The King's Fifth Page 8

  It was this last argument which, I think, weighed with him the most, for he held Cortés in high esteem.

  On the morning we left, Zia came to my tent with a gift of farewell. She handed me a deerskin case, soft and beautifully sewn.

  "This is for your maps and paints," she said. "And for the thing you look at the sun with."

  There was sadness in her eyes, but she tried to smile. I thanked her and said, "Do you wish to go with us?"

  She tried to speak.

  "Then go and talk to Captain Mendoza," I told her. "He wants you to come. He thinks you are the best guide in all of New Spain."

  Without a word, she ran skipping and jumping toward the Captain's tent.

  At noon we rode out from Háwikuh.

  The sun shone on helmets and breastplates. Roa beat on his drum and Zuñiga played his flute. Torres carried a yellow pennon that fluttered in the wind. Father Francisco carried his small wooden cross. Hooves and tinkling hawk bells made a merry sound.

  In the lead on the blue roan rode Captain Mendoza. He sat erect in his high, Spanish saddle, elegant in scarlet doublet and buff-colored jackboots, shining cuirass and gilded morion. At his heels trotted Tigre, the big gray dog, which he had bought for a peso.

  Zia walked behind him, not minding the dust, as close to the foal as she could. I wondered whether it was the colors we would magically mix and the maps we would draw from them, or this black little beast that had lured her to go with us, when well she might have remained with Coronado, the great Captain-General. It was neither one nor the other, as I was to learn, but late.

  Zuñiga, Roa and I rode next. Father Francisco and Torres brought up the rear, Torres leading four good horses and eight sturdy mules.

  We passed through the crowded camp. Señora Hozes again put her fingers in her ears at the sounds our musicians drew from drum and flute. Watchers wished us good fortune. One or two gave tongue to unseemly taunts.

  The taunts did not disturb me. Tied to my saddle, in the deerskin case Zia had made for me, were my maps, supplies, and cross-staff. The sound of rowel and bell and hoofbeat quickened my blood. Far off rose mysterious mountains, watching over a land no map maker had yet set eyes upon. Already a map began to take shape in my mind. It would be the first map ever drawn of Háwikuh and this country to the north, one which the printers of Seville and Madrid would marvel at.

  "It will be black and gold," I shouted to Zia. "With a red windrose."

  She knew what I meant. "A beautiful one," she called back.

  The Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa

  Vera Cruz, in New Spain

  The sixth day of October

  The year of our Lord's birth, 1541

  COUNSEL GAMBOA comes to my cell early in the morning, his third visit in as many days, and his fourth since the last session of the trial. At that time we decided to give the notes, when they arrived from Mexico City, to the Audiencia. My decision to do so was based on the belief that no one, even a skilled cartographer, could make head or tail of them.

  "They have not come," I tell him, "though Don Felipe expects them today or tomorrow."

  Counsel Gamboa looks more frayed than usual. I hope that from this trial, which must be his first, he will gain a reputation and some ducats.

  "It would be better today," he says. "But I can explain."

  "With the notes, what will be my sentence?" I ask him. This has been much on my mind.

  Gamboa is thinking and it takes him time to reply. "Five years, possibly."

  "Without them?"

  "As I said before, it could be as much as fifteen years. As little as ten. But here in San Juan ten would be like fifty years elsewhere."

  "Yes, you have told me this," I answer. "I had forgotten."

  We climb the stairs together, Don Felipe at our heels, and cross the esplanade. Before we reach the courtroom, Counsel Gamboa says, "If the royal fiscal asks you to describe the size of the treasure—in all likelihood he will not, for an excellent reason, but if he does—what do you plan to say?"

  "The truth, as I remember it."

  Under his breath, Counsel Gamboa says, "What is the truth?"

  I am about to reply, but we have reached the door of the courtroom, and as I begin, Don Felipe steps between us and gives me a gentle shove through the doorway.

