Of course I got no answer, and we kept
walking single file up the increasingly rugged hills. The Henkels owned several
hundred acres of natural hillside as pasturage for their semi-wild cattle. The
trail started to meander through a section of hills thickly covered with black walnut
and sycamore trees. So far though, we still hadn’t seen any cattle. Up ahead I
could see Buzzard’s Peak, the tallest of the range of hills that separated
Covina, from the Pomona Valley. I knew the hills were steeper on the Pomona
side, and this was getting me worried. As we had been getting closer to the top
of the hills, our trail was growing increasingly rugged.
After an extra steep climb, Margaret-Ann
sat down on a fallen sycamore, and as a sign of a truce said, “Let’s rest and
look at the view a bit.”
As I came to sit down next to her I noticed
the first pile of cow manure I’d seen all day, but it didn’t look, or
thankfully smell, very fresh. The view spread out below us made Covina look
like a patchwork of tidy orange grove squares in a giant’s quilt. Further off
to the west we could just make out Citrus Avenue, and we tried to spot the
exact location of “The Empress” movie
house where we’d first seen The Sheik.
“I guess we can afford to rest here a few
minutes more,” Margaret-Ann said. “You see part of the problem is that I don’t
know exactly when Valentino is supposed to arrive at the Kellogg Ranch, and
it’s now getting close to mid-morning.”
“No – we can’t go all this way, and just
miss him. That would be too horrible. Terrible. Awful.” I wailed loudly to the
hills.
Margaret-Ann was reaching in her back
pocket for a bottle opener to open the now warm root-beer. Warm or not, we were
both thirsty and store-bought root-beer was a real treat. Neither of us were
paying much attention to our surroundings. Suddenly from the trees below came
the sound of cracking brush, immediately followed by more cracking directly to
our right. The cattle we had not seen all day quickly appeared before us. And
in large quantities. Including calves.
The calves looked cute as they frolicked
near their mothers’ sides. However getting yourself between a calf and its
overly protective mother can by very dangerous.
And this was exactly what was happening as two inquisitive calves came
trotting toward our fallen tree.
Slowly Margaret-Ann and I stood up, my hand
still frozen onto the bottle of root-beer. In just a few seconds it seemed as
if there were cattle everywhere. For once Margaret-Ann didn’t say a thing.
Then I became aware of a warm breath near
my right elbow, and saw with horror a black and white calf nuzzling my arm. I
knew it had to have a mother nearby. I waved my arm slightly hoping the calf would
take the hint, but it only put its forefoot back a second, and then took
another step closer.
Sure enough, one cow suddenly put her head up
and snorted. Surprisingly agile for the size, she broke into a charge. In an
instinctive act of self-preservation Margaret-Ann and I jumped over the log and
raced uphill for all we were worth. Over my shoulder I threw the bottle and
looked back in time to see it bounce off the cow’s nose and fly in a root-beer
colored arc into the grass.
Margaret-Ann was ahead of me as we ran and
was going so fast that she ran into the barbed-wire fence marking the end of
the cow pasture. Luckily, the double set of clothes saved her. Instead of being
hurt, she ducked through the wires to the sound of a lot of ripping and
tearing. I managed to squeeze through right after without nearly as much damage
to my clothing.
We lay on the hillside, gasping, very
grateful to have come upon the fence.
“Here’s the bottle opener, Elora, why don’t
you go back down there and get our root-beer.”
We both giggled while waiting to catch our
breaths. Then Margaret-Ann sat up and began examining her brother’s shredded
pants and shirt.
“By the looks of these, I‘m going to get a hollering
for more than just skipping this morning’s chores. But if we actually get to
see Rudolph Valentino, it’ll be worth it! I think we’re getting close now; we’re
pretty high up.” She pointed, “And there’s Buzzard’s Peak to the south.”
As the crow flies she was right. But for
two girls on foot it didn’t look so easy. There was no longer any cow trail.
And following the game paths down the hill looked pretty difficult, especially
with several small washes still muddy from the recent rains. But there was no
turning back now, because we knew after crawling under that second fence, we
had made it onto the Kellogg property. How could we have given up this close to
our goal?
We stood there and looked at the view from
the eastern side of the hills. Far down below we could even see the oddly arched
architecture of the “mansion stables” designed in the Moorish style for Mr.
Kellogg’s fancy Arabian horses. And even more importantly, near the front of
the stables were some shiny cars and the indistinct forms of several people. This
meant that Valentino could be down there even as we were watching. We had to
hurry!
Desperation to reach our goal before he
left made us fearless as mountaineers in scurrying down the steep hillside. We
scooted down in a sitting position among the loose rubble, trotted through the
flatter grassy areas when we could, and gingerly threaded our way through rocks,
scrub oaks, and patches of cactus. All
the while a voice inside my head was saying, “Hurry, Hurry.” Margaret-Ann and I were
both silent with concentration and worry.
I was now covered in dirt, with a long
muddy patch across my rear, one pocket torn loose, and old leaves and stickers
filled my hair. Margaret-Ann didn’t look any better, especially with all her
torn clothing. But most importantly we were closing in on our goal! The
distance between us and the group of seven or eight men was growing smaller,
and not one had yet left. In fact, I saw a beautiful gray horse led out into
the stable courtyard.
