The Gentle Land

By Adam Dumphy

California through the late Spanish and early Mexican periods has been portrayed as an ideal existence in an ideal society, in an ideal climate. It has been called the Golden Age, the Gentle Land, the Time of the Bells.
Supposedly the warm sun came up each morning bringing on a day of dining, drinking and dancing lasting for two or three days. Then a few days to rest and the start of a new celebration.
The people were said to be large, well-formed and handsome with remarkable health and a long longevity. The women were dark eyed beauties and said to be very friendly. The men were caballeros in the very best sense of the word. The Priests were simple saints carrying a burden too heavy for an average man with patience and stability. The Indians were simple children entranced by the pageantry, music and bells while in the process of becoming adult enough that the land might be returned to them fertile and productive enough that the pervious days of semistarvation and constant tribal warfare were over.
The economy, mainly beef, hides and tallow, were an ideal business for a people raised from childhood riding horseback. Money was so little regarded and so unnecessary that the bigger estates kept a bowl full of pesetas on a table in the hall so the guest might scoop up a handful when coming or going.

Perhaps that is true but this portrayal seemed to the author to be unnatural, considering mankind being what they are. Adam Dumphy has tried to present a balanced account of those days as seen through the eyes of a fifteen year old sailor put ashore from a Boston trading brig as was the custom with a sailor too ill to pull his weight.
He finds everything in San Diego of 1800 to 1801 strange and bizarre. But gradually learns of the people as human beings like himself and not as strange a society as reported.
There is of course a gentle romance but that seems reasonable, as undoubtedly there was much of that sort of thing in those days also.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 3, 2007
• ISBN: 9781467826686

Adam Dumphy

Inflamed by a novel of and during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, titled, “The Kansas City Milkman”, Adam Dumphy searched out and contacted a clandestine enlistment center for the British Ambulance Corps operating there. Clandestine as it was at the time an illegal act to aid either side in the conflict. To Adam that fit the novel and made it all the more interesting to him and more Hemingwayesque. He ever after felt the British people generally to be biased and intolerant as he was rejected and simply for being only twelve years old. Still he found himself fascinated by that most peculiar of wars even as some men are towards our American Civil War. All the books and information he collected then he still has. His loyalty he has tried to maintain unbiased to either side although it has varied in degree from one side to another from year to year. Now from the vantage point of eighty years of age the only thing he can decide with certainty about the affair is that both sides got a very “bad press”. But then he believes that is true of most major events.

Book preview

Chapter 1 

Dawn of January 1st, 1800, stumbled into history like any other winter’s day off the Alta California Coast. A woolen-thick fog, like a soggy coverlet, extended from sea boot tops to well above masthead height, clinging and oppressive. The chop along the kelp banks off Point Loma Head hardly disturbed the surface of the sea. The entire world was silent.

It was hardly a propitious beginning for a new day, a new year, a new decade, a new century. A Greek might well have considered this fact a portent. A portent that this new day, year, decade, century, would dream along, dreary and featureless, uneventful, like every other day, year, decade, century, that preceded it. It was not to be.

Captain Abel Winship master of the 125 ton hermaphrodite brig Mary Deare was no Greek. A fourth generation New England Yankee, he was a blue nosed, tight fisted, horse trader-shrewd, merchant captain and proud of it.

He had no time for portents. Portents showed no profit and when each of the four Winship brigs, small, sturdy, capable of world-wide voyages, returned home to New Salem they were expected to return with a profitable cargo.

You can rest assured then that when the little brig tacked reluctantly under only a foretopsail around Point Loma Highland, evaded the sand banks off North Padre Island and coasted to an anchorage in the deep water off Loma Portal Beach it was because he wanted it to.

And if that single foretopsail was slack, and flopping, all rope ends hanging loose, deck askew with boxes and bales, and the Mary Deare listing slightly to the port it was because Captain Winship wanted it just that way also.

The hook went out grudgingly, sails were furled in a haphazard fashion, all activities on deck were slow and labored. It looked, and it was supposed to look, like a weary, salt encrusted petrel, victim of a long succession of foul winds and worse weather, turning into a much needed and welcome nest.

