by Scott O'Dell
"A viejo, and old man in the shop, tells me that he found some of his iron missing the morning after the Indians left. It was the kind of iron that he makes keys out of. Do you suppose that sometime that night Stone Hands in some manner got hold of Señora Gallegos' key and went to this shop and made himself a key? A key that was exactly like the other key, a key that would fit the doors perfectly. Do you think he would do a thing like that?"
"He could," I said. "He is clever."
"So being clever, he made a key," Capitán Cordova went on, "to fit the locks. Since the doors do not open from the men's quarters he must have given this key to one of the girls."
The Capitán carefully tapped the ash of his cigar into a tray and glanced up at me as I stood in front of his desk. I felt embarrassed and afraid.
"This key that he made, did he by chance give it to you?"
I was silent.
"He gave the key to you so that you could open both the doors."
"There were more than fifty girls and women in the room that night," I said. "Why should he give it to me?"
"Because you are his close friend," Cordova replied. "You are the one he knew the best and could trust."
"He knew many girls and he could trust all of them," I said.
The capitán cleared his throat and puffed on his cigar.
"When does your aunt come?"
"Soon," I said. "Soon, I hope."
"Do you want to be in the cell when she comes?"
"No, sir."
I felt like saying that Señor Corrientes had ten thousand cattle and would not miss one or two. And that Señor Moreno owned more sheep than he could count. But I kept this to myself.
"Well, we surely hope not, since we are noted here in Santa Barbara for our hospitality. Perhaps she will not come soon, maybe tomorrow or the next day or next week. Perhaps meanwhile you will receive a message from Stone Hands. Suppose all this. And suppose also that when this message comes you give it to me, Captain Cordova. Then we can all catch this clever fellow who calls himself Stone Hands and give him a little punishment. Then we can all be hospitable together and welcome your aunt to Santa Barbara.
We can have fiesta with music."
He stood up and shouted for Señora Gomez.
"In the meantime," he said, "perhaps we can learn who it was that used the key that Stone Hands made. The doors into the boys' quarters did not open themselves. They are not magical doors."
Señora Gomez came waddling in and stood sleepily in the corner.
Captain Cordova picked up the iron glove from the desk and put it on his hand. "It does not fit so well," he said, "but it is not supposed to fit well. I have another glove just like it. They have much weight. They are very inconvenient."
The glove had a screw on one side and he began to turn it. He turned the screw until it was tight. He lifted his hand above his head. I could see that it was very heavy. Then he let his hand with the iron glove drop on his desk. The sound was loud. Señora Gomez opened her eyes.
"I never use this unless I am forced to. I am a kind man, of a good disposition, and very patient."
Captain Cordova had no real authority over me. Years ago, when Mexico owned the land, he could put an iron glove on me that squeezed my hand until I screamed, as he had done to the hands of many, so I had heard. He was trying to scare me and he could try only because Father Vicente was away. If Father Vicente had been home, he would not have threatened me. For some reason he did not fear Father Merced.
He was enjoying himself, I could see. And while he had no authority for all of his threats, there was nothing I could do. I was helpless and fearful, as he meant me to be.
He unscrewed the glove and put it on his desk. Then he nodded to Señora Gomez, who came and took me to my cell.
That night after supper I heard a scratching at the bars of my cell, then a voice. It was Mando, who had come back from fishing.
"I have food for you," he whispered.
Through the bars he passed me a strip of meat that he had saved from his supper.
"Tomorrow, Zia, I will bring you more."
"Cuidado, señor," I said. "There are many ears that listen. This is all they have to do."
"I will take care," he said. "But if they catch me they catch a mountain lion. They will not like the lion they catch."
The meat was tough but it tasted good after the water and stale tortillas.
20
THREE DAYS went by. A north wind brought a storm that lasted for two days.
I wondered where Captain Nidever and his boat were. I wondered if they were safely at the island or whether the storm had caught them somewhere. It was very cold and Capitán Cordova sent orders that my clothes were to be given back to me and an extra blanket as well.
The Yankee whaler had finished cooking blubber and the air was clear once more. Now that the whaling ship had gone, the dolphins came back. I could see them through the barred slit playing in the sea beyond the breakers. And the whales came back and sent up their feathery spouts.
On the sixth day Capitán Cordova sent for me and I went into his office. The first thing I saw was the iron glove on his desk and its mate beside it. He seemed in good spirits, puffing away on a cigar, with his broad-brimmed hat with the gold braid tilted back on his forehead and his stitched boots on the desk.
"I have good news," he said. "At least I think the news is good. One can never tell about news. It is like cream. It can turn sour between the cow and the kitchen."
I waited for the news, knowing that it could not be good for everyone, that for someone it would be bad.
"Don Blas Corrientes reports," the captain said, "that Stone Hands and his band are camped at the head of the creek that runs through his ranch. They are camped in a box canyon and can get out only by the trail they used going in. It is a simple matter to have Don Blas's vaqueros and my soldiers flush them out and march them back to the Mission."
