Califia's Daughters (7 page)

The old woman and her granddaughters rose, and Dian asked one last question.

“Do you think anyone else should be told what I'm going to do? People will notice that I'm getting ready for a trip.”

“Let's just say that Ling asked you to make a quick trip to Meijing for medical supplies.”

“I'll have to tell Laine, but that can wait until I'm about to walk out the door. Okay? Now, I need to see if there's any lunch left. First breakfast, now lunch,” Dian grumbled. “Hope I get one honest meal today.”

         

Two days later Miriam rode off with her women, mounted for speed and leaving behind both wagons, the two injured women, Isaac and his son, and a lot of disturbing questions. The night before they left, there was a general meeting in the unfinished shell of the Great Hall. It lasted until late and was noisy with discussion and dissent, but in the end Judith's opinions were matched by those of the village: most of them liked these women and were impressed by the potential advantages of having them come. The opposition finally stepped down and the vote taken was unanimous for acceptance. This was not perhaps unrelated to Dian's movements during the meeting, her casual changes of seat and whispered conversations in a number of ears. Judith on the dais watched her actions out of the corner of her eye, knowing that once the dissenters were reassured that Dian would find out the absolute truth before the strangers came, their objections would be silenced; and so they were.

When she took the news of the vote to Miriam at midnight, Judith was amazed to see the woman come near to tears. Miriam covered her face with hands that trembled, and whispered “Thank God” to herself several times. When she rode off early the next morning, she looked like a different woman, now that her grinding worries had been lifted from her.

A small committee saw them off, including Judith, Dian, and Isaac. After the dust had settled, Judith glanced sideways at Dian.

“Well, back to work.” She turned to Isaac. “I'd like you to wander around for a couple of days, to let you and your son get used to us. Let me know what jobs you'd like to take on—no,” she interrupted him, raising one hand, “I don't want to know your work in Oregon. This is a new life for you, and I want you to be able to choose what you're going to do with it. God knows there are a million jobs that need doing. Find one you'd be interested in. Meanwhile, feel free to poke around and ask questions. Just, please, don't take any risks. Keep an eye on Teddy, don't swim alone, don't go out of the Valley without asking Dian or Jeri or Laine about it. You've come a long way to get here, and we don't want to lose you in the chaos of harvest. Okay?”

“I understand. Maybe I should start by helping with breakfast.”

“Eating it, yes, but I don't want any work from you for at least two days.”

“Right, if you say so. Visiting royalty, that's me.” He grinned at Judith, nodded to Dian, and went off, whistling tunelessly, very aware of the two sisters' eyes drilling into his back.

“I do like him,” said Judith.

“I saw him first,” replied Dian.

“Did not.”

“I did. His foot was sticking out of the wagon when I saw it from the hillside,” Dian blithely asserted.

“Liar.”

The two women walked arm in arm up to the kitchen to start the long day's labors.

ON OCCASION, THEY KEPT THE PEACE WITH THEIR MALE OPPONENTS,
AND THE FEMALES AND THE MALES MIXED WITH EACH OTHER IN COMPLETE SAFETY.

F
IVE

ISAAC

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
D
IAN WAS WORKING WITH
the dogs when Isaac and his son came around the corner of the barn, interrupting her drills on the “stay” command with three huge-pawed, floppy-eared puppies. When they caught sight of the two newcomers, the pups immediately made to hurl themselves in that direction, but at a sharp word from Dian they crept back, chastened, to their assigned spots.

“I'm sorry,” said Isaac. “I didn't mean to disturb you. My son just wanted to see the dogs. Could we come back later?”

“It's no disturbance,” she said, with one eye on the dogs. “Actually, the two of you could give me a hand if you'd like. I'm trying to get them used to working around strangers. And,” she added, deadpan, “you have to admit that around here there's nobody much stranger than you.”

Isaac looked at her sharply, then decided she had been making a joke; he gave her a polite laugh.

“If you and Teddy would like to just stand there for a few minutes, we'll see how undistractible these three can be.”

For five minutes Dian worked her young dogs around and between the two strangers, forcing them to ignore the tantalizing nearness of new people. They “came” and they “heeled” and they “stayed,” and finally, when they had proven that they could indeed rise above temptation, she let them loose, and all three raced to welcome their visitors.

Pats, praise, and caresses duly accepted, the three animals trotted off to the livestock watering pool for a drink, then flopped down in the shade in a tangle of gangling legs, ridiculously long tails, and rotund puppy bellies. Teddy followed them and stood watching their antics.

Isaac smiled; when he glanced at Dian, he found her smiling too.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “Or cider? Or there's fresh juice from yesterday's press.”

“I don't suppose you have any of that drink we had the other morning, do you? I could get to like that.”

“Coffee? No,” she said, shaking her head, “we only have that on special occasions or for medicinal use. One of the glass houses has coffee trees, and they give us just enough to keep up our craving for the next time. Probably be better for us if the damned things died of some blight,” she muttered darkly. He laughed.

