California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (14 page)

The rest happened quickly. The other two
Californios
started to make their moves, were grabbed
by each arm, held, punched, and kicked in the face, body, groin, and shins.
Murietta, who had watched it all without moving, slipped off the fence into the
ring while the deafening sound of the gun was still reverberating and they
began beating the other two mestizos. Moving quickly, he ran to the door of the
outbuilding, slipped the latch, pulled the bolt free, and kicked the door open
before moving to one side and flattening himself against the wall.

Inside, the bear was blinded for a few
seconds by the sudden light in the doorway. Then his weak eyes picked up the
blurred movements of the men in the far end of the ring and, just beyond them,
the contrasting light of the open gate. The bear was up in an instant, rushing
through the doorway, roaring and racing straight at the cluster of men.

When they heard the sound, they froze.
The bear burst into their midst before they had a chance to turn. Slashing and
snapping as it hit them, the bear bit off half a hand, bowled another man over,
and kept moving for the open gate. Now only Mosby, half-turned, and the dead
mestizo lay between the bear and freedom. Mosby swung around. As he did, the
bear took a swipe at him in midstride, never stopping. One claw sunk three
quarters of an inch into Mosby's left arm just above the elbow. He screamed. In
its curving, downward slice, the claw severed the tendons and ligaments in
Mosby's left elbow. He screamed again as the blow spun him and sent him
sprawling.

By the time the Americans had recovered
their wits, regrouped, and chased after the bear, firing ineffectually as it
quickly closed the distance to the edge of the woods, the two mestizos were out
of the ring, on their horses, and riding fast. Dazed, Mosby rolled over in the
dirt, wincing with pain, and saw Murietta at the small window-ledge, climbing.
Mosby fired at him and missed. He fired again and grazed Murietta's ribs. The
shot knocking him off balance, Murietta fell back onto the dirt floor of the
ring.

The shots brought the others back through
the gate. Two of them held Murietta up, and two more stood on his boots while
Mosby, his left arm hanging limp and bleeding heavily, punched the
Californio
repeatedly in the face. Mosby broke off
one of his teeth. He cracked three of Murietta's ribs. He kneed Murietta in the
stomach and groin until he vomited; then, just as he was about to crush the
Californio's skull with the butt of his gun, Mosby, staggering from loss of blood,
passed out.

"Throw
the greaser in there," Claussen said, gesturing toward the outbuilding.
"We'll let the son' bitch starve a few days until Mosby's feelin' better.
Then we'll have ourselves an old-fashioned hangin'." He tied a neckerchief
around Mosby's biceps and pulled it tight. "Take him up to the
house," he said. "I'll see if I can't stitch him up." He glanced
at the man with only half a hand left. "Nothin I can do about that,
Shorty, cept coat it with pitch."

From what seemed to be a long distance, Murietta
heard the latch snap shut and the bolt slide into place. They had thrown him
onto the tamped dirt floor of the outbuilding. It did not feel like hard-packed
earth. It was soft and wet. Then the acrid, musky combination of odors
registered through all the pain and loss of feeling. Murietta realized the
floor was nearly covered by the urine and feces of the bear he had set loose.
The grizzly was probably miles away by now, nursing its wounds, foraging for
food.
Imaginese,
he thought.
¡
Qué
gracia
! What gratitude! His own
sardonic sense of humor and the fact that it remained unbroken amid so much
pain amused him. He started to smile just as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Esther gave birth without difficulty on
September 5. When she awoke from the long sleep that had engulfed her after
Solana
had sliced and tied the umbilical cord,
the thought of taking the baby to the river and drowning it briefly crossed her
mind. But the sight of the helpless infant, its poignantly jerking, spastic
movements, wrinkled pink face, and Cupid's mouth erased the notion and unlocked
at least a portion of her ability to feel again. Within minutes, as the baby
suckled at her breast, she knew that the birth had somehow been cathartic.

She did not know whether it was ridding
herself of the last trace of Mosby that had clung to her for so long, or the
enormous power of maternal instinct that had torn away a portion of the
emotional dam inside her brain. She had never fully understood the almost total
loss of normal feelings—all but hatred for Mosby and anger under severe
provocation—and she did not understand this sudden, partial restoration of
them. But she didn't care. What mattered was that they had returned to her, and
she gazed at the baby,
Solana,
the
Indian woman's child, and at each item in the cabin with new eyes. Slowly, with
an only slightly muted sense of delight, she examined each thing, each person
and felt traces of happiness, contentment, even a whisper of exhilaration. That
incipient feeling passed quickly as she turned her attention again to the baby
nursing in the crook of her arm.

She lay thinking about the child long
after
Solana
locked
the cabin, blew out the light, and went to sleep. Over and over Esther searched
her mind, sifted and weighed her true feelings about the infant. For hours she
speculated on what would become of the child, what she would do with it, for
it; whether she would keep it or give it away. If she kept it, would they stay
here? If she gave it away, whom would she give it to? None of the answers
crystallized completely. The one that almost did disturbed her.

