Authors: Glen Davies
They surveyed and mapped up both sides of one small peak that afternoon and Alicia soon found that the sweat was pouring off her body, exposed as they were to the burning sun.
‘So much hotter up here than I expected,’ she panted as she clambered down a little scree to line up an angle.
‘Here,’ he said brusquely, ‘take some of this.’ He held out a flask to her and she drank greedily from it in great gulps.
‘Hey! Not like that! You’ll make yourself ill!’ He took it back from her and corked it again. ‘Didn’t your mapmaker ever tell you to drink sparingly in a hot sun?’
‘It’s so long ago, I’d almost forgotten,’ she admitted with a wry face. ‘It’s so much cooler down in — down in — San Francisco.’
He looked at her with narrowed eyes and made as if to speak, but then thought better of it, clamped his mouth shut, picked up the surveying stick and marched across the scree away from her.
They rose, as they always did, before the dawn. Today would see the last of the mapping of the boundary line up in the Vaca hills and they hoped to get as much as possible done before the onset of the exhausting midday heat. Tamsin was, for once, still asleep and Chen Kai and Alicia stood in the stableyard, packing the equipment into the saddlebags and talking softly.
‘It will be a hard day, Alicia — long and hot,’ warned Kai, tightening up the girths. ‘Be sure to take your broad-brimmed hat — and keep it on!’ He narrowed his eyes and squinted up towards the hills. ‘There’s a storm brewing up — are you sure that you can cope? The horse is already becoming restless.’
She laughed softly. ‘Kai, don’t fuss! I swear you’re turning into a venerable Chinese grandmother!’
He chuckled wryly. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But I do worry … I do not like to see you doing so much. All this hard riding — and helping me out too. I wish that I could come with you and help you. It is too much for you.’
‘Kai,
look
at me! How long is it since I looked so well, eh?’
‘It is true,’ he conceded gravely. ‘Not since …’
‘Not since before all the trouble … And as for hard riding, I love it!’ she exulted.
‘It suits you well,’ he admitted. ‘You are like one of those little sand lizards in the Sandwich Islands: put you down anywhere and you instantly blend in with your background.’
‘But Kai, you forget, this
is
my background. My happiest memories are of the days when I managed to slip away to go riding with my father and his company up in the hills.’
‘But remember — it is only for the month,’ he reminded her sombrely.
‘A month of this and I shall be like a new woman,’ she exulted. Kai helped her up into the saddle, smiling indulgently at her, happy to see the sparkle in her eyes once more. ‘Fresh air, hard riding, interesting work and good food …’
‘I trust you refer to my campfire efforts,’ came Cornish’s voice from close behind them. ‘
Good food
is not exactly the phrase that springs to mind when I dwell on Jo’s concoctions!’
Alicia started nervously, jibbing at the horse’s mouth and making her prance restlessly.
In an instant the rancher was at her side, reaching up to take the reins firmly above the bit and control the horse.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you …’ he began.
‘Of course you startled me!’ she said wrathfully, as she brought her mount swiftly under control once more. ‘It’s bad enough Kai gliding around and materialising out of nowhere, without you doing it too! And don’t call him Jo!’ she went on with a flash of pure anger. ‘He has a proper name! He’s Chen Kai-Tsu, not Jo Chinaman!’
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her consideringly. ‘If you are ready, ma’am?’ He checked his girths, climbed into the saddle and set out, without a backward glance to see whether she was following him.
‘Keep an eye on Tamsin if you can, Kai,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t let her get under anyone’s feet except yours!’
‘She’ll be fine. But you be careful — and remember, we’re dependent entirely on the Colonel’s good will, so try to mind your tongue!’
She wrinkled her nose in disgust and screwed up her face in a very childish way, then set her heels gently to the mare and cantered off in Cornish’s wake.
It took them more than an hour to reach the hills and once the sun was up, the heat was almost unbearable.
‘Never known it so hot up in the hills!’ he exclaimed as he handed her the flask of water.
‘Chen Kai said there would be a storm,’ she ventured, but he did not answer.
