Carlota (2 page)

The "thing" my grandmother referred to was the wedding of my sister, Yris, to Don Roberto Peralta.

"Perhaps He can think of something bigger than a flood," Dona Dolores went on. "Like an earthquake, where the countryside opens and scares the wits out of everyone. The last time the earth opened up was nine years ago. It is time for another, like the one that shook all of Helena Yorba's china out of her cupboard. The set she bought from a Yankee trader, and bragged that she had paid one hundred cows for, fell right out on the floor and broke into a thousand small pieces."

"Perhaps Don Roberto will change his mind," I said. "He has changed it before."

"He has no mind to change," my grandmother replied. "Don Roberto is a worm. But it is not his fault. His father is also a worm. Roberto has been told that it is for the de Zubaráns and the Peraltas to join in marriage. Two of the great families of California to be made one. Don Roberto believes what he is told."

"It may be a good marriage," I said, though I didn't think so.

"If the marriage will be so good," my grandmother quickly answered, "why did you not think of marrying Don Roberto yourself? It is you who are the older. Yris is two years younger than you. Who in this life ever heard of a younger sister marrying first? It is wrong. It is never done. It is likewise a scandal."

Rosario started to sneeze and Doña Dolores lifted her feet until he had sneezed three times and stopped.

"Do you wish to do your grandmother a great service?" Doña Dolores said.

"Yes," I said without warmth. "I wish to."

"Wishes are very cheap.
Muy barato.
Will you?"

"What is it that you wish?"

"I wish for you to marry Don Roberto."

I thought my grandmother was going to ask me to give up my stallion. I was not ready for an answer about Don Roberto.

"I will think about it," I said to gain time.

"Good," said my grandmother. "Begin to think about it now, at this moment."

She gave Rosario a prod with her foot.

"Go fetch my son," she said. "Whatever he is doing, fetch him."

Rosario scuttled off and my grandmother and I looked at each other warily and said nothing until my father came.

Don Saturnino was not tall, not so tall as I am, but he was stout-chested. He had small narrow feet and he was very proud of them. In a big chest he had sixteen pairs of boots, all beautifully stitched, of the best leather, and, to suit the way he felt, of many colors.

He bowed to his mother, taking off his sombrero and clicking his heels.

"It rains," he said.

"To good purpose," Grandmother said.

"What is the purpose? We do not require floods and torrents."

"The marriage," Doña Dolores answered. "It gives time to make changes. Roberto can marry Carlota instead of Yris."

"Don César and I have thought of the marriage. We have talked about it for five years."

"It is not proper that the younger daughter marry first."

"Don César and I have given thought to everything. This as well. It is not what is proper, but what is best for Yris and Carlota."

My grandmother puffed away calmly. She shifted her feet, looking for Rosario's back, but Rosario had not returned. He was outside, under the
pórtale,
feeding the big eagle that belonged to my father.

"Carlota and Don Roberto," Father said scornfully, pulling at his pointed beard. "Have you asked their permission?"

"Permission," Doña Dolores replied, "as you well know, is not required."

"It would be prudent, nonetheless," Don Saturnino said, keeping his temper. "Carlota is not Yris. She is a true de Zubarán."

"The difference is great," my grandmother said. "This I admit. You have seen to that. You have raised Carlota as a vaquero. She thinks of nothing but horses. Gray horses. Bay horses. White horses. Spotted horses. Palominos. Horses! She will not walk fifty steps. Instead, she will get on a horse and ride the distance."

What she said was true. I
had
been raised as a vaquero. I had been taught to do everything a horseman could do. My father had even named me after his son, Carlos, who had ben killed by the Piutes.

"Yris is a girl of the
sala,
good at needlework and the viola," Doña Dolores said. "She is not suited to Don Roberto."

"Neither is Carlota," my father said. "Nobody is suited to Don Roberto. That he is Don César's only son is a misfortune."

"The hairy worm," my grandmother said. "It is your fault. You might have found one of the Bandinis for her. Or even a Yorba. All else failing, one of the numerous Palomareses."

