Arriving in the pueblo, Jenna looked around. She could hardly believe her eyes. This is…was Los Angeles! Well, she thought, big things start small. And comparing past to present..no, present to future, was useless. There was no point to it. What she saw around her was real. And Jenna reminded herself that she had other matters to think about.
“Open the gate!” Sergeant Garcia yelled. The huge wooden gates opened, as if he had murmured “Open Sesame!” from the tales of “Arabian Nights”. The patrol of soldiers entered and began dismounting. This Corporal Reyes, who sat behind Jenna, stayed put until Sergeant took notice and asked, “Corporal, do you plan to sit on my horse all night, or have you suddenly become attached to him?” There was a certain degree of humorous sarcasm to his voice that made Jenna smile and almost laugh.
“Sergeant, do I get down first or let the Senorita down first?” Reyes asked.
“Never mind, Corporal,” Garcia replied, shaking his head in hopelessness. “Senorita, please, let me help you down.” Jenna nodded, smiling, and carefully swung her opposite leg over the horn of the saddle to allow Sgt. Garcia to assist her. Landing gently on her feet, Jenna curtsied and began walking away, waving.
Sgt. Garcia smiled broadly and waved back, nodding his head and said, “Adios!” then remembered himself. “Wait! Senorita, you cannot leave! I must see your papers!”
Garcia had been forced to run despite Jenna’s feminine walk, just to catch up to her. But he managed to stop her before she was able to slip through the gate to freedom. Gently taking her arm, Sgt. Garcia turned Jenna back across the cuartel towards a door that looked official.
Climbing the three steps, Garcia opened the door and motioned Jenna to enter. Whatever else his faults, Jenna thought, he had impeccable manners.
Before entering the office himself, Garcia glanced back and found Cpl. Reyes still on his horse. Shaking his head again, the Sergeant hollered, “Corporal Reyes! Get off of my horse! Or are you somehow stuck there!?” Jenna peeked back out to the grounds to see the exchange. These two men were as funny as Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello. At the same time, there seemed to be a friendly rapport between the two.
Jenna tapped the sergeant and motioned for him to watch. She picked up a small pebble and took aim. Corporal Reyes was on the ground before he knew what happened. Garcia let out a roar of laughter, as well as the other soldiers standing around. Still chuckling as they entered the office, Garcia held the chair for Jenna and she sat.
“Now, Senorita, may I see your papers, please?” he asked.
Jenna held her hands wide open, shook her head that she had none. The smile on Sgt. Garcia’s face faded into a serious frown. “No papers, Senorita? I am sorry, but without papers I will have to send you back to where you came from. Where did you come from, Senorita?”
“You’re toast!” Jenna said to herself. “Think fast!” She gestured ‘Here!’ She was from Los Angeles. That much was the truth.
“No, no, Senorita, there are no women in the army!” Garcia laughed lightly, having misunderstood her.
Jenna shook her head. She spied paper and a quill pen and grabbed them both. She began to write something, but the pen didn’t work. She licked the tip and tried again. Sergeant Garcia looked at her strangely, then pushed the ink at her. Success! “I am from Los Angeles” Jenna wrote.
“Los Angeles?” Sgt. Garcia blustered, “But I have never seen you before.” He looked Jenna up and down and grew a decibel quieter. “Trust me, I would have never forgotten a senorita such as yourself.” He sounded as if he never had any luck with the ladies. Jenna lowered her had and smiled. She recalled when Diego had called her ‘beautiful’. He made her feel beautiful. In fact, Jenna thought, Diego could make the homeliest girl feel beautiful. He was just so considerate.
“But Senorita, if you do not have papers, I am supposed to put you in my jail,” Sgt. Garcia said. At that, Jenna looked up in horror. Not even twenty-four hours in this “time zone” and she was already looking at jail time. And she hadn’t done anything. Technically, that is. Jenna looked pleadingly at the sergeant, willed some tears to her eyes, and gestured a ‘Why?’
“Senorita, por favor. You are lost, no papers, cannot speak…do you have money to stay at the inn?” Garcia asked, and at her answer of ‘No’, he continued, compassionately, “You are a stranger here and that is what we do when strangers have no money or papers. We offer them one of our jail cells to sleep in until we can send them back to wherever they came from.” He tried to make it sound like he was offering Jenna a five-star accommodation at the Ritz-Carlton, bless his heart.
But Jenna looked at him deflatedly. It didn’t seem fair to go to jail without committing a crime. This thing with identification papers…they were sticklers about, Jenna surmised. She figured it was military protocol and a safety precaution, but surely there were no wanted posters out for her neck.
Corporal Reyes seemed to wake up from his reverie. “Sergeant, can’t we ask the padre at the mission to offer her sanctuary?”
“The pad…” Sgt. Garcia was about to give Reyes a tongue-lashing but realized there was something to it. “Si, Corporal, that would be much better than putting such a lovely senorita in our stinking jail. I am so glad I thought of it.” He smiled with self-contentment.
This was almost too much comedy for Jenna. These two would easily make a fortune on a sitcom, if they were from her time. The two soldiers looked at her and she nodded in answer to their brainstorm. She put her hands together, as if in prayer, and nodded. Rather a cot in a church, than in jail. So this was how homeless shelters began, she thought.
Shortly after, Sergeant Garcia took Jenna to the mission and arranged shelter for her. She was to be allowed minimal freedom. Just walking around the pueblo were her restrictions and then she was to stay at the mission until it was decided what to do with her. It troubled the sergeant. Without knowing where she came from, and no papers, he couldn’t come up with any solution that seemed fair to inflict on such a lovely young senorita. Maybe it would eventually come to allowing her to be a peon, or a beggar. Or perhaps she would be able to stay in the pueblo if she married someone. The padre would welcome her to become a sister in the church. He would know of a convent for senoritas. Sergeant Garcia thought about it. Noooo, he thought. It would be such a waste of a beautiful woman. He had seen her spirit when she’d thrown the pebble at the horse that dislodged Corporal Reyes. She wouldn’t last in such a place.
Perhaps he would ask Don Diego the next day. But first he needed to meet the new comandante.
Chapter Five
Chapter Three
Table of Contents
