Death and Redemption

The killing started early.  Almost before sunup, he could hear them, even though the two dozen or so young steers had been driven to a place some distance away from the casa grande, near a shady riverbank.  The vaqueros would begin by roping a beast, first by its horns, then its hind legs, pulling it off its feet.  Then, as the two well trained horses kept the steer stretched out between them, one vaquero would dismount and tie the animal’s front legs together, then its hind legs.  Then he would plunge a knife into its neck, cutting the main artery.

Within seconds, the ground would be soaked with blood.  The two men would then carefully strip the hide—a process that usually took about a half hour—and lay the bare carcass on it while they removed the outer layer of fat, which would be rendered into lard.  Finally, they would cut away the seventy five to a hundred pounds of thick white inner fat, which would be made into tallow.

Already, Diego knew, the women would be building huge fires outdoors under the kettles they would use for this purpose. They would dry some of the meat for carne seca, and they would roast as much of it as they thought would feed the whole population of the hacienda that evening.  The rest of the carcass would be given as an offering—to the coyotes, the bears and the wolves, the ravens and the condors.

Of course, this slaughter today was but a small scale affair, a mere foreshadowing of the annual matanza, which wouldn’t begin in earnest until midsummer.  In full production, the de la Vega hacienda could process over twice as many head of cattle a day, nearly as many as the San Gabriel mission itself.

By nightfall, the vaqueros would have expertly stretched and staked the hides of these animals.  Then, tomorrow, they would return to the herds to finish branding and ear marking the few strays that remained from the midwinter roundup.  Today’s hides would be left to cure for about a month, then soaked and scraped free of hair, ready for sale, or for the tannery.

Watching the vaqueros work, one could easily be impressed by the sheer efficiency of their methods.  Only if one paid more attention to the sounds and smells—the bellowing and shouting, the scent of manure and sweat and blood-soaked earth and, as the day wore on, the sour smell of spoiling meat and the buzz of insects—only then did one start to get a sense that something older, more brutal and far more serious was taking place here. This was not a factory production line.  When, in college, he had read the ancient accounts of how the Greek warrior kings often killed a hundred black bulls at a time to appease their gods, Diego had recognized the practice.  The matanza, too, was a sacrifice, a tangible and compelling reminder that death sustains all life.

He had never been asked to participate directly in the killing, of course, but the ritual, like Urbino’s final words, reminded him that the heroic role he had chosen to play in life might easily require him to participate one day in the dying.  So as he got dressed to go see if Silvio had stayed on the hacienda despite what he might have seen the night before, Diego wondered if there really had been anything to see.

Had Urbino been right to feel jealous of him, despite Oreana’s reassurances, or had Diego merely seen his own baser urges reflected in her grief?  As he walked out onto the veranda, past the tightly drawn curtains of her room, though he knew they were probably the only two people left in the house, he decided not to knock on her door.

When he rode out to where the vaqueros had gathered, he was relieved to see that Bernardo was already keeping track of Silvio.  Like the children of the household servants who had come to watch the vaqueros work, Urbino’s servant seemed to be enjoying the rather festive sense of things that always surrounded these events.  He watched in fascination as Benito went to chase one of the steers that had suddenly split from the herd.

Rapidly, the vaquero wheeled his horse and, within a few long strides, he had caught up with the animal.  But rather than trying to overtake it and turn it around, or to rope it, he just grabbed it by the tail while at the same time urging his horse to bolt forward past the fleeing animal.  As the horse jumped, Benito let go of the steer’s tail at exactly the right instant to boost its hindquarters in the air and leave it rolling on the ground.  Once it scrambled to its feet, it was quite willing to rejoin the others.  The children laughed and cheered, and Benito, not entirely unaware of his audience, pulled his hat down a little tighter and smiled almost imperceptibly as he trotted past Diego’s father.

Alejandro’s own smile was equally subtle, but Diego suspected that the old man was more amused at the vaquero’s desire to show off than at the trick itself, which was something every one of these men, including the Don himself, knew how to do.