  The courtroom is filled with a throng of the curious. They stand three rows deep around two sides and the back of the room. It is very hot. The three judges sit with their robes pulled up to their knees, to catch what air there is. In their black robes trimmed with fur, and their wigs which are worn well back from their foreheads, they remind me of the three black zopilotes perched on the ruined walls of Red House, the morning we marched away to Háwikuh. It is not a good omen.

  I am shown to a bench and there I sit for a long time while Counsel Gamboa talks to the royal fiscal. The fiscal seems to be in a pleasant mood, for he smiles now and then, and once even laughs. Again I am called to swear upon the cross, which I solemnly do.

  The first question surprises me.

  "This hoard of gold," the fiscal says, "which you have hidden, and by so doing have defrauded the King of his royal fifth, this treasure is of what size?"

  "It was never weighed," I answer.

  "Gold is heavy," he says. "How was it carried?"

  "By pack train."

  "Horses?"

  "Horses and mules."

  "How many of each?"

  "Eight mules and four horses."

  "Twelve animals carried how many pounds?"

  "I do not know."

  "How many pounds does one animal carry?"

  "A horse, two hundred. A mule, three hundred."

  "Each animal was loaded with all the gold it could carry?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The lips of the royal fiscal move soundlessly, adding figures in his head. Everyone at the table is adding figures, as well as my counsel. The clerks use their quills. I am certain that Don Felipe, standing quietly behind me, is adding figures—everyone in the chamber, for that matter, even the three judges.

  "The treasure train," the fiscal says at last, "consisted of some sixty thousand onzas of gold?"

  Silence falls upon the courtroom. It is so quiet I hear the breaking of waves against the fortress walls. Everyone is now changing onzas into gold castellanos or double doubloons.

  The royal fiscal repeats his question.

  "The gold was never weighed," I answer.

  "But if it had been weighed, the amount would approach the sum of sixty thousand onzas?"

  "More, sir, or less."

  The fiscal walks to a table and drinks from a small pitcher.

  "You have testified," he says, "that this treasure was in the form of fine dust. How was it contained?"

  "In leather bags."

  "And when you hid the treasure, it was of course in the leather bags?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And where you hid the gold, the place, is shown in the notes which will be presented to the Royal Audiencia?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who was with you when the treasure was hidden?" the fiscal asks.

  "I was alone."

  "How many were in the party before the gold was hidden?"

  I name them one by one, beginning with Captain Mendoza.

  "There were five, including yourself?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The royal fiscal turns his back, walks to where the three judges are seated, and talks to them in a low voice, about what I do not know. When he again faces me, after a long interval, he asks me only a few questions and the session ends. The questions are so foolish that I have forgotten them, though they may turn up later to my discomfort, you never can be certain.

  Back in my cell, Don Felipe looks at me in silence. At last he says, speaking with difficulty, "Sixty thousand onzas. Of gold! Think of it!"

  I say nothing and suddenly, struck by suspicion, he draws near and thrusts out his cudgel-like chin.

  "You spoke the truth to
the Royal Audiencia?" he demands. "The hoard is of that enormity? Twelve animals were needed to transport it? Sixty thousand gold onzas?"

  "The truth," I answer.

  This does not satisfy him.

  "There are prisoners," he says, "who have confessed to crimes, heinous ones, which they did not commit. They have confessed simply because they thought to gain importance in the eyes of the world."

  From his neck he takes a silver cross and holds it out to me.

  "Swear before Mary, the Virgin, that you have spoken the truth."

  This I do, to his satisfaction. Yet there is still something that worries him. He strides up and down the cell, three steps forward, three steps back. The cell is too small to stride in. I wonder if he himself has ever been imprisoned in this fortress, for the walking back and forth is the mark of one who was once a prisoner.

