Bonita: A Tale of Early California

By Carl R. Brush

Meet Bonita. Often reckless, often victimized, a deeply spiritual person who transforms herself from a rebellious adolescent into a prominent entrepreneur. When we meet her as a twelve-year-old in 1843, she is living a privileged life on a hacienda overlooking San Francisco Bay. But she discovers that she's not who she's

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookside Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778831065

Carl R. Brush

Carl Brush has been writing since he could write, which is quite a long time now. He grew up and lives in Northern California, close to the roots of the people and action of three of six of his seven historical thrillers, The Maxwell Vendetta, and its sequels, The Second Vendetta, and Swindle in Sawtooth Valley, which take place in 1908-1912 in San Francisco and the high Sierra. Bonita and its sequel, Bonita's Quest, are set in pre-gold-rush San Francisco. For yet another historical tale, The Yellow Rose he made a literary jump from California to Texas, where Carl's co-author, the late Bob Stewart, dwelled. It's a tale of the Texas revolution and an imagined affair between Sam Houston and a legendary mulatto woman, Emily West, who is best remembered as The Yellow Rose of Texas. You can find Carl living with his wife in Oakland, California, where he enjoys the blessings of nearby children and grandchildren.

Book preview

Chapter One: Roping Grizzlies

CHAPTER ONE

Roping Grizzlies

My night of the grizzlies. I believe, my daughter, that this is as good a place as any to begin telling my story. Perhaps these pages will never find you, but whether you ever read them, whether we ever embrace on this side of heaven, you live always in my heart. And as I write, I imagine you at my side on that moonlit night more than six years past.

They insisted over and over that a twelve-year-old white girl had no business out lassoing bears. They tried to stop me like they always had, but I refused to accept the refusals. It’s the way I am, Mija, and the way you are, I’m sure. So there I was, riding Pintado bareback, following Luis and Salvador and three other vaqueros to Arroyo Calaveras where we dump what’s left of Rancho Sausalito’s cattle after they sell the hides and tallow and after we of the household have consumed what meat we can. The moon was bright, so I was careful to stay in the shadows of the oak trees and the chaparral. I didn’t intend to participate this first time, but I hungered at least to experience the feel and the smells, and the sounds of it all.

A few miles out, Luis held up his hand, a signal for everyone to rein in and dismount. I followed suit. I knew from listening to their stories what would happen next. They’d leave the horses and creep the last hundred yards or so to the bank of the wash. They’d count how many bears were feeding, where they were concentrated, then plot their attack. They’d isolate a single animal, throw three or four loops around him, and haul him back to the special corral where he’d be staked out to fight a bull on Saturday. After the fight, his paws would become a tasty dish, his skin a rug, or maybe chaps with claws draped over the instep of someone’s fancy boots.

I sneaked toward the edge of the dry creek bed. I kept a slight rise between myself and the men. I could smell the rotten meat and could hear the bears growling and snuffling. I inched forward on my stomach, wary of spoiling things for the vaqueros and hurting my chances of joining them someday. I crept to the rim, peered over.

Grizzlies are pretty much gone around here now, Mija, but you didn’t grow up around San Francisco Bay in the 1830’s and early forties without seeing them. Still, I’d never been this close, not in the wild. Other times, you’d glimpse them in the distance as they roamed free, or when the vaqueros dragged them in, clawing and biting at the lariats that bound them, or when they fought a bull during one of those bloody, roaring battles to the death.

I counted five. A pair of sows and their yearling cubs. The adults foraged among the bones for the tastiest remains. Two of the cubs fought a tug-of-war over a skull, growling and squealing like puppies. Finally, one of them ripped off the jawbone and romped away in triumph, headed straight toward me. It had never occurred to me that bears would play like this. I suddenly regretted what would happen when the vaqueros moved in, thought perhaps it would be better to go back than to see the animal imprisoned.

That’s when Luis and his compañeros spurred their mounts into action, leaping like very shades of the devil from the shadows of an outcropping, howling like coyotes. Hooves shook the earth. Lariats whipped the air. The ground where I lay crumbled beneath me and sent me tumbling into the arroyo.

