The Eternal World (18 page)

She must have been terrified. For him. He shoved down the guilt that came with the thought. He had to know how he was alive. He had to know the secret.

Despite the distance from their camp, things began to look familiar to him. There was a kind of fever-dream quality to his memories. He heard the sound of water, echoing. He knew that sound. He had been here before.

He saw the cave, and it came rushing back. The pain, the confusion, and the surrender to the inevitable. Then the appearance of an angel, who took all the pain and fear away with one drink of water.

He saw her footprints in the soft, damp earth and followed them into the cave.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom after the Florida sun, but the trail inside was worn and marked. He followed it, and a different kind of light began to emerge: a blue glow that grew stronger as he made his way deeper.

Simón was well below ground when he found the pool. Its eerie blue light glowed off the roof of the cave, casting weird shadows in the rock and along the walls. There was nothing but the sound of the small spring, which flowed up from the cracks in the earth, filling the pool.

Shako kneeled before the pool at a well-worn indentation. She said something in words that sounded nothing like the Uzita she’d already taught him. She took a bowl from a stack. It was richly decorated and covered in gold leaf—the only gold he’d seen in Florida so far.

She filled the bowl, muttered some more, and then stood and turned.

That’s when she saw him.

The bowl dropped from her hands.

The shock and betrayal on her face were so sharp he felt them like new arrows into his flesh.

With one part of his mind, he knew he had violated her and fouled the peace they had managed to create together, possibly destroying it forever.

But that barely mattered, as the rest of his mind understood what he had found.

“Mother of God,” he whispered. “Bimini.”

EVERY CONQUISTADOR KNEW THE
legends, ever since the stories Ponce de León brought back with him from Columbus’s second voyage. The stories told of a spring that gave water that could cure any illness, heal any wound, and possibly deliver life everlasting.

The waters were supposed to be located in Bimini, a place that ranked second only to El Dorado in its elusiveness. De León had named an island in the Bahamas after the legend, but no one seriously believed the waters actually existed, especially since de León died like any other man a few years later.

But the legend persisted. Even the hardened veterans on Simón’s expedition, like Narváez, still spoke with a wistful desire of the Bimini waters.

Simón never believed the stories. He thought fresh, clean water was rare enough. He didn’t need to believe in a magic elixir of life.

But he could not deny the evidence of his own eyes, and his own body.

This was the Fountain of Youth. Simón had discovered the greatest treasure the world would ever know.

All it took was betraying the only woman he’d ever loved.

SHE WOULD NOT TOUCH SIMÓN.

There was a new distance between them after they returned from the cave and the Fountain. They spoke. They still hunted and ate and lived side by side, but she never allowed him to get too close again.

He recognized, once more, how limited their vocabulary was, in both number and meaning. So much of what Simón and Shako had was encoded in touch, in a physical language of proximity and feeling. Without that closeness, he now felt as if he was trying to reach a faraway island by throwing stones at it, hurling one empty word after another.

She had explained, slowly, several times, until he finally understood. Her family was the Water Clan. They had been guardians of what he called Bimini as long as they had been here, generation after generation. While other chiefs of the Uzita were known for their strength, or their skill at war, or hunting, or fishing, the Water Clan was always the protector of the secret. They held the tribe’s knowledge, and they kept the legend safe.

The Water was a gift, to be used only sparingly, only on certain occasions. To use it too often, to violate the natural order of birth and life and death, was—she used the Spanish words here—the greatest possible sin known to man.

He could not imagine how that could be, and he could not get her to understand his bewilderment. This was a miracle, not a sin, he told her. He used the Spanish as well, since Uzita didn’t have either word.

She shook her head, and he felt the distance between them grow, even though she didn’t move. The Water was never supposed to be used selfishly. It gave too much, she said. Those who drank it and lived past their natural lives became corrupt, their souls rotting long before their bodies died. Corpses on the inside, wrapped in fresh skin and flawless beauty.

