Dreams Beneath Your Feet (26 page)

“I thought he must be playing a trick. When he got to the spring where you found him and made camp, I knew. Trouble was, Esperanza wasn't with him. That's when I understood the trap.

“I went back. Had a good idea where she might be. He didn't give a damn whether he killed her, but he wanted Vermilion, always eager to have another horse. On the northeast side of the hardpan there was one rocky gully I'd seen, looked like a grove of trees about a mile up.

“Sure enough, there she was, tied up tight and right out in the sun.

“I had to give her a lot of water and let her rest in the shade before she could ride. Not a bit too soon. We no more than rode up and I saw Kanaka Boy sitting on top—”

“I was a dead man,” said Sam. “Truth is, I'm still too rattled to thank you properly. But thank you.”

Hannibal beamed. Hannibal had one of the finest, most generous smiles on the planet. “You're welcome,” he said.

“You know that's the third time you saved my life?” said Sam.

“At the Mojave villages and where else?”

“When you gave your speech about the wild hair.”

“That's not the same.”

“And look where it's got me.”

Hannibal held an arm out to the wide desert. “You got plenty o' nothing.”

“You got us, in a way,” said Lei, indicating Esperanza, too. “And you got Warrior, too.”

“Warrior is yours,” Sam said. “You inherited him.”

“I will touch nothing to do with that man. Nothing.”

Sam looked at Hannibal, who looked at Esperanza.

“Want one of the best horses you'll ever see?” asked her papa. “Fine breeding stallion—got size on him.”

She managed to nod yes.

 

E
SPERANZA KNEW
P
APA
Sam wanted to help her, wanted her to talk about what had happened and set down some of the burden of it. But she couldn't. She couldn't face any of it. Being ripped out of her home, losing the man she loved and got pregnant by, that seemed small and distant now. Taking Joe as a husband, being left alone, losing the baby—she could barely cope with that.

Being Kanaka Boy's plaything, though, that was beyond . . .

He tortured her. All day he rode like a madman with Vermilion on a lead. When they stopped at night, he started his talk. He couldn't be bothered with her, he said, a contemptible creature barely old enough to bleed between her legs. He had a couple of dozen men would enjoy her, though. He would give her to them right off, and they would do her. Every man of them would do her right in a row, and then they would do her again. Every one would stick it between her legs and go on to places she didn't know men stuck it. They would do her everywhere hard and
mean, so it hurt. He would tell them to use her up all the way. Last time he did that, there was a Digger woman who slapped one of them who came up to her with his cock sticking out. So they did her and he did her and over and over until she gave up and died. No accident, either, that's what they wanted. That's what they would do to Esperanza.

Every evening, that's all he talked about. He acted like the kind of boy who builds a little grass fire and throws bugs and lizards on it. They were going to do her until she died, and he was going to urge them on and, when she was dead, piss on her face.

He didn't rape her, which seemed bizarre. He said he was waiting for the orgy.

That whole week she never stopped shaking.

Now she'd heard from Lei that Kanaka Boy couldn't do it—that explained one thing. But at the time Esperanza believed every other word Kanaka Boy said. She knew that for the rest of her life she would be looking over one shoulder, scared of seeing the mocking face of a new version of the mad Hawaiian.

She sneaked a look at Sam. What was she to do with this man who was her papa, sort of? She realized he loved her. He had ridden across the worst deserts anyone knew about to save her. He had nearly thrown his life away to help her—she'd seen what a hair's-breadth call that was. Even now he didn't seem to want anything for her, just to help her.

She wanted her mother. But Esperanza understood that Papa Sam was a good man. Sometimes she wanted to crawl into his arms and bawl. Maybe she would.

 

E
SPERANZA LAUGHED FOR
the first time as they approached the Humboldt sink. “I'm sorry to say good-bye to the river,” said Hannibal.

They looked at the pitiful stream and waited.

“It's so convenient. I can walk down it with a foot on each side, and when I'm thirsty bend down and drink it dry.”

She said more than one syllable for the first time that evening they got to the Humboldt. As they stopped the horses for the night, a sandhill crane lifted up a few paces out in the marsh. Esperanza exclaimed several words of amazement and then looked at Sam sheepishly, realizing.