I dropped a few feet onto a jutting rock, which knocked the breath out of me. I continued to roll catawampus I don’t know how far until I fetched up against a soft, wiry-haired mound of live bear. The cub— no baby from up close—let out a yip and leapt sideways.

We stared at one another for a long moment. I should have been terrified, I suppose, but I don’t recall feeling much of anything. My emotions were as paralyzed as my body. That stillness didn’t last long. The cub snapped out of his surprise, swiped at me with his forepaw, then bounded off. The swat probably wouldn’t have looked like much if you’d been watching from up top, but it knocked me six ways from Sunday and delivered the most intense pain I’d ever endured. I somehow found enough breath to yell, scream, or make some kind of sound because the hoof beats suddenly stopped. I heard Luis yelling.

"¿Quién es? ¿Qué pasó?"

It’s Bonita, I cried. Bonnie.

The rumbling hoof beats and yelling, and growling resumed as the vaqueros distracted the other grizzlies. They held them at bay so Luis could tend to me. He knelt beside me, spoke in a tone that was both angry and concerned.

"¿What are you doing here, Bonita? Are you hurt?"

I had no good explanation for the first question, so I answered the second. "Estoy bien," I said. But of course, I was not in the least all right.

Chapter Two: Natura Nihil Frustra Facit

CHAPTER TWO

Natura Nihil Frustra Facit

I wonder, Mija, if you know about me, whether you know I exist. Those cabrones told me you died at birth. Logic and my dreams tell me otherwise. Who knows what they told you ? They will tell a person anything that suits them.

Of one thing I am certain. We share the same soul. Did I not, after all, name you Bonita after myself even though that honor is supposedly reserved for fathers and sons? We are not Bonita and Bonita, junior. We are both Bonitas, united in name and blood.

Before your first wailing sight of the world, from the way you danced in my womb, I could tell you were not only of my flesh, but of my spirit as well, and while I draw breath, Mija, my quest for you will not end.

But what happened after that mano-a-pata with the bear? I’ll tell you.

***

Use your left hand, Bonita, Aunt Hannah said. Your sinister. Her voice had a lilting quality that made even her sternest corrections sound melodic. But one look at the set of her blocky jaw and thin lips and a girl knew she’d best obey.

It had been less than a week since my injury, and my aunt, the sister of my uncle, Captain William Richardson, had me back at my lessons despite the fact that my right arm, perhaps broken, perhaps not, was splinted just in case. The left side of my face, the claw gouges still suppurating, was bandaged.

"I don’t have much dexterity with that hand, I said. That stopped her for a moment, evoked a smile at my little pun on sinister/left, dexter/right," a smile she quickly controlled.

Very funny, she said. Now get going. Ah-ah. Date in the upper left hand corner.

We can add it later when I’m better.

Now, she insisted.

May I at least print instead of using cursive?

She nodded sharply. For now. Her only concession to my injuries.

I marked in a child’s block letters: August 3, 1842.

In a straight line, at least.

I sighed, picked up the eraser, scrubbed it clean, and rewrote it true.

You may proceed, she said.

I naturally continued to struggle and suffer and whine and complain. Most of what I wrote that day and for many days following was barely legible. Nevertheless, I eventually became quite proficient, and I’ve since found ambidexterity a useful skill. Natura Nihil Frustra Facit, Leucipuss said. Or—this is my own translation, Mija, so forgive me if it doesn’t match the scholars’—Something good can come out of even the worst calamity.

Wrong declension, Hannah declared at one point, peering over my shoulder at my version of, if I remember correctly, Horatio’s Ode to Venus. I couldn’t sneak anything past her even with handwriting I could barely read myself. Hannah was a hard taskmaster, but she declared I was getting an education fit for the boys at Eton and Harrow. I saw no use for matching wits with boys at English public schools, but there was something in Hannah that commanded obedience even to my rebellious spirit, so I conformed. Finally, the morning nearly gone and the dinner hour approaching, she stopped her pacing and sat beside me.

Enough for today, she said.

