More or less during the same period that White Owl was nourishing the children’s indigenous roots, Alejandro de la Vega was beginning Diego’s education as an hidalgo. That was the year two trunks arrived from Europe, sent by Eulalia de Callis as gifts. Her husband, the former governor Pedro Fages, had dropped dead in Mexico City, felled by one of his rages. He collapsed like a sack at his wife’s feet during one of their fights, ruining her digestion forever because she blamed herself for having killed him. After spending a lifetime arguing with him, Eulalia sank into a deep depression when she found herself widowed; finally she realized how much she would miss her rotund husband. She knew that no one could replace such a stupendous man, a bear hunter and a great soldier, the only man she had ever known who could stand up to her. The tenderness she had never felt for him when he was alive smote her like a plague when she saw him in his coffin, and for her remaining years would continue to haunt her with memories that grew more vivid over time. Finally, weary of weeping, she followed the advice of her friends and her confessor and returned to Barcelona, where she had been born, and where she could enjoy the support of her fortune and her powerful family. From time to time she remembered Regina, whom she thought of as her protegee, and she wrote her on fine Egyptian paper imprinted with her coat of arms in gold. In one of those letters they learned that the Fages’s son had died of the plague, leaving Eulalia even more disconsolate.
The two trunks were quite battered by the time they arrived; they had left Barcelona nearly a year before and had sailed on different ships across many seas before they reached Pueblo de los Angeles. One was filled with gorgeous dresses, high-heeled shoes, plumed hats, and fripperies that Regina rarely had occasion to wear. The other, intended for Alejandro de la Vega, contained a black silk-lined cape with silver buttons from Toledo, a few bottles of the best Spanish brandy, a set of dueling pistols with mother-of-pearl handles, an Italian fencing sword, and Maestro Manuel Escalante’s Treatise on Fencing and Dueling. Just as the first page explained, this was a compendium of the “most useful instructions to ensure that one never hesitates when it is necessary to defend one’s honor with Spanish sword or epee.” Eulalia de Califs could not have sent a more appropriate present. It had been years since Alejandro de la Vega had held a sword, but thanks to the manual he was able to refresh his knowledge and teach fencing to a son who still could not blow his own nose. He ordered a child-sized epee, a quilted vest, and a mask for Diego, and from that moment formed the habit of practicing with him a couple of hours every day. Diego demonstrated the same natural talent for fencing that he had for all athletic activities, but he did not take it seriously, as his father wanted him to; for him it was just another of the many games he shared with Bernardo. That unwavering complicity between the boys worried Alejandro de la Vega. To him it seemed a weakness in his son’s character, who was by now old enough to assume the role his destiny decreed. De la Vega was fond of Bernardo, and favored him among the Indian servants after all, he had seen him born but he could not forget the differences that existed between social levels. He maintained that without those differences, set out by God for a clear purpose, chaos would reign in this world. His favorite example was France, where everything had been turned topsy-turvy by that accursed revolution. In that country no one knew any longer who was who; power was passed from hand to hand like a coin. Alejandro prayed that something like that would never happen in Spain. Even though a succession of inept monarchs was leading the empire to inevitable ruin, Alejandro had never questioned the divine legitimacy of the monarchy, just as he never questioned the hierarchical order in which he had grown up or the absolute superiority of his race, his nation, and his faith. Diego and Bernardo were different by birth; they would never be equals, and it was his opinion that the sooner they understood that, the fewer problems they would have in the future.
Bernardo knew without having to have it drummed into his head, but it was a subject that drew tears from Diego when his father brought it up.
And far from seconding her husband in his didactic aims, Regina continued to treat Bernardo as if he were her son, too. In her tribe no person was superior to another because of birth, only for their courage or wisdom, and in her mind it was still very early to know which of the two boys was the more courageous or wise.
Diego and Bernardo parted only at bedtime, when each went to his mother’s room. The same dog bit them both, they were stung by bees from the same honeycomb, and they got the measles at the same time.
When one did something mischievous, no one bothered to identify the culprit; they made them both bend over to receive identical switchings, and they took their punishment without protest, as seemed perfectly fair. Everyone except Alejandro de la Vega thought of them as brothers, not only because they were inseparable, but because at first sight they looked very much alike. The sun had burned their skin to the same wood tone, Ana made them identical linen trousers, and Regina cut their hair in the Indian style. The observer had to look carefully to see that Bernardo had noble Indian features, while Diego was tall and fine-boned, with his mother’s caramel-colored eyes. In the years that followed, they learned to flourish the epee according to Maestro Escalante’s impeccable instructions, to gallop bareback on their horses, to use the whip and lasso, and to hang by their feet like bats from the eaves of the house. The Indians taught them to dive and rip shellfish from the rocks, to follow a prey for days to get a kill, to craft bows and arrows, and to endure pain and fatigue without complaining.
