Sacred Ground (36 page)

Picking up the Aztec figurine and curling her fingers around it, its familiar shape a comforting reminder of home, she recited a mental prayer to the little goddess to give her strength, then she kissed the cool jade and replaced it beside her bed.

“Hello? Miss D’Arcy?”

Angelique turned to find Eliza Gibbons standing in the open doorway. “Oh! Miss Gibbons!” She rushed forward to draw out a chair and dust off the seat. “You do me an honor. Please, come in.”

Eliza took in the younger woman’s green satin gown over numerous petticoats, aquamarine gemstones glittering on her earlobes. As if, Eliza thought in contempt, she were ready for a grand ball. But there were smudges of flour on her face and in her hair, and close up one could see stains on the gown that no amount of soap had been able to vanquish. No wonder the creature couldn’t cook. She cared more about the condition of her clothes than feeding Seth Hopkins.

“I confess to being remiss in calling upon you,” Eliza said as she remained standing. “Mr. Hopkins gave us to understand that your stay here was but temporary.”

“I thought my father would find me before now.”

“And now winter is coming. Once the rains arrive, travel is difficult, and communication impossible.”

Winter! Angelique’s thoughts grew bleak. She would never last a winter in this place.

“I have interrupted your cooking,” Eliza said.

“I am hopeless at it. I have caused poor Mr. Hopkins more trouble than I have helped him.”

“You are making soup, I see?”

“I try before. But Mr. Hopkins says my soup has no taste.”

Eliza removed her bonnet. “How are you seasoning it?”

“Señora Ostler tells me to add two pinches of salt. And so I do, like this.”

“Just that? Just that two pinches for the entire pot?”

“Sí.”

“Then that’s your problem. Mrs. Ostler meant for you to add two pinches for
each serving.
This is a large pot, ten servings at least. Pour some salt into your hand. There you are. That is what you must put in the pot.”

Angelique’s eyes widened. “All of this?”

Eliza smiled. “That’s what will make it tasty. Now let me tell you a little secret that I use in my own cooking,” she said as she reached for the jar of molasses, “and which Mr. Hopkins declares is the best gravy he has ever tasted…”

Angelique’s hopes were high again by the time Seth came home. He sat at the table and looked askance as Angelique set a plate before him, throwing him a wink that surprised him. He peered at the gravy. Then he brought the plate to his nose and sniffed.

“There is something wrong?” she asked.

“This gravy… looks different. Smells different, too.”

She smiled. “I have added the secret ingredient.”

He tried the soup first, delivering a generous spoonful into his hungry mouth. A split second later he sprayed it all over the table. Quickly taking a long drink of water and then wiping his hand across his mouth, he said, “What did you do to this soup?”

She stared at him. “What is wrong with it?”

“It’s awful!”

Silence fell, leaving only the buzzing of the flies in the air. After a moment, pale-faced and struggling for control, Angelique placed her hands flat on the table and slowly rose to her feet. “Mr. Hopkins, you rescued me from a terrible fate and I will thank you forever. But this is not a good situation for both of us and I think I must leave.”

He gave her a startled look. “Leave! I just wanted to know what you did to this soup. It tastes—”

“It tastes wrong. Everything I do is wrong. It shall never be better.” She walked with straight-backed dignity to the upended keg beside the bed, picked up the pink jade goddess, looked at it for a long moment, then came back to the table and gently set the statuette down. “This is the payment for my debt,” she said softly. “This is worth more than I owe you. But I pay it so we are even. I shall go to Sacramento on the stagecoach when it comes through in three days.”

* * *

There wasn’t one of her gowns that didn’t have at least one small stain. She had tried so hard to keep them nice but it had been impossible to protect them from grease and gravy, coffee and juice, soot and dirt. Aprons had been no help, and Bill Ostler’s store didn’t stock adequate spot removers. When she got to Sacramento, she planned to devote her energies to restoring her beautiful wardrobe.

As Angelique carefully laid each dress in her traveling trunk, she tried not to think of the man she was leaving. Seth was in her dreams and her waking thoughts day and night, sometimes he appeared as a gentle rescuer, other times he was a passionate lover. When had he crept into her heart? How could she not have seen it coming?

