California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (38 page)

Miwokan moaned, gritted his teeth, and
tried to think of something else. Claussen slowly pushed the point farther in.
Cold beads of sweat broke out all over Miwokan's body as the excruciating pain
spread from his ear to the side of his head, then his jaw, his neck, and one
shoulder. A low, animal sound came up from his throat and through his clenched
teeth.

"
Goddamnit it,
" Claussen
screamed. "
Why'n't you tell me where it is?
" He pulled the
point out a bit. "You tell me now, won't you?"

"No," Miwokan muttered.

"
Why, goddamnit? Why?
"
He held the point poised.

"Because you will kill me
anyway."

"You heathen son'bitch,"
Claussen bellowed. Enraged, losing control completely, he jammed the point
through drum cartilage and brittle bone into Miwokan's brain.

"Goddamnit, Isaac, now look what you
done!" Mosby said. "There's none left to tell us where it is."

"We'll find it," Claussen
snapped, angry with himself. "Look around. See if any of 'em's still
alive."

While
they were searching, Claussen spilled the contents of the whiskey bottle on
Miwokan's upturned face and chest. He took out the pouch of gold dust and
scattered it by one of Miwokan's hands. Prying open the fingers, Claussen
inserted the empty pouch in his palm. With one foot he pushed the Indian's head
over on its side. Picking up a long rifle by its barrel, he lifted it high and
stamped the butt down hard on Miwokan's skull.

Solana
felt
Mosby turn her over. She stayed limp and held her breath. She was certain he
would detect the pulsing beneath her eyelids, the thundering sound her heart
was making in her ears. Mosby stood up and turned, and she got a good look at
him before he shouted, "They're all dead. We'll never find it without help.
Let's get the hell out of here."

Full consciousness slowly returned to
her. She lay there watching surreptitiously as they spread the kerosene and set
the village afire. When they were gone, she dragged herself to Miwokan,
listened for a heartbeat and, finding none, slowly rolled him into the
campfire. She pushed along the ground to Mwamwaash. He was not breathing, but
except for his hands, there were no marks on him, no blood. Hoping against
hope, dragging him by one arm, she crawled until they were beyond the searing
heat of the blazing huts.

Isaac
,
she thought, trying to take her mind off the terrible pain and pulsations at
the back of her head, down her neck, and across her back. "Isaac Claussen
and Luther—something," she said out loud. "I am only an Indian, only
a woman. But one day, if it is in my power to do it, I will kill you both for
this."

The sun was up when Esther and the men
found
Solana,
propped
up against a tree, staring blankly and rocking Mwamwaash back and forth in her
arms. Feeling as though the blood had been drained out of her body, Esther
walked dazedly to the river and soaked a piece of her undergarments to wash
Solana's head wound. The rest of them moved through the smoking village. She
didn't need to go and look herself or hear the details. She knew them from the
stunned silence of the men as they picked their way through the hacked and
charred bodies—five men, ten women, and twenty children.

The tall, gaunt deputy came back after
what seemed hours. "Found this." He showed Esther the pouch bearing
the
SFM Co.
brand. "And this." He held up the whiskey bottle.
"There's a bunch of axes and picks scattered around, and a couple of
kerosene cans… They all got the South Fork Mining Company mark on 'em."

Appalled, Esther wondered for a moment if
he knew she owned the company. The thought that Claussen had used SFM Co.
equipment suddenly made her nauseated.

The heavy-set deputy looked at Esther,
shook his head, and pulled the gaunt man aside. "Looks to me like them
miners down the ways come up here to get even for somethin'. What do you
think?"

"We better go have a look in at
South Fork," the gaunt deputy said. "Might could be touchy."

Esther stared at them as she wiped at her
mouth with her sleeve. She started to tongue-lash them, but she was too numb,
too tired to even cry, let alone speak. She knew it was no use anyway. They
would believe what was easiest to believe. Later, when the inconsistencies were
more apparent, they would know it had been rigged. But by then it would be too
late. For a moment the only positive thought she could muster consoled her. Had
she waited another few days, Moses also would have been lost. She grasped at
that fact as though it were a buoyant piece of wood in the wake of a shipwreck.
But even it did not keep her from sinking further into the numbing horror and
grief that enveloped her.

The black miner stayed and helped her
build a small, makeshift pyre over the dead campfire and the remains of
Miwokan. She tried not to look at the body but found that impossible. It was as
though her brain were forcing her eyes to the focus of her guilt-ridden
thoughts.
If only I had begun thinking of them sooner—acted more quickly,
taken them away from this place, they would not be dead.