The sink was a huge mishmash of lake, dry lake bed, and marsh. Sam and Hannibal knew it from when they brought a herd of horses from California to the mountains in 1836. “Last water for about forty miles to the Truckee River,” the men told the women.

“Does the river really disappear here?” said Esperanza.

“Sinks into the sands, end of river,” said Sam.

“Then?”

“We walk dry to the next river, the Truckee, about forty miles.”

“Can we rest a day?”

They rested three. Esperanza was still listless, but she began to talk to Sam. She said nothing about Kanaka Boy but only spoke of small matters of these first dozen years of her life, when she was still a child. She talked about happy memories, many of them about Vermilion and some of them, Sam was glad to hear, about rendezvous.

Lei was thrilled by the plentiful birdlife of marsh. She led Hannibal on hours and hours of treks around its ledge, spying every kind of bird in his field glass. “In the desert,” she said over and over. “Incredible.”

In the evenings she drew mosaics of birds, or sometimes just wings, in the sand.

After they got over to the Truckee River—dry crossings seemed hardly to matter anymore—they followed it up to the crest of the Sierra Nevada and looked out on the huge valley of the Sacramento.

Sam looked out at what he could see, the foothills of these great mountains, and what his mind's eye pictured beyond. The huge, sluggish river, which watered one of the continent's great tall-grass
prairies. San Francisco Bay, where the river came to the sea. The road along the east side of the Bay, running south to the most beautiful land he'd ever seen and the capital of California, Monterey.

Since he thought the word, he said it. “Home.” He hadn't used it in that meaning in two decades.

“Do you suppose they'll make us become Catholics?” he asked.

“Only if we want to get married or die,” said Hannibal.

Sam looked at Hannibal and Lei speculatively.

 

 

 

G
RUMBLE GAVE
S
AM
a bear hug that would squeeze sap out of a tree. Then he gave Hannibal an
abrazo
and bowed politely over the hands of Lei and Esperanza.

For sure they were the only ladies in the place. Having no idea where Grumble and Abby might live, and even less where Flat Dog and Julia might have put their lodge, Sam and Hannibal rode downtown to Abby's tavern, casino, and dance hall, The Sailor's Berth. Or maybe she and Grumble still owned it together, or maybe . . .

“Just me,” said Grumble. “It's just me now. I have chameleoned myself from con man to respectable businessman. Sometimes I regret it. However, the capital I earned at Yerba Buena bought this establishment for me.”

“Yerba Buena” meant the mission on San Francisco Bay, which Grumble had turned into a whorehouse and sold for a nice profit.

“Not that this brothel is so respectable. Excuse my bluntness, ladies,” he added.

He expanded a proud arm to show off his premises. He had turned a low dive into a palace. The walls were life-sized paintings of naked ladies (not mere women). The back bar was splendid enough to attract the most highfalutin ship's captain. The liquors on display were imported and expensive, though rotgut was on every table. This place was fancy enough to condone any sin a man wanted to commit.

The cherub had aged well. Grumble was still a rotund, graying man of indeterminate age with an angelic smile and a demonic gleam in his eye. Raised as an orphan by the Bishop of Baltimore, Grumble had learned to live by his extraordinary wits—he'd been the cleverest of con men and had turned the deck of cards (actually, several very special decks) into King Solomon's mines.

“Papa,” said Esperanza.

Sam knew. “Sorry, Grumble, but we're in a hurry. Where are Flat Dog and Julia?”

“Look up the hill to the grandest place you can see. That's the hacienda of Don and Señora Strong. Well, their town hacienda. They have another place, an entire estate, in the Salinas River Valley. The former rancho of Don Montalban.”

Grumble winked at Sam and Hannibal. In 1828 they'd gotten into a fight with the don while springing Flat Dog from jail. The dustup had left the rancho without owner or heir.

Grumble turned his attention to Esperanza. “Young lady, you don't remember me, but I know you very well. It was I who rescued you and your mother from—”

“Grumble,” said Sam. “Later.”

“Very well. Go up to the hacienda. Everyone is eager to see you, and Abby will make you very much at home. I will join you for a drink late this afternoon.

