Snow Mountain Passage (13 page)

But suppose that policy has somehow been reversed? What if reinforcements have finally found their way north? You hear rumors about shiploads of Mexican troops landing in the dark of night. Has it all been too easy—each port and pueblo taken like a man caught half asleep? Were they simply buying time?

No. No, he thinks. It’s out of the question. That kind of foresight would be out of character.

From the decanter on his desk he pours half a cup of brandy and sniffs and swirls it and sniffs again and gazes into it before he sips. His third this afternoon. He doesn’t like to drink alone. Companionship adds savor. This fellow at the gate, should he be invited in? Or could there be another family waiting somewhere out of view, the wife, the ragged children? Never has he seen so many wives, so many children as have passed his way this year. For months they have been coming, and still they come, and why does the sight of it fill him with misgivings? Hasn’t he dreamed of the numbers that would one day gather here and provide the strength to wrest this land from the Mexicans, who have never had a clear idea of what to do with it?

These Americans, they think like he thinks. They see the same opportunities. There is a recognition, a sizing up of one another that is familiar. He likes that. And yet he does not like it. There are so many now. So suddenly. While their warships fill the bays, the horses and wagons roll over the Sierras, or down from Oregon, family by family, and before you know it, the men turn into soldiers. They call themselves soldiers, though many are not. Vagabonds and bullies—that is what they become. Captain Fremont, who now calls himself a colonel, would like the world to believe he commands a military company. But under whose authority, Sutter has to wonder. They have no uniforms. They roam up and down the province, stealing what they need. They come here where Fremont knows he has always been welcome, and they steal this fort away, put another man in charge, an infant who has never marched in battle, who marched across the continent in Fremont’s shadow, a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant replacing
him,
John Sutter, and removing his very name from the map of the region he himself transformed. They call it Fort Sacramento now. What a humiliation! What a joke! Despising Mexicans, they give the fort a Mexican name.

From his window he can see corrals and fallow fields and garden plots and sheds. Were it not for him, there would be no cultivation here, no sheep or cattle, no blacksmith shops to make new shoes for Fremont’s horses, no barracks for his so-called troops. There would be no grapes, no melons, no tomatoes, no brandy. There would be no fort. There would only be the meager huts of the tribes who awaited Sutter when he sailed up the river and chose this spot and set up his cannon and fired off a few rounds, sending unknown forms of thunder up and down the valley to let them understand who had come to stay.

Does Colonel Fremont appreciate this, he asks himself? Not for a moment. He thinks we have too many friends among the Mexicans. Because the flag of Mexico has flown here, he thinks I can’t be trusted. He forgets that you do not survive in such a place without allies and alliances. He forgets that when I built this fort the Americans north of San Francisco Bay could be gathered into a single room. He forgets how many I have befriended, offering refuge in a hostile land. He forgets that I formed the first militia here, to subdue the tribes, and now they work for me! They work for me by the hundreds. And I feed them well. And many come to me in friendship …

Across the compound he sees the new emigrant looking up at the face of a man who used to be such a friend, the shrunken head of the Mokelumne Miwok chief. Once a respected ally, he had been persuaded by the commandant from Monterey to turn against this fort. Sutter had to hunt him down and execute him, and mount his head above the gate as an example to all the others. I try to be generous and just, he tells himself. I am not at heart a brutal man. But some of them will never comprehend justice. They only comprehend fear. At the edge of this wilderness, fear is a necessary tool.

Now a messenger is crossing the compound. Sutter waits for the knock below. He sips his brandy. He listens. He waits for Manuiki, who will bring this message to him. Her bare feet make no noise upon the stair, but he knows she is ascending. She appears at his door.

“A visitor,” she says.

She stands regarding him with her large black eyes. The luminous glow is gone, like a fireplace of coals banked for the night. Her face is a mask, as it has been for two days. Too bad, he thinks. Too bad I have to put up with this. Too bad she has to be so nosy about my habits.

“Who is it?”

“Mister Reed.”

Sutter nods.

Reed.

