Carlota Read online

  The first time I had dived and brought up a handful of coins, I said to my father that we should empty both the chests and take the coins home.

  "Then everyone would talk," Don Saturnino said. "As soon as they saw the gold coins the news would spread the length of California."

  "We don't need to tell anyone. I can hide them in my chest at home."

  "The news would fly out before the sun set. At the ranch there are many eyes."

  I still thought it was a better idea to empty the chests before someone else did, but I could see that my father enjoyed these days, when the two of us went to the Blue Beach, so I said no more.

  The sun was overhead and its rays slanted down through the narrow crevice. There were many pieces of debris on the deck and I had to step carefully. With my knife I pried loose a handful of coins. They were of a dark green color and speckled here and there with small barnacles. I set the coins aside.

  My lungs were beginning to hurt, but I had not felt the tug of the riata yet, the signal from my father that I had been down three minutes. I pried loose a second handful and put my knife away. Before the tug came I dropped my sink-stone and took up the coins. Gold is very heavy, much heavier than stones of the same size.

  Fish were swimming around me as I went up through the hole of rocks and tree trunks, but I saw no sting rays or eels. I did see a shark lying back on a ledge, but he was small and gray, a sandshark, which is not dangerous.

  On my third trip down, I hauled up about the same number of coins as the other times. The pouch we had brought was now full. I asked my father if we had enough.

  "Are you tired?" he said.

  "Yes, a little."

  "Can you go down again?"

  "Yes."

  "Then go."

  I dived twice more. It was on the last dive that I had the trouble. The tug on the riata had not come, but I was tired, so I started away from the chest with one handful of coins. Close to the chests, between them and the hole, I had noticed what seemed to be two pieces of timber covered with barnacles. They looked as if they might be part of a third and larger-chest.

  I still held my knife and I thrust it at a place where the two gray timbers seemed to join. It was possible that I had found another chest filled with coins.

  As the knife touched them, the two timbers moved a little. Instantly, I felt pressure upon my wrist. I drew back the hand that held the knife. Rather, I tried to draw it back, but it would not move. The tide had shifted the timbers somehow and I was caught. So I thought.

  I felt a tug upon the riata fastened to my waist. It was the signal from my father to come to the surface. I answered him with two quick tugs of the leather rope.

  Now I felt a hot pain run up my arm. I tried to open my fingers, to drop the knife, but my hand was numb. Then as I stared down into the murky water I saw a slight movement where my hand was caught. At the same moment I saw a flash of pink, a long fleshy tongue sliding along my wrist.

  I had never seen a burro clam, but I had heard the tales about them, for there were many on our coast. Attached to rocks or timbers, they grew to half the height of a man, these gray, silent monsters. Many unwary fishermen had lost their lives in the burros' jaws.

  The pain in my arm was not so great now as the hot pains in my chest. I gave a long, hard tug on the riata to let my father know that I was in trouble. Again I saw a flash of pink as the burro opened its lips a little, and the fat tongue slid back and forth.

  I dropped the coins I held in my other hand. The burro had closed once more on my wrist. But shortly it began to open again, and I felt a sucking pressure, as if the jaws were trying to draw me inside the giant maw.

  Putting my knees against the rough bulge of the shell, as the jaws opened and then began to close, I jerked with all my strength. I fell slowly backward upon the ship's deck. My hand was free. With what breath I had I moved toward the hole. I saw the sun shining above and climbed toward it. The next thing I saw was my father's face and I was lying on the river's sandy bank. He took my knife in his hand.

  After I told him what had happened, my father said, "The knife saved your life. The burro clamped down upon it. See the mark here. The steel blade kept its jaws open. Enough to let you wrench yourself free."

  He pulled me to my feet and I put on my leather pants and coat.

  "Here," he said, passing the reins of his bay gelding to me, "ride Santana. He goes gentler than Tiburón."

  "I'll ride my own horse," I said.

  "Good, if you wish it."

  "I wish it," I said, knowing that he didn't want me to say that my hand was numb.

  "Does the hand hurt?"

  "No."

  Some?

  "No."

  "You were very brave," he said.

  My father wanted me to be braver than I was. I wanted to say I was scared, both when the burro had hold of me and now, at this moment, but I didn't because he expected me to be as brave as Carlos. It was at times like this that I was angry at my father and at my dead brother, too.

  "It was good fortune," I said.

  "Fortune and bravery often go together," Don Saturnino said. "If you do not hurt, let us go."

  I got on the stallion and settled myself in the saddle. "Yes, let us go," I said, though I could not grip the reins well with but one hand.

  On the way home we talked about the pouchful of coins and my father decided to sell them in San Diego. The first coins he had sold in Los Angeles to a gringo trader.

  "The gringo was curious about where I got them," he said. "Too curious to suit my fancy."

  "What did you say to him?" I asked.

  "I said that the coins had been in the family for many years. He looked at them for a long time. He turned them over and over. He was curious about the green spots on the coins. He said the coins must have been in the sea at some time. I told him that it was likely, since my grandfather was a captain of the sea."

  "I didn't know that my great-grandfather was a captain of the sea."

