How to Moon a Cat (19 page)

The fort’s open interior spread out over more than an acre. A ringed layer of rooms was built inward from the fifteen-foot-high, whitewashed brick wall that formed the perimeter. The main living quarters were located near the center of the fort, while the perimeter rooms were designated for livestock pens, leather tanning, and a small row of holding cells.

A group of volunteers decked out in period costume simulated tasks around the grounds to help visitors envision what the fort had been like in its pre–Gold Rush prime: a pair of men in heavy leather aprons demonstrated blacksmithing, a woman and two children in homespun pioneer garb prepared a gooey bowl of dough in one of the kitchens, and a soot-covered cook stirred the coals of a freestanding wood stove as he monitored a previously made lump that was now baking into bread.

Amid all this busy activity, Clem commanded the wagon’s makeshift stage, which was set up in the middle of the courtyard. He wore the same costume he’d used for his Nevada City performance: a rumpled linen suit, tattered black bow tie, and lace-up ankle boots. His feet thunked heavily across the wagon’s rough wooden boards as he started in on the beginning of his monologue.

“Now, I presume that introductions are unnecessary?” Clem asked as he leaned out over the edge of the wagon toward the front row of children and made a series of exaggerated facial contortions. I smiled as the youngsters tittered in amusement. A little girl’s enthusiastic hand shot up, and she called out excitedly, “I know who you are! I know who you are!”

An exhibit on the history of the fort was housed in the rooms built into the perimeter wall to the right of the entrance. Since I had a few minutes to spare before Clem caught up to the part of the performance where I had left him at the Nevada Theatre, I wandered into the open door of the display area to look around.

As I pushed the stroller inside, Isabella and I were immediately greeted by a life-sized wax figure of John Sutter. He was a pale, balding, mustached man in a long coat, buttoned vest, and frumpy neck scarf. From his sharp disapproving gaze, I got the distinct impression that General Sutter would not have appreciated my intrusion onto his property.

That, or he hadn’t been fond of cats, I thought as Isabella stared up at him, her brow furrowed in a bewildered manner.

“He’s not real, Issy,” I assured her as the stroller bumped over the rough concrete floor past the wax figure.

I followed the indicated path into the rest of the exhibit. A series of posters detailed Sutter’s early life in Europe, his journey to California, and his relationship with General Mariano Vallejo, the local representative of the Mexican military who had resided in the unmanned garrison at nearby Sonoma. With no troops serving under him, Vallejo’s “General” moniker had been almost as impotent as Sutter’s.

Clem’s voice continued in the courtyard as I rounded a corner into the second room of the exhibit. “Our story begins with John C. Frémont . . . ”

Right on cue, I found myself face-to-face with a portrait of the famous Pathfinder. He was depicted as a serious young man with an innocent-looking expression engulfed by a thick tangled beard. Positioned next to Frémont was a picture of the Bear Flag with which he was now so inextricably linked.

The Bear Flag in the frame was a photograph of a replica that had been created at the fifty-year anniversary of the Bear Flag Revolt. This flag had the same general layout and design as the current state flag. A five-pointed star was affixed on the upper left-hand corner, and a red banner ran across the bottom. Next to the star stood a bear, positioned with all four feet on the ground beneath it.

I studied the flag’s bear, recalling the passage from Oscar’s DeVoto book that had described the original animal as “standing on its hind legs.” Who had changed the position of the bear on later flags? I wondered again. And why had Oscar written the notation about the bear into the margin next to that text?

“I could see someone confusing this bear with a pig,” I mumbled to Isabella as I stared at the beast’s heavy floorscraping belly, “. . . but a stoat?”

“
Wrao
.”

I glanced down at the stroller where Isabella was pawing at the netting.

“
Wrao
,” she repeated.

“No, no,” I replied sternly. “No more escapes . . . ”

And then I saw what had caught Isabella’s attention. There on the dusty floor beneath the Bear Flag display case, propped up against a dimly lit corner, sat a little stuffed bear holding a California state flag.