“But you may not take a single step away from this establishment without hearing my great news.”

They looked at him quizzically.

“You have arrived just in time. Two weeks from Saturday I am getting married.”

“To who?” Sam almost shouted.

“I will introduce the lady,” said Grumble, “over our afternoon drink.”

 

A
BBY AND HER
husband were in town doing errands, but a servant showed the new visitors to the guest quarters of the Flat Dog family.

Esperanza threw herself into her mother's arms. Sam was relieved. When they first rescued Esperanza from Kanaka Boy, she seemed to want to crawl onto Sam's lap and suck her thumb, but she never asked to be held and never talked about her abduction. Now the young woman, recently terrified into a girl, found solace.

Julia had hot water brought and gave Esperanza and Lei their first experiences of a bathtub.

Then everybody traded stories. Long journeys afford plenty of them. Julia and Flat Dog were horrified by the episode of Kanaka Boy's trap and how it came out. Azul and Rojo were excited. Sam left out a lot of the blood, danger, and Kanaka Boy's nasty threats. He didn't want to remind Esperanza or give Julia's sons nightmares.

The servant brought them a delicious drink Sam had never seen before, crystals of lemon dissolved in water, and showed Sam, Hannibal, and Lei to their separate rooms so they could rest. Sam loved the lemon drink and thought stretching out on a bed was delicious.

They didn't see Abby until the servant brought everyone onto a wide, lovely tiled terrace for late-afternoon drinks, which was apparently a daily custom. She served watered wine and bowls of the fruits that grew so well in California, avocados and oranges, plus almonds, and a dish entirely new to Sam, artichoke hearts marinated in olive oil.

Azul bit into an artichoke and spat it out. Julia caught the wad in midair and gave her son a talking-to.

Rojo complained that he and his brother were bored and didn't want to be nice and talk to a bunch of adults—they wanted to play.

Flat Dog said he'd get them out of this duty as soon as he could.

“When I say so,” said Julia. She hadn't had an opportunity like this for more than a dozen years and no opportunity at all to teach her sons how to behave in a nice social setting.

Hannibal asked Esperanza for her marionette horse, and he and Lei showed the boys more tricks about making it walk and run.

Sam didn't give a damn about any of it. He just got impatient for Abby to appear.

She came alone, wearing a mint green dress, a wide-brimmed hat of canary yellow, and an emerald necklace fit for a duchess. She let a touch of gray show in her hennaed hair. She came straight to Sam, gave him a long hug, a quick kiss on the cheek, and said, “If I wasn't so damned dignified, I'd jump up and make you catch me in your arms.”

When Grumble came, he walked down the broad steps holding hands with . . .

At first Sam didn't recognize her, because she'd gotten huge and was crowned with a spectacular blond wig. Though he knew her to be Sicilian, in her embroidered white summer dress with a flaring skirt, plus enough bracelets and necklaces for a Gypsy, and with her olive skin, she could have been a Gypsy. Her hair was pushed high with combs in the Californio style. Her getup said she was the grandest of Californio ladies. Somehow, over the several five years, she had gotten as wide as Grumble and half again more. Her smile said that getting there, and everything else, had been a lot of fun.

“Siciliana,” he stammered.

“You knew her by the appellation she worked under,” said Grumble smoothly. That had been at The Sailor's Berth, where
Sam knew her intimately. “Now she prefers to be called by her true name. We will start afresh with correct introductions.

“Carlotta, I believe you know my friend Sam Morgan. Sam, Carlotta Casale, who is my madam and soon to be my wife.”

The lady turned her smile wicked and did a teasing curtsey.

“And may I introduce further”—Grumble gestured to the sixtyish man and young woman behind him on the steps—“Isabella Grazia, my fiancée's sister, and Don Anthony Strong, your host.”

Isabella curtseyed to Sam and gave him her hand. She was wearing a pale aquamarine dress that fit tight enough for Carlotta to wear in her former profession. “Don't worry,” she said. “Isabella just borrowed that dress from . . . my friend. She's a
respectable
widow.” Carlotta gave a nice curlicue to “respectable.”