Chapter 10

Charley, herself, was waiting at the station when they came down off the train in San Francisco. Tom and her Uncle Harry were standing next to her. After hugs from Charley with Addie and Eva, Brady had a chance to introduce his parents.

Charley let them know how they were to get to the Hacienda and Presidio. “Brady, I’ve bought a half interest in one of the packets that travels the coast. Jim Bellows will have his Captain’s papers next year and the packet will go from here as far south as San Diego for a regular route. Jim will become the Sloop’s Captain. I’ll have the de Castillo Grant logo painted on it before it leaves our home port.

“We should be home in a couple of days. Jack has a coach waiting for us if the wind holds. Call it four days before you are home to the mission. Addie and Eva, what are your plans?”

“We want to be with you. You said you had a house in the village?”

“Yes, but for now I’m taking you with me to the mission at the grant. There will be room enough for everyone to ride. The coach Jack has repaired used to be a stage coach. Brady and Robby can ride outside with Uncle Harry and Tom. Today we have a four hour wait for the tide, so we will have a chance to catch up on news. We can walk to the de Castillo office around the corner from here. Tom and Uncle Harry will move your luggage to the packet.”

“Ma and Pa don’t have that much, only one trunk.”

Eva spoke up, “Addie and I have more than that. We have five trunks in all and a few suit cases.”

“Robby, you might as well help Tom load. You know where the office is. Come there when you finish.”

“No Dad, I’m going stay on the boat to talk with Jim.”

“Make sure you don’t bother him. After all, as first mate of the ship, he has duties.”

“I know that.”

Tom had a carriage at the office door when it was time to board the packet. Tom had this to say as everyone climbed off the dock onto the ship, “We are going to hit a bit of rough weather, but remember, the more wind means the less time you will be aboard. Harry gets a bit sea sick every time, and some of you may too. You just never know until you get aboard.”

Jim came into the common room to meet Brady’s mother and father. No food was served, but the passengers did have a table and bolted down chairs to sit on to consume their lunches if they had packed a basket before coming on board.

There was a tugboat that pushed the ship away from the docks out into the bay and it immediately caught the wind. It was a fair wind and soon the packet was cutting through the water heading down the coast at least a mile out from land. Jim came into the common area and enquired if everyone was comfortable. “I know you passengers must feel crowded, but the ship is mainly for delivering mail. On larger ships you would have comfortable rooms, but in this case the ship isn’t large enough to provide.

“With knowing the winds off the coast, we should reach our destination about noon tomorrow. There are too many variables to explain so I can only estimate. You could ride a horse and be there before that if you pushed it, but this is a convenient way to travel. I’ll only be in port long enough to drop and pick up mail for points farther south. Enjoy your trip.”

Robby explained a little more to his grandparents. “Grampa, usually there would be a small boat that would meet this ship in the ocean off the bay where we are going. But this is a ship owned by the de Castillo Grant and there are two partners on board so the ship will go into the bay and unload onto a dock. Otherwise, you would have to clamber down a ladder to the waiting boat.

“Next year Dad and the Grant will be purchasing a steam packet. That will enter the ports as they come to them because under steam the ship doesn’t have to worry about having wind to drive the ship. The new ship will be bigger than this one and carry many more passengers. Jim will be the Captain. I think this is his last trip on a sailing ship. He is transferring to a steam ship when he returns to San Francisco. Eventually all of the ships the grant owns will be steam. They will have to be to compete.

“You seem to know this Jim very well?”

“Since we first came out here. He was holding horses for a robber band that were trying to rob us at Uncle Hank’s wedding. Uncle Pete didn’t shoot him because he could see that he really wasn’t one of them.”

“What happened to the robbers? Did they get much loot?”

“Nope, they got a few feet of ground in their faces before dark that night.”

“You mean they got killed?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about what happened. I will tell you that the sheriff came next day and said everyone did just right because those outlaws had caused trouble before.”

“Robby, tell me what happened?”

Robby hesitated and made a decision. “Okay, but don’t tell Dad I told you. Those bad men rode right into the courtyard at the Hacienda and threatened to rob everyone and maybe do bad things to the women there. Don Pedro had a dress sword on because it was Aunt Elena’s wedding. He went after the man who was told to kill him and ran him through the throat. Uncle Hank had his pistol out and he killed the leader and another robber in the blink of an eye. Dad shot and killed two more robbers almost as fast. And then Uncle Pete chased down the last one and shot him. Then he went after Jim, caught him and said that he was safe and wouldn’t be killed.

