. Still I felt less vulnerable, more me with them on, and couldn’t wait for that bath back at the hotel and the new dress.

  Though we kept an eye out for Javier’s men, we didn’t see any of them on the way back to or in the hotel lobby. “The tubs are in your rooms,” said the hotelier, lifting his chin, eyeing the paper-wrapped packages in Javier’s arm. “I’ll send maids up directly with the water.”

  “Very good,” Javier said. “And the señorita is expecting a delivery within the hour. You will send it up with a maid when it arrives?”

  “Of course,” he said with a curt nod.

  Together, we climbed the narrow stairs and turned down the hall. Javier took the first room, leading me to the next—and I knew then that he’d formed some sort of guard between me and anyone who came up the stairs. Looking at the numbers on the doors, I knew his men would be on the far side of my room, as well as directly across. He’d figured that out as he passed out the keys, and again I felt a rush of warmth over his quiet protection, that reassuring, unspoken care.

  I pulled my key from my pocket and bent to slip it into the lock, peering closely to watch it connect, feeling the satisfying turns and hearing the click inside. I felt as if I was entering some sort of secret room in an ancient house.

  “It’s as if you’ve never handled a key and lock before,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Not like this,” I said. I turned the porcelain knob. The tall, heavy door swung open on a modest room, with only a single sagging cot, small table, and oil lamp. A deep tin tub took up almost all of the extra space in the room.

  “No window, good,” Javier sniffed, setting my
packages on the foot of my bed.

  “Don’t want me to escape, eh?” I teased.

  “I don’t wish for any to gain entry,” he corrected, pulling me into his arms, “that you do not invite in.”

  I smiled and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him. We could hear footsteps in the hall, as well as the brush of wood against the walls, and Javier released me and opened my door wider, revealing two waiting maids. He gestured for the first to enter the space he’d vacated. She carried two massive buckets, hooked on what looked like a yoke she carried over her shoulders. He eyed me over her head. “Lock the door behind her.”

  “I will. Thank you,” I said. “See you soon.”

  The other maid followed him to his room, while my own set the buckets down beside the tub. “Do you want me to pour them in, señorita?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll see to it. Thank you.” There were maybe six gallons between them. I wanted to meter them out myself.

  I locked the door behind her and hurriedly pulled off my gown and underthings, crusty with salt and sweat, and then unwound the dirty bandages around my feet. Naked, I poured three-quarters of the steaming, hot water into the tub, sad to see it was only a few inches deep, and then three-quarters of the cold. It still wouldn’t cover me by any means, but it was fresh water, and it would do. I stepped in and immediately rinsed my whole body, reached for the parchment-wrapped soap, lathered up, and rinsed again.

  I didn’t think I’d ever appreciated a bath as much. There’d been one at the rancho that was close. But to be clean, to feel the water wash over skin that I felt had been defiled in some way after my days with Captain Mendoza and Gonzalo—I only wished I had access to more hot water. But I would take what I had and be thankful for it. I washed my hair and then stood, using the remaining clean water to rinse the tangled brown mess, and the rest of me one last time. Then I reached for the rough, tiny towel the maid had left beside the buckets and quickly dried off.

  I unwrapped the pantaloons, which tied at the waist with a drawstring, then slipped on a petticoat that did the same. The silky camisole felt good against my torso; I’d just need help to lace up the stays. I picked up the brush to begin working out the knots in my clean hair.