Kirk blended with Ana Maria more from curiosity than the fear and confusion resulting from his time with Clara. In many ways Ana was like Emma, a young female in a family setting. Of the two Ana was the more childlike and rather lazy, never having had to do any real work. On the other hand she had a sense of fulfillment and determination as a mother that Emma never knew.

TWINS by Marie, Part 14 - Ana Maria
by Marie C.

One of the twins was screeching ‘til I couldn’t stand it anymore. You know how it is with two little ones. I dropped my sewing, picked up my skirts and stepped over to the fireplace where the two were playing on a deer hide rug. I was ready to commit child murder and of course when I got there it was nothing important. One had taken the other’s doll and the tug of war was just starting. I lifted both to my lap, raised my blouse and let them suckle.

Feeding quiets them and I always have plenty of milk. When they nurse I feel all warm and tingly and remember my nights with their father. Mama and abuelita, my grandmother, complain that the boys are too old to nurse. It will ruin their character if I keep letting them have their way like this, they say. I don’t care though. I like my angels just the way they are. They sleep in my room and sometimes in my bed.

During the day I like to dress them like girls. The king does that with his boys when they are little so why can’t I? Papa and abuelito, my grandfather, shake their heads, however they are too busy to care about women’s work. My babies are almost four.

Peter, their father, told me he was a count. He came to our rancho one day to buy cattle for Fortá­n Ruso, the Russian fort an overnight’s ride up the coast. Peter knew some Spanish, although I had to cover my mouth every time he spoke to keep from giggling. He sounded so funny. Mostly I couldn’t understand anything he said.

He was very handsome, tall with blond hair, blue eyes and a neatly trimmed beard. When he arrived that morning his eyes followed me all day and I confess I looked back. He crept into my bed sometime in the wee hours after everyone was asleep from drinking too much of his Russian vodka. I was only thirteen but well-developed just like mama was when she married papa. I got scared at first but Peter’s gentleness soon had me all calm. He whispered sweet things in Spanish and sometimes in his own language. At least I hope they were sweet! When he touched and kissed me in private places I got excited like never before.

It hurt a little when he entered me but I soon forgot about that. He got inside me several times that time and on one more exquisite night after that. For each of the days after I dragged around praying that papa and mama wouldn’t suspect anything. I had to wash some little spots of blood out of the bed clothes, but was ready to say it was just my monthly visitor. Nobody asked.

I worried what papa might do if he found out because he always said girls should protect their honor until they get married. I think he meant that I shouldn’t have done what I did with Peter. They didn’t find out, at least not right away, although mama kept looking at me in a funny way for the rest of the week.

Before Peter left he tied a gold ring around my neck carved with those funny Russian letters. He said it belonged to his father and had been in his family for hundreds of years. In his mixed-up Spanish he said he would come back in a year to marry me. I replied “Sá­, sá­, mi amor. Te espero por siempre.” That means “Yes, yes, my love. I will wait for you always.” I am very romantic. Peter’s sons are growing fast and I wonder if he is ever coming back.

I live in a large hillside adobe, part of Rancho Nicasio. Abuelito received the property as a reward from King Carlos of Spain. Abuelito came north all the way from Mexico with the expedition of Capitá¡n De Anza in 1776, chosen by the Capitá¡n because abuelito had survived two other hard expeditions just like it. Abuelita was by his side this time all the way from Mexico City. She said it was a difficult journey and they almost didn’t make it.

Sooner than expected abuelito got rich selling cattle, hides and tallow to Russians like Peter. Now English and Yankee whaling ships tie up in the large bay south of here and their officers come up here all the time to buy from us. They wink at me like Peter did.

Since the big revoluciá³n in Mexico five years ago Alta California has been on its own and the Californios are fed up. The missions in San Rafael and Yerba Buena (which abuelito calls San Francisco) are poor. Even the army’s Presidio is in ruins. Months ago my uncles and older brother rode off to Mexico City with a party from Monterey to get more money for the province. Papa thinks they’re on a fool’s errand. “We should make a deal with the Yankees,” he says.

When I started showing papa got real mad and rode to Fortá­n Ruso determined to avenge my honor. His party arrived and found that the Russians had a company of soldiers and a cannon. Papa’s men would have been no match.

The Russians didn’t want to fight anyhow because papa has the best livestock in the area. Shortly after papa arrived an officer came out and explained that Count Peter had already sailed to Kodiak Island and would not be back for a long time. He gave papa a letter in Russian and Spanish that Peter left just in case. It said he intended to come back and marry me. In it Peter apologized for any trouble that he may have caused. Later I showed papa Peter’s ring.

That satisfied papa’s honor especially since the boys were now sons of a count. So papa brought back the letter, bolts of beautiful silk and cotton from China for the women and seal skins to make into coats. When the twins were born papa and abuelito accepted them as family. Everyone forgot Peter except me.

