Hers the Kingdom (21 page)

     Owen and Willa did not build their house on Peregrino Hill, but below it—closer to the ocean and the makeshift pier, more accessible to the creekbed which would, in all but the wet season, double as a road.

     It was a frame house rather than the adobe Willa wanted, for practical reasons. "The Californios who know how to make the adobe bricks best," Owen explained, "also have a habit of doing things
mañana
." He wanted the house to go up fast, and for speed Owen trusted only Yankee workmen.

     The house was two stories, not nearly so ornate as the place on Seaside Avenue, but sprawling, and with a veranda that reached around three sides. Wisteria vines were being trained to give shade. In many ways, this house was a merging of their tastes; the results were compatible.

     Owen and Willa spent long hours together, planning. Since Willa grew up on a farm and had more experience, Owen often asked her advice. They were, perhaps for the first time, equals in an endeavor that did not involve simply the household. It was a new experience for Willa, a new position. Her body, too thin since Thad's birth, began to fill out, to soften. She did not always walk so briskly. Now and then she would even linger over her morning tea.

     A new barn was built for the farm animals, with a special section for the growing array of family pets—including a deer which had been tamed, and which wore a red and white kerchief around its neck. Owen had insisted the barn be painted a bright red because, as Willa told me, giggling, "He just has always loved red barns." It would take only a few seasons for the winter rains and the summer sun to bleach it a deep rose, a color which seemed better to fit the mood of this warm place.

     Sundays were for rest. In the morning we would gather in the front parlor where Owen would read from the scriptures. In the summer and spring, Willa would go out into the fields and return with armloads of wildflowers—filling the fireplaces and vases everywhere with lilac and wild tiger-lilies or mock orange or,
sometimes, simply the shining leaves of the gooseberry plant. As I played the organ, Owen would lead the singing, booming out the old songs, the hymns he loved, with Willa joining in her lovely contralto.

     The ranch hands were Catholic, most of them, but they would gather outside the windows to listen on Sunday morning. Owen was certain they came out of respect for our religion. I thought they came to hear the songs, and the fervor with which Owen attacked them.
Hallelujah! Thine the glory!
he would sing,
Hallelujah! Amen! Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive us again.

     If the weather was at all good, as it was most of the time, we would go to the beach in the afternoon for a picnic that would last until the sun fell into the sea. The wagon would be packed with food and drink, bathing clothes and blankets, and we would all proceed—horses and animals and children intermingled—to one of our favorite beaches.

     Usually we went to a sheltered cove a scant half mile from the house. Here the waves did not pound the shore but were deflected by a reef so we could bathe in the warm, shallow water. Wen could dig holes and splash about, the dogs could fetch, endlessly, a stick thrown into the sea.

     After harvest in the fall of that first year on the Malibu our brothers Val and Bernie came to visit. On their first Sunday with us, we arranged a picnic on a beach to the north of our sheltered cove, one where the waves rolled in with unimpeded strength.

     Owen had returned from a trip to Hawaii with a long polished board which had been shaped something like a shark. In Hawaii, he explained, the Kanakas ride the waves on such a board.

     "It takes a big man to maneuver this board," he said. "The Kanakas say there is great power in the surge of the wave." He thought that some of the ranch hands might want to ride the California waves. Willa could scarcely contain her desire to attempt it.

     Like all prairie men, Val and Bernie could not get enough of the sea. Bernie had reached his full height of six feet and seven
inches. His body was hard from the work of the farm and from his own need to test his physical limits in athletic contests. When Willa saw him she blurted, "I'll never ever win another race from you."

     She did try, though. Willa was an exceptionally strong swimmer. She thought her experience in ocean swimming would give her an advantage. No sooner had we arrived at the beach than Willa and Bernie were in the water, swimming determinedly toward a far rock. Willa kept abreast of him almost all of the way, but you could see that she was making an effort, that she was swimming to her limit. It was only in the last ten yards that Bernie pulled ahead of her.

     "Let's see what Bernie can do with this board," Owen said to Val, as the two men pulled the sleek piece of polished wood from the wagon.

     "It looks dangerous," Val said.

     "It is," Owen answered, "but it must also be exciting. You really should see someone ride one of these—it's as if they are flying over the water."

     "Your wife is going to have to try it," Val said to Owen. Without looking up, Owen answered, "I suppose so. I haven't learned how to stop her."

     "None of us ever knew how to do that," Val sympathized, "but she's always stood up to her mistakes, I'll say that."

     "Well," Owen answered, patting the board, "if she tries to ride this, I don't think she'll stand up very long. But I figure Bernie will be there to pull her out."

     Later, Val would confide that he thought Owen figured things out better than we suspected.

     Willa and Bernie spent most of the afternoon climbing in and out of the waves, carrying the long, gleaming board with them, trying to find a way to catch the rise of a wave and ride it all the way in. Finally, Willa gave up, exhausted. She waded ashore and flung herself on the blanket, her head in the shade of the parasol
under which Thad lay. After a few moments she rolled over and kissed the baby's leg.

     "You look like a big, ripe peach," she said to her son, and he beamed back a big baby smile.

     "Madonna and Child," Owen said, settling himself on the blanket, careful to keep his white duck trousers away from Willa's wet swimdress.

     "It's Mercury I'd really like to be," Willa answered. "If I had wings on my feet I could ride that monstrous board."

     They watched as Bernie methodically stroked back out to the place beyond which the waves were breaking and prepared to try, once again. They watched as he held the board, crouching, ready to stand when he felt the water surge beneath him.

