Savage Enchantment (5 page)

How does one mark the passage of days, weeks? For Kathleen it was a time of respite. The sunny days passed to the drumming of hooves, the squeak of saddle leather, the jangle of spurs' rowels; and the evenings to the melody of soft voices and the strum of guitars shining in the moonlight.

Only in the deep hush of night did she still suffer. Few nights passed that she was not plagued by the same nightmare. The same lithe body to crush her, to possess her, to smother the last breath from her. And when the earring gleamed in her dreams like a coiling copper snake, Kathleen would awake with screams of horror trembling on her lips and perspiration running in rivulets down her body.

But with the dawn her nightmares dispersed, ushering in another perfect Mediterranean-like day at the hacienda. Hidden away in the Valle del Bravo -- Valley of the Brave -- the hacienda kept the world at bay. The sun-dried adobe house with its encircling veranda and red-tiled roof was nestled among wild orange trees, scented peach orchards, lime groves, and date palms. And everywhere grew the fragrant hibiscus, oleander, and bougainvillea.

Though more than a hundred people lived on the rancho -- including cousins, aunts, and nephews of the workers -- there was never the frenzied rushing that Kathleen associated with Boston. Rather there pervaded an atmosphere of indolent tranquility.

In spite of the people who came for their lessons each afternoon at the grape arbor -- carpenters, tanners, house servants, and vaqueros -- Kathleen felt a loneliness that sometimes pierced her through. For those Mexicans and Indians who could neither read nor write held the
maestra,
or tutor, in awe. Hidden behind the thick spectacles, she appeared to the students who sat at her feet, beneath the shade of the grapevines, more a person of neuter gender than a woman.

Only Diego, an old leather-jacket soldier, saw Kathleen for what she really was -- a lonely young woman. As majordomo of the hacienda since the death of Andrew King some twenty years earlier, he saw and knew everything. He spent the long, warm days sitting on a hard bench on the veranda. The bench stood next to the kitchen door, and, amidst the clucking of the chickens and the barking of the yard dogs, Diego listened to the gossip of the household servants. The brown, wrinkled face beneath the thatch of white hair would smile in secret amusement as the cook, Maria Jesus, chased her grandson from the pies cooling in the kitchen or would grow nostalgic as he overheard the vaquero Julio whisper flirtatious words to plump Amelia, one of the house servants.

So it was Diego's bench Kathleen naturally sought, after her teaching duties were completed. Sometimes they talked of days past; sometimes they only sat in companionable silence. But many times Kathleen wished to ask bony Diego what he knew of Simon Reyes.

Yet a perverse reluctance kept her from doing so. She rarely saw the haughty
patrón
of Valle del Bravo, but when she did, there was something about him that never failed to infuriate her. Maybe it was the sardonic curve of the lean lips. Or the way the slashed brow raised in mocking amusement whenever their eyes happened to meet.

She was therefore glad that Simon rode out every day, dressed in leather britches and a worn cotton shirt like the other vaqueros; she was glad to be rid of his unsettling presence.

However, this ended with the advent of the spring festivities. These gay celebrations sometimes went on for a week at a time, often moving from one rancho to the next. Each family competed to display the most bountiful table, the most gracious hospitality. Peace, gaiety, harmony -- a pastoral paradise.

And Kathleen was introduced to this idyllic life through the avid curiosity of the Southern California populace.

"Qué?
A woman tutor?" cried Doña Arcadia, the wife of the richest man in California -- and the ugliest -- the horse-faced Don Abel Stearns. "You must bring her, Simon!"

"Una mujer norteamericana, mi amigo?"
Don Pio Pico, the ex-
gobernador
exclaimed. "I have to see the young woman," he told Simon, his fierce gray mustache quivering beneath his large, aristocratic nose.

"So you see," Simon explained to Kathleen in the privacy of his study, "good manners require that I present you at the next fiesta."

Kathleen tore her gaze from the shelves of bound volumes --
Don Quixote ... Laws of the Indies ... Gil Blas
-- confused to find that the Texas scout should have such an education. But then perhaps the books had belonged to the previous owner of Valle del Bravo, Doña Delores. Yet somehow she doubted it.

