California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (15 page)

In the morning, after he slept, he
watched from a great distance as Claussen, Mosby, and four other Americans rode
south across the stream, stopped, studied the tracks, and continued on through
the clover, the high grass, and the wheat. When Murietta was satisfied they
would not return, he turned north and headed deeper into the mountains.

Esther lay in bed with the baby, thinking
about what Sutter had told her that morning: Alex stopping at the fort,
inquiring about the survivors, then heading off to find William Eddy, whom
Sutter had said was one of the last persons to see his wife alive. She glanced
at the calendar Sutter had left with her. September 7, 1847. More than half a
year had passed since news of her "death" had reached Alex, and he
was still searching, seeking, not yet ready to believe. Turning, she glanced at
Solana,
who
was in the rocking chair between the bed and the wall, dozing and toeing the
crude cradle in which her son slept.

Esther suddenly thought she was
experiencing another spell of dizziness when she saw the door buckle inward and
strain both its bolts. Then it buckled and groaned again. This time she heard
the sound of wood being sliced. The door creaked a third time after something
thudded twice against it in rapid succession.
Solana
had come sharply awake at the sounds. The
two women watched in mounting disbelief, then fear, as the metal base of the
smaller bolt lifted nails out of wood and fell to the floor. The wooden
cross-bolt continued to buckle inward, then snapped just before the door flew
open and they saw the grizzly.

Both women screamed. Startled awake, the
two infants shrieked and then began a continuous wailing. The bear stood there,
confused and growling as the sounds filled the room. Paralyzed by the sight of
the beast, Esther took in the claws, the enormous, fanglike teeth. Then she
noticed the portion of the bowel slanting down the lower belly to the animal's
groin. Time was suspended, expanded. It seemed as though she had forever to
think about it.

A remembrance of Mosby and the torn, raw,
chafed feeling between her legs when she awoke alone in the snow and found John
Alexander dead flashed across Esther's mind. The bear took a step toward her.
The memory, the grizzly's movement, and her resurging maternal instinct
galvanized Esther. Forgetting entirely about the loaded pistol within reach,
she rolled from the bed, naked, and grabbed the two spears leaning against the
near wall. Whirling, she pointed them at the bear and waited. The animal took a
second swaying step and stopped, distracted as
Solana
darted from her chair and picked up her
son.

Esther felt the heavy spears tipping
downward and apart. She moved her grip on them forward as the bear grunted,
looking at her, then at
Solana,
then
at Esther again. Esther's knees shook uncontrollably now, as the grizzly turned
its head and looked at the baby screaming on the bed. She tried to shout at the
animal. No sound came from her throat. As she stared at the unnaturally dry,
leathery snout, pendu
lous
black
lips, enormous teeth, broad nose, and piggish eyes, she felt the hollowness in
her stomach expand. She no longer had knees, legs. She felt herself going,
fought it, then froze as a log in the fire snapped and the bear moved forward
again.

The points of the spears were separated.
As the bear trundled toward Esther, the one held steadiest shallowly sliced the
side of his throat. The huge animal backed up a step and roared at the stinging
pain. Swiping at the spear, the bear batted it out of Esther's hands.

She hung on to the second spear and swung
its point upward as the bear moved again, dropping toward the floor in her
direction. As it came down, the animal impaled the skin of its throat on the
sharp stone point. Ignoring it, the bear continued dropping, his neck muscles
pushing the spear and Esther backward until the butt of the shaft jammed into
the wall behind her. The thick stone point stopped as the beast kept moving
toward her. It jarred the bear's head upward, and the combination of opposing
forces sent it slicing, ripping deep, through skin, fat neck muscle, and
arteries before it severed two cervical vertebrae.

The bear let out a choked roar. Its
vision blurred completely and began to darken as it lashed out erratically, its
whirring claws barely missing Esther. In a surge of spasmodic effort and rage,
the bear lifted its body and spun to the right, picking the spear and Esther up
off the floor and whirling her almost halfway around the room. She crashed into
the armoire as the bear took two last steps toward the draft of cool air from
the door and collapsed, twisting over onto its back.

To
Solana,
her senses blunted by terror and
hysteria, her perception reshaped by the amazing sight of Esther pointing two
spears at the grizzly, it had all appeared differently. Esther had attacked the
bear. Esther, in some awesome manifestation of the powers that had brought her
across the deep snow and the great mountains, had literally flown in a circle
to slice through the bear's neck. It was all confirmed, set in psychological
concrete now, as she watched Esther rise from the floor screaming in rage and
release, saw her pick up the first spear and plunge it into the bear's body
again and again and again.

She did not see or hear the white woman
now, as the panic and hysterical trembling overtook Esther and she collapsed,
exhausted, beside the bear, crying and sobbing in both grief and thanksgiving.

When the worst of the crying, the images
of Mosby dead and disemboweled, the short bursts of hysterical laughter, the
coldness and shuddering were over, Esther crawled into bed and rocked the baby
mindlessly. She was still sobbing intermittently in her sleep when Miwokan and
the rest of them came and stared in awe at the carcass of what they had always
believed was the giant dog of the gods.

