Captive Spirit (9 page)

Jorge, still silent, did the same, and resorted to only sideways glances as he splashed water into his mouth. I wondered why I made him so nervous. Of the three men, I felt most comfortable with him, perhaps because he reminded me of Onawa. I wondered if I could trust him. Could he be a friend, too?

“Are you from Spain, too?” I asked him carefully.

His body stiffened. “Yes,” he said, his eyes darting away from mine. He threaded loose strands of his straight black hair behind his ears, more so as something to do with his hands.

I paused, drank another handful of water, and then said. “What’s it like? Spain?”

Jorge inhaled deeply and then sighed. He looked across the stream at the cottonwood trees that lined the edges. “It’s not like here.”

“Then what’s it like?”

Jorge shrugged his shoulder. He didn’t answer.

I swallowed. Quietly, I said, “Do you miss your village?”

He turned to me and nodded. In the clearness of his eyes, I could see that he told the truth.

Tentatively, I said, “I miss my village, too.”

But my words made Jorge nervous, uncomfortable. He rose from the water’s edge and dusted off the front of his pants. Suddenly he behaved as if he’d rather be anywhere than beside me. He stuffed his hands in his front pockets and started scanning the other side of the stream, the cliff, the sky—anything but me.

I sighed inwardly. We were strangers again and I wondered if maybe that’s all people from different villages can ever be.

I bent over the water and stared at my reflection. I brought my hand to my cheek. My face had thinned. My hair was frizzy around my face and I ran wet fingers through it, detangling some of the knots. I sat back on my knees, surrounded by the water pouches, and then scanned the river for fish. Fish as long as my forearm and the colors of the rainbow darted underneath the water, sometimes crashing into each other as they navigated the rocks. I smiled again. Catching a fish in this river would be easy. But I would need to make myself a spear.

Jorge walked behind a nearby tree, close enough to keep an eye on me but far enough away for some privacy. He loosened his pants and I instinctively looked the other way. Anxiously, my eyes scanned the ground for a suitable stick, one that would be as long as my arm and no thicker than my thumb. It would serve as a spear.

And a weapon.

I would sharpen the tip with a flat river rock. Diego wouldn’t mind, as long as it caught fish.

Across the stream, I stared at a wall of trees. The water’s edge was thick with them, all different sizes and shades of green. Some grew like deformed arms out of the side of the cliff. Finding a suitable stick would be as easy as spearing a juicy fish. As my eyes scanned for the perfect stick, something bright caught my eye in the midst of all the green. Just for a moment, it also caught a sliver of late afternoon sunlight. I blinked then rubbed my eyes. At first I thought it was a bird, maybe a dove.

I squinted and then rubbed my tired eyes again.

It wasn’t a bird. Or a feather. Or even a leaf.

It dangled from a single tree branch across the river, eye level with me. If I wanted to, I could step across the larger rocks in the water and pluck it like a berry.

But I didn’t. I didn’t dare.

That’s because dangling from a bright green tree branch was one of the white shells from my necklace. The same one I tied to another tree in another place. What else could it be?

More importantly, how did my shell find its way all the way up this endless mountain?

I couldn’t break my eyes away from the shell.

I’d almost forgotten the small, half-filled water pouch that I left sitting alongside the stream. At the last minute, when I was certain Jorge wasn’t looking, I slipped it down the front of my dress, hoping my tightened belt would keep it from falling down to my feet when I walked.

My heart raced as Jorge and I walked back to where Alfonso and Diego began to unpack their deerskin sacks. My mind spun with all of the possibilities, none of which made sense.

How did my shell find its way to a tree branch?

Who put it there? A bird? There were flocks of black birds the size of jack rabbits with yellow beady eyes darting above us. Certainly any one of them could carry a shell, but all this way?

And what about Diego? Would Diego be so cruel as to give me false hope? Did he find the shell from where I left it? Would Alfonso?

My hands and fingers trembled as I dug a hole for the fire, knowing that someone from my village—maybe even someone from my family—could be sharing the same air.

I should have been concentrating on rubbing the fire sticks between my hands but my eyes refused to stop scanning the forest surrounding me. Breathing had become difficult; concentration, practically impossible. My hands turned clammy. The sticks kept dropping into the hole.

“What’s taking so long with the fire?” Diego asked. His tone was unusually curt. I wondered, too late, whether Jorge had told him about our conversation by the stream.

I lowered my eyes to the fire sticks and willed myself to concentrate. After blowing on my hands, I began to rub the sticks. One stick rubbed against the other while lying flat inside the freshly dug hole. Lobo sat beside me, his tail thumping expectantly against the cold ground. It kept perfect time with the beating near my temples. Lobo sniffed around my belt for more dried meat. Finding none, his snout dropped to his paws. Seems I couldn’t please anyone, not even a wolf.

“The wood must be too wet,” I said, hoping that the anxiety in my voice went unnoticed. When I couldn’t produce even the slightest glow with my sticks, I swallowed, pulled back my shoulders, and coaxed my heartbeat to slow. And then with my head lowered, I tried again. And again. The third time, mostly from exhaustion, my fingers didn’t tremble as much.