Returning her attention to Simon, who stood looking out the grilled window, his hands jammed in his pants pockets, Kathleen said crisply, "I was somehow under the impression that you were not one to bother with good manners."

Simon turned with a laugh of pure amusement. "You got to permit an uncouth ranchero his black moods, Kathleen," he said with a wry grin. "But no, it's very important that the good manners of Valle del Bravo never be questioned."

Kathleen was tempted to inquire further, but Simon went on, his relaxed attitude once more replaced by cool, clipped words:

"You'll need something more ... oh, festive."

He nodded at the heavy woolen gown she wore, one of the few gowns she had. It was formerly the cook Amanda's, and was more suitable to New England's cold climate than the semitropical weather of California.

"I'm afraid I've nothing fitting for a party, Señor Reyes."

"Simon," he said with exasperation. "Well then, have one of the Indian girls make something up for you. Show them what you want. You know more about that than I do," he said impatiently.

It was one of black silk and ivory lace. And when the gown was finished, it accomplished just the opposite of what Kathleen had planned -- attracting the attentive eye of every person at the fiesta of Don Pedro and Doña Lucia Escandón, the relatives the Castilian couple at the mission had spoken of to Kathleen.

Kathleen had meant to appear matronly, but the lovely apricot skin and shimmering gold tresses against the background of the brilliant black gown had just the reverse effect. Only the thick, distorting spectacles spoiled the perfection of Kathleen's appearance.

The fiesta, which was to begin before noon and last for two days, drew neighboring families separated by distances of hundreds of miles or more. In that Mexican province which revered the horse, no one came by buckboard or buggy. Corpulent duennas, sober matrons, flippant belles -- they all rode sidesaddle. And the men, from youths to grandfathers, proudly rode in advance of the women.

Kathleen dressed in a russet riding habit, rode astride Estrellita, with fat Maria Jesus at her side, weighting down a bony burro. The cook, whose flat, dour face made her the perfect duenna for Kathleen, was one of the few Californios who did not take to the four-footed animal as a means of transportation. In one hand she clutched the burro's reins while with the other she told her rosary, mumbling beseechments with each obsidian bead.

The Escandón rancho was some twenty-five miles from Valle del Bravo. Twenty-five miles of juniper and chaparral, mountain creeks and lily-pad-filled lagoons. Twenty-five miles that passed quickly, as Simon talked casually of the Californios Kathleen would meet.

He told her of old Juan Bandini, whose performance of the decorous fandango was th ehigh point of any fiesta; and of the American Henry Fitch, who had run off with Josefa Carrillo to Chile.

"The most dramatic elopement in California," Simon said, smiling.

"Why?"

"It seems the flinty American had been courting Josefa for three years. There they were at the altar, when there's brought an edict banning their marriage. Issued by none other than the governor, Echeandia -- Josefa's spurned suitor."

Kathleen was delighted with the story -- and at the same time somewhat amazed at the unseen humorous side of Simon. "Tell me more," she prompted.

"You may meet another American -- Cave Johnson Couts. His wife Ysidora, a daughter of Bandini, fell into her husband-to-be's arms when she was watching his column of cavalry from her roof and the railing gave way."

Then he told Kathleen of the leading merchant in Monterey, Thomas Larkin, whose wife would soon give birth to the first fully American baby born in the California province and would therefore be unable to attend the fiesta. "An American woman," he said, "is as rare here as the white buffalo. There are only
yanqui
husbands seeking Mexico's daughters."

"All the more reason why you should keep me as your tutor," Kathleen told him. "I'm an oddity."

Simon laughed aloud. "That's something I've found out for myself."

The hours flew by with Simon's stories of the Californios who would be at the fiesta. But never did he once speak of the host and hostess's beauteous daughter, Francesca.

By the time they arrived, the guests were having their midday feast at tables set out in the gardens or on blankets spread beneath the trees. Kathleen's mind spun with the long, difficult names of those she was presented to, many of them requiring the Castilian lisp to pronounce correctly.

Simon seemed to find it amusing when Doña Lucia at once cornered her, demanding to know of the latest fashion in the United States.

"Not nearly so femine as your lace mantillas and high-backed Spanish combs," she told the pompous matron politely.