Doña Dolores bounced up from the chair and hobbled to the window and gazed out at the rain falling. I saw her cross herself and I knew that she was praying for the rain to last forever. I walked to the door, leaving them to continue their talk, which would grow very fierce before it ended.

It did not trouble me. I had no intention of marrying Don Roberto, with his fat cheeks and fat little hands. And whatever Dona Dolores threatened—she sometimes said during these fights that she, and she alone, was the owner of the forty-seven-thousand-acre Rancho de los Dos Hermanos—but whatever she threatened, my father would never consent to such a marriage.

Furthermore, he would try to keep me at his side, as long as ever he could. And I did not mind the thought. I liked to ride with the vaqueros. I liked to go with my father and do the things he did. The truth was, as my grandmother often said, I thought little of anything except horses, all kinds and colors of horses. Nothing pleased me more than to be in my cordovan saddle with the big silver spurs on my heels.

After five days the rain ceased. The sun came up in a bright cloudless sky as I began my weekly inspection of our buildings. I did not care very much for this task, but it had to be done and my father wanted me to do it. I had been doing it now for more than a year.

The ranch house was built of adobe, which is mud mixed with straw and made into big bricks and set out in the sun to dry. The walls of the house were very thick, almost as thick through as the reach of my outstretched hands. There were few windows, only two on each side of the house, and these were iron-barred and shuttered.

The house was built in the shape of a hollow square. Each side was ninety long strides in length. The roof, which was made of tile, was proof against the flaming arrows the Indians liked to use whenever they raided us. The house was a stronghold, like the fortresses in Spain.

I always started at the big gate. There was a small garden on one side of the gate and here my father kept his pet eagle. It was Rosario's duty, when he wasn't running errands or serving as a footstool for my grandmother, to tend the eagle. The bird's name was Vuelo Grande, which means Big Wing.

Old man Tiburcio, who had been a vaquero but now was too old to work the cattle, gathered mice and gophers to feed the bird. He caught them in traps every day and put them in a wicker cage and early in the morning set them inside the big gate where the eagle sat.

Vuelo Grande was screaming for his breakfast. He sat on his perch with a silver-link chain around one leg, flapping his wings and turning his neck first one way then the other, even backward like an owl. His eyes were large and hooded. They were green, with some yellow and brown spots in them. His eyes never seemed to look at you. They looked through you at something far away in the hills, in the mountains, beyond the mountains.

Rosario came running from somewhere and picked up the wicker cage. He reached in and took out a gopher, with care because it had long, sharp teeth.

"
Holal
" he shouted to the eagle. "Catch!"

With one claw Vuelo Grande caught the gopher in mid-air.

"You have taught him a new trick," I said.

"Yes. And soon," Rosario said, "he will permit me to stroke his feathers."

"The feathers are very pretty," I said, "but take care that he doesn't get the claws in you."

"He is a brother," Rosario said. "He is an Indian bird."

"True. He comes from the Piute country. But remember that perhaps he doesn't know that you are brothers."

"He knows," Rosario said, and got ready to toss him a second gopher.

Next I visited the forge, where two young men were beating out shoes for the riding horses. Four that they had made especially for Tiburón hung on a peg. Next door was the saddlery. Here they made braided riatas and silver-studded saddles for the family and common saddles for the vaqueros. The weaving room was next. I did not go in. Through the open door I could see piles of yellow wool, still oily after the shearing. The looms were clicking and the spindles hummed. The Indian girls who tended them were in a happy mood now that they were no longer required to work on Sundays. It had been my idea to give them one day of rest. Doña Dolores opposed it, but with my father's help, I had won out.

I went quickly past the family rooms for fear that my grandmother might see me and call me in to do something for her. She had three servants, counting Rosario, and I didn't like to be used as a fourth one. I crossed myself as I passed the chapel, where I had already prayed at dawn.

My father sat in the sun beneath the
portale.
He sat here every morning when the sun shone and had his first cup of chocolate.

