Authors: Countess In Buckskin
Merline Lovelace (13 page)
Josh returned the firm grip. “Thanks.”
“Ach, so. You are American.”
“Josiah Jones, out of Jonesboro, Kentucky.”
“Ja, ja,
I know this Kentucky. I ran a business in Independence before I come to California.”
I know this Kentucky. I ran a business in Independence before I come to California.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Please, come inside.” With the graciousness of a frontier host, he ushered Josh into the cool, dim interior. “Vill you have beer to wash the dust from your throat, or wine pressed from the grapes of my own vineyards?”
“Beer, please.”
“Maria!” Sutter bustled to a far door. “Maria!”
While his host issued rapid orders in Spanish to the slender, dark-haired girl who came running at his shout, Josh reviewed what he’d learned in his week of travel.
Having arrived in California only the year before with little more than the clothes he stood in, Johann Sutter had blustered and strutted and finally convinced Governor Alverado to sell him a substantial land grant, which he named New Helvetia in honor of his Swiss homeland. A talent for fast talking and a promise of fair wages had brought both Indians and immigrant settlers under his banner. Those natives who resisted, he conquered with the ruthlessness of earlier Spanish conquistadors. Now he ruled his fiefdom like a medieval lord and, if the rumors were true, chafed at the restrictions the Mexican authorities put on his boundless energies.
“It’s true,” the Swiss told Josh over dinner sometime later. “I have plans. Great plans. In a few months, I go to Monterey and become a citizen of Mexico.”
He speared a chunk of spicy beef from the huge bowl making the rounds of the hungry men seated at the trestle table.
“Then I vill become a judge,” he predicted, waving his fork to emphasize his point. “An official of the government. I vill present the concerns of the settlers in Alta California to Governor Alverado.”
“Someone needs to,” a red-haired, wiry Scotsman in tattered canvas trousers muttered. “Don Alverado never leaves Monterey. The bloody bastard doesn’t have any idea how much these tariffs have hurt our trade, or the hardship they put on the other settlers.”
Josh had picked up the same refrain over and over in the past week. Discontent with the Mexican government’s heavy-handed attempt to control trade within its territories became the subject of discussion at every table sooner or later. That discontent was building to a flash point in California, as it already had in Texas.
“Only last month the Spanish tried to stop one of my fishing ships from landing in Bodega Bay,” Sutter told Josh indignantly. “They claimed it carried contraband.”
“It did,” the Scotsman put in, grinning.
“That is not the point,” Sutter exclaimed. “If my friend, Baron Rotchev, had not intervened, the Mexicans would have fired on my ship!”
“I stopped at Fort Ross on my way south,” Josh said casually. “It’s built up a lot since the last time I was there.”
The Swiss nodded. “These Russians know little about working the land, but they have brought some master builders with them. I’d give much for their granary vith its great millstone and fine threshing floor. And for their cannon,” he added darkly.
While the women cleared the tables, the men pulled out their clay pipes. Sutter treated all to a wad of Virginia tobacco from his personal supply. Soon thick smoke filled the room, as dense as the clouds of war that seemed to hang perpetually over the United States and Mexico.
“When var comes,” the Swiss said with a meaningful glance at Josh, “not all vill be sorry if the Spanish lose their northern territories. Even I, soon to be a citizen of Mexico, have little respect for a government that ignores the velfare of its people.”
Josh suspected Captain Sutter’s antipathy to the government had more to do with the restrictions it imposed on his own enterprises than its attitude to the rest of its citizens. Wisely he kept his opinion to himself and probed deeper into the turbulent politics of the area.
He left his host in a fog of tobacco smoke some hours later. He’d heard enough, more than enough, to make his detour south worth every strenuous mile. What was more, the determined, almost fanatical gleam in Sutter’s eyes when he spoke of his plans to expand his empire had planted the seeds of a daring idea in Josh’s mind.
Now he had only to lay that idea before the American vice-consul in Monterey. Then he’d return to Fort Ross to claim the woman he was coming to think of as his.
Josh boarded one of Sutter’s ships the following morning. After plowing through rough, contrary seas, the schooner dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay.
There, he booked passage on a seagoing vessel heading south. Just when the captain was ready to raise the sails, a heavy fog rolled in and smothered the bay. To Josh’s disgust, they sat at anchor for almost a week waiting for the weather to clear. Finally the fog lifted and the ship began its journey down the coast.
Caged and restless, Josh heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief when the ship finally rounded the tip of Monterey Bay. As soon as it had warped up to the wharf, he bid the captain goodbye, slung his gear over his shoulder and made his way to the adobe structure that served as the vice-consul’s residence and place of business.
