Zia (10 page)

"The runaways and the stolen goods and the slaughtered animals—all those things."

"I know nothing," I said.

"Shall I tell him that you know nothing?"

"Tell him what I have told you," I said, "and may you go with God."

The second night in the cell was much like the first. I moved around and made bundles of straw and jumped up and down in my cotton shift as I had before. I was cold all night and could scarcely move by the time the sun came. But somehow it was not so cold as the night before.

I said to myself, "I can do this for a long time. I can be silent until they get tired of me." I spoke bravely to myself but I did not feel so brave.

Early the next morning Señora Gomez came again to the door and asked me if I had enjoyed a good night and all the rest of the speech she had been prompted to say. I answered her the same as I had before. A little later she brought me tortillas and water.

The sun came in and warmed the cell. The whaling ship was still cooking whale fat and the smoke still drifted into my cell. I looked out but the dolphins were not playing in the channel nor the live whales spouting, and I braced myself for the night.

Chapter 19

I
N THE AFTERNOON
Señora Gomez returned and handed me my clothes and told me to put them on.

She took me to the office of Captain Cordova, which was a dozen times the size of my cell and had many windows with red shades on them and a big lamp hanging down from the ceiling. It must have held a hundred candles and they were all burning.

He was seated at a desk and behind him against the wall was a stack of muskets, lances, and swords, and something that looked like an iron glove. He seemed to be in a bad humor. This time he did not address me politely as señorita. I took this to mean that the soldiers had not found Stone Hands.

"When we were talking the other day," he said, "I asked if there was any way you could help us. I told you and the good father who is growing a little simple in the head that what happens at the Mission is his business. Likewise, what crimes take place on land that does not belong to the Mission, land which belongs to men like Señor Corrientes and Señor Moreno, is my business. Do you remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Do you also remember that I asked you if you knew where Stone Hands was hiding?"

"Yes."

"And you said nothing to my question. You only shook your head. Now I ask you again, do you know where the Indians hide?"

"I do not know," I said, speaking the truth.

"They would go and not tell you where they were going?"

"Stone Hands said he would send me a message," I answered, truthfully again.

"And that message you have not received."

"No, sir."

"Do you expect to receive a message?"

"It is possible."

"Anything is possible. Will you receive a message from the Indians? Yes or no."

"It is possible," I repeated. "It is that and nothing more."

Capitán Cordova pulled at his nose, which was long and thin and for some reason a little crooked or his face was a little crooked, one or the other.

"I have talked to the matron at the Mission. Señora, señora..."

"Señora Gallegos."

"Yes, to her. And she says that both the door to the men's quarters and to the women's quarters were locked the night the Indians fled. She remembers locking the doors especially that night because she had heard some of the Indians grumbling and making threats.

Capitán Cordova rose and went to the window and closed a curtain that allowed the sun to shine in his eyes. He started to walk around the room. He passed the stack of muskets and the lances and the swords, picked up the iron glove, tried it on. Then he dropped it on his desk and sat down and lighted a cigar that smelled worse than the smoke from the whales.

"A
viejo,
and old man in the shop, tells me that he found some of his iron missing the morning after the Indians left. It was the kind of iron that he makes keys out of. Do you suppose that sometime that night Stone Hands in some manner got hold of Señora Gallegos' key and went to this shop and made himself a key? A key that was exactly like the other key, a key that would fit the doors perfectly. Do you think he would do a thing like that?"

"He could," I said. "He is clever."

"So being clever, he made a key," Capitán Cordova went on, "to fit the locks. Since the doors do not open from the men's quarters he must have given this key to one of the girls."

The Capitán carefully tapped the ash of his cigar into a tray and glanced up at me as I stood in front of his desk. I felt embarrassed and afraid.

"This key that he made, did he by chance give it to you?"

I was silent.

"He gave the key to you so that you could open both the doors."

"There were more than fifty girls and women in the room that night," I said. "Why should he give it to me?"

"Because you are his close friend," Cordova replied. "You are the one he knew the best and could trust."

"He knew many girls and he could trust all of them," I said.

The capitán cleared his throat and puffed on his cigar.

"When does your aunt come?"

"Soon," I said. "Soon, I hope."

"Do you want to be in the cell when she comes?"

"No, sir."

I felt like saying that Señor Corrientes had ten thousand cattle and would not miss one or two. And that Señor Moreno owned more sheep than he could count. But I kept this to myself.

"Well, we surely hope not, since we are noted here in Santa Barbara for our hospitality. Perhaps she will not come soon, maybe tomorrow or the next day or next week. Perhaps meanwhile you will receive a message from Stone Hands. Suppose all this. And suppose also that when this message comes you give it to me, Captain Cordova. Then we can all catch this clever fellow who calls himself Stone Hands and give him a little punishment. Then we can all be hospitable together and welcome your aunt to Santa Barbara.

We can have fiesta with music."

He stood up and shouted for Señora Gomez.

"In the meantime," he said, "perhaps we can learn who it was that used the key that Stone Hands made. The doors into the boys' quarters did not open themselves. They are not magical doors."

Señora Gomez came waddling in and stood sleepily in the corner.

Captain Cordova picked up the iron glove from the desk and put it on his hand. "It does not fit so well," he said, "but it is not supposed to fit well. I have another glove just like it. They have much weight. They are very inconvenient."

The glove had a screw on one side and he began to turn it. He turned the screw until it was tight. He lifted his hand above his head. I could see that it was very heavy. Then he let his hand with the iron glove drop on his desk. The sound was loud. Señora Gomez opened her eyes.

"I never use this unless I am forced to. I am a kind man, of a good disposition, and very patient."

