Side Trail
Padre Antonio’s Daughter
Maureen Gilmer
Word came by a Chumash runner in the early dawn that a ship had wrecked on the coast. Padre Antonio knew it was one of those from Boston that worked their way up the bays trading silver dollars for dry hides stripped from the wild cattle that ran wild throughout Alta California. Antonio knew the cove was not easy to navigate under ordinary circumstances, but on this moonless night at high tide, normally visible pinnacles of rock disappeared into the surf.
Antonio raised his lanky body from the narrow bed in the Spartan cell he called home. He slipped on his rough brown robe and donned riding boots, then hurried into the courtyard looking for Tomas, the first Indian vaquero he trained to manage the mission's cattle herds. Tomas became Antonio's overseer, an honest Cahuilla from the inland desert, smart and handy on horseback. He found Tomas already barking orders to hitch up the carretas and saddle the horses.
The riders headed west over oak studded hills toward the coast, light rising behind the silhouetted coast range. The band of mission vaqueros spread out behind Padre Antonio, a fine Spanish horseman as well as a priest. The men long-trotted ahead of the slow ox carts, standing in the stirrups with the spurs, heavy bits and rein chains clanking all the way. Finally the endless Pacific, still dark and moody, spread out before them to the horizon. From atop the high cliff, they looked down a hundred feet to the cove below.
The beach was chaos. A hundred yards out the American trader lay impaled upon a sharp point of rock now visible with the falling tide. Boxes, crates and barrels bobbed in the waves, many already washed up on shore. But that is not what caught the eye of Padre Antonio. He squinted to make out the brightly colored women milling around on the steeply canted deck. One by one they were lowered into a long boat that bobbed with the swells.
Tomas could see the women were nothing like the modest Spanish donas who stopped for the night at the mission on their way to San Gabriel. These wore their hair loose and filled with ribbons, their bodices cinched overly tight, layers of bright skirts short enough to reveal the ankles. While the Indian vaqueros sat stone faced, Antonio frowned.
"What concerns you Padre?" Tomas asked in his garbled accent, for he was always aware of his fiery patron's state of mind.
"They are whores."
Tomas was not sure what a whore really was, but chose not to question further when Antonio suddenly urged his horse down the cliff trail.
On the beach Padre Antonio found an interpreter among the sailors to help him speak with the captain. The women were not welcome at the mission, he explained. But in truth Antonio was simply afraid of his own weakness, for he had not always followed in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi. In fact, he was much like the young Francis himself, born to wealth and land but in time became corrupted by sins of excess.
These sins Antonio had kept secret from his confessor, even after he was ordained. He had grown up riding the family's ranches, competing in the bullfights, his horses high bred and well trained, his costume traditional and lavish. Of course the women loved him, and he no doubt had children in many Spanish villages where such a caballero was the dream of every peasant girl.
And then one day a young woman came to the door of his family home in Toledo, an infant boy in her arms. She claimed it was his son, though Antonio vehemently denied it. He did not even remember his drunken night with her, and therefore refused to acknowledge the child. She was simply after his fortune so he shut the door in her face.
The following morning his servant woke Antonio earlier than usual, then nervously urged him from his bed to gaze out the window to the tree lined boulevard. There hanging by her neck from a stout branch was the girl. The sight so unnerved him Antonio dressed and rode away so he would not be forced to explain the suicide to his family, friends and neighbors. He took to wandering the back roads, so plagued with shame that he drank wine night and day. It was only after a brother found him unconscious and badly beaten in a back street of Valencia did he come to know of Saint Francis.
As he recovered from his injuries to body and soul in the Franciscan monastery, Antonio realized there was no future for such a heartless man of the world, so he condemned himself to a life of celibacy in the priesthood. He knew it was the only choice, for if he did not give his life to God, there was no question he would certainly drink himself to death.