“I'd rather have something cold anyway. That's a good juicing apple you grow here. Do you use the same kind for cider?”

“The later apples are better for cider, along with some ugly little ones that grow up the hill. It's good, not too much alcohol in it, so you can drink it when you're thirsty without getting too much of a buzz. Would you like some of that?”

“I would, thanks. Can I help?”

“You heard Judith, you're not allowed. Pull that bench around into the shade, I'll be back in a minute.”

A door slapped shut, and Isaac was alone. Really alone, he reflected—the first time since he'd arrived that he hadn't felt strange eyes prying at him, evaluating, speculating; without that pressure, he had to admit that this was a lovely place.

Emma would have liked it, he told himself.

He leaned back against the wall, listening to the morning, watching his son. The air was ripe with the smell of dogs—this was probably the kennels behind him. In a few minutes, Teddy grew tired of looking on and sat down in the middle of the three puppies, stroking various heads and sides, causing his father to smile at the similarities of the young, no matter the species.

Shortly afterward, Isaac was startled to hear Dian's voice coming through the window over his head, saying, “You have a visitor.” He sat up straight on the bench—he'd heard the woman lived alone, but clearly she did not.

However, the person who came through the door with Dian had four legs: her big male, Culum, who paused long enough to acknowledge Isaac with a perfunctory wag of his tail before trotting briskly down to where the boy sat, half-buried in young dogs. Isaac had forgotten the size of the animal, or maybe his mind refused to believe its first impression, but it was true: the creature was huge. And it was heading straight for his son. Isaac jumped to his feet and took a step forward, but Teddy had seen the dog and scrambled to greet him like a long-lost friend; the boy's thin arms reached up to encircle the dog's massive neck in a hug, and Isaac subsided on the bench.

He cleared his throat. “Your dog certainly is, er, friendly.”

Dian set down a tray containing a jug, three cups, and a bowl containing a handful of objects with burnt edges and unidentifiable lumps of something yellow, which Isaac assumed were meant to be cookies. She poured out two mugs of cider and absently held one out to him.

“Actually, he's not all that friendly—he's usually somewhat standoffish, unlike most of the others. For some reason he's really taken to your son.”

Teddy was now fingering the tufts of hair that jutted out over Culum's yellow-brown eyes. Teddy's eyes were as dark as his father's, but there the resemblance between father and son ended. Isaac was thickset and muscular, slightly shorter than Dian, with a cap of tightly curled black hair and a heavy, four-day bristle already obscuring the brown skin of his face. His son was considerably lighter in color and slim, all knobby knees and elbows below his shorts and shirt, with wavy light-brown hair down to his shoulders.

“Your son is very quiet,” Dian commented.

“My son is . . . different.”

Isaac felt her eyes drilling into the side of his face. Different was not always a good thing for a boy child to be.

“Is there something wrong with him?”

“Nothing physical. He just doesn't speak. He can, and in fact sometimes he'll say whole sentences in his sleep, but he doesn't talk. It's . . . it's one of the reasons we're here, frankly. I thought a change might free him up. His mother died a year and a half ago, you see. He was never very talkative before, but after losing her, his voice just seemed to dry up. Emma, her name was. She was my wife,” he added softly.

Isaac kept his eyes on the scene ahead of him, but he could practically hear the furious working of the woman's mind. He was, he knew, a rarity in many ways—a man who had lived in a city and in a small village, a man who'd made his own choices and acted upon them. He also knew that family structures in this place were about as fluid as anywhere else, including polygyny, serial monogamy, lesbian marriages, heterosexual marriages that their great-grandparents Before might even have recognized, and a lot of arrangements that they would not. He did not know precisely what this woman's bonds were, but he did know enough to see his way forward. His people—Emma's people—needed this place badly. He would do what he had to in order to give it to them.

Dian chose not to pursue the topic of wives.

“The boy seems bright.”

“He is, very. He's reading already. He doesn't write, though he draws a bit. With me and a few others he's communicative, just not verbally.”

Dian took a swallow of cider, watching boy and dog. They were now facing each other, eye to eye, the boy seated cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, Culum on his belly with his head raised. For a long time they just sat and studied each other, and then the spell was broken when Culum's long pink tongue shot out to lick half the child's face in one quick swipe. Teddy sat back abruptly, startled, then collapsed in giggles and threw his bony arms around Culum's massive neck. After a minute the child moved around next to the huge dog, who stretched out on his side with a sigh. The boy curled up with his head on the great rib cage, and in a few minutes they were both asleep.

Isaac looked to see what his companion made of the scene and found her shaking her head back and forth slowly, her expression indecipherable. She felt his eyes on her and presented him with a wry smile.

“I must look like a pendulum,” she said. “It's just that I've never witnessed that before. I know it happens, but I've never seen it.”

“What?” He was puzzled. “Don't kids and dogs usually get along?”