Alejandro de la Vega took them on the roundup when it was time to brand the cattle, each with his own riata so they could help in the task. It was the only manual labor considered proper for a gentleman, more sport than work. All the dons of the region brought their sons and vaqueros and Indians. They rounded up the cattle, separated them, and put their brands on them, which afterward were listed in a book to prevent confusion and cattle rustling. That was also the time for slaughtering, and after skinning the steers they rolled up the hides, salted down the meat, and rendered the fat. The nuqueadores, fabulous horsemen able to kill a steer by planting a dagger in its nape while riding at full tilt, were the kings of the roundup and tended to be signed up a year in advance. They came from Mexico and from the American prairies, with their trained horses and their long two-edged daggers. As soon as a steer was down, the peladores ran to them to skin them, stripping off the whole hide in a matter of minutes; then came the tasajeros, responsible for butchering the meat, and last the Indian women whose humble task it was to cut off the tallow, render it in enormous kettles, and then store it in botas made from bladders, intestines, or stitched skins. It was also the women’s responsibility to tan the hides, scraping the raw side with sharp knives, spending endless hours on their knees. The smell of blood maddened the herd, and there were always gutted horses and one or two vaqueros trampled or gored to death. The monster formed of thousands of head of cattle racing by, bawling and heaving, raising a hell of dust, was a sight to be seen; the vaqueros in their white sombreros, glued to their mounts, whistling lassos dancing over their heads and gleaming knives in their waistbands, were something to be admired; the thunder of the herd shaking the ground, the yells of the fired-up men, the whinnying horses and barking dogs, were sounds never to be forgotten; and the smells the steam rising from the hide of foam-flecked mounts, the acrid smell of the vaqueros, and the disturbing, warm, secret scent of the Indian women would linger forever in the men’s minds.
At the end of the roundup, everyone went into town to celebrate a task well done. Rich and poor, white and Indian, young and the few elderly in the colony, all joined in a spree that lasted several days. There was a wealth of food and drink; couples danced to music from Mexico till the last pair dropped; they bet on fistfights, rat fights, cockfights, dogfights, and bear-and-bull fights, and in one night they might lose everything they had earned during the roundup. On the third day, the fiesta ended with a mass officiated by Padre Mendoza, who used a coachman’s whip to herd th
e drunks off to the church, and then, musket in hand, forced the seducers of his young neophytes to marry them; he had counted, and nine months after every roundup a scandalous number of fatherless babies were born.
One year during a bad drought the ranchers had to kill off the wild horses to guarantee pasture for their cattle. Diego rode with the vaqueros, but for once Bernardo refused to go with him; he knew what they were going to do and he couldn’t bear to watch it. The riders encircled herds of horses, spooked them with gunpowder and dogs, chased them at full gallop toward the cliffs, and then drove them over in a blinding stampede. Horses jumped off by the hundreds, falling on top of one another, necks and legs broken by the fall into the bottom of the ravine. The fortunate died on the spot; others agonized for days amid a cloud of flies and a stench of carrion that attracted bears and buzzards.
Twice a week Diego had to make the trip to the San Gabriel mission to receive the rudiments of a proper education from Padre Mendoza.
Bernardo always went with him, and the missionary eventually allowed him into the class despite his belief that it was unnecessary, and even dangerous, to give Indians too much learning; it put bold ideas into their heads. The boy did not have Diego’s mental quickness and tended to get behind, but he was stubborn and did not back down, though it meant spending his nights burning the candle down to the end. He had a reserved and quiet nature that contrasted with Diego’s explosive happiness. He backed his friend with unquestionable loyalty in all the pranks Diego thought up and, when he had to, resigned without fuss to being punished for something that had been Diego’s idea, not his. Ever since he could walk, Bernardo had assumed the role of protecting Diego, who he believed was destined for great things, like the heroic warriors in White Owl’s storehouse of myths.
Diego, for whom being quiet and indoors was torture, often schemed to slip away from Padre Mendoza’s lessons and get out in the open. He put as much energy into games as Bernardo did into studying. The lessons came in one ear and he recited them quickly, before they went out the other. He was so good at bluffing that he succeeded in fooling Padre Mendoza, but afterward he would have to teach Bernardo the lesson word for word, and it was by this repetition that he learned. After much discussion they reached an agreement: he would instruct Bernardo, and he in turn would practice the lasso, whip, and sword with Diego.
“I don’t see why we work so hard to learn things we won’t ever use.”
Diego complained one day after he had been repeating the same Latin phrases for hours.
“Sooner or later you use everything,” Bernardo replied. “It’s like the sword. I will probably never be a dragoon, but it is still good to learn fencing.”
Very few citizens of Alta California knew how to read and write, except the missionaries; they were rough men, nearly all from the country, but they at least had a varnish of culture. There were no available books, and on the rare occasions that a letter arrived, it was assumed that it contained bad news, so the addressee was in no rush to take it to a friar and ask him to decipher it. Alejandro de la Vega, however, had a fancy for education, and for years he had tried to attract a teacher from Mexico City. By then, Pueblo de los Angeles had grown to more than the town with four streets that he had seen born; it had become a required stop for travelers, a place for sailors from the merchant ships to rest ashore, and the center of the region’s commerce.
