FicWad

It was the end of the afternoon and Los Angeles was busy, bustling with people and activity. Sergeant Mendoza was taking a break, sipping a well-deserved refreshment on the tavern's terrace while Victoria Escalante, the innkeeper, was pouring him another drink.

"A rather hot day, isn't it, Sergeant?" she asked him.

"It is indeed, Señorita", Mendoza answered, fanning himself with his handkerchief. "It must have been a good day for your business, with people needing to wet their whistle..."

"Not really, no. Surprisingly. I think people were too busy to come and spend some time in the tavern today..."

"Well, you can always count on my patronage, Señorita!"

Victoria stifled a laugh. Of course she can, what would he do without his daily – well, several a day, to be true – glass of whatever fortifying and comforting beverage she had in store!

"That I can, Sergeant, and I'm grateful for it as well as for your friendship!"

"And you know you'll always have the de la Vega's patronage too, of course," he added.

Victoria became a bit pensive. Yes, until a few weeks ago she often had Don Alejandro visiting her tavern at least once a day, sometimes even more – when he wasn't away on one of his many business trips, that is. And Don Diego often joined him too in the afternoon – he definitely wasn't a morning person – with Felipe in tow.

But lately, things had changed a bit. They visited the pueblo less often than before, and when they did, they didn't always stop at the tavern. Don Diego locked himself up in the Guardian's office and Don Alejandro... well, Don Alejandro often reserved his visits to the graveyard and the church.

"Hum... not so sure about that, Sergeant. I haven't seen much of Don Alejandro lately, and Don Diego isn't really his usual carefree self anymore. And when they come to the tavern, I can see they are almost forcing themselves to be cheerful... when they are not openly brooding, that is."

"Give them time, Senorita," Mendoza magnanimously told her. "They are grieving."

"I know, I know," she replied, "but it's been two months! They should... I don't know... go on... I mean, they didn't even know him!"

"Precisely," Mendoza simply replied.

Victoria looked at him, puzzled.

"You see," the sergeant elaborated, "when you lose a beloved one, you're first hurting a lot, an awful lot, and then, as time goes by, you still mourn and suffer but you also think here and there of this or that good time you shared with that person, and then, when the grieving is over, you remain with all the good memories you have of him or her."

Victoria slowly nodded.

"Yes, I know that..."

Of course she did, Mendoza inwardly reflected.

"Well, you see," he went on, "when you lose someone you didn't have the time or the luck to know although you should have been close to them, you certainly can't mourn the loss of this person as much as you'd have if you'd really known them, but you don't have any of those memories to cherish either, and you grieve what wasn't. What didn't happen. You grieve this other life you could have had... a possibly happier life. You grieve the loss of what you never had and never will have."

Victoria remained speechless a few seconds. She would have never expected Mendoza of all people to be that insightful; but she remembered he had grown up in an orphanage and probably didn't remember his own parents. There was first-hand experience behind his speech.

"You are a very wise man, sergeant," she acknowledged. "I don't want to sound shallow or selfish, you know, but I just want Don Alejandro to be his usual cheerful and happy self."

"Si, I want this too, Señorita." He then looked at her and sent a playful wink in her direction. "All the more so that he is far more disposed to offer a drink to his friends when he is in a good mood!"

"Oh, Sergeant!" Victoria falsely scolded him.

They both burst out laughing. He took out his handkerchief again to dab at his forehead.

At the same time Don Diego finally came out of the Guardian's office with a thick envelope under his arm. He looked toward the tavern, and the sound of Victoria's laugh got a smile out of him: he waved at them, nodded his salute, but didn't stop by. He slipped his envelope in his saddle bag, mounted his horse, waved once more at Victoria with a smile and left the pueblo.

By the gate, he passed a big carriage which coach-driver then stopped his horses in the middle of the plaza, halfway between the tavern and the cuartel.

Victoria wondered what was in Don Diego's envelope. And where was he heading to? What was so important to him that he wouldn't take the time to share a drink with Mendoza and a kind banter with her? He was probably riding home, to keep company to his father. Lord knows the man needed some company and kind attention from a beloved one, troubled as he seemed to be lately! Unless Don Diego was once more God knows where, on one more of his many unexplained disappearances. A... a... a woman, perhaps?

What a strange idea! And anyway, Diego de la Vega just wasn't that type...

"Oh, look, Señorita! Here comes the stagecoach! That will be good for your business..."

"Sure," she said with a suddenly very wide grin, "all those poor travellers with dry throats and a need for accommodation tonight!"

