The Bastard (2 page)

If there were bandits, Diarmid saw no sign of them as the days passed. More than a dozen times they encountered northbound travelers on El Camino Real, the rocky, dusty trail the Spanish priests had named The King's Highway, and twice a stage. Once they detoured around a flock of sheep
being driven
into the foothills by a brown-and-white dog and a shepherd who spoke no language either Diarmid or Manuelo understood.

"Basque," Manuelo said. "Those people come from
Spain
but not Spanish, they keep to themselves, very strange and clannish.
Me
, I work with cattle. A rancho needs more than one vaquero to handle the herd and we are
compadres
, the vaqueros and
myself
. These Basques are
loners,
they tend sheep with no more than a dog for company. How a man stands such solitude, I can't understand."

"Will you work with cattle in
San Diego
?" Diarmid asked.

Manuelo's frown made him recall how touchy
Californios
could be and he added, "I mean no offense, I ask because I need work myself."

"Me, I have no anger toward you," Manuelo assured him. "Are we not
compadres
?
It's your government I dislike
.
Your
presidente
Fillmore.
Pah
!"

Diarmid
didn't
try to explain his own position as a immigrant Scotsman. He lived in the
United States
didn't
he?
Therefore
he was an American and the government Manuelo complained of was his government.

"Your government tells us," Manuelo went on
, "
that we don't own land granted to us by our governors when we were part of
Mexico
. How can this be? Suddenly Anglos swarm over land we thought was ours, claim they have a right to it and your courts uphold them. How can we fight against the courts? My family was comfortable and happy one day and homeless the next." His voice was bitter.

"I've been homeless since I was fourteen," Diarmid said. “When my father died and his land was unfairly taken from me."

Manuelo stared at him for a long moment, then urged his black closer to Diarmid's buckskin and held out his hand.
" Mi
amigo," he said, his voice choked, "you understand."

Diarmid clasped his hand hard and released it. “Amigo, I have sworn I will someday have land of my own."

 
Manuelo nodded. "May God favor
you.
"

By the time they reached Manuelo's uncle's casa in the pueblo of
Los Angeles
,
they'd
journeyed together for a week.

 
"Mi casa es su casa," Tomas Valdez
told
Diarmid
upon
being
introduced
.
"My house is your house."

Diarmid, seeing no reason to turn down hospitality, stayed with Manuelo at the uncle's modest hacienda, enjoying the warmth of February. At this time of year,
San Francisco
was inclined to be damp and chilly. He found the ubiquitous sweet perfume that
could be smelled
night and day in the casa was from the tiny white blossoms of the five orange trees planted near the house.

"The fruit, ah, wonderful, sweet and juicy,"
Tio
Tomas boasted. "It ripens by summer."

On the morning they were to leave for
San Diego
, Manuelo awoke with shaking chills.

"Manuelo suffers from malaria,"
Tio
Tomas said to Diarmid. "He will rest here, we'll dose him with quinine and he'll soon recover."

Manuelo objected. "The letter," he mumbled, burning with fever, but fighting off his aunt's attempts to put him to bed. "I must first deliver the letter."

"Amigo
,"
Diarmid said finally, "if the letter can't wait, why not let me deliver it?"

Manuelo, to everyone's relief, eventually agreed and was whisked off to bed by his aunt and her
maid
.

 
"Don Francisco Gabaldon,"
Tio
Tomas said, reading the name printed on the outside of the sealed packet. "The don owns a rancho south of here."

"You'll give me directions?" Diarmid asked.

"Si."
The uncle grinned. "Though there's little need. Since Don Francisco owns from the eastern mountains to the sea, you
can't
reach
San Diego
without passing over his land.
It's
a very large rancho.
Muy mucho.
They say--" he paused, leaned closer to Diarmid and lowered his voice--"that in Don Francisco's hills there's a lost gold mine. Many have sought the mine since the long ago days of the good fathers who built the missions, but no man has ever found it. Not even the don."

Diarmid nodded, but he had no interest in lost mines. Since his arrival in
California
five years ago,
he'd
heard too many similar tales from miners down on their luck.
Lost mines, secret caches, hidden veins of gold and not a grain of truth in any of the stories.
Land, not gold, was the only treasure he sought.

After learning that the rancho was less than a day's journey from
Los Angeles
, he set off on Bruce, riding south along the ocean, still following El Camino Real. The Pacific seemed gentler this far south, lapping in long lazy combers onto sand instead of crashing in foam against rocks. White gulls swooped and wheeled over the sun-sparkled water, a brown pelican dove and came up with a fish, a three-master
far offshore
sailed northward.

Near
sunset
he came to the small fishing hamlet of El Doblez. Don Francisco
Gabaldon's
land began beyond the hills just east of El Doblez,
he'd
been told. Noticing a cantina set under palm trees off the dusty road, he reined in. He and the buckskin could use a drink, a bit of food and a rest.

He pushed open the door and strode inside the adobe building, glancing around as he looked for the proprietor.

