* * *
It was four days and eight bowls of pozole—a stew of meat, oats, and vegetables—and mounds of the mission’s dried fruit before Clint was able to leave the tiny room. Early in the morning he made his way out into the kitchen garden and sat on a stone bench, listening to the birds and watching the sunrise activities of the few remaining mission Indians.
The mission in better times had grown to a double quadrangle enclosing two large patios. There were the priests’ quarters, a sacristy, and workshops surrounding the front patio; and more workshops—tannery, cobbler shop, coopery, grist mill, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop—and storerooms surrounding the rear patio. Zunjas, water ditches, interlaced the fields and vineyards, and culminated in an octagonal fountain in front of the mission that, second only to the bell towers, was the pride of the padres. In front of the fountain a long rectangular adobe basin, its sides lined with stones, served a more practical purpose—laundry. Women of the pueblo still gathered at the basin to beat their laundry clean, and gossip.
Beyond the row of workshops that separated him from the main patio, Clint could see the twin towers of the main cathedral, each over seventy feet high and proudly containing bells cast in faraway Seville, Spain. Each morning they called the faithful to duty, and each mealtime they summoned them out of the fields with clear tones that swelled the heart. Chickens, goats, pigs, and sheep had the run of the rear courtyard, though they still managed to keep them out of the front and its hundreds of ornamental plants. Each tree in the rear had been nibbled, its underside as flat as an iron and as high as the goats could stand on their hind legs.
Padre Javier, a mug of tea in his hand, joined him. “I see you’ve decided to try your legs. I’ve brought you tea.”
“The legs are a mite shaky, but the morning is fine.” Clint took the tea and smiled silent thanks, then returned his attention to the working Indians he had been watching for almost an hour. “There are few to run such a large household.”
At one time we had several hundred neophytes, but some years ago the politicians in Monterey in their wisdom passed the emancipation, effectively breaking the back of the mission system. The Indians are no longer subject to the will or, unfortunately, the guidance of the church. Over the last sixteen years, they’ve wandered away and are mostly gone. Most of the other missions have fallen to ruin and been sold at ridiculous prices to friends or relatives of Governor Pío Pico, may his soul spend a thousand years …” He smiled at Clint. “But of course Christ teaches us to forgive.”
“Why hasn’t the bishop given this Pío Pico the bell, book, and candle?” Clint wondered why the governor had not been excommunicated.
“Times have changed for the church, particularly in Alta California. The bishop plays the politician these days, though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat my opinion. We parish priests have been advised in no uncertain terms to keep our political views to ourselves.”
Clint changed the subject. “I’d like to test my legs some more, Father. Would you show me around the mission?’
“It would be my pleasure.”
They spent an hour investigating the workrooms, each of which had room for a dozen workers, but no more than two manned each task. Two women sat in the weaving and spinning room where mission wool was turned to yarn, then woven into the rough gray jerga that the Indians and padres wore. They toured the blacksmith shop where iron was hammered into a hundred uses, manned only by a single smithy and his helper on the bellows, and the tannery, which was of particular interest to Clint. And finally they visited the large dispensa and cooperage, the storage room where the wide variety of goods, formerly grown and manufactured by the mission, were stored and where, in a small area, barrels were constructed for the storage. It was painfully bare of product, and no cooper was at work.
After watching Clint try to negotiate some stairs on his unsteady legs, the padre suggested they climb the hill behind the mission to see the vineyards and main gardens another day. Clint returned to his room and rested. Though every bone and muscle in his body still ached, he was pleased to know they still worked.
After another day’s rest, Clint insisted on helping in the tannery. Since he could not do the heavy work one-handed, he did the fine finish work and soon found himself teaching the Indians New England currying techniques—the finishing of rough leather to fine. After several days in the tannery, he was concentrating on some particularly soft calf hide he had been currying with a sharp-edged oak sleeker when he was startled by a nearby voice.
“Do you have a home for that fine piece of leather?”
Clint looked up into the craggy face and dark eyes of a middle-aged vaquero, who reached out a callused hand to caress the calfskin.
“That is a fine job of tanning, amigo. Where did a marinero learn to tan?”
“I was not at sea until I was fifteen,” Clint said. I was apprenticed to a tanner before that.”
“And the hide?”
“It’s just part of what I do to earn my keep.”
“So I may lay claim to it?”
Clint had not seen the craggy-faced man around the mission before. He had deep-set wise eyes that Clint would not have forgotten.
“If Padre Javier says you may claim it, then you’ll get no argument from me.”
The vaquero smiled silently and caressed the leather. “It will weave into the finest of reins and romal, a set to grace the proudest of stallions.”
“You’re the saddle maker?” Clint asked.
