Free California Bloodstock by Terry McDonell Page A

heard of Buckdown; Zorro trying to explain how things had gone from bad to worse; and T. D. Jr. trying to explain, as he set up his equipment, how he would use the moonlight.
    As it turned out, T. D. Jr. did make a daguerreotype,but it was not what he had expected. Zorro had refused to remain in the frame and had instead insisted on watching from a distance of at least ten yards behind T. D. Jr. Completely out of the picture. Yet when the plate was finished, streaks of moonlight angled to form a Z, erasing the features of Taya and Peach, even as their outlines came through clearly.
    You’d better watch it, Zorro told T. D. Jr. when all were examining the daguerreotype. Pretty soon everyone will be getting one of these portraits the same way the rich Spaniards used to have themselves painted. And, just like the Spaniards, everyone will look more and more alike.
    What he meant was that technology breeds doublecrosses.
    Good old Zorro.
37
Pueblo de Los Angeles
    Dust, fogged up from hooves of their tired horses, hung above the ground like clouds of brown mist. The faded buildings fronting on the plaza blocked whatever breeze there might have been. It was very hot. The air itself was flat, opaque.
    It was almost siesta time and the low-rent Californios lounging here and there in doorways had never heard of Buckdown or Sewey or the Burgetts. When Taya or T. D. Jr. asked about Counsel, the man old T. D. had said would know something, most closed their eyes and would say no more. Finally there wasone man, a rather distinguished old Californio in faded blue pants with silver stitching up each leg, who was willing to talk.
    Counsel is a mean stupid gringo who can’t talk good, he said. We ran him out.
    The old Californio was sitting at a table in the shade watching a young Worm Eater coax a small donkey across the otherwise deserted plaza with a stick. The latticework that hung out from the cantina was covered with dry brown vines. It filtered the midday sun and freckled the old man’s face with tiny points of shadow. Like most southern Californios, he sensed coercion in any arrangement involving three or more foreigners and enjoyed it very much when they wound up killing each other. He was drinking mescal.
    If you want to kill this Counsel, he has a trading store near Tejon on the trail to the San Joaquin, he said. Good luck.
    When T. D. Jr. told him that they just wanted to talk to this man Counsel, the old Californio became very agitated. He cursed out at the sun and fumbled in his belt for a pistol which he dropped on the table with a thud. He began talking very fast.
    California is almost for dogs, he said, glaring at T. D. Jr. Mexico gives us monte players and cholos. France sends us prostitutes and little bullies. Chile, sneak thieves and rotos. Highway bandits come from Peru and some place called Ireland, probably a prison in England. Italy, pickpockets and bad musicians. Spain’s degenerate priests are still here, and you gringos are all politicians and plotters. It is all getting to be the shits.
    Taya told the old man that she understood. He paid her back by grabbing at her breasts and moving his hips obscenely below the table. T. D. Jr. snatched up the gun and leveled it at the old Californio’s head.
    Who do you think you are?
    I am the mayor of Pueblo de Los Angeles, the old man shouted. Get out of my town.
38
Peek-a-Boo
    Four hundred miles away, Joaquin Peach rode into Yerba Buena looking for bigger things. What kind of backwater trick was this? he wondered. Compared to Valpariso, this Yerba Buena was a dog village. Sweet erb, indeed.
    Christ, what a collection of bullshitters all living together in a disgusting summer fog. In Valpariso there was a lighthouse, and white mansions set like pearls among groves of almonds and citrus, and hillside gardens with rows and rows of heliotropes and geraniums. Here he saw only mud flats and weeds. The wind howled over the sharp hills behind him and a shiver chased up his spine