     "Are you content?" Owen asked, not looking at her but squinting out to sea, to the place where Bernie waited for the wave.

     "How can I be content," she joked, "when I couldn't make the waves work for me?"

     "No," he answered softly, still not looking at her, "I mean . . . are you content?"

     She didn't answer right away, but breathed in the soft sea air and let the breeze ruffle her hair.

     "I am, yes," she said then, "I wish I could make you know just how content."

     One of his hands stroked the blotched, pink skin of the baby's belly. "I was worried that you might feel too isolated on the ranch."

     "But I'm a country girl," she answered.

     "A country girl who could hardly wait to get out," he reminded her.

     "It wasn't the farm I wanted to leave," she told him, "it wasn't even so much that I wanted to get away. I was just so ready to start, to get to . . . I was afraid that maybe . . . I needed to begin . . ."

     "Begin what?" he wanted to know, now as confused as she.

     She looked at him. Sometimes on these long beach afternoons the talk was idle, wandering.

     She saw that he wanted an answer.

     "A life, living, being part of whatever movement there was, finding some . . . well," she stumbled, "some center, the feeling of being where that would happen." As she fumbled for the words, Wen, who had been playing at the edge of the water, filled a small pail and started toward them, his face set, determined. He would be with them in a moment.

     "Have you found it?" Owen asked, quickly.

     "Yes!" she said, "Here, now—just this. Don't you see?"

     Before he could tell her, Wen was upon them, sloshing water. At the same moment, Bernie raised himself on the board to his full height, his hands out for balance. He caught the wave and let it carry him, he seemed to skim over the water in one long, sustained, elegant motion.

     "Look!" Willa shouted.

     "Yes! That's it, that's it. Perfect!" Owen called.

The months that followed were like that first long, smooth ride on the wave . . . It was as if we were part of the ocean, part of the land, sun-drenched and full of the pleasure of work, the movement of life lived in the space between the mountains and the sea.

     Owen was everywhere, whistling as he planned a fountain that would send water shooting into the air, welcoming anyone who came to the ranchhouse. He built a small artist's shed on a ridge that looked out over the sea, for those of us who liked to sketch. He learned all there was to learn about the best breeding methods for stock. He could tell you, to the pound, what heifers were bringing that season.

     My regular Monday journal entries echoed the resonance of those years. Looking through them is like watching the morning sun rise over the mountains and reach low into one of the canyons that scored our land, illuminating the gentle wildness of the place.

     I have but to leaf through the journals to see how rooted we were becoming in the Malibu.

     
January 9, 1893:
Two weeks of rain have washed out sections of the wagon road so we must once again time our comings and goings to the tides. No matter. Neither Willa nor I have the least desire to go into Santa Monica. Of course, it did also delay Owen's homecoming—an aggravation to us all. In his last letter he asked Ignacio to meet him in Santa Monica with the wagon, so we are all wildly curious, knowing how Owen does love to surprise.

     We got quite a start when Ignacio arrived without Owen, but with a very large smile on his face. Then we heard the whistle—Owen's special whistle which he uses to announce his arrival—and what should come wobbling up the path but Owen on a bicycle. He looked a fright! Weaving this way and that, not having mastered the skill and being altogether too large for the machine, so that his long legs angled awkwardly, almost up to his chin, with each revolution of the wheels.

     Wen, who had posted himself on the veranda early in the morning, plunged headlong down the path, realizing that the bicycle was meant for him. Even so, nothing would do but that both Owen and Willa should have their turns, all the while Wen fussing at them to let him have a try.

     "Give the child a turn," I chided his parents.

     "Just one more minute, Wennie," Willa said, and then took a tumble into a briarbush.

     "Serves you right, Willa Reade," I called to her.

     "I suppose it does," she answered, trying to help Wen onto the contraption. But Wen, true to form, pushed her away. "I can do it," he insisted.

     He couldn't, but that didn't matter to Wen. He spent the whole of the afternoon banging himself up quite thoroughly, but eventually he did master the two-wheeled thing. He is such a determined little boy, stolid like a locomotive: My offer to take him down to the hard sand on the beach to practice in safety went unheeded.

     "Let him do it his way," Owen said, "I like the boy's spunk."

     "I think you mistake stubbornness for spunk," I told him, but Owen only laughed and gave me a hearty "hello" embrace.

     Owen brought with him a letter from Aunt Emma. Once more she says she is sorry, but the Captain is feeling too poorly to set out for a visit. She says that perhaps they will come to see us after the rains. I suppose we shall have to make the trip north again. No matter! They are such dears, I would travel the distance between the ranch and Monterey many times for them.

     
January 23, 1893:
Happy Day! Thad, who has refused to say one solitary word—not even "Mama" or "Papa" in the eighteen months since his birth—said his first words, a full sentence! He said: "Where go Wen." As clear as day, he said it. I hugged and kissed him and shed a few tears of happiness, knowing that nothing is wrong with the child. He was happy to repeat the words to his mother and his father, both of whom praised him wildly.

     
March 6, 1893:
Willa has managed to get herself in hot water again. In the current controversy over how women should ride a horse, sidesaddle or astride, she has taken the radical position that women should ride astride, and she has taken it publicly. In a letter to
Harper's Weekly
she detailed, with her usual straightforwardness, why it is neither safe, comfortable, nor practical for those of us at the ranch to ride sidesaddle.

     "The terrain," she wrote, "is mountainous in sections and there are deep ravines. We need sure-footed mounts and we need to be able to stay seated on them—especially when hunting or hawking." She signed herself "W.K. Reade, a rancher's wife."