California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (9 page)

The fort bustled with activity.
High-walled observation towers rose at two corners. Cannon bought from the
departed Russian colonists at Fort Ross flanked the main gate. Practically
impregnable, the fort was also self-sufficient. Aside from a central, two-story
house, the wood, brick, and mortar fort contained living rooms along its walls,
a huge kitchen, a tannery, a cooperage, a dining hall, a blacksmith's shed,
corrals, a storehouse, a kiln, a still, and a small granary. Three dozen
Americans, Europeans, and Mexicans lived in either single rooms or additional
houses inside the huge enclosure. Scores of Wappo, Maidu, and Miwok Indians
tilled the rich land around the fort.

In the six years before he set foot in
California, Sutter's drive to find a place where he could accomplish enough to
erase memories of failure and disgrace in Switzerland had taken him to New
York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Santa Fe, the Russian colony of Sitka, and Honolulu.
Here, finally, with the profits of a shipload of goods and credit he had
charmed out of merchants in
Yerba Buena
and
Monterey, Sutter had ripped a small empire out of a verdant, game-rich
wilderness. Through guile, diplomacy, sheer will and a silken, often cagily
generous manner, he had tamed even the wisest and fiercest of the subtribal
chiefs and shamans. Here he was master, and in a way, although he did not own
anyone as a slave, not even the eight unswervingly loyal Kanakas who formed his
own Praetorian Guard, he had almost absolute control over the lives of everyone
associated with him.

Sutter had felt genuine compassion for
Elizabeth when the Indians had brought her in, strapped to a crude travois, the
night before. And he had momentarily placed himself in her boots, wondering
whether he would want anything known about his whereabouts and condition in a
parallel circumstance. But that was not all that moved him to play his trump
card with Marsh.

Sooner or later he would have played it
anyway, simply to gain a peg on someone who had arrived before him in this rich
valley and therefore possessed some vague claim to precedence or superiority.
But more than that, more than the sympathy that filled him when he heard
Miwokan's recounting of her appearance on the river, it was the simple fact
that for the moment, he controlled the destiny of yet another human being. He
liked that, in fact, loved it, and not for a moment did he wonder why he needed
that control so much. Instead, he searched his mind for something else—that as
yet undefined additional reason that made him actually care deeply about the
fate of this young woman. Something about her...

Sutter was standing now, watching the
Indians scooping up a mix of grain, vegetables, and meat scraps with their hands,
at the troughs set on one side of the fort's open quadrangle, when Wetler, the
German cabinetmaker who was stouter even than he, walked up and brought him out
of his thoughts about Elizabeth.

"Die armoire you hef asked vor, she
iz vinish."

"Good," Sutter said absently.
"Have—no, never mind. I'll send someone for it tomorrow."

"Yez zir, Keptin." Wetler did
not move away.

"What is it?" Sutter asked
sharply. He suddenly realized how impatient he was for Elizabeth to recover
enough to answer questions.

"Die Amerikin lady, she iz feeling
bedder?"

Sutter did not like to lie outright. His
conscience had bothered him when he had misled Marsh. He knew Elizabeth's fever
had broken, and that with a few more days' rest she would be well enough to sit
up, eat solid food—and talk. "No," he said finally. "I do not
think she will recover. And she is not an American. She is
a
Californio."

Wearing a simple, Indian-made sack-dress
of light yarn, Elizabeth looked down from a second-floor room in Sutter's main building.
Wisps of sour-smelling steam from a still chimney rising above the rear wall of
the fort came in through a cracked window. Below her, in buckskins,
store-bought clothing, even a sailor's outfit, white men and Indians moved
ceaselessly, loading furs and hides onto a wagon, tending to horses and cattle,
repairing a corral fence, rolling newly made kegs, and carrying crates from one
enclosure or another to a storehouse. She picked up the sound of at least a
half dozen accents. Captain Sutter stood talking to an Indian who towered over
him and the other men, both dark and light. The Indian was dressed more
elaborately than his tribesmen. His buckskins were intricately beaded. A
necklace of bear claws hung around his neck, and additional claws studded the
fur cap on his head. A deerskin cape hung from his shoulders. There was
something vaguely familiar about the Indian's powerful build and angularly
handsome features, she thought, watching as Sutter glanced up, quickly
concluded his conversation, and strode toward the house.

She walked unsteadily to the bed and
stopped to slip off the moccasins she had found beside it. The motion and the
sight of the pale fabric wrapped around her left wrist and hand made her dizzy.
She fell back to a sitting position on the bed until the spots in front of her
eyes disappeared, then pushed the moc
casins
off with her toes. She had just pulled
the covers up to her neck when Sutter knocked on the door. She closed her eyes
and didn't answer. Sutter knocked lightly again and then opened the door and
peeked in. When he saw she was in bed, he walked to a chair, pulled it over
almost noiselessly, and sat down.

