* * *
Clint awoke slowly then wished he had not. Every bone and muscle in his body cried with pain. He forced his eyes open and found himself in a small dark room. A tiny shuttered window leaked light. One rough-plank chest huddled against the wall. He lay in a bed with leather webbing for a mattress. A carved wooden crucifix adorned the wall over his head. Sad-faced, Christ stared down at him. Clint stared back.
“Now I know how you must have felt,” he thought, and winced as he tried to get more comfortable. His mouth tasted of old blood and each breath brought him the odor of herb poultices along with his blinding pain. Merely breathing was a gargantuan effort.
Feeling hot and uncomfortable, he managed to tug the blanket off with his right hand. His left arm was splinted. A multitude of abrasions were covered with herbs, wraps binding them.
“The bastard,” he said aloud, remembering the vaquero who had roped and dragged him. Trying to rise, he moaned and collapsed back on the bed. His head swam and his body would not work.
“I’m beginning to have a sincere dislike for sunny Alta California,” he thought. He had had a thousand bruises and scrapes and as many confrontations in his ten years at sea, but never with the frequency, or the ferocity, of his less than four weeks in Alta California. And he had never before broken a bone. A broken bone could mean gangrene and sure death.
The door creaked open, and Clint focused suspicious eyes on the medium-size man silhouetted there. “You have come back to us,” the man said, his voice low and mellifluous, his English flawless.
“I don’t remember leaving. Who the hell are you?”
The man stepped into the room, and Clint flushed when he realized the clean-shaven man wore the gray jerga robes of a priest. His head was covered with a low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat, and his robe was fastened with a twisted rope, its ends hanging down the right side. A long rosary of polished wooden beads looped through the left side of the rope. He approached the bed on simple leather sandals.
“I’m sorry, Father… I didn’t realize.”
“I am Padre Javier. And you?”
“John Clinton Ryan.”
“Ah, I suspected so. You are fortunate you came when you did.”
Even in his pain, Clint managed a wry grin as he cast his eyes down over his bruised and broken body. “You call this fortunate?”
“More so than the greeting you would have received from your shipmates.”
Clint furrowed his brows in confusion, “My shipmates?”
“The Capitán …Señor Sharpentier.”
“Yes, Captain Quade Sharpentier.”
“He requested permission from the alcalde to hang you, Señor Ryan.”
“What? What the hell for? Sorry, Father.” Clint collected himself. “Why would Sharpentier bend a line around my neck?” He searched his mind. He had never much liked the man or respected his ability, though he could use a blade with the best of them. Still, Clint could think of no reason the man would want to hang him.
“He reported that the Savannah was lost due to your malfeasance.”
“How the devil could I ‘malfease’ when I was asleep in my bunk?” His tone turned reflective. “Sounds as if Sharpentier is looking for a scapegoat.”
“Maybe the fact you were in your bunk is precisely the reason he finds you at fault, my friend. He claimed you were the one on watch, or should have been”
Clint probed his mind for an answer. No one had called him to watch, and he had not been due to report to duty until several hours after the time of the wreck. Unless, of course, all hands were called or a man was injured or washed overboard. And that could have happened under the severe circumstances. Still, he could not have been at fault if he was not called.
“Was that the reason I was roped and dragged by one of California’s capable vaqueros, the reason I’m in this cell?”
Now it was the priest’s turn to smile. “I am sure Inocente Ruiz is a fine vaquero. Whether or not he is one of Alta California’s most capable is not for me to judge. He is certainly not one of our most pious, to that I can testify, for I seldom see him at mass.” The priest waved his hand. “And this room is part of the mission, young man, not a cell.”
“Sorry, Father.” Clint felt a little sheepish for a moment. Then why did Ruiz use me to drag the high spots out of your bumpy road?”
“It seems you offended Señorita Juana Padilla.”
“Offended! How?” Clint tried to sit up, but his eyes blurred and he almost passed out. The padre reached to the floor at the foot of the bed and raised a tin of water to Clint’s lips. Clint drank deeply.
“Thank you, Father.” Clint lay back against his pillow. “Now, how did I offend this señorita?”
“I do not know. Perhaps you said something?”
“I offered ‘buenos días’ as I recall.”
“Nothing more?”
“Not that I can recollect. I must admit, I gave her a long appreciative look. As I recall, she’s one of the easiest women to look at that I’ve ever had the pleasure of bouncing away from.”