The heat was becoming oppressive and the constant staring into the heat-hazed distance was beginning to make her eyes water and her head ache. Lack of rain had laid the mountains under a thick mantle of reddish dust and as they rode on, the fine grains penetrated their sweat-soaked clothes to irritate their skin, redden their eyes and clog their mouths. The elation of the morning was evaporating from her with the sweat, but she certainly wasn’t going to be the first one to suggest that they turn back.
They paused briefly during the worst of the midday heat to rest and eat some skillet bread and meat.
‘I take back all I said about Jo — I mean Chen Kai-Tsu’s cooking,’ said Cornish, chewing the fragrant bread appreciatively.
Alicia, who had mixed the dough late the night before, and risen early to bake it, said nothing.
They shared out the last of the water in the flask and then, as she made to get up and continue with the work, he reached out lazily and drew her back into the shelter of the little bluff, out of the direct sun.
‘The Mexicans have a habit that I normally frown upon, but it’s just made for a day like this,’ he said slowly. ‘The
siesta
. I’m going to indulge in it. I suggest you do the same. It was an early start.’
With that he tipped his hat over his eyes and leant back.
He was right, she thought. It was really too hot to move. Better to sit awhile and wait for the light breeze of the afternoon to spring up. Not that she would sleep, of course, but it would be pleasant to rest her eyes.
*
Someone was shaking her arm. She forced her eyes open with some difficulty to see Cornish looking down at her with an unfathomable expression in his uncomfortably penetrating green eyes.
‘I would have let you sleep on,’ he said bluntly. ‘But the weather’s moving on apace and it’s time we headed for home.’
High in the sky thunder heads were building up over the distant mountains, blotting out the higher peaks completely. Each thunder head was edged with leaden yellow and the sun cast a strange unearthly glow.
‘Sorry. Hadn’t meant to sleep,’ she said thickly. ‘My eyes were tired …’
‘My sheep man, Pedro, rode in and out without disturbing you at all!’
She looked around her uncertainly. ‘But you can’t run sheep up here!’ she exclaimed.
‘Of course not. But over the next shoulder is a small high valley, just perfect for sheep. Pedro saw us from the other side while he was scouting out strays and came over to check us out. He reckons there’s a storm brewing.’
She rubbed her gritty eyes.
‘There’s a cave just round the bluff here with a spring in it. I’ve tasted it: it seems good.’
She found the cave without too much difficulty and located the spring bubbling up at the back by listening. She washed away the dust and returned to find Cornish packing the equipment away in the saddlebags.
‘There’s not much more to do,’ she objected. ‘It seems a shame to come all this way and leave the job unfinished.’
He sniffed the air and shook his head reluctantly. ‘Not worth the risk,’ he decided. ‘These Pacific storms can be worse than anything I’ve ever known in the Sierras. Best place to be is down in the valleys, not exposed up on the hills.’
They set off at a fairly brisk pace, but the terrain, and the nervousness of the horses as they sensed the coming storm, was against them. They were still slithering down the brush-covered lower slopes when the storm broke above them with tremendous ferocity.
At first there was no rain, just ominous rolls of thunder that seemed to shake the mountains, and violent jagged flashes of lightning that played over the flanks of the hills with a ghastly orange radiance.
The third flash of lightning struck the ground about a quarter of a mile ahead of them, consuming a live oak in its path in a spectacular, crackling sheet of flame.
It was too much for Alicia’s mare. She bucked and reared, whinnying with fear as she tried to unseat her rider and bolt. It took all of her skill and strength to keep her under control, but nothing would induce her to go forward another step and she stood, trembling, her head hung low.
‘It’s no good,’ the Colonel ground out between his teeth after another futile attempt. ‘We’ll have to take shelter some place. There’s a little canyon over to our left, aways back a bit. As I remember, there’s a fair massive overhang there that’ll provide some shelter.’
They dismounted and with much coaxing persuaded Alicia’s mare to follow Cornish’s rangy chestnut stallion into the canyon. Tethered to a low bush under the overhang, away from the fury of the storm, she soon quietened. The riders, barely dampened by the rain which had just begun to fall, pulled their blankets from behind the saddle and settled themselves down, backs against the rock face, to wait for the storm to blow itself out.