“Aunt Charley talked to Jim and found out he knew all about ships and sailing because he grew up on the coast of New Hampshire. He was an orphan because his father died on the trip to California. Jim brought Aunt Charley to the village and introduced her to Captain Shaw who was broke and had two sailing ships that were tied up in court. Aunt Charley made a deal with the Captain and that’s how the grant came to have a bunch of ships.”

“What did she want with ships?”

“To carry stuff. They started out carrying bird crap for fertilizer for the Grant and then lumber. These are all the things the Grant needed. The Grant owns a cattle boat now because Uncle Hank has a cattle ranch. We’ll get on horses and ride over there soon. Uncle Jack has mules and wagons to carry stuff from the grant to the coast. Well, all except the cattle. Those are driven. There is trail kept open for that purpose to get to the corrals. Other ranchers use it too, but the Grant owns the land where the cattle are held, waiting shipment.”

The packet was three hours later arriving than Jim’s estimate. The wind had changed and Jim had to order the crew to tack. Robby explained this to his grandparents. Luckily, no one was seasick during the journey. Basil and Henrietta where glad when the ship ceased moving so violently. They had trouble keeping their balance when they first stepped onto the dock.

Eva said she enjoyed the trip. “My husband took me to England for a vacation a year and a half ago. I even saw the queen in a coach. Someone said she sometimes went shopping. Why would a queen want to go shopping? Someone else said she was traveling to another one of her castles. Who’s to know?”

The de Castillo warehouse was close to the docks. It was emblazoned with the logo, “de Castillo Grant” on the dockside end of it. The guests were loaded onto an open carriage, leaving Tom and Harry to bring the trunks to Charley and Pete’s home. This wagon had the same logo on the tailboard. The trunks on the wagon would not be unloaded, but would start in early morning for the grant driven by one of Jack Abraham’s teamsters.

Charley said, “We will start for the Grant later than I planned tomorrow morning because we arrived here later than we planned. We will be staying over one night with a friend of ours who always has a bed for us and any guests traveling with me. We’ll have a decent supper and a hearty breakfast before we leave there.” This was said as the carriage drove up to door of a beautiful home.

The front door opened immediately before the carriage came to a stop and Daniele came running out to greet her mother. “Daddy is home, playing with Davey. He said you would be home today, but we thought you wouldn’t be because the wind was wrong.”

“You can thank Jim for that. The captain gave the command of the ship over to Jim. He can get more distance faster out of a ship than most captains even though he is only a mate. Now let us get inside so I can introduce my guests to your father. Two of these ladies he knows and the other two are family of Brady.”

Daniele questioned, “Oh. Mom, where is Robby? Isn’t he with you?”

“Yes he is. He’ll be here in a few minutes.” Charley turned the other people, “I swear that child is in love with Robby. He treats her like a little queen. It has always been like that. It is too bad there is eight years between them. Let’s go inside and meet Pete and our son Davy. Davy’s name is David.”

Many years ago, Eva invested some money in goods to fill Charley’s first warehouse. This was back in Cheyenne when she had a settlement forced onto the man who owned her. It was only natural that she wanted to do the same now. Charley said no, but suggested that she and Addie build a bakery and operate it much as they did at that time. The question was where to build?

She talked it over one day when Charley was at the Grant. “I could build it in town and be busier than hell, or I can build it between the Hacienda and the Presidio. It isn’t a matter of making a lot of money. My husband left me with an amount I will never be able to spend.”

“Build it on the Grant, then. Your friends are all here, except for me and Pete. We never stay away for very long. We often leave Daniele and Davy with Berta anyway when Pete and I travel up to ‘Frisco. You can get to know Hank and Elena better. Elena is so sweet and they have a son. Don Pedro is so happy because the name and the de Castillo Grant needed a direct heir and Elena has provided. I’m sure you will at least break even if you open a stopping place.”

“It is a bit barren out here.”