But when Kathleen turned back to Simon, she found he had abandoned her to talk with a gentleman who still wore his graying hair clubbed at his neck with a ribbon, a style that had gone out a decade earlier.

"That's the Lord of the North, Mariano Vallejo," a woman with warm brown eyes and a friendly smile said, joining Kathleen. "All his daughters are married to American men.

"Which is all the more reason for Vallejo to join us, Doña Arcadia," the man at her side said, his heavy jowls quivering with anger. "If Vallejo listens much longer to that damned Sutter, we won't stand a chance against Micheltorena!"

"José!" Doña Arcadia said warningly, and hastened to present Kathleen to the ex-general of California, José Castro.

Well, you can't ignore the fact," the man said indigantly, after the introductions were made. "The Californios are suffering under Micheltorena -- Santa Anna's puppet!"

Warming up to his subject, the general rocked back and forth on his heels as he continued his tirade. "And Micheltorena knows we want him removed. It's no secret. What's more, if there were a separation of the political and military commands, there wouldn't be such discontent among the Californios!"

His diatribe on California politics would have continued indefinitely had not Doña Arcadia rescued Kathleen, saying it was time for the siesta. "A voluble man, but a brilliant general," she said with a smile as she led Kathleen to the room that had been assigned her.

Kathleen had not yet become accustomed to the siesta, the hour which promised to make a young woman's eyes more brilliant by candlelight but unfortunately also brought about matronliness. During this hour the women gathered in the spacious
recameras,
the bedrooms, which were cool and dim after the hours of untempered sunlight, and gossiped of the day's flirtations.

For a while Kathleen talked with the woman she shared the bedroom with, Anita de la Guerra, who, although only twenty-five, had been married for eleven years to the American shipping agent at Santa Barbara, Alfred Robinson. But after a while, Anita grew drowsy and dozed off.

Unable to sleep, Kathleen used the hour to freshen herself. She was sitting before the marble-topped bureau, repairing her wilted hairdo, when a girl of no more than sixteen or seventeen years entered. Small in height, she was elegantly dressed in black lace and yellow silk, with a high-backed comb of black pearls securing the heavy ebony tresses.

Her jet eyes flashed at Kathleen.
"Perdóneme,"
she said. "I have the wrong bedroom."

"That's quite all right," Kathleen replied to the girl's image in the mirror, an image that was both seductive and innocent -- one that Kathleen imagined would lose its appeal with age.

"I am Doñanita Francesca Escandón," the girl announced imperiously.

"My name is Kathleen Summers." What did the girl want?

"You are Simon's little tutor?"

"I work for him."

Francesca stood in the doorway a moment longer, her curiosity clearly not satisfied, unable to think of any further excuse for remaining.
"Con su permiso,"
she said finally, with pouting lips,a nd closed the door.

Kathleen breathed a sign of relief with Francesca's departure, knowing instinctively that the girl disliked her sharing the same household with Simon.

She smiled faintly at the girl's naïveté. If Francesca could but know of the contemptuous indifference with which Simon held his tutoress ...

That evening, as the stars came out, fires were lit and the guests dined on barbequed beef, corn griddle-cakes, a thick soup with meatballs and red peppers in it, and the
vino del país.
Later the older guests retired to the benches to tell stories while the younger ones danced to the gay music of guitars and violins.

Feeling, as a tutor, not quite a part of the grandee class, Kathleen remained in the shadows watching, observing. During the intervals between the dances she saw Francesca flirting with the admiring
caballeros,
tapping one on the shoulder reprovingly with her jeweled fan or laughing gaily at another's whispered words.

Tiring of them, she danced more and more with a handsome black-haired man who seemed to have eyes only for her. Kathleen thought she recognized the man from the mission.

"That's Dimitri Karamazan, isn't it?" she asked Doña Arcadia.

"Sí.
It is said that he decided to remain in California when his countrymen gave up their settlement at Fort Ross."

But apparently Francesca grew weary of trying her newly found feminine powers on Domitri, for Kathleen watched the girl's eyes rove longingly in the direction of Simon, who had been engaged in deep conversation with various men the entire evening.