Captain Cordova had no real authority over me. Years ago, when Mexico owned the land, he could put an iron glove on me that squeezed my hand until I screamed, as he had done to the hands of many, so I had heard. He was trying to scare me and he could try only because Father Vicente was away. If Father Vicente had been home, he would not have threatened me. For some reason he did not fear Father Merced.

He was enjoying himself, I could see. And while he had no authority for all of his threats, there was nothing I could do. I was helpless and fearful, as he meant me to be.

He unscrewed the glove and put it on his desk. Then he nodded to Señora Gomez, who came and took me to my cell.

That night after supper I heard a scratching at the bars of my cell, then a voice. It was Mando, who had come back from fishing.

"I have food for you," he whispered.

Through the bars he passed me a strip of meat that he had saved from his supper.

"Tomorrow, Zia, I will bring you more."

"
Cuidado,
señor," I said. "There are many ears that listen. This is all they have to do."

"I will take care," he said. "But if they catch me they catch a mountain lion. They will not like the lion they catch."

The meat was tough but it tasted good after the water and stale tortillas.

Chapter 20

T
HREE DAYS
went by. A north wind brought a storm that lasted for two days.

I wondered where Captain Nidever and his boat were. I wondered if they were safely at the island or whether the storm had caught them somewhere. It was very cold and Capitán Cordova sent orders that my clothes were to be given back to me and an extra blanket as well.

The Yankee whaler had finished cooking blubber and the air was clear once more. Now that the whaling ship had gone, the dolphins came back. I could see them through the barred slit playing in the sea beyond the breakers. And the whales came back and sent up their feathery spouts.

On the sixth day Capitán Cordova sent for me and I went into his office. The first thing I saw was the iron glove on his desk and its mate beside it. He seemed in good spirits, puffing away on a cigar, with his broad-brimmed hat with the gold braid tilted back on his forehead and his stitched boots on the desk.

"I have good news," he said. "At least I think the news is good. One can never tell about news. It is like cream. It can turn sour between the cow and the kitchen."

I waited for the news, knowing that it could not be good for everyone, that for someone it would be bad.

"Don Blas Corrientes reports," the captain said, "that Stone Hands and his band are camped at the head of the creek that runs through his ranch. They are camped in a box canyon and can get out only by the trail they used going in. It is a simple matter to have Don Blas's vaqueros and my soldiers flush them out and march them back to the Mission."

He paused to examine the screw on one of the iron hands that lay on his desk. I wondered what this had to do with me. He must know by now that I had received no message and if I had it would not concern him. He had Stone Hands and all my friends cornered in a box canyon from which they could not escape. What did he want of me? Why did he frighten me with an iron glove? Why did he keep me freezing in a cell that I scarcely could turn around in, with straw to sleep on and a barred slit to look out of?

"How long have you been here at the Mission?" he asked me.

"For many moons."

"Where did you come from?"

"From Pala."

"I know the place. It is where the Cupeños lived after they left Warner Springs. Why did you come from Pala?"

"Because of my aunt. I heard that she was living alone on the island."

"And you thought by coming to Santa Barbara you might find someone who would go out and search for her."

"Yes, sir."

I still had no idea what he wanted from me.

"You have been here for a long time." He paused and looked at the end of his cigar, which had gone out. "In that time you have had a chance to observe the various fathers?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have talked to Father Merced and have talked to other Indians who have talked to him. You have worked at the looms and the garden under his instructions."

"Yes."

"Tell me," the capitán said as if suddenly we were old friends talking together, "do the Indians, the girls and boys, like this man, Father Merced?"

"They like him," I said.

"You speak without much conviction..."

"Then I repeat, the boys and girls respect Father Merced."

"Respect?" Capitán Cordova lighted his dead cigar. It had an odor that was worse than before.

"Why if the boys and girls respect him so much," Capitán Cordova said, "why then do they run away from his Mission?"

"I do not know," I said.

"Do the others feel happy in Father Merced's care?"

"There are some who do and there are others..."

"Who would like to run away and not come back."

Capitán Cordova hated Father Merced. Everyone at the Mission knew that. They knew also that Father Merced hated the capitán. Father Merced had complained about the capitán and his drunken soldiers, and Captain Cordova had complained about Father Merced. It was not a new quarrel, from what I had heard. It was a quarrel that had gone on now for most of a hundred years—this rivalry between the garrison and the Missions.

"You yourself have spoken to me here in this room as if you would also have run away except for your aunt who is coming or who is not coming. One or the other. Why do you want to run away?"

"I would not run away," I said. "I would leave if that was the way I felt."

"But if you left, if you did not run away but just left, why would you do so?"

"Because I did not like it here at the Mission," I said truthfully. "That would be the reason."

"Because of the way you are treated. Because you are made to toil long hours. Because you are told what to do at all times. Because Father Merced is a man with strange ideas about Indians and thinks that they should be busy all the minutes of the day."

I began to have suspicions that I had not had before. Was it this hatred between Father Merced and Capitán Cordova that had caused the trouble for me? Was this why I was locked up in a cell with no clothes and little food?

"All I can say to you, Señor Capitán, is that I am here. I am not with Stone Hands and his band."

Capitán Cordova rose from his desk. He went to the door and opened it to let in some fresh air—even he could not stand the stench from the cigar—tossed the cigar over the bluff into the sea, closed the door, and came back and sat down.

"The governor gives out bad cigars," he said, speaking, I guess, to himself. "Perhaps, because he does not smoke and knows no better."

He opened a drawer of his desk and drew forth an object that I did not recognize at once.

"You have spoken several times of your aunt," he said in his polite, dovelike voice. "You have told me that you had nothing to do with the runaways."

He paused and held up the object he had just taken from his desk. He turned it this way and that and then dropped it on the desk.