He paused to examine the screw on one of the iron hands that lay on his desk. I wondered what this had to do with me. He must know by now that I had received no message and if I had it would not concern him. He had Stone Hands and all my friends cornered in a box canyon from which they could not escape. What did he want of me? Why did he frighten me with an iron glove? Why did he keep me freezing in a cell that I scarcely could turn around in, with straw to sleep on and a barred slit to look out of?
"How long have you been here at the Mission?" he asked me.
"For many moons."
"Where did you come from?"
"From Pala."
"I know the place. It is where the Cupeños lived after they left Warner Springs. Why did you come from Pala?"
"Because of my aunt. I heard that she was living alone on the island."
"And you thought by coming to Santa Barbara you might find someone who would go out and search for her."
"Yes, sir."
I still had no idea what he wanted from me.
"You have been here for a long time." He paused and looked at the end of his cigar, which had gone out. "In that time you have had a chance to observe the various fathers?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have talked to Father Merced and have talked to other Indians who have talked to him. You have worked at the looms and the garden under his instructions."
"Yes."
"Tell me," the capitán said as if suddenly we were old friends talking together, "do the Indians, the girls and boys, like this man, Father Merced?"
"They like him," I said.
"You speak without much conviction..."
"Then I repeat, the boys and girls respect Father Merced."
"Respect?" Capitán Cordova lighted his dead cigar. It had an odor that was worse than before.
"Why if the boys and girls respect him so much," Capitán Cordova said, "why then do they run away from his Mission?"
"I do not know," I said.
"Do the others feel happy in Father Merced's care?"
"There are som
e who do and there are others..."
"Who would like to run away and not come back."
Capitán Cordova hated Father Merced. Everyone at the Mission knew that. They knew also that Father Merced hated the capitán. Father Merced had complained about the capitán and his drunken soldiers, and Captain Cordova had complained about Father Merced. It was not a new quarrel, from what I had heard. It was a quarrel that had gone on now for most of a hundred years—this rivalry between the garrison and the Missions.
"You yourself have spoken to me here in this room as if you would also have run away except for your aunt who is coming or who is not coming. One or the other. Why do you want to run away?"
"I would not run away," I said. "I would leave if that was the way I felt."
"But if you left, if you did not run away but just left, why would you do so?"
"Because I did not like it here at the Mission," I said truthfully. "That would be the reason."
"Because of the way you are treated. Because you are made to toil long hours. Because you are told what to do at all times. Because Father Merced is a man with strange ideas about Indians and thinks that they should be busy all the minutes of the day."
I began to have suspicions that I had not had before. Was it this hatred between Father Merced and Capitán Cordova that had caused the trouble for me? Was this why I was locked up in a cell with no clothes and little food?
"All I can say to you, Señor Capitán, is that I am here. I am not with Stone Hands and his band."
Capitán Cordova rose from his desk. He went to the door and opened it to let in some fresh air—even he could not stand the stench from the cigar—tossed the cigar over the bluff into the sea, closed the door, and came back and sat down.
"The governor gives out bad cigars," he said, speaking, I guess, to himself. "Perhaps, because he does not smoke and knows no better."
He opened a drawer of his desk and drew forth an object that I did not recognize at once.
"You have spoken several times of your aunt," he said in his polite, dovelike voice. "You have told me that you had nothing to do with the runaways."
He paused and held up the object he had just taken from his desk. He turned it this way and that and then dropped it on the desk.
"Señora Gaviln," he said, "who is, as you know, your overseer, made a search of the quarters at my request. In your bed..."He paused and glanced up at me. "In your bed, underneath the blankets, she found this key. It is the key that fits the lock in the men's door and that of the women. It is this that opened the doors and permitted Stone Hands and the others to flee."
"I have seen this before," I said. "I used it to open the doors." They had searched my bed before I had had a chance to throw it into the sea, as I had planned to do.
Capitán Cordova put the key in his desk. He then shouted for Señora Gomez, who came wandering in and sleepily took me to my cell. She closed the door and barred it tight.
21
SEÑORA GOMEZ brought my clothes back and a blanket, as Captain Cordova had told her to do, so I slept warm that night.
In mid-morning when Captain Nidever sailed into the harbor I was standing in my cotton shift.
I saw the boat far out beyond where the Yankee whaler had been anchored—when they were only a spot on the bright sea. There was a fresh wind behind them and they were moving fast. First I could see that there were four people in the boat. I saw Father Vicente and his red tassel flying. Then I could see that one of the four was a woman.
I stood there at the window holding on to the iron bars. For the first time in many days I felt warm. I forgot that I was in a cell, in a cotton shift, with my long hair uncombed.
The boat came up to the edge of the surf, where the swells were getting ready to break. The sun sparkled on the water and in the glare I could make out the figure of Karana. She was crouched on the little platform Captain Nidever had made and I had woven the sail for.
The surf was not heavy that morning, but Captain Nidever waited for the break between waves that comes every few minutes. He waited too long and missed a time of calm. At that moment Karana rose and leaped from the boat and began to swim toward shore. A dog leaped in after her.
At first I thought that she had jumped to lighten the boat so it could be handled easier in the surf. But I am sure that it was not for that reason. She had jumped out of excitement.
The place she must have dreamed about many times was near at last. She swam strong, her brown arms reaching out. Then she was past the surf and was walking toward the shore, her arms outstretched as if to embrace everything that she saw. The dog followed along behind her.
She came out of the water and stood on the hard sand, her grass dress clinging to her. She seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once, at the low bluffs, the long curving beach, the green hills that were now red with poppies, the church. Its bells were ringing and she held herself still to listen.
The boat was coming in now between two breakers. She turned back to meet it, but it passed her in a last rush and slid onto the beach.
I could barely get my hand between the bars, but I waved to her. She did not see me. I called her name so loudly that Señora Gomez came waddling out of her room and told me to cease.
There was a path that led up the bluff a short way from where I was locked. Father Vicente, walking unsteadily as if he were still at sea, saw my hand thrust through the bars. He stopped as I called out his name. He said nothing to Karana but then they both came toward me. They came to the barred slit in the wall and halted.
"What has happened to you?" he said, looking in at me as if he did not believe his eyes.
I told him in as few words as I could. At once he left and went into Capitán Cordova's office. I could hear them begin to shout at each other even before the door closed.
Karana stood looking at me through the iron bars. She must have known me at once because I looked like her sister. She touched my hand and held it for a moment. It was hard and rough and her nails were broken. I pressed my face against the bars and she did the same and our lips met there between them.
I spoke to her in Spanish, but she shook her head to let me know that she did not understand. Then I spoke, using the few words I remembered from a song my mother had once sung to me. Those words she might understand, but they meant nothing to her. She spoke back and her words were strange to my ears. We stood helplessly, our hands touching, gazing at each other. She looked like my own mother, as I remembered her, only younger.
I heard Captain Cordova shouting, using a different voice than he had used with me. Between times I could hear the voice of Father Vicente. This talking seemed to last for a long time. Then Father Vicente came out with Señora Gomez and she opened my cell and dropped my clothes on the floor in the doorway.
I put them on and the three of us walked up the trail to the Mission, with the dog at our heels. He was big and shaggy and looked like a wolf. When I tried to pet him he backed away from my hand.
There were many wild flowers beside the trail, but mostly a blue flower like a spike with blooms. Karana picked two of them and gave one to Father Vicente and one to me.
22
THEY GAVE Karana a bed beside mine in the big room where all the girls slept. She was not used to sleeping in a bed and sometime that night she got up and lay down on the floor. Her dog, which she called Rontu-Aru, lay down beside her.
Señora Gallegos did not like this sleeping on the floor. Nor did she like the dog sleeping in the room. This most of all.
"Dogs should sleep outside where they belong," she said. "They have fleas and soon we will all have fleas."
She talked to Father Vicente about the dog Rontu-Aru. But he must have differed with her, for the next night Karana again slept on the floor and the dog slept beside her.
Then Señora Gallegos went to talk to Father Merced, who was Father Vicente's superior. Since the day of the fight with Capitán Cordova he had been ill in bed and we all prayed for him to get well
. He disagreed with Father Vicente and the Señora told Karana that she could sleep on the hard floor, but that the dog would have to sleep outside in the courtyard with the other dogs.
The Señora told Karana what the Father had said, but Karana did not understand and I was of little help. She did the same thing she had done the nights before and when Señora Gallegos tried to move Rontu-Aru he growled at her and bared his teeth. Then the Señora called the mayordomo and he got some boys and all together they managed to tie the dog up and take him outside.
Karana said nothing while this was going on, but when they took Rontu-Aru she picked up her blanket and followed them. That night she slept in the courtyard and all the nights for a long time, her dog at her side.
Karana and I had a difficult time talking to each other. At first what simple things we said were said with gestures and sounds that had no meaning except to us.
All of the five fathers at the Mission were skilled at Indian dialects. They were people from many tribes at the Mission. And yet none of them could understand the language she spoke. I no more than any, although I was a member of the same tribe that Karana belonged to. As a child when my mother died, I knew a few words of our dialect, but when I lived at Pala with the Cupeños and at the Mission with the Spanish fathers I forgot the few words I had known.
What happened was, we lived without words, with only the touch of hands and tones of voice and a glance. We tried giving names to things.
I would pick up a shell on the beach and give it a name. In the beginning Karana tried to repeat what I had said, but after a while she gave this up.
She was amazed at the many shells we had on our beach—I felt that we had many more than she had seen on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. But she was very satisfied to hold them in her hands. The big ones, the conches, Karana would peer inside and put them to her ear. She might make a sound but it meant nothing to me, as I watched her, except surprise or delight.