The King's Fifth (18 page)

"Easily," I said, not serious about the matter. "One bag after another."

"I watched the two men Tlascingo sent for the gold,"
Mendoza said. "I saw where they went. The doorway they entered. It is just beyond the place where the spring comes forth."

We crossed the plaza, stopping for a drink at the spring. But as we came to the storehouse Mendoza did not pause nor look through the doorway, though he let me know in a whisper which one it was.

"We will have a look on the way back," he said.

Leisurely we strolled to the far end of the plaza, past sheds where corn was stored and ground, a large open room in which several old women were weaving, where Zia and Father Francisco left us. Slowly we returned along the way we had come. The two young men still sat against the wall of our hut, apparently not watching us.

"Here it is," Mendoza said. "Walk to the spring and do not look back. I will be with you in a moment."

I did as I was told and by the time I reached the spring Mendoza overtook me.

"A small room," he said. "With no windows and only the one door. In the center of the room is a pile of gold, fine as dust, but no more than would fill a helmet or two."

"No bags?"

"None."

We drank again from the spring and then followed a well-worn path which led toward the lake.

"The floor is covered over with a sprinkling of gold," Mendoza said. "Which means that at some time the small pile was a large pile. Gold must have filled the storehouse."

We had reached a stone terrace that ran for a dozen
varus
along the marge of the lake. From it there was a fine view of a mesa below us and a half-circle of dark mountains beyond.

Mendoza said, "If Tlascingo's gold comes from far off, we could search a year and not find the place. But what if we camped on the mesa? Somewhere out of sight, where we could see anyone coming from the mountains or going to them? We might surprise Tlascingo's men with a load of gold. Or trail them to where it is being mined."

I heard most of what he said, but my thoughts were on the surpassing xene that lay before me. The mountains changing from purple to black. The clouds that rose above them lighted by the fires of sunset. The shadowed mesa rolling away in all directions. The city itself and the rock it was built upon afloat together in the sky, like a great ship.

Yet as Mendoza talked and I stood looking down at the beauty before me, wondering how I could capture it all in a map, I suddenly remembered the gold nugget, bigger than a chestnut, that I had found in Nexpan. And again, as it had before, the curious fever, the sickness seized me.

Mendoza was pointing northward. "About halfway between us and yonder tall peak you can see a stream," he said. "One bend of it where it makes a circle around a wooded hill. We could travel there by night, camp on the far side, and use the hill as a lookout."

"Tlascingo," I said, "is no fool. When we leave here he will have us followed, until we are well out of his country."

"Perhaps. It is the chance we take. But we have little
to lose. Here there is nothing for us, since we have only three cards and a piece of mirror to barter with."

"We have mules," I said. "Tlascingo would trade all the gold in his storehouse for a mule."

"It is against the King's law."

"The law forbids the sale or gift of a horse. It does not speak of mules."

"Are you certain?"

"Certain."

"Then, Estéban, you have an interesting idea. We will barter one mule for all the gold it can carry."

Reaching the end of the terrace, we turned to retrace our steps. For the first time I noticed that a lively spring poured forth from a cleft rock in the center of the terrace and fell tinkling into the lake from a stone in the shape of a serpent's mouth. Beside this figure was a low bench or platform carved of stone. From it steps led downward to the lake in winding, snakelike curves.

"Something takes place here," I said. "A ceremony."

Mendoza, deep in thought, did not answer.

The surface of the lake was smooth as a shield. At the far end, where the cliff dropped away into air, clouds were mirrored. Nearer at hand the water was clear and I could see small fish darting about. As I watched them I became aware that the water cast up an unusual light. It is a reflection of the evening sky, I thought. Yet when I looked closer I saw that the light came not from above but from below, from the very bottom of the lake.

I grasped Mendoza's arm. "Have you seen that color before? Under the water, there on the bottom."

Mendoza stared long into the depths of the lake, glanced at the sky and then back into the depths.

"I have seen it before," he said quietly.

"At Nexpan?"

"Yes, there. In the sand of the stream."