Kirk blended with Ana Maria more from curiosity than the fear and confusion that came out of his time with Clara. In many ways Ana was like Emma, a young female in a family setting. Of the two Ana was the more childlike and rather lazy, never having had to do any real work. On the other hand she had a sense of fulfillment and determination as a mother that Emma never knew.

Breast-feeding was frightening at first as were Ana’s memories of lovemaking, pregnancy and childbirth, but over time Kirk came to enjoy nursing the twins. A feeling of softness and being needed gripped him every time like an addictive drug and whatever past worries came to mind about being a boy in girls’ clothes dissipated like mist when he helped Ana lift them to her breasts. He could have sat with Ana’s babies all day except that after a half hour he/Ana would run out of milk and the boys would get cranky.

Life in the adobes was more primitive than in the 1908 house. Whale oil and tallow used for lamps was smoky and smelly. Stoves and ovens were constructed out of flat stones and adobe. Fires had to be maintained during the day and banked at night by Indian servants.

Water was lugged uphill from the creek in leather buckets twice a week and poured into an adobe tank in the kitchen called a pila and into troughs for the animals and workmen. Although there was a small tributary creek with winter runoff papa’s search for an aqueduct route from the big creek had so far been fruitless.

Livestock were kept mainly in a large courtyard - horses, cattle, goats, chickens, dogs. The rancho had them all. There were all manner of wild animals in the district - bears, deer, pumas, coyotes, rabbits, squirrels, quail etc. Skins of every kind covered our walls.

Floors were made of redwood planks smoothed by the workmen, although all the outbuildings had dirt floors. Rooms were cold and drafty so that much of Ana’s wintertime was spent by the fireplace. Otherwise life was pleasant in the Rancho Nicasio adobes for a spoiled young woman and her even more pampered toddlers.

Women’s clothing was simpler and more practical. Ana wore colorful ankle length full skirts with two or three petticoats fastened by drawstrings. Blouses tended to be of the loose peasant type ornamented with embroidery, tucks and ruffles and shaped with colored drawstrings. Shawls and lace mantillas were kept in a redwood wardrobe.

She never wore underpants although she owned a pair of lace trimmed cotton pantaloons that her father got in trade from Capitá¡n Richardson down at Rancho Saucelito. Those she put on for the occasional district fandangos over at Misiá³n San Rafael. There was one garment stored in her cabinet that the English captain’s wife called stays. Ana didn’t understand what it was for except that it was somehow supposed to go around her middle and make her look thin. Other than that she wore small ballerina slippers and white cotton stockings held up with cloth tapes.

Kirk was horrified to see that Ana was not very clean by modern standards partly because water for bathing was scarce at the adobe and partly because it just wasn’t high on the list of things to do. Kirk’s attitudes and knowledge about women’s wear and behavior from the perspective of two future epochs was comprehensive, so he set out to be a mental version of Miss Carradine, that is to train Ana into being a proper young woman.

As with Emma he used the times when Ana was vague or uncertain or just daydreaming, pressing her to practice again and again if she strayed from Emma’s standards. Like Emma Ana didn’t know what to think about her little voice, but in time she firmly believed it came from the Santo Niá±o de Atocha to whom she prayed every day. Kirk made no attempt to have her think otherwise.

Under his prodding she gradually came to adopt a stricter health regimen including baths and hair brushing. She learned to use stale bread, salt and thread to clean her teeth and vegetable oil for her skin. He pushed her to wear the stays to bolster a waistline now saggy from childbirth. As he became comfortable with Ana both began to project the firmness and feminine self-confidence that Kirk and Emma had learned together and that Kirk/Darlene would carry for the rest of her life.

Ana matured under Kirk’s “guidance” and came to be more assertive, especially with her father who complained she was getting too uppity. For example she insisted on simple outhouses for “women only” instead of the women having to share the farmyard with ranch hands and livestock.

She surprised mama and abuelita by supervising house servants when either or both adult women were indisposed. In time she became the strictest of all in household management as mama and abuelita got older. At Kirk’s prodding she introduced occasional cane spankings to the Indian housemaids until they adopted practices he now believed were necessary to care for a large household.

Without Kirk’s encouragement Ana began regular inspections of ranch worker hovels and insisted to papa that their huts be warm and dry through the winter contrary to conditions present at the other ranchos. Much to her family’s disapproval she turned into a part-time Mother Teresa nursing the ill and injured workers and sometimes serving as an assistant midwife.

As the rancho’s reputation for good working conditions spread abuelito and papa were soon able to pick and choose from among the best of the native workers. Neither would admit that Ana’s efforts had anything to do with it.

Kirk’s, or Darlene’s, certainty in his own femininity grew as he/Ana became a person in her own right. Years later he remembered that his experiences in breast-feeding and dressing the boys were probably his most feminizing.