“I have made saddles, and take pride as a braider. I have braided many a rein and reata, but then most vaqueros have. I was once the head vaquero for the mission. Now I work for Don Nicholas Den. Where is your ship?”
“She was the Savannah.”
Suddenly the realization came to Clint that he would no longer have a home at sea. If Sharpentier laid the blame for the Savannah’s sinking on him, he might never get another sailing job, or worse. He would need the skills of land, this land, if he was to survive and avoid acorn’s horse. He was a skilled tanner, but the hide business was failing. One thing he knew for sure—the more skills a man had, the easier his life would be.
The way this man carried himself, even more than his claim to being a jefe, made Clint believe that this was a true vaquero. Clint cleared his throat, drawing the man’s attention.
“You may have this hide, and many more, amigo, if you’ll teach me the skills of the vaquero.”
This time the man’s smile was wry. “The Anglos I have seen would do better to sail the roughest sea than try to sit an Andalusian stallion, or their hand with the lazo.”
“I have ridden a few horses in my time, amigo,” Clint said, taking offense at the man’s superior attitude—though he had ridden little since he had been at sea, and his riding before had been limited to running errands and delivering for the tanner he had been indentured to.
The vaquero paused, appraising the Anglo whose arm hung useless in a sling. “If you will study the skills of the vaquero as diligently as you have obviously studied the skills of the tanner, then I will accept this…,” he smiled again, “this challenge, Anglo. I am Ramón María Diego.”
“I thought Maria was a woman’s name,” Clint said, then wished he had not when the man’s features hardened.
“You will not think so when this María has taught you to colear the bull, throw him by the tail, or to bend low from your galloping stallion to impress the señoritas by plucking the head from a buried rooster with the carrera del gallo or to use the reata—if you are capable of learning, Anglo. Most likely, you will slink back to the tanner’s vats and the stink of this place.”
Feeling properly chastised, Clint rose, then extended his hand. “My name is John Clinton Ryan, Clint to my friends. And I will learn to ride and work cattle if you will teach me.”
“We shall see, Señor Ryan, we shall see.”
The man’s refusal to call him by his first name did not go unnoticed as the vaquero accepted h
is hand with a callused steel grip. Clint looked into the vaquero’s hard black eyes. He hoped his impulsive request had not been made to the wrong man.
“We will begin when you have four more hides for me. It is a fair price for an impossible job. And when your broken wing is mended, you will need all your faculties to keep up with Ramón María Diego. Adíos.”
The man spun on his heel. His viciously roweled spurs rang and his calzonevas, silver conchos flashing down the sides, snapped with dismissal as he strode from the tannery.
Thirteen
It was three weeks before Clint finished the five hides. About the same time, Padre Javier removed his splint, and he was able to begin working his arm. The splint had been off a week when Ramón Diego strode into the tannery.
“A man of his word,” Clint said with a satisfied smile.
“When Ramón Diego says a thing, you can count on it, Anglo.”
“Well, your hides are ready, and my arm is healed, and Ramón María Diego said he would teach me the ways of the vaquero.”
“Some things only Dios can do, Anglo, but I will try. I will try. Remember, I am a mere mortal.”
“It may not be as difficult as you think, señor.”
“You are forward, Anglo, as all Anglos seem to be. And crow like the cock. When you learn to rope the goat, I will teach you to rope the bullock, and when you learn to rope the bullock, if you are able and have not lost all your fingers to the reata’s bite, then I will teach you the game of wits.”
“The game of wits?”
Ramón smiled wryly. “Or halfwits. Have you ever seen an oso grande, a grizzly?”
The image of the huge bear he had seen tearing great pieces of flesh from the skinned carcass flashed through his mind, and an uneasy feeling niggled at his spine.
“Yes, I’ve seen one.”
“Well, my Anglo friend, wait until you see one forty feet away at the end of your reata. And at the end of three of your amigos’ fine woven lazos. A thousand pounds of snarling fanged death only forty feet from the four of you. A creature capable of beheading your horse with a sweep of his paw. And only your skill, and that of your compadres, stands between you and his claws. That is the true test of your skill with the lazo and of your amigos’ faith in that skill.”
Clint stared at the man, sure that he was kidding, but it was obvious from the hard set of his jaw that this man was not much of a teaser. Then he realized the man thought he would never reach that level of skill. The realization gnawed at his pride.
Clint said quietly, “If you ride to lazo the grizzly, I will ride with you, amigo.”
“lf you are invited, Anglo, then you will know you’ve become a true vaquero. That is almost as unlikely as the sun rising from the sea in the west. Right now, let’s see if you can manage to sit a saddle.” The vaquero gathered up his hides and sidled through the door, leaving Clint looking after him.
“Are you coming?” the vaquero shouted through the hide-covered doorway, and Clint hurriedly put away the buffer and sleeker he had been working with and followed.