Solana
was
too weak to participate, too shocked to speak, so she simply watched through
dulled eyes as Esther placed Mwamwaash's body on top of the stacked branches
and set them ablaze. At first, Esther had in mind to wait until the fire died,
cooled, and then take a handful of the ashes to the waterfall. But the sight
and the stench of the charred, smoking village, the sorrow and grief rocking
her, and the vivid memories of the larger, even more emotionally devastating
pyre upon which she had placed little John Alexander, were simply too much to
bear.

The snow will soon do the
same thing
, she thought.
It will
fall in a month or two… It will be essentially the same purification… It will
all be gone by spring…. Oh, God…. Forgive me, Sunbrother. I cannot…  I cannot…
I simply do not have the strength to stay—even until the fire reaches its peak.

She waited limply as the black man
brought back one of the scattered Indian ponies for her, then lifted
Solana
up onto Esther's horse. At Negro Bar he
helped her purchase a wagon for the remainder of the trip back to Sacramento.
When they parted, she gave him every ounce of gold, every coin she had.

Sacramento

May
7, 1869

8:45
a.m.

Esther looked up from the account of the
massacre in her diary and realized she was coated with a light film of sweat.
The air in the parlor car was close. She could hardly breathe. She got up,
still thinking about how, years earlier,
Solana
had finally recounted that
terrible
morning at the village, mentioning only
Claussen's name. She walked back to the rear of the car. Pulling the bolt free,
she opened the door and stepped outside onto the open observation platform.
Shutting from her mind all thought of what might take place on this small metal
rectangle later in the day, she took deep breaths to regain her composure.

Settled, cool again in mind and body, she
glanced across several sets of railroad tracks toward Front Street. Down near
the station, members of a band were gathering at a wooden stand decked with
patriotic bunting, arranging sheet music and taking seats. Already passengers
were headed toward the train from Front Street. Some, Esther guessed, had
already boarded the forward cars. She looked the other way and saw
Solana
and young Todd in the distance, near the
riverbank. She wondered if
Solana
had
ever seen Mosby during the massacre. She knew he had been there; a chance
remark had told her that. But the Indian woman had never described anyone but
Claussen, who had sold his ranch and vanished. But what if she
had
seen
Mosby and simply never said so? It suddenly registered with Esther that
Solana
had seen Mosby last night, when she
delivered the rendezvous message at the hotel. Esther chided herself for not
thinking of the possibility that
Solana
might remember him, of what seeing him
again might have provoked. But
Solana
had
said nothing.
Undoubtedly
, Esther thought,
she was unconscious during
the massacre and never really got a good look at him. Thank God, considering
the complications that might have developed and crippled my plans.

Memories of the two years following the
massacre unfolded in Esther's mind as she gazed out over the river to her
right. Numb with guilt and grief, she had sold the mining properties and the
Mariposa ranch in early 1853, had bought and moved to a farm on the outskirts
of Sacramento. She had nursed
Solana
back
to health and then virtually collapsed from men
tal
and physical exhaustion. In all, nine
months passed before she was even remotely herself again.

Esther stepped to the back railing and
sighed as she remembered how the abating grief and lethargy had returned in
full force when she learned that Harry Love and his rangers had finally caught
up with Murietta and killed him. After two months of keeping to her bed she had
decided that activity and absorption were the only things that might heal her
almost incapacitating sorrow. She established a school for orphaned and
abandoned children, plunging into the work with an almost maniacal fervor. She
insisted that the school be open to Indian as well as white students, and for a
time the project and its problems had preoccupied her. But then, after six
months, Esther found herself becoming short with her young wards, slipping back
into apathy and, finally, indifference to almost everything.

Turning from the railing Esther caught
sight of Alex Todd coming out of the hotel on Front Street. As he tipped his
hat to a passing woman in a full-bustled dress, Esther thought about Judith
Britten, the lovely young teacher she had found to run the school in her place.
Even now, the similarity of their facial and bodily appearance seemed
remarkable to Esther. She had taken Judith to San Francisco during the summer
of '54 and introduced her to the Kelseys. It had occurred to her that Alex
might well be attracted to Judith. He was still unmarried after seven years;
and her resemblance to his "dead" wife, Elizabeth, might prove an
overpowering lure.

They were having dinner with the Kelseys
and Warren Barnett. Esther had simply asked Bill Kelsey how well Alex was
looking after Blue Star's interests in his new post as vice-president of Wells,
Fargo and Company. Judith was sitting directly across the dinner table from
Kelsey, and as he responded to Esther's question, he glanced at the young
woman. Esther had virtually seen the wheels in the inveterate matchmaker's mind
begin to turn as he put together the thought of his friend Alex Todd and the
sight of Judith Britten's lovely face.

Esther turned and went back into the
parlor car now, absently leaving the bolt on the rear door open. She sat down
and stared at the journal, thinking about how much had developed at that
otherwise unremarkable dinner gathering. Beyond what had been set in motion for
Alex and Judith, it had been the first time Esther had had any idea that Mosby
was involved in the massacre. Barnett, commenting on the terrible incident over
coffee, had thought for a moment, then cryptically shaken his head.