Alfonso grunted over me, predictably, and Diego sighed. “Guess I’ll go catch some fish,” he said, kicking a rock with the tip of his boot, just as the tip of my stick began to smolder.

Thank you, Hunab Ku
, I murmured to myself. “If you’ll wait, I’ll come with you,” I said just as the dried leaves inside the hole began to burn from the heat of my sticks. I sat back on my heels and stared up at him. Feeling bolder, I pretended to smile.

That pleased him.

“I’ll wait,” Diego said, his voice returning to his normally bright tone, along with a glow in his eyes that burned my cheeks. Lowering my eyes to the fire, I stoked the leaves with a longer stick, just until I was certain the fire would spread inside the hole. I filled it with enough dry leaves and twigs to keep it burning till our return.

Diego extended his hand to help me up but I didn’t reach for it. This amused Alfonso—the first time I’d heard him utter anything besides a grunt or threat. Ignoring them both, I began to walk toward the stream. I could hear the water before I saw it.

It wouldn’t take long to spear a fish. More importantly, I was determined to see my white shell again and make sure that my empty stomach wasn’t playing tricks on me.

Diego and I walked in the direction where Jorge and I filled the water pouches. The wind hadn’t had time to cover our footprints in the soft sand.

“What will we require, then?” Diego asked me, nudging my shoulder with his. His playfulness surprised me. And it made me feel uncomfortable, especially when I was certain he had eaten fish before. What kind of man does not know how to spear a fish? “Shall we fish with our hands?” he teased.

Instinctively, I took one step away from him and continued walking along the edge, pretending to survey the water. The closer to the stream, the louder my voice became. “I only need a stick. A long one will do.”

“A thick one?”

I lifted my hands to indicate the thickness. “Like this,” I said. “Thinner is better.”

He extended his arms and motioned to the trees that surrounded us. “That should be easy.” His face lifted toward the treetops. They towered over us like giants. He stopped and then walked to a tree with branches that were thick and heavy with green and golden leaves. Most of the tree arched into the water. Its trunk was as white as the sand.

“How about this one?” he asked, motioning to a low branch.

I shook my head and then swallowed. “No. I saw sturdier ones over here,” I lied, nodding vaguely in the opposite direction. “Those branches look too soft.” I pointed to the spot where Jorge and I filled the pouches. We were still too far for me to see the shell and the sky was fading from purple to black. If I wanted my shell, I would need to cross the river.

I continued to walk determinedly and Diego loped alongside of me, his arms waving against his sides.

“Okay, Aiyana,” he said. “As you wish.” He was enjoying this, our time alone.

My jaw clenched as I tried not to think about it.

When we reached the other end of the stream, the sun had almost completely disappeared behind the trees. I didn’t have much time before the forest would be completely black.

I picked up sticks lying in the sand, turning them over in my hands, pretending to study their thickness, their weight. But what I was really doing was squinting across the stream at the trees. The wind had almost completely died down and the branches barely moved.

Alongside me, Diego reached down to examine several suitable sticks. “This one?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

“This?” he picked up another. Then another.

Finally, I mumbled, “Yes,” as I nodded at the newest stick in his hand. “That will do.”

Diego bent lower to remove a knife from inside of his boot that was almost as long as his calf. It was sharp and silver with a shiny handle that looked like polished stone. Another tool I’d never seen.

Whistling, Diego began to whittle. His thick fingers were strangely agile. He carved and scraped the tip of the wooden spear as if he were a master carver like Eyota. Before I could ask him where he learned—or how he made his knife—he handed me the long, pointy stick and said, “Now, we can fish.” He handed me the spear.

“Yes,” I said, admiring it. “Now we fish.”

I examined the tip and touched it with my finger. It was still warm from Diego’s blade. It would make a fine weapon.

Without a word, I untied the rabbit skins around my feet and carefully placed them on the dry sand away from the water. Then I picked up the spear and walked right into the stream, aware that Diego’s eyes never stopped watching me. The intensity of his gaze was not easy to ignore.
Do women not fish in his village?
I wondered.

My toes curled instantly from the cold as soon as I waded into the water. I balanced across the rocks till I reached halfway across the stream, trying to avoid the slippery ones. The water splashed over the rocks and the fish scattered as my feet waded through them.

“Aiyana!” Diego yelled over water. “Before it gets too dark!” He pointed to the sky.

I turned to him and nodded. It would be so easy to keep on walking across the water and claim my shell. But run where? The other side of the river only led higher up the unending mountain. And all that I had was a sharpened stick and a small pouch of water hidden in my deerskin that wouldn’t last me more than three moonrises. I needed more.

I needed a smarter plan.

And where was my white shell? I looked from Diego and then back to the trees again, frantic. The shell was missing and suddenly I wondered if I had ever seen it at all.

“A fish!” Diego yelled impatiently, his hands cupped around his mouth. “The men are hungry. I’m hungry. We all must eat soon!” His voice competed with the rush of the water.

My eyes turned from the trees to the water and in one, quick motion, I thrust my stick into the water. When I lifted it, a glistening fish as long as my forearm flapped on the end. I turned to show Diego, swallowing back my tears.