One hundred and fifty-eight days out of New Salem, forty-eight days out of Callao it had not been an easy voyage, true. She was short handed to start, as most Yankee merchantmen of the day were. She had lost a hand in high seas off Cape San Roque, the cook had died of fever and delirium on a steamy night off Panama, and a young foretopman was down with the rheumatics, groaning in pain and unable to move. He had been a useless burden to skipper and hands alike for three weeks now.

Still their voyage had not been as bad as it might have appeared. As proof of this a celestial observer, if there had been one, might have noticed the Mary Deare only five days previously as neat and ship shape as only a blue water, Yankee trading brig can be, standing off each day from the shore at Mission San Juan Capistrano. And each night putting in for an all night long trade fest in amity with the Franciscan Friars at the Mission only to be up-stick and away out of sight of land by daylight.

His Catholic Majesty’s Port of San Diego was however a different proposition. While foreign ships rarely appeared or passed by off the coast, by continuity the private domain of His Catholic Majesty, it had happened. A ship from the Sandwich Islands, blown off course to the north or a Russian/Alaskan brig blown too far south, might pass near enough to observe or conceivably even put in for wood or water. The proud Galleons of the Philippine Treasure Fleet, battered and storm driven, might coast by but they were too regal to even acknowledge the presence of such a trivial royal possession, much less put into any such humble site as the San Diego de Alcala Bay despite its deep water harbor.

Also it was by now a fortified port. Thirty-five leather jacket soldiers were at the Presidio and a battery, Fort Gihalvos, guarded the entrance to the port. Of the six ancient, partly mounted cannon, only two could be fired without detriment to the gunners but they were cannons.

Important too was the fact that the little garrison had a new Commandante, an unknown factor in the situation. More important still was the fact that in Residence at the moment was the Royal Governor of all Alta Californio. True he was there less for administrative duties than for dalliance with a lovely, young, mestizo neophyte. At least so it was rumored.

And behind him stood the showy if ephemeral presence of the King in Spain, in all his power, and with his constant flow of royal Proclamations. The latest of these was both verbose and devious. But it clearly implied that no trade with any foreign vessels would be tolerated. Even aid in the event of a disaster was allowed only to vessels of an allied nation. And England, France, Portugal, and the very new and an untested, squalling infant, the United States were no longer considered by the long nosed and haughty despot at Madrid as allies.

All vessels not conforming to these degrees were to be interned and their cargo confiscated.

All this Captain Winship had pondered closely before he entered.

From previous traders he knew of the Mission San Diego, seven miles inland from the Presidio. First of all the Missions established in Alta Californio, and as wealthy as any, it was rumored to have Priests with an appetite for graceful living and the willingness to purchase the necessities for such a life. Being that they were well able to pay for what they wanted in hides and tallow they were worth consideration. And now they were said to have four hundred sea otter pelts, and sea otter pelts were precisely what the Deare was on this coast for. Light, easily transported, they were worth their weight in gold, or better diamonds, to the wealthy of the Orient with their unheated houses and palaces. They were a certainty of great profit for any voyage.

It was a nice gamble and Captain was a gambler.

With the brig settled down, the three hands off watch disappeared into the forecastle. Spanish San Diego being an uncertain place to an American vessel, two hands of the port watch remained on deck with a lighted fuse going so that the four, light fuzees which the Deare carried might be available if needed.

Her arrival was totally unnoticed at first as it was siesta time which often extended from noon until dark, just as fiesta often extended from afternoon to dawn or several dawns later. Eventually however a sleepy Spanish sentry noticed them and the flag of Spain was raised to the top of the pole at the Fortress, with a gun fired to alert the Presidio across the bay.

This bastion lay sprawled on a flatish open meadow on the west facing slope of the one hill visible, a quadrangle of red terra cotta walls and houses. To its right was an open valley bisecting the low hills that approached the bay. The vagaries of the rainfall were shown by half a dozen channels cut at one time or another in the past when the little river emptied into the Bay or else into the false bay visible to the north.

