The Bastard Read online

  Golden Chances - Book I:

  The Bastard

  By

  Jane Toombs

  ISBN: 9781927111161

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Books We Love Publishing Partners

  192 Lakeside Greens Drive

  Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2

  Canada

  Copyright 2010 by Jane Toombs

  Cover Art 2011 by Michelle Lee

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Publisher’s Note:

  There are Seven Books in the Golden Chances Saga Join Author Jane Toombs as she takes you back to California at the time of Confederation and then, book by book lose yourself in this dramatic saga about the people Spanish, Anglo, Mexican and Indian who struggled, fought, made mistakes, loved and survived to build the Golden State:

  The Bastard – Book 1

  The Interloper – Book 2

  The Dancer – Book 3

  The Rebel – Book 4

  The Fixer – Book 5

  The Deceiver – Book 6

  The Wild Card – Book 7

  Amazon Exclusive. .99¢ per title

  Chapter One

  Diarmid Burwash felt the heat of the fire before he saw the flames stretching their scarlet and gold tentacles toward him. Scarlet and gold, gules and or, heart and lion, and he the stranger-in-blood who had no right to any of it. Not to his father's coat-of-arms, to the family motto, nor even to the name.

  Only the fire was his, hot and all-consuming, the flames ever reaching for him. If he stared into their shifting colors, he was lost.

  'Tis but a dream, he told himself, struggling to be free of the invisible bonds holding him fast. He couldn't move.

  "Coinneach Odhar," his mother's voice chanted in Gaelic from beyond the fire. "Look and you will see. The blood runs true, from him through me to you."

  "No!" The cry was only in his head, he couldn't speak. He wasn't, he wouldn't be like Coinneach, that Ross-shire seer who died a horrible death a hundred years ago for his true prophecies.

  Wake lad! Banish the fire!

  Yet slowly, inexorably, his head turned toward the flames. His breath caught in his throat. He saw a valley, a golden valley with highlands beyond. A land of promise, a land beckoning, beckoning. Waiting for him...

  Diarmid woke. He lay rolled in his blankets on the rough wood floor, face toward the dying embers of the night fire, glowing red eyes that winked slyly at him as if to deny they were real embers from a real fire. His mother was dead these six years, he wasn't in county Ross, thank God, he was thousands of miles from Scotland.

  Not only across the ocean but across all the forests and plains of America to California where gold lay in the streams like sand. In San Francisco, where a canny lad could earn his way and more by keeping his wits about him and working hard to supply the gold miners.

  He sat up, the better to banish the dream and then leaped to his feet when he heard a slight scuffling sound, leather on wood, beyond the door. From the store. A street tough breaking in? He took a step toward the door, listening carefully.

  "Diarmid?"

  When he heard Miriam's voice, soft and hesitant, he smiled, relaxing. Never again, she'd told him. He hadn't believed her, she'd liked too well, what he could give her.

  Opening the door, he reached for her.

  "I shouldn't be here," she whispered as he led her to his jumble of blankets in front of the fire.

  He didn't bother to answer. Miriam was here and they both knew why. No point in wasting words or time. He untied the ribbons fastening her dressing gown at the neck and pushed the gown down over her shoulders.

  "Myron will kill me if he ever finds out," she said as the gown slipped to the floor.

  "You're no bairn, you're a grown lass," Diarmid muttered, intent on lifting her nightgown over her head. Miriam, all of thirty, was undeniably homely but the rest of her more than made up for her face. No other lass he'd bedded had such soft and generous curves.

  "But we're not married," she persisted.

  Diarmid tensed. He didn't mean to wed her and she knew it. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't. Myron Muskatt might accept him as a partner but he'd never agree to Diarmid as a brother-in-law. Besides, she was ten years up on him.

  The feel of her warm breasts under his hands distracted him and he kissed her instead of speaking, pulling her down onto the blankets and yanking off his trousers.

  "I want to tell you--" she began.

  "Words can wait. ‘Tis I who can't." His hands stroked along her curves, seeking, finding, until she gasped, arching to him, as eager as he for the joining.

  He thrust himself into her, intent on his own release. Her moaning cries excited him, 'twas all the better when the lass enjoyed the tupping.

  He was pulling his pants on again when she spoke. "Diarmid, I'm afraid you'll be angry."

  He waited. No need to ask why, there was no stopping a lass who meant to talk.

  "I'm--that is, you and me--" Miriam paused, then finished in a rush. "Oh, Diarmid, I'm in the family way."

  He sucked in his breath. Damn. Thirty might be old for a lass but not too old to bear a bairn.

  "Well?" she demanded. "What are we going to do? Myron will raise the roof."

  Too true. And Diarmid was who 'twould fall on. Best he wasn't under this roof when Myron heard. "Lass, you leave everything to me," he temporized. "Above all, don't tell Myron or anyone else just yet."

  "But what--?"

