* * *
“Truhud awaits you at the communal fire,” Hawk said. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Clint answered, and flashed Hawk a look of confidence that he did not really feel. He knew he was still not at his best, but he had to be good enough if he wanted to see the deck of a ship again. He pulled on his boots, took a drink of water from the gourd left by Chahett, and followed Hawk.
The whole tribe had gathered around the communal fire, forming a forty-foot circle with the fire at its center. The flames blazed, casting dancing shadows as the daylight faded. It was a particularly beautiful sunset, Clint noticed. Oranges and yellows striped the western sky.
Clint did not see Truhud at first. He was hidden among his followers on the far side of the fire. Clint pulled off his shirt, handed it to Hawk, and entered the clearing. The group of men on the far side parted, and Truhud stepped forward. He wore only a buckskin loincloth and was painted from head to toe. I guess that’s supposed to frighten me, Clint thought as he surveyed the white arms and legs of the man and his black torso. Even his face, hands, and feet were painted. Only the palms of his hands were paint-free.
Clint took a deep breath and felt that rush of strength that came to him when he knew a confrontation was at hand. Truhud bent low in a wrestler’s stance. Clint, bare-chested, wearing just trousers and boots, stepped within, reach of the paxa, and the Chumash closed. They locked, arms entwined, and Clint attempted a hip throw. His hands slipped from the man’s body, and he almost gave the Chumash his back—and the advantage. Paint, hell, Clint thought. The son of a bitch has greased himself down. He’ll be hard to throw if I can’t hang on to him.
Recovering quickly, Clint locked gazes with the paxa, who snarled. The Chumash charged in low, snatched one of Clint’s legs, and dropped him to his back. The crowd roared. Clint spun to his side, hooked a toe behind the Chumash’s ankle, and struck the same knee hard with his other booted foot. The Chumash too went down, and the crowd gasped in surprise.
Both men regained their feet. If he could not hang on to the slippery rattlesnake, he would change tactics. Dropping low, his hands at knee level, Clint awaited the man’s charge.
Truhud too came in low, trying for a leg again. Clint’s hard right uppercut caught him under the chin, snapping his head back and flinging blood over the crowd from an inch-wide cut. Truhud staggered back, but Clint went after him. A straight right and a left hook spun the man into the startled warriors. Truhud’s men closed in front of him with crossed lances, blocking Clint from going for the kill.
Hawk shouted something from the other side of the circle, but the men made no move. Clint worked his way to the middle of the clearing without turning his back on the armed men.
In a moment, Truhud stepped into the clearing. Blood ran in a trickle from his nose, and his chin dripped, but his eyes were not defeated. He had the white-rimmed glare of a man who smells blood. He charged forward, once again, coming in low, and sidestepped Clint’s blow. They locked.
Being shorter, Truhud had some leverage and pinned both of Clint’s arms. He set his feet forward and gave a mighty upward heave, rolling backward. Clint flew up and over the falling man, landing hard on his back as Truhud rolled on top of him.
Clint freed an arm and managed to roll to his belly. Truhud encircled Clint’s throat with a powerful arm, got a chokehold, and began his death grip.
His wind cut off, Clint’s vision faded. Then, with a surge of strength, Clint got a knee under him, locked Truhud’s elbow and spun, taking the Chumash with him.
As Truhud slammed to his back, his grasp loosened, Clint scrambled to his feet and again they stood face to face.
Thinking he had the advantage, Truhud charged again. This time Clint met him with a hard jab, rocking the Indian back. Truhud tried to duck the next blow and rushed in low.
Clint brought up a knee with a sickening crunch and flipped Truhud to his back, blood spewing from his splattered nose.
Clint allowed him to gain his feet. The Chumash did not charge but stood, holding his nose, the blood flowing freely between his fingers.
Clint closed, connecting with a solid jab. Truhud staggered back, and Clint crossed with a left then put everything he had into a straight right.
The Chumash fell like a pole into his crowd of supporters. Again they closed in front of him, and again, Clint stepped back to the center of the circle.
Clint took a deep breath as the men parted and Truhud staggered out with his supporters encouraging him. He stumbled forward, and Clint figured that one good blow would end it.
Clint stepped toward him, but with a flick of his wrist the Chumash produced a stone knife he had concealed along the underside of his forearm. The black obsidian flashed, and a thin line of blood formed across Clint’s chest as he reeled away.
Hawk yelled and jumped into the circle, but Clint waved him away. “I’ll handle this,” he said.
Shouts of derision rose up from the braves, directed at the paxa, and Truhud glanced from side to side to see who would dare challenge him.
Clint took advantage of the distraction and feigned attacking with his hands. The Chumash sliced with the knife, and Clint reared back avoiding the blow and driving a pointed boot deep into his enemy’s crotch.
Truhud stumbled away, tried to maintain his crouched stance, but dropped to one knee. He dropped the knife, grabbed his crotch with both hands, and retched.
Clint stepped back and glanced over at Hawk. “Is that enough of a kneel?”
Hawk nodded. Clint stepped forward and picked up the obsidian knife. Truhud’s men too took a forward step, lances in hand.
Clint flipped the knife over and grabbed it by the blade. With a powerful throw, he stuck it into a log in the center of the fire, where it echoed with a quivering thud. Almost immediately, its wooden handle burst into flame, Clint gave his back to the men and made his way out of the circle.
Chahett and a dozen others gathered around him, chattering their support as he walked to the hut.
All but Chahett left him to his privacy.
Ten
A moccasined foot nudged Clint awake just after sunup. He pulled on his boots and left the hut to find Hawk waiting with two saddled ponies.