Clint tried to laugh but winced from the effort. Then his eyes hardened, and his jaw flexed for a moment before he spoke. “This vaquero. Inocente Ruiz. Will he return to finish the job?”
“I think his pride is fulfilled.”
“He’ll keep until my arm mends—then we’ll see how large his stock of pride is when he’s facing a man, not behind him.”
“Vengeance is the Lords, my son.”
“But he must use the arm of man, Father.” Clint smiled wryly, “Unless we’re content to wait for a bolt of lightning.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
“If it’s all the same to you, we’ll debate the finer aspects of the Scripture when I’m a little clearer-headed.”
“That will be a pleasure, young man. Then, of course, if you are truly clear-headed you will accept things as they are and leave Señor Ruiz to the Lord.”
Clint worked a muscle in his jaw, choosing to leave this discussion for another time, a time when he would bring Inocente Ruiz to task.
“And the arm? Will it work?” he asked.
“The break was clean, the skin, not broken, and you were unconscious, so it was easily set.”
“Thank God for that.”
“And for all of His bountiful ways.” The priest crossed himself. “You may thank Him, but you also owe a debt of gratitude to a huge Kanaka, a Sandwich Islander, who carried you all the way from the other side of the pueblo to the mission. I fed him. In fact, he ate a gallon of atole. Never have I seen such a man, or seen such an eater.”
“His name?” Clint asked.
“I’m sorry, I was busy with you and don’t remember. Later, if he’s still here, you can find him easily. He’s the largest man I have ever seen, as tall as or taller than you and with the girth and strength of a bull.”
Padre Javier rose and walked to the door. “This room is quite close to the blacksmith shop. I hope the noise is not too much. You are the guest of Dons Nicholas Den and Daniel Hill. Don Pío Pico, our illustrious governor,” he said with a quiet vengeance, “has leased the mission to these Anglo gentlemen. There are only two of us priests here now.”
“You padres no longer run the mission?”
“I am now only a parish priest, my son. My duties as a mission priest are a thing of the past. We are only here under the auspices of Señores Den and Hill. The bishop has taken Mission Santa Barbara as his home. So you see, no matter what Pío Pico proclaims, this is still a most holy place. More water?”
“No, thank you. And thank you for setting the arm... and allowing me to stay here.”
“It is nothing, John Clinton Ryan. All part of God’s work.”
“But you are His tool, Father, so please accept my thanks.”
“Accepted. Now sleep. I will waken you at supper time with a howl of hot pozole.”
Clint closed his eyes and was asleep before the padre slipped from the room. But he dreamed of a taut
reata tight around his neck, flashing hooves, and a hawk-nosed vaquero who, no matter which way he turned, managed to stay behind him.
Twelve
Resting in the quiet room, his meals brought by the Chumash neophytes who still called the mission their home, gave Clint a chance to think at length about his situation. If Sharpentier believed him guilty of abandoning his post, he was in great trouble. A warrant would be issued for his arrest, a price put on his head, and he would be sought actively by all American sea captains and any other who wished to claim the reward. His dreams of a ship of his own would have to wait, not only until he was financially able but, more importantly, until he could clear his name.
Even though the captain was seeking a clearance from the Alta California government to hang him, Sharpentier might know he was innocent. The captain was no fool, but he was an opportunist and an unprincipled one. Sharpentier would have some serious charges to face when he returned to New England. A captain who had lost a ship would he harshly investigated, and if he did not have a damned fine excuse, an ironclad one, and someone else to place the blame on, there would be hell to pay. At best, he would never get another share as ship’s captain. At worst, he could be hanged.
When the port crew worked topside, Mackie would have been the one to bring him any special summons to duty, but Mackie was the least dependable of the men on the Savannah. Clint had often wondered how the man had risen to second mate. But men change. Mackie might once have been a fine seaman and possibly even a good officer. Demon rum had ruined more than one man.
He wondered which of the men had survived. He hoped Turk and Wishon had, for they had both become good friends. He knew that Sharpentier had, but which of the others?
And what was Clint to do if Sharpentier returned and truly meant to hang him?
He did not wish to be placed at odds with his shipmates, but he would not hang for another’s malfeasance, as the priest had so aptly put it. No, he would fight the archangel himself when he knew he was right, and Sharpentier was about as far from a messenger of God as a man could be.
Clint lay quietly, his resolve firm. He would fight to the death before he would ride acorn’s horse, the tall oak gallows!
He listened to every sound in the mission plaza outside his room, awaiting the footfalls of sailors carrying muskets and cutlass. Finally, exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep.