Treasure of the Sun

by Christina Dodd

  He leaned closer to her, and she stepped back from the wave of beer fumes. Suppressing the desire to wave her hand in front of her face, she agreed, “As you say. Try the empanadas, they’re still hot from the oven.” To her relief, his eyes lit with greed and he moved aside to survey the food.

  “Well, thank you, ma’am. What a good idea.” He put his glass down on the white cloth that covered the trestle table. His large hand hovered over the plate, touched first one turnover, then another, swooped on the largest and carried it to his waiting mouth. Watching her from the corner of his eye, he said, “I’m a big man, and these morsels hardly dent my appetite.”

  “I’m sorry,” Katherine apologized with not an ounce of true remorse. “I’m responsible for the food. I’ll speak with the cook and have something special made up for you.”

  He choked on the flaky crust and coughed. She handed him his glass of beer. He drained it, eyes watering. “I didn’t mean that. You do a wonderful job, making all these foreigners happy. I know you gotta feed them what they want. But it’s a far cry from real American food.”

  “Real American food,” she said thoughtfully. “For me, real American food means baked beans with brown bread. Would you like me to fix some?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” He floundered, seeking the correct tone of conciliatory humor. “I don’t rightly know if I’ve had them.”

  “Yet the Pilgrims at Plymouth ate baked beans and brown bread almost from the first winter.”

  “The Pilgrims didn’t land down by where I live.” He smiled with wholesome good humor.

  “I see.” She couldn’t place his accent, and asked with real curiosity, “Where are you from?”

  “From Washington, D. C.,” he said with pride. “The pulse of the nation. I was born there. I was raised there. I love that great city, and I know as much about the capital as any man alive. If you have any questions about our government, you just ask me. I’d be glad to explain it to you.”

  “Whatever made you come west, sir?”

  “Oh, the urge to travel just struck me.” He shrugged uncomfortably, burped loudly. “Not bad manners, just good beer.” He brayed with laughter and she watched, fascinated, as his long arms flapped in merriment. “These folks sure do serve up the fixin’s, don’t they?”

  He’d avoided her question. She wondered what crime he’d committed, and against whom. In California, it wasn’t uncommon to find that the man who worked as a trapper or store manager or farmhand had left a warrant behind for his arrest. It amused her to ask, but she wouldn’t push.

  After all, the warrant could be for murder.

  “Yes, the Spanish are very hospitable,” she acknowledged.

  “It’s almost a shame we’re gonna run them out.” He sounded reflective, but not a bit sad.

  “‘Run them out’?”

  “Well, sure. You didn’t think we’d let them keep this bit of land, did you? If we don’t take it, sure as hell—excuse me, ma’am—sure as heck the English’ll grab it.”

  Remembering what Don Lucian had told her, she challenged, “Don’t you think the Spanish will have a word to say about that?”

  “Nope. Why, look at them!” He waved a hand at the chatting groups of gaily dressed folk. “Lazy as bedamn. Won’t fight for anything. Every time they have a battle about one thing or another, they never fire a shot. They solve everything with their proclamations and their endless talk.”

  “Some people would find their insistence on peace admirable.”

  “Sign of spinelessness. Don’t even know how to fire a gun.”

  “Not at another human being.” She heard the snap in her voice, and modulated her tone. “Yet the bears walk warily.”

  “That’s another thing. They’re always tying a bear to a bull and watching them tear each other to pieces. Savages!”

  “Ah.” Katherine leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “They’re savages if they watch animals kill each other, but they’re spineless if they refuse to kill each other.”

  “Yes.” He beamed at her. “You do understand.”

  She settled back with a sigh. If there was anything worse than a rude and ignorant man, it was a rude and ignorant man who didn’t realize he’d been bested in an argument. “Most of the Spanish—”

  “They aren’t Spanish, they’re Mexican.”

  “Mexico holds California, that’s true,” she conceded. “I understand they’ve held California as a province for over twenty years, but many of these families came directly from Spain. The Mexican government has done little in the way of administration.”

  “They’re nothing more than a joke,” he agreed.

  “All of our hosts consider themselves to be not Mexican, nor Spanish, but Californios. This is their home, settled by their fathers and grandfathers.”

  “They don’t farm the land like Americans do. They have ranchos, with cattle and sheep. They raise horses and ride them so their Californio feet don’t touch the ground. They don’t plant cash crops because they don’t want to get their hands dirty.” Taking three empanadas, he bit his way through the crust, cursing as the hot meat juices dribbled down his chin. “Look at them! Lazy, wanting only to sing and drink and lie around in the shade while their vaqueros work for them.”

  Katherine looked, but she didn’t see what Mr. Smith did. She saw a group of people happy to be reunited after a long year of work on their ranchos. They were singing, yes, and drinking, yes, and lying in the shade. The young men and women were dancing and flirting. The men were gossiping about horses. The women discussed their babies. The children dashed from one spot to another, playing games and comparing toys.

  Mr. Smith’s jeers interrupted her musing. “These people take the easy way, raising cattle and slaughtering them for their hides and tallow. A bunch of greasers.”

  She’d never heard the term before, but she recognized an insult when she heard one. Her distaste for Mr. Smith grew and solidified into a block of dislike. She arranged her face in an expression of polite interest. “Our host, Don Damian, farms the land.”

  “Yes.” The word hissed from his mouth.

  She studied him as she would any reptile—repulsed, yet fascinated.

  “Yes, Don Damian does indeed farm the land. The de la Solas are sitting on one of the richest areas of California. They’ve managed it very well.”

  “And you want it?” she asked.

  “I’m going to have it. Look at this place. Look at that house. Lily-white, tall and wide, with a fountain in the courtyard and those balconies hanging all over. Inside it’s all polished wood floors and expensive rugs to walk on. Gold teapots and thin china and fine furniture from the U. S. of A. It’s a fine place.”

  His avarice annoyed her, but a note didn’t ring true. “The de la Solas built this home for comfort, not flamboyance. There are many haciendas that are much more impressive. Why this place?”

  “Everybody likes to come here. Everybody likes this place. When I have it, I’ll throw parties like this. Everybody’ll be proud to come.”

  She could believe that respectability had eluded him. He wanted it so badly he imagined he could purchase it. She almost felt sorry for him, but he hadn’t finished with his disclosure. Lowering his voice like a conspirator, he said, “There are riches here. If I were free to tell you, I could tell you about riches beyond your wildest imaginings.”

  The man thought she was too feebleminded to realize that this fertile and mellow climate could one day produce the crops to feed the world. “You want the land for its riches only? Is there perhaps a shade of rivalry in your resolve to snatch de la Sola land?”

  “You bet. I’m gonna show that uppity Mexican just who’s in charge. He knows it, too. Look at him.” He jerked his head toward the spot where Damian chatted with his guests. “He talks so pretty and moves so slick. He wears those black clothes with that silver trimming, strolling among these colorful peacocks who call themselves men—he sticks out like a sore thumb. All the women think they want him
. They won’t want him so much when he’s penniless.”

  “He’ll still be handsome.” She said it quietly, gauging her voice just low enough that he had to strain to overhear. When he jerked, she knew she’d scored a direct hit to his vanity. Louder, she asked, “How would he lose his lands? I’m just a woman. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “There’s a lot of things women just can’t understand.” He tried to put his hand over hers, but she stepped aside to arrange the bowls of fruit and platters of cheese. “Like I said, I’m from Washington, D. C., and if you need to know anything, I’ll be glad to help you.”

  “Tell me how he could lose his land.”

  She fixed her big green eyes on him, and he melted. Against his better judgment, he expounded, “It’s the right of the United States, more than that, the duty of the United States to own and manage all of the land stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Those damned Englishmen are trying to get in here and take this land, like they’ve taken half the world. The Russians would like it, too, and the French. But they can’t. It’s ours.”

  “Our s by whose definition?”

  “By God’s definition.”

  Katherine smothered a startled exclamation. “Did someone talk to Him?”

  “President James K. Polk.” He nodded in awe. “I left Washington, D.C. just six months ago, and they’re using a new term to describe what’s happening in the U. S. of A. They call it Manifest Destiny.”

  “Do they? What does that mean?”

  “It means this whole land, from sea to sea, must be in our hands.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “President Polk has a plan for California, and if the law must be bent to ensure its success, we’ll bend the law.”

  “I see.”

  “And the Americans that get here first’ll have best pickin’s.”

  “Is that why you’re here? For the best ‘pickin’s’?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” With a wealth of meaning, he said, “Why, you should find yourself an American man to take care of you. When the dust settles, you’d be a rich woman.”

  A small, genuine smile lit her face. “Why should I attach myself to a man? You’ve made it clear that any American living in California can eventually confiscate the lands.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “That’s right.”

  “I don’t need a man to steal land. My uncle is Rutherford Carr Chamberlain. Are you familiar with his name?”

  “Why . . . yes, ma’am. He does business in Washington, D.C.”

  “Yes, indeed. He could hardly stay away from that corrupt city. In fact, he works for the wealthy all down the eastern seaboard, helping them steal from the poor.”

  Her confidence bewildered him. “Ma’am?”

  “I worked as his unpaid legal clerk for years.”

  “A woman?” Mr. Smith snickered.

  “To become a lawyer, it isn’t necessary to attend a college. Most lawyers apprentice themselves to another lawyer until they absorb the knowledge they need. If I hadn’t been a woman, my uncle would have sponsored me until I could pass the bar exam for his firm. Instead, he found it useful to hang a debt of gratitude over my head.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “My father, Uncle Rutherford’s brother, was a lawyer. He was the kind of lawyer who believed in an honest deal for every man, woman, and child in the United States. We never had much money. When Daddy died, my mother and I went to live with Uncle Rutherford Carr Chamberlain and his wife Narcissa.”

  “Oh! So you knew how to read books a little bit.”

  “My father taught me to read English, Latin, Greek, and German,” she corrected.

  “My golly.”

  He sounded so awed, her suspicion firmed. This man couldn’t read. She felt a spasm of sympathy, instantly dispelled by his next comment.

  “Didn’t your father know book learning can injure a woman?”

  She snapped, “It didn’t injure this one.”

  “No, it sure didn’t.” His eyes skimmed her figure again. “Your Uncle Rutherford let you do some work for him to repay him for his charity, huh?”

  “You understand. He ‘let’ me do all the legal research, all the background searches, write all his briefs. After I came on, he turned one of his hardworking, underpaid clerks out on the street. After I went to work for him, his business increased immeasurably.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like to brag—” it was a lie, she loved to brag “—but I was the brains behind my uncle’s current success.”

  She could almost see Mr. Smith’s mind working furiously. “If that’s the gospel, you could go to work for another lawyer out here and do real well.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You didn’t really mind paying your uncle back for his kindness.”

  “What kindness?”

  “Taking you and your mama in, giving you room and board, welcoming you into his family.”

  His words activated the memories of humiliation. How well she remembered her uncle’s sneers, her aunt’s attempts to banish her to the kitchen. She remembered how her mother, never strong, had suffered in the tiny, hot, stuffy storage room that served as their bedroom. In her mind, she saw her mother’s anxious face, urging the fifteen-year-old rebel to mind her manners, to do what she was told. She heard Uncle Rutherford insinuate that he would put them out on the streets if Katherine didn’t cooperate and do his dirty work. His teeth had shone sharp and white beneath his black beard when he realized his young niece would do anything, anything to protect her mother. Again she tasted the bitter bile she had sampled as she used her mind and her legal knowledge to help her uncle destroy rival careers, blacken rival reputations. And she could never forget the smiling face she presented to her dying mother every night as she assured her she enjoyed her work.

  Her mother’s death had broken Katherine. Broken her because of the loss of the one person in the world who loved her. Broken her because of the hidden relief she felt. No longer would she be bound by anyone.

  The healing had taken a long time. She didn’t know whether it was complete even yet.

  “Hey, Miz Maxwell.” Emerson Smith waved a hand in her face. “You slip off there?”

  Drawn back from the old pain, she stared at the grinning, bobbing face, and answered his original question. “No, Mr. Smith, I didn’t really mind working for my uncle, but not for gratitude. When I worked for Uncle Rutherford, Aunt Narcissa couldn’t use me as a scullery maid and my cousins couldn’t use me for a whipping boy.”

  Like a hound after a bone, he dug down to the fact he wanted to investigate. “But . . . didn’t you like the law?”

  “Yes, it sharpened my mind.”

  That cheered him, she could see. Leaning over the table, he ignored the bunches of grapes to scoop another empanada from the platter. He dismissed her success as boasting, her claims of cleverness as nothing but feminine nonsense. “Any woman would be proud to help support her husband, when her husband does so much for her.”

  “I don’t have a husband.”

  “Play your cards right—”

  “I have no need of a husband. Thank you for your advice. It’s been so helpful.”

  “You’re welcome.” He melted under her approval, but his bewilderment shone through. “Advice?”

  “You’ve made me realize that with my legal knowledge, my American citizenship, the length of my residency in California, I can lay claim to this very land, the land I stand on—” she stamped her foot in the grass “—and it will be mine.”

  His empanada crumbled in his fingers. “What?”

  In an efficient flurry, she fetched him a napkin. “I’ll be a very good landowner. Perhaps I’ll even hire Don Damian as my majordomo.”

  His big-knuckled fingers closed over hers, and she winced as he mashed the beef filling into her palm. “That’s just not possible, little lady. I know there’s a lot of talk here and there about how men shouldn’t have so much power over their wiv
es. I tell you the truth, that’s a lot of nonsense.”

  “That’s the truth?”

  He nodded solemnly, intent on quashing such unsuitable thoughts before they took root. “I blame the western expansion. Those folks move out West and stake a claim. Then the man of the family dies. His wife takes over and raises the crops and her children and manages to hang on to the claim. The fact of the matter is, that just ain’t attractive.”

  She lifted her eyes from their well-sauced, entwined fingers. “Not attractive?”

  “Women aren’t meant to think for themselves. Men are just smarter than women. Any woman should be glad to work for her man. Now, in Washington, D. C., there’s actually talk—I know it’s wild, I don’t want you to laugh too much—there’s actually talk that in some places women should be allowed to vote. Only in the West, you understand, where there’s not much population and they need every vote. Every woman would vote just like her husband told her.”

  “What about the widows and spinsters?”

  “That’s just it! You really do have a good mind for a woman! That’s what the problem is. Can you imagine what a state this country would be in if women just jumped willy-nilly into the voting booth and picked whoever their little pea brains thought was best?”

  “Dear heavens. Peace would run rampant, education would be open to all, and the poor would be gainfully employed! Whatever—” she jerked her hands out of his and wiped them, one by one, on his coat “—would America do if all her social problems were solved by a bunch of pea-brained women?” She stepped back and smiled at his dumbfounded face. “You’ve convinced me, Mr. Smith. Someday women will have the vote. We can’t continue to let the country be run solely by males, ignorant of law and literature.”

  “Why, you—” He snatched at her and grabbed her by the sleeves. “You’re a shrew.”

  The sound of tearing, the release as worn material gave way and the touch of cool air on her shoulder wiped the smile from her face. “Perhaps not a shrew, but I know I’ll get the vote, and I know I’ll own this land someday.” Her fist flashed up and smacked him in the Adam’s apple. She put the full force of her arm behind the blow, as she hadn’t with Damian, and Mr. Smith’s painful gag resounded across the now-quiet yard. His hands fell away and she stepped back.