We looked at each other.

"It is the color of gold," I said.

"It
is
gold," Mendoza whispered. "The bottom of the lake is solid gold."

Darkness fell as we stood there speechless, staring into the depths of the lake. The startled cry of a waterfowl, the sound of a breaking twig brought us to our senses. We turned and hastily groped our way back along the path.

The plaza was ringed with evening fires. The smell of piñon smoke and roasting meat hung heavy in the air. The two young men were nowhere in sight. Through the doorway of our hut I could see Father Francisco and Zia sitting beside a small fire.

Mendoza stopped outside. "Tell the dear Father nothing," he said. "Speak no word of what we have beheld. And think with all your wits. While you are eating, think. Think also while you sleep. For there exists some way that we can dredge up that golden reef." His tongue trembled with excitement. "A thousand hundred-weight lies there beneath the water, waiting to be taken. But how? How? If only I had ten armed men. Or five!"

Our supper, brought by the young Indians, was plentiful, of deer meat in thick slabs, and parched cornmeal
mixed with deer fat, but Mendoza and I ate little. After the meal was over we walked outside.

"Have you thought of anything?" he asked.

"Of nothing," I answered. I did not speak what I really thought—that any plan to capture the gold was doomed to fail, and that it was madness to try. "Nothing," I repeated.

"You are one who observes things," he said. "The height of a mountain, the way a river runs, a bird's color. Tell me, how is the lake situated? Does it lie higher than the plaza and the city?"

"Four or five
varas
higher. Remember that we climbed a flight of steps to reach the terrace. And the terrace is only a
vara
above the surface of the lake."

"Therefore, the lake is not natural. It has been made by hand."

"Perhaps in the beginning there was a hollow place in the rock between the spring and the edge of the cliff, which is the higher of the two. Someone had the idea of making the lake larger, so they built a dam behind the spring and thus backed up the water."

"Then it is the terrace that serves as a dam."

"No," I said, "the dam is made of earth. There are small trees, bushes, and grass growing on it. The terrace is of rocks set together. A sort of capping to keep the earth from washing away."

"Now that you speak of it, I remember the trees and the grass. What is the thickness of the dam, do you say?"

"Six
varas.
"

"At the base of the dam?"

"There it might be thicker."

Mendoza asked no more questions as he stood there with his eyes on the lake, but I knew what he was thinking.

The lake formed by the earthen dam was a third the size of the whole city. If somehow the dam could be breached, the water would rush out, down upon the city in a roaring flood, sweeping everything before it, leaving the gold exposed.

The moon rose. It made a pathway across the lake.

"I have a plan," Mendoza said.

He did not need to tell me what it was.

I
N THE MORNING
I awakened to the sweet-sounding note of a horn. The horn blew again and I heard the murmur of voices, the shuffle of feet, and as I sat up saw a young Indian in the doorway, beckoning to me.

I shook Mendoza awake. Dressing hurriedly, we followed the Indian, one of the two young men who had sat outside our hut the day before, across the deserted plaza. Against the paling sky, on the terrace above the lake, stood a group of robed figures.

"A ceremony to the sun," Mendoza whispered.

"Different from Nexpan," I answered.

"Like the one in Peru," Mendoza said. "The one Torres talks about."

The Indian led the way along a path that circled the terrace and silently left us. We found ourselves among a growth of pines near the lakes edge, partly hidden yet with a good view of the terrace and the robed figures.

The cacique stood apart, beside the stone serpent from whose mouth water ran forth into the lake. He was naked except for a clout and a plumed headdress. Behind him
hovered retainers, and on both sides, filling the terrace were his subjects, the Indians of Tawhi.

The sun burst from the plain and, as at Nexpan, a cry of exultation rose from the crowd. From Torres and the word of travelers in the country of Peru, I had heard tales of a golden god, but to see him take shape there before our eyes was a magic I shall never forget.