  "The notes will arrive today," he says, "today or tomorrow. When they do, they will be given to me. By the messenger whom I sent, who is in my pay. They will be given to me first, not to the Royal Audiencia. I will then give them to you and from them you will draw the map of Cíbola, the hiding place of the treasure. When this is done, and only then, will I release them to the Audiencia. Do you understand?"

  I nod, though determined that the map shall be no more complete than the notes from which it is drawn.

  The hour is now too late for visitors. My quill is sharp and I have a new supply of paper, thanks to Don Felipe. Beyond the barred window the star glows in the west. The trial continues tomorrow, whether the notes arrive or not. But perhaps I will have time to write down the details of our journey to Nexpan, City of the Abyss, and of the stream we found there, which was strewn with gold.

  13

  TWELVE DAYS FROM HÁWIKUH, the last day through heavy stands of pine and spruce, we came near evening to a break in the forest. In the distance rose a series of cliffs, at the same height we were traveling, scarlet-tinted and oddly shaped, like spires, terraced walls, and battlements.

  Captain Mendoza reined in his horse. "Hola!" he shouted, "the scarlet cliffs!"

  He need not have shouted, for we all saw. Throughout the day, every league we traveled, we had looked for the scarlet cliffs, the sign that marked the location of Nexpan, City of the Abyss. Or so Captain Mendoza had been told by the cacique of the sixth village of the six villages near Háwikuh.

  At the foot of the cliffs, the chieftain had said, wound a mighty river. And near the river, at a place marked by three pinnacles (here, according to Roa, the chieftain had made three marks on the ground) was a large city, which could be reached by following a stream that ran into the river.

  The chieftain said nothing about the presence of gold in the city. It was for this reason that Mendoza believed him, this alone, and decided to make the journey.

  "Where is the river?" Zuñiga asked.

  "Below the cliffs," said Torres. "Where you cannot see it."

  "What if there is no river?" Zuñiga asked.

  "Or no city,"Roa said.

  "Then we return to Háwikuh," I answered.

  "Though we find the city," Roa said, "will it not be another like Red House?"

  "Or like Háwikuh," Zuñiga said. "Where we fight with few against many."

  Father Francisco, gathering things among the trees, said nothing. Nor did Mendoza, but he led us on toward the scarlet cliffs where the last light hung.

  The cliffs retreated, or seemed to, then the light died and darkness gathered among the trees. As we were about to halt for the night, a small wind sprang up. It smelled not of pines but of mizquitl bushes and open spaces.

  My horse pricked up its ears, and at the head of the column, Mendoza's roan suddenly neighed. It was a warning, a sound of fear, which chilled my blood and brought us all to a halt.

  I sprang to the ground but held onto the reins. Fighting the heavy Spanish bit, the roan neighed again. Father Francisco hobbled past me in the darkness and I followed, leaving my horse. I came to a flat place, a rock ledge. The sky was lighter than the earth and against it I saw Francisco standing with arms outstretched.

  "A chasm," he cried, "an abyss bigger than half the world."

  I groped my way to him across the ledge. Below us lay blackness, fold upon fold, deep and endless. From it a warm breeze welled upward, as if the earth itself were breathing.

  The others came and stood beside us. Roa found a stone, which he threw out into the darkness, and we waited for it to strike. Second followed second and we heard nothing. Then, far and faint, a sound, a rustle like a leaf falling, drifted up from below.

  "Holy Mother," someone whispered.

  One by one we silently crept back into the trees, away from the Abyss. We tethered the animals and ate supper and lay down, but few of us slept. At daybreak we went to the ledge where we had stood the night before.

  There we found a rampart of rock, shaped like a great sickle. Below its rim, as if sheared off in one mighty stroke, the rampart fell downward for more than a league. At its foot was a wide bench covered with stones that had fallen from above. A pine which grew there seemed no larger than a bush. Many leagues away, at the eastern boundaries of the Abyss, stood the scarlet cliffs we had seen at dusk.

