[He picks up his glass and looks at it, amused.]

Now, of all the curious misdeeds and missteps of my youth—some less curious than others in a list by no means short at all—the most damnable, foolish thing I ever did was to offer up my good word and honor in—brace yourself, Dear Reader—a temperance pledge.

A TEMPERANCE PLEDGE!

[He throws back the rest of his drink. And pounds his empty glass down on the nearest available surface.]

[Wiping his mouth] Well, what can I say, Dear Reader? Temperance pledges were all the rage back in 1840 in Ohio and a couple of my older brothers had made them, the men at the Ohio Bar—ironically—looked well on them, and...I was young! I was foolish! I was impressionable! And I suppose I wasn't in need of a stiff drink just yet.

Reform movements had gripped the land! To be more precise, they had gripped the Northern half of the land. It was simply a part of the culture! Or, again, to be more precise (as precision is a most prized virtue in a guide), it was an indication of the lack of culture and a sure sign that I was better off elsewhere—at least in retrospect.

In any event, in 1843, I decided that, like the Constitution and American rule of law, my temperance pledge did not extend to California.

[He speaks as he makes himself a new drink, muddling sugar and limes with an incongruous ease that suits neither his white linen duster nor his tales of a youth spent in Ohio.]

Upon my arrival in California, I was welcomed by John Sutter himself! And that would be John Zooter to you. Perhaps I was afforded this honor as the first American lawyer ever to set foot in California: the place would never be the same.

Sutter wasn't a tall man, nor was he overbearing, nor outgoing, nor particularly charismatic, but New Helvetica—as he christened his fort—was his empire. He ruled it with his eyes, his vacant, Swiss-alpine-sky-blue, debt-forgetting, recklessly, helplessly American eyes—eyes that consumed everything they saw. Those eyes saw in California things that any eyes could see, but they saw them more clearly and they saw them first.

Furthermore, he spoke more and more directly than any other man I'd ever met—and he made his intent plain in easily half a dozen languages! German! English! Spanish! Miwok! Pauite! And, last, but certainly not least, French. I had never heard that language spoken by a European before. Surely, many of the fur-trappers and even some of the Indians knew the tongue, but this was something else entirely! John Sutter was an inveterate Francophile and the wines we drank I shall remember as long as I live! In Sutter's cellar, one might have forgotten the frontier entirely and be forgiven for thinking himself in some fantastical chateau on Lake Geneva!