Coming to the New World had been his salvation, for there were no beautiful women here nor did they recognize his family name. Most important of all, there was no knowledge of the girl's very public suicide. Fortunately the small dark Indian women held no interest for him, making the mission a safe haven. But now, these whores from the American boat were on his own mission lands, and that was the very last thing he wanted.
Padre Antonio and the captain were still arguing through the interpreter when the carretas finally arrived. He realized he had no choice but to house the females, for it was a hundred mile ride in every direction to the next rancho. It would take a week to reach Monterey and as long to the pueblo of Los Angeles, which was hardly suited to women. But then he knew the ships that traded there would always seek a soft breast after months at sea.
Seated under their curious parasols, the women incessantly chattered in a foreign tongue, the paint on their faces melting in the heat. They seemed a cheerful lot, Tomas thought, for the Spanish women who traveled through the mission were dressed in black, their faces dour and serious, rosaries always clicking within their fingers. But here was a very different sort of white woman, and he wondered if the happy nature of these females was because they were whores, whatever that meant. Tomas subtly angled his horse for a better look at their faces, some older than others, their teeth discolored and crooked unlike those of the Indians' worn down by the sand from corn meal ground on a metate. He was captivated by their hands fingers long slender fingers, the nails perfectly smooth as though they never cooked or gathered.
The whores were ushered into quarters reserved for Indian women awaiting baptism. Two armed sailors were stationed outside their door. As he walked back to his quarters Tomas spied Padre Antonio in the mission square with the ship's captain. The angry look on the priest's face revealed his displeasure. Tomas ducked behind a large prickly pear hedge to listen in on their conversation.
"No, they are not slaves," the Captain explained, in an overly loud voice.
"Then why are they guarded so?" Antonio asked, the irritation clipping his words.
"We do not recognize slavery in Massachusetts. The guards are for their protection."
"From whom? This is a holy place."
The Captain mumbled something and then said, "I admit, these are not the purest of lilies, but they are not enslaved. They're destined for San Francisco to work for a wealthy man who paid for their travel. That is all I know."
"Then again, I ask, why are there guards?"
"Because indentured servants such as these have received their end of the bargain, they have reached California. Now there is nothing to prevent them from running off without paying for their passage. If one of them was to run away, we have no time nor men to go find her. She would be free of her debt."
"Ah, I see. So it is a contractual matter."
"As always, it is about the money, Padre."
"So how long will you remain here?"
"There is no way to tell. The ship is beyond repair. Our only choice is to travel overland to San Francisco, and that would require a wagon because we cannot expect these women to walk that far."
"Perhaps I can convince our Superior Juan de la Cruz to loan you an ox cart for the journey. I will send two vaqueros with you. I would think this wealthy man in San Francisco would reward us for the rescue of his servants. Perhaps with a gift to our chapel or the mission school."
"I can't speak for him because I've never met the man."
"Then it would be best to send a rider ahead to notify him of their presence here at the mission, and perhaps he will send transportation to pick them up."
"I prefer to ride to San Francisco to discuss it in person because my ship is lost and he owes me money for the passage."
"A wise move. If he elects to withhold payment, you will not bring the women."
"Exactamente Padre."
For a long time that night he crouched in the shade of the chapel watching the women on the veranda in the weak candle light. Ever since their arrival Antonio had struggled with his conscience, for in his dark cell he conjured up those pale faces and imagined what it would be like to lie with them. He regretted his weakness, but did not resort to self flagellation because he did not act on those feelings. Yet something was awakening within him, something powerful and long forgotten. It evoked memories of those midnight trysts with the peasant women of Spain who gave themselves to him willingly until that tragic day of the hanging ended it all.
Antonio had taken to tearing himself away from his evening meal, then immediately after vespers he closed himself into his cell until the Superior was surely asleep. Then ye would go out again with none the wiser.
This night the eastern sky brightened with the rising moon, not quite full now, but it shone luminous in the sky. He stepped into the dry evening air and made his way to the stables where he waited, watching as the women on the veranda retired one by one into their beds.
