The Seven Serpents Trilogy (7 page)

Guzmán called to the dog. It came leaping back and sat at his side, its bloody tongue hanging out.

When the chieftain's body was gathered up, shrill cries came from the jungle, followed as the day waned by a chorus of bitter lamentation.

My mission, I was aware, had come to an end. I would be blamed for Guzmán's brutal act. No preach ing of mine nor stories nor songs would win back the In dians' trust. I had much to think about that night.

 

T
WO DAYS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE CACIQUE
A
YO, THE
S
ANTA
Margarita
sailed in from Hispaniola. Don Luis came ashore as soon as the caravel dropped anchor, dressed in polished boots, a new red-lined cloak, and a leather hat with a long green feather. From his wide smile and jaunty walk I judged that he had been successful in his request for a grant to Isla del Oro. But such was not the case.

“We were too late by a month,” he confessed. “A Señor Olivares, brother-in-law of the governor, is now outfitting a caravel in Hispaniola and will arrive here any day to take possession of the island.”

“This means,” said Guzmán, “that we lose no time moving the gold to the ship. And work all day and by torchlight to dig as much more as we can.”

He then gave Don Luis his own bad news, an account of the Caribs' attack, the refusal of Ayo to help at a mo ment when his help was needed, why he had been com pelled to kill Ayo, and how the whole village thereupon had fled into the jungle.

The three of us were walking toward the horses, which stood waiting on the beach. Don Luis stopped and threw up his hands.

“How do we mine gold without Indians?” he shouted.

“We find them and bring them back,” said Guzmán.

“I've planned things out, pending your return. We need some of the
Santa Margarita's
crew and all the soldiers. We should leave today.”

“In what direction? Where did they flee, these runaways?”

“One didn't flee in time. I have this one bound to a tree. Already I have some information.”

Guzmán paused to give his fist a meaningful turn. “Before the hour is gone I'll extract more.”

I was silent through all of this, as I had been at Ayo's needless death. I knew that anything I said to Guzmán would be ignored. I felt it wiser to wait until I was alone with Don Luis and had a chance of being heard, at least to vent my anger, whatever the outcome. The chance came in a few moments.

As Guzmán strode off to wring more information from the Indian he had bound to a tree, I spoke to Don Luis, saying first that I was glad he had returned. I told him I was outraged at the murder of my friend Ayo. I told him that Guzmán had done things in his absence that only a brutal man would do.

“My efforts to win over the Indians to our Christian faith,” I said, “he has undone. He has worked them so hard, night and day, that they no longer have the strength or even the desire to hear my words. I've lost all that I gained when you were here.”

“Yes, the Indians work hard, but don't forget the cost of the caravel
Santa Margarita.
More than forty thou sand pesos. Provisions, five thousand. Not to mention thousands for captain and crew, servants, soldiers, bowmen, cannoneers, and so forth, which I've paid and con tinue to pay.”

The jungle steamed around us. Don Luis paused to wipe his brow.

“First,” he said, “we think of our empty coffers. It won't be long until we are settled on our new island. I heard in Hispaniola that it's a place of surpassing beauty. I'll build there a chapel with many bells and erect a great golden cross for all the Indians to see and wonder at. Be patient, Julián—you'll save many souls.”

To this moment in my life I'd had the childish habit of swallowing, like a hungry troutlet, most promises that were offered to me so long as they were seasoned with flattery.

“I've been patient and it has served me ill,” I said. “The chapel with many bells and a golden cross would mock me, for I am a seminarian, not a priest, as I have said before. I wish to return to the village of Arroyo and my school. I am heartsick because of what has hap pened here.”

Don Luis squinted. “Ships don't sail every day for the village of Arroyo.”

“Then the first that does sail.”

“Patience, Julián. You'll still live to be a bishop.” He reached in his cloak. “By the way, here's something that I got for you in Hispaniola. It's been blessed by the bishop, by Bishop Zurriaga himself.”

He handed me a beautiful rosary of gold beads and a cross encrusted with black pearls.