I could hardly let go of the pencil, my hand was so cramped. The arm under my splint itched so badly I tried to scratch it through the board.

Hannah smiled. So will it go, she said. Throughout your life, there will always be an itch you cannot reach."

Not this awful, I said. I tried to poke the pencil up under the splint.

Ah-ah. She grabbed the pencil from my hand. Infection. Breathe deeply. Think of breezes and gulls at the cove of a Sunday afternoon.

I tried, but the wounds on my face began to sting. I pressed my hand against the bandage, which relieved the pain a little. Hannah, I said, I’m going to have scars, aren’t I? She didn’t answer, just cocked her head to one side, and changed the subject. So I knew the answer. I already knew I wasn’t a beauty. My face was a little long. My lips too thin. My hair not quite blonde. Still, my looks were good enough to get by, and I never cared about being pretty and girlish. I preferred riding outfits to frocks and bows. But scars? That prospect frightened me. I was about to ask Hannah how bad they’d look, but she had a question of her own.

Do you have something to say to me? she said.

About what?

She pointed at the injured arm. About that.

I pretended puzzlement for a moment, but I knew what she meant. I can often tell what people, at least those who are close to me, are thinking and feeling. I once thought everyone could do so, but had come to understand that my ability is rather unique.

Do you expect me to read your mind? Uncle or Hannah would say when I asked if they couldn’t tell what I was thinking or feeling. I eventually fathomed that, although I could often see into their hearts, they could not see into mine. This insight is akin to clairvoyance I suppose, except that I cannot predict or control it. It is most powerful with Uncle. Sometimes it floods through me with such intensity that I feel I am with him even when he is out of my presence. How or when it will come, I cannot tell. I know only it must come from the Divine, that we must never take credit for such gifts, that we must use them wisely and sparingly. Moreover, it was not a quality I wished others to know, for I feared being thought different. So I learned to keep it to myself.

As for the matter of Hannah and my reluctance to answer her question, the moment after I began my pretense of confusion, I realized it would profit me nothing.

I’m sorry.

Say it all.

I’m sorry I disobeyed and caused everyone so much trouble.

Therein lies the real lesson for this morning. We need to talk about disobedience.

That raised a fright in me. What more punishment could she invent than I’d already endured?

She looked around furtively. One of the Indian servants passed by the open door bearing a platter of tortillas. Hannah rose, crossed the room, and started to pull the door shut. But she didn’t. Instead, she said, Let’s walk, Bonita. I’d like a private word.

Uncle was in charge of his ships and businesses, but his wife, Maria Antonia, was in firm charge of the Hacienda. For some reason I could not fathom, she kept Hannah under as much scrutiny as Hannah exercised over me, and I knew she wasn’t above questioning the help about what they’d overheard. It was clear that whatever Hannah wanted to tell me was to be hidden from La Osa, the Mama Bear.

Despite her stern manner, I never doubted Hannah’s affection for me, but I’d never seen her features melt the way they did when she smiled as we hurried down the corridor toward the veranda. I did not know what she was hiding, but I felt her enthusiasm, shared her vision of the conversation she planned. She beckoned me toward her as if I were a playmate instead of her charge. Come, now.

We took a ridge trail that led away from the adobe ranch house toward a gazebo overlooking San Francisco Bay. It was a brilliant day in early summer, I recall, the air uncharacteristically still, the waters off Angel Island placid. A squadron of pelicans cruised past the village of Sausalito’s single wharf, lined up as precisely as a troop of soldiers, their wings cupped and motionless. Further on, the island of Alcatraz, that little pile of rocks to which the pelicans lent their name, poked its head above the green waters. Finally, in the far distance rose the sand dunes of Yerba Buena, the town that had grown up east of what the Fathers officially called the Mission of San Francisco de Asís. The rest of us, in devotion to the Holy Mother, called it Mission Dolores, Our Lady of Sorrows.

A few schooners bobbed at anchor in Yerba Buena Cove. Several of the boats belonged to Uncle. The main household had removed to the Sausalito Hacienda after he received his land grant from the Mexican government the year before. Now, he divided his time between the Rancho and the Yerba Buena house, which also served as a trading post from which he managed his many enterprises.

