Hers the Kingdom (69 page)

     "Would you want me to turn tail and run?" he had asked her once, and she had answered, "There are times, yes, when the wisest thing a man can do is run."

     Owen Reade would have understood—Owen, who knew about limits and limitations. I remembered the day, twenty-five years before, when with consummate grace Owen had managed to avoid a footrace at Porter Farm. I could not help but think that, had he lived, Owen might have been able to make his son see how little brute force had to do with bravery, how facing a mad bull had nothing at all to do with being a man.

     Sally decided to wait until after the rodeo to tell Thad she was leaving. She did not, she reasoned, want him to think that the bullfight—or rather, his support of it—had anything to do with her decision. It had become so important to him, and such an unspoken point of contention between them, that she wanted it done with first. Then she could try to explain, could at least attempt to tell him why they could not marry, why she must leave. Perhaps she thought that he might have a change of heart, perhaps she hoped for a miracle. She did love him, of that she was sure. She was just as certain that love was not enough.

It was the first rodeo since the advent of the
rurales
and their women, and they intended to make it a day of celebration. We gathered—Sally, Aleja, the twins, and I riding together—at midday
at the corral at Zuma. The Mexicans trailed behind us on the beach, raucous, as if off to a carnival. The men had refused from the beginning to do any herding, so Thad had had to bring in the
vaqueros
who worked the ranches. Willa had not liked it, had been so annoyed, in fact, that she declined even to make an appearance today. I suspected that Thad did not regret her absence. He found it easier to exert his authority when his mother was not about.

     I leaned against the rough wood of the corral, felt the sun hot on my face, and remembered another rodeo when Thad had been a very small boy, frightened by crayfish in the stream.

     On that long-ago day, Owen had been dressed all in black, the very model of
El Patrón.
Owen and Ignacio, what a pair they had been, the
Patrón
and his
mayordomo.

     Thad did not have his father's
presence.
It was hard even to imagine Thad in the black suit. All the pageantry was gone from the rodeo now. Ned Lattimore, who had been a solid young cowboy from Kentucky then, was wiry now, his hair was thinning.

     "Hahle!" someone called out, "the
taurito
," and the words spun me back to that other rodeo, when the young bull had rushed Owen. I could almost hear Willa's scream, the rawhide slicing through the air, jerking the bull to its knees . . . Connor McCord's rawhide. The glint of the Spaniard's knife, then, and the
taurito's
bloody testicles had been tossed into the air. I shivered involuntarily and tried to push the image from my mind, but it would not go. Through the dust and the heat and the animal stench of the ring, I could almost see Owen walk over to Connor. The
vaqueros
had looked away, assuming a failure of courage on Owen's part, judging him by standards Owen did not accept. If only Thad could be made to understand . . .

     Trinidad insisted on overseeing the rodeo dinner, which she considered the most ceremonial work of the year. Aleja helped her mother with the food. I watched Trinidad shoo away one of the
rurales'
children. She had made it obvious that she expected to feed only those who worked. The
rurales
, for their part, made a great show of ignoring the rest of us.

     They lined the section of the corral that we usually took, climbing onto the fence in a noisy mass, lifting their dirty-faced children for a better view. Once the work in the ring was underway, the ranch hands roping and branding, the Mexicans began to shout and call out, abusing those who made a bad show. They kept up a steady stream of peppered Spanish, some of it obscene. I noticed that Aleja winced often. One woman, whose dirty, dark hair reached to her waist, was particularly fierce. Her shriek could be heard above the noise of the ring.

     The cattle began to pour in. Dust was rising. The sounds of the animals' bleating created the usual controlled chaos. When three cowboys were working at a time and the ring was filled with the cries of "
Hola!
" Thad decided to try his hand at the rope. He was, I knew, as good as the next ranch hand—which is to say, competent. Still, as
Patrón
, it was not his place to work the ring. I wondered if Sally's presence had anything to do with it. When I saw him glance at her, I had my answer.

     He sent the loop flying, long and open, over a calf, and missed. At that precise moment, there was a lull in the noise—as happens, at times, in the midst of so much action—and the black-haired
soldadera's
obscene laugh rang out. She made, with her hand, a motion so insinuating that I felt sick. Her meaning was not lost, not on any of us. Even Kit hid her face in my skirts, and Porter stared ahead without seeing, so I knew he was girding himself.

     Sally tried not to look at Thad. I could feel as much—just as I wanted not to see either of them, but did. I could feel Thad's humiliation, and Sally's anger—at the woman, at Thad for letting himself be humiliated.

     "It shouldn't matter," Sally said under her breath. "How can I make him understand that it shouldn't matter?"

     Only Aleja and I heard her, and neither of us could answer.