Captain Winship looked at the place closely and no one to put off until tomorrow called away the gig and sent his purser to make his courtesy call at the Presidio, boat and crew disguised by an appearance of slovenly rags and dirt.

Long before the gig reached the sandy shore that marked the limit of His Majesty’s Royal Enclave, as he had no naval vessels on the coast, the majesty of terrestrial Spain was waiting at the water’s edge. One officer and twelve mounted leather jacket soldiers they were well mounted certainly, and excellent horsemen but the raggediest, hungriest looking troops imaginable.

Mr. Billings, the purser, a pale faced, fat, obsequious, young man, cousin of the major owner, stepped from the boat onto wet sand, struggled to the dry land itself and removed his hat to speak in pediatric Spanish. To tell in that language and in pantomime the reasons for the Mary Deare’s presence.

He told a most pitiable story of storms blocking the passage round the Cape, scurvy on the long run up the to the Sandwich Islands and now bad weather and false winds which had blown then from their intended landfall in the far north. And he added a litany of many hands sick and all desperately in need of food and water.

Alfredo Ortega y Moncado was a young man also although an Alferez (Ensign) in the Regular Spanish Army. Born in Toledo, Spain, of good parentage he was not of, nor accepted by, the inhabitants of this coast. And he realized this every minute and exploited the fact that he was one of the few gente de razon (not mixed blood) living there.

In appearance he was slender, but well muscled, handsome in the Latin way with dark, curly hair, a thin mustache and some elegance still to his blue and white uniform, consisting of facings of tarnished gold braid on this, his very best uniform coat, for this occasion but ragged elsewhere

The two young men carefully appraised one another for young men have as sensitive antennae as do young women or grasshoppers.

Both knew perfectly well the repeated orders of the Viceroy in Mexico City that no foreign vessels would be allowed to enter any Alta Californio port. That any vessel attempting such a thing would be captured and or driven off. That no trade of any nature was permitted.

Alferez Ortega knew also that he and his men greatly desired the luxuries the Mary Deare carried and that the officers of the Presidio were not strongly behind him. Even the previous Commandante, still in residence, was hostile to this upstart ‘puro’.

And he knew that any indiscretion on his part would be promptly and maliciously reported to the Capitan Superintendente in San Francisco and the Vice Governor in Carmel.

Removing his hat courteously and allowing a slight bow he admitted. It is my duty to inform you, Senor, that no foreign vessel will be allowed to enter into this port.

Behind him he could easily hear a collective sigh of displeasure from his troops.

Except under my immediate control. He added.

Again there was an audible sound, approval this time from the troops.

He continued carefully. However human charity must at times of necessity come before the dictates of the law. You will then be allowed to stay in port long enough to refit. But, Senor, then you must leave.

My troops, he pointed grandly behind him to the dozen troopers restlessly sitting on their horses, will patrol the beaches at all times so no trading will be attempted.

Then he invited the purser to dinner at which the true negotiations of the affair would begin.

So it was that for eight days the troopers patrolled each day and all night the Spanish shore lands to the south and west of the great bay. While at the northern and eastern part of the bay, ox carts from the Mission and of the private citizens from the Presidio carried on the much desired trade all night long.

The unfortunate break in friendly relations came about purely by chance and was unwanted by both parties. When the favorite of the in Residence Governor found that the dainty, shell handled, comb, brush and mirror set, purchased by him and at great expense in complete secrecy, was a duplicate of one that a not very Christianized neophyte maiden had received from a soldier at San Luis Rey a month ago, and at one third the price, the result was inevitable.

While neither party wished to end the arrangement, Ortega y Moncada needs must show his sterner stuff. An ox load of hides from the Mission was impounded and two hundred pounds of tallow and one hundred fifty other hides belonging to the citizens of San Diego was confiscated.

The Yankee purser was informed on coming ashore in all friendship that the Mary Deare was considered captured and that on any attempt to leave the harbor she would be fired upon and sunk. The Spanish officer spoke glowing of heated shot from the cannons which was truly a dreadful prospect to the men of wooden vessels and highly inflammable sails.