Diego clapped.

As I waded closer to Diego, I thought I saw branches rustle out of the corner of my eyes, except there was no wind. The tree that rustled was the same one that held my white shell. I was certain of it. Almost certain.

***

When Diego and I returned to the fire, there were three fat fish hanging from my spear, pierced down their middles.

Diego removed the heads with his knife, slicing open their bellies to reveal pink and white skin. Their insides glistened as much as their outsides. Without having been told, I laid two of the fish inside the cooking pot as Alfonso and Diego tended to the horses. The pot rested on rocks inside the fire. The fish began to sizzle almost immediately and the oily aromas watered my mouth.

On another rock inside the fire, someone—I presumed Jorge—laid out five agave leaves. I recognized the pale green stalks immediately and drew back an excited breath.

Why had Jorge been so helpful? Were the agave leaves a message? Or was he simply hungry?

At least there was something growing in the World Beyond that I recognized, something that could sustain me for the journey home, and perhaps Jorge had meant for me to understand that. I could eat the agave roasted or raw, if I had to. I could suck its leaves for water. The discovery energized me.

I resumed cooking the fish, feeling lighter.

I peeled back the agave husk and ground a pinch of the skin with my fingers. Then I added it to the pot to sweeten the fish, exactly as Gaho taught me. I placed two of the longest leaves in the fire and waited for them to roast.

“Where did you find this?” I asked Jorge with mock disinterest, touching one of the leaves so that he’d understand me. The ends hadn’t even begun to curl in the fire. From the other side of the fire, Jorge looked up at me with expectant eyes while his fingers fiddled with the holes of his flute. I knew he had been watching me cook; I knew he heard my words. He understood.

But Jorge said nothing, although he nodded over his shoulder to a wide patch of thick trees. Then he returned to his flute, his eyes studying me when he thought I didn’t notice.

Good
, I thought to myself.
If there is one plant that I can eat then there must be more.

When Jorge examined the holes in his flute, I stuffed the smallest agave behind my belt and tightened the cord. Lobo sat beside me again, his eyes darting between me and the fire as he panted. While the fish cooked in the pot, I broke off a boneless corner, blew on it, and then offered the chunk to Lobo. He accepted the piece hungrily, licking the oils on each of my fingers in the process, before rising to hunt for something more substantial.

By the time Diego and Alfonso returned, the two fish in the pot were ready. I sprinkled them with more roasted agave and dried meat. The men ate the fish, barely pausing between bites. Small bits of white fish stuck to their beards. I tried to ignore them as they slurped the remaining morsels between their fingers. I would eat part of the third fish, the last one to be cooked. If none of the men finished it, I planned to stuff it down my dress along with my deerskin water pouch.

Then it was Diego’s turn to watch me cook.

He sat back against one of the deerskin sacks, one hand on his belly. I kept my eyes focused over the pot, ignoring him. “You cook as well as you fish,” he said, dragging his other hand over his mouth. “I’m impressed. How old are you?”

I pretended not to understand.

“Age?” he prodded.

“Sixteen harvests,” I said in my most disinterested voice.

But Diego laughed, as if I’d just said something funny. Beside him, Jorge began to play his flute. I was grateful for the distraction.

“And who taught you to cook? The same person who taught you to fish?” Diego’s eyebrow arched curiously.

I shook my head. “No.”

He leaned forward. “Who taught you to fish?”

“My friend,” was all that I would tell him.

He chuckled. “Does your friend have a name?” he teased again in that voice that said we shared a familiarity with each other. We shared nothing.

I sat back on my heels and tentatively raised my eyes to him. It felt strange sharing details about my village, my world—even my best friend—with a captor. I wouldn’t do it. My life belonged to me, not Diego. “I should take this pot to the river and clean it,” I said, avoiding more questions. I rose to my feet, eager for distance between us, and started for the river.

But Diego grabbed my wrist just as I was about to pass. His hand was rough like the rope against my skin. “This time don’t go far, Aiyana,” he said as his grip tightened. Before he released me, he whistled for Lobo. Lobo came barreling from the forest, his tail wagging, his tongue dangling sideways out of his mouth. “Follow,” Diego ordered. Lobo sprinted to my side and accompanied me down to the stream.

The half-moon that glowed between the treetops provided enough light for me to reach the water without stumbling. The moon twinkled in the water’s reflection. The closer I got to the water, the softer Jorge’s flute became, although I was certain that Diego’s eyes still tracked me, even through the darkness. The way he looked at me tightened my stomach in knots. And it was getting worse, not better.

I had to get away from him—from all of them. Soon.

Kneeling in the sand beside the water, I removed the rest of the fish from the cooking pot and wrapped it in agave leaves. There was only enough left for one more meal. That was all I needed. I stuffed it down the front of my dress beside the water pouch, and then I cupped the cold water in my hand, drinking it greedily, before splashing it over my face. My body shuddered from the shock.

“Aiyana!” Diego yelled. His voice, like Jorge’s flute, was small in the distance and muffled by the water’s roar. “Aiyana!” Like a snare that wouldn’t release, his voice fell over me.