California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (12 page)

Near
the Rio de

Los
Americanos

April 7, 1847

Do not know why I bother writing. So difficult to keep track of
my thoughts. Encouraging—my lucid moments either last a bit longer or are more
frequent each day. Sick to my stomach again this morning. Dizzy now...

There, that is better... Remember now that I wish to reconstruct
what happened after we left the lake with Stanton and Eddy. Terrible.
Unbelievable, really. See it all in my mind, fleetingly though. As if I do not
want or have the strength to deal with all of that now. Wait until you are
coherent... Wait until the thought of Mosby—

Later in the day. I have torn this page out of Journal and
copied it further on, leaving sufficient space before it when I am able to
think clearly on what happened... and put it all down. For now, record what has
happened since. Perhaps the mind is like a muscle... Exercise may do it good
after injury? Can think of no better word. Must rest again now.

Sunset. Strange, spectacular. My eyes tell me it should fill me
with awe. The colors. But I feel nothing. I simply see it. Refreshed after
sleeping on the remarkably comfortable bed of stretched hides the Miwoks who
work for Captain Sutter made for me. He came this morning, Sutter. Remarkable
man. Flawed. Vain to a detriment. But helpful... generous... And kind.

It is so difficult. The simplest words escape me still. And
facts. And dates. Perhaps it is a blessing. It seems to take forever to
complete the writing of a sentence. Can only read a page or two of the novel,
Pride
and Prejudice,
Captain Sutter gave me. Then nothing makes sense and must go
back and read pages again to understand. Dr. Marsh told Sutter that will pass,
he hopes, with... with what? Time. Pass, he hopes...

Asked Sutter why he was willing to keep my secret, after
thanking him again for doing same. Remarkable. Said he understood. Guaranteed
he would continue to by telling me one of his own. That he was in debtor's
prison in Switzerland when he was younger! Somehow caused by his mother-in-law!
Made me laugh by telling me the best thing he likes about
Alta
California is that his wife is in... foreign country? Yes.
Switzerland. Pass, he hopes... and that it is probably a result of the fever,
the long fever and the shocking events...

Told me also...? I seem to have been lucid for a long period,
except for one spell, during Captain Sutter's visit. That augers well... yes,
told me that there have been recent battles to the south and west of here and
that...

Had to rest again. It is dark now. Should eat something.
California is now an American territory is what I was trying to remember
earlier.

This cabin built by Miwoks... Crude, but all I need. I know
Sutter has them watch over me without intruding... my wish to be rid of human
company. Strange that so-called savages bring gifts of food—ground acorn mush
sweetened with seeds that is not altogether unpleasant to the taste—and small
wrought utensils, artifacts. I hear them at night. They found me... I found
them, rather. Tired. Oh, wish so, Alex, that you could be here at my side to
care for me.

But that part of my life is over. OVER! I could not let you see
me the way I look now. And I could not bear to look at you and tell you of...

You must learn to deal with this... the death, the death the
death, of his son. Your son. There. I have said it, thought it, written it for
the first time. He is gone. John Alexander is gone. It grows easier. The ink
stains from the tears... I will not cry. I will NOT cry. John Alexander Todd
and Elizabeth Purdy Todd are dead. Oh, God... THEY ARE DEAD! And only Esther
Cable survives...

Esther Cable must eat something. Esther Cable will survive.
Esther Cable will grow stronger and think clearly again.

I am Esther Cable.

I am Esther Cable.

Esther...... CABLE. And I remember now why I

continue to write and why I am alive.

If it is the last thing I do on this earth, I will see Luther
Mosby either ruined or dead.

Two Indians, a male and a female, watched
Esther from a discreet distance at all times. Sutter had seen to this. By now,
mid-April, they were familiar with her patterns. She still slept many hours,
both night and day. She rose well after sunrise, ate a little, used the privy
immediately afterward, then unfailingly took a short walk along the river.
Sometimes she became dizzy and had to brace herself against the trunk of a
tree, holding her hand over her eyes. Increasingly during the last few weeks
she became sick in the mornings and sometimes vomited.

They reported this to Miwokan. The
remainder of her day was unchanged: walking and resting, reading briefly,
preparing small quantities of food, talking to herself out loud quite often,
occasionally working the earth beside the cabin where she had set off a small plot
for a vegetable garden. She wore a man's hat, baggy shirt and overalls, and
work boots the Indians had seen Sutter bring to her earlier in the month.
Sometimes she fell asleep sitting in the doorway after vacantly watching the
scores of small animals and birds that now filled the budding woods within
view.

Miwokan weighed what the watchers said
and decided to wait until
Solana
visited
the cabin on the day she planned to help Esther plant seeds.
Solana
could then inquire about the sickness. He
sent his man back to watch, instructing him to continue reporting anything that
was new or different in her activities.