Aunt Hannah said nothing as we walked. She rested what I understood to be a comforting hand on my shoulder. Despite all the penalty and correction that filled our life together, her heart contained not only excitement, but tranquility. A strange combination of emotions indeed, and I couldn’t wait to discover what provoked this moment’s tenderness..

We reached the gazebo and sat on the redwood bench in the shade of a wisteria vine, lavender blossoms hanging in cones like bunches of ripe grapes. The pelicans wheeled about and headed in the opposite direction.

Aunt Hannah breathed deeply, took my hand, shifted on the bench so that she could look in my eyes. "Do you know the opening lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost? No, of course you don’t."

‘Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree?’ I said. I don’t remember any more.

You surprise me, Bonita, and not for the first time. You—she made a searching gesture with her fingers—recall things.

I was browsing one day in the captain’s library. It just happens that way to me sometimes.

So you simply scanned those lines and now quote them verbatim?

I shrugged, embarrassed by her incredulity. Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, says Horace. Like it or not, no one can help her own nature.

Well, let that alone for now. I think you’re old enough… She looked over my shoulder toward the main house. I turned in the direction of her glance and saw the Miwok kitchen boy, Manuel, trotting down the path toward us. Hannah stiffened, spoke furtively and quickly.

Your apology a few minutes ago was sincere but somewhat… misplaced. Your misbehavior was not really disobedience in my mind. I know I must seem a harsh mistress to you, but that strong and lively spirit of yours—I would not have it stifled. I would not have you grow up blindly complying with rote codes of conduct.

"Señora," Manuel called. He was only a few feet away now.

"Sí, Manuel?" Hannah replied.

"El almuerzo está listo. La Patrona quiere que vengan."

Behind Manuel on the veranda outside the kitchen door, we made out the dark form of Maria Antonia herself. Hannah waved.

"Grácias, Manuel. Ahorita venimos, she said. Manuel hesitated, retreated. Hannah turned back to me. Doña Maria’s lunch can wait a few more minutes," she said. It was unusual for Aunt Hannah to defy the mistress even in this small way. I sensed fear in her, but her excitement and, yes, tranquility overrode it. She went on.

Your actions violated none of God’s rules. Not in the same way as, for example, Adam and Eve did. What you contravened were the commands of mere mortals who have no more natural dominion over you than those pelicans do. The brown birds skimmed the waves now, still in formation.

So I didn’t do anything wrong? I said.

Oh, yes, you did much that was wrong. Do you know how to throw a lariat?

I had to admit my skills were limited to fence posts and sleeping dogs.

"Which means you placed yourself in a situation where you were a danger both to yourself and the vaqueros. You went against orders for the sake of pure disobedience."

But they were never going to let me come with them just because…

Because you are a child, and a girl child at that, she finished. But the Bonita who can indeed rope and ride as well as they? They don’t know that Bonita, that child, that girl, do they?

That girl doesn’t exist, I said.

Create her if you want her so badly. If they deny you after that, go ahead and disobey.

I was shocked. Aunt Hannah, telling me to disobey?

But you never…

And my life has been the worse for it.

How?

She bathed me in her warm smile again. Lunch, she whispered. "Vamonos."

From the veranda, Doña Maria watched us all the way down the path. As we drew near, she flashed a sudden, brilliant smile.

Sister, the sun is so warm today. The young one is doubtless weary and hungry. Is not her arm in pain as well? You know how I worry. Inside, now. She ushered us ahead, followed as we turned the corner of the veranda and crossed the threshold into the foyer, down the corridor, and into the dining room. Maria Antonia’s smile seemed to have turned into a smirk. My attention was so fixed on her that when Hannah gasped and stopped short, I nearly ran into her.

Facing us at the opposite end of the dining room’s polished oak table stood a tall, gray-haired man with a prodigious set of muttonchops wearing a military uniform I didn’t recognize—yellow coat, black pants, an impressive collection of medals on his chest.

Franz, said Hannah. How in the world…?

