Bill Pronzini - Beyond the Grave

“It's just that I have to be in Santa Barbara at seven, to visit Mama in the hospital.”

“No problem. You'll have plenty of time to eat and drive back there.”

“Then I'll stay.”

“Good.” He beamed at me, and then started toward the back of the house. “Come keep me company while I get things started.”

I followed him to the kitchen, impressed by his easy hospitality. I am a nervous hostess at best-always forgetting to make a dessert, or having the various parts of a meal come to the table at odd intervals-and would never just casually invite an extra guest for dinner. Maybe, I thought, Sam's offhandedness had something to do with living in the country, where people were more easygoing and less suspicious of strangers. But probably it had more to do with having what seemed to be an open and trusting nature.

The kitchen stretched across the entire rear of the house and had big windows overlooking a yard that rivaled the front in untidiness. Sam sat me down in a canvas director's chair with a glass of white wine and began bustling about, assembling bowls and utensils and ingredients on a chopping block, talking the whole time.

“Actually,” he said, “I'm glad you interrupted me when you did. This project is becoming a pain in the ass.”

“You're working on another book?”

“A text for the Oregon public schools. Updating their state history curriculum. I can't seem to get into it. There's something so dreary about a place where it can rain more than a hundred inches a year.” Sam took a pottery bowl from the oversize refrigerator and tasted its contents with a wooden spoon, his eyes closed. Making a face, he went to a spice rack that covered almost an entire wall and selected several jars. After dropping pinches of this and that into the bowl, he stirred, tasted it again, smiled, and held out a clean spoon to me. “It's gazpacho. Try it.”

I got up and took a sample. It was delicious, with all sorts of delicate flavorings that I couldn't identify.

Sam watched me anxiously. “Okay?”

“Wonderful.”

“Thank God. At least I won't catch hell over the soup course.”

“Catch hell?”

“From Dora-Dora Kingman. She writes natural foods cookbooks, grows organic vegetables. The only way I can get her to come to dinner is to use her produce and follow her recipes to the letter. That's okay, though, because she knows what she's doing-where food is concerned.” He paused, then grinned mischievously. “Besides, what I didn't tell her about was the lasagna and chocolate mousse.”

I sat down, smiling politely while I wondered about a dinner made up of those three courses. “Who else is coming besides Dora?” I asked.

“Arturo Melendez-”

“The artist?”

“You know him? Oh, of course-Gabriela mentioned you were director of the Museum of Mexican Arts.”

“Yes, but I haven't actually met him yet.” I'd heard of Melendez, though; he produced very good primitive oils, and I'd been thinking of contacting him about exhibiting at the museum.

“Well then, seeing him in his natural habitat should be interesting for you. I should warn you …”

“Yes?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. Anyway, there's Arturo and Dora and Gray Hollis-”

“The man next door who runs the lapidary.”

Sam raised his bushy red eyebrows. “You're pretty well-informed about our little social set.”

“I saw Mr. Hollis in the store when I stopped to ask where you lived. And the storekeeper-what's his name?”

“Jim Marshall.”

“Jim Marshall told me about Mr. Hollis's business.”

“His private business, too, no doubt.”

“Well… yes.”

Sam put the bowl of gazpacho back in the refrigerator and took out a covered pan that must have been the forbidden lasagna. “He probably hinted that Gray's the town drunk.”

“In a way.”

“Well, in a way it's true, ever since his wife left him about six months ago.”

“Left him? Mars hall said she was on some sort of archaeological expedition in Peru.”

“She is, but it still amounts to the same thing. Georgia and Gray don't get along, and I'm convinced she doesn't intend to come back. There are those who hope that's what will happen-but not Gray. And that's why he drinks. He'll probably be squiffed when he comes over here, and that means he and Dora will get into it again. Oh, you're in for a rousing introduction to our little group.” Sam didn't look particularly dismayed at the prospect. He popped the lasagna into the oven, then took out a salad spinner, and began to toss lettuce leaves into it.

“Aren't Dora and Gray friends?” I asked. “Jim Marshall mentioned something to him about having dinner at Dora's.”

“They are friends. That's why Dora will take off after him about his drinking. She cares what he's doing to himself, but she doesn't realize that often the best way to be a troubled person's friend is to leave him alone.” Sam dumped the lettuce into a salad bowl, dropping a few pieces onto the floor. He picked them up, inspected them, shrugged, and tossed them into the bowl. Sam may have been a gourmet cook, but he had a few rough edges, and it made me like him even better.

“But listen,” he said, “I've been chattering away at you, and all of a sudden I realize you didn't just drop in out of the blue. No one comes all this way without a reason, and I don't flatter myself enough to believe I'm it.”

I smiled and held out my glass when he went to refill it. “In a way, though, you are. I need to talk to a historian, one who knows this area in particular. And I thought that since you live here, you might be able to tell me what I need to know.”

“And that is?”

“About the Velasquez rancho, Rancho Rinconada de los Robles-its history and if there are any descendants of the family still living around here.”

“You've come to the right man.” Sam hefted a chefs knife and began chopping vegetables for the salad. “I find the era of los ranchos grandes fascinating, and I've made quite a study of it. The Velasquezes are particularly interesting because of all the obfuscation about their downfall.”

“Obfus-?”

“Confusion. Rumors. There's a regular legend grown up about them. More myth than legend, I guess.”

This was the kind of thing I was looking for. I waited to hear what he would tell me.

“The Velasquez grant was one of the most profitable of all the ranchos,” he went on. “And the family's way of life was one of the most opulent. They raised blooded horses; all the time there were races, with the attendant heavy gambling. Entertainments were lavish-dances, fandangos, weddings. The rancho functioned as a self-sufficient community-they made their own cloth, tallow, raised their own food, even had their own private garrison of soldiers. They didn't need anything or anyone-or so they thought. And they weren't uncultured, either: it's said that Don Esteban Velasquez had an extremely valuable collection of religious art objects.”

That would be the: artifacts John Quincannon had been hired to find in 1894. “What happened to the rancho?”

“That much we know. It was overrun and partially destroyed by a detachment of soldiers from John Fremont's battalion during the Bear Flag Revolt. Don Esteban himself was killed in the fighting. After that the rancho never fully functioned again, and most of its land was eventually sold off to pay debts.”

“Those are facts?”

“Yes.”

“Then, what's the legend?”

Sam set his knife down and fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette, his eyes reflective. “The why of it is what we don't know. The Bear-Flaggers didn't just overrun ranchos for amusement. It wasn't that kind of revolt. Why the destruction, then? What did they have against the Velasquezes? You see?”