Simón pitied Shako then. Despite her greater-than-average intelligence, despite her obvious gift with languages, she was still a savage, mired in folklore and superstition. He tried to explain it to her as he would a child. The Water could preserve life, could end suffering and illness. It could be used by the right men, honorable men, to ensure that peace and justice reigned for everyone. A good king would not have to pass his empire on to a wayward or selfish son. Without the fear of death, wars would no longer need to be fought to protect territories and property. The best men could take this gift and use it to forge a new and better world. Surely she had to see that. Surely that was better than letting the Water stew in some forgotten cave next to a primitive swamp.

She did not see that. “You do not know,” she told him. “You have never seen it.” There were Uzita who’d fallen prey to the same vanity Simón was preaching. Even one of her ancestors, a great chief of the Water Clan, had not been able to resist the temptation. He lived for years past his natural lifespan. He did not grow wiser, even though he was stronger than any of the men and women who came after him. He didn’t make the clans any safer, even though he accumulated great wealth and power. He grew only more distant as the sons and daughters he’d had aged and died ahead of him. He severed himself from everything that made him who he was. Death became little more than a joke to him, and he spent the lives of the Uzita on foolish wars against other tribes and clans. Finally, he was exiled. He became a sinister figure, forever lurking near the tribe but no longer of it.

“A story told to children to get them to behave,” Simón said.

Her eyes grew cold. She stopped talking to him and went away to find someplace else to sleep. That was the last time they discussed it.

Simón considered begging for her forgiveness several times, but he didn’t believe he’d actually broken her faith. She could have told him about the Bimini waters. She didn’t have to keep it a secret from him. And he still believed he could convince her to let him use the Water for the greater good. She could lead him back to the expedition, and with the help of the other men, they could collect and bottle this marvelous resource and make a better world with it.

He didn’t want to leave her, however. Even if he lived a thousand years, Simón couldn’t imagine living it without her.

He would have to make her see the truth. It would take time. But that was not a problem.

They had nothing but time.

Until, one day, their time ran out.

SIMÓN WAS HUNTING A
raccoon—they made a surprisingly filling meal—when he heard a crashing in the brush. He hid behind a tree.

Shako had told him what to do if he ever saw another one of the Uzita, or any other Indian, without her: run.

He put his ego aside and listened, for once. Simón had never been a coward, but he remembered how swiftly his men were destroyed by the Uzita. He remembered almost dying. He didn’t want to repeat the experience. He had no armor and no weapon, save the makeshift knife Shako had given him. He could not expect to win if discovered by the Uzita warriors, and there was no guarantee Shako would use the Water to save him.

It wasn’t in him to run from a fight, however. So he watched from behind the tree, silently waiting.

Maximillian came stumbling out of the jungle, face red with exertion, boiling in his armor like a shrimp tossed into a pot.

For a moment, Simón was shocked. Did I ever look that sick, that pale? His skin was a deep brown now, tanned by the constant sun. He wore nothing but a breechcloth and sometimes his old tunic. His stomach was always full these days. And he hadn’t been sick since Shako gave him the Water.

Maximillian stood there, gasping and squinting at the sun, desperately trying to get his bearings.

For an instant, Simón considered letting Max go crashing and stumbling on his way, his armor rattling with every step. He was happy here. He could die here, and no one would ever know.

Something about that stuck in his throat, however. No one would ever know. He had traveled across the globe and it would not make a bit of difference. He might as well have died on his family’s bankrupt estate or at the hands of some Moor. The world would not be changed one bit by his passing. For some reason, he could not live with that.

Simón stepped from behind the tree. He almost laughed as Maximillian’s eyes went wide with shock and he fumbled to pull his sword from its sheath again.

“Max,” Simón said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s me.”

Recognition dawned slowly on Max’s face. His jaw dropped. And then Simón saw sheer joy overcome his stupor.