She
thought about this half-drawn conclusion separately, testing it, reexamining it
until she became drowsy. There was no way to be certain now. It was too early.
But as she drifted toward sleep, she guessed that the feeling, or lack of it,
for the child would continue. She knew she cared for it, cared about its
well-being, wanted it to be healthy, and would do all she could for it. More
than she would for most human beings. But it was Mosby's son. She did not love
it. Perhaps that will change, she thought. A part of her hoped it would. In
time, she would know. And with that answer would come those to all the other
questions.

In the morning, after the runner brought
him the news, Miwokan arrived at the cabin. He presented Esther with a second
spear, identical to the first, for her son. He looked at the boy and said,
"Yes, he will be a fine warrior. Look at the long bones."

Esther hoped he was wrong. She wished for
this child a life of peace, as free of turmoil and hardship as God would allow.
She watched as
Solana
picked
up the swaddled child in one arm and showed it to her husband. As Miwokan
examined it, nodding in approval, Esther noticed there was no difference in the
degree of love in Solana's eyes as she shifted her gaze back and forth from her
own child, slung in her right arm, and Esther's, in her left. As
Solana
kissed Esther's boy on the forehead, the
beginnings of a plan for the child started to form in Esther's mind. But then
it was lost, as
Solana
took
a step backward, laid both infants down for a moment, pulled open the upper
portion of the crude cloth garment she was wearing, then placed both infants at
her breasts.

"Think if we had two of them!"
she said, starting to laugh as the infants made rapid sucking sounds.

Miwokan frowned for a moment, remembering
the belief that had persisted down through the generations. "No," he
said. "Twins bring only sorrow and suffering."

"I did not say twins, husband. Just
two. Two of them close in a line."

The sight of her holding the pair of
them, the babies ravenously draining the milk-laden breasts, filling the room
with the sound of sucking, smacking, gurgling, and swallowing in frantic haste
suddenly made Miwokan laugh. Then
Solana
began laughing too, and quickly Esther
joined them. They did not stop until tears ran down from their eyes. For Esther
the tears had an additional source. She, too, saw the humor, the exaggeration
in the scene, and that was one origin of the crying. But she was also overcome
by happiness. Not only could she see, she could feel and respond to what was
happening to a degree she had not experienced in almost ten months.

Miwokan stayed the entire afternoon, and
they feasted on a wild duck he had caught and roasted. Before he left, he
fished a small hide pouch from a carrying bag strapped around his waist. It was
a gift for Esther, from the two of them. Esther opened the pouch and pulled out
the delicately beaded necklace he had made. Hanging from it was a hollow,
heart-shaped amulet of thin, pounded raw gold. Unexpectedly, she found she
could open it. Inside lay a tiny, finely woven heart fashioned from silver tips
of fur taken from the grizzly skin in his hut. She closed it and looked at the
two of them, profoundly touched, unable to speak, remonstrating with herself
for dismissing their beliefs, the myth they were building around her. What
difference did it make whether or not the concepts were childlike, born of
ignorance and superstition, if they sprang from a source that yielded so much
caring and love for another human being?

Miwokan, sensing her inability to express
her gratitude, put a finger to his lips, then pantomimed a flight of words from
his mouth and summarily brushed them away with a sweep of his open hand,
signaling that such words were meaningless. He stepped toward
Solana.
Extending two gently arced forefingers
and making a small circle with his thumb and the two smaller digits, he touched
Solana's chest and slowly, undulatingly, rolled the arced fingers upward and
over toward Esther. Then he repeated the gesture from his own heart. The
expression locked Esther's tongue. Finally—awkwardly, she thought—she shaped
the fingers of her right hand and confirmed her love for them in the same
manner.

Only
after Miwokan had gone and she was gazing at the amulet was she aware that she
had been looking at its back. She felt impressions on one finger and turned it
over. In the center of the heart, Miwokan had painstakingly formed the fine
outlines of a sunburst. Something about the pointed, thick-based, curving
representations of the sun's rays seemed vaguely familiar. She glanced up and
saw that the rays were cut into the hammered gold in precisely the same shape
as the bear claws that encircled both shafts of the stone-headed spears.

Murietta awoke in darkness. At first he
could not remember where he was. But then the stench around him, and the pain,
brought it all back. He rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows. It
was too painful, and he lay back down, his head resting blessedly on one of the
older, more dried out and solid bear chips. At first he could see nothing, but
then the outlines of the bare storage room and its high-beamed ceiling dimly
took shape. A distant twinkle of light caught his eye. He started to retch from
the cloying, ammoniac stench of the bear waste, forced down the foul tasting
matter in his throat, and stared at the star. He could see it through the
single, high, foot-and-a-half-square window.

The pain was almost intolerable, and for
a moment, as he rose to his feet, the room began to spin. He closed his eyes
and willed himself not to pass out. When he was steady again, he opened his
eyes slowly and looked up. The window was two feet out of reach and too small
for him to get through. There was no sense trying the door. It would only be a
painful waste of what little strength he had. He turned slowly, searching the
walls. They were absolutely bare.