Mr. Billings expostulated with great eloquence but could make no defense for his infamous conduct. The bulk of the trade articles that he had brought to display he returned to ship and once safely off the beach he expressed his true feeling in a derisive holding of his nose, and a thumbs down gesture in a manner the Alferez could not fail to understand.

That night the Mary Deare brought in her cable silently cushioned by canvas bumpers and slipped silently out of the harbor unnoticed. And to make matters worse before leaving, a sick seaman was put a shore, a foretopman, and the Deare left without paying a single centavo for the supplies.

She was not seen off San Diego again but there is more to the story than that.

Chapter 2 

That last evening in port a young seaman’s chest, sea and ditty bags with housewife and duffel, were brought on deck and he was told to report to the Captain’s cabin.

The seaman who did so was a boy still in frame, flesh and face. He lacked by several years what is considered manhood. But he had played a man’s role for two years now. Signing on the previous cruise to African ports and Haiti as a ship boy/cook’s helper he had returned an able seaman. And on this cruise he had been the best topsailman aboard until his illness.

Perhaps it was his youth that drove him so to prove himself as a man among other men. Or perhaps his appearance, as he was a tall, gangly youth, feet and hands too big for his frame, limbs too long for his trunk, which needed a lot of growing to match the size of his head and extremities.

A shock of straight fair hair hung permanently over a high bossed forehead of skin so pale it never tanned but just burned and peeled and burned again. His face was rough cut if regular in outline and dominated by long-lashed, hazel eyes. The smutty Irish eyes as his Mother called them and she ought to know for he got them from her. Eyes and more, for along with the eyes he inherited the peculiar Irish temperament, sensitive to any slight, even when no slight was intended. And Jansenist enough to expect the impossibly perfect from himself, or from the world about him and much more than it had to give.

A sturdy, healthy youngster on previous cruises, he had had the quinsy at sailing time but that was commonplace in that wintry Maine. He had seemed to recover fully in the heat of the southern cruise. But he had come down with shaking chills and high fever in the raw latitudes off the Cape. His left ankle had swollen to three times normal size and so painful that at the last he could not stand even the pressure of a ship’s quilt upon it.

Since that time he had been bedridden with one ankle or another, both elbows and both hands swollen until the skin was taut to the point of bursting and shiny red with inflammation. His heart pounded, his chest ached. He could not get his breath and only this week in a quiet port had he started to eat again.

Still an order was an order so he hobbled with lips tight shut against an outcry of pain before the watching hands up to the deck and aft to the skipper’s cabin.

There the old man uncharacteristically told him to sit and then turned to unlock a built-in cupboard over his bunk and remove a square bottle. When the two had downed a thimbleful of authentic Maine apple brandy the Captain spoke.

Young Ailish I have known your family since they first came over from the ‘Old Sod’. Your Mother is a fine lady, a paragon in every way. As hard working and as proper a lady as there is in our town, determined mackerel snapper that she is.

He considered.

"As for your Father, drinking is a strong man’s weakness and he is strong in every way. And well the less said the least repented. And I was one who agreed with those who doubted the advisability, wagged their heads even, when a Doyle married a Doyle even if one had an O’ before it and the other not.

You have proven yourself a fine, braw Lad with me and never have I called on you that you did respond. I had planned on training you for mate this cruise.

Again he paused.

It is, however, my duty under the Articles of Incorporation of the Company that I must put you ashore.

Ailish knew this to be true. He had been expecting it since Callao. It was a common practice of the time. Any seaman who could not pull his weight was shipped off.

I have evaded my duty until now. But you see, Lad, the Dons have kicked us out. To stay on this coast I must pop in and out of their dinky, little harbors like a hummingbird in flight and if one of their armed brigs arrives, the San Felipe is expected anytime now, I must first fight them off and then run for the Sandwich Islands.

He put a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder, a hand rough and callused still from his own days before the mast.

I regret this, Lad. I do. What I shall say to your Mother I cannot think. But you shall have your wage, four pounds English, good anywhere in the world where American dollars are not. And your Mother shall get your full share of the profits when we return to New Salem.