Hannah, dear, Maria Antonia said, is that a way to greet your lawful husband after such a long absence?

Chapter Three: Eavesdropping

CHAPTER THREE

Eavesdropping

They sent me from the room after that, and I ate in the kitchen. None of the servants would answer my questions, aside from telling me that this Franz had arrived on horseback while I was at my lessons. They claimed to know nothing more. These Indians and I usually chattered like best friends, but today Mama Bear had silenced them. This was even more serious than I’d thought.

I grew more and more worried. Who was this Franz with the big whiskers and the fancy foreign uniform? Hannah had never told me she was married. She wore no ring. Did she have children? Why was he here? Perhaps to take her away from me? If only I could read more than emotions, could decipher the facts and events that provoked them. But those were not given to me to see.

I lurked outside the dining room for more than an hour, but the adults stayed inside, the thick doors, even the windows, closed. They knew I’d spy if I could.

Patience, Bonnie, patience, I told myself. It was a character trait I sorely lacked, and still do, Mija. I entered the captain’s library, a room he had imported from his family’s country house in his native England—walnut paneling, twin crystal chandeliers, Chippendale chairs with needlepoint seats nestled among overstuffed leather couches and armchairs.

When alone in this room, I often imagined I was in London where my mother and father once lived with the captain before I was born. I imagined sometimes that the queen herself stood outside, ready to enter at any moment, ready to pick me up, cuddle me. Would she cuddle me now, with these new scars?

I sat on the bearskin rug behind one of the big chairs, opened Paradise Lost. It had bored me before. I don’t know why those first lines stuck in my mind. I’ve since cultivated the skill of recalling what I see on a printed page, but at the time, I had no control over what stayed in my mind or vanished. It had nothing to do with whether I liked the words or not. At that moment, I thought they might help me stay connected to Hannah somehow.

Of Man’s first disobedience… Two lines later, I lost my concentration. Tried again. I went on drifting in and out of the poem for a few lines, till I came to the part where Mr. Milton said he was going to justify God’s ways to man, which meant he would first have to know God’s ways himself, and everyone knew such knowledge belonged only to priests.

***

I awoke to sounds of dogs barking, horses whinnying, voices calling. The captain was returning. I hurried to the window, which looked west toward the road leading down to the docks. The sun hung low in the sky, putting the first touches of shadows on the east side of the hills. I’d slept for at least two hours. I was thirsty, my arm and face throbbed, and I needed a chamber pot. But I stayed at the window.

Captain Richardson had arrived. My uncle is a sharp-featured, balding man, Mija, with the gentlest of smiles. I watched him dismount from his big bay horse, call orders to the retinue that followed him from the village—a train of carts, vaqueros, drovers. As he issued his commands, the entourage and their livestock dispersed throughout the Rancho’s maze of white-painted corrals and outbuildings. I watched him with admiration and affection for his straightforward manner with the workers. He never treated them with the condescension or cruelty I saw in many other men of his prominence. I remembered fondly how he had accepted me like a daughter instead of a niece, telling me stories, teaching me songs, calling me by his pet name, Bonnie.

I love my real name, the name you and I share, Mija, but there was something about the captain using the English instead of the Spanish version of pretty that made our relationship special. In a Spanish-speaking world of brown-skinned people, he and I and Aunt Hannah were the only English speakers, the only fair Anglos. That made us special and foreign, a simultaneous blessing and curse.

Perhaps you have experienced that as well, Mija. At the time of the grizzlies, though, Uncle and I had drawn apart. He’d grown distant after his own daughter, Maryanna, was born five years earlier. Hannah said his change of attitude was natural, that one would expect a man to become more attached to his natural children. Nevertheless, it still hurt my feelings.

It hurt as well that Maryanna and I were seldom allowed in one another’s presence. I’d have loved to treat her as a sister, but failing that, we were at least cousins, were we not? Yet, even when we were in the same room, Maria steered us to separate corners or seated us at opposite ends of the table. I could hear her happy, unintelligible chattering, see her dark eyes and tawny cheeks. But even when she was a baby, I’d never been allowed to touch, hold, feed her.