This night only one was left outside, the one the Indios had named Pela del Fuego, hair of fire, for her thick tresses were as red as the bark of the manzanita, which framed her green eyes and pale skin. Once she was alone she reached under the wooden bench, retrieved a satchel, then heaved its strap over her shoulder. She hitched up her skirt to silently step off the veranda into the darkness.
Antonio followed her through the mission grounds, then she headed east toward the hills. This was steep and unpredictable country, filled with wild cattle that were aggressive when startled at night. The pumas were always stalking them, waiting for an old cow or a new born calf to become easy prey. She walked the game trail to an arroyo where a small spring gurgled year around, the runoff creating a soft bed of grasses where the deer often came to lie down for the night.
At the spring she set down the satchel and stood in the moonlight. She began to unbraid her hair so it shone in the pale light, making her seem a ghostly figure beneath a bower of twisted scrub oak branches. Antonio paused in the dark to coo the plaintive call of the mourning dove. The woman turned toward him, her face in the shadows, her skirt and hair floating upon the coastal breeze.
When Antonio stepped into the moonlight he was not wearing his robe. He approached her in his old doublet and leather breeches, his boots rising above his knees, a silk scarf dangling from his neck. She came to him so gracefully he swore she was floating on air, the light reaching her face to illuminate that pale skin and the eyes that reminded him of the color of new grass that cloaked the land for Holy Week.
"Marian," he said softly under his breath, his lips feeling the words more than speaking them. He did not wear the scapular, no rosary beads sat balled into his pocket, and the ring that denoted his priesthood was left behind on the dresser in his cell. He was another man that night, his blood hot and his heart beating like a frightened rabbit in this place where he was free and no longer under the control of mother church.
She held out her slender hand and he took it in his work hardened one, pressing it to his chest. "Mi amor," he whispered, gathering her into his arms. She had first come to him in the confessional, with her poorly constructed Spanish learned from a Cuban madam. She begged him to help her escape so she would not be required to work off her debt in the arms of strangers.
They had met two times before at the spring to discuss the details of her flight, for it was no small matter for a woman to venture out alone. But Marian had grown up in the highlands of Scotland and knew how to take care of herself in the wilderness. Antonio convinced himself that he was not breaking God's law because their secret meetings were to rescue her, and he longed to bring her back to a life free of sin and corruption. Perhaps if he could help her, he would redeem himself from the guilt of that poor child's suicide.
Marian stepped away from Antonio, untied her gown and let it fall to the ground revealing the slender white body with its curves and folds, sinuous in the moonlight. Antonio caught his breath, all thoughts of Christian aid vanishing. She was his first sight of a woman since he left his father's house. She slowly turned for him, and beckoned with her slender hands to join her in the grass. He could not resist and laid down his cloak to take her.
They would meet many times between the full moons, their nightly love at first heated and passionate, then familiar and languid. Every day Padre Antonio's thoughts were filled with her, with the dilemma that presented itself, with the loss of his celibacy and the finding of his manhood again.
And then the rider and the Captain returned with a large coach drawn by mules ready to take the women north. They arrived soon after Marian had broken the news in confession, that she carried Antonio's child. The words brought memories of the baby that vanished, his son lost somewhere in Spain. He would not let this one suffer the same fate, but Antonio was unwilling to leave the priesthood. The choice was clear. Marian would have to go inland and there deliver her child with the Cahuilla. Antonio would know his child was safe while he remained at the mission in his priestly role. He went to his most trusted friend, Tomas, and explained his dilemma.
The night before the wagon was scheduled to leave Tomas followed the request of his patron and prepared to take Marian to his people. Close to midnight she crept out as she did so many times before while Tomas saddled and packed the horses. Together they rode east for the village where the Cahuilla harvested tulares. It was many day's ride across the valley, and on those evenings camped along the way that woman talked of nothing but her love of Antonio. But Antonio had made it clear to Tomas that he could never return to her, for in doing so he would betray himself and her. He had no way to care for a woman much less a child.