 

B
Y NOON
S
EÑOR
G
UZMÁN HAD COLLECTED HIS BAND, SIX IN ALL, AS
well as the lone Indian who knew where his tribe had hidden in the past and where they were apt to hide now, and Esteban, our translator. At the last minute, though he thoroughly mistrusted me, Guzmán decided that I should also go along.

Don Luis and I were standing at the head of the la goon, watching members of the crew empty the store house. He had decided to move the gold onto the
Santa Margarita
in case the camp was overrun by the Caribs. There was danger in this, because the ruffian crew could take it into their heads to sail off with the treasure while we were ashore. But it seemed to be less than the danger from marauding Caribs. There was another and more important reason as well. The
encomendero
who now owned the island might appear and, finding the shed overflowing with gold, rightfully claim it.

Señor Guzmán came up with his band. “We need you,” he said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “The savages will believe what you tell them.”

“And what will that be?”

“Say that the Caribs have been vanquished, so it's safe to return to their village.”

“The Caribs haven't been vanquished,” I replied.

Guzmán went on as if I hadn't spoken.

“Say we regret that it was necessary to do away with the cacique.”

“It was not necessary.”

“I gave him fair warning.”

“Why should you warn him? It's his island and his people. Why should you order him to do anything? You are not a king.”

Guzmán's mottled face grew pale.

Don Luis said, “We need the men and the women also. We can't mine without them.”

Guzmán swallowed hard but went on, “Say that we forgive them for running away. That we'll share the gold they mine; share and share alike.”

“You're a friend. They'll listen to you,” Don Luis said.

“I have nothing to tell them.”

“Say what Guzmán has told you to tell them.”

“I would have trouble speaking the words.”

“Then say that we need them.” He was growing im patient. “Go. Every moment counts.”

I did not move.

“You want the Indians back as much as I do.”

I spoke slowly so that there would be no doubt about what I was saying. “The truth is, sir, I don't wish them back. I wish them to stay where they are. Wherever it is, they are far better off than here.”

Guzmán held in his hand the musket he had used upon the Caribs. He glanced at Don Luis, as if asking his permission to use it at that moment upon me. He had large white teeth, and his drawn-back lips showed that they were clamped tight together.

The young Indian who had given him information about the tribe's whereabouts was watching. He sat huddled on the ground. Around his neck from ear to ear I saw that he bore a thin red welt.

I listened in silence as Don Luis repeated his request.

“You are a member of this expedition,” he said. “I, Don Luis de Arroyo, Duke de Cantavara y Llorente, am its leader. I have asked you to accompany us on a mis sion of great importance. You give me evasive answers.”

“What makes you think that our Indians will return to their village if only I speak to them? They have been worked close to death. Some, close to a dozen, have died. Many more have sickened from hard work. And now their chieftain has been cruelly slain. They trust neither you nor Guzmán. They shouldn't trust
me
.”

“But they do trust you.”

“That, sir, is the point. They trust me, and I will not betray them.”

Don Luis smiled, a cold twisting of his lips. “I have always found you a reasonable young man, too serious perhaps, yet upon the whole, of a temperate disposition and not a fool. But this is both intemperate and foolish. You'll bring needless trouble upon yourself.”

“As I said and do believe, the tribe is better off in hid ing, wherever that may be.”

“This is your answer?”

“Yes, sir.”

In dismay, Don Luis removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “You shall regret this disloyalty,” he said. “You shall. You shall.”

Señor Guzmán had brought a long coil of rope from the caravel, which I presumed he planned to use to tie up the Indians, should he capture any and they proved unruly. With his sword Don Luis hacked off a length of the rope. Calling to a soldier, he had him bind my hands behind me.

“Escort this young man to the
Santa Margarita
,” he said. “Give him over to Captain Roa with instructions to place him in my cabin and see that he remains there.”

I was marched thereupon to the beach, loaded into the longboat, and rowed to the caravel, where Don Luis's instructions were carried out to the letter.