‘How long do you think it will last?’ she demanded, shaking the raindrops out of the brim of her leather hat.
‘Half a day, a day, two days, who can tell?’
The rain began to fall in real earnest as he spoke, drumming on the rocks overhead and forming little cascades that sprang off the edge of the overhang as great torrents of water fell from the skies. Thunder crashed and lightning played evilly around the tops of the mountains.
He moved away and started to gather twigs and dry brush from the rear of the overhang.
‘Surely we won’t need a fire?’ she muttered irritably, pushing a strand of hair off her face. ‘Wet or no, it’s still quite warm enough.’
‘It’s not to warm us,’ he replied. ‘I just want to dissuade any four-footed refugees from the storm from joining us. Unless you fancy supper with a grizzly?’
She shivered. ‘No thank you!’ She laid aside her blanket and, ignoring his scornful laugh, helped him collect more wood.
‘Who did Pedro think we were?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Squatters?’
‘Yes.’
‘This far out?’
‘Pedro was in Sacramento a few days ago and all the talk in the saloons was of the unknown — but obviously wealthy — man who was trying to buy the Briones place and the part of Soto’s that butts on to mine.’
‘Lamarr?’
‘If not him, then one of his cronies. So it’s as important to get the boundaries clear here as up Sacramento way.’
There was silence for a while, then he looked sideways at her and stated casually: ‘Pity about the camera.’
‘It was not possible,’ she declared stiffly.
A few moments later he tried again. ‘We could be here for some time,’ he said conversationally. ‘What shall we talk about?’
‘I — I’ll get on with my mapping,’ she said, crossing to her saddlebag to draw out the board and chalks. Instead her fingers closed on something in there that she had forgotten. She drew it out to look at it more closely.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Bit of rock I picked up by the spring in the cave.’ She held a small misshapen rock up to what little light was penetrating the curtain of rain. ‘Did you know you had cinnabar on your land?’
‘Cinnabar?’
‘Yes. You smelt mercury from it. You could get a good price for it — the big mining companies can’t get their hands on enough of it and they need it to refine the gold. I remember my father and I found some up north and …’
‘You always pick up stray rocks?’ He crossed to her side and took the stone from her.
‘Habit of a lifetime.’
‘Gives us something to talk about,’ he approved. ‘I thought after Jo’s warning — I beg his pardon, Chen Kai’s warning — that I wouldn’t get more than an aye, yes or no out of you today.’
She threw him a fulminating glance; she could not trust herself to answer.
‘Just what do you have to mind your tongue about?’ he asked curiously. ‘After all, Jo — ChenKai! — told me a fair amount about the trouble you had. You’re not alone in that. I guess half California must want to leave their past behind. Men who’ve been in trouble with the law, women who’ve been camp-followers or saloon prostitutes … hey!’
He flung his hand up to fend off a swinging open-handed blow from Alicia.
‘What the Hell’s got into you?’ he demanded angrily, seizing her wrist. ‘Oh, you thought I was implying that you … Oh no, ma’am,’ he said mockingly. ‘You may have
half
the attributes, but you’re too cold by far!’
She turned away, ashamed to have let her feelings show so clearly.
They’d always made her shake with fright, the men with the leering faces who came to Sonora with the ‘hell-on-wheels’, the strings of wagons which moved tirelessly from advance camp to advance camp, supplying the men with red-eye whiskey, high-stake gambling and women.
Change the subject quickly. Wipe the memory before …
‘And you?’ she demanded with a sudden spurt of anger. ‘What did you come to California to escape?’ She lay back against the saddle and watched through half-closed eyes the waterfall that ran off the front of the overhang. ‘This military title of yours, for instance. I don’t imagine that’s American.’
‘In a way. I was in the American militia … Vigilantes.’ He saw her try, and fail, to suppress a shudder. ‘Of course that was the first time round. In ’51, when bands of criminals roamed the streets,’ he went on. ‘The worst were the Sydney Ducks: one and all former guests of her Britannic Majesty’s penal colonies.’ He looked at her consideringly.
‘Yes, but — Vigilantes!’ she exclaimed with loathing.
‘The Vigilantes did some good before they got above themselves and confused justice with the lynch mob.’