She rubbed her hands in glee and anticipation, idly looking at the coach driver helping his female passengers out of the carriage. As he was holding his hand out to a thirty-something woman, Victoria was already mentally calculating how many bottles of wine she'd have to take from her cellar. Oh, no wine for that one, she thought as the driver helped a little girl out of the coach by putting his hands on her waist and lifting her up as though she weighed nothing. Before he put her down he held her at arm's length and spun around, eliciting a childish hearty laugh from her.

Victoria was planning the amount of soup she'd have to prepare for dinnertime when Sergeant Mendoza interrupted the course of her thoughts with an exclamation:

"Oh! Look, Padre Benitez is back!"

And indeed, the portly padre was prudently stepping out of the coach. He had been gone more than a whole week, and his helpers at the mission had been finding his absence a bit tiring, having to fill in for him in his many daily tasks other than purely religious ones.

Victoria waved at him, calling across the plaza:

"Hola, welcome home, padre!"

"Gracias mi hija," padre Benitez answered her before he politely took his leave from the other passengers and headed to the presbytery.

As predicted, most of the newcomers made their way to the tavern. A young man in his twenties asked her for her best wine, an old man and his son asked where they could loan a carriage and its owner to drive them to Don Virgilio Ségura's hacienda, and a nice couple in their thirties rented a room. Other regular patrons chose that precise moment to finally come for a drink and for a break in their day's work. When Victoria entered her tavern to take care of the incoming customers, she heard a woman's voice gently scold the child back in the plaza:

"Señorita, for God's sake, get down from this fence, this isn't a horse!"

She was immediately joined by another firmer female voice: "Leonor! Stop running around and jumping everywhere! Now!"

Tending to her customers and paying attention to life going on around her, Victoria focused on the task at hand and momentarily pushed aside any concern about Don Alejandro and any question she could have about his son.

z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z

"Señorita, another pitcher here, por favor!"

"Señorita, is there any bedroom available for tonight?"

Victoria was swiftly going from one table to another, serving her customers and answering their questions, all the while keeping a businesslike although genuine smile on her face: today's receipts would be good, after all...

Mendoza was eyeing the scene from the counter: he had finally gotten inside to avoid being spotted on the terrace by alcalde de Soto and therefore being told to get back to work. Three vaqueros entered and sat down at a table near the entrance. Young Don Raul Lluviera, still a teenager – he was... what... fifteen now, at most? Mendoza calculated – ordered tequila. Two women entered, with a child in tow. The first one, a plainly-dressed fifty-something woman, was carrying three bags and looking around as though to take in everything. The other one was a woman in her thirties, clad in a fine brown travel outfit. She was tiredly dragging along an overexcited bouncing little girl.

"This isn't tequila!" Don Raul's teenaged breaking voice suddenly echoed in the tavern.

"It certainly isn't," Victoria replied. "It's Madeira, and it's the strongest you'll have in my tavern for the few years to come, Don Raul."

"But—"

"No 'but', Don Raul! It will be either Madeira or lemonade for you. What do you choose?"

The young boy reluctantly took another sip of his beverage, admitting his defeat: rather Madeira than some children's drink. He wasn't Diego de la Vega!

Mendoza turned his attention back to the travelling ladies who were just coming near the counter.

"Oh, come on," the youngest was telling the other, "we've all been through this age! Don't speak as if you didn't remember this time of your life, Concepcion..."

"I'd gladly forget it, Señora," Concepcion replied. "When I was fifteen I was terribly foolish, that's all I remember!"

"And when I was fifteen," the other replied, "I got married. We all have embarrassing and inconvenient anecdotes of our past we'd rather forget, don't we?" she cheerfully added.

Just beside Mendoza, the little girl was standing on tip toes in a desperate but useless attempt to see what was above the wooden panel of the counter. She then raised her arms to put her little hands on top of the counter and repeatedly jumped up and down in order to see beyond it.

"Señorita," the older woman – Concepcion, as the other called her – chastised her, "please calm down and stop jumping like a bunny!"

But on her last bounce, the child landed on the sergeant's foot.

"Ouch!" Mendoza let out.

"Leonor!" the younger one added, "calm down and stop fidgeting! Now apologise to the sergeant."

The girl eyed the man, rather impressed by the large stomach she was facing. She then raised her head to look at his face.

"My apologies, Señor" she obediently mumbled, blushing a bit.

"That's alright, niña," he replied. "Such a featherweight as you can't harm too badly a soldier of His Majesty," he added, swelling out his chest.

"I'm sorry on my daughter's behalf, Sergeant," the younger woman said, "I'm afraid long journeys and long days in a stagecoach don't sit well with a six-years-old... She's become incredibly agitated, this last hour."

