Zia (7 page)

"You have worked much," I said to him.

"Done the hardest part. The rest is easier," Captain Nidever said.

"I came to see how big I must make the sail," I said.

Captain Nidever had a long string with marks on it, which he used for measuring. With it he measured the size of the sail. He cut off two pieces of string from a roll he had and gave them to me.

"One," he said, "the short one, is the width at the top and the other the width at the bottom. The sail will be almost square and the height about three times as tall as you are."

Rosa and Anita wanted to stay and watch Captain Nidever work, but the tide was coming in, so we left for home.

There was a trail to the Mission, but it was long and dusty and at this season of the year rattlesnakes came out to warm themselves. This was the time they were sluggish and did not like to run away. For that reason they were more dangerous, except in late spring when they shed their skins and were blind.

I think most of the rattlesnakes in California lived in our hills because the hills were so sunny. And all kinds lived there—some were the color of the brown manzanita bush and some the color of gray granite and some had dark diamonds on their backs.

They would always run away or try to hide, unless they were blind and sluggish; but I was scared when I saw one, like everyone else, even though I always felt sorry for them. It must be terrible, I thought, to be something that everyone fears and hates and tries to kill if they can.

We girls chose to walk along the shore, which is longer, but it was still light when we got home. I started to weave the sail that night. Rosa and Anita decided to help me, but I would rather have done the weaving alone. I really wanted to make the voyage to the island alone. Although I had never seen Karana I had a great love for her and I did not want to share it with anyone. I was very selfish when I was fourteen. I am still selfish but not so much.

Because Father Vicente had given us the afternoon to go to see Captain Nidever, we had to work extra. An hour that night in the kitchen and two hours in the morning making things that the Mission sold to Yankee traders, and again in the kitchen the next night.

It was two days, therefore, until we could work again on the reed and willow sail.

About a week later we finished it and took it to Captain Nidever. The sail would have fit perfectly except that he had decided to lessen the height, so we had to trim the edges and bind it with heavy cord.

Father Vicente went with us to talk to Captain Nidever.

"Do you think that it would help for me to go along?" Father Vicente asked Captain Nidever.

"Can you catch otter?" the captain asked.

"I am not a hunter," Father Vicente said. "But I can wield an oar. I have traveled the big river in Panama with a canoe."

"The sea and the river are different."

"They both have their problems," Father Vicente said. "Have you ever traveled a river where there are crocodiles everywhere? As far as you can see there are eyes watching you, bobbing up and down like corks, but watching?"

"That I haven't done, nor do I intend to," the captain said. "But I think we have a better chance of finding the girl if you go with us. Not so many otter, however. Do you want to go? We don't promise you anything, Father, but a rough voyage. The girl may not be on the island at all. The footprints could belong to someone else. Probably do, but we can make a try. Curt and I aren't going out there to chase around over the hills and rocks looking for a girl. We're going to catch otter. If you want to see if you can find her, it's all right with me."

"I will go. Now. Tomorrow. Whenever you wish," Father Vicente said.

I had always loved Father Vicente since I first came to the Mission, but never so much as I did now. He was a small, thin, young man, pale and not very strong. Why should he go many miles through the rough seas to an island of rocks and treacherous winds to search for a girl he had never seen? Why should he search for someone who might not even be alive or there on the island at all?

I asked him. "Father Vicente," I said, "why do you risk your life for a girl you have never seen?"

He squirmed around in his gray robe. "There is little risk. Captain Nidever is a good sailor. He has been to the island before."

"What if he cannot find it? What if he sails past the island and falls off where the ocean ends?"

"The ocean goes on and on, so he will not fall off."

Father Vicente did not want to explain why he was risking his life. "Your aunt must be lonely living there by herself for so many years," he said.

"Yes," I said. "I would not like to live alone."

"Without God," he added.

I said no more, knowing now why he was going far out to sea among reefs and high waves and wild winds.

Captain Nidever looked closely at Father Vicente and for a long time as if he were measuring the size of a piece of timber.

"We're going to the island for otter," he said. "We require space for the pelts we bring back. You look as if you'd take up little room, about as much as three full-grown otter, so I guess we can take you." He turned to his friend, Curt, who had come with a bucket of pitch. "What do you think?"

Curt said, "He can go in my place."

I guess Curt must have been joking because Captain Nidever laughed.

"Next week," the captain said, "if the good weather holds."

"I am ready any time," Father Vicente said. "Let me know the day before you leave."

"I would like to go, too," I said to Captain Nidever. "You told me once that you would think about it."

Captain Nidever replied, "I've thought. I've given it much thought. Many times."

I could tell by his words and by the way he said them that he had made up his mind.

"You could cook for us and use an oar if need be, but we lack room. There is no place for you in such a small boat."

I said no more. I could tell that he had never thought of taking me. But still I was happy that someone was going at last. Whether I could go or not mattered only to me.

Chapter 13

O
N
F
RIDAY
of the next week Captain Nidever came to the Mission and told Father Vicente to get his things ready for they would be leaving at sunrise.

"A small bottle of fresh water is about all you'll need," he said. "Maybe a strip or two of dried beef. And a heavy cloak and cowl. It won't hurt to bring a knife, too."

Everyone helped to get Father Vicente ready. Even Madre Enrica, who looked after the kitchen and the place where we all slept and did not like to work much, helped.

We found him a small olla that had a handle and would hold two gallons of water. We packed ten strips of dried venison, each strip a yard long, and wrapped each of them well. Anita and Rosa and I worked most of the night and knitted him a cowl that fitted his head tight and came down over his shoulders. We knitted it with red wool and put a tassel on top, so we could see him when he was still far off. We polished the best knife in the armory, the one that had a long, curved blade with an ivory handle. Father Vicente thanked us for our trouble, but did not take the knife with him.