He looked back up at the window. He could
not tell how much time had passed, but guessed he had been unconscious for more
than twelve hours, that it was just after midnight. All he knew was that
sometime after the sun was up the next day, the day that followed, or the day
after that, the
Americanos
would kill him. And probably that was not
all. The gringo with the torn arm would probably have a few more gifts for him
before his neck snapped in a noose. There was no waiting. The window was all he
had. He stared at it, studied the rock and adobe wall beneath it until he
became dizzy again. His head finally cleared, and he walked toward the window
unsteadily, leaned against the wall, and took off one boot. He dug two toeholds
with a spur and put the boot back on. Wedging the pointed toe of one boot into
a chink in the adobe, he set his jaw in anticipation of the pain and sprang
upward.

His fingertips caught the edge of the
window. He held on, waves of pain washing through him. Chilling sweat ran down
his body as he felt for the second toehold, found it, and jammed the boot-point
in. The oval rocks lining the window made it a little easier, but not much.
Summoning all his strength, he dropped one hand, lifted his leg up the wall,
and carefully pulled one boot off. He chipped out a new set of toeholds, lay
the boot carefully on the window ledge, and climbed higher.

His arms were lying on the window ledge
now. He rested for several minutes, regaining his breath. When the pain
subsided, he slipped the boot back on and began pulling himself through the
window. By extending one arm, laying his head on it, tilting his shoulders
toward the floor of the room and flattening the other arm along his torso, he
managed to work through to his waist. His hips just failed to clear the opening.

Letting himself back in, finding the
higher set of toeholds, he rested again, then tried to pry the oval rocks from
the adobe. They were too deeply set for him to gain enough leverage with his
fingers. He thought of the spur again but quickly realized the rocks were too
tightly placed for him to do more than make a lot of noise.

His calves ached now. Pulling himself up,
he tried to gain enough purchase on the window ledge to rest them, but the pain
in his ribs sent him back down. He missed the toeholds and landed on one foot,
toppling over backward. Frustrated, he lay there panting, gripping and
squeezing his outstretched hands again and again in frustration. Soft, wet bear
feces spurted between his fingers and made a slopping, oozy sound. And then the
thought struck him.

When his heart stopped pounding, he rose
again, slowly took off his clothes and threw them through the window. Wearing
only his boots, he crouched and began smearing the bear waste over himself.
When he was coated with it from hip to thigh, he rubbed his palms and fingers
clean on one wall until they began to hurt. Buoyed by hope, he returned to the
wall below the window, paused to rest, then sprang up again. The wall scraped
the skin on his chest but he caught hold of the ledge. Resting at each toehold,
he repeated the earlier maneuver until he was hanging half in and half out of
the window. The rocks chafed and tore at him, but this time, his flanks as
slippery as a basted pig's, he pulled free.

Bracing himself, his hands down on the
outside of the building, he balanced on his thighs and then reached back to
grasp the upper inside edge of the window. Pulling and turning at the same
time, forcing his mind to shut out the pain, he lifted his other hand, grasped
the lower inside edge of the window, and jerked himself to a sitting position.
Breathing hard, he held on, rested his forehead against the building, and
listened. He thought he heard someone laugh up at the ranch house, but then all
was still again.

Rested, Murietta pulled his legs through
the window one at a time, found a footing on a pair of jutting rocks on the
outside of the building, and slowly climbed down to the floor of the ring.

Outside, he wiped down with an
undershirt, put on his clothes and inched his way to the corral. He found his
horse and led it, one step at a time, toward the tack shed. The other horses
suddenly began shying, moving restlessly, spooked by the dark, moving figure.
He had purposely circled downwind of them, and they did not pick up the scent
of the bear. His own horse balked, whinnied once, and began to rear, but when
Murietta whispered to it and gave it several soft strokes on its neck, the
horse was gentled by the familiar sound and touch.

His saddle was in the same place he had
hung it the previous morning. Somehow he found the strength to throw it up on
the horse. He waited for a moment, resting, then pulled and buckled the cinch.
When the bit, bridle, and reins were in place, he hauled himself up by the
pommel and eased one leg over. He ached, he was dizzy again, and he was sure he
would vomit all over the horse's mane. But the wave of nausea passed. Quietly,
he backed the horse out from under the shed roof, reined it around, and
squeezed gently with his thighs. The horse walked until he was well away from Claussen's
place, heading south over the tracks made by the two mestizos who had fled.

He tried loping and found that he could
tolerate the pain. He squeezed the horse's flanks harder, and it broke into a
gallop. For a minute or two, sitting in the saddle loosely, Murietta was
certain he would have to slow down. But then the smooth flow of pain brought on
by the animal's rhythmic movements and pounding hooves turned into a numbness
that enveloped and held him steady. Following the tracks by moonlight, he rode
south—as Claussen and the other gringos would expect him to—until he reached a
stream that ran east to west. He crossed it and made a third set of tracks
until he reached a loamy, unmarkable stretch of clover a hundred yards farther.
Ahead of it was a long slope covered with high grass. It led down into a field
of wheat swaying gently in the wind. Satisfied, he backed his horse the hundred
yards to the stream he had crossed, turned east in the shallow water, and
followed it toward the dim, gray outline of the Sierras.