"Quite understandable, Señora."

"Concepcion," the senora called, "could you please give Leonor her book? With some luck she'll sit and calm down."

The older woman searched in one of her bags and took out a storybook.

"Take this and read the rest of the tale you started in the coach, Señorita."

Victoria, who was passing by, was very surprised and asked the mother:

"She can read? A whole real book? At such a young age?"

"Well, yes," the Señora answered with a hint of motherly pride. "She's quite bookish, in fact. That's something running in the family..."

Victoria went to the other side of the room, where alcalde de Soto had just entered the tavern and sat down at a secluded table. She wasn't too fond of him, far from it, but after all he was a customer like any other, and as long as he wasn't creating any problem, he had the right to be served...

"Señora," Concepcion told the woman who was certainly her employer, "maybe the kind sergeant could tell us how to go to the hacienda and where we could rent a carriage and hire someone to drive us there..."

"Oh, I think we'll wait until tomorrow to go there. After all, we're not expected on any scheduled date, are we? And it's getting rather late. Not to add that I feel dirty and exhausted from the journey, and Leonor could certainly do with some rest: she's really agitated. And above all I want a cool drink, a much-needed bath, and a bed. In that order. We'll stay at the tavern, tonight."

"Did you have a long journey, Señoras?" Mendoza politely asked.

"Quite," she simply answered.

"Sergeant," Concepcion then asked him, "could you at least tell us whether the de la Vega hacienda is far from the pueblo?"

"The de la Vega hacienda?" Mendoza repeated. "Definitely too far for two fine ladies and a young child to walk there, I'm afraid. But if you want some means of transportation, surely Don—"

"Oh, let's not bother with that for now, we'll see to it tomorrow," the younger woman said. "Señora!" she called Victoria.

The innkeeper made her way to her:

"Yes, can I help you, Señora?"

"I hope so, Señora: I need a room for my daughter and myself tonight, and another one for my maid."

"Certainly, Señora. And that's 'Señorita'. I have two contiguous bedrooms, if you want."

"Perfect. I'll have a bath, too, but first things first, could you please serve us two glasses of this certainly excellent Madeira the young man over there — she made a discreet gesture in Don Raul's direction — seemed to find so disappointing?"

Victoria laughed and the Señora smiled, as well as Mendoza.

"And some lemonade too," the grinning mother added, looking down right beside herself, "there's a dehydrated little girl here who certainly could use some!"

The child closed her book and looked up.

"Oh, Mamá, can't I have wine?" she asked. The adults laughed at her enthusiasm.

The mother then frowned a bit.

"Just one small mouthful," she granted, "to further educate your taste buds, and only if it's a good one." She jerked her head at Victoria who was now behind her counter. "Oh, sorry Señora, I didn't mean to imply that your wine wasn't good!"

"That's all right, I think I understand what you meant and I didn't take it wrongly."

While Victoria was pouring the drinks and talking with the two women, Mendoza took the glass of lemonade and gave it to the little girl who was too short to grab it on the counter.

"Thank the sergeant, Señorita," the maid instructed her.

"Gracias Señor," she said.

"And the kind innkeeper," her mother added.

"Gracias Señora," the child repeated.

"De nada," Victoria said, before turning her back to the counter in order to wash some glasses.

"De nada, niña," the sergeant echoed. "By the way, young señorita, we haven't been formally introduced: my name is Jaime. The lovely lady here is Victoria. And what's your name, pequeña?"

Straightening, the child spoke clear and loud as she'd been instructed to do when introducing herself:

"Leonor de la Vega y Ximénez, Señor."

Mendoza was a bit surprised at hearing this name, as was at least half the tavern according to the slight decrease in the background noise, and Victoria turned to her customers.

"Oh, are you a cousin of Don Diego's?" she asked the mother.

"No, not exactly," the woman simply answered. "Finish your drink, Leonor, and take your book, we're going to our rooms. And you need a bath."

But the child was starting to take a liking in the funny kind sergeant, and when he next asked her what a lovely little girl like her has come to do in Los Angeles, she beamed and proclaimed with a wide grin:

"I've come to see my papá."

And in the deafening silence that had now spread over the tavern and to which the girl was totally oblivious, she added:

"And we're going to visit his home for the first time!"

A few seconds later, as the three women — well, two and a half, really — were climbing the stairs to their rented bedrooms, all heads in the tavern, including the alcalde's and Victoria's suddenly very pale and shocked face, turned to the now empty office of the Guardian.