Long before dawn I was awake and dressed and out on the beach. It was not long before most everyone was on the beach. The tide was low and we walked down to the Chumash village near Ventura. Father Vicente looked paler than he usually did. I guess he was thinking about getting seasick already.

Captain Nidever and Curt had dragged the boat to the water's edge and they stood waiting for us to come and help them. For some reason the Chumash did not offer to help them. I think it was because they were very religious people and did not think it right for white men to kill otter and sell the pelts to other white men. That is what was said, but I do not know.

The tide was out and the surf was coming in knee-deep, so we had no trouble pushing the boat into the water and beyond the small breakers.

Then while everyone shouted instructions to Father Vicente, Captain Nidever put up his square sail we had woven and the boat moved away to the west. It went very slow. For a long time I could see Father Vicente's cowl bobbing up and the red tassel waving in the wind.

When the boat had disappeared Gito Cruz, who was the
mayordomo
of the Santa Barbara Mission, motioned us to follow him and we went back to the bluff above the beach at Santa Barbara.

He turned around and faced the ocean and pointed. "
Mira,
" he said. "Look, and you will see the boat."

We all looked where he was pointing and to our surprise there was the boat again, the square sail and the three men.

"Why can we see the boat now but when we were on the beach it had disappeared?" my friend Rosa asked.

"Very
insignificante,
" said Gito Cruz, who liked to talk in Spanish and English both, often at the same time. "You see," he said, "the world is round like the orange. When we were there on the beach we could see a certain distance because the earth, being round like an orange, curves away from us as we look at it. But when we stand up here on the cliff we can see beyond the curve. Understand?"

He looked around to see that everyone knew what he was talking about and everyone nodded to let him know they understood. I nodded my head also, although I did not understand about the world being round.

"If we go higher," he said, "if we climb up in the belfry, we will be able to see them when they are even farther away than they are now. Understand?"

Yes, everyone understood. They understood him much better than I did.

I went into the Mission and to Father Vicente's favorite chapel and knelt down and prayed for him. I prayed that he would reach the island without being too seasick and that he would find Karana and, although he would have to sail uphill when he came back—if Gito was right about the world being shaped like an orange—he would bring Karana back safely.

After that they sent us back to work to make up for all the time we had lost on the boat and on Father Vicente. The girls went to the looms and the men into the fields. We all worked hard and two hours longer than usual to make up for the time we had lost.

Before dusk I climbed to the belfry, which was against the rules, and looked out to the west. I had a clear view of the sea because the Mission sat on a hill, but I saw nothing except water stretching away and away and lots of waves with white crests moving shoreward on the west wind.

That night the thought came to me, as it had before: What if the men found Karana on the island and brought her back with them to the Mission and she did not like the Mission, nor her new life, nor us? She would be used to her own ways on the island, doing what she wanted and living as she wanted to live. When she came to the Mission, she would no longer be able to do those things. She would have to live as I lived and all the Indians lived, in the way the Father Superior wanted us to.

It was a strange thought. It made me unhappy and kept me from going to sleep.

Chapter 14

E
VERYONE SAID
we would have a good spring so Gito Cruz decided to plant early melons. The Mission had a small valley about half a league to the east that was surrounded by hills of rich soil and protected from the wind.

It was here he took us when the boat had gone and we had eaten our breakfast. Usually only the men went to plant melons, but we had sickness at the Mission that year. (Since the Yankees began to come there was much sickness that the Mission did not have before.) But this time, because of a sickness, which they called measles, the girls had to help in the fields.

The soil in the valley was rich, as I have said, and because it was sheltered it was hot, which is good for the growing of melons, but not for working.

The
mayordomo
laid out straight lines with a string and a team of oxen pulled a plow along beside the string. This made every row straight. Gito was a clever young man about many things and he raised the best melons of any of the Missions.

Rosa and I were working together, planting the seeds stored from the year before, making small holes and dropping seeds into them. At melon planting time Mando always had fishing to do. He was now with some gringos fishing south along the coast. He liked anyone who fished, gringos or not.

We did it carefully because if the seed was not planted properly it would not sprout. Gito always went down the rows about three weeks after the planting and if he found places where the seeds had not sprouted, he got very angry and made us plant them again.

He came up now as Rosa and I were working. It is hard work, stooping over that way—up and down, up and down—in the hot sun. He was carrying an olla of cold water and he passed it to us.

When we had finished drinking, he said, "It is a hot day,
verdad?
"

"True," I answered, "it is hot."

"But the sun is good for the seeds,
verdad?
"

"True," I said.

He took a drink from the olla and wiped his mouth with the corner of the handkerchief he wore around his neck. Gito always dressed well. Even when he was working, he wore clean shirts and handkerchiefs and boots with stitches on them.

"The sun is good for the melons," he said, "but not for those who plant them."

Neither Rosa nor I said anything.

"It is hard work for girls," he said. "It is harder work than the looms. Do you not agree?"

"Harder, yes," Rosa said.

"I do not like the idea of girls working in the field," he said.

I knew what the
mayordomo
was coming to, but I did not show that I knew.

Gito Cruz had come to the Mission two years before. He was the son of a man who was the chief of a small tribe that lived about ten leagues north of the Mission. Gito did much grumbling when he first came to the Mission, I was told, so the fathers made him a
mayordomo.
He felt this was a position more fitting to the son of a chief.

But Gito still grumbled after he became a
mayordomo.
I knew from other times that he was getting ready to grumble now.