  "He was not," Don Saturnino said, and laughed. "We will try San Diego this time. Doña Dolores has invited the countryside, so we will need to make a good bargain. We will need to buy two barrels of aguardiente because all the Peraltas possess legs that are hollow. Some of the Bandinis and one or two of the Borregos, especially Don Alfonso Borrego, are hollow likewise."

  My father also liked to drink the fiery aguardiente.

  "And we'll have music?" I said.

  "Much music. And not from Dos Hermanos. We will search and find the best from everywhere. We will make the Peraltas envious. And all the rest. We will dance for two days and not pause except to fortify ourselves."

  We came to the brow of the hill that lies between Dos Hermanos and the sea. Below us, in front of the big gate of our half-house, half-fort, fires were burning in pits the Indians had dug. The fires would burn for three days, until the night before the wedding. Then a thick layer of ashes would be sprinkled over the coals, and slabs of beef, half a cow, each wrapped in heavy wet cloth would be laid on the beds and covered with earth. The slabs would cook and steam all night and most of the next day. Already I was hungry, thinking about the tender meat.

  My father said, "Are you pleased that it is Yris who marries the Peralta?"

  "Yes, very pleased," I said.

  "You have no regrets?"

  "None."

  "Someday I will hunt and find you a suitable young man. He will likely come from the North, where the young men, I hear, are more handsome than here in the South. And we will have a wedding such as no one has seen before. Would that please you?"

  "When do you hunt for the young man?" I asked.

  "Soon. Very soon. Not later than next spring. It may take some time before I find him, of course. Perhaps a year or so."

  "Of course," I said, having a deep misgiving about my father and this search.

  "Handsome young men of good character do not grow upon trees. Yet I will look throughout California, from one end to the other. If
I do not find him here I will look elsewhere, even in faraway Spain."

  My hand hurt and that made things worse. But I was fortunate. I could have been back there on the rotting deck of the galleon, in the grip of the giant burro clam. I could be lying drowned beneath the waves. Or I could be at home, like Yris, getting ready to marry Don Roberto.

  6

  The weather was fine and the wedding guests came from all directions. They came in carretas drawn by oxen, on horseback with dogs at their heels, young and old, dressed in silver and brocades. The women smelled of perfume and the men's hair shone with bear grease.

  By noon the hitching rack outside the big gate was full and we built another. Carts fanned out across the mesa. We had room in the house for thirty-two, about a fourth of the guests. The others raised colored tents around the house. In all, Dona Dolores had invited one hundred and twenty. All came, and many besides who were not invited.

  Yris wore a dress of fine white muslin with knots of pink flowers around the hem. Her skin was pale because she never went out without a parasol when the sun was shining. She also wore a lot of white powder, which she had bought from a gringo trading ship. In her pale skin and white powder and pink and white dress, she looked like a delicious dessert, like one of the sugary buñelos that Anita, the cook, made.

  Yris said to me, "I hope you aren't put out because I am marrying first. He is a fine and wonderful man."

  "He is, and he is also the best horseman in the countryside," I said, thinking about a white gelding he owned, which I would like to trade a brood mare for when the wedding was over and he was my brother-in-law. Thinking, too, how fortunate it was that I would not need to wait on him as his obedient wife. "No, Yris, I am only envious of you."

  "I am glad you do not mind," said Yris, looking at her hands. "It will be good to be mistress in my own household." She raised her eyes to the spot where Doña Dolores sat welcoming the guests, and it struck me stronger than ever how difficult it must have been for her, being, as she was, the daughter of my father's unlucky second wife.

  Don Roberto wore his hair in the furioso style, pushed up in front and long on the sides. His jacket was made of black velvet tricked out with silver braid and large silver buttons. His trousers were split up the sides, and when he walked you could see flashes of red. I crossed myself. I thanked the Virgin Mary that it was Yris, and not I, Don Roberto was marrying.

  Our chapel would hold only half of those who wanted to see the wedding, so it was held outside, by the corral. Father Barones came from Santa Ysabel to read the service. He was an old man and spoke in a quavering voice that no one could hear.

  "Just as well," my grandmother hissed in my ear. "It is likely the wrong passage that he is reading, from the Bible. When you are married, I will send to San Gabriel for Father Justo."

  The musicians played many tunes during the wedding. There were five men and they played three guitars and two violas. When the wedding was over and one of the barrels of aguardiente was empty, everyone hurried down to the pits, where the cooks had uncovered the slabs of meat and placed them upon trestles.

  My grandmother poured herself a handful of salt and dipped her meat into it. She always seemed to like the salt better than the beef. I think she ate the meat to enjoy the salt. Father Barones took some of the beans, some tortillas, and a scoop of chile and a slice of the beef. Then with his knife he stirred all the food together, round and round, before he spooned it up.

  "He is very religious," my grandmother said. "He thinks it is a sin to eat good food, so he makes it look like something else."

  I heaped my platter and ate where I couldn't watch Father Barones. The beef was tender and sweet on the tongue.

