Anyway, it was a relief for everybody when she’d finished in the pueblo and went roving up and down the canyons, pouncing on unclaimed vines. There were a few Indians settled back in the hills, ex-neophytes scratching out a living between two worlds, on land nobody else had wanted. What they made of this woman, white as their worst nightmares, who spoke to them in imperious and perfectly accented Barbareño Chumash, I can only imagine. However she persuaded them, though, she got samples of their vines, too. I figured she’d soon be on her way back to the hinterlands, and had an extra glass of communion wine to celebrate. Was that ever premature!
I was hearing confessions when her scream of excitement cut through the subvocal ether, followed by delighted profanity in sixteenth-century Galician. My parishioner went on:
“…which you should also know, Father, was that I have coveted Juana’s new pans. These are not common iron pans but enamelware, white with a blue stripe, very pretty, and they came from the Yankee trading ship. It disturbs me that such things should imperil my soul.”
Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!
“It is good to be concerned on that account, my child.” I shut out Mendoza’s transmission so I could concentrate on the elderly woman on the other side of the screen. “To covet worldly things is very sinful indeed, especially for the poor. The Devil himself sent the Yankees with those pans, you may be certain.” But Mendoza had left her credenza and was coming down the arcade in search of me, ten meters, twenty meters, twenty-five… “For this, and for your sinful dreams, you must say thirty Paternosters and sixty Ave Marias…” Mendoza was coming up the church steps two at a time… “Now, recite with me the Act of Contrition—”
“Hey!” Mendoza pulled back the door of the confessional. Her eyes were glowing with happiness. I gave her a stern look and continued the Act of Contrition with my somewhat disconcerted penitent, so Mendoza went out to stride up and down in front of the church in her impatience.
“Don’t you know better than to interrupt me when I’m administering a sacrament?” I snapped when I was finally able to come out to her. “Some Spaniard you are!”
“So report me to the Holy Office. Joseph, this is important. One of my specimens read out with an F-M Class One rating.”
“And?” I put my hands in my sleeves and frowned at her, refusing to come out of the role of offended friar.
“Favorable mutation, Joseph, don’t you know what that means? It’s a mission grape with a difference. It’s got Saccharomyces with style and Botrytis in rare bloom. Do you know what happens when a field operative discovers an F-M Class One, Joseph?”
“You get a prize,” I guessed.
“Si señor!” She did a little dance down the steps and stared up at me in blazing jubilation. I hadn’t seen her this happy since 1554. “I get a Discovery Bonus! Six months of access to a lab for my own personal research projects, with the very finest equipment available! Oh joy, oh rapture. So I need you to help me.”
“What do you need?”
“The Company wants the parent plant I took the specimen from, the whole thing, root and branch. It’s a big vine, must have been planted years ago, so I need you to get me some Indians to dig it up and bring it back here in a carreta. Six months at a Sciences Base, can you imagine?”
“Where did you get the specimen?” I inquired.
She barely thought about it. “Two kilometers south-southeast. Just some Indian family back in the hills, Joseph, with a hut in a clearing and a garden. Kasmali, that was what they called themselves. You know the family? I suppose we’ll have to pay them something for it. You’ll have to arrange that for me, okay?”
I sighed. Once again the kindly padre was going to explain to the Indian why it was necessary to give up yet another of his belongings. Not my favorite role, all things considered.
But there we were that afternoon, the jolly friar and his haughty cousin, paying a call on the Kasmali family.
They were good parishioners of mine, the old abuela at Mass every day of the week, rain or shine, the rest of the family lined up there every Sunday. That was a lot to expect of our Indians in this day and age. They were prosperous, too, as Indians went: they had three walls of a real adobe house and had patched in the rest with woven brush. They had terraced their tiny hillside garden and were growing all kinds of vegetables on land not fit for grazing. There were a few chickens, there were a few little brown children chasing them, there were a few cotton garments drying on the bushes. And, on the crest of the hill, a little way from the house, there was the vineyard: four old vines, big as trees, with branches spreading out to shade most of an acre of land.
The children saw us coming and vanished into the house without a sound. By the time we reached the top of the winding stony path, they had all come out and were staring at us: the toothless old woman from daily Mass, a toothless old man I did not know, the old son, the two grown grandsons, their wives and children of assorted ages. The elder of the grandsons came forward to greet us.
“Good evening, little Father.” He looked uneasily at Mendoza. “Good evening, lady.”
“Good evening, Emidio.” I paused and pretended to be catching my breath after the climb, scanning him. He was small, solidly built, with broad and very dark features; he had a stiff black mustache. His wide eyes flickered once more to Mendoza, then back to me. “You have already been introduced to my cousin, I see.”
“Yes, little Father.” He made a slight bow in her direction. “The lady came yesterday and cut some branches off our grapevines. We did not mind, of course.”
“It is very kind of you to permit her to collect these things.” I eyed Mendoza, hoping she’d been tactful with them.
“Not at all. The lady speaks our language very well.”
“That is only courtesy, my son. Now, I must tell you that one of your vines has taken her fancy, for its extraordinary fruit and certain virtues in the leaves. We have come back here today, therefore, to ask you what you will accept for that near vine at the bottom of the terrace.”
The rest of the family stood like statues, even the children. Emidio moved his hands in a helpless gesture and said, “The lady must of course accept our gift.”
“No, no,” said Mendoza. “We’ll pay you. How much do you want for it?” I winced.
“She must accept the gift, please, Father.” Emidio’s smile was wretched.
“Of course she shall,” I agreed. “And, Emidio, I have a gift I have been meaning to give you since the feast of San Juan. Two little pigs, a boar and a sow, so they may increase. When you bring down the vine for us you may collect them.”
The wives lifted up their heads at that. This was a good deal. Emidio spread out his hands again. “Of course, little Father. Tomorrow.”
“Well, that was easy,” Mendoza remarked as we picked our way down the hill through the chaparral. “You’re so good with mortals, Joseph. You just have to treat Indians like children, I guess, huh?”
“No, you don’t,” I sighed. “But it’s what they expect you to do, so they play along.” There was more to it than that, of course, but something else was bothering me. I had picked up something more than the usual stifled resentment when I had voiced my request: someone in the family had been badly frightened for a second. Why? “You didn’t do anything to, like, scare those people when you were there before, did you, Mendoza? Didn’t threaten them or anything, did you?”