“Eva, not so much as you might think. Don’t forget there are the horse races that Hank manages through the fall and winter. The road where the Grant buildings are is a main road coming up from the south. Word will get out and you will be busy. Another thing, you won’t have to go far for ingredients. Brady is hooked on those raisins he grows.

“Once people get a taste of filled cookies and raisin pies, you’ll be packaging them for shipment up to ‘Frisco. They had better have the Grant logo on them which will be one more thing to make Don Pedro proud and happy. We have walnut trees that are beginning to drop nuts now. In the back of our minds is some cheese making if we had someone who wants to have a dairy farm.

“We would have done this before, but there is just so much we can attempt with the people we have. We have Indians to do a lot of the work and are quite handy and easy to train, but they need to have someone to guide them.”

“Charley, are these Indians slaves? I know what it is to be owned by someone.”

“Oh no, Eva. Their ancestors were, but none of the ones on the grant are now. They can come and go freely. Out by the lake there is a large village where they live. They do ask what we want them to do and they do the work we show them that needs doing. If the workers need work clothes, we furnish the material. That is usually white cotton. Those that work steadily, we give them pretty-colored material and they make their own dress clothes.

“We furnish material for shelters. They were built mostly of stick and mud when we came four years ago, but now they are made of adobe. Mostly the villagers grow their own food. They have goats and chickens and they have a section of irrigated land where they grow their own crops. They care for their older members as good, or better than most of our own people care for theirs.

“Why do they stay?”

“Eva, they stay because this is their home and the home of their ancestors. Originally, those ancestors were slaves and worked terribly hard and often whipped to make them work faster. The women were abused and taken from their mates at the pleasure of the owners. Over time, there were less and less children and what few women left had fewer and fewer children. It was a terrible existence for man and woman of Indian blood.”

“How did you learn this?”

“Eva, I could say it was Sylvio who is the cousin of Don Pedro. He is the one who manages the Indians and guides them in planting and harvesting. But there is one of us who wanted to know all about the Indians and set out to learn their language and now knows their history. He was in the fields with them when the fields were planted the first year we were here. The Indians adore him. They were terribly sad when Brady moved him around to other areas of the grant to learn some of the other operations.”

“Charley, who are you talking about?”

“It is Robby, Berta and Brady’s son. They are training Robby to take over the oversight of the Grant like Brady is doing now. If you build here on the Grant, Robby will work with you for a bit to learn the bakery business. This is of course all in the future. Robby will some day go away to school for a more formal education and then come back here and be the manager. Berta and Brady have never let up and we all hope they can take it easy some day.

“What about you, Charley; when are you going to take it easy?”

“When my family gets grown. I’ll probably split some of my business in two with whom ever I choose for a partner. I’ll keep the warehouses and I think it will be Jim Bellows taking over the shipping part of the business. He is one smart individual. I have been so lucky in so many things in my lifetime. I first met Brady and then I fell in love with Pete. I have two beautiful children. I think I have given something back as much as I have taken from the friends who have helped me.

“A bigger chance for the future opened up for all of us when Hank came looking for some financial help. Here we are and the future is so bright. With you and Addie here, it is that much brighter.”

“This is all pretty enticing.”

“Eva, I hope so. Both of you should look around for a new mate to spend your life with.”

“Charley, what about our past? Both Addie and I came out of a crib down in whore alley.”

“Nothing to worry about. Those of us who know won’t mention it. You have been married to good solid citizens. No one will look back in your past beyond that. How about Tom Samson? He is about as solid as they come. He is a lot younger than your previous husband.”

“He knows about me.”

“Yes and he helped free you from that time of your life too.”

“Charley, I’ll keep it in mind. Is there anyone here who would be good for Addie. Paddy was really old.”

“Eva, how about my Uncle Harry, he is getting up there, but he hasn’t slowed down at all. Jack and Sarah could get replacements for both as drivers of the freight wagons. Both would like to help you build a bakery, I know they would.”

“Charley, who should I speak to about building a business?”

“Brady and Berta. Delores will have us all up to the Hacienda for dinner to meet Brady’s parents. You could run it by him then. Tell him it was at my suggestion.”

“I should have known. They were the two who okayed the diner and bakery when Addie and I went into business before. I certainly have enough funds now to design and build an attractive building to house something like this.”