"
Que pasa?
" he said. "Everything is in bad condition as usual?"

"In good condition," I said.

"How's the grandmother this morning?"

"I have not seen her."

"That is fortunate. You start the day well."

Don Saturnino sat on a three-legged stool, his legs spread wide, his long black hair hanging down his back. It glistened like the tail of a horse.

Hovering over him was Alfonso, the barber, combing his hair with a heavy horse comb. When that was done the barber braided it carefully and piled it on top of Don Saturnino's head and anchored it there with stout iron pins.

His hair combed and braided and bound in a flashy red handkerchief with yellow tassels hanging down his back, my father strode into the kitchen, where he ate his first meal of the day. I followed him and, as was proper, waited until he asked me to sit down.

The food came on in a flood. Pinto beans cooked with
chile verde
and slivers of fresh beef, sprinkled with strong goat cheese. Tortillas as thin as the knife blade in my father's garter. Thick chocolate, beaten to a bubbly froth, a haunch of venison.
Tripes de leche
from a yearling cow. A pot of quail. Did the King of Spain eat better, I wondered.

My father said nothing to me until he had finished his breakfast and gone out into the courtyard for a glance at the weather.

Off to the west there was a small cloud. The wind blew gently from the south.

"Tomorrow," he said, "will also be fair."

"You're always right about the weather," I said.

"Wrong about much but not of the weather?"

"I did not say that."

"You did not so much as think it?"

"No, Father. Not a thought."

"What thoughts do you have about the wedding?" he said. "With fair weather coming, what day would you choose if it were your wedding?"

My father often asked my advice about things, then did what he wished.

"In two weeks is the day of Saint James. How does that suit?"

"As well as any day," said Don Saturnino. "Do we have sufficient paper for the invitations?"

"A sackful."

"Where?"

"It is in Doña Dolores's keeping."

"Go then and tell her to begin. Take five candles of deer tallow and a handful of goose quills and a jug of ink."

"Yes, señor."

"Who comes to the wedding?"

"A hundred, I fear. Maybe two hundred. Perhaps twice that many."

"Ayee!" my father cried. "We will have to go to the well."

The well my father spoke of was not a well at all, as I will explain. The past year had been a year of good grass but poor prices. The best of hides brought only twenty centavos. Except for the well, the ranch would have suffered.

"We will go and dip out a bucket of water," said my father. "We will go soon. We will go tomorrow."

"
Vámanos
," I said. "Let us go."

My father wore the heaviest of his leather breeches, his thickest jacket, and a pair of high horsehide boots. It was gear for the wild country that lay between the Ranch of the Two Brothers and Blue Beach. He carried his best musket, his tinderbox, and his powder horn. I dressed accordingly, but carried no weapon except a knife.

There were four horses saddled and waiting for us. I rode my stallion, Tiburón, and I rode astride.

The river would still be running a torrent. It was much easier to cross close to the ranch and go down the south bank, but we had no desire to get soaked so early on the journey.

Accordingly, we chose the north bank and followed it through heavy chaparral and patches of cactus until we had ridden for two hours.

Where the river widened and ran knee-deep, we crossed to the south bank. It was still a good hour's ride from the Blue Beach. But it was here that we took the first precaution.

My father and I had been coming to Blue Beach for two years. On the three journeys we had made, we had always been followed. Sometimes by one or two Indians, sometimes by more. But to this day, no one had followed us farther than this west crossing. Here we had managed to elude them.

One thing that helped was that we never told anyone our secret—the story of the Blue Beach.

We told none of the vaqueros or the
mayordomo.
Nor Rosario, though Rosario could be trusted. Nor my sister, who could not be. Nor even Doña Dolores, whom we could trust most of all. Dolores you could hang by her thumbs and still not hear one word that she did not wish to speak.

There was no way to find the Blue Beach except by following the river, either down from the mountains or up from the sea. From the sea no one would ever find it because of a series of lagoons. From the direction of the mountains you would need to be very lucky, as lucky as we had been in the beginning.