A servant showed him to a dim waiting room just off the central courtyard. Josh paced the chamber, anxious to talk to President Van Buren’s designated representative. He’d met the vice-consul once, during a previous visit to California. Henry Wetherington was a good man, but possessed an inbred Yankee caution and hardheadedness. Josh would have to talk fast and hard to convince him to act quickly in the matter of Fort Ross. There wasn’t time to send word to Washington and await instructions.
When the door opened behind him, Josh whirled, expecting to see the Right Honorable Henry Wetherington. Instead, a supercilious, thin-nosed individual in starched shirt points eyed Josh up and down.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to see the vice-consul.”
The newcomer’s nostrils pinched inward, as though it pained him to deal with individuals in travel-stained buckskins.
“I’m Percival Banks, first secretary of the consulate. How can I help you, Mr...?”
“You can’t,” Josh informed him curtly. What he had in mind didn’t fall within the realm of authority for first secretaries. “Tell the vice-consul that Lieutenant Josiah Jones wants to talk to him.”
Banks peered down his nose. “That might be difficult. Mr. Wetherington resigned his post and sailed home with his wife some weeks ago. The new vice-consul isn’t expected to arrive for several months.”
Josh stared at him, nonplussed. “Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” the man replied with a smirk. “At the direction of Ambassador Kent, in Mexico City. Now if that’s all, Lieutenant, I have business to attend to.”
“No, that’s not all.” Josh thought fast. “Get me some paper and ink.”
“I beg your pardon?”
His mind racing, Josh didn’t bother with pandering to the bureaucrat’s ego.
“You heard what I said. Move, man!”
Clearly offended, Banks nevertheless responded to the voice of authority. Josh scratched out two quick missives. He folded each, sealed them with hot wax and handed the first to the secretary.
“Give this to the new vice-consul if he arrives before my return.”
He fingered the second, wishing he had time for more than a terse note informing Tatiana he’d be gone longer than planned. But the ship he’d just left stopped in Monterey only long enough to take on fresh water. If he was going to get back aboard, he’d have to move.
Passing the stiff-backed assistant the second note, he dug in his possibles bag for a five-dollar gold piece.
“The letter goes to the Countess Karanova at Fort Ross. This should cover the expenses.”
Tossing the coin to Banks, he headed for the door. It slammed shut behind him with a bang.
The first secretary sniffed disdainfully. “Rude, unmannered woodsman.”
Both notes landed on a pile of correspondence waiting attention by a lowly scribe. Pocketing the gold piece, Banks strolled out of the antechamber.
Chapter Thirteen
“N
o, no, Mikhail. Do not drench the band. Only dampen iL”
o, no, Mikhail. Do not drench the band. Only dampen iL”
Softening her admonishment with a smile, Tatiana took a tin cup from the clerk’s hand, dipped into the bucket he held and poured a trickle of water onto the encrusted cheesecloth banding the tree trunk.
“Thus so.”
Handing the cup back to Mikhail, Tatiana shaped a muddy hand around the cloth. Gently she felt for any loosening of the joint. The cutting held finely, as far as she could tell.
Why, then, had it not sprouted?
The question gnawed at her. More than two months had passed since she’d inserted this twig into the slash in the bark. It should have put out leafy buds by now, or at least shown the start of them. Why had it not?
Perhaps she’d not kept the cloth band wet enough. Perhaps she’d kept it
too
wet. Saint Petr, why had the cutting not sprigged? Wearily Tatiana pushed herself to her knees.
too
wet. Saint Petr, why had the cutting not sprigged? Wearily Tatiana pushed herself to her knees.
“I understand how to do it. Let me finish this row while you rest, Countess.” Mikhail’s pale blue eyes beseeched her from behind his spectacles. “You look so tired.”
More than willing to yield to his entreaties, Tatiana sank back onto the pillow of her thick skirts. Her customary energy seemed to have deserted her of late. Each day she felt a little more of her strength seep away. Or was it her hope?
Two months had passed. More than two months.
The cuttings did not bud, and Josiah Jones did not return.
He’d said he would come back within a month, six weeks at most. But March had melted into April, and April into May, and she’d neither seen nor heard from him.
Now soft winds blew off the sea. Pink and white wildflowers carpeted the rolling hills around Fort Ross. The early-morning mists that rose like witches’ breath from the trees gave way to cloudless, sunny afternoons...and still he didn’t come.
For weeks, every schooner that sailed into the sheltered little bay had brought a leap of hope to Tatiana’s heart. Each time the sentries shouted word of a stranger riding toward the fort, her breath had snared in her throat.
With every disappointment, she reminded herself of all that could occur to delay even the most intrepid traveler. Lame ponies. Unexpected rainsqualls. Rivers swollen by spring floods. Shuddering, she refused to let herself think of wolves that foamed at the mouth.
