The King's Fifth (22 page)

Mendoza took a step backward. He raised one arm to protect himself and at the same time reached for the dirk he carried strapped to his thigh.

With a swift lunge Tigre was upon him. The powerful jaws fastened upon his throat. Mendoza cried out once, as I ran for my crossbow. But by the time I had reached it and had strung the shaft, he lay quiet upon the ground and the big dog was bounding away toward a thicket.

There was nothing that we could do for our Captain.
He died without speaking to us, still grasping his dirk.

By firelight we dug a shallow grave and buried him, rolling heavy stones upon the grave against marauding beasts. Father Francisco said a prayer for his soul and we sat down by the fire. No one ate. The fire grew low. A half moon came up. From time to time the big dog howled from the thicket.

Father Francisco said, "In the morning we will dig yet another grave. This grave we will dig deeper than the first. Into it we shall put the gold and cover it well so that no man can find it, ever."

I did not answer him, thinking this is right, this is what we should do, with the first light of morning. But when the others lay down and fell asleep I rose and went to where the leather bags were piled together.

Light fell upon them from the moon. In the soft glow each bag shone forth like a block of gold, bright as the gold it held. I walked around them, counting each, changing the gold to
castellanos.
In my mind the coins took shape and stood there in rows that reached higher than my head. A duke's ransom, I thought, gained by toil, snatched from danger, at the awful cost of men's lives, to be buried in the earth and never found.

I went back and lay down by the fire. But as I closed my eyes I could still see the coins stacked one upon the other, row upon row. I slept feverishly and dreamed that I rode through the cobbled streets of Ronda, showering golden coins upon the throngs that followed me, from bags which were bottomless.

Long before dawn, with only firelight to see by, quietly
I began to load the mules. It was toilsome work, work for two men, yet soon after the sun rose the bags lay in their wooden saddles and the
conducta
was in line, ready to leave.

I went to Father Francisco. He was already awake.

"For an hour or more," he said, "I have been watching. And as I watched, I thought already he is like Mendoza, the stealthy movements, the way he takes each bag, as if it were a child he is holding."

"It is late," I said. "The sun grows hot."

"Soon, very soon, I thought, he will be Mendoza."

"By right of succession," I said, "I now command the
conducta.
Do you wish to stay with us or go to Háwikuh?"

In answer, Father Francisco hobbled off to wash at the stream. Zia, who knelt at the fire making corncakes, rose and looked at me.

"You may ride Blue Star," I said to her. When she showed no pleasure at this, I said, "Move along, the horse requires a saddle."

We broke camp and riding in Mendoza's place, I led the
conducta
toward the south.

Before we left I went to the thicket where the big dog had hidden. He lay with his head on his paws, looking out at me. I called his name but he did not move nor show by any sign that he knew my voice. I then held out a piece of deer meat, which we had not eaten. At this he growled and bared his teeth. In his eyes was the same wild look I had seen before.

I left Tigre there and mounted my horse and led the train out of camp. I thought that he might follow us, but
he did not move from the thicket as we rode by. It hurt me to leave him behind, for somehow, remembering that once he had been a friendly dog, I did not blame him for Mendoza's death.

When we came to the top of the rise I glanced back. Tigre had crawled out of his lair and now stood beside Mendoza's grave, a big gray figure with head raised, looking at us as we disappeared.

O
UR WAY AROUND
the high sierra was through groves of aspen and flowering meadows and streams fed by melting snow. In each meadow we came to, Father Francisco stopped to gather blooms. When we reached a break in the forest, which revealed the towering peaks above us, Zia wanted to stop and make a map.

"I will get the materials," she said, "and mix the colors. This morning I scraped the pots. I have a whole bag of soot to mix."

"We have no time for maps," I said.

"A small one?"

"Neither small nor large," I said. "We have a long way logo."

On the third day at evening we overtook a small band of Indians, camped at a spring. They had come into the north, we learned, to trade parrot feathers for blue and green turquoise and were returning to their home.

The chief wished to know what we carried in the leather bags.

I warned Zia against him, but she paid no heed. Opening one of the bags, she scooped up a handful of the dust, and held it out for him to see.

The chief walked away, showing no interest in the gold, and came back proudly with two pieces of turquoise, the color of the sky.

"For the white man who has only bags of dirt." As he gave me the turquoise he glanced at the matchlock. "What?" he asked, pointing.

Like Mendoza before me, I raised the weapon, fired at a sapling tree and as it splintered pushed the smoking musket toward him. Frightened, he refused to take it.

There were three women in the camp and only four men, yet I took care to camp at a distance and tethered the stock where it could be watched.

While we were eating supper, the chief came with one of his men. They sat for a time, silent, then the chief asked about the animals. My reply to him was the same Mendoza had given the chief of Tawhi, word by word. I hoped it would have the same effect.