"Oh, Diego"—his father greeted him warmly as he rode up.  "It is good to see you up so early.  How are you feeling?  You do look better."

"Gracias, Father.  I think I have recovered, for the most part."

"Have you had any breakfast?"  He nodded toward the campfire where a large chunk of meat was already roasting.  The women had brought big clay pots of beans and tortillas for the workers.

Diego shook his head.  "No, I haven’t," he said, "but I think I will wait a while."  He halfway expected the old man to scold him, but instead Alejandro simply patted his arm.

"Very well," he said.  "But perhaps you would take some coffee."

"Perhaps."  Diego wondered just how much of his father’s patience with him this morning was the result of Oreana’s defense of him the previous afternoon.  Clearly, the old man had been quite taken with her.

"And why did you not bring the Señorita Venancio with you?" he asked.  "You know, I might have expected her to be squeamish about such things, but she tells me that on her father’s hacienda, she would sometimes ride out with the vaqueros.  She is a very skilled rider.  Yesterday, while you were ill, we went out riding.  I offered her the use of a colt from my own caponera."

Diego lifted both eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully, trying to look a little more surprised than he actually was.

"You know, my son," Alejandro went on in a conspiratorial tone, "I do not think Don Urbino really appreciates this girl’s talents and abilities.  He seems to care only about her beauty.  Not that one could easily overlook it, but, well, if I were just a little younger— "

He broke off suddenly, as if he thought he shouldn’t be saying such things to his son.  But then he smiled and added, "Well, I may be just a foolish old man.  But not as foolish as Urbino."

"No."  Diego smiled, too, quietly, to himself.  "But I am certain that he loves her."

"I suppose so," said his father with a sigh, but it is a shame.  Then he remembered his original question.  "I really hope she isn’t coming down with what you had."

"It is possible," said Diego.  "I think she was still asleep when I left the house."

Alejandro sighed.  "Well, at least it is a short-lived malady, and easily cured with rest."

"I hope so, Father," said Diego as he nodded and urged his horse toward the campfire where some of the vaqueros were boiling coffee in a cast iron kettle.  Then he added, "but some people may be more susceptible to it than others."

The rest of the day went quickly.  The vaqueros finished their work by late afternoon, and by that time, the women were also ready to pour the tallow into large leather bags for storage.  So some of the men helped with that task.  Then the feasting, singing and storytelling began, and it kept up until the campfires had all but burned out.

Diego found himself feeling like a boy again as he recalled many such warm summer nights playing with the other children.  His father had never thought himself above staying to socialize with the men who worked hard to keep the hacienda solvent.  Nor had he tried to shelter his son from their way of life, brutal though it often was.  In their own way, these vaqueros lived as much on life’s edge as the animals they herded and hunted. Like warriors, they were fiercely competitive, but they respected and admired their adversaries, the bears, the snakes, the wolves.  Thinking of Eusepio Marigál, he could only envy them.

The following morning was much quieter, yet something woke Diego even before the sun had fully risen.  He halfway expected Bernardo to come bursting in and tell him Silvio had bolted, even though that hadn’t seemed very likely the night before.  But when he finally did sit up in bed and heard the soft tapping on his door, he did not expect to see, when he opened it, both Bernardo and Oreana standing there, her hovering discreetly behind him like an aura.  They both looked quite pleased with themselves.  For a moment, Diego wasn’t even sure he was awake.

Rolling his eyes, he waved them both inside.  This would really be all that Silvio, or any other servant, needed to see.  "Oh, please come in," he said wryly.  "You two look like you’re collecting donations for charity."  Carrying a kettle and washbasin, cloths and candles, in they came.

