The Wraith of Santa Barbara : GHOST WOMAN <i> By Lawrence Thornton</i> , <i> (Ticknor & Fields: $19.95; 310 pp.) </i>

Not yet summer, and we may have had our fill of books designed by publishers to capitalize on the quincentenary of a man stepping in sand and naming an island, thus a continent, in the name of a Catholic king. We have only to return to 1976 and our bicentennial to remember the hullabaloo that amounted to longer sparklers and bigger flags that neither sparked better nor waved more grandly in the wind.

But Lawrence Thornton, author of “Imagining Argentina” and “Under the Gypsy Moon,” doesn’t go back quite that far in history to write about the encounter between Native American and European cultures and his novel is not tied to any planned historic anniversary. He has brought the reader to the 1880s, where his quietly disturbing novel “Ghost Woman” is set against early mission California.

The novel begins dramatically enough: The California missionaries, who have “set their hearts on the salvation” of the native inhabitants, order the Chumash Indians to be removed by ship from their home on the island of San Nicolas off Santa Barbara. As the ship pulls from the shore, a mother discovers her daughter running along the beach. When the captain refuses to help, the mother jumps into the sea, where, it is believed, she drowns. Thus, the legend of a ghost woman on San Nicolas takes shape and haunts Santa Barbara, which at the beginning of the 1880s was still busy with “brown robes,” or Spanish friars, flogging a spiritual life into the Indians.

One such person is Father Santos who, aware of the legend of a ghost woman on the island, becomes suddenly determined, if not religiously obligated, to bring the woman back to Santa Barbara. Such thoughts as “She had been on the verge of salvation when she threw herself into the sea, (perhaps) dying without the knowledge of God’s grace” prompt Father Santos to put together a search party.

While the daughter has died, the woman has survived, as we might suspect, almost beautifully without the influence of a Christian or redemptive life. But she doesn’t fare well when she is taken to Santa Barbara. She is first a spectacle of scant feathers standing under torchlight, a legend made real. She is then befriended by Elizabeth Harper, wife of lecherous Henry Harper who commanded the ship Elizabeth’s Delight that sailed to the island.(

Mostly fittingly, she is given the name Soledad. She is cared for by Elizabeth, a desperate wife who has no place--literally--to go, Santa Barbara being a clot of huts and meager houses that face the sea. Elizabeth has no person to turn to for a deeper friendship, certainly not her faithless husband. She is grateful for Soledad, who adds, at least, a mystery lacking in her own life.

Elizabeth’s marriage becomes more than a wreck when she discovers that Henry has forced himself upon Soledad. After a war of words, an almost melodramatic silence falls between Elizabeth and Henry. Ironically, these “sisters” become pregnant and bear Henry’s children almost simultaneously.

This historical novel spans two generations and includes glimpses of the offspring--Elizabeth’s son Daniel in his comfortable upbringing and Soledad’s child Constancia in her mission hovel, where she suffers from the facial disfiguration of smallpox, one of the tragedies “civilization” has brought upon the native people. It examines, however generally, mission life when most of the Chumash Indians were stripped of language and customs and often jailed in miserable cells.

The language of the novel is unadorned, at times even flat, much in the way that legends are related in direct and deceptively simple tones. he narrative is tidy and well-paced. If there is a flaw, it shows itself when Thornton depicts nature in language lacking specific detail or individual impression. The description of the island, for instance, follows in a portentous manner: “He (Father Santos) was aware too of a heavy and abiding silence that hovered behind the sounds and seemed to dominate the place, pressing down from the sky like the palm of a great invisible hand.”

This sentence, and a few others describing nature, attempts to convey a mysterious ambience, which--in this sentence for sure--fails to ring true. The writing is overdrawn, no matter how dark and moody the landscape.

The plot is somewhat predictable. We suspect that the woman will jump ship, that she will eventually be brought to Santa Barbara, be abused and finally die. We know that the lecherous Henry will get his in the end, and the ever-stoical Elizabeth will triumph through her Daniel.

Despite the familiar pattern of the book, and the occasional heavy-handed descriptions, we are willing to turn the pages, in part because Thornton is able to remain consistent and patient in his deft unfolding of the worst, and occasionally the best, in people.

Finally, “Ghost Woman” can be read as a reflective document that contradicts Delmore Schwartz’s remark: “The greatest thing in America is Europe.” The Chumash Indians, especially in these pages, would disagree.