  In the afternoon, after a long siesta, everyone gathered on the mesa for horse racing and sports. I rode to the mesa on my gelding, Sixto, following my grandmother in her silk-lined carreta. Tiburón was too much for me to manage. My swollen hand still would not grip the reins. I could manage the gelding with spurs alone, but not the stallion, who required a heavy Spanish bit as well.

  My grandmother said, "The way you are dressed you must plan to ride in the races."

  I had on a deerskin shirt dyed blue and deerskin trousers and blue-stitched boots. I wanted to wear a pretty dress with ruffles, which Doña Dolores had bought for me from a Yankee trading ship, but my father said I looked better in trousers than I did in a dress. I didn't like this remark very much.

  Doña Dolores gave up, saying, "The harm is already done. By now everyone knows Carlota de Zubarán. A little more cannot hurt." She dabbed at her eyes and gave a little sniff.

  I did promise her that I would not go in the rooster race, which made her feel better, but not much. I failed to tell her that I didn't like the race, anyway.

  This was a race between four men. Six roosters were buried in the ground up to their necks, just their heads showing. Then the men set off at a gallop. The winner was the one who could reach the finish line first, with the most chicken heads in his hand. Sometimes there was a second race if it was a tie; even a third. It took a great deal of skill to reach down when the horse was at a gallop and at the right instant snatch off the rooster's head. My father was famous, I had heard, as a rooster racer when he was in his youth. I didn't like the race and never tried it. But it was very popular.

  I took part in only one of the events. This one was for speed and endurance. The course started from the hitching rack. It ran for a league across the mesa and through a grassy marsh and up a rise and across a deep ditch and through some heavy chaparral and then back in a last straight run for the hitching rack.

  I had an advantage because I knew the country, having traveled it many times. I was willing to give the rest of the riders a head start, but all of them, including the bridegroom, scoffed at the idea.

  "I should give you a head start," Don Roberto said, casting a look at me, I am sure comparing me in my leather clothes with his beautiful white and pink bride. And I could hear him congratulating himself that it was a piece of good fortune that he had not married me. "Perhaps a hundred varas, halfway across the mesa," he went on. "I will advise the others."

  "Don't bother, Brother-in-law," I said. "I'll race you even or not at all."

  This did not please Don Roberto. Nor my father, who had bet heavily on the race and wanted any advantage for me that he could get. He said nothing, however, because he didn't want the men to feel that they were racing someone who needed a head start.

  7

  There were eleven riders in the race. The men were all young. I knew some of them by their first names. I was familiar with what their horses could do. If I had been able to ride the stallion I would have won easily. About the gelding, Sixto, I knew little, other than that he was easy to ride as long as he wasn't trailing the other horses.

  My father bet all the coins he hadn't spent on the wedding, which were equal in value to three hundred cows and twelve riding horses.

  "No mustangs," my father said to Don César, his dear friend with whom he was betting. "Horses of good breeding, not decrepit with old age. And the cows the same; no crow bait."

  "But these coins," said Don César. "What are they?"

  "Gold," Don Saturnino said.

  "I know, but whence do they come?"

  "From Spain," my father said, telling a lie.

  "Verdad?"

  "Es verdad. Grandfather Don Sebastián was a minister of the King's treasury."

  "Your grandfather stole them from the treasury?"

  "Undoubtedly, my friend. As you would do had you but the opportunity."

  As they shook hands on the bet, my father gave me a wink and so did Don César. They were good friends, but both of them liked to win. My father had advice for me as I drew up to the hitching rack and waited for the alcalde to drop his handkerchief for the start of the race.

  "Hold back and let them all lead across the mesa. I will approach Don César again while you are riding last, and increase the bet. That way we may doub
le our winnings."

  "The gelding doesn't like to run last," I said. "He'll sulk and I won't able to handle him."

  "Run in the pack, then," my father said, "but do not run first or second or even third."

  "In the middle," I said.

  The alcalde's red handkerchief fell to the ground. I spurred the gelding into a gallop, but as soon as he was underway I pulled in on the reins and fell back. Don Roberto passed me and said something that I didn't catch. He rode the fastest horse in the race, a black gelding his father had bought him as a wedding present. It was a five-year-old that had won many races around the pueblo of Los Angeles. Don Roberto was a good rider, but it was the horse I had to beat.

  The mesa was flat, with short-cropped grass, and sloped a little to the south. I was toward the last when we reached the trail that led steeply down into the river marsh.

  I had been through the marsh when I had gone to the Blue Beach with my father. The shortest way across it was not through the center of the marsh, which was deep, but along the north edge, where the water was shallow. None of the riders knew this but me.

  As we came to the marsh we were now out of sight of Don César and my father and everyone else. I touched the gelding with a spur, left the pack that was wading through the tules into deep water, and followed the north edge of the marsh.

  Don Roberto perhaps thought that I was having trouble and was about to abandon the race. He raised a gloved hand toward me and shouted, "Hola, this way."

  "Hola," I shouted back, thinking that it was nice of him to be so considerate of me.

  I reached the far side of the marsh before he did, before any of the other riders, including Don Palomares, who had been the King's soldier and was accustomed to marshes.

  Don Roberto and the rest were now a hundred varas behind, too far away for me to shout "Hola."