  For a long time, no one spoke. Then Mendoza raised his sword, claiming all that lay before us in the name of His Cesarean Majesty, Charles the Fifth. Father Francisco planted the cross and we knelt beside it and thanked God who at the last moment had snatched us back from death.

  Yet, for all our good fortune, we were faced with a hard decision.

  Should we go northward, along the rampart, or to the south, hoping to find a way into the Abyss? In both directions the rampart curved away beyond sight. Should we turn back and retrace our steps to Háwikuh? Our first amazement gone, our thankfulness forgotten, we stood beside the cross and lamented our fate.

  Mendoza said, "The chieftain is a liar of great proportions. May he roast in hell."

  "Indians everywhere are liars," Roa said, "from the Province of Panamá to Háwikuh."

  "May they roast in the fires," Zuñiga said.

  "But the scarlet cliffs are there," Father Francisco replied, "as the chieftain said."

  "So is the Abyss," Mendoza answered, "of which he did not speak. And where, dear Father, is the river which he did speak of?"

  Zia had left us to wander along the rampart. As she stopped to toss a rock into the air, I heard her call. She was always finding something that interested her but no one else, so she called again before I went to where she stood, hopping from one foot to the other.

  "Look," she said and pointed toward the bottom of the Abyss. "There, by the small hill of yellow stone."

  I looked, saw the hill, and nothing else.

  She pulled my head down. "Look where I point."

  I looked again, grew dizzy with looking, but at last made out a strip of green. "Grass," I said and turned away.

  "Not grass," she cried, pulling me back. "See, it is water. Water that runs. A river!"

  I looked anew and found the hill of yellow stone, the strip of green no larger than my hand. I saw that it was not grass but a bend of shore, and on both sides of it was white sand.

  "Do you see?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "A river?"

  "A river," I said, "a mighty one."

  14

  WE SPENT A DAY in search of a path into the Abyss. Forming two parties, Mendoza sent one south along the rampart, the other to the north, in the hope that if there were a city beside the river its people would have a trail by which to go up and down.

  No trail was found nor footprints, save those of deer and mountain lion. But we did find a shallow crevice, overgrown by wind-bent pine, that wound downward along the stony face of the rampart. This we decided to try, there being no other choice.

  The animals, including the big gray dog, were left in the care of Torres. Food was taken for eight days.

  "If we are not back by the eighth day," Captain Mendoza said, "return to Háw
ikuh for help."

  "While you are gone," Torres replied, "I will search for abetter path to the river."

  "Remain here and search for nothing," Mendoza said. "If time grows heavy, spend it on Tigre. He progresses, but he is still more lamb than tiger."

  "You will not know him when you return," Torres said.

  Experience gained in the fearsome Gorge of Sonora helped us greatly. Before the sun was a lance high, we had descended deep along the crevice, scrambling from one tree to another. This crevice led to a second, then to a ledge from which we could see the cross and Torres waving from the rampart.

  By a series of such crevices, which were like steep ladders, we reached a bench covered with bushes, heavy with berries bitter to the taste.

  It was now afternoon and since clouds hid the sky and portended rain, we made camp. From branches and brush we made a good shelter and were safe within before the first thunder rolled.

  Rain fell until dusk. Around us water ran, hanging from the ramparts above in silver threads. The sky cleared and through the clear air we saw a different stretch of the river. It was off to the south, but so far below that it looked like the coils of a green serpent.

  By nightfall we had explored the bench, finding that on two sides it was an unbroken scarp. To the east, however, the rock had broken away and formed a fan-shaped slope. At dawn, with much difficulty, we descended this slope and came to a second bench.

  Here there were no pines, only sparse-leaved bush, similar to those in the Valley of Hearts. Here Zia found a shell, half buried in the earth, the size of my fist and fluted. It was like those she had picked up around the lagoon on the Sea of Cortés. It puzzled me how a shell could be in this place, so far from the sea. And it puzzles me still.

  Next afternoon, having traveled the morning down a tortuous steep, we came to sand dunes and the river.