Sneak Previews of Forthcoming Books of Special Interest to Southern Californians : Early Encroachment

‘Yes, here was a special place, as if set apart by Providence.’

THREE HUNDRED MILES to the south of San Francisco, Senora Clara Boneu was sitting on the veranda of her hacienda, young Father O’Hara beside her, looking out over her garden with its pink and white hollyhocks and dark-red Spanish roses. “I welcomed the North Americans at first,” she was saying bitterly, “just as you did. They seemed our liberators from Mexican oppression. But now this!” She pointed to the two white-hooded wagons of the newly arrived squatters standing side by side a mile down the valley.

Her rough old voice was hardened by life, O’Hara thought, and her face reminded him of an ancient tree trunk, expressing acceptance and resistance in equal measure. The flaming red hair, almost as profuse as in youth, was held back from her face by a simple chaplet of seashells. She had not adopted Spanish or Mexican dress but wore the Mother Hubbard of a Christianized Indian woman. Yet her bearing said unmistakably she was the Senora, daughter of a legendary Indian chieftainess, widow of a famous conquistador.

“We must endure with vigilance.” O’Hara spoke with the frankness of long friendship. “The Norte Americano squatters have also occupied my orchard, tearing down fences for firewood. Yet there is a law. And on that we must rely. With God’s help.”

“I don’t think much of a law which says I must establish my right to a place where I’ve lived all my life!”

“I likewise must submit a claim to the Land Commission,” he rejoined, “for soil hallowed by nearly a hundred years of devotion!”

O’Hara’s hair was nearly as red as Clara’s. Son of a general in the Spanish Army who’d sent him from Madrid to a seminary in Dublin over the tearful objections of his Castilian mother, O’Hara had felt the call to California and had come marching in the footsteps of the missionary fathers, a one-man army, strong in faith that by sheer zeal he could resurrect from the ruins of Mission Santa Lucia what he conceived to be the greatness of a past--which included Clara. It was his special pleasure once a month to ride out the 18 miles from town on his mule and say Mass for her and those of her people who chose to attend. Afterward, the gray-robed Franciscan liked to sit on the veranda and talk as now. Changing to a more pleasant subject, he observed: “I never tire of looking at this scene,” gesturing toward the valley below.

On the playing field, Indian youths from the village were engaged in a ball-and-stick game resembling modern hockey. On the course nearer the river still others from the village and from Clara’s household, and even visitors from town, were preparing a horse race. And at the village itself, a cluster of adobe cabins and thatched huts beside the stream that she maintained there in the ancient way, they could see groups of women rolling dice into basketry trays and girls playing the guessing game, as she’d once played it. Beyond the river, grassy hills rose steeply, speckled with grazing cattle, culminating in that high-rounded hill where her husband, Antonio, lay buried. She and he had dreamed of a scene like this. All that marred it for her and O’Hara were those wagons down the valley. He asked: “You’ve talked to them?”

“Yes. They refuse to budge. Someone has told them my title is in doubt until the Land Commission rules.”

On the race course below, two youths--one, Clara’s grandson, Pacifico, tall, blond; one short and dark, Benito Ferrer, son of the Jewish storekeeper in the town--were racing their horses, a gray and a bay, neck and neck, while cheers urged them on. The youngsters finished in a dead heat and glanced for approval toward the veranda. Clara raised her right hand and waved. O’Hara did likewise.

Yes, here was a special place, this Rancho Olomosoug, as if set apart by Providence. In all California there could be nothing quite like it. O’Hara prayed silently that greed, prejudice, the hatred, the violence that were defiling so much of the state would spare this peaceful scene. But reason told him that his prayer was probably too late.

Down in the valley, old Abe Jenkins, leathery, irrepressible, stood at the prow of his wagon like the captain of a ship, observing them through a brass spyglass. “The Papist is a-settin’ there a-gabbin’ to her,” he announced to his family. “They’re a-figurin’ what to do about us, I reckon. Ha!”

Clara continued quietly to O’Hara: “There must be no bloodshed. The soil of this valley is soaked in blood, Indian blood, white blood. There has been enough. That’s what I told that old galoot Jenkins that day he arrived.”

Copyright 1989 by Robert Easton.