Treasure of the Sun (9 page)

An immense bed with carved headboard and footboard dominated one corner of the room. She had sewn the quilt in B0sston and transported it in her marriage trunk. A free-standing mirror stood beside it, and a comfortable chair sat against the opposite wall in the shadows. In the beginning of her sojourn here, she'd spent many hours curled in that chair, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the wall. Her need for solitude and security had faded, and now the chair stood alone.

She'd never found a place where she felt more at home. With a sigh for passing time, she threaded her needle with sturdy black thread and plunged it into the sleeve.

Laughter below attracted her attention, and she twisted in her seat. From up here she could see them all The Berretos, the Rios, the Alavarados sang the bawdy kind of song that brought forth those bursts of laughter. The Garcias swayed together in a circle, their arms wrapped around each others' shoulders. Mariano Vallejo of Sonoma was here, passing through on his way home from Monterey. He formed the center of a serious group of men who discussed California politics and tried to decide California's fate.

The Valverdes weren't laughing. They were there en masse, glaring across the room at the del Reals, and Katherine wondered when the fight would erupt. They'd been snarling since the day they arrived, and no one seemed to think it out of the ordinary. The guests seemed to think it more extraordinary that they hadn't been fighting. What had Don Damian said? He'd been keeping them so entertained they hadn't done battle.

Weakly she heard the call, "Don Damian!" and an irresistible curiosity pushed her forward to peer below.

"Don Damian! Don Damian!"

Damian cursed to himself. He didn't want to speak to anyone right now. Anger still raced through his veins and coiled in his belly. He wanted, very badly, to take Mr. Smith out and beat him bloody. To restrain himself-and as host, restrain himself he must-he wanted to leave this fiesta and all of his nosy, well-meaning friends. He wanted to saddle his wildest, most bad-tempered stallion and ride until both of them were exhausted.

"Don Damian!"

He ignored her, hoping to gain refuge in the stables. At least in the stables, his friends confined their comments on his love life to a few whinnies and neighs.

"Don Damian!"

What a fool he was to think Vietta would ever give up. She was like a bulldog with jaws that clamped tight and never released. Whatever she set her mind to, she would attain. Schooling himself to patience, he turned. Seeing Vietta's eager face as she hurried, her painful limp as she struggled towards him, he reproached himself. What manner of beast could be so cruel as to ignore Vietta? After her accident last year, she'd been reduced to waiting for life to come to her. How could he forget their friendship in the pain of love?

The thought of his new love sent his mind veering back into fury. How dare Katherine try to leave him? How dare she suggest she'd be better off in Boston than in his arms? Didn't she know, even yet, that he would move heaven and earth to keep her at his side?

Vietta's hand shyly touched his sleeve, then tugged at it, and he started when he realized she had caught up with him. "Aren't you glad to see me?" she asked in pouting bewilderment. "You're frowning."

He rearranged his lips into a smile. "Vietta." He patted her hand. "I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else. How's my dear friend?"

She giggled like a silly girl, which she wasn't. She was his elder by six months, past the thirty-second birthday that loomed before him.

"Damian, I've hardly had a chance to speak to you this whole fiesta." One of her hazel eyes winked in a parody of flirtation, and .his pained gaze roamed over the milling crowd. How could she tease him? Didn't she know what was obvious to everyone else?

Vietta wasn't pretty, he supposed, but she wasn't as ill favored as some of the women who were her age, and married. She spoke in a deep, rich voice. One of his friends said she sounded as if she were the madam of a bordello and knew every trick in the book. Everyone had laughed, but it was true. Her voice, by itself, inspired fantasies of lust. Unfortunately, the voice was only an extension of her height.

She had grown too tall, looking many of his friends in the eye.

Her lips were every man's dream. Lush, moist and pouting, they made a man think of long, slow kisses on a hot, summer night. But her black hair made a man think of a hot summer day. It clung to her head when she perspired, and she seemed to perspire all the time.

Her complexion was the most marvelous alabaster, pure and transparent as a baby's skin. But she sunburned whenever she set foot out of the house, and so she stayed within. To read, she said, but the horse-worshiping Californios didn't understand that. She'd acquired a stoop from the books she devoured, and the books had given her knowledge and a vast conceit to go with it.

So she'd never had a real suitor.

Vietta's tug at his arm was stronger this time, a sharp pinch, and he brought his attention once more to her. "I'm sorry, I thought I heard one of the servants call to me."

“Your housekeeper?" she asked tartly.

Ah. She did know. Life hadn't been easy for Vietta. She was a poor, landless spinster. If bitterness tinged her attitude from time to time, he was man enough to ignore it.

"Your leg is better?"

"So much better. I have little pain, except when I try to run."

She winced, and guilt ripped through him. He put his arm around her waist and led her towards the laughing group of men and women who congregated around the benches under the trees. "I don't want to go there," she objected, tweaking his arm. "I only want to be with you."

He gently insisted. "You can sit and rest your leg, and we can talk to our friends."

"Your friends," she murmured.

The truth of it struck him; why didn't any of his friends like her? He pretended he- hadn't heard, knowing they would we1come her for his sake.

The women made a place for Vietta on the bench, voicing their concern for her injury but with no regard for her replies. All their attention strained to hear the men as they closed on Damian.

Damian's turbulence faded as he looked around at the smirking faces of his friends. How they loved to see him squirm in the agony of love. How they enjoyed teasing him. Like interrogators facing a stubborn criminal, they thrust a long-legged stool beneath his knees and knocked his feet out from beneath him. They leaned forward in anticipation and Damian relaxed. He needed his wits about him. He would sharpen them on Alejandro and Rico and Hadrian and Julio, and any of the rest who dared ruffle his feathers.