My fingers trembled as I reached down to pick it up. I blew off a dusting of spiderwebs as I turned the tiny paper flag so that I could read the two lines of gold-lettered script on the back: BEAR FLAG MEMORIAL, SONOMA PLAZA.

MONTY SLOUCHED IN
the van’s front passenger seat, his bony frame limp with sleep. His face twitched with the slight crease of an eager-to-please smile.

“Why yes, Mayor, absolutely,” he mumbled groggily. “I’d go with the dark blue tie. It brings out the color of your eyes.”

His head flopped wildly from one shoulder to the other. “No, no, I’d use the sterling silver cufflinks,” he said, his speech markedly slurred. “They make you look more gubernatorial.”

Monty smacked his lips together. “Sacramento? Mayor, sir, you know my heart’s in San Francisco . . . ”

A trickle of drool began to run down Monty’s chin as he continued to sputter out words from his dream. “Me? Why, I’d be honored. You’d be leaving the city in capable hands, I can assure you . . . ”

His lower jaw dropped to his chest, leaving his mouth gaping open. A large fly zoomed through the two-inch opening at the top of the passenger side window and buzzed curiously toward the black hole.

Monty’s lips suddenly clamped shut, thwarting the fly at the last moment. His mouth formed a slobbering pucker as he murmured, “Just need to get my photo album started . . . ”

 

HAROLD WOMBLER’S PICKUP
slowly circled Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park, weaving around the barricades set up for the bike race as he looked for Monty’s large white van. He found it parked in a slot beneath a clutch of redwoods, around the block from the fort’s main entrance.

After scoping out the surrounding area to ensure he wouldn’t draw immediate police attention, Harold pulled to a stop in the middle of the street, double-parking behind the rear of the van. With an aching groan, he engaged the parking brake, gathered the frogs into their terrarium, and clambered out the cab of the pickup.

Harold walked stiffly around the van and peered into the passenger side window. His bleary eyes narrowed as he surveyed its sleeping occupant. Snore-distorted words floated up from the human heap crumpled in the seat.

“Me?” Monty’s lips flapped with a whoosh of expelled air. “You want to nominate
me
to take your place?”

Harold’s lips curdled with disgust as a large fly approached the dribble oozing from Monty’s open mouth. Grumbling under his breath, Harold pressed his face against the passenger side window and smacked the palm of his free hand against the door’s metal panel.

Jolted awake by the sound, Monty’s lips snapped shut, trapping the fly inside his mouth. His instinctive swallow was followed by a sour grimace as the fly’s struggling body caught in the back of his throat.

“Sweet . . . mother of pearl, Harold!” Monty gasped with a choking cough. “What are you doing here?”

 

 

CLEM HAD JUST
started the second part of his narrative when Isabella and I emerged from the exhibit area and returned to the courtyard, the third bear safely secured in one of the stroller’s side pockets. I rolled Isabella to a position at the back of the crowd and settled in to watch the rest of his performance.

“Now then, after several months of travel through the country’s midsection, our fearless Pathfinder finally arrived in the Western territories. Captain Frémont was dutifully fulfilling his mission to remap the forests of Oregon when he discovered an unfortunate feature of life in the Pacific Northwest.”

Clem leaned forward, wisely cocking an eyebrow at the children standing in front of the wagon. “Those folks take their weather in the liquid form.”

He leaned back on his heels. “There are some that don’t mind the occasional light mist, the odd sprinkle, the regular afternoon shower, the daily downpour . . . ” He wagged his finger briskly back and forth. “Our Pathfinder was not one of them.”

Clem struck a pained expression. “Frémont had mold growing in his saddle blanket, fungus taking root between his toes”—he jerked his left leg out over the edge of the wagon’s stage—“and an inexplicable itch creeping across his entire body. It was more than any man could tolerate!” His shoulders shuddered violently as he pulled his leg back in.

“You see, our Pathfinder had a delicate constitution,” Clem said, his voice taking on a whining tone. “It became more and more delicate the farther into Oregon he traveled.” He wrapped his arms around his body and shivered. “As the calendar turned to its winter months, and all that rain started coming down as snow, Frémont decided he’d had about enough of
Oregon
.