“Simón,” he said. “Mother of God. Look at you. I can’t believe it. We found you. We found you!”

He began yelling, and the others came crashing through the grass a few moments later. They grabbed him and embraced him, their armor hot and sharp against his bare skin, clapped him on the back, and laughed with joy.

His friends. They had never given up on him. They’d finally found him.

MAX. FRANCISCO. PEDRO. SEBASTIAN.
Antonio. Carlos. Even Juan Aznar, the shy little priest that they had befriended on the long ocean journey from Spain. They all came for him.

They’d gone to war against the Moors, as Simón had, and like him, they were too late to have acquired lands or titles from it. They were young and hungry for glory, and they became inseparable after they joined Narváez.

Until Narváez separated them. Simón had wanted to bring all of them along on his initial foray. Narváez had refused the request, saying that he needed experienced men to lead the fresh recruits. They had all seen battle before, even Aznar, who had served as a priest ministering to soldiers. Narváez would not risk them all on a single errand. In hindsight, Simón had to agree. If they’d come with him, they’d likely be as dead as every other man he’d led.

“We decided it was time to come looking for you,” Max said that night, as they sat around the campfire, eating the deer that Shako had killed earlier to feed them.

Simón’s friends tore into it as if they hadn’t seen meat for weeks. As it turned out, they had not.

The past several months had seen many changes in Narváez’s expedition, none of them good. Food was still scarce. The grueling heat made overland marching a slow, painful chore. The native tribes abandoned their villages before the conquistadors could arrive, and they took their food with them. Worst of all, there was no gold to be found anywhere.

“Narváez was probably glad to see us go,” Francisco said. “Fewer mouths to feed.”

They had not exactly asked permission for their search, either. They had simply left after another long day of fruitless foraging led them to the spot where Simón’s troops had been killed.

“I believe you dropped this,” Max said, holding up his helmet, now badly rusted and dented. “We followed the pieces of armor as far as we could.”

Shako had been watching silently, away from the men and the campfire. She did not share in their laughter, and for the most part, Simón’s friends simply ignored her or ordered her around. It seemed completely natural to them that Simón should have found a willing and obedient savage to cook and care for him.

To all of them except Aznar, anyway. When they returned to Simón and Shako’s camp, his eyes had gone wide with shock when he saw Shako there. He crossed himself repeatedly and hissed to Simón, “Who is that?” He muttered darkly to himself and gave her suspicious glances, sullen eyes darting back to her repeatedly, running up and down her bare legs. Now Shako wore the cloth that covered her breasts for the first time in several months. Aznar still glared.

The others were less obvious about it, but it clearly bothered them, too. Max was the one to finally bring up the question.

“So, Simón. When you come back with us, are you planning on bringing your new little wife?”

Everyone laughed but Aznar. And Shako.

They thought Shako did not understand Spanish. Neither Simón nor Shako had corrected them.

Simón didn’t know what to say. Until that moment, he had not even been sure he would return with the others. But he had to, didn’t he? He swore an oath to serve the crown and Narváez. He’d had a pleasant interlude. But it had to end sometime, didn’t it?

Simón wondered if he could really stay here. If he could send his friends away and spend the rest of his life with Shako. It might be a very long life, with the Water.

But that was insane, if he really thought it through. He couldn’t live here, any more than she could live with him in Spain. They were of two completely different worlds.

Simón looked at her. She was watching him carefully, to see what he’d say.

Before he could answer, Pedro spoke up. “What I want to know is, can she lead us to anything worth having in this godforsaken swamp?”

“What?”

“It’s a good question, Simón,” Max said. “Do her people have treasure? Food? At this point, anything would help.”

“I don’t know,” Simón said.

“You don’t know?” Max was incredulous. “What have you been doing all this time?”

Sebastian laughed. “Oh, I know what he’s been doing,” he said, and leered at Shako. “Perhaps she has sisters waiting for us.”

Shako turned sharply toward him, her sudden anger plain on her face.