Where has he heard this name? Was it from the fellow who led the mule train out of here last week? Yes. The small fellow. Stanton told them all the story of that unlucky company, the last bunch on the trail. And Reed, yes. Isn’t he one of the leaders? Maybe they have finally made it through.

“James Reed?”

“I think so.”

“Is he alone?”

She shrugs. “Who knows?”

“I’ll meet him at the gate, then.”

She turns to leave.

“Manuiki.”

At the door she waits but doesn’t turn. She wears a plain cotton dress that covers her arms and legs. Her black hair is gathered on top of her head. Her neck is the color of chocolate, darker than the Indians. He has always liked her neck. He has had silver earrings delivered just so he could see them hanging there. Too bad she now behaves so much like a wife and cannot be the tender, pliant thing she used to be when they sailed out of Honolulu and he brought her here to be his Manuiki, his little bird. She is putting on weight. Her hips are spreading. Is she pregnant again? That could be it, though he prays it is not. There have been enough children.

He says, “Why are you unhappy?”

She doesn’t move or speak.

He lifts his brandy cup. “Come. Have a drink with me.”

The stairs squeak, but her feet make no sound as she descends. He sips. Down below he hears her voice speaking to the messenger. She must know I brought in the new Indian girl again, he thinks. But is that any business of hers? I am still in command here, no matter what Colonel Fremont and his lackeys may believe.

BEYOND THE GATE
Reed stands waiting. Sutter observes his filthy buckskins, his battered hat, his unruly beard, the lean, fierce look of prolonged hunger. What a test it is, he thinks, getting through this country. What it takes out of a man.

Sutter is known for his hospitality and courtesy. It pains him to tell Reed that he cannot be invited inside these walls, nor can he be offered a place to sleep, without the approval of Fremont’s lieutenant.

“You are already known to us,” says Sutter, with a charming and self-deprecating smile. “If it were up to me, you would enter now and receive a royal welcome.”

Where he sleeps tonight, says Reed, doesn’t matter. As soon as possible he’s heading back along the trail, a hundred miles or so, maybe more, and he needs provisions, horses.

“You have already been generous. We’ll be very grateful for whatever else you can provide. I have a wife and four young children still out there, with the company …”

Reed’s voice breaks. He averts his eyes in a way that touches Sutter, who can see that Reed has some cultivation, rough-hewn, but a cut above so many who appear at this gate and never leave. He hears grief and passion in this voice. Against his will, Sutter is reminded that he too has a family waiting somewhere else. He prefers not to think about this, but the urgency of the father standing here takes him by surprise. The thought of his wife makes Sutter long for a drink. He does not miss much about Europe, but he misses the quality of the liquor. His taste buds are stirred, as if the aroma of schnapps has traveled eight thousand miles in an instant. He can smell it. Saliva gathers around his tongue. It makes him thirsty, it makes him sentimental. His eyes are wet. He misses his son, his firstborn, who would be twenty or more. He must send for them all. Yes. Too much time has passed since he left Burgdorf, though who knows where they could live, now that his fort has been stolen out from under him, and what could he offer them here? It is too late in the year, of course, to ask them to make such a journey, with the winter approaching. But in the spring he could send for them. Most definitely. Yes. In the spring. In the spring …

“Do you have sons?” he says to Reed.

“Two sons, yes, and two daughters.”

“And a wife, you say?”

“Yes.”

“And you left them all in the mountains?”

“We had not reached the mountains yet. We fell behind. The herds we started with were half gone. Supplies were running low.”

It is very odd, thinks Sutter, that he would be the man to come ahead, a man who appears to be a few years older than himself, a man of some position in the company. A younger man would have been much better suited for that ordeal. Watching him talk, Sutter knows there is more to it. Reed is concealing something. But then he thinks, Who isn’t? We all have things to hide. And he is drawn to Reed, as another man with a secret.

“Somehow these adobe walls are no longer mine,” he says, “thanks to Colonel Fremont. But the herds, the corrals, the sheds, these things I still control. You tell me what you need. I may find one or two vaqueros to help you with the animals.”