Keeping busy had helped pass the long weeks of waiting. Each morning, Tatiana assisted Helena in schooling the children. Each afternoon, she tended to the orchards. She’d spent backbreaking hours among the gnarled, leafless trees, wetting her precious cuttings and directing the laborers where to plow between the rows for the spring wheat planting. Whenever his duties allowed, Mikhail would join her there, as he had this afternoon.
The clerk had changed greatly since the festivities in honor of Saint Sergius. Helena had told Tatiana of his indiscreet disclosures to the American, and of Alexander’s short-lived wrath. Unlike his vengeful tsar, however, the baron was far too shrewd a manager to dismiss a valued assistant out of hand for one mistake. Evidently Mikhail had learned a painful lesson that night, one he took to heart. Tatiana had not seen him touch a glass of vodka since.
And the saints could bear witness to the fact that she’d seen much of him these past months!
He seemed always at her elbow or just a call away. He adored her with his eyes, and stumbled over his feet in his eagerness to assist her. A few years ago, Tatiana might have teased and flirted and made light of his obvious longing. Three months ago, his slavish devotion might have soothed a spirit lacerated by her husband’s betrayal. Now a scraggly bearded American consumed her thoughts, and her labors in the orchard drained her of the energy to do more than smile absently at the lovesick clerk.
Leaning back on her hands, she let the sun warm her face. Of their own accord, her eyes found the distant mountains to the north. The tallest, called Mount Helena by the inhabitants of Fort Ross in honor of their beloved princess, showed a cap of white against a startlingly blue sky.
It seemed only yesterday that Tatiana had struggled across steep, snow-covered slopes behind Josiah and the shaggy little packhorse. Yet now the snows had disappeared from all but the highest peaks, and the terror of their trek through the blinding, stinging blizzard of white had faded from her mind. Only softer, kinder memories remained. Of Josiah giving her his hat to shield her face from the sun. Of the coarse soap he’d handed her when she’d gone to bathe in the foulsmelling pool left by the geyser. Of his mouth on hers, and his arms banding her to his body while he surged into her with a powerful...
“Countess!”
Mikhail’s urgent cry cut into Tatiana’s all-too-vivid memories. Jerking upright, she scanned the sloping orchard for his tall, gangly figure. He waved to her from the bottom of the hill. The sea sparkled behind him, making it difficult to decipher his expression, but there was no mistaking the excitement in his voice.
“Countess! Come quickly!”
Tatiana scrambled to her feet, hope piercing her heart yet again. Perhaps Mikhail had spotted a ship coming around the curve of the cliffs! Or a traveler approaching the gate! From where she stood, she could see nothing but the long rows of leafless trees. Lifting her muddied skirts in both hands, she hurried down the slope.
“Look!” Mikhail thrust his forefinger at one of the trees. “There!”
Swallowing her crushing disappointment, Tatiana dragged her gaze from the empty bay and focused on the cutting he pointed to. Suddenly the hope that had just plummeted like a stone thrown into an empty well shot straight up again. Her heart pounding, she sank to her knees.
“Holy Father above.”
Scarcely daring to breathe, she examined the swelling nub. It showed only the faintest tint of green, just enough to bring a rush of tears to Tatiana’s eyes. Furiously she blinked them back.
Swiveling on her knees, she studied the tree across the row. When she saw a similar coloration on the cutting that was joined to its trunk, she couldn’t contain her tears any longer. Burying her face in her hands, she gave them free rein.
“Countess!”
Mikhail’s voice spiraled to a squeak of dismay. He dropped to his knees beside her and groped in his pockets for a handkerchief. It dangled uselessly from his fingers while Tatiana sobbed.
“Shall I fetch the Princess Helena?” he asked in alarm.
She shook her head.
“The Baron Rotchev?” Helplessly he bent until his head hovered a few inches from hers. “Please, Countess, do not distress yourself so.”
Gulping back her sobs, Tatiana raised her tearstained face. “I do not cry from distress, but from joy. The cuttings have taken hold, Mikhail, as my father said they would.”
He looked doubtful and vastly relieved at the same time. “I did not believe they would,” he confessed after a moment. “I was stunned to see the bud.”
Tatiana snatched the handkerchief from his fingers and stabbed at her swollen eyes. Not for all the jewels in the tsarina’s crown would she admit that she, too, had harbored secret doubts. These past weeks, while the air had warmed and the bushes had put forth the first chartreuse shoots of spring, she’d waited and worried and feared and questioned her father’s wisdom.
She questioned it no longer. Two cuttings had taken hold. The rest would, also. The fall would see a harvest of juicy, yellow-striped apples and succulent pears from these special trees. So her father had promised. So it would happen.