  "Plans. I've got to make plans first."

  "I just know you're angry with me."

  “Why should I be?" 'Twas the truth. No cause to be angry. He squeezed her shoulders, finding them naked. "Best you get dressed and nip upstairs, 'tis that near to dawn."

  When the door closed behind her, Diarmid hastily donned the rest of his clothes and pulled on his boots. Yesterday, when he bought the buckskin horse, he'd worried lest he'd spent good money on a foolish whim. A man who craved land couldn't afford whims. Now he saw that the buckskin, a rangy, tireless mount, was his ticket to freedom. He'd always been one to keep things to himself, so neither Myron nor their other partner, Irv Goldman, knew he owned a horse.

  As he threw his sparse belongings into a pack and rolled the blankets to fit on the saddle, Diarmid paused. Because of the how and why of his leaving, he could hardly expect Myron and Irv to buy him out, but, by leaving in secret, he'd be giving up his hard-earned one-third interest in the store.

  'Twas enough to make a lad wonder if marriage to Miriam would be such a bad bargain. Myron should simmer down after a few days and begrudgingly accept what had to be. Irv, not being related, had no say.

  As a widow, Miriam knew about marriage--she'd work hard at being a good wife. If he married her he'd retain his part interest in the store. But what about the land he must have, the land he'd been putting every extra penny aside for, even to sleeping on the floor in this back room to save money?

  Miriam wouldn't stand for any more of that, she'd want her own comfortable place, her own decent furnishings. All costing money. She was a city lass, straight from New York, and she'd insist on staying in San Francisco, he was sure.

  She was older, no longer a sapling to be bent this way or that. The way she meant to live was already fixed. Marriage to her would mean giving in to her or enduring endless argument.

  Diarmid shook his head and resumed packing. 'Twasn't for him. Once he left, he'd be care
ful to travel far enough so he couldn't be easily tracked. He'd meant to buy land not far from San Francisco but California was a big state, there must be plenty of available land in the southern part, down around the pueblo of Los Angeles. Maybe even the golden valley of his dreams. Once he found that, he might not have enough saved to buy it but possess the land he would, one way or the other.

  Prising up an end of a floorboard near the hearth, he pulled out the tin box where he hid his money. Now he was ready to saddle the buckskin.

  On the first three days of the journey south he thought about Miriam only once. 'Twasn't as though he was leaving her stranded, alone and penniless. Didn't she have a brother who'd take better care of her than Diarmid Burwash ever would? No matter what she'd done, Myron Muskatt would never disown his sister.

  'Tis possible I'll never marry, Diarmid thought as his buckskin, Bruce, reached the summit of one of the many hills south of San Francisco. At least not for many years.

  He halted Bruce to gaze at the rolling grasslands beginning to turn green from the winter rains. A few head of cattle dotted the fields to his left. To his right, trees grew in the creases where one hill folded into another. Beyond the higher, wooded hills to his right was the ocean. A red-tailed hawk soared above him, master of the air as he meant one day to be master of the land. His land, owned by him and no one else, never to be lost or taken away from him as his father's land in Scotland had been.

  Diarmid clenched his fists. Bastard or not, he'd had a right to that land! There was no denying he was the spit and image of his father, dark they both were, hair, eyes and coloring. Little difference that had made after his father died. Malcolm Burwash was scarcely cold in his grave before The McLeod had proclaimed a bastard such as Diarmid had no rights and seized the land for himself. When fourteen-year-old Diarmid tried to fight The McLeod’s armed men, they'd knocked him senseless and fired the cottage. Watching all their belongings go up in flames had killed his mother.

  Diarmid Malcolm Burwash was the only survivor. A thin smile twisted his lips. Survive he would until the time came to meet The McLeod in hell and settle the score. In the meantime, he'd find his own land. In California.

  The sudden, swift descent of the hawk caught his attention. He watched as the bird, claws extended, dropped from the sky, plucked a quail from the grass no more than five yards away, and rose rapidly, prey clutched in his talons.

  An omen, Diarmid told himself. He'd succeed like the hawk, quickly, effortlessly. Soon.

  "Senor!" The shout came from the slope directly below him where, Diarmid saw now, a horseman waited. A Californio dressed in black and sporting silver on his saddle.

  The hawk's strike had promised good fortune, perhaps this rider was its bearer. If not, Diarmid had his sgian dhu, his father's knife, and he well knew how to use it.

  From necessity he'd picked up Spanish in these past few years while delivering supplies to the mines. "Como esta?" he called and urged the buckskin down to meet the Californio.

  Diarmid soon found that Manuelo Amato, a young man about his age but not as tall or as robustly built, spoke approximately the same amount of English as Diarmid did Spanish. What the Californio wanted was a traveling companion if Diarmid was on his way south and willing.

  "Bandidos, senor," Manuelo told him. "They see one man--" He drew a forefinger across his throat. "Two men is--how you say?--more safe."

