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vegetables and the ever-present chiles. There was a great brown loaf of bread, still warm from the stone oven. The padre had brought mission olives and a small cask of the mission’swine, which was served in pitchers with the juice of lemons and oranges.
    The captain hadn’t eaten this richly in years. He sighed, cooed, growled, and hummed his delight with each mouthful until Doña Regina couldn’t help herself. She broke into a happy laugh. “ Capitán Carter!” she called. “You poor man! Have they starved you all across the great Pacific Ocean?”
    His jaw froze. He was shocked. He hadn’t noticed what noises he had been making. He was suddenly afraid he had offended his hosts, but Don Alejandro’s friendly chuckle encouraged him. He broke into rapid chatter and Stackpole translated.
    â€œThe capitán apologizes for his loud offense. A man who has eaten weevily biscuit and beef from a salt barrel for a year shouldn’t be allowed to dine with civilized company. He sadly admits that your delicious food has shown him to be a brute.”
    Don Alejandro broke into laughter. “Tell the capitán that such a brute may sit at my table any evening!” The don tore into a bite of goat and gave such a growl that everyone at the table laughed again. Then he said, “I worry only that you will give our dear cook, Estafina, an exaggerated view of herself. Estafina!” he called. “Estafina! Come!”
    Estafina appeared from the kitchen with a worried expression. The Boston captain rose from his place at the table. He bowed over her hand and kissed it, then grinned and said something that didn’t need translation: “Mmmmm!”
    Big Estafina blushed, dipped a girlish little curtsy, and disappeared back into the kitchen, giggling.
    As the dishes and the tablecloth were being taken away, Doña Regina rose. The men and boys stood for her. “Señores,” she said, “I will leave you to your coffee and cigars,” and she swept from the room.
    A silver pot of coffee appeared. Scar entered, carrying a polished cedar box of cigars, which he offered to the Bostonians and the padre. At a nod from Don Alejandro, he took a cigar himself and sat just behind the don, near the table. The boys could see that he was here for a reason.
    Diego and Bernardo got up to go, but the don motioned them to sit down. This was a change—being invited to sit with the men when they were about to talk some kind of business. But they were not offered cigars.
    The conversation went remarkably well, partly because Stackpole was a good translator, but also because Don Alejandro guided it deftly.
    He asked about the situation in Europe. The well-informed Captain Carter, speaking through Stackpole, described Napoleon’s attempts to bring Spain under his thumb. He explained the iron shackles of rules and punishments that kept the French tyrant in power.
    Stackpole continued: “The captain says that his countrymen, and especially Bostonians, are no great friend to despots of any kind. Nor are they—with the greatest respect for your views—great admirers of kings.”
    Don Alejandro nodded, puffing his cigar. “The capitán might be astonished to know how much I value independence and the rights of the people. True, I am sworn to be a soldier for the king of Spain. But not for Bonaparte.”
    When this was translated to Carter, the captain rapped on the tabletop with his knuckles, a kind of applause in agreement.
    â€œThese are strange times in our pueblo,” Don Alejandro continued, and the boys could sense that he was coming to his purpose, “hard times. Something or someone is taking our cattle. Good craftsmen are disappearing. Who will help us? Not Spain. With Napoleon’s war, Madrid is even farther from California than it was. We Californios are no longer the children ofSpain. Perhaps we will never be again.”
    More rapping of