Rains came with the New Year and they lasted for more than a month. We had managed to save half our cattle, all of our working horses, and some of the mesteños. But most of these wild horses in our part of the country Don Roberto had rounded up, because there wasn't food for them, and had driven over the high cliffs at Punta de Laguna.
When the spring grass was just beginning to show, Mr. Thomas rode up to the ranch and announced that he had come for beef cattle. He bought seventy tough steers, paying us ninety centavos a head, and drove them off the same day to San Diego. About a month later I found out why he had bought the cattle. Juan Diaz, our mayordomo, came back from San Diego with a wild tale.
"Early in the morning," the mayordomo told us, "that was three months ago in January, a man named Marshall, who was a carpenter, was building a grist mill for a man named Sutter. He had just finished building a flume from the river to the mill. One morning he went down to the flume to shut off the water. There at the bottom of the flume he saw a piece of what he thought might be gold. He pounded it between rocks and when it changed its shape but did not break in two he was certain it was gold. Almost certain, that is.
"A few days later he went to Sutter's and showed him the pieces he had found in the flume. They tested them and proved they were gold. Right then the two men decided to keep what they found a big secret. But shortly afterward a man named Brannon found some gold and he galloped to San Francisco and rode down the streets, shaking a bottle of gold dust over his head and shouting, 'Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River.'
"Within a week all the sailors in San Francisco harbor deserted their ships. Carpenters dropped their hammers. A nearby town opened its jail. Thousands flocked to the mill and clawed it to pieces, looking for gold. Three Frenchmen pulled up a tree stump and found a fortune in gold hanging on to its roots. Imagine, if you are able, a fortune from a tree stump."
Two days after he had told us this tale, Juan Diaz took six horses from our corral and rode off at a gallop for the North.
We all thought Juan was crazy but he was not crazy. The story he told us was true. Before the month of May was gone, a steady line of men on horses began to troop up the King's Highway, along the western boundary of Dos Hermanos. They were on their way to the gold fields.
When I went to San Diego, I learned that these men, about four hundred of them, had crossed the Isthmus of Panama and there bought passage to San Francisco. But the crooked captain of the ship carried them only as far as San Diego. He told them they were in San Francisco, and then sailed back to Panama to pick up another cargo, leaving the men stranded two hundred leagues south of the gold fields.
Our vaqueros reported that the gold-seekers stole a band of horses and slaughtered our cows during the first few days, so I went down to the Highway to move our stock out of reach.
A herd of cattle had strayed, and these we drove back. I had three vaqueros with me. As we crossed the Highway we encountered two men riding white geldings and leading two mares. I knew the horse by sight; they bore the Z brand of Dos Hermanos. As we pulled up in front of them, I thought of the time my father and I had stopped the band of gringo thieves.
"The geldings belong to Dos Hermanos," I said to the two young men.
I was still angry that we had found the carcasses of more than forty cows scattered along the King's Highway. The gringos at least could have slaughtered our steers and not our breeding stock. I spoke in Spanish. The one with the long blond hair and blue eyes looked puzzled. The other young man answered me in Spanish and I saw that he was a Spaniard.
"We bought the horses," he said.
"That story I am acquainted with," I said. "I have heard it many times and I am tired of hearing it."
"I repeat, senorita. The horses we have bought. We paid ten pesos apiece for them. Except one of the mares, which cost four pesos."
He turned away and spoke to the gringo in the gringo language. Whereupon the young man with the long blond hair fumbled around in a small bag he had tied to his saddle horn and pulled out a piece of paper. He swung his horse around, edged up to me, and handed it over. At the top of the paper were the words "Sunrise Grocery Store" and, below it, "Caleb Thomas, Prop." Farther down was a notation, and then a signature that I recognized as belonging to Thomas.
"Mr. Thomas," I said, "did not own the horses he sold you. They bear our brand."
The Spaniard spoke to the gringo, who continued to look puzzled. I noticed a name in gilt letters on the valise he had tied to his saddle. It read "Dr. John Brett."
The gringo fumbled around again in his valise and pulled out some paper money, a fistful, and handed it to me. "Perdón," he said.
The Spaniard said, "He wants to pay for the horses."
I looked at the gringo, who was not much older than I. I glanced at his long blond hair and blue eyes and the way his long legs hung down out of the stirrups. I glanced at his valise, which was very new, and at the fresh gilt letters that spelled out his name. He was the nicest-looking gringo I had seen.
"With your permission, the doctor and I will continue the journey," the Spaniard said. "I have a long way to go."
"Where are you bound?" I said, though I knew.
"To seek fortune in the gold field."
"And the other?" I said, pointing.
"He is a doctor and will pursue his profession somewhere along our coast. Perhaps in Santa Barbara."
"Tell your friend," I said, "that there are no doctors in the pueblo of San Diego or the country around. And only one that I know of in pueblo Los Angeles."
"I will impart your information," said the Spaniard, who was one to talk importantly.
"Do not forget," I reminded him.
The white gelding the young doctor was riding had a bad way, I remembered, of shying at anything that moved suddenly—a twig, a bush, anything. I told one of the vaqueros to untie a gelding that we had with us. It was one of our best horses.
"Inform the doctor that the gelding he rides is not trustworthy. And ask him to dismount while my vaquero changes saddles."
The doctor got off his horse and stood holding his new valise. He looked much better standing on the ground than he did sitting in the saddle. When the new horse was saddled, he climbed up and tied his valise to the horn.
He said something in Spanish as they rode off along the King's Highway. He had a gringo's voice, but it was soft. I watched him bouncing up and down in the saddle, the small valise swinging from the saddle horn. I watched as he came to a little rise and then disappeared in the yellow dust and the bright sun.