The two Indians peered through pine
boughs now as Esther picked up a small, bright stone that glinted in the
sunlight in a shallow recess along the riverbank. She turned it in her hand,
studying it. Several ducks, fighting the downstream current to reach shelter
behind an outcropping of earth on the opposite shore, distracted her for a
moment. She turned her attention back to the stone. Suddenly she dropped it and
doubled over, folding her arms against her stomach and vomiting. When it was
over, she washed out her mouth with a handful of water and returned to the
cabin and stood staring at the mountains to the east for a long time. Suddenly
her face contorted in anger.

"Oh, God, how I
hate
you,
Mosby!" she cried, tears spilling down her cheeks. Wiping her eyes with
the back of her sleeve, she finally went into the cabin to rest.

Sutter visited her again that day. He
noticed that she seemed plumper. He attributed it to ample food and regained
health. Physical health, at least, he thought. But then he noticed that in
profile most of the weight was in her stomach. She could not have gained that
much in so short a time. Her belly was obviously swollen.

He did not mention his observation to
her, shifting instead to an expansion of what he had already told her about the
American take-over of California. He noticed a hardening of her expression as
he spoke of
Frémont
and
his party of "explorers." But it passed, and he forgot it quickly.

Frémont
had
come to California peacefully, Sutter explained, but then, as the war with
Mexico began, he encouraged American settlers to revolt. The first sorties,
skirmishes, and ambuscades were farcically one-sided American victories. The
tenor of sporadic battle remained essentially the same after the U.S. Navy and
Army entered the conflict. The Americans drove southward by land and sea from
Monterey in a series of virtually bloodless takeovers from the ill-equipped and
dissension-ridden
Californios.
On
January 13, 1847, the day before Sutter spirited Esther off to Miwokan's
village, General Andres Pico had surrendered northwest of the Pueblo
de
Los Angeles and it was all over.

Holding her breath, Esther asked him what
had happened to Fremont's men.

Sutter was placing logs in the fireplace
for the evening. "Disbanded now. Carson left for his home on the Cimarron
but plans to return to California. Many stayed with
Frémont
through it all. Scattered to the winds
now, I think. All but a handful who will settle here. Some tired of the
confusing, childish game it was at first and left early. Luther Mosby, a
Southerner, was the first to go. I am told he trapped in the Sierras last fall
and winter, but I doubt that. There was a rumor that he was seen not long ago
at Isaac Claussen's ranch between here and San Jose."

Sutter, intent on his fire building, did
not see Esther press her eyes shut and fight to regain control of her voice.
"Why do you doubt it?"

"Because Mosby spoke to me once, when
they were all encamped at the fort. He did not like California or the
mountains. He told me he was thinking of going back to Texas. He was once a law
officer there, an important one, from what I gathered. He did not like taking
orders from Fremont. And he did not think he could quickly obtain a similar
position here." Sutter turned to her. "Why do you ask?"

Esther clenched her fists around the arms
of her chair and resisted both tears and the sensation that the room was
beginning to spin. "I... spoke to him briefly at Bent's Fort... Just
curiosity."

She could not control the dizziness much
longer. When she got up and staggered, Sutter helped her to the bed.

"Are you all right?"

She lay down and closed her eyes.
"Yes... I will be... We have talked for a long time... I just need to rest
a bit."

"Of course," Sutter said,
pulling a fur over her. "I'm sorry."

"It was not your fault. Will you
come back after you visit with Miwokan? I'll be fine then, and I will cook
something for you before you go back to the fort."

Sutter
brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. "We will cook it
together—niece."

After dinner, as they drank coffee and
nibbled at the English toffee Sutter had brought, Esther asked him of the
latest news about the Donner people. Only  slightly more than half of them had
survived. Five separate relief parties had gone to the rescue. One group, led
by James Frazier Reed, almost perished in a storm on the return trip from the
lake. A sixth, led by a man named Fallon, was now on its way to bring back the
last few who remained alive. When Esther asked him for more details, he told
her that some of it was unspeakable, horrible. He did not, would not talk of it
further with her until she was stronger in mind and spirit.

"One good thing has come out of it,"
he said. "My story—about the injured
'Californio'
woman who was retrieved and taken south
by her husband—has been accepted and quickly forgotten. Suffice to say,"
Sutter mentioned in the doorway before he left, "that you are a very
fortunate, very lucky woman, just to be alive."

Lucky
,
she thought, as she closed and bolted the leather-hinged door and prepared for
bed.
Lucky to be alive, when I would rather be dead and do not have the
courage to take my own life and risk eternal damnation.
She took the loaded
Colt revolver out of the holster hanging on the far wall and contemplated it
for a long time before placing it within easy reach under the bed. Lucky to be
alive when my wits may never return to normal and physical strength flows back
into me as slowly as water dripping from an icicle. She got under the furs and
blew out the lamp.

