The Rainy Season (9 page)

The man on horseback appeared in the distance. Colin could see that it was Alex now, and he caught his breath. He wouldn’t be able to lie his way out of this. And if it came to a confrontation, Alejandro would win; there was little doubt of that. Alejandro slowed the horse to a walk and bent over in his saddle, shading his eyes from the spring sun, looking toward them through the trees. The wind was cool, heralding a change in the weather, but there were still clouds against the hills. Colin looked behind them toward the Santiago Canyon Road. Although hidden from view, the road lay only a stone’s throw beyond the grass-edged pond that flanked the edge of the flats. A half-mile up the Santiago, a trail cut across through Peters Canyon where it connected with El Camino Real, dropping down toward the mission in San Juan Capistrano. It was the same route that Colin had traveled only a few days ago, alone. He should be alone again today, too. Allowing May and Jeanette to come along with him on his return to the mission was an incredible blunder. Neither one of them, however, was the sort of woman who would take no for an answer if they had their minds made up otherwise. Still, he should have come in secret. Revealing that he had stolen the object in order to give it to Father Santos was more than anything an act of vanity.

The wind gusted now, the heavy sycamore branches moving overhead, the new leaves rustling in the otherwise silent afternoon. Alex ducked under a low branch, coming closer through the trees now, and May said, “I’ll just tell him that he’s not welcome here.”

“Alex already knows he’s not welcome,” Colin said. “He knows that I have the crystal. He wouldn’t have bothered to follow us otherwise.”

“I’ll tell him anyway.”

Colin slid the heavy wine bottle toward him, turning it so that the neck lay close to his right hand. Jeanette put her hand on his arm and attempted to smile at him, but her smile looked nervous. He smiled back.

“We just don’t want any fighting,” May said. “That’s what he wants. The scriptures tell us to turn the other cheek.”

“On our
own
behalf,” Colin said. “We can’t turn our other cheek on our neighbor’s behalf. Not unless we’re cowards. My only regret is that I didn’t call on him first, for having hit Jeanette. I’ve let him get the upper hand by keeping silent.”

“What we’re doing today is more important than anyone’s manly pride,” May said. “First things first.”

Alex drew closer through the trees, the horse’s hooves silent on the damp leaves and winter grass. Out over the arroyo a hawk flew in high, lazy circles, and the afternoon was almost supernaturally still.

“It’s not cowardly not to fight,” Jeanette told him. “You don’t have to fight for me. And I can say that, since I’m the neighbor you were referring to. You know j that he simply wants to get at you through me.”

Colin shrugged. “If he starts something, I want both of you to head on out to the road. Never mind the buggy. There’s a farmhouse a quarter mile down, a family named Parker. I’ll catch up to you there.”

“I’m not leaving,” May said. “I’m staying right here. He can’t just have his way with people. I don’t care who his family is. Just don’t start anything with him. Don’t give him any excuse.”

“When did he ever need an excuse?” Colin asked. “And anyway, we know what he wants, and he knows that we know it. I stole it from him. He has all the excuse he needs to take it back.”

Alex stopped ten feet away, and he sat for a moment looking down at them, a smile on his face. He was tall and slightly stooped, with black hair and aquiline features. His saddle was expensive, the oiled leather finely tooled and heavy with Spanish silver. There was coiled
reata
, lariat rope, over the pommel.

Phil felt Jeanette’s hand slide around behind him, and he knew that she had picked up the leather bag and dropped it into the basket. “If it comes to it,” Colin said under his breath, “we’ll throw it into the center of the pond rather than let him have it.”

Alex brought the horse a step farther toward them. “
El fuente del nino muerto
,” he said, nodding in the direction of the grass-fringed pool. “Do you know what that means, Colin?” He slid a horsewhip from the back edge of the saddle and rested the handle on his thigh, holding the folded whip in the center. There was a broad, partly healed gash on his forehead where Jeanette had hit him with the poker.

“Something about a dead child,” Colin said. In fact he knew exactly what it meant, especially after talking to Father Santos, but it seemed safer to him not to betray too much knowledge.