They were months yet from bud to harvest, Tatiana knew. And several years must pass before the trees bore final testimony to the hardiness her father had so confidently predicted. For now, though, she had at least the promise of a rich harvest to offer the people of Fort Ross...and the tsar.
Damn and thrice damn Nikolas. He hadn’t believed, either.
Resoundingly she blew her nose into Mikhail’s handkerchief. “Go seek out Baron Rotchev and bring him here,” she begged the clerk. “I must show him these trees most immediately.”
He brought not only the baron, but his wife, as well. Helena hurried past her husband and dropped to her knees beside her friend.
“What is this that Mikhail tells us? Have your twigs really sprouted?”
Smiling, Tatiana pointed to the bud.
With her husband peering over her shoulder, Helena bent to examine the greenish swelling near the tip of the cutting. “That is it?”
“That is it.”
“It’s so...small.”
“It will grow, Helena, and merge its core with that under the bark. In the fall, the branches of this tree will groan under the weight of their fruit. By next fall, you shall harvest enough to provide all the settlements in Alaska with fresh apples and pears. When the tsar sees that this land can yield such abundance, he will reconsider abandoning Fort Ross.”
Her eyes met those of the baron. “Will you wait until fall, Alexander? Can you?”
“No,” he replied gravely, reaching down a hand to help the women rise. “Nikolas has instructed me to approach the British at Fort Vancouver by the end of June.”
Helena tossed her head angrily. “A supply ship is due next week. I have already written my so pigheaded uncle of what Tatiana does here. Now he shall learn that her twigs have surprised us all by sprouting. And you, my husband, shall delay your travel until the last possible minute. Even then, I foresee that these negotiations shall prove difficult and time-consuming.”
The baron grinned at his imperious wife. “As you command, my princess.”
“Go now,” she said, her face softening into a smile. “Take Mikhail with you. I would walk with Tatiana in the sun for a while.”
Alexander dropped a kiss on his wife’s nose, congratulated the countess on her success and strolled off with the clerk. Helena watched him for a moment, then sighed and linked her arm through Tatiana’s.
“Men must always follow orders so particularly. One wonders how they pull their britches on each morning without a written order telling them to do so.”
Smiling, Tatiana matched her pace to Helena’s brisk walk. The two women soon cleared the orchard and followed the line of the cliffs. The coastal breeze tossed their hair and their skirts and brought bright spots of color to Helena’s cheeks. To Tatiana’s, too, evidently.
“It’s good to see life in your face again,” the princess commented. “You’ve been looking so wan and pale of late.”
“Have I?” Puffing a bit from the walk, Tatiana shrugged. “Perhaps I was more worried than I wished to show about the cuttings.”
“Is that all you worried about?”
“Is that not enough?”
Helena stopped and swung around. Her brown eyes troubled, she searched Tatiana’s face. “Do you also worry about whether the American will return to Fort Ross, as he told Alexander he would?”
“Pah! Why should I care whether he will return?”
“Perhaps because he is father to the child you carry.”
Tatiana let out a slow gust of breath. “You know?” “I’ve borne three children, my friend. I know how a babe saps a woman’s strength. It did not take me long to understand why a woman who walked through the mountains must now drag herself out of bed. Why even a short stroll like this would cause her to wheeze and puff like an ancient crone.”
“I’m not as familiar with such matters as you, Helena. I only realized myself a few weeks ago.”
“This is my fault,” the princess said bitterly.
Tatiana stared at her. “Yours?”
“I encouraged you to flirt with the American, and conspired to give you time alone with him.”
Despite herself, Tatiana smiled. “I think perhaps this babe is more my fault, and Josiah’s, than yours.”
“That’s not what Alexander will say.” Helena heaved a heavy sigh. “So, my friend, what shall you do?”
Wrapping her hands around her middle, Tatiana faced the Pacific. Curls of white foam scudded along its blue surface. Sunlight sparkled like diamonds between the waves. Somewhere across that endless stretch of ocean was Russia, and Tsar Nikolas.
“I shall wait,” she said slowly. “For as long as I can, I shall wait.”
Her waiting came to an abrupt end some two weeks later.
She had taken the Rotchev children to walk and play on the rock-strewn beach below the fort. The dazzling sunshine had caused them to fidget and balk so much at their lessons that their exasperated mother had threatened to lock them in the root cellar for the rest of the summer. Taking pity on all concerned, Tatiana had swept the three miscreants out of the house and down to the beach.
A stiff breeze whipped their hair and salt spray stung their cheeks, but none of the four minded. Enough of the day’s warmth had collected in the rocks to chase any chill away. Following the children’s example, Tatiana had shed her shoes and tucked up her skirts. She was on her knees, digging for shells with a wooden spoon alongside the chattering children when an excited shout sounded above the raucous call of the seagulls.
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