Hawk handed Clint a set of reins, then swung easily into his own saddle. He pointed to the south. “Santa Barbara.”
Clint mounted also, and the pony sidestepped, feeling the morning. The Chumash smiled as Clint found his seat, and they set out.
The paxa walked out of the communal hut and shook his fist as they passed. Clint admired the man’s swollen nose and one closed eye, checked to make sure he did not have lance or bow nearby, then ignored him.
They climbed out of the canyon and topped a rise where the morning sun warmed his back. Clint was not completely himself yet, and the effects of the days in the sun were compounded by the bumps and scrapes of his fight, but his several nights’ rest had worked wonders, and he was headed back to civilization. He could see the ocean in the distance and the outline of a ship on the horizon but could not make out her type, much less identify her.
They entered a dense forest of sandpaper oak and madrone. A dozen wild horses bolted from a thick stand of saplings, and he marveled at the strength of the mustangs as they wound their way up and out of the canyon.
A huge condor circled high above, its wings fixed, using the updrafts from the ocean air that warmed as it passed over land. Hawk reined up and Clint drew alongside. Hawk handed him a gourd of water.
“Gracias,” Clint said, but Hawk only nodded. They rode on.
They continued almost due south; the sun had risen on Clint’s left and was dropping on his right. South was the way to Santa Barbara. Not true south, but their route would bring them to the shore of the Pacific, and it would lead them southeast to Santa Barbara. Like San Juan Capistrano and San Pedro, Santa Barbara had been selected as a port since it lay on a southerly shore, not exposed to the prevailing northwest winds
.
That night, Hawk found a place by a small stream, and they hobbled the horses and shared some jerky he produced from his bedroll. Clint listened to the sound of the wind in the trees and the lonely cry of a wolf. His thoughts turned to the Savannah and her crew. He wondered how many, if any, he would find in Santa Barbara.
Clint awoke before dawn, soaked from the dew but feeling much better. They were saddled and on their way by the time the sun formed a silver line on the mountains to the east.
He could smell the sea before he heard it and hear it before he saw it. The beach lay wide and inviting. They dismounted, left the horses to graze in a grassy flat above the beach, and walked to the surf line, chasing the shore birds in front of them. Spotting their breathing holes as he watched Hawk do, he dug clams and ate them from the shell. Raucous gulls and a few graceful black-necked stilts fought for the remnants when the pair threw the shells aside. Clint sat and rested for a few minutes, watching curlews run their long saber-shaped bills into the sand to pluck fat worms.
Each of us has our own God-given talents, Clint thought in quiet reflection and each his own way. He tried not to judge the backward direction the Chumash had chosen for themselves. They had been at the mission and seen what Clint thought were better ways. But the mission ways were not their ways. He and Hawk remounted having eaten their fill, and continued down the beach.
They circled a large lagoon and paused at the edge of a meadow where a huge bear, its silver-tipped humpback to them, rocked on all fours, feeding on the naked carcass of a bullock—a bullock probably spiked by a vaquero, skinned, and left for the scavengers.
“Oohoomahtee,” Hawk said quietly. “To you, the grizzly.” Hawk exhibited his respect, reining away to give the bear a wide berth,
Clint watched in awe as the humpbacked bear tore huge chunks of meat from the animal and devoured them with grumbling roars that reverberated across the meadow and shook Clint’s spine. The grizzly was the most fearsome animal Clint had ever come upon.
Giving the animal plenty of room to enjoy its feast without being disturbed, they rode on. By late afternoon they swung due east, and Clint thought he recognized the headland. They worked their way through sandpaper oaks, crested a hill, and below him the pueblo stretched, its tile and thatched roofs looking as beautiful to Clint as any fancified New England city.
Hawk reached over and took the reins of Clint’s horse out of his hands.
“You’re not going into Santa Barbara?” Clint asked,
Hawk shook his head and Clint slipped from the saddle. “Chahett told me to tell you she will miss you, like the moon would miss the sun.”
“What does the name Chahett mean?”
“Bluebird,” Hawk said, “Think of her when you see one.”
“I will,” Clint said, waving.
The tall Indian brought his fist across his chest, and Clint did likewise. Then the man spun the horse and urged him away, trailing the other horse behind.
“Gracias, amigo,” Clint called, but the Indian did not turn back.
This man and his people had chosen to go with their own god. Clint wished them well, and even though he was convinced that their way, looking to the past, was wrong, it was their way.
But he must turn his mind to the present and his own kind. He strode toward Santa Barbara.
Hawk reined up on the last rise and looked back to watch the man called Ryan depart. He was a good man, he decided. Tall, strong, quiet, he would have been a welcome addition to the tribe. But, Hawk thought, the Anglos have strange ways. And their ways are not our ways just as the Spanish ways are not our ways. And Sup has punished us, taken most of our people to ride the sun to the afterworld, taken them with terrible diseases. But it is not this man’s fault. He watched Clint descend the hillside
It is too bad he is afoot. I should have given him a horse. But horses were getting harder to come by, and the last time he had relieved the Santa Ines mission of one of the few they had left, the cholos had trailed him for a week. He had lost the Mexican pursuers but also lost a week he could have been hunting and filling the tribe’s food baskets.
No, a horse was out of the question. Besides, the Anglos wanted boats, not horses. And this Anglo would soon be back aboard one of the great ships.
He would never be able to adopt the ways of the tribe. No Spaniard ever had. He would only be trouble.
Still, Hawk’s heart was heavy to see him go.
And, he thought, chuckling, Chahett’s was like a boulder.