When they arrived at the Cahuilla village it was empty, the people moved to the high country for the warmer months. Marian took one of the abandoned tule huts as her own and Tomas inhabited another close by. As Antonio requested, Tomas remained with her until the child was ready to enter the world.
It was late fall by the time the baby came, Marian's labor beginning early one morning with only Tomas to give her water and sweep away the flies with a horsetail switch. The labor went on and on, her cries drifting out across the barren land, drawing coyotes to the smell of blood and anguish. By the third day she was no longer conscious but still breathing, and Tomas knew if the baby was still alive he would have to cut it from her belly.
He sharpened his knife on a stone for a long time, gathering his courage. It would be difficult to kill the kind woman who had taught him English, walked with him among the wildflowers, gathered mesquite beans and snared quail day after day. He had come to love her gentle way and as she learned more Spanish they began to converse at length. She told him of her childhood in Scotland, the English soldiers who captured her father and sent her to the New World as a husband for their colonists. But in Boston harbor, those who were supposed to bring her to the farms chose to enslave her as a prostitute instead. She was forced at gunpoint to pleasure man after man until her keepers sold her to someone in San Francisco. Together with his other purchases from the bordellos, she boarded the ship for a long sail around the horn to the land they called California.
Their friendship made it much more difficult to gut her like he did the mission cattle, cutting the baby from her flesh. He left her body there in the hut and set it ablaze, then mounted his horse to ride fast into the mountains to find the Cahuilla's summer camp where the women would know how to feed the pale orphaned child.
The people eventually traveled back to the lower elevations where the winter was mild, inhabiting the camp until the baby was nearly a year old. Her skin was dusky like that of Antonio, but the hair and eyes were exactly like her mother's. He knew Antonio would want the baby, and so he bundled her up and rode west again back to the mission.
While his men prepared to celebrate Tomas' long awaited return with a fiesta and demonstrations of vaquero rodeo in his honor, he brought the baby to her father. "I call her Alma, bright spirit, patron". Antonio gazed into the green eyes fleetingly after Tomas explained the horror of her birth. "Do with her what you will." he said, then turned away to ponder the death of another woman because he could not control his passion. This time the guilt weighed far too heavily upon Antonio's corrupt heart. The shame was his cross.
Soon Antonio was rarely seen outside his cell, and then he wore horse hair sack cloth, claiming he needed a retreat into the wilderness to atone for his sins. Superior de la Cruz gave him leave for a month without knowing why the man did such rigorous penance. Tomas gave the little girl to the orphanage as his own to be cared for with the Indian babies whose mothers died of white man's illness. He explained she was born of his union with a woman in San Pedro who died in childbirth.
Over time Tomas watched Alma grow up educated by his people as well as the teachers at the mission school. They were as close as father and daughter, though Tomas was a full head shorter, and the red hair became a source of ridicule by the other black haired Indian children.
When Padre Antonio finally returned from the wilderness, Tomas instantly recognized the signs of toloache. It was the devil's weed, the great white morning flowers that the shaman consumed to see visions, but for those who did not respect her, this potent plant it could lead to insanity. Antonio had lost the spark of his former self, his raven hair now unkempt and grey streaked, his body filthy, eyes wild. Tomas had seen it before and suspected that Antonio was haunted by the devil's weed that allowed spirits to inhabit his body and destroy the mind.
So when the news came that the Spanish were no longer in control of the mission lands of California, Antonio and Juan de la Cruz boarded a Manilla galleon and sailed home. After the church abandoned them, the Chumash and Cahuilla living there were lost because they had forgotten the old ways. And these were never known by their children who did not inherit the knowledge of surviving on the land of their ancestors. Most of them simply fell ill and died. Tomas saw the condors gathering and knew it was time to go. He packed up his horse and one for Alma, now a sprightly young girl, and together they rode eastward to the Cahuilla, driving three tame heifers and a young calf before them to the very place where she had been born.
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