“Not like that. My dogs like children, but they never consider any human an equal at first meeting. A bonding like that, instantaneous—it's very rare.” She tore her eyes off the sleeping pair and faced Isaac fully for the first time. “I was almost certainly that way with the dogs.” She stopped, as if that might be explanation enough; seeing from his expression that it clearly was not, she rubbed her hands over her face and reluctantly went on.

“I wasn't born here, in the Valley. Judith isn't really my sister. I have no idea who my actual parents were, except they were probably of a wandering band, most likely traders. Judith's mother was on her way home from Meijing when she found me at a crossroads. Not unusual, of course, lots of wrong babies are left to die, but with me it was different. For one thing I was older than exposed babies usually are—around seven or eight months, crawling pretty well. For another, there was no sign of anything wrong physically. Mother being who she was, she'd have stopped for me even if I'd had two heads, but she was struck by how strange it was to come across a perfectly healthy baby, just sitting there in the middle of the road bawling her head off. She was still in milk—she'd lost a baby barely six weeks before, had gone to Meijing to get her mind off it—and since it was obvious that I had been left there deliberately, she fed me and got ready to ride off with me. Just as she was about to mount up, her horse went skittish, and when she turned around to look, she saw standing less than twenty feet away a (as she described him) ‘very,
very
large dog.' Luckily she had the sense not to reach for a weapon, because if she had he'd probably have taken her arm off. He wasn't exactly threatening her, just standing with his head down, staring at her and growling low in his throat. I don't suppose you've ever heard a wolfhound's growl, but it sure gets your attention. She stood really still and was trying to decide what to do when I turned around in her arms, spotted him, and positively shouted in happiness. I struggled to get down, so she put me on the ground and I crawled right over to him. He gave me a face bath, like Culum did to Teddy just now, and then he looked up at Mother as if to say, ‘Okay, I'm here now, let's go.' He had the stub of a heavy rope around his neck, the end all frayed, and he and I clearly knew each other, so she figured that whoever had left me at the crossroads had tied up the dog to keep him from following, and he had chewed through the rope. As soon as he saw that she was going to be helpful to me, he was quite happy about the arrangement. He came back with us and lived here until he died, when I was seven. By that time Mother had located two females of his breed, more or less—they're related to the old wolfhound of Ireland—and brought them here. The price must have been astronomical, but they were the beginning. That dog was Culum's grandfather. Those puppies are Culum's.” She studied the pair for another minute, but her mind was already made up. “Your son needs a dog.”

Isaac felt his jaw drop: a newcomer, and a child at that, given one of the Valley's most valuable commodities? After a minute he turned thoughtful.

“Do you think a dog would bring him out of his shell? Make him talk again?”

“That's got nothing to do with it,” she said impatiently, and stood up. “It doesn't matter to me if he ever talks again. Your son belongs with the dogs, that's all. Pardon me, I have to get lunch for the pups.”

When she returned with three bowls of food, one of the puppies was standing next to Teddy, sniffing at the boy's ear with a wet nose. The child half-woke and flung an arm around the puppy's neck. Dian gave a sharp whistle between her teeth and put the bowls on the ground, and the three long-legged, monkey-tailed canines scrambled up the slope to their food. The boy and Culum trailed behind, one childish arm stretched up to rest across one massive back. Dian handed Teddy his cup of apple juice, then went inside for a platter of cheese and fruit to supplement the rocklike cookies. As they ate, Dian told the child a shortened version of the story she had given the father, in simple language but an adult voice. Eventually, when she was certain he understood, she came to the point.

“You know, Teddy, Culum doesn't act toward most people the way he does with you. He likes you a lot.”

She had his full attention, and a look of pride was beginning to dawn in his face.

“You're going to be living with us now, aren't you?” she went on.

The boy cast a doubtful glance at his father, then nodded slowly.

“I'm glad about that, because I need someone to help me with the dogs. Would you like to do that?” This time the nod was fast and definite. “Well, I'd like you to come and help me feed them and clean their house. Maybe after school?” School would resume the following week, half-days at first. Another vigorous nod. “After you've helped me a while and learned how to take care of dogs, I'd like to think about giving you your own puppy. Once you've shown me you can do it. What do you think?”

The child's eyes went wide, and he looked at her with his mouth open. His eyes went to his father, then moved on to Culum and the three puppies wrestling in the dust, finally coming back to Dian. One slow, awestruck nod this time.

“Good. Let's say you'll work with Culum and me, or with Susanna whenever I'm away, and then next spring when we have more puppies we'll see if one of them suits you.” She began to clear away the food bits and cups, then paused.

“One other thing. You don't have to talk, Teddy, to work with dogs.” Isaac straightened up suddenly, but she ignored him. “We can find other ways for you to give commands, to tell the dogs what you want them to do. The dogs would like it a lot better if you did talk to them, because they love to hear their people's voices, but I want you to know that this isn't a deal, that you don't have to talk in order to get a dog. Understand?”