Suddenly, Uncle saw something in the direction of the house that made him stop. Maria Antonia and Franz descended from the veranda. The captain handed his reins to Salvador and approached them. Where was Hannah? He grasped Maria Antonia by the shoulders and kissed her cheeks, his normal greeting. She seemed a towering presence when I was around her, so it always surprised me to see that she was full head shorter than he. He said something to Franz, who made a jerky bow from the waist. Soon they all walked out of my sight. Maybe they were headed in my direction. I could hide, find out what they were trying to keep secret.

But they didn’t come inside. I rushed through the hallway. The place was bustling with supper preparations. I was always in a hurry anyway, so it was nothing special to see me scamper through the foyer and out to the veranda. No sign of my quarry. I had a burning need for the chamber pot by this time and ran toward the row of outhouses behind the kitchen. As usual, I chose Maria Antonia’s own exclusive, forbidden chamber, painted and decorated inside and out, rosemary bouquets hanging from the beams. I emptied my bladder in a rush and was about to exit when I heard voices approaching. Caught. I looked around for a hiding place, even though I knew there was none unless I wanted to jump in the hole, and I was not that afraid of Maria Antonia. I pressed to the door, opened the tiniest crack and froze, still as a rabbit.

Major Schweitzer, Uncle was saying, so close I could hear his boots scraping the pathway, as sympathetic as I am with your desire to retrieve your spouse, I remind you she is also my sister, a member of my household, here under my protection. Under Mexican law I am under no obligation…

And yet— Maria Antonia seldom interrupted her husband so blatantly —the holy rite dictates that no man can put asunder what God has joined together.

Franz said, The point, dear lady, exactly, that I was wishing to make. A wife to her husband has obligations under laws of both God and man.

And yet, Uncle almost bellowed. The sound of footfalls ceased. He’d stopped immediately outside the door and was demanding control of the conversation. "Hannah’s wishes must be taken into account. I will hear her explanation." There was a moment of silence. The sound of footsteps. Voices resumed, but faded.

I peeked out the door. The three made a colorful procession. Maria Antonia in her wine-dark dress, Franz in his yellow and black, Uncle in the blue and red coat he still affected from his days as comandante of the Presidio. They headed toward the very gazebo where Hannah and I had carried on our clandestine conversation earlier that day. It had become the place of secrets, but there’d be no secrets from me any longer.

Chapter Four: Revelations

CHAPTER FOUR

Revelations

They were so involved in their conversation, it was no trick at all to keep out of sight while I found a hiding place behind the thick trunk of the wisteria. I got there in time to realize that for all his blustering, it hadn’t taken long for Uncle to yield somewhat to his wife’s demands. I’d often heard Maria Antonia denounce Aunt Hannah as an interloper, a competitor for his time and attentions ever since she’d begged refuge at Rancho Sausalito fifteen years earlier.

I never believed she was a widow, she said. Where was the official notice from the emperor of Austria? The mementos—the sword, for example? Or the medals?

Then Franz. The point, dear lady, exactly, that I…

Major Schweitzer. Uncle apparently had finally had enough of the onslaught. My sister doubtless had sincere and substantial reasons for her actions.

We questioned her at length, Maria Antonia said. She offered no explanation whatsoever, except to say that we should ask Franz.

Franz again. You know my…

Uncle interrupted again. I will speak to Hannah myself and inform you of my decision. In the meantime, Major, my servants at the house will be happy to provide you with whatever you require between now and supper.

The silence that followed lasted for quite some time. Finally Franz broke it.

As you wish, Captain. I bid you good afternoon. And you, Madam.

I took a peek, watched Franz march toward the house with his stiff, military gait. I thought the conversation was over. But no. Maria turned back toward her husband. I ducked again.

Maria Antonia said, When she goes…

That hasn’t been decided at all, Uncle said.

But she must go, Guillermo. Her tone was urgent. And the girl must go with her.

The girl. Me. Surely he wouldn’t exile his own niece.

"Querida. Bonnie believes she is my own blood, after all. Think if Maryanna were in