"Bernardo is going to take the stitches out of your arm," said Oreana brightly.  Bernardo’s smile got brighter, too, and he nodded as he motioned for Diego to sit on the edge of the bed and roll up the sleeve of his nightshirt.  Diego sighed and reached for a pair of trousers instead.  Then, once Oreana had turned modestly around, he put them on, took off the shirt and held out the bandaged arm for Bernardo to see.

After carefully washing his hands, Bernardo looked hesitantly at Oreana.  Then, with a small pair of scissors, he cut through the layers of bandage.  The wound was healing nicely, they both agreed.  Then she motioned for him to go on and, rather than hovering over him, came to stand by the foot of the bed, no doubt thinking Diego would rather talk to her than watch what was happening.  The few magic tricks he knew had taught him something about misdirecting the audience’s attention, but in this case he thought he would rather have looked at her anyway, given the subtle change that had come over her appearance.

He couldn’t quite figure out what it consisted of, exactly, or even how to describe it except to say that she seemed more at ease.  And she seemed older, or maybe, in another sense, younger.  Moreover, while the word "ordinary" still seemed like one of the least accurate words one could use to describe her, she did look a little less striking, a little less exotic.  Perhaps the best way to explain it was to say that she simply looked more human.  She also looked tired.  The shadows around her eyes seemed just a shade darker than usual, and the eyes themselves looked a little red.  But her gaze still felt soft and warm when she smiled at him.

"So how are you this morning?" he asked, punctuating the question with a look intended to let her know he wanted a real answer.

She took a while to consider.  Then, holding his gaze long enough to assure him that this was a real answer, she said, "I think I feel something like what Calypso must have felt at the departure of Odysseus—saddened, a bit empty, perhaps, but no longer spellbound.  I will live."

"Spellbound?"  He winced suddenly as Bernardo began pulling out stitches with a small pair of tweezers.  "As I recall, Calypso was the one who kept Odysseus enthralled on her island for seven years.  She was the sorceress.  She only let him go when the gods decreed it."

"That is true," said Oreana.  "But one cannot cast such a spell without obliging oneself to fall under its influence.  Besides, don’t you think there may have been some complicity on Odysseus’ part?  He himself might have been something of an enchanter, too, eh?  After all, he subdued the witch Circe, as well, with Hermes’ aid."

Diego winced again.  "That is an interesting interpretation," he said.  "Perhaps we can discuss it once Bernardo has finished with his uh–ministrations."  Bernardo, catching the irony in Diego’s tone, glanced at Oreana, then at Diego, who added, half jokingly, "Couldn’t you have taught him how to remove these as painlessly you put them in?"

"That would depend on how long you were willing to wait," she said.  "Such skills cannot be learned overnight.  It took me quite a while to learn them myself.  And I’m not sure how it would be with someone who cannot speak."

Bernardo rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly.  Then, with a reassuring glance from her, he went back to work.  "But you could teach him," said Diego tightly as another stitch came out.  Suddenly he found that this subject had all but made him forget about the pain, not only because it aroused his curiosity now, but because somehow it hadn’t before.

"My aunts probably could," said Oreana.

"How does it work?"

"I don’t know," she shrugged.  "I only know it does."

"So you could lessen the pain of this—procedure, even now."

As she caught Bernardo’s eye, Oreana struggled to control the unruly grin that tried to break across her features.  Then she let her gaze drift up toward the ceiling.  "Haven’t I?" she said.

Suddenly, Bernardo, too, was trying so hard not to laugh that, by all rights, the last stitch he removed should have smarted, but Diego barely noticed it, no longer able to keep himself from laughing either.  After a moment, he said, "You certainly do take credit for a lot, Señorita."

"It adds to my mystique," she chuckled.  As she came around to Bernardo’s side to inspect the small pink scar, Diego only shook his head, knowing she still hadn’t explained anything.  Or maybe she had.  "See," she said, nodding at the cut.  "Just a scratch."  As she retrieved a small amber bottle from her pocket, he had to admit she was right.  Except for the red dots where the stitches had been, it looked like next to nothing.  "We will leave it un-bandaged for a while," she added, wiping it gently with some of the liquid he remembered her using before.  "Then in a day or two we will try to make the scar fade a little more."  Then she sighed.  "Now to the matter of Silvio.  We must get rid of him."