Thank you, Sir. the young man was astonished at this very generous treatment and his gratitude showed in his voice.

And a word more. The old man interrupted fearful of receiving thanks that might cause embarrassment to a tough old sea dog with a heart of stone. The words I would speak to my son had I but had one.

First I shall try to stay on this coast through the summer. If in that time you are well enough to go back to sea, get some word to me and we will stand in and pick you up if we have to put a round shot into the Don’s backside to do it.

He turned to stare out the cabin’s window at the quiet bay.

And mind you, Lad, look out for three things ashore. The black eyed, Spanish women no better than have to be, the aquardiente with the devil in its depths, and the idle, useless, laziness that come over a man when he lives long in these sunbleached parts. Avoid them all as the plague.

All hands were on deck when Ailish emerged and many hands helped him into the gig, handing down his trunk or patting him on the back.

He was grateful it was old Jesse Madruga who rowed him ashore with the muffled oars. A tough old Portuguese Sailor he had been his bunk mate and best friend. He, who had come from the annual Portuguese Fishing Fleet off New England’s banks, and had been left ill himself on the strange shores of New England among the incomprehensible Yankees, could understand.

They grounded silently, and stole across the cobble to the dry land. The Fortress above them was invisible in the fog but there were occasional muted sounds to indicate its presence.

Jess had a last word. Don’t take this too hard, Lad, nor do you think bad on the Skipper. He is just doing his job as he been told. Besides I’s seen these rheumatics a’fore. Many times it’s just from being wet and cold too long. Lay up here in the sun awhile and you’ll be right as rain again. An’ there ‘ll be white man’s ships in these waters now every year or two.

Thank you, Jess.

Cookie has put some sea bread in your ditty bag and the other hands slipped some things in your trunk. Fair winds and good sailing, Lad.

The gig was quickly lost to view in the fog that limited the young Sailor’s view and his entire world to a few feet in either direction. He had played the man aboard ship when he had been told he would have to be put ashore. And even in the gig as well but when it pulled away, the last remnants of the only life he had ever known was disappearing. It was all that he could do not to call the boat back, beg her to return.

Chapter 3 

He stood a long while at the water’s edge resting the swollen ankle in its wrapper of bandages on the sand. It must have been his illness that seemed to confuse and dull him. He seemed not able to think except in slow and disconnected images. And then he had had so much advice from his shipmates, all different. When they had asked him his plans he couldn’t tell them as he had none. Now he was being forced to fare for himself and totally alone. He suddenly felt that aloneness like a weight on his heart. Totally alone for the first time with no older shipmate about to guide him. What would he do? What could he do?

His mind slowly decided what he would not do. He must take first things first. He must get away from the bay. Even if the Deare got away without a fight there would be troops everywhere soon. Second he would not, no matter what they had said on the ship, turn himself docilely into the Presidio.

He remembered distinctly the words a former shipmate who had endured incarceration for some peccadillo in Cadiz. From the size of the fleas, to the rotten food, to the slowness of the courts, nothing can be worse than a Spanish prison except them of the Spanish Americas.

His only assets were his few possessions at his feet, and the four English pounds. The only things that he knew of his own knowledge of this strange land was what the Captain and hands had told him just now, and the shipboard talk on the way up the coast.

The men in Nuevo Californio were all cutthroats, the women free and easy or easier still according to the tales. But then he had heard that kind of talk about every foreign port that he had ever visited.

He felt the fever starting up. His ankle was throbbing again. It was a frightened boy who crawled to the edge of the brush and fell asleep his first night in a new land, Ballast Point, Point Loma Head, Neuvo Californio.

He was roused only partly by shouts and then shots from the Fortress above and behind him. And although he could not see twenty feet for the fog he realized from the creaking of the vessel and screech of the raising of the sail that the Deare was getting away. All the more reason that he must get away too.

