Treasure of the Sun (32 page)

"We have many Americano friends who live here in California," Don Lucian told her. "They abide by our laws, but they receive newspapers from the Yankee ships docking in Monterey. So I have heard of your law."

"Then you know you got no right coming here with your men an' your guns." Her voice was overloud.

Katherine saw one woman at the stream stand up, look around, then notify her sisters. The men beneath the tree stood up and stepped forward, and the belligerence that directed the scene seemed in danger of exploding.

Katherine no longer saw the sense in allowing these hidalgos to overshadow her. She'd been shoved to the back by concentrated male aggression; she was tired of seeing horses' rumps. While all attention remained on the guns, she urged her mare around the horses to the front. Using her businesslike voice, she said, "I am Katherine Chamberlain Maxwell de la Sola, an American citizen like yourself." The shrew's mouth dropped at the sound of Katherine's Boston accent. The rifle barrels drooped; the ax slipped.

"A woman?" One of the men by the tree smirked. "You bring a woman to fight your battles?"

"Katherine," Damian warned.

She ignored them all. "I have some knowledge of the law, and

I'd like to bring forth some pertinent issues." Satisfied she had everyone's attention, she continued, "The law you're referring to is known as the Preemption Law, passed in 1841 by the United States Congress. Setting aside the fact that California is not under the dominion of the United States, as these gentlemen have already pointed out, there are other provisions of the law that require consideration."

One of the armed Americans said, "Lordy," and it sounded more like a prayer than an exclamation.

Katherine nodded at him. She expected no less. That was just the reaction her legalese normally caused around her uncle's dinner table. This kind of awed respect was just the discipline needed in this situation. "I must first of all point out there is a purchase price required by the Preemption Act. I can't help but wonder-who will pay the dollar and a quarter per acre required for purchase?" Her gaze swept around the poverty-stricken camp.

No one said a word.

"I would also like to point out that such claim is only applicable to what we call 'public domain,' land free of previous claim."

"You're a gal," the man with the ax accused.

"That's true." She waited, but he said no more. He only seemed to grow fatter, fed with indignation. When it seemed he would pop, she continued, "This land is not public domain and has a legal owner."

"Where's this title?" The woman recovered her voice, and her waving hand clenched into a fist. "I want to see it, but I warn you, any title I can't read ain't legal."

Damian's nostrils flared in disdain. "Can you read Spanish?"

"I knew it." The fist punched the air. "Ain't no legal title at all."

Damian urged his horse forward one step. "This is California, not the United States. We have title to this land."

"A Mexican title," the woman said derisively.

"Mexican now, Spanish before that, and always de la Sola land. My family has been here seventy years, senora. My family will be here when yours has walked into the blue Pacific."

From the Spanish saddle holsters, the rifles slipped out to aim back at the newly lifted American guns. Like hail on a metal roof, the hammers were cocked, emphasizing the futility of their confrontation. Katherine bit off a most unladylike curse. When had the situation escalated to such a predicament? When had she lost control?

Spurring her horse between the combatants, she called, "Good people, let us not allow vengeance and ill temper to carry the day." Damian, she saw from the corner of her eye, had started towards her, but she ignored him.

The beefy woman said, "You said your last name was De-lisola?"

"De la Sola," Katherine corrected. "Yes, it is."

"You're married to one of these guys?"

"Yes, and as mediator, I can help."

"That your husband?" She pointed to Damian, now at Katherine's side between them.

"Don Damian de la Sola. Yes, he's my husband. And your name is? ... "

One of the men at the tree shouted, "Damned if I'm going to listen to preaching from some treacherous bitch who fucks Mexicans!"

Damian reached for Katherine's bridle, and in her shock she let him grab it. "Get back," he said between his teeth. "This is men's work."

"No." She resisted his fierceness, his twist of the reins. "It's only men's work if it comes to shooting, and surely sensible--"

Wading through the blackened stubble of grass, the woman waved her fist left and right, wearing the same grim expression that all in the American camp wore. "I'm a God-fearing lady, an' I know that ducks cleave to ducks, fish to fish, an' cows to cows. It's unnatural for any clean American woman to be in some greaser's bed. It's against the will of God, an' it's treason against the country."

"My good woman," Katherine said fastidiously, "cows cleave to bulls." As a retort, it sounded a bit lame, but her usual quick wit had failed her. Never in all her objections to their marriage had she thought she would be scorned as a heretic and a turncoat. She believed-she knew--that the common ground of language and background would smooth this encounter.

Yet when she said so, the Americans muttered and Damian urged, "Katherine, get back behind us."

He used her bridle to move her once more, and once more she resisted.

"I ain't talking to some greaser who can't even control his own wife," the man with the hatchet taunted.

Katherine stared at him, her green gaze boring holes in his bravado, and he stepped back. She was so pleased to note she hadn't lost her power of dominance that Damian placed her behind the line of vaqueros before she realized. Once started, her mare couldn't be halted; again she found herself facing horses' rumps.

A husband faced her, too, his lips tucked so tight white lines bracketed his mouth. She opened her mouth to speak, but when he leaned towards her something in his face made her stop. "Intelligent," he approved, and she bristled. Still his fury and command held her motionless. "Listen, my dear. Someone’s going to get shot before the day's over. Those other women are smart enough to realize it. Even that loudmouthed puta knows it. Now stay out of the way, and maybe the only ones to be shot will be these squatters. Unless you want to throw your lot in with these-" he waved a dismissing hand "_ these Americanos, and see our own people gunned down?"