“We are indebted, sir. We want you to know that George Donner, who was elected captain of our party, will stand behind all our obligations.”

From inside his shirt Reed pulls a folded scrap of heavy paper with a letter of guarantee, signed in Donner’s hand. Sutter glances at it.

“When the time comes we can settle these details. I know of George Donner. We get wind of travelers long before they arrive. Much of the country you have passed through is known to me. Though I have not seen the Wasatch Range or the Salt Desert, I have already heard of your struggles there, thanks to your friend who recites William Shakespeare with such enthusiasm.”

“You mean Bill McCutcheon.”

“I have read some of Shakespeare’s work, of course, but long ago, and in translation …”

“Is he still laid up?”

“I believe he is walking again. I saw him at noon.”

“So he’s here at the fort.”

“At this moment he is probably in a meeting to which I have not been invited, though I am sure you will be welcome. Everyone there is an American, or so I have been told.”

Sutter’s voice is rising. His eyes are red-rimmed with sudden anger.

“How can I reach him?” Reed says.

“They are drinking my brandy, you can be sure of that. But they no longer care for my opinions. No one trusts me, you see! General Castro thinks I am aligned with the Americans! Colonel Fremont thinks I am aligned with the Mexicans! While he gallops up and down the province with his battalion of vagabonds, I am not to be trusted with the command of my own domain. Now men who have been in this region but a few days or weeks gather in a room in this fort I have built, and there they make plans that I am not privy to!”

From the look on Reed’s face he can tell he has said too much, or spoken too loudly. He softens his voice, saying he will send a messenger to Fremont’s lieutenant on Reed’s behalf and request an entrance to the fort. Sometime soon, Sutter adds, he will look forward to inviting Reed to dine with him.

NOW HE STANDS
in the dining room, pouring himself another cup of brandy while he waits for Manuiki, who will soon come in to set the table. This Reed, he thinks, seems like a decent fellow, a man he’s glad to help. Providing these travelers with what they need, of course, is a form of insurance. When the party finally makes it past the mountains, Sutter will get his mules and his Indians back. He will also get paid for the flour.

Doing business has been the good part about emigrant traffic. And there will be more of it. More business. And more traffic. As the Reeds of the world keep coming and keep crowding him.

That’s how it feels. The future is crowding him. Sutter’s hope is that the Mexicans cannot hold out. If they give up the fight, Fremont will lose interest. He and his followers will move on to the next adventure, and Sutter will have his fort back. Yes. But then what? What next? There was a time when he thought he knew. These days who can know anything, with the world transforming itself at such a pace. He grows weary of these unforeseeable changes. He grows weary of his fort, the burden of his fort. Days like this he would like to be rid of it. If the Americans are so taken with its virtues, perhaps he should let them have it. Perhaps he should simply sell them this accursed fort, pay off all his creditors, and be a free man at last! He has heard that the naval commander from the Bay of San Francisco might soon pay him a visit, to inspect the site, perhaps to pay for the shipment of flour recently purchased for his fleet, perhaps to make an offer on the fort itself. Would he sell it? Should he? Well, of course. He would sell it in a minute, if the price were right …

When Manuiki steps into the room, he is gazing out the window thinking how much he would ask, somewhere between thirty-five and forty thousand dollars, depending on the amount of land to be sold with it, and whether or not he includes the cost of the flour. He doesn’t hear her feet upon the boards. He doesn’t move until one dish clinks against another. Startled, he turns and sees her watching him with cautious eyes. Sutter seldom appears in the dining room until his food is on the table.

He says, “I have something for you.”

She looks away and waits.

He holds out a small carved box. “Something from Monterey.”

This is not what she expected. Her face perks up.

“What you like,” he says.

“Let me see.”

“First, have a drink with me.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Of course you do.”

“They make dinner now.”

“Dinner can wait.”

He opens the box and shows her the earrings of hammered silver, shaped like fish. In the muted light of late afternoon they seem to glow.

“Oooooh,” she says. “So pretty.”

He has already set a cup on the table. He pours it half full and hands it to her.