Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

Monterey as well as all the family silver, gold and jewelry and anything she wanted to take from Tesoro except the Spanish walnut chess set that had been the admiral’s gift to Grandpa Otto a century ago. Willie took that.

Beyond the physical property there was just the checking account. Wes Samuels at Salinas National long had urged Eddie to get into bonds, trusts, indemnities, the things bankers love, but Eddie was a land man. If there were no other assets, neither was there encumbrance. When Tesoro was sold it would give full return on value, and Eddie had every intention of selling. Willie would argue, but Willie never understood business. Born a few minutes earlier, Eddie had always been the boss. Together they would find something new. He couldn’t let his brother go on preaching to bums in a former saloon on Turk Street. He’d been up to see it. Once was enough.

He already knew the buyer. Claus Spreckels was a German who like Grandpa Otto ended up in Monterey and did all right for himself thanks to sugar beets. Spreckels had been trying to buy Tesoro ever since the death of Robert Mull, who’d come west from Pittsburgh in the 1850s looking for gold and found another kind of gold in Eva Herzog and Tesoro. Spreckels pestered Eva for years after Robert was thrown from a horse and landed on his head. She put up with it because she liked the old codger, who might have struck up something more personal if he hadn’t had a wife and thirteen children. When Spreckels heard Eva was gone, he sent condolences and came to the funeral, taking Eddie aside privately to commiserate.

He offered stock in his businesses, but Eddie wanted cash. Negotiations dragged on, for both men knew the value of things, but eventually Eddie received $107,650 for the rancho, a fortune. Willie agreed to the sale when Eddie told him Eva’s last wish was that he should have a new church, which wasn’t true.

They were drinking coffee at the kitchen table after packing up all day. Both men were exhausted. Little Cal, legs dangling, sat at one end of the table, staring from one to the other, still puzzled that two men could look so much alike.

Willie wore a funny look.

“Something bothering you?” asked Eddie.

“Something Doc Summers said at the funeral.”

“What did Doc Summers say?”

“Didn’t quite catch the meaning—something about you and Mamá.”

“What did he say?”

“Didn’t understand . . .”

Eddie glanced at the boy, whose stare bothered him. Cal had the blue eyes of his dead mother. “What didn’t you understand?”

Willie shook his head. “Not important. I think he’d had a few.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment.

Willie knew.

No one in the family was too nostalgic about any of it except, surprisingly, little Cal, Willie’s motherless son born in China, named after John Calvin, a boy who’d visited Tesoro only twice but regarded it as the only permanent thing in his short and itinerant life. Cal was sent to live with Aunt Lola in Monterey while the brothers prepared to go forth and seek their fortunes. Eddie still thought it would be San Francisco, but the aqueduct was worth a look.

Chapter 2

Willie back on Turk, Cal in Monterey, the Spreckels’ check deposited at Salinas National, Eddie caught the overnight train to Los Angeles. Arriving at Arcade Depot, he was bustled along the Southern Pacific platform, out across Alameda onto Fifth Street. He’d been to San Francisco, full of opportunities since the earthquake but risky. When would the next one hit? Los Angeles had no bay and half the population of San Francisco, but vacant land in every direction. Suitcase in hand, he set out walking. The crowd carried him down Fifth, people rushing in every direction, trolleys clanging, horses clopping, carriages and motorcars coming at him as he crossed the street.

Exhilarated, stiff from sitting up all night, he stopped a moment to rest. A large, able, self-confident man, rustically imposing, he felt foreign in this Mexican town of stucco and plazas about which he knew nothing except that an aqueduct was on the way. He set down his suitcase and leaned against a building, just one more newcomer, no one paying him any mind. They didn’t know he had $107,650 in the bank. Thinking of the money, his mind flashed back to Salinas National Bank. Why, Willie had asked the manager, were they opening a joint account? Wes Samuels, who’d known the Mulls for decades but never before laid eyes on Willie, carefully explained, just as Eddie had told him to do.

Ready to move on and see the city, Eddie picked up his suitcase and suddenly froze. He wasn’t sure at first, it was too strange. It wasn’t fatigue, wasn’t imagination. He wasn’t religious like Willie, didn’t believe in miracles, omens, things like that. Signs, now signs were another matter. Signs, if you knew how to read them, gave you an edge. Signs and water were a rancher’s best friends. Crazy as it was—and he never told anyone—he heard a voice. Leaning against that building on Fifth Street, he heard a voice say, “think of the water, Eddie,” heard it as clearly as the clang from the trolley down the street.

He’d come here for a look, yes, but why choose a Mexican town on an empty plain ten miles inland from where it should have been built instead of the beautiful Golden Gate?

“Think of the water, Eddie.”

Eddie Mull knew about land and water. In Salinas, two plots of land not five miles apart could be fertile or barren depending on how the water came off the Gabilans. Gold made San Francisco, but the Sierra mines petered out. Water, clear cold water running off the Sierras into the Owens River and now on its way to Los Angeles would never run out. There would be water as long as there was snow, and there would be snow as long as there were mountains. All the mountains