He started a slow hobble away from the water’s edge. The Fortress was only a half mile above him. The Presidio was about six miles to the east and south he had heard. He decided to get away from the bay and though it was more difficult walking he tried to enter a little pass between the two rises on which both were situated. Forcing his way through heavy brush was not easy but there was apparently no pathway heading in the direction he intended. Nor was he unaware of the numerous small vipers so abundant in the area. Their name he had forgotten but they had a rattle on their tail and were extremely poisonous.

At last entering a small clearing he realized he could go no further and his things around him he shoveled out a little hollow in the soil for his hips and lay down to a restless, nearly sleepless night.

He awoke to a predawn silence. The morning would be clear he saw. The fog had rolled away. The air was soft, balmy, dry, seemingly stifling to a lad used to the perpetual New England sea breezes.

He was stiff from his rocky couch, his ankle still badly swollen. His mind now more aware, he looked about in some interest. Daylight as it dawned revealed a country side of low, rolling hills, covered by dense brush in thickets. Slope after slope of grey and blue extended to the east into mountains of brown. A shallow, broad valley opened into an angle of the great bay and extended lazily out of view in a north easterly direction. The headland behind him was well wooded, but only few green but stunted trees dotted its lower reaches. Mainly there was just low brush. The bay itself was a long, secluded crescent to his right with still, azure water. Rocky slopes met the gentle tide of the shoreline with only occasional sandy beaches.

Weary, aching, swollen, he dozed again. He was awakened shortly by being aware of some one bending over him. He saw through blurred eyes an Indian face and his first thought was of relief for of all the inhabitants here, the Missionized Indians were thought to be most friendly.

A second look brought him doubts for the eyes were glaring and with a hostile look, through long, greasy hair, that the neophyte Indians from the Mission lack. And as his vision cleared he realized the fact, so incredible to him on his previous encounters, that the man was totally naked.

Short and scrawny he had a saggy belly, and thin, tattooed and scarred extremities. This was no Christianized Indian but a ‘gentile’ and he knew they steered clear of the settlements unless on some mischief.

He looked a dirty, disobedient child really except for his eyes that seemed opaque and reptilian. The seaman closed his eyes and shook his head and looked up to see his sea chest bobbing off on the man’s shoulder.

Hey you. What do you think you are doing?

The man stopped obediently and returned. He walked all around the seaman examining him minutely. He must have been watching for some time as he seemed to know the youth could walk but slowly.

Suddenly a wide, false smile split the native’s lips and a claw hand shot forward in the eternal gesture of supplication.

Dinero? Dinero, Jack?

No. No. The youth was emphatic in repugnance.

The smile disappeared in a twinkling. The man’s glance seemed to linger on the kerchief about the youth’s neck.

The native stopped his close scrutiny, his attention directed to the possibles sack at the seaman’s side. He grasped it and tugged. It wasn’t the seaman’s strength that withstood his pull but the fact that the string was wrapped twice about Ailish’s wrist and entwined in his fingers. One would have to pull the hand off to get the bag.

The Indian dropped the bag and looking about the clearing he hurried to one side and picked up a rock about the size of his two fists. He hefted it, rejected it and chose a larger about the size of his head.

The youth watched in astonishment. What is he up to? Is he going to use that on me? Is he going to smash my head in like I was a wounded rabbit?

The thought being totally unbelievable he watched in incredibility as the man raised the heavy stone overhead and brought it down with all his force. Only at the last minute could the Sailor move and he rolled away only quickly enough that the rock struck beside him and so close that rock fragments cut his cheek.

Rage brought clarity to his mind and he rolled to his right to gain momentum then back to kick out with all his strength. It was not his own strength that did it but the weight of the stiff seaman’s boot. For it caught the native at the knee and he saw the knee deform momentarily.

Struggling to his feet to continue the conflict he was astonished see the Indian seated rocking back and forth in agony holding the knee and crying out like a child. From time to time the Indian looked up to throw him a glance that no longer had venom in it but was more like that of a faithful spaniel innocently punished.

Why he is just a child. A brutal, heedless child. The seaman thought.

The native got to his feet and with out speaking hobbled down the slope. Every two or three steps he stopped to sit down and massage the injured member and cry out in pain.