Especially Julio de Casillas. His gaze shifted to the sharp restless face of his dearest friend, his greatest rival, his most fearsome enemy. Julio hung back, examining his fingernails as if he hadn't the slightest interest in seeing Damian roasted slowly over the coals of mockery. That, Damian knew, was untrue. Since the day when they toddled about in dresses, Damian and Julio had competed in every way possible. Sometimes Damian had won, sometimes Julio, but always they struggled.

For all their unholy delight at his predicament, he knew he could trust his friends. Never by word or deed had they displayed to Katherine their knowledge of his love. They treated her with affection and sought to know her because they understood, even if she didn't, that soon she'd be one of their group.

He deflected their arrows once more, saved his own hide once more, provided entertainment Once more. In a flash, he realized Vietta wasn't a member of the group, and he stood to look for her.

Over the heads of the men, he saw her sitting on the bench where he'd left her. She'd said nothing as they'd joked. She hadn't joined them. Yet there was nothing pathetic about her loneliness. Her back was ramrod straight, her fingers intertwined. Her gaze travelled over each member of the society that ignored her, and he thought she noted them with a kind of satisfaction.

From beyond the crowd, Mariano Vallejo hailed him.

“Damian, look who's come to visit."

Damian craned his neck and saw the dapper Mariano accompanying a stout blond man. Damian gave a shout. "Gundersheimer! Mi amigo, what are you doing here? Mariano, where did you find this fellow?"

"I was out at the stables and there he was." Mariano's broad face beamed, the whiskers that grew across his cheeks bristling.

“I invited him out when I met him in Monterey, so I’ve been watching for him." 

''Good for you, Mariano. Gundersheimer, let's get you a drink and a seat." Circling the group, Damian embraced the dusty fellow.

"Thank you." Gundersheimer sank down on the proffered seat and accepted the water pressed on him. With hearty goodwill, he drained the gourd and wiped his hand across his mouth "Very good." A glass of beer found its way into his hand. Settling down, he grinned at Damian. "Now I can talk."

"How are things in Nueva Helvetia, and how's my old friend Captain Sutter?"

"He is well and sends his greetings. I traveled to Monterey to oversee the unloading of our goods off a Yankee ship." He nodded pleasantly. "Now I return. When will we see you back in the Sacramento Valley?"

"After I settle my affairs here."

Damian's words brought groans and laughter from his guests and he bit his lip when he realized how his unthinking comment had been interpreted. His rude and explicit gesture did nothing but bring more merriment.

Gundersheimer watched with bright eyes and Damian said "I shouldn't introduce these tactless folks to you, but for your own ease, I offer them. This is Godart Gundersheimer," Damian told them as they one by one accepted Gundersheimer handshake, "a legal adviser for Captain Sutter. He's a neighbor of mine at my rancho in the Sacramento Valley."

"Can't you convince this fool to move back to civilization?"

Julio drawled. "He's spending all his time in the interior, up by the mountains, and depriving us of his company. It's not safe, with the wild Indians who kill for the pleasure of it."

"No,” Gundersheimer said. "I come to tell him to return."

"Why?" Damian asked with alarm. "Is there a problem?"

Gundersheimer scratched his ear. "That American is back."

"Which American?" Bewildered, Damian stared at the uncomfortable German.

"That .... that bullyboy. That Fremont."

Damian's brows twitched together. "He's back?"

"Yah, in December."

"Oh, Fremont," Mariano said, disgust rife in his voice. "Now there's a character."

Gundersheimer took a swallow of his beer as if it would wash the bad taste out of his mouth. "I'll tell you. Captain Sutter wasn't there. Fremont gave Bidwell a list of supplies he wanted, just like the Fort was a storehouse. It wasn't cheap stuff, either sixteen mules he wanted! Packsaddles and flour, too. Things have been tight at the Fort, and when Bidwell couldn't fill Fremont's order, he threw a tantrum. Well, Bidwell buckled under and Fremont got almost all he wanted. Food. Fourteen mules we could ill afford to lose, and we shod them for him."

Mariano said, "That's generous of you."

"That's not all. He left for a month and when he came back, Captain Sutter was there to welcome him. Fremont was much more pleasant to the Captain." The man nodded vigorously. "Much more pleasant to the Captain than to the peons."

Mariano asked, "Where is he now?"

"He took Captain Sutter's schooner down the Sacramento River. Went to Yerba Buena, went to Monterey, visited with all the officials and gave them some cock-and-bull story about how his trip was in the interests of science and Commerce. About how he was surveying the nearest route from the United States to the Pacific Ocean." He sniffed in disdain. "If they believe that, they're dunces of the first water."

"I know the officials in Monterey." Mariano smiled, drawing on his knowledge of area politics. "General Jose Castro, the comandante, can be quick to temper. I didn't always agree with Alvarado's dictates when he was governor. But it would be ill advised to assume they are dunces. What is Senor John Fremont doing that you doubt his word?"

"He’s got-“ Gundersheimer squinted towards the westering sun as he tried to figure "-sixty men in his party. They're all trappers and shooters."

"Shooters!" Damian said.

"Yah. Just to show off, one of them shot a vulture out of the sky by breaking one wing. You know-shooters."

"Marksmen." Damian looked thoughtful. "Do the officials believe Fremont came for science?"

Alejandro elbowed his way forward. "No one believes anything this Fremont says. His men insulted the family of Don Angel Castro. They insisted their daughter drink with them. They are drunkards and thieves. They don't act like guests in a foreign country. They act like they own the country."