Golden Secrets

The entire Native village spread across the meadow behind the Mission. “Masagawa powerful healer, some Catholic visit for cures. They suffer long time.”

These were Alicia’s initial steps into Nina’s territory, the sounds and smells unlike those at home. Wide-eyed, she entered the encampment and without thinking, she made the sign of the cross on her forehead. She saw children with jet black hair, like Nina’s, playing and laughing together. They tossed white seashells in a flat basket and created a little rhythm. Women, draped with beaded necklaces, knelt low, at work over cooking fires. Everyone seemed much happier than the Native workers at the Mission.

The men pounded wooden tools and crafted handheld hunting weapons. Alicia tried to look away because they wore only narrow belts around their bare hips. Compared to Papa and her uncles, who had enormous bellies and balding heads, these men had lean bodies and dark, long hair. They were talkative, not frightening, lazy, or savage as others warned.

This world hidden from White settlers, not the Ortega family’s rancho, was Nina’s true home. That thought disturbed Alicia. The women looked up and smiled as the girls entered Grandma Masagawa’s small hut, a dome of twigs tied together with long grasses.

“You sit here,” Nina said. “Friend.” Nina introduced her to a mound of dark cloth seated on a jute mat. Alicia squinted to see Masagawa’s face. The old woman stretched out her hand. A sweet smoky smell hung in the air. A dim light entered through a gap in the reeds overhead. Grandma, wrinkled and trembling with palsy, held her palm up and waved it in Alicia’s face.