The bear carcass was gone when she awoke,
and for a moment she wondered whether it had not been a dream. But then she saw
the dried flecks of blood the bear had spewed out in the last moments of his
attack. They were all over her body.
Solana
informed her that the Indians had taken
the bear to skin it and dry the hide, butcher and cure the meat. Esther quickly
told
Solana
to
pass on a message. The bear meat was her gift to the tribe. The skin to
Miwokan, her sunbrother.

They began calling her Sunsister then,
and even
Solana
ignored
her brief protestations. They came with gifts—garments of cloth, fur and
buckskin, baskets of flour and meal, berries, fruit, dried meat, tallow, and
nuts.

When Miwokan appeared, she noticed that
he treated her even more lovingly like a younger sister, but now he also showed
her the respect of an equal and added to that a shading of what seemed like
reverence.

She lay in bed for two days, nursing,
watching them come and go, letting
Solana
tend to her every need. She was certain
the experience with the bear would push her back into apathy, another period of
numbed emotion. Instead, what the birth had started, the terror and then the
rage, the venting of all her bottled up hostility, the violent thrusting of the
spear into the quivering, bloody flesh of the dead bear had  finished. Somehow
the sudden nearness of death had  reawakened her to the possibilities of life.
She grew impatient with Solana's near-obeisance. After taking only small
amounts of food and liquid at first, she became ravenous. To her surprise, the
baby's insistent demands annoyed her. She had not felt simple irritation for a
long time.

She got out of bed and began planning for
the winter. There was soap and butter to make, there were berries and fruit to
preserve. She would need jars and sugar, lye. Sutter had them. Perhaps he could
also find her a spinning wheel. After a week, she had an unquenchable desire to
ride. She felt as though she were sixteen again—instead of going on nineteen!
She laughed at that, and weighed the possibility of taking a trip. But no, the
baby was too young, she could not impose that much on
Solana,
and as well as she felt, she didn't wish
to be with people yet. She told
Solana
that she needed to be alone much of the
time for a while; that she would like her to come in the mornings for a brief
period to help a bit and allow her to leave the baby for an hour or so.
Solana
quietly acceded to her wishes. Unless it
was necessary, none of the Indians but Miwokan, who came only every few days,
ventured near the cabin except the two who watched from a distance.

She began riding each morning, slowly at
first, then finding each day that she could move her horse a little faster.
Most of the time she ambled along the flat portions of the riverbank, drinking
in the vistas, the darting fish, and the first tints of fall. She used the
rides, the time alone, to think. She had no desire to put on a woman's clothing
yet, any more than she wanted to be around other whites. That might take a long
time, she thought as she walked her horse along the bank one morning.

Suddenly Mosby crossed her mind, and she
was seized with a cold rage that was frightening.
I actually want to kill
him!
she said to herself.
A minister's daughter!
She shrugged,
guessing that she would never see him again, let alone have the opportunity to
take revenge. She guided her horse to a shallow stretch of the riverbed, then
crossed to the other side. Turning to her right, she suddenly saw the figure
lying on the bank downstream.

At first she thought it was an animal. It
was the size of a young male deer, and from a distance of thirty yards she
could not see that what looked like mud-caked fur was actually a man's
clothing. As she drew closer, a tremor of apprehension rippled through her and
she drew the loaded, long-barreled, five-shot Colt out of the sling on the side
of her saddle. She noticed his horse, foraging for itself nearby, before she
realized the figure was a man and he was unconscious. He was covered with dirt
and grime, breathing shallowly, and unarmed.

She dismounted and, still holding the
pistol, turned him over, almost recoiling from the stench. There was an odor
stronger than that of a man's unwashed body. She realized, just as she became aware
that his face and shirt were crusted with blood almost a week old, that he
smelled like the bear.

She
brought his horse back. Pulling and dragging, she lifted and laid the man over
the saddle and tied him to the pommel with his belt.

Murietta stayed with her for a month. He
did not regain consciousness for several days, ate his first moderate meal with
Esther on her birthday, October 26, and could not walk until the first week of
November. The only words he spoke regularly were
Gracias,
señora
and
por
favor
.
Another long lost sensibility returned to her: deep compassion. She tended him,
cared for him, fed him at first. When he was able, he did light chores for her,
replaced the poorly repaired door bolt, and made the latch more secure. It
surprised her that she was in no hurry for him to leave. She grew almost
comfortable with him, became practically unaware that only a few yards
separated them at night. When she nursed, she simply turned her back to him.

She asked him questions: about his name,
what had happened to him, whether or not he had been attacked by a bear, but he
only smiled and shrugged apologetically. She wrote down the initials on his
saddle, "J.M.," and he looked at the letters for a minute, thinking,
then smiled and nodded.

"What is your name?" she asked.