I was familiar with Don Luis's cabin, having spent part of every evening there since the beginning of the voyage. Besides a chart table, used for dining, and two chairs bolted tight to the flooring, there was a small sofa, which I had never had the pleasure of using. In the aft bulwark was a large window with thick glass, very old and scratched inside and out. Through it I had a view of the beach, both arms of the bay, and when the caravel turned with the tide, a glimpse of the open sea.

I stood looking out through the hazy glass, watching the longboat return to the lagoon, while I surveyed my problems. At the moment they seemed fairly simple. I couldn't blame Don Luis for my plight, since, as owner of the
Santa Margarita
and leader of the expedition, his fortunes rested upon the blind loyalty of those he com manded. Neither could I blame myself for refusing to obey an order that I felt would betray people who had befriended me.

As for the present, it would be fairly comfortable here in the owner's cabin, bound up though I was. The fu ture? Cloudy. Not hopeless, however. With luck I would find myself on board a caravel bound back to Spain, to Arroyo, and my studies. More than likely Don Luis would be glad to rid himself of my company, of a re minder that he once had had a conscience.

Afternoon clouds piled up and the sky turned black. Then a streak of light broke through and suddenly fell through the window upon the opposite bulwark, placing upon it a crude semblance of a cross. Blinded by what I saw, hastily I got to my knees and said a long prayer of thankfulness and contrition.

But the cross faded away. I was left with an uneasy feeling of unhappiness. The idea that I would be freed and in time find the way home to my village now seemed hollow. The truth was, I'd failed. It was not my fault, perhaps, yet I hadn't done what I had come to the New World to do. I couldn't think of a single person, of one savage soul I had brought to a belief in Christ. Yes, I had failed, and the knowledge of my failure unsettled me.

It came on to thunder. Forked lightning rent the clouds. Rain fell straight down, as it had done every af ternoon since we had come to the island.

I wondered how Guzmán and his band were faring. If they brought back the Indians, whether as captives or of their own free will, I would ask for another chance to go among them and speak Christ's message, which in its majesty was meant for all the earth's oppressed, they among them.

 

T
HE STORM BLEW AWAY
. T
HE WINDOW WAS BLURRED WITH RAIN, BUT
I made out our longboat as it left the lagoon and crossed the bay toward us. It sat low in the water, loaded as it was with a heavy cargo. Two men rowed and one sat in the bow.

The latter, I presumed, was Don Luis, but the man turned out to be a middle-aged Sevillano, Alberto Barrios by name. We had been on friendly terms from the first, when he had come to me about a problem he was having with a girl from Cádiz whom he had known for five years yet couldn't make up his mind about marry ing. I knew nothing about marriage or girls, especially girls from Cádiz, but I was good at listening, which, as it developed, was all that he really wanted of me.

Barrios was one of the few members of our crew who could be trusted, and so Don Luis had put him in charge of moving the gold. It was stored in baskets with two long handles, which made it possible for several men at once to lift the heavy loads. Gold is very heavy. A piece one-and-a-half spans in all dimensions—a cube, in other words—weighs close upon a ton. The work, therefore, went slowly and took up the rest of the afternoon.

At nightfall I heard steps outside the door, and a fig ure came in, holding a lantern and a plate of food. The plate was set down in front of me, and by the glow of the lantern I recognized Alberto Barrios.

“I heard you were on board,” he said. “Tied up like a chicken.”

“Where's Don Luis?”

“With Guzmán. They marched off with the soldiers and both the dogs soon after you were put aboard. Went up the stream, and about an hour after they left I heard the dogs barking and a musket shot. But no news came back, at least while I was at the lagoon.”

Barrios had been caught stealing an anchor and sent to prison for ten years, where he served two years be fore being released by Their Majesties to join our expedition.

“How much gold came aboard?” I asked him, out of curiosity.

“We weighed everything with care, except the small stuff. One nugget came in at sixty libras. And it wasn't larger than your fist. Another, about the size of a small squash, weighed 620 libras. Altogether, we weighed more than four thousand. And mind you, it's pure gold. Soft. You can make a dent in it with your thumbnail. There are two more loads as big as the first. We'll handle them tomorrow, providing the sea stays calm. And don't forget that a libra of gold is worth nine hundred pesos.”