Lucky.
And almost continually numb to everything. Lucky. With my beloved son dead, and
with—if my swollen stomach contains what I think it does—with the issue of
Luther Mosby inside me. Growing. I am not rid of him... He is still with me...
And I am too weak, too powerless, too scattered of mind to even construct a
plan to avenge myself.
The coffee
had not slowed her increasing drowsiness. She felt fatigue rapidly overtaking her.
Alex
, she thought, forming the name silently, lovingly on her lips. She
was too tired to cry. A last thought crossed her mind before she plummeted into
sleep. She was too weak, too mentally exhausted to challenge it, examine it any
more than by constructing the thought in the form of a question:
Could it be
that God is punishing me for my wanton behavior with Alexander before we were
married?

She
was rolling in Alexander's arms along the riverbank in Ohio. They were both
naked, and he was deep inside her. As she began to tell Alex how marvelous it
was that he could move in and out of her while they were rolling down the long
bank, how wonderful his being in her made her feel, the dream shifted. Suddenly
it was freezing cold and Alexander had the face of Mosby. She turned away from
him and saw God standing on the flowing waters of the river, frowning. God had
Alexander’s face. God gestured and the waters under Him turned to motionless
waves of solid ice. She was too terrified to move. When she did not attempt to
break free of Mosby, God... Alexander... God raised his right arm and threw a
small, jagged stone of solid gold that struck her squarely on the nose.

The almost constant numbness of feeling
did not abate. The morning sickness increased in duration and frequency. Within
a week Esther was positive she was pregnant. She thought carefully about what
she would do. When the plan took its final shape and she acted, the change in
her daily pattern almost went unnoticed by the Indians.

That morning, she went toward the river
as usual. They didn't see the kitchen knife she was carrying. She stopped
halfway and vomited. A short distance from the river she veered off the trail
to a small clearing and searched the open ground and the edges of the
surrounding woods. They watched until she selected five or six very narrow,
straight, and smooth fallen branches. They saw the knife only when she began
cutting the branches to a length of a little over a foot. She removed a few
small twigs, smooth
ing
the
nubs until they were even with the surfaces, then sharpened one end of each
short stick to a long, slender point.

When
she headed again toward the river, the female watcher followed. The warrior was
already running. Covering ground rapidly in a fast, smooth gait, he met
Solana
halfway to the village. He told her of
the sharpened branches, then continued on as
Solana,
heavy with child, lumbered toward the
cabin as quickly as she could.

Esther was still at the river when
Solana
reached the other watcher. She had done
nothing with the sticks. She stood gazing at the water rushing past the
riverbank and bubbling over a fallen tree trunk. Absently she rotated the
sharpened branches with her thumb and forefinger, then turned and walked
quickly back toward the cabin.
Solana
and
the Indian woman followed.

Esther went in and sat on the bed.
Solana
silently moved closer, to a point where
she could see through the unbolted and open wooden window nearest the door.
Esther slowly took off her clothes and lay on the bed with the sticks in her
hand.
Solana
glanced
at the door. It was closed but not snug against the jamb. Perhaps it was not
bolted.

Esther stared at the sticks, then gazed
out the window nearest the door. She did not see
Solana.
Blurred by her tears, the opening was
only a brilliant square of sunlight tinged with the green of the coniferous trees
beyond the small corral.
Why am I crying
, she thought numbly.
It
doesn't make any difference. Even if the idea that God is punishing me is not
absurd, I do not want this thing in my womb. And if I should die doing it, it
will be a blessing. An accident, God. For that is not my intention and you
cannot blame me if that happens.

She lay all but one of the sticks down
beside her. Pulling herself up to a sitting position, she drew her legs inward,
knees apart, until the soles of her feet touched. She stared at the point of
the stick and gulped in a deep breath. Spreading the folds of her vulva, she
found the entrance and began, slowly, carefully, pushing, angling the slender
shaft up inside her.

Solana
burst
through the unbolted door.

Startled, Esther involuntarily jerked the
stick out.

"You must not, you cannot do this
thing!"

"It's none of your business,"
Esther said evenly. "Please go away."

"You must not do it!"

"Why?"

"It is the worst thing we can
do."

"I
want
to do it."

Solana
moved
a little closer. "How can you want this? You have already lost one child.
I know what that has done to you. You are broken, as I was, when my first was
born silent and blue."

"But this one isn't
mine!"
Esther shouted.

Solana
took
another short step, puzzled, weighing, sifting. "You knew this could
happen if you lay with the man, did you not?"

"I did not lay with the man."

Solana
thought
for another moment, puzzled again. Then she understood. "You could not
stop him?"

"No." Esther began crying,
swinging her head back and forth. "No.
No... NO!
" Miserable,
she let her right hand drop to her side.