“Dead child spring, actually,” Alejandro said. “There was a Temescal Indian who worked for my father, back when I was small. He was afraid of this place—wouldn’t go into Santa Ana during a rainy year, when there was water here. Most years there’s no pool at all, but even in dry seasons he would turn his face away when he came down out of the Santiago, even though he was fifty yards away from the spring and there was no water in it anyway. The priests made the Indians block most of the
fuentes
long ago, all of them that formed any kind of pool down here in the flatlands. I’ve heard rumors that there was a living
fuente
at the mission itself. But you’d know about that better than I, wouldn’t you?” Alex grinned at him. “Now, let me guess: right now, this afternoon, you’re heading across Peters Canyon toward the Camino Real? Or at least that’s what you thought you were doing. You’re a good Catholic boy, Colin, doing a priest’s bidding. Here, I’ve brought you these.” He took Colin’s boots out of his saddlebag and tossed them to the ground.

Colin sat in silence, tensed, waiting.

Alex bowed to the two women, acknowledging their presence for the first time. “Hello, Jeanette,” he said. “You’re looking very fine.”

Jeanette met his gaze boldly enough, although she rolled the seam of her dress nervously between her thumb and ring finger.

May said, “You’re not wanted here, Alex.”

He laughed out loud. “I’m entirely indifferent to what you want,” he said. “You know exactly why I’ve come, what I want. Don’t pretend with me, May. You, at least, are above it.”

“The day’s drawing on,” Colin said to May and t Jeanette.

Alex nodded, as if he agreed with this. “I’ve been thinking, Colin, that it’s time you moved along. You’re just not at home in this part of the country. Los Angeles is more in your line. San Francisco, maybe. I imagine there’s more call for schoolteachers out there, or you could follow your heart and become a mission priest.”

The wind blew harder suddenly, gusting down the creekbed and lifting fallen leaves from the floor of the grove. May put her hand to her head and held onto her bonnet. Alex looked around him, as if to assure himself that they were alone. Colin waited for him to quit talking: when he ran out of words, he would act.

“You know,” Alex said, turning in his saddle and looking behind him through the sycamores, “it’s ironic where we all ended up today, next to the spring here. Call it fate, although these springs aren’t all that scarce, despite the church. There’s another in Peters Canyon, actually, although it’s a covered spring. In the old days they used to call it Aguaje de las Ranas—Frog Springs. The old way of speaking was really very quaint. Anyway, the priests had it covered with stone, and the spring water itself has merely filtered into the swamp since then.”

Colin said, “You can’t have it, Alex. The girl’s soul belongs with God, not with you, not with Appleton.”

“Her soul?” Alex laughed out loud. “Appleton is
fanatically
angry, Colin. He’s on he warpath. It’s a good thing that you’re talking with
me
about this, because Appleton is in no mood to talk. He’s in a mood to shoot Someone. He was willing to do business with me. I merely wanted money, which was something he could understand and which he could also afford. Now that you’ve undertaken to steal the crystal, though …” He shook his head and then glanced behind him again, and it seemed to Colin as if he were genuinely edgy, genuinely in a hurry. “I can promise you one thing, all of you. Now that this has become a dangerous business, I
will
have the girl’s memory, and
will
have it now. Your theft of the crystal has put all of us into particular danger. And for what, I ask myself. To make a priest happy. That’s not acceptable to me. Am I making myself clear?”

“Very,” Colin said. “But I won’t give it to you. You’d rob Appleton for it, but you wouldn’t kill for it.”

“I’ll let you ride away right now,” Alex said. “Give me the crystal and then take this horse and ride on down toward the crossing at Anaheim. There’s a stage into Los Angeles in the morning. If you’re on that stage, you’ll still be breathing, you’ll still be a schoolteacher or whatever you call yourself. If you’d rather stay …” He shrugged, then took three silver dollars out of his coat pocket and threw them down onto the quilt.

“Alex, you can’t just order a man to leave,” May said. “You can’t threaten people.”

“Can’t I?” he asked softly. He tapped the handle of the whip against his thigh. “Can’t I? Go on, Colin. You want very badly to ride away, don’t you? I’m giving you that chance right now. I’ll drive the ladies back up the hill in the buggy, so you don’t have to worry about them. They’ll be safe. I’ll negotiate with Appleton in my own way. He’s not a fool. He’s moved outside the law, and he knows it.”

Colin sat still, looking Alex in the face. “You re the fool,” Colin said finally. “Your pride won’t allow you to see it, but it’s apparent to everyone who has ever known you. You actually believe what you say, don’t you? That’s the really astonishing thing.”