Into gourds filled with glistening oil, retainers dipped their hands and ran them over Tlascingo's body and his face, even the bottoms of his feet. Other retainers stepped forward and with gourds, like giant salt cellars, sprinkled him over with fine dust, until he was a figure of gold, bright as the sun itself.

Tlascingo raised his arms to the east. While the crowd chanted, he went majestically down the steps and into the lake, far out, until only his face and plumed headdress could be seen above the water. There his retainers, who had followed at a distance, overtook him and washed his body free of gold. Then lifting the cacique, they threw a feathered cloak about his shoulders and triumphantly carried him back to the terrace.

"Thus," whispered Mendoza, "has come the gold that paves the lake. Through the centuries, from the bodies of countless caciques."

I doubt that he saw much of the ceremony. For whenever I glanced at him his eyes were turned to the dam, measuring its height and thickness and slope, fixing the whole thing in his mind. It was frightening to know and to see clearly by daylight, that his mad scheme was possible.

In mid-morning, Mendoza began to trade with the cacique. It did not last long. He made a show of bargaining, so as not to arouse suspicion, but by noon we were on our way down from the mountain. Before we left, Mendoza promised that he would return after two suns had gone.

"To the east," Mendoza said, "there are many Spaniards." This was said to warn the cacique that if he attacked our small band he would have to answer to an army. "From them I will get many things to trade. I will also bring with me, to the foot of your ladder if possible, one of our animals, a gentle one, which I will also trade for the gold it can carry on its back."

The cacique's face brightened. He pointed to the gilded cuirass that Mendoza wore. "The little house you live in," he said, "you will bring one of these, too?"

"Yes," said Mendoza and he stepped back, inviting the cacique to shoot an arrow at him, which the cacique did. As the arrow struck the armor and bounded harmlessly away, Mendoza said, "I will bring a little house like this one, an animal, and many things to barter. In two suns, I will bring them."

Mendoza had promised to return in two days because this was the time needed to make more pouches with which to transport the cacique's gold. In our winter camp we had killed deer and the hides we had cured and carried away with us, hoping to put them to good use.

At our hidden camp below, we now set to work on these hides, working from dawn until darkness and then by firelight. The pouches were sewn tight at the seams,
since the Tawhi gold was dustlike. They were made to hold an
arroba,
the weight Mendoza deemed one man could easily carry.

My part of the task I did without enthusiasm and therefore poorly. One of the bags I was finishing Mendoza took from me and held to the light.

"This will not hold dust," he said. "I doubt that it will hold rocks." He tossed it into my lap. "You do not like the making of bags?"

"I am not a wielder of thread and needle," I answered.

"Neither is Roa nor the others, but they do twice the work." A suspicious glint showed in his eyes. "Perhaps," he said, lowering his voice so that Father Francisco and Zia would not hear him, "there is another reason why you work slowly and what you do is bad. Is it that you are not pleased with my plan?"

"I am not pleased."

"Why?"

"Because it is dangerous."

"What,
señor,
is not dangerous? Have we not breakfasted on danger? Nooned and dined upon danger? Is not every moment lived in danger? You are no coward, though you are a young man of great timidity. There is a difference between the two. Tell me, you must have another reason."

"The plan is dangerous," I repeated. "To us and likewise to the Indians of Tawhi."

Mendoza laughed. He looked at Roa and Roa laughed, too.

"Our comrade worries about the Indians," he said.
"Let me tell him about Tlascingo. He owns a lake whose bottom is covered with gold. It is thicker than the thickest carpet. Thicker than the cobbles that pave the streets of Seville. We dig a hole through the dam. Out runs the water."

"You dig a hole in the dam?"

"A tunnel."

"You will drown in any tunnel you dig below the surface of the lake."

"Perhaps a trough, a channel across the terrace," Mendoza said. "Do you think this would be better?"

I did not answer.

"When the channel is dug," he said, "out runs the water."

"Where does the water run to?" I asked, as if I did not know.

"It runs across the plaza and through the houses, which have nothing in them except a few pots. It runs out and over the cliff."

"When the water runs across the plaza and through the houses, what happens to the people?"