Seth had stayed away for the past three days, and so when she heard footsteps outside, her heart jumped. But it was only Bill Ostler, looking in. “Heard you was leaving, Miss. I would have come by sooner but the missus is down with a cold. Been up all night with her.” She noticed the shadows beneath his eyes and the high color on his cheeks. “Too bad you’re leaving, Miss D’Arcy. You’re the best thing to happen to Seth. He could do with some good luck. Did he tell you he spent time in prison?”

“He told me. He nearly killed a man, he said, who was beating up a woman.”

“Did he tell you the man was his own father and that the woman was his mother? Old Man Hopkins knocked her so hard on the head it nearly blinded her. That’s when Seth decided it was time to end his father’s reign of terror. He didn’t repent. That’s why he was given hard time in the penitentiary. Say, could I trouble you for some water? My throat is terribly sore.”

She gave him a cup.

“Well, good-bye, Miss D’Arcy. It’s been a pleasure.”

She was just tying her bonnet beneath her chin when Seth finally appeared in the doorway. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

He took in her traveling clothes, the bonnet and gloves, the trunk by the door, ready for the stagecoach, and he said in a tired voice, “I’ve been doing some thinking these past three days.” Taking her hand, he placed the jade talisman in it, curling her fingers over the little Aztec goddess. Then he brought out the ledger and tore out the page titled
Angelique.
“I made a mistake bringing you here. I didn’t know how hard it would be for you. I didn’t know how different the world is where you come from. Well, you know where I am. When you find your father, he can come repay the debt. But I don’t hold you to it.” He looked around. The cabin seemed bleak. She had removed all the color, even the calico curtains from a window that didn’t exist. “I’ll go to Sacramento with you and make sure you find a decent place to stay.” He pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Are you all right, Mr. Hopkins?” she asked in sudden concern, remembering Bill Ostler.

“To tell the truth, I’ve felt better. Charlie Bigelow’s caught himself a cold real bad. I think I might have some of it. If I could just sit down for a minute…”

She pulled out a chair and gave him some water. “How long have you felt this way?”

“Two, maybe three days. I thought it would go away, but it seems to be getting worse. And now my head—”

“You should lie down.”

He didn’t argue, and when he rose from the chair he faltered so that she put her arm around his waist to steady him.

“I’ll be okay,” he said as he settled his head on the pillow. “Just need to close my eyes. You’d better go on out. The stage will be here soon. Tell them there’ll be two passengers.”

She watched as he closed his eyes, then she removed a glove and placed her hand on his forehead. Seth was burning with fever.

She thought of Bill Ostler and his wife. She remembered the peach farmer eight days ago, and the vision she had had of the camp falling ill.

She glanced toward the doorway. The stagecoach would be coming through in a few minutes. And then Seth groaned, and it was a sound of pain.

Removing her bonnet, she drew a chair to the bedside and sat down. Fifteen minutes later she heard the stagecoach creak and rattle down the street. She remained at Seth’s side.

When he awoke after sunset she was able to coax him to drink some lukewarm coffee. But he had no appetite for the fruit and biscuits she offered. He tried to get out of bed saying he should be getting to Charlie’s but he hadn’t the strength. So Angelique made him more comfortable and went down to Ostler’s, where she bought blankets and another pillow, coming back to fix a bed for herself on the floor.

The next morning, Seth was worse.

With her hand on his burning forehead, she felt his pulse. It was abnormally slow for such a high fever. Terror suddenly gripped her as she remembered a fever that had swept through Mexico city ten years earlier. The high fever and slow pulse had alarmed the doctors for it was a sign unique to a dreaded illness:
febre tifoidea—
typhoid fever.

She closed her eyes in fear. She had been right about the peach vendor. He was what the curanderas in Mexico called a carrier. He had brought illness to Devil’s Bar. Angelique stood paralyzed with fear and helplessness. People died of typhoid, even young, healthy men.

As she frantically wondered what she should do, whom she should call for help, Seth woke up and blinked at her with fever-bright eyes. “You’re still here,” he whispered. “Can I please have some water?” Suddenly he leaned over the side of the bed and vomited. “Oh God, I am so sorry,” he moaned as he fell onto his back. To her horror, she realized he had also soiled himself.

And all of a sudden everything that had happened in the past weeks— the voyage on the
Betsy Lain
, the auction block, Devil’s Bar— rushed at her like a malevolent black tide and she could take it no more. She ran out of the cabin crying, wanting her father, hating this place, hating Seth Hopkins.