He smiled, thought carefully for a
moment, and said,
"Ah,
sí.
Mi nombre."

"Yes. What is your name? Your
nombre
?"

"Name," he repeated.
"Name, Joaquin Alejandro."

She was listening for a surname beginning
with an "M," and was certain she had misheard him.

"Yes," she said. "Yes.
Your name is Joaquin Malejandro."

"Si,"
he said, thinking quickly. "Joaquin Malejandro."

"My name is… Esther."

"Esther,"
he repeated. "Esther
es su nombre
."

Sutter did not like Esther having the
sinewy, slender, good-looking, dark-haired man with her in the cabin, wounded
and healing or not. Murietta appeared to be asleep on a blanket and his saddle
over in one corner when Sutter stopped by. He was on his way to inspect the
progress his hired carpenter, James Wilson Marshall, was making on the sawmill.
Marshall and he were going partners in a mill downriver near Coloma.

"Will it pay?" Esther asked.

"
Gott in Himmel
, who knows?
It may just be another pipe dream that will cost me more money. You don't know…
you couldn't imagine the troubles I am going through."

She saw him glance at Murietta and frown.
"Tell me about your problems," she said, sensing it would be better
to keep him away from the subject of her "visitor."

"
Gott
, you just don't know! I
need another tanner, and there's none to be found. Shoes. We need more shoe
production. The new flour mill is not finished, and I have to make a payment on
it. You would not believe how much the cost of building it has increased."

He turned again and looked at Murietta.
"Who is this man?" he asked, whispering, before Esther could head him
off again.

"A vaquero,
I
suppose. I found him, wounded, lying beside the river."

"You are a very trusting woman. He
may be dangerous."

"He has helped me. He is a
gentleman."

"I see." Sutter frowned again,
obviously thinking about the sleeping arrangements as he glanced at the bed.
"What is his name?"

"Malejandro. Joaquin
Malejandro."

"And has he told you how he was
hurt? I can see for myself that he has been in some sort of brawl."

"No. He speaks no English."

Sutter put on his hat and walked to the
door. "I have to go, but I will be back in a day or two. I speak enough
Spanish to find out just who this… this Joaquin Malejandro fellow is, and why
he is in these parts."

It was time to get him off his protective
high horse again. "I have decided to stay on here, John. I want to pay you
fifty of the one hundred dollars I owe you for this place."

Sutter pulled her out of the doorway,
shushing her with a finger to his lips. "Do not show or speak of money
while this… this Malejandro is here."

"But why? He—"

"Esther, you do not know what men
are capable of doing."

She smiled to herself.
If you only
knew.
"We will discuss it when you return, then?"

"As you wish. But not where he can
hear us. I will have Miwokan send another man or two to look over things here
until I return. In the meantime, be on your guard."

"John, I think you're being
silly."

"Do
not speak to me that way!" Sutter snapped, exasperated. "You are
practically a child. And you are not aware how close danger can come before it
is too late."

Murietta was gone when Sutter stopped
briefly on his return trip the following afternoon.

"He must have heard what you
said."

"If he had nothing to hide, nothing
to fear, he would have stayed." Sutter was obviously delighted she was not
sharing her cabin with a man any longer.

Smiling, aware now of the jealousy that
tinged Sutter's estimate of the situation, however much wisdom it also
contained, Esther shook her finger teasingly. "You are simply a suspicious
man, John. Look what he left as payment for food and lodging."

Sutter stared at the solid-silver spur,
took on an expression that would have suited a chastised child, then quickly
shrugged in deprecation.

It was time to change the subject again.
"Will you stay for dinner?"

Still thinking about the stranger, Sutter
shook his head distractedly. "Some coffee then?"

"I do not have time for even
that," he said petulantly. "There is so much to do, so much to keep
track of."

Esther smiled as she watched him ride
off. She sat down to dinner after feeding the baby and retrieving the note she
had found that morning after her ride.

It
had been weighted with the spur. She read it again with the same sense of
astonishment and speculation.

November 20, 1847

My
dear
Señora
Esther:

This is to repay you for your kindness
and much needed care. You are an angel of mercy and patience.

I ask your forgiveness. There were things
I
could not tell you and it would have
been unforgivably rude not to answer someone so generous. The most simple
solution was not to speak your language. If I had, I also would have been
tempted to ask you a question that you might have mistaken for additional
rudeness. And that is, why would someone so beautiful wish to wear a man's
clothes?

Again,
forgive me, and many thanks.

Adios,

Joaquin
Alejandro Murietta

She went to the small mirror in the
armoire door and looked at the scar tissue on the tip of her nose. Musing, she
reached up and touched her tangled hair, which had grown back to shoulder
length.
How could anyone think of me as beautiful?
she thought. She
attributed it to excessively worded gratitude and then dismissed it entirely as
she realized that, once again, she had forgotten to show Sutter the
yellow-streaked stones. To remind herself the next time he came, she opened the
drawer, took one stone out, and placed it in the middle of her table.