Instantly, an air of sobriety returned to the discussion.  "Get rid of him," said Diego.  "Well, I don’t know what we could do to get rid of him, short of— "

Bernardo punctuated the remark with a doubtful look.  His eyes widened even more when she said, "We’ll send him off after Urbino."  But by this time, Diego thought he knew what she was planning to do.

"A message," he said.

She nodded.  "He doesn’t know where Urbino went.  We can send him as far as Astoria, if we like.  It’s a fur trading settlement in the Oregon territory," she added, seeing that they hadn’t heard of it.  "Urbino and Marigál both have contacts there.  By the time Silvio realizes that Urbino won’t be joining him, he will have learned to speak French."

Clearly delighted with this idea, Bernardo nodded, then went to Diego’s desk to look for pen and paper, but Diego motioned him to stop.  "There is only one problem," he said.  "How do we convince Silvio that such a message is genuine?  I mean, surely he would recognize Don Urbino’s handwriting.  His signature."

"I can take care of that," said Oreana.  "I have samples of these things, and I think I could copy the style.  But this is only part of the problem.  All Marigál’s men seal their correspondence with a particular stamp—the sign of a certain kind of cross.  You don’t see it everyday.  It’s fairly unusual.  But without it, Silvio will know the message is forged."

"And you do not have it," Diego didn’t have to ask.  "Where is it?" he added, though he was reasonably sure that he already knew the answer to this question as well.

"The last time I saw it," she said, "he was wearing it."

"A signet ring."

"Sí."

"And that is why we must go to the mission today."

"That is one reason," she said.

Diego sighed.  "Very well.  But we cannot all go together.  If any of Marigál’s men see the two of us going to church without Urbino, that may be the end of our scheme.  They may guess that something has happened to him, and we may be too tempting a target.  You can go with Bernardo in the buggy while I follow along on horseback."  He nodded as Bernardo shot him a glance and drew a Z in the air, but Oreana shook her head.

"You may go however you please," she said.  "But I have had my fill of riding in coaches and carriages.  Your father has offered to let me use one of his own horses, a four year old palomino colt with good lungs and long legs.  I intend to find out just how far they stretch.  If anyone wants to stop me, including Señor Zorro, then he will have to catch me first."  Flashing a polite grin, she disappeared out the door, leaving the two of them shrugging at each other.

"Go saddle the gelding," said Diego at last.  "I might be able to catch her on Tornado, but what would be the use?  By the time I did she would probably be almost to the mission anyway.  By the way, where is Silvio now?  He slept last night with the stable hands."

Bernardo took the reins of an imaginary horse.

"He left?"

The servant nodded, then tossed an imaginary lariat.

"With the vaqueros?  Well, he ought to stay pretty busy with them, at least for a while.  But I have a feeling his interest won’t last much past mid-afternoon.  We will have to hurry."

Bernardo nodded again.  Then he frowned and looked at Diego as if he wanted to ask a question, but he didn’t quite know how.  Diego arched his brows.  Finally, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction Oreana had gone, Bernardo proceeded to wave his hands mysteriously, fixing Diego with an eerie stare.  Diego laughed.

"No, my friend," he said, shaking his head, "I do not think she literally cast a magic spell on Don Urbino.  It is just that she has read a great deal of literature, and she is given to expressing herself in metaphors.  To say he was spellbound, or enchanted, well, that simply means he was attracted to her.  It doesn’t mean she literally worked any magic on him."

Bernardo nodded, frowning at first.  Then he raised his brows and pursed his lips.

"Go saddle the horses while I get dressed."  Diego patted his shoulder and smiled an amused smile.  "If she really means to find out how fast that animal can run, our journey to the mission may be literally a horse race."