“Forget about tramping through those cold, wet forests,” Clem declared with a disparaging guffaw. “He could make the map up on his own!”

Clem tapped his temple with a stubby forefinger. “Being a student of geography, our Pathfinder knew exactly where to find a warmer climate.” He brought his finger out in front of his body to point at the crowd. “He headed south—to California!”

 

 

HAROLD GRIMACED
AS Monty rolled down the window.

“What’re you doing here, Harold?” Monty repeated sleepily.

“I’m a cycling fan,” Harold spit out coarsely. He tapped the brim of his baseball cap and pointed at the bike-riding bear sewn onto its front.

“Right, of course,” Monty replied. He glanced skeptically down at Harold’s ragged overalls. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type.”

The loose skin on Harold’s cheeks sucked sourly inward as Monty smoothed his hands over the front of his nylon cycling shirt. “What do you think of my biking gear?”

He didn’t wait for Harold’s response. “Hey, did you see the start of the race this morning?” he asked indignantly. “I couldn’t believe those guys . . . ”

“Where’s your traveling companion?” Harold demanded grittily.

Monty swung his head toward the empty driver’s seat. “Hmm,” he mused. He twisted his torso to check the van’s back cargo area. “That’s a good question,” he murmured, slightly perturbed.

Harold rolled his eyes. He shoved the frog terrarium through the open window and thrust it into Monty’s lap.

“Hold on to this, you worthless git. I’ll be right back.” With that, Harold stalked off toward the entrance of the fort.

The two frogs looked curiously up at Monty as he peered down into the terrarium, his narrow face registering wonder and amazement.

“Did you grow that hair or are those fake mustaches?”

CLEM STROKED HIS
chin thoughtfully as he paced across the floor of the wagon in front of the enraptured schoolchildren.

“There was one more thing that attracted our Pathfinder to California—other than its hospitable climate. The Oregon Territory, you see, was already firmly within the clutches of the American government.”

Clem waved a dismissive hand. “There was a niggling little dispute with England over where to draw the northern border, but that issue was well on its way to being sorted out by the diplomats.” He kinked his pinky finger in the air and made a loud slurping sound. “Over a cup or two of tea.”

The children giggled at Clem’s antics. Stroking his mustache, he grinned an acknowledgment and continued.

“California offered Frémont the one thing he desired the most—even more than dry socks. That was fame and celebrity. He’d had his first taste, and he was hungry for more.”

Clem raised the point of his finger to elaborate.

“Frémont’s young wife, Jessie, had translated the mapmaking notes from his earlier expeditions into a series of widely read travelogues. These tales of wild adventure captured the nation’s imagination and inspired many Americans to hop on their wagons and venture west. As seen through the adoring eyes of his spouse, Frémont and his mountaineer sidekick Kit Carson became literary heroes. Thanks to Jessie’s creative pen, Frémont was a legend around the wagon-trail campfires.

“Fame is an addictive elixir,” Clem said, shaking his head. “That first sip of stardom left Frémont with a powerful thirst—and he knew where and how he might quench it.”

He nodded to the front row of children. “Right next door to Oregon, there was another Western territory that was clearly destined to fall to the Stars and Stripes. California was ripe for the picking. All it needed was the right man to step in and help push it over the edge. A hero to lead the disorganized masses to their rightful destiny.”

Clem lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Frémont decided that
he
was the man for the job.”

 

 

HAROLD GIMPED THROUGH
the fort’s entrance and plunked a stack of five-dollar bills on the ledge of the admissions booth. As the park attendant tucked the money into her cash register and handed over his ticket, she smiled and said, “Smells like someone’s cooking fried chicken around here.”

Grunting a response, Harold carefully edged his way toward the spectators surrounding Clem’s wagon. His bleary eyes honed in on the woman with the long brown hair standing at the back of the crowd, next to the cat-occupied stroller. With a satisfied grimace, Harold took notice of the new toy bear sticking out of the stroller’s side pocket.