One week later, Toypurnia took her first secret steps on the arm of the handsome captain, who had decided to ignore Padre Mendoza orders to keep her bound and in the dark. By then, the two were able to communicate, since she remembered the fragmentary Spanish her father had taught her and he made the effort to learn words in her tongue.
When Padre Mendoza surprised them holding hands, he decided it was time to consider that his prisoner was well, and proceed with her sentencing. There was nothing further from his nature than to execute anyone in truth, he didn’t even know how to do it but he was responsible for the safety of the mission, and of his neophytes, and willingly or not this woman had caused several deaths. Sadly, he reminded the captain that in Spain the penalty for crimes of rebellion and banditry, like Toypurnia’s, was death by garrote, with the iron collar slowly choking off her life.
“We are not in Spain,” the captain replied, shuddering.
“I assume that you agree with me, Captain, that for as long as this woman is alive we are all in danger; she will rally the tribes again. There will be no garrote that is too cruel but with pain in my heart, I say that she will have to be hanged. There is no alternative.”
“This woman is a mestiza, Padre, half Spanish by blood. You have jurisdiction over the Indians in your charge, but not over her. Only the governor of Alta California can set her sentence,” the captain argued.
Padre Mendoza, for whom the idea of being the cause of another human’s death was too heavy a burden, immediately seized upon that logic. De la Vega offered personally to go to Monterey and ask Pedro Fages to decide Toypurnia’s fate, and the missionary accepted with a deep sigh of release.
Alejandro de la Vega reached Monterey in less time than was normally required for a rider to cover that distance; he was in a hurry to carry out his project, and he wanted to avoid the raiding Indians. He traveled alone, and at a gallop, stopping at missions along the road to change his horse and sleep a few hours. He had followed that trail before, and he knew it well, but he was always awed by the magnificence of nature: endless forests, a thousand varieties of animals and birds, streams and gentle slopes, the white sands of the beaches of the Pacific. He had no unpleasant encounters with Indians: they were wandering around in the hills without a chief and without a purpose, demoralized. If Padre Mendoza’s predictions were correct, their enthusiasm had been punctured completely, and it would take years for them to reorganize. The Presidio, built on an isolated promontory seven hundred leagues from Mexico City and half the world away from Madrid, was as gloomy as a dungeon, a monstrosity of stone and mortar that served as headquarters for a small contingent of soldiers, the only company of the governor and his family. That day a thick fog amplified the cries of the seagulls and the crashing of waves upon the rocks.
Pedro Fages received the captain in a nearly bare room in which small windows admitted very little light but failed, on the other hand, to keep out the icy wind off the sea. The walls were covered with mounted bear heads, swords, pistols, and Dona Eulalia de Calli’s‘s coat of arms, embroidered in gold but worn now, and almost humble. In the way of furniture, there were a dozen bare wood chairs, an enormous armoire, and a military table. The ceiling was black with soot and the floor was tamped-down earth, the same as in the rudest barracks. The governor was a corpulent man with a colossal voice and the rare virtue of being immune to flattery and corruption. He wielded power with a quiet conviction that it was his accursed fate to lead Alta California out of barbarism, whatever the price. He compared himself to the first Spanish conquistadors, who had added a great part of the world to the empire, and he carried out his obligation with a sense of history, although if truth be known, he would have preferred to enjoy his wife’s fortune in Barcelona, as she asked him daily to do. An orderly served them red wine in crystal goblets from Bohemia carried thousands of miles in the trunks of Eulalia de Califs, a refinement in strong contrast to the rude furnishings of the fort. The two men toasted the far-off homeland and their friendship, commenting on the revolution in France, in which the people had taken up arms against the king. That had happened more than a year before, but the news had just reached Monterey. They agreed that there was no reason to be alarmed; surely by this time order would have been restored, and King Louis XVI would be back on the throne, though they thought he was a poor specimen of a man and not worthy of their sympathy. Deep down, they were happy that the French were killing each other, but good manners prevented them from expressing that aloud. Somewhere in the distance they could hear the muted sound of voices and yelling, which gradually grew so loud that it was impossible to ignore.
“Forgive me, Captain. These women…” said Pedro Fages, with a gesture of impatience.
“And is Her Excellency, Dona Eulalia, well?” inquired Alejandro de la Vega, blushing to his ear tips.
Pedro Fages pierced him with a steely glance, trying to make out his intentions. He was up to date on what people were saying about this handsome captain and his wife; he wasn’t deaf. No one could understand, he least of all, why it should take Dona Eulalia six months to reach Monterey when the trip could be made in much less time. It was said that the journey was drawn out on purpose because the two wanted to be together. Added to that was the exaggerated version of an assault by bandits in which supposedly de la Vega had risked his life to save hers. That was not the real story, but Pedro Fages never learned that. The attackers were a half dozen Indians, fired up by alcohol, who went tearing off the moment they heard the first shots; nothing more. And as far as the injury to de la Vega’s leg went, that had not come about in defending Dona Eulalia de Callis, as rumor had it, but from a minor goring from a wild cow. Pedro Fages prided himself on being a good judge of human nature he had not been exercising power for many years for nothing and after studying Alejandro de la Vega, he decided that it was pointless to waste suspicions on this man; he was sure that the captain had delivered his wife to him with her virtue intact. He knew his wife very well. If those two had really fallen in love, no human or divine power would have persuaded Eulalia to leave her lover and go back to her husband.
Perhaps there had been a kind of platonic affinity between them, but nothing that would cause him to lose sleep, the governor concluded.
In the meantime, the uproar of servants running through the corridors, doors slamming, and shouting continued. Alejandro de la Vega, like the whole world, knew of the couple’s fights, as epic as their reconciliations. He had heard that in their fits the Fages threw crockery at each other’s heads, and that on more than one occasion Don Pedro had drawn his sword against her, but also that afterward they locked themselves in their room for several days to make love. The robust governor thumped the table, making the cups dance, and confessed to his guest that Eulalia had been in her room for five days in a white-hot rage.
“She misses the refinement she is used to,” he said, just as a maniacal howl shook the walls.
“Perhaps she feels a little lonely, Excellency,” muttered de la Vega, just to fill the awkward silence.
“I have promised her that in three years we will return to either Mexico City or Spain, but she doesn’t want to hear that. My patience has run out, Captain de la Vega. I am going to send her to the nearest mission so the friars can put her to work with the Indians. We’ll see then whether she learns to respect me!” Fages roared.