Alex jerked suddenly on the bridle, and the horse sidestepped away, tossing its head back and showing its teeth, and then swerved back toward them, treading on the quilts, its front hoof smashing the wicker picnic basket. The women threw themselves sideways, and Colin jumped his feet, holding the wine bottle by the neck. The horse reared, its hooves pumping the air, capering in a half-circle like a show horse, and then slamming down again onto the quilts where the three of them had It moments before.

Colin leaped forward and grabbed for the horse’s bridle, hearing one of the women say, “I have it,” and at lat moment Alex hit him on the face with his fist, knocking him down. Jeanette grasped the picnic basket by its now-broken handle, and Colin, still holding the bottle of wine, lunged for the bridle again, clutching it near the horse’s ear just as Alex spurred the horse forward, pulling Colin off balance. Jeanette turned and ran toward the pond and the road beyond it. May followed, lifting the hem of her skirt. Colin held onto the bridle, kicking himself along as the horse cantered forward, and Alex very calmly raised the horsewhip, leaned sideways out of the saddle, and flicked the whip across Colin’s eyes. Shocked, Colin released the bridle, and Alex continued on, passing May and overtaking Jeanette almost immediately, reining the horse in beside her. She tripped her long skirt and fell, the basket flying away into the grass. She lay huddled with her hands covering the back of her head while May, still running, stooped over, plucked up the basket, swung it around her head, and launched it into the air in a long arc.

Alex sat stock-still on his horse, watching. The entire afternoon, the rustling leaves and the breathing wind, seemed to wait in anticipation until the basket with the glass dog inside splashed down into the pond. Colin could see that it had fallen in shallow water, that the broken handle stuck out into the air. He ran forward hard, up behind the horse, holding the bottle at arm’s length, and when Alex heard him and sidled away, Colin leaped forward and with his free hand grabbed Alex’s shirt front, jerking him half out of the saddle, slamming the bottle awkwardly into his shoulder. The horse cantered forward, and Colin lost his grip again, staggering forward, trying to gain enough balance to swing the un-broken bottle again.

The whip snapped up and across his face once, twice, and he threw himself sideways, groping for the saddle pommel. He caught it and yanked himself upward, swinging the bottle hard. He felt it crack against Alex’s forehead, the bottle’s neck breaking off in his hands as the horse knocked him down. Wine or blood sprayed across his face and he hit the ground. Colin threw away the piece of broken bottle, pond water filling his shoes. Wind kicked through the high grass. He distinctly heard it moaning, like a human voice. Jen’s shout was lost in the wind, and he saw the blurred form of the horse and rider, felt the loop of the
reata
settle across his shoulder and upper arm, and he flung his hands out blindly, catching the rope and launching himself forward, rolling his body into the taut rope, pulling hard.

He hit the water on his side, hearing a woman scream an instant before the horse fell across his legs, kicking and rolling, neighing in his ear before thrashing to its feet. Colin tried to stand, but couldn’t. His right leg was worthless, although he felt no pain in it. He tore at the rope, pulling it across his head, slipping his arm out of the noose, which had gone slack now. The horse galloped away toward the grove of sycamores, and through a haze Colin saw May and Jeanette both struggling with Alex, waist deep in the water just a few feet away, and in that moment May vanished utterly, as if she had stepped into a deep hole and gone under. Jeanette turned away from Alex, screamed May’s name, groped under the water again, and in that instant she too was gone.

The surface was wildly agitated—not mere ripples, but a chaotic agitation, as if some energy from deep below were roiling toward the surface.

Colin forced himself to stand, dragging himself forward with his good leg toward where the women had disappeared. Alex turned to confront him, and Colin threw himself forward just as the man turned around. He grabbed Alex’s shirt front, and the two of them fell backward into the depths of the pool. Beneath the water, he released his grip and opened his eyes, looking wildly around for May and Jeanette and thrashing his arms in an effort not to go under himself. The water was unbelievably turbulent, as if it cycled downward into the earth, and he found himself fighting now simply to stay afloat. He clawed his way to the surface, threw his head back, and gasped for breath, seeing through the water streaming down his face the figures of three men riding toward them out of the grove. He heard what must have been a rifle crack, and went under again, the water swirling around him, choking him.