The way he said "Americanos" shocked her, as if it were a dirty word. His insinuation shocked her more. As if she cared more for these ignorant strangers than for the people of the

Rancho Donoso. She looked aside from his blazing contempt, and he murmured, "Good."

"Don Damian?" She stared at the tree by the river where the women had been washing. "There's a strange man with a gun pointed at your father."

Damian whipped his head around; his pistol appeared in his hand. He'd squeezed off a shot before she could draw breath, but the gun only popped and flashed-a misfire. Damian flinched from the heat. The blaze of Prudencio's gun knocked the man head over heels like a puppet on a stick. Gunfire deafened Katherine; Damian took her head and thrust it ignominiously against her horse's neck. A vaquero and his horse dropped to the ground before her downcast eyes. Damian's pistol no longer misfired; it roared along with the rest.

Then there was peace.

Damian rode to the front, and Katherine cautiously raised her head. On the ground, the vaquero struggled away from the saddle, untouched by a bullet but crying with silent tears for his horse. At the river, the man lay unmoving as the water flowed over his face. One man at the tree thrashed on the ground in agony; the other stood with an ashen face. The man with the hatchet knelt, holding his arm as his hatchet quivered a few feet from Don Lucian's horse.

"You've trespassed on our land," Damian said grimly.

"You've fired the first shot and gotten at least one man killed. Let's see if we can help you enough to get you on your way." He started forward into the clamorous silence, then stopped. "Unless you have any other men hidden somewhere?"

From out of the grass beyond rose a boy of about twelve, and he screamed, "Yes, we do." He jerked up a rifle too big for him and discharged it towards the crowd of Spaniards and vaqueros. Damian shouted, "No," but a rifle answered the boy's.

The shock of the American's bullet threw Prudencio off his horse and he landed, hands out flung, close to Katherine's mount.

The boy fell and disappeared, covered by the tall grass. Prudencio.

"No," Katherine sighed, slipping from her saddle. "Oh, no, not this. Not again." She touched him, but no breath remained in his body, no beauty, no life. A mother's shriek from the American camp pierced the pity she felt for the fallen warrior.

A smoking rifle identified the one who'd shot the American boy, and he wasn't much more than a boy himself. Perhaps fourteen, he sat in the saddle and shrugged under Don Lucian's scolding. "If he was old enough to raise a gun in anger, he should have been prepared to die." His voice quivered as he added, "Besides, he killed my uncle."

"Do you have a blanket?" Katherine asked. "Don Damian?" He looked down at her.

"Do you have a blanket?" she repeated. "We need to cover Prudencio. The flies are already coming for the blood."

She crawled away in the grass and fainted.

Damian held Katherine firmly as they mounted the stairs to her bedroom. She no longer had a buzzing in her ears, and her faint, she pointed out with indignation, had been a brief one. Still, he made sure she remained erect, his silence being more eloquent than another man's diatribe.

His other hand, burned by the misfire of the pistol, was wrapped in loose linen strips. The pain made him wince and, she supposed, kept his fury at a boiling point. Certainly the thrust of his jaw and the proud line of his back made his opinion clear.

It seemed as if he were angry at her, as if she were responsible for the whole afternoon, filled with rancor and battle. As if she were responsible for the evening of cleanup, of laying out dead bodies and bandaging wounds.

Yet she reminded herself that he had reason for his outrage.

Perhaps not with her, but it was human nature to blame those closest. As they entered her room, she plunged into apology.

"Those Americans aren't indicative of the nation." She bit her lip. It hadn't come out as contritely as she had hoped, and he only glared straight ahead. "I'm sorry about the deaths. It was good of you not to drag the squatters in to Monterey and have them incarcerated."

He looked at her with narrow assessment.

"Especially after all that woman said to you," she added, smoothing the curve of her watch. "Both before and after the violence."

Still he stared, and her conciliatory attitude soured. "Although, I think you could learn a lesson from your father."

He lifted one eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Indeed." Taking a breath, she reminded herself that people respond to advice only when not accompanied by criticism. "Your father speaks first, using the voice of logic, and when you perceive failure of logic, you speak with the voice of pugnacity." In any other man, she would have called Damian's expression a snarl.

"Would you ever wonder if my father and I have assigned roles? That when logic fails, he cedes control to me?"

"Why would you do that? To act in such a manner is to admit ahead of time that logic will fail."

"Logic always fails when dealing with people who think with their emotions and not their brains." He held up his hand when she would interrupt. "Yes, Senora Hopeful, there are many who are lesser humans, as that bandage on your throat should prove. Now I don't believe we have anything else to say to each other."

"You mean we're not 'speaking." "Exactly."

A band around her chest formed, and she found it difficult to breathe. "If you're looking for a way to punish me, that's the best way. For the success of our marriage, communication is the key. To speak of your anger will clear the air. You should explain to me what it is I've done that annoys you."

"Besides get in the way, almost get yourself killed, precipitate a murder?"

The injustice of his accusation jerked the band tight. "That's not fair."

He tapped his toe against the floor for one long, agonizing moment. "No, it's not. I'm sorry. You didn't precipitate the murder, at least." He turned on her like a striking rattlesnake. "But you flouted my orders. In public. You put me in a bad light with my people."