A buxom lass
in a square-necked, loose-fitting embroidered gown approached him, threading her way between crowded tables occupied mostly by men.

"Mi casa es su casa,"
she
told
him
,
smiling
.
Her words held a tinge of invitation.

Diarmid stared at her.
Fair skin and hair, hazel eyes.
About Miriam's age, she was an attractive
lass
.
He'd
never expected to find the likes of her in a cantina.

"In case you don't understand Spanish," she went on
, "
what can I do for you?"

Taken by her looks, by her husky voice, he grinned.
“Whatever you want, lass."

She tilted her head to one side and examined him. "You're a long way from home, aren't you, Scotty?"

He shook his head, the grin fading. For all that he
couldn't
rid his voice and his words of
Scotland
,
California
was his home. "Come to that,
what're you
doing here?" he challenged.

"Earning my way in the world.
If it's any of your business."

"When I have the time I might make it mine. For now,
I
need a bit of food and drink.
And your name."
He could tell she liked his looks. Old or young, most lasses did.

"One of the girls will serve you," she told him, starting away. He touched her arm and she stopped, glancing at him with raised eyebrows.

"I'll make a fair trade--my name for yours." He took off his hat and made a sweeping bow.
"Diarmid Burwash, ma'am."

By
now
most of the customers were watching them. One, a stocky, swarthy Mexican, scowled blackly at Diarmid. The blonde lass hesitated, pursing her lips,
then
suddenly curtsied. "Miss Stella White, sir
,"
she murmured, her eyes laughing at him before she turned away.

The Mexican lass that served his food
was
young and dark and her breasts all but fell out of her bodice as she bent over the table, tantalizing him.
But
as he ate his tortillas, his eyes followed the blonde as she moved from table to table, smiling and saying a word or two but not lingering nor serving anyone. She
wasn't
dressed in the latest
San Francisco
fashion of tight bodice and bell-shaped flounced skirt held out with a multitude of petticoats--her loose-fitting gown hinted at, without revealing, lush curves.

Up until now,
he'd
never known a lass named Stella.
But
no matter how much she appealed to him, he had the letter to deliver first. Once that was done,
there'd
be nothing to stop him from coming back and getting better acquainted.

Diarmid reached Don Francisco's hacienda before the true darkness of night. Both he and Bruce were more than ready to stop. Turning over the buckskin to a servant, Diarmid strode under an
arbor
of blooming white roses, their sweet scent following him onto the front veranda.
Determined not to be intimidated
by fine dwellings and servants, he lifted the massive iron knocker and let it fall hard on the plate, once, twice, three times.

An old woman in black, an Indian by the look of her, opened the door.

"I carry a letter for Don Francisco," Diarmid announced in Spanish.

Wordlessly, she gestured for him to enter. As she led him along a dark corridor, he felt himself watched, but quick glances at the unlit rooms they passed revealed no one. The old woman escorted him to a small room glowing with
lamp-light
. Shelves built against the white-painted walls held scores of gold-embossed leather-bound books.

A bone-thin man with white hair,
mustache
and beard sat in a chair with a leather seat, a book open on his lap. The man set the book aside and rose, showing himself to be a head shorter than Diarmid.

In his limited Spanish, Diarmid introduced himself and briefly explained the circumstances that brought him to the rancho. He held out the letter as he finished.

Don Francisco accepted the letter without taking his eyes from Diarmid. "Dark as you
are
," he said, in English, "you could be a Spaniard--except for the way you speak the language."

Diarmid smiled. "Who can tell?
'
Tis
said that long ago, when the British defeated the Spanish Armada,
many's
the Spanish sailor who washed up alive on shores of my birth-land."

"Ah, the Armada.
A humiliating defeat for
Spain
."
The white-haired don shook his head. "Many thanks for delivering this to me. You will spend the night, of course."

Diarmid,
who'd
had his fill of camping, thanked him and agreed.

The silent old woman appeared and led him upstairs to a bedroom, painted white, with bright red and yellow mats on the plank floor and left him there. His belongings from his
saddle bags
were already piled neatly on a chest at the end of the bed. To his surprise, someone had placed a white rose in a silver vase on the square wooden table by the bed, its delicate fragrance sweetening the air. Though he
couldn't
be sure, he doubted the old woman, clearly a servant, was responsible for the rose.

Rising hair on his nape again warned that someone watched him. Quickly striding to the open door, he stepped into the shadowy hallway, lit only by candles in iron sconces. Something moved to his right--the slight figure
of a lass
, dressed in white, hurrying away. Before he could move or speak, she slipped through a door and was gone.

Did the don have a wife?
A daughter?
Could the watcher have been a curious servant? Diarmid shrugged and, yawning, turned away. It made little difference. Tired as he was, he hoped whomever she was she
didn't
mean to creep into his bed--at least until he'd had a bit of rest.

Diarmid woke at
cock-crow
. He lay quietly for a moment,
savoring
the clean, soft bed. The cock's crowing had taken him back to his childhood. When he had his land,
he'd
make certain to raise chickens--for the fresh eggs, if for no other reason.