Monterey, the capital, was a long way away, so most matters of government were aired in Pueblo de los Angeles. Except for authorities and military officers, the population was mixed, referred to as gente de razon, respectable people, to distinguish them from Indians and servants. Pure-blooded Spaniards were a class apart. The town now had a bull ring, a brand-new brothel staffed by three half-Mexican girls of negotiable virtue, and an opulent mulatto from Panama, whose price was fixed and not cheap. There was now a building for the meetings of the alcalde and the councilman, which also acted as a courthouse and theater where light operas, moralistic plays, and patriotic ceremonies were presented. A bandstand had been built in the Plaza de Armas, and musicians enlivened the evening hour of the paseo when, under the watchful eyes of their parents, young promenaders, looking their very best, strolled around the plaza, the girls in one direction and the boys in the other. But hotel? There still was none; it would be ten years before the first was built. Travelers took lodging in the homes of wealthy citizens, where there was always food and a bed to welcome anyone in need of hospitality. In view of such progress, Alejandro de la Vega considered it indispensable for the town to have a school. No one shared his concern. With his own money then, completely on his own, he founded the first school in the province, and for many years it would be the only one. It opened its doors just as Diego turned nine and Padre Mendoza announced that he had taught the boy everything he knew, except for saying mass and exorcising demons. The building was as dark and dusty as the jail, located on a corner of the main plaza and furnished with a dozen iron benches; a menacing-looking whip hung beside the blackboard. The teacher turned out to be one of those insignificant little men whom the slightest hint of authority converts into a brutal tyrant. Diego had the bad fortune to be one of his first students, along with a handful of other male children, the budding sprouts of the well-to-do families of the town. Bernardo was not allowed to attend, even though Diego begged his father to let him come.
Alejandro de la Vega found Bernardo’s ambition praiseworthy, but he decided not to make an exception; if one Indian were accepted, others would have to be let in, and the teacher had already announced, with unmistakable clarity, his intention to leave if any Indian so much as stuck his nose into his “honorable establishment of learning.” The need to teach Bernardo, more than the intimidating whip, motivated Diego to pay attention in his classes. Among the students was a certain Garcia, son of a Spanish soldier turned tavern owner, a fat boy, not overly bright, with flat feet and a foolish smile, the teacher’s favorite victim and that of the students, who tormented him ruthlessly. Through some desire for justice that he himself could not explain, Diego became Garcia’s defender, winning the pudgy boy’s fanatic admiration.
For Padre Mendoza the years were taken up by many chores farming, herding cattle, and Christianizing Indians and he still had not repaired the church roof that had been damaged during Toypumia’s attack, when the explosion had shaken the building to its foundations.
Every time the good father held up the host to consecrate it during mass, his eyes inevitably fell on the weakened beams; he would promise himself with alarm to fix them before they crashed down upon his small congregation, but just as inevitably he had to tend to other matters and would forget his intentions till the next mass. Worse, termites were devouring the wood in the building, so it should have been no surprise when finally the accident Padre Mendoza had feared happened.
Fortunately, it was not when the entire congregation was present, something that would have been catastrophic. It came during one of the many temblors that frequently shook the area it wasn’t for nothing that their river was named Jesus de los Temblores. The roof collapsed on a single victim, Padre Alvear, a sainted brother who had traveled from Peru to visit the San Gabriel mission. The noise of the roof’s giving way and the cloud of dust brought the neophytes running, and they immediately started clawing at the rubble to unearth the unfortunate visitor. They found him squashed like a cockroach beneath the main beam. In all logic he should have died, because it took them most of the night to rescue him, and all the while the poor man’s lifeblood was oozing away. But God performed a miracle, as Padre Mendoza explained, and when finally they pulled the victim from the ruins, he was still breathing. Padre Mendoza needed only one glance to recognize that his meager knowledge of medicine would not save the wounded man, however much help he received from the divine power. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sent a neophyte with two horses to look for White Owl.
Over the years he had become convinced that the Indians’ veneration of the woman was fully jus
tified.
By chance, Diego and Bernardo arrived at the mission the day after the earthquake, bringing two fine horses that Alejandro de la Vega had sent as a gift to the missionaries. Since no one came out to greet them or thank them everyone was occupied in sifting through the damage from the quake and tending to the dying Padre Alvear the boys left the horses in the corral and stayed on to watch the spectacle.
Consequently, they were there when White Owl came galloping up, following the neophyte who had gone to fetch her. Even with her face furrowed with new wrinkles, and with her hair even whiter, she had changed very little; she was the same strong, eternally young woman who ten years before had come to the de la Vega hacienda to save Regina’s life. Now she had come on a similar mission, and again she had brought her pouch of medicinal plants. Since she refused to learn Spanish, and Padre Mendoza’s vocabulary in her tongue was very limited, Diego offered to interpret. They had laid the patient on the unfinished dining room table, and everyone who lived at the mission gathered around. White Owl carefully examined Padre Alvear’s wounds, which Padre Mendoza had bandaged but had not dared stitch up because he could see shattered bones sticking through. The curandera palpated his entire body with her expert fingers and took an inventory of what treatments she would have to make.