"No," he had said absently.
"I don't suppose it would have made any difference."

"What wouldn't have?" Esther
asked.

"Another man. A marshal. There was
another peace officer in Sacramento the day you told me of Claussen's
suspicious behavior. A man from Galveston who had pursued an escaped prisoner,
caught him here in California, and was preparing to take him back to
Texas."

"What of him?" Esther said.

"I was just wondering if it would
have made any difference, if the marshal had gone with you, considering how few
men my aide was able to round up."

"Perhaps. But Claussen had too much
of a head start, I think."

Galveston
,
Esther thought.
South-central Texas.
She upbraided herself silently for
such a ridiculous notion. Still, the question would not go unasked, unanswered.
"I don't suppose you remember the name of the peace officer from Texas, do
you, Warren?"

"I don't think so. So much time has…
Mosby. His name was Mosby. I remember it because someone mentioned he had
escaped death at the Alamo by taking a message to an officer encamped some distance
from the old mission."

Esther clenched her fists and bit her lip
to keep from crying out in astonishment.

"Remarkable luck, don't you
think?" Barnett said.

"Yes, remarkable," Esther
replied, almost faint.

"Is there something the matter? You
don't look well."

"I've
been feeling poorly all day," Esther said, excusing herself. Upstairs in
the Kelseys' guest room she had lain awake all night, filled with rage and
frustration.

Footsteps on the gravel separating the
railroad tracks just beyond the window of the parlor car jarred Esther from her
recollections. For a moment, she thought she had imagined the sound. But then
she heard it again—someone moving down the side of the parlor car. One of the
trainmen, she thought. She stood up, cracked the shade beside her, peered out,
and saw Luther Mosby walking slowly toward the rear of the car.

Paralyzed with surprise and sudden fear,
Esther watched as he walked to a point just below the rear-platform railing and
glanced back toward Front Street. In the midst of wondering why he was here
now, rather than later in the day at Dutch Flat, Esther saw Mosby turn again,
glance up at the windows of the car, and start around the rear platform to the
obscured side of the car.

Esther let go of the shade and fell back
into her chair. She heard him walk past the window opposite and continue on
toward the front of the car. There was silence for a minute, but then she heard
him climb the metal stairs onto the forward platform. After another moment of
stillness she saw the handle turning slowly as he tried the front door.

When he found it locked, he went back
down the stairs on the side of the car screened from Front Street and began
walking toward the rear again. He was almost abreast of the window opposite
Esther when she remembered she had not rebolted the rear door.
Oh, my God
,
she thought, jumping up and moving quickly and silently across the compartment.
It will all be ruined if I confront him now. I'm not prepared. I'm not
ready.

She reached the rear door just as she
heard him step up onto the stairwell. Gripping the tiny bolt-handle firmly, she
slowly began easing the metal cylinder into its socket, praying that it would
not click and alert him to what she was doing. She had just slipped it home
when she felt the door handle in her other hand begin to turn. Holding her
breath and pressing her face to the broad shade covering the small window, she
relaxed her grip as the force of his turning lifted her hand. When she realized
suddenly that his face was no more than six or eight inches from hers on the
other side of the door, she almost fainted. She let go of the handle, eased her
head back carefully, then waited to be sure he had not seen the depression her
cheek had made on the shade.

"Mizz Carter?" she heard him
say, her legs shaking uncontrollably. "Mizz Carter?"

The door handle rattled as he tried it
again, and she was so frightened she thought she would urinate. Slowly, she
backed away from the door into the hallway, through the pantry and kitchen, and
sat down on the bed. She heard him go down the steps and then cross the gravel
as he started back around and up toward the passenger cars. Gathering her
nerve, she peeled back another shade in the sleeping area and watched as he
picked up two bags and boarded.

Behind Esther, out of view,
Solana
approached with young Todd. When she saw
Mosby her eyes narrowed, and she involuntarily squeezed the boy's hand so hard
he let out a yelp. Esther neither saw nor heard. When her heart was beating
normally again, she relieved herself in the bathroom, then retraced her steps
to the chair she had been sitting in and picked up the journal. She wondered if
her nerve would crumple the same way later that morning when she would need to
be as firm as the steel tracks upon which the parlor car sat.
I cannot know
,
she thought,
until it happens. But I will do my best, and I will be
prepared. The reading will steady and strengthen me. I know it will. It
must.

She looked at the entries tied with the
black ribbon and clenched her teeth.
He is on this train
, she thought.
And
I will do what I have set out to do!
Opening the journal, flipping past the
ribboned entries and the pages she had already covered, Esther began reading
again, letting go of the present as her handwritten sentences, some of them no more
than skeletally descriptive, brought all of it back fully, clearly in her mind.