     Thad did not attempt another throw. Instead Pablo, who had been working the inner ring, easily slipped his rope over the calf, preventing it from interrupting the other work.

     "Pablo to the rescue," Sally said, irritated.

     Aleja's soft voice answered, "Pablo waited. He gave Thad first try, and he waited to see if he would recover."

     Once again, the woman's derisive laugh rang out, and when we looked at her she thrust her tongue at us. Sally and I left with the twins soon after, having decided against staying for the rodeo feast, spread as always under the grove of oak trees near the corral.

     We left early for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a great, black bull tied to a single tree on a hillock nearby, outlined by the sky, looking fierce. Once the work of the day was finished, the corral would be converted into a bullring. The
rurales
and their women were girding for it. We had seen the flasks passed among them, had noticed the laughter getting wilder, more raucous. The bull would be brought down from the hillock, his tongue would be slit and hot peppers placed in it . . . and the men would perform, one at a time, in the ring alone with the beast.

It was Aleja who came for us, riding hard, out of breath so that she could hardly speak, but finally gasping out the awful news.

     "Send for the doctor," she panted.

     Willa grasped her shoulders, shook her slightly, "What is it? Who is hurt?"

     Nearly fainting, Aleja slumped in Willa's grasp. "Thad," she whispered, "it is Thad . . . gored . . . gored by the bull."

     Sally was already running for the barn and her horse, her red hair flying, her face set.

     "Where has he been gored, girl? Tell me!" Willa demanded.

     "Here," Aleja whispered, doubling over, her hand in her groin, "here."

Sally saw the dark-haired woman first, the she-creature who had taunted Thad. Of all the people gathered around him, it was that woman Sally saw first, her eyes flashing, as if hot from the pleasure of blood . . . the woman who had goaded him, had stung him . . . And Sally wanted to go at her, to rip her eyes out of her head. She wanted to pound the creature's terrible face into the earth, she wanted to choke off the air from her throat . . . Sally stood looking at her and she hated her more than ever she had hated another human, the sour body smells came rushing at her and Sally wanted to destroy her.

     And then she saw Thad, on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chest. She saw they had thrust a white shirt between his legs, and she watched the wide blotch of red grow, spread on the shirt. She stood looking down upon him, she felt herself swaying, she heard the woman's voice, soft now and thick with pity. "
Que lástima
," the creature sighed, "the
gringo's
manhood, gone."

Porter and Kit
1913–1922

SARA STRUGGLED WITH the cork, finally dislodging it from the champagne bottle with a loud whoosh which sent it ricocheting against the ceiling, only to come to rest in my lacy fern.

     "Aha!" she laughed as we thrust our glasses out to catch the bubbles. "Here's to us, together again." Then she settled herself comfortably on the rug in front of my fireplace and demanded that I catch her up, every detail.

     "It's been almost a year since the rodeo, and I've written you everything, you know . . ." I began.

     "Oh, the trouble with letters is always that the receiver can't ask questions. I much prefer the telephone. . .. I'll be glad when I can pick up the telephone in Paris and call you here in Los Angeles, then we can talk every . . ."

     "Talk! Are you mad, Sara? I can scarcely get used to the idea of speaking to someone across town . . ."

     She only laughed at me, and I had to smile myself, to think how caught up in all the new contraptions Sara was. She could drive a machine, and even knew some women who were flying airplanes.

     "I need to know what Sally is doing in Washington. And Thad, has there been no word at all? I know Willa has detectives looking for him, because they contacted me. And this house, what made you decide to buy it and move into Los Angeles . . . apart from the twins and school, that is. I know there has to be more to it than that."

     I held out my glass to be filled. "I might as well drink until you get through asking questions," I said, drily.

     "This is Soong's Promise, right?" she said, pouring, and I lifted my glass in answer and said, "To Soong, and the limit he put on my drinking."

     "I'll be sure to tell him how religiously you keep that promise," she answered. "He writes me, you know—the most remarkable letters. I'm saving them all . . . for Porter. But I think that someday I would like to have them published . . . with Soong's permission, of course."

     Her words warmed me.

     "The thought of him still lights your face," she said. "I must remember to tell him that."

     I stretched, as comfortable as always with my old friend. "I think you have just confirmed something that Soong was trying to explain to me," I told her. "The idea of his thoughts being published, that he is taking part in . . . well, in
history
. . ."

     "In the making of history," she gently corrected me.

     "Yes," I went on, "the idea of others coming to respect Soong, that pleases me."

     We were silent for a time, in front of the fire, each of us thinking our own thoughts. I shook myself finally, and started to tell her what I knew she would want to know. "It was Soong's wish that I move into town with the twins. I never told Willa that, and I suppose I would rather she not know."