Diego, who had been awaiting Bernardo’s return with the sadness of an abandoned pup, saw him in the distance and ran to welcome him, whooping with joy. When he stood in front of him, however, he understood that this friend who was like a brother to him was a different person. He was riding a borrowed horse; he was larger, and rugged-looking. He could have passed for a man. His hair had grown long, his face was that of an adult Indian, and the unmistakable light of a secret love blazed in his eyes. Diego stopped short, but Bernardo dismounted and embraced him, easily lifting him off his feet, and they were once again the inseparable twins of before. Diego felt as if he had gained back half his soul. He didn’t care a whit that Bernardo didn’t speak, because neither of them had ever needed words to know what the other was thinking.
Bernardo was amazed that the burned-out property had been completely restored in the months he was gone. Alejandro de la Vega had determined to erase every sign of the pirates’ passing, and he seized the excuse of the damage to improve his house. When he had returned to Alta California six weeks after the assault, with his load of luxury goods to surprise his wife, there hadn’t been so much as a barking dog to welcome him. The home was completely abandoned, its contents turned to ash, and his family gone. The one person who came to greet him was Padre Mendoza, who brought him up to date on what had happened and took him to the mission, where Regina was taking her first steps as a convalescent, still heavily bandaged and with her arm in a sling. The experience of having peered into the far side of death had erased her freshness with a single stroke. Alejandro had left a young wife, but upon his return he found a woman with streaks of gray in her hair, a woman who was only thirty-three, but past her youth, and who showed no interest in Turkish carpets or engraved table silver. The news was bad, but as Padre Mendoza told him, it could have been much worse.
Alejandro de la Vega vowed to put it all behind him since there was no possibility of punishing renegades, who by now must be halfway to the China seas, and turned his energies toward restoring the hacienda. In Mexico, he had seen how people of means lived, and he had determined to imitate them not to be ostentatious, he would say as an excuse for his extravagance, but because in the future Diego would inherit the mansion and fill it with grandchildren. He ordered building materials and sent to Baja California for craftsmen smiths, ceramists, woodcarvers, painters who in no time at all added a second floor, long arched corridors, tile floors, a balcony in the dining room, a bandstand in the patio, the better to enjoy the musicians, small Moorish fountains, wrought-iron railings, carved wood doors, and windows with painted panes. In the main garden he installed statues, stone benches, bird cages pots of flowers, and a marble fountain topped with a Neptune and three sirens that the Indian craftsmen copied directly from an Italian painting. When Bernardo came back, the mansion’s red tile roofs had been restored, the second coat of peach-colored paint had been applied to the walls, and bales and bundles from Mexico City were being opened to decorate the house. “As soon as Regina gets well, we will have a housewarming this town will remember for a hundred years,” Alejandro de la Vega announced. But that day would be long in coming, because his wife found excuse after excuse for putting off the fiesta.
Bernardo taught Diego the Indians’ sign language, which they then enriched with their own additions and used for communicating when telepathy and the flute failed. Sometimes, when dealing with more complicated matters, they took recourse to slate and chalk, but they did it secretly because they did not want to be thought conceited. With the help of his whip, the schoolmaster had drilled the alphabet into the heads of a few privileged boys, but between there and reading freely lay an abyss, and in any case, no Indian went to school. Diego, despite himself, ended up becoming a good student, at which point he understood for the first time his father’s mania for education. He began to read everything he could get his hands on. Maestro Manuel Escalante’s Treatise on Fencing and Dueling was revealed to him as a collection of ideas very similar to the Indians’ okahue‘; it, too, spoke of honor, justice, respect, dignity, and courage. Before, he had limited himself to absorbing his father’s fencing lessons and imitating the movements illustrated in the pages of the manual, but after he started reading it, he learned that fencing was not only skill in handling the epee and the sword, but also a spiritual art. About that same time, Captain Jose Diaz sent Alejandro de la Vega a crate of books a passenger had left on his ship somewhere near Ecuador. The crate was sealed tight as a drum when it arrived, but when opened, it revealed a fabulous cargo of epic poems and novels, yellowed, dog-eared volumes that smelled of honey and wax. Diego devoured them, even though his father scorned novels as a minor genre plagued with inconsistencies, basic errors, and personal dramas that were none of his business. The books became an addiction for Diego and Bernardo; they read them so often that they could recite them by heart. The world they lived in grew very small, and they began to dream of countries and adventures beyond the horizon.
When Diego was thirteen, he still looked like a child, while Bernardo, like most boys of his race, had reached his full growth. The passivity of his coppery face softened during times that he and Diego were spinning a plot, or when he was gentling the horses, or in the many times he rode off to visit Lightin-the-Night. The girl grew very little during that period; she was short and slim, with an unforgettable face. Her happiness and beauty had attracted wide attention, and on her fifteenth birthday the fiercest warriors of several tribes were competing for her. Bernardo lived with the terrible fear that one day he would go to visit her and find her gone.
His appearance was deceptive; he was not overly tall or muscular, but he had surprising strength and the physical endurance of an ox. His muteness also gave a false impression, not just because people thought he was stupid, but also because it made him seem sad. In fact he wasn’t, but the people close to him, who knew the real Bernardo, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. He always wore the linen pants and shirt of the neophytes, with a sash about the waist and, in winter, a striped serape. The band across his forehead and long braid that fell halfway down his back proclaimed his pride in being Indian.
Diego, in contrast, had the rather deceptive air of a young gentleman, despite his athleticism and sun-warmed skin. From his mother he had inherited his eyes and rebelliousness; from his father, long bones, chiseled features, natural elegance, and the love of learning. Both had bequeathed him an impetuous bravery that on occasion verged on dementia, and no one knew where his playful charm came from, something none of his ancestors, a rather tight-lipped people, had ever shown.
Just the opposite of Bernardo, who was amazingly serene, Diego could not be still for more than a minute; so many ideas poured from his brain that a lifetime would not be enough to put them into practice. He now bested his father in swordplay and no one surpassed him with the bullwhip. Bernardo had made him one of braided cowhide, which Diego wore coiled at his waist. He never missed an opportunity to practice.
With its tip he could flick out a candle or cut off a flower without damaging a petal. He could also have plucked the cigar from his father’s mouth, but such insolence never entered his mind. His relationship with Alejandro de la Vega was one of timid respect. He addressed him as “senor” and never questioned his authority to his face, although behind his back he nearly always got away with doing whatever he wanted. He was, however, more mischievous than rebellious and had assimilated his father’s severe lectures about honor. Diego was proud of being a descendent of the legendary Cid, an hidalgo whose lineage was without a blot, but he never denied his Indian blood because he was also proud of his mother’s warrior past. While Alejandro de la Vega, always conscious of his social class and his faultless ancestors, tried to hide his son’s mixed blood, Diego acknowledged it with his head held high. Diego’s bond with his mother was intimate and affectionate, but he was never able to deceive her, as occasionally he did his father. Regina had a third eye in the back of her head that saw what no one else could see, and was as unyielding as a rock when it came to being obeyed.