Manaiki one of Sutter’s Hawaian women,
had brushed out Elizabeth's hair. Her face was washed, and she showed signs of
natural color now, the pale tint of life in her porcelain-fair skin. It was
then, when she gave up hoping he would leave and opened her eyes, that Sutter
realized what it was about her that drew out of him an almost paternal
protectiveness. Her eyes clear now, her hair lustrous in the sunlit room,
Elizabeth looked, Sutter was certain, as he had pictured his youngest daughter
in Switzerland would look when she reached this girl's age. His impression was
false. The daughter he had not seen for more than a dozen years would never be
so fortunate. But there was enough similarity in bone structure, deepness of
the eyes, complexion, and fullness of lips to convince Sutter completely.
Elizabeth's words startled him.

"I know the baby is dead. I feel
it."

Sutter shifted uncomfortably.
He is
overweight, jowly,
Elizabeth thought, detached at once from her statement
about John Alexander. But she could see vestiges of a handsome face.

"There isn't any need to think about
that until you are well."

"It is quite all right to speak of
it now. I have accepted it." She could hear herself speaking, feel herself
lying there, watching Sutter's face, but it seemed as though she were also
somehow outside herself, watching and listening to both Elizabeth Purdy Todd
and Sutter at the same time, through some sort of transparent enclosure that
cut off contact with normal emotions.

"Yes," Sutter whispered.
"The child—"

"Where is it? The body? Has he been
buried?"

"It is in safe hands."

"I want to know!"

"There are other things for us to
discuss if you feel well enough."

She glared at him, tears brimming, biting
her lip.

"All right," he said.

Elizabeth relaxed for a moment, suddenly
conscious of her rudeness. "I'm sorry. You have been so kind..."

"No one could have done less for one
who has endured so much."

"I do so wish to know about the
baby."

"The Indians who found you have...
preserved him and kept him for you."

"Kept him for me?"

"Until you are able and well enough
to be present at his funeral. Their beliefs are strong. They were afraid their
gods would be enraged if they went ahead without you. It seemed to me that no
matter which decision was made, you would not be pleased. So Miwokan's notion
that you should be present seemed the better of two difficult choices."

"Miwokan?"

"The tribal chief who brought you
here."

Elizabeth still felt nothing. "How
many days has it been?"

"Four."

"Good Lord!"

"You were extremely fevered. And it
was necessary to administer much laudanum. You slept for two days."

"How... how are they, they...
preserving the body?"

"The women of the village have
tended to him." He did not want to say more.

"In what way? It has been four
days."

Sutter sighed. "With ice from the
river," he said finally. "They have wrapped him in a quilt of rabbit
skins
filled with ice. One of them, the chief's
wife, is always with him."

Elizabeth
fainted.

When she awoke again, it was dark, and
Manaiki, the Hawaiian woman, sat watching over her in the chair. She got up,
and Manaiki gave her some broth, gently brushed the hair off her forehead, and
wiped her face with a cool, wet cloth. When Elizabeth laid the small, handmade,
short-handled wooden bowl on a roughhewn night table beside the bed, Manaiki
left her. In a few moments Sutter entered the room. Elizabeth could not help
but smile at the sight of him. The fort was quiet, but he was still in his
quasi-military outfit of boots, gold-striped maroon trousers tucked in below
the knee, and a dark blue jacket bearing frilled gold epaulets. The room was
warmed by heat held in the stones of a chimney that rose to the roof. Sutter
took off his jacket, and Elizabeth absently noted the fine quality of the silk
shirt with ruffled sleeves.

"You are feeling better?" he
asked gently, enfolding her right hand in his. He had no idea her smile
reflected the absurdity of his outlandish costume. Manaiki had rubbed her hands
and feet with soothing coconut oil. For a moment the thought of having her here
with him permanently accompanied the sensation he felt when he touched her soft
skin.
But that is absurd,
he thought.
At least absurd until the facts
are sorted out. And even then...

Elizabeth interpreted his tenderness as
fatherly, kind, which for the most part it was. She thought of her own father
and his words from the pulpit—
"death is not an end, but a beginning"
—at
the funeral service for old Miss Cable. Images of her mother and her younger
sister, Esther, left so far behind, flashed across her mind.

"It is important, if you feel well
enough, to discuss some matters," Sutter pressed, still holding her hand.

"Yes, of course," she said,
already thinking ahead, already knowing in a vague, undefined way what he would
ask and what she would have to say.

"First, I would like to know your
name."