“Margaret-Ann did you see that – they’ve
gotten a horse out now—it must be him –
choosing the one he wants – to ride in The
Son of the Sheik.” It was hard work to talk and go down the hill at the
same time.
“Margaret-Ann answered back, “I think we are going to make it on time. Oh,
and watch for rattlesnakes, I saw one a ways back.”
“It’s too early for rattlesnakes, you must
have seen something else.
“Just remember, Elora,” (and there came a
long pause, whether for breath or emphasis I couldn’t tell), “I said I saw a rattlesnake.”
I had to concentrate so much on where to
place my feet that I didn’t want to waste the energy to answer her. But I knew she
couldn’t have just seen a rattlesnake and been that quiet and calm.
It appeared to be a day full of miracles.
Margaret-Ann and I eventually made it all the way down the steep hillside in
one piece, although looking back uphill from the bottom made me wonder how. I
collapsed on the ground at the bottom, my knees shaky, my feet aching. I lay there behind a bush without moving,
next to Margaret-Ann.
She however wasn’t just resting. She was
changing her outfit. Off came her brother’s very grubby and torn pants and
shirt. From underneath, her good Sunday clothes emerged looking a little
wrinkled, but dirty in only a few places. She took great care to flounce her
dress up a bit, and then traded her worn boots for her good black shoes.
Satisfied, she reached into the pants-pockets for a comb and dug away at the
worst of the undergrowth lodged in her hair. Lastly, she wiped her
face-more-or-less clean with the inside of the discarded shirt.
She did look a whole lot better that she had
five minutes before; and much, much better than me. To my horror I began to
realize how badly I must appear. And perhaps to have Rudolph Valentino see me
like this!
“Give me your comb Margaret-Ann, so I can
at least get the stickers out of my hair too.”
“No, there isn’t time. We can’t see what they’re
doing from down here. They might be getting ready to leave even as we’re
speaking. We must get moving.”
Leave it to Margaret-Ann to have a
justified reason for leaving me looking so badly rumpled.
I was now feeling scared, and though she’d
never admit it, Margaret-Ann was too. She actually waited for me to join her,
asked me for advice, and even listened to my answer.
“What do you think is the best way to get
over to the barn? We can’t afford to be seen any earlier than possible.”
I noticed there wasn’t much vegetation near
the area of the fancy barn. Most of the route was laid out in white-railed
horse pastures. However, there were several piles of construction material very
close by the stable.
“Let’s try skirting around those piles, and
see how close we can get.”
Margaret-Ann nodded and we moved off at a
crouch. We had only just made it to the construction pile when I heard a shout.
“Hey, what’s that? I think I saw somebody
over there.”
“I hunkered down, terrified as the sound of
rapid footsteps crunched closer and closer. They belonged to a man carrying a
gun – and he had spotted Margaret-Ann’s pale blue dress and white stockings
easily enough, while missing me in my dirt covered denim.
“What are you doing here young lady?” He
reached down and grabbed Margaret-Ann quickly by one arm. “This is private
property and you are trespassing. I’m going to call the cops if you don’t march
out of here the way you came.”
I was motionless with fear.
Margaret-Ann began to cry. Long, noisy
sobs, not like anything I’d ever heard her do before.
“I’m s-s-sorry. I’m l-l-lost you see. We,
my maid and I (that rat was giving me away too!), we were going to have a l-l –
lovely spring picnic. It is a lovely day isn’t it? So we climbed into the hills
to see the view, and everything was just fine until I heard a strange sound.
Rather like a dry rattling noise. I looked down, and it was such a horrible
sight. A monstrous rattlesnake was right next to my maid’s feet! She appeared
doomed. However, I managed to save her by thinking quickly and throwing a
bottle of root-beer at the awful serpent, stunning it long enough to allow us
to leap away. We were so scared that we just ran and ran until we were lost.
And now we can’t find our way back, and we saw all these men here and hoped
someone would kindly give us directions back to Covina. Would someone here be
that neighborly p-p-please?”
Margaret-Ann
was sobbing and sniffling heartily, but her eyes kept flickering toward the
group of men, especially the one in a natty sweater who had an almost familiar
look about him.
“Where’s the other one of you then? Come on
out or I’ll send someone in after you.” The man clutched his gun menacingly
enough for me to believe him, so I crawled from my hiding place.
“Yes, that’s my maid. She’ll tell you
everything I said is true, won’t you Jane?”
What should I do? Some of the other men
from the group were beginning to look our way, including - and my heart began
to race on its own again - the one in the sweater. It still looked like it
might be Him.
“Um… well, yes. We — that is she, … she saw
the rattlesnake up in the hills and we ran like the dickens to get as far away
as possible…. and I whispered the words, “from the cows” very, very softly at
the end. That way it wasn’t really a lie. “And now we aren’t sure how to go
back home.” That part was definitely not a lie.
“Are you having problems Mr. Gardner?”
A very strong-looking young man came up and
keenly scanned the whole area. Margaret-Ann and I only merited a fleeting
glance.
“These two don’t appear to be much of a
threat to my client. But how did they get onto the property? The entrance gate is
still locked isn’t it?
“Yes, it is indeed,” answered Mr. Gardner
still holding onto Margaret-Ann’s arm. “But this one said they’d cut down the
hillside below Buzzard’s Peak while getting ‘lost’ on their picnic.”