Blindly she fled from the camp, splashing across the creek and up the slope covered with tree stumps.

At the top she reached the forest where she fell to the ground and wept bitterly, all the loneliness and feelings of helplessness and homesickness pouring out of her. And then pain filled her head and she was far from her medicine so she had no choice but to let the attack run its course, this accursed falling sickness she had inherited from Grandmother Angela.

As she lay immobilized by pain and paralysis, visions filled her mind, not prophecies or hallucinations, but memories from years ago, when she was six years old: that strange time at Rancho Paloma when there was supposed to have been a wedding but something else happened and they had all abruptly left. Angelique didn’t know what it was, but she suddenly remembered now her mother’s hysterics at the time. Carlotta, whom Angelique had always remembered as being strong and practical, reduced to hysteria. It had something to do with Auntie Marina vanishing mysteriously, and something happening to Grandfather Navarro. But what stood out in Angelique’s mind now as sharp as the mountain peaks surrounding her, was Grandmother Angela’s face— round and pale and beautiful— and her voice, as clear as the birdcall in these woods, as she said, “I have done what had to be done. You can say it was wrong, and perhaps it was wrong, but it was what had to be done.” And then Carlotta, panicked: “They will come for you, Mother! They will hang you! You must run. You must hide.” And Grandmother, so calm and strong: “I will neither run nor hide. I shall face whatever God has set before me. Navarro women are not cowards.”

D’Arcy had taken his wife and daughter away the very next day, and the memory had faded from Angelique’s mind. She wondered now, in the grip of a sick headache, what had happened that fateful night, why had her mother thought Grandmother Angela would be arrested and hanged? Where did Auntie Marina vanish to and was she ever found again?

Who went riding out that night in a thunder of hooves?

Finally, the spell began to pass. The headache subsided, the voices and visions faded like dreams at dawn. When Angelique opened her eyes she seemed to see and hear and smell the forest around her for the first time. What majesty. What beauty. She inhaled air and it was like inhaling power. Inhaling the soul of the woods.
“Navarro women are not cowards.”
Angelique looked around the sylvan paradise she suddenly found herself in, and through the trees, saw the homely mining camp she had just a short time ago despised. And she thought, I will do what has to be done.

She returned to the cabin to find Seth trying to undress himself. He had poured water in a basin to wash, but he had collapsed on the floor. The sheets and blanket were ruined. Remaking the bed with the only spare sheet, she settled Seth back down, covering him with the quilt he saved for winter, then she went to Eliza’s hotel where the chambermaid informed her that Miss Gibbons was ill, as were the four hotel guests. But the cook was in the kitchen, and she gave Angelique bread and soup, custard and sausage. After obtaining fresh sheets from the chambermaid, she then went to Bill Ostler who, though clearly feverish, insisted he was all right. He warned her, however: “The high fever can be dangerous if it is not brought down quickly. It can cause fits and permanent brain damage. Even death. Keep Seth’s skin moist and fan him. Give him plenty of cool water to drink. And don’t try to wash his sheets. Everything must be burned, clothes, bedding, everything.”

Lastly she borrowed a cot from Llewellyn the Welshman to make a bed for herself.

She returned to find Seth clutching his abdomen and groaning. Angelique warmed the food she had bought at the hotel but he couldn’t keep it down.

His temperature rose in steps for three days and then remained elevated. Bouts of vomiting were followed by diarrhea, so that she had to go back to the hotel for more sheets, burning the soiled ones behind the cabin. He lay limply on the bed, trying not to let his pain show, but Bill Ostler had told her what the typhoid did and how it afflicted the intestines with ulcers which caused great agony.

It was necessary to bathe him so she set aside her shyness and, reminding herself that she had been married, gave him bed baths from a basin of warm water, keeping the blanket over his loins for his own dignity. When she saw scars on his back she brought the lamp closer and examined them. They crisscrossed his flesh so many times they could not be counted. They were a few years old, so she knew they must have come from the prison lash. Scars on his wrists and ankles could only have come from shackles and irons. She began to cry. “Blessed Mother of Sorrows,” she whispered as she crossed herself, her tears falling upon the scars. “You poor, poor man.”