She had not thought of that, only of what
she could not reveal. Yet obviously her name was pivotal. She stared at him
silently for a moment, annoyed with herself for overlooking such a simple trap.
She looked away. After the silence between them grew uncomfortable, she said
quietly, "Esther."

"I see," he said, betraying
nothing. "Esther." He looked away from her. "And your married
name?"

"Cable," she said. "Esther
Cable."

"Where is your husband?"

"Dead. He was lost at... lost at
sea... when his whaling ship went down."

"And where was that?"

"Vermont. No, New England." She
began to realize the extent to which her mind was not working at a normal pace.
Falling back on that fact, she said, "I don't remember exactly where. I'm
a bit confused."

"Yes, I can see that." He
excused himself for a moment, then returned with her bag. "It is all here.
Your ring, your money—we, Manaiki, removed the money belt from beneath your
bosom when she undressed you the first night. Manaiki has washed and ironed
your clothing."

"Thank you." She was unable to
conceptualize the steps she might now take to conceal her identity. "As
long as I had to live... thank... goodness I was delivered into the hands of
such a kind and honest man."

"And, of course, your journal...
Mrs. Todd."

She sighed and gave up then, certain
Sutter had read all the entries in the diary, and that there was no way she
could prevent the news of her survival from reaching Alexander Todd at Larkin's
Store in Monterey. "Did any of the others get through?"

"No. It is almost certain they all
perished in the last storm."

"Those poor people at the lake. Dear
God, they will all die."

"It is impossible to reach them now,
but relief parties are being organized to make an attempt as soon as it is
feasible. Perhaps we will be lucky. In any case, now that we are being honest
with one another—"

"I'm sorry," she interrupted.
"There was a reason for—"

"I can fully understand."
Surprising her even more, he added: "No one knows who you really are but
I. And if it is your wish, after careful consideration, no one else has to. Not
even your husband."

Elizabeth could not believe her ears. She
gazed out through the window toward the river just north of the fort. Manaiki
had told her it ran into another, larger river, which in turn snaked south and
then west to the great waters of an enormous bay and the village of
Yerba
Buena.
Down the coast from it lay
Monterey. For an instant Elizabeth felt herself pulled by the thought of
continuing down the river she had walked on, in one of Sutter's several boats,
sailing farther to the village on the bay, and then continuing on to Monterey
and Alexander Todd. But then a thought of Mosby and the texture of the rough
bandage on her left hand snapped her back to the reality she had formed for
herself during the near-lucid, waking moments of the last two days.

"Is that possible?" she asked.

"I think it can be arranged.
Although word of the Donner misfortune has traveled widely since James Reed,
then McCutchen and Stanton stopped here, no one connects you with it. It is
rumored already that you are
a Californio
woman." He beamed. "
I
have seen to that."

Elizabeth visualized Stanton again,
propped against the tree, frozen solid, pale blue and enveloped in a thin womb
of ice. She shuddered, realized now that his boots over hers had probably saved
all her toes.

"Stanton is dead," she said,
sounding to Sutter like someone speaking in her sleep.

"You can tell me about that later,
when you are stronger." It did not matter to Sutter now. He was quite sure
all of them, including his two Indians, everyone he had read about in her diary,
were dead.

Elizabeth shut the memory of Stanton from
her mind. She was alive, and this man was offering her the one opportunity
she'd hoped for. She didn't know, had not had the time to think through, what
she would do about Mosby. But she knew she would do something. And whatever she
decided, she was certain that establishing the impression that she was dead
would be to her advantage. "It would be a godsend if no one found out that
I am alive. It... it is... very important to me now."

"You feel shame and guilt about your
child, even though you make a superhuman effort. No one could hold you
responsible."

She let him think the dead child was the
main reason behind her desire to change her identity. "But I am
responsible... For many things."

"In time you will come to understand
that is not true."

"You do not know all of it."

"No need to. And until you are
better, I do not wish to."

"There is another reason I want to
remain... dead."

"You cannot bear for your husband to
see you... now."

It was true, but again, it was only part
of the truth. "I have seen myself in the mirror. I can see what is left of
my hand."

"As bad as your nose looks now, the
scarring effect will fade in time. And it should not matter to someone who
truly loves you."

"He
does
love me! It would
not
matter to him, I'm sure. But I love him, and it matters to
me
! I want to
spare him the sight of me. I want him to remember me as I was. There
is
no Elizabeth Todd anymore."

Sutter drifted back for a moment into his
own past. Caught in it, he rocked side to side in sympathy and she thought he
was shaking his head.

"You don't understand," she
cried, miserable.

"But I do," he whispered,
taking hold of her chin gently and turning her face back toward his. "I
can understand it more than most would. I have been in a similar circumstance.
Not nearly so tragic, but just as final for me. Long ago. It will never be long
enough.
I
can never go back to
that first life I had."