  "How far do you ride?" Diarmid asked.

  "I ride to San Diego to visit my betrothed."

  Diarmid shrugged. Why not travel with Manuelo Amato?

  The Californio seemed harmless and pleasant. And why not to San Diego? He'd heard of the place, a village south of Los Angeles with nothing much to recommend it, by all accounts. Still, coming on Manuelo so soon after the hawk's strike could mean something. And San Diego was a comfortably long way from San Francisco.

  If there were bandits, Diarmid saw no sign of them as the days passed. More than a dozen times they encountered northbound travelers on El Camino Real, the rocky, dusty trail the Spanish priests had named The King's Highway, and twice a stage. Once they detoured around a flock of sheep being driven into the foothills by a brown-and-white dog and a shepherd who spoke no language either Diarmid or Manuelo understood.

  "Basque," Manuelo said. "Those people come from Spain but not Spanish, they keep to themselves, very strange and clannish. Me, I work with cattle. A rancho needs more than one vaquero to handle the herd and we are compadres, the vaqueros and myself. These Basques are loners, they tend sheep with no more than a dog for company. How a man stands such solitude, I can't understand."

  "Will you work with cattle in San Diego?" Diarmid asked.

  Manuelo's frown made him recall how touchy Californios could be and he added, "I mean no offense, I ask because I need work myself."

  "Me, I have no anger toward you," Manuelo assured him. "Are we not compadres? It's your government I dislike. Your presidente Fillmore. Pah!"

  Diarmid didn't try to explain his own position as a immigrant Scotsman. He lived in the United States didn't he? Therefore he was an American and the government Manuelo complained of was his government.

  "Your government tells us," Manuelo went on, "that we don't own land granted to us by our governors when we were part of Mexico. How can this be? Suddenly Anglos swarm over land we thought was ours, claim they have a right to it and your courts uphold them. How can we fight against the courts? My family was comfortable and happy one day and homeless the next." His voice was bitter.

  "I've been homeless since I was fourteen," Diarmid said. “When my father died and his land was unfairly taken from me."

  Manuelo stared at him for a long moment, then urged his black closer to Diarmid's buckskin and held out his hand. " Mi amigo," he said, his voice choked, "you understand."

  Diarmid clasped his hand hard and released it. “Amigo, I have sworn I will someday have land of my own."

  Manuelo nodded. "May God favor you."

  By the time they reached Manuelo's uncle's casa in the pueblo of Los Angeles, they'd journeyed together for a week.

  "Mi casa es su casa," Tomas Valdez told Diarmid upon being introduced. "My house is your house."

  Diarmid, seeing no reason to turn down hospitality, stayed with Manuelo at the uncle's modest hacienda, enjoying the warmth of February. At this time of year, San Francisco was inclined to be damp and chilly. He found the ubiquitous sweet perfume that could be smelled night and day in the casa was from the tiny white blossoms of the five orange trees planted near the house.

  "The fruit, ah, wonderful, sweet and juicy," Tio Tomas boasted. "It ripens by summer."

  On the morning they were to leave for San Diego, Manuelo awoke with shaking chills.

  "Manuelo suffers from malaria," Tio Tomas said to Diarmid. "He will rest here, we'll dose him with quinine and he'll soon recover."

  Manuelo objected. "The letter," he mumbled, burning with fever, but fighting off his aunt's attempts to put him to bed. "I must first deliver the letter."

  "Amigo," Diarmid said finally, "if the letter can't wait, why not let me deliver it?"

  Manuelo, to everyone's relief, eventually agreed and was whisked off to bed by his aunt and her maid.

  "Don Francisco Gabaldon," Tio Tomas said, reading the name printed on the outside of the sealed packet. "The don owns a rancho south of here."

  "You'll give me directions?" Diarmid asked.

  "Si." The uncle grinned. "Though there's little need. Since Don Francisco owns from the eastern mountains to the sea, you can't reach San Diego without passing over his land. It's a very large rancho. Muy mucho. They say--" he paused, leaned closer to Diarmid and lowered his voice--"that in Don Francisco's hills there's a lost gold mine. Many have sought the mine since the long ago days of the good fathers who built the missions, but no man has ever found it. Not even the don."

  Diarmid nodded, but he had no interest in lost mines. Since his arrival in California five years ago, he'd heard too many similar ta
les from miners down on their luck. Lost mines, secret caches, hidden veins of gold and not a grain of truth in any of the stories. Land, not gold, was the only treasure he sought.

  After learning that the rancho was less than a day's journey from Los Angeles, he set off on Bruce, riding south along the ocean, still following El Camino Real. The Pacific seemed gentler this far south, lapping in long lazy combers onto sand instead of crashing in foam against rocks. White gulls swooped and wheeled over the sun-sparkled water, a brown pelican dove and came up with a fish, a three-master far offshore sailed northward.