His sudden release from imminent peril brought the young man a spell of vertigo and his mind cleared only slowly. He was he realized, alone, unarmed in a strange land. There was probably a good sized party of gentiles about for their own safety and the native would bring them back after this rich a booty. His first thought was to hurry to the Fort for safety. Then he thought better of it. That is what they would expect and they could out distance him easily. They would cut him off before he could get half way there.

He couldn’t run. He must hide somewhere. They would track him eventually but the inevitable must be put off on the chance of a miracle. He turned and as he had done in his childhood games followed the Indian up hill. Fortunately the man could move only slowly so it was possible to keep him in sight or in sound at least.

At the military crest of the point Ailish cut off into the brush and found a vantage point. There he could look out over the false bay. Sure enough there were at least a dozen gentiles dispersed along the bayshore claming or cutting molluscs off the exposed rock at water’s edge. Two were spearing fish from a low, rickety pier running out into the bay’s deeper water.

It took some time for the first native to get the attention of the others. Much shouting and gesturing brought a decision and they started toward the Fort along the trail that Ailish had just turned off.

As they approached he pondered. No backwoodsman, he was a seaman only. The sea he knew. He looked to the west and there it was, the sea: calm, lovely, blue, treacherous at times, a generous ally at others. Too far at the moment to be a very helpful ally. But it seemed the only friendly thing in his horizon. There he would head.

He headed down to the bay and passed behind the natives. He had progressed only a few steps when heard a hubbub behind and turned to see a dozen, lank haired savages scouring the brush like bird dogs behind him. They would soon locate his trail. Ahead was only the shoreline of the shallow bay. The natives were now between him and the Fort and between him and the Presidio, he must count on his own talents and with the swollen ankle that meant wits.

There was no place to hide in the flat open bayside, nothing but mud flats, sand and a few patches of rushes. Just ahead the rickety pier made of stick-thin pilings with poles for footing extended fifty feet out over the soft chop of the water. Old, very old, it was too decrepit to trust to carry his weight. Behind him the ululation was becoming louder. They had seen him. He hobbled faster forward as there was no other place to go. Thinking it might slow the pursuit he dropped the housewife in an open spot where they would not fail to find it.

Ahead he saw a squatty, brown skinned native between him and the sea carrying a light bow and tiny arrows. There was no turning back, but he had no place, no further space into which to retreat. The savage ahead advanced and another and third appeared behind him. In desperation Ailish turned and scrambled out onto the pier.

And then the trembling of the pier under his feet gave him an idea. He jumped on his good leg and felt a piling give way. He saw where the railings were held in place by woven reeds and slashed them with his pocketknife.

Two of the more aggressive savages had followed him on the pier. He had to stop his efforts to dismantle the pier and turned to face them. One had a stone headed ax, the other a bow like a child’s toy but he didn’t doubt the arrows were sharp enough. He threatened them with the knife but as more and more approached the knife seemed less and less threatening.

Retreating the last few feet to the pier’s end he felt the pier shudder then tilt and fall with a splash into the water. He fell with it and struggling awkwardly in the water pulled himself onto the bulkiest of the floating remnants and paddling sent it out into the bay.

Behind him he heard a rising tremolo of anger and disappointment. Several natives waded into the water to waist depth but either they could not swim or were not anxious to attack him with his knife and they in the water. Two of the little arrows struck the water but none near him.

He wondered if they have canoes? He saw none and his hopes rose as his makeshift raft was responding to the current and floating slowly out into the bay. The raft was totally unmanageable rotating slowly round and round but generally down the bay toward the friendly ocean.

Too exhausted now to continue to look back he gave himself up to luck and laying his head on a salt encrusted oak branch he fell asleep.

Chapter 4 

He was awakened by an increase in the wave’s chop as they approached the deeper end of the false bay near the narrow entrance to the sea. Once more he raised his head and looked about curiously. Hungry, cold, and drenched, without a dry spot on him, he gave no thought to wet or cold. To the seamen the world over, sea water was considered a premier remedy for all life’s ills and