After the chief left, Zia went to talk to the Indian women. She was gone a long time, but came back with nothing to say of what she had heard.

"Do they have good thoughts?" I asked her. "Will our animals be safe? Ourselves? The gold? Speak,
señorita.
These are things of importance." I was angry at her silence, her Indian silence. "I command the
conducta.
I wish to know."

We were standing beside the fire. Stooping, she placed a stick of wood on the coals, and rose to face me.

"Hearing your words," she said quietly, "I think it is
Captain Mendoza who has come back from his grave and is talking."

"One or the other, it does not matter which." Angrily I reached out and took her by the shoulders. "Speak!" I shouted.

She pulled away and ran to the far side of the fire.

I lowered my voice, lest I rouse Father Francisco who was asleep, and softened my words. "You have heard many things tonight, Zia, talking to the women. All I wish to know is this. Are we safe from attack? Should I sit all night on guard? Or can I sleep?"

"The Indians," she said, "do not want your gold, which they laugh at and think is worthless. Nor do they wish the animals. Nor your life. Nor mine. Nor the life of anyone."

She came around the fire and stood in front of me.

"Why are you like Captain Mendoza?" she said. "Why do you think all Indians are devils? Why is there fear in your heart?"

"We shall not attack them," I said. "But will they attack us? That is all I wish to know."

Walking into the dark, she did not answer.

I wanted to believe her, but caution gained the upper hand and I made a pallet near the gold, where I could keep a watch on it and the grazing animals. Only toward dawn did I sleep and then briefly.

Without Roa and Captain Mendoza, the loading of the bags was hard, though one of the Indians helped at the task. Father Francisco again urged me to bury the gold.

"When we meet Roa," he said, "the two of you can come back and dig it up."

"The gold we do not bury," I said.

The cacique stood with the other Indians, watching the bags as they were loaded. I wondered why they followed every move I made. When we were finished I asked him the direction to Háwikuh and the distance.

"Ten suns away," he said.

"How can it be so far?" I asked.

"There are other mountains, higher than you have passed," he said. "They lie between this spring and Háwikuh. It is necessary to make a journey around them. It will take twenty suns with the burden you carry."

The Indians made ready to leave, carrying their goods on a sort of sled drawn by two small dogs. I was saddling my horse when Zia came up behind me.

"These people are from a country near my home," she said. "They now go back to that country and I go with them."

I dropped the girth, not believing what I heard. "You cannot leave," I said. "We need you."

"You need no one," she said. "You are like the other, who needed no one."

"You have been with the
conducta
for most of a year," I said.

This had no effect upon her.

"Think, Zia, of all the maps we shall make together. There are many which we have not made. In Háwikuh, we shall make them."

"You will not make them in Háwikuh," she said, "nor
in any place. Never again, because now you have the gold."

"You will miss Blue Star," I said.

"Yes, very much," she answered.

"If you do not leave, you can have her to ride. Just as you did at Tawhi."

She hesitated, looking at me and again at the colt.

"You can have the best saddle," I said, seeing her uncertainty. "The one with the hawk's bells. I will also give you a pair of spurs."

She turned away from the colt and looked up at me. "I leave now," she said.

I knew then that I could not change her mind. Untethering the colt, I handed her the halter. "She is yours," I said. "It is against Cortés' decree, but so are many things. When you reach your home in Compostela, tell your friend the alcalde that someday I will visit his city and explain why the colt is yours."

I held out my hand and boosted her to Blue Star's back. There were tears in her eyes, as she tried to speak, but I gave the colt a slap and sent them off together. For a long time, while I stood there in the grass, I could hear the tinkling of the silver bells she wore on her corncake hat.

The Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa
Vera Cruz, in New Spain
The twelfth day of October
The year of our Lord's birth, 1541

T
ODAY THE TRIAL
begins late, because the wind blows and the boat from Vera Cruz has trouble reaching the fortress. I walk the cell back and forth, a hundred times. I stop and look through the window. I walk again, up and down. It is noon before Don Felipe comes to take me away.

Today in the courtroom there are two palm fans and two boys to pull at the ropes. Still it is sweltering hot. The judges sit in their black robes, with sweat shining on their gray foreheads.

I peer everywhere through the crowded room, as I take my seat. Zia is there, so Don Felipe has told me. She has been brought within the hour from Vera Cruz. But I fail to see her.

My counsel asks me questions, which I do not remember. There are remarks by the royal fiscal to the judges. These also I do not remember. I wait, aware of little that goes on, for the moment when Zia stands before the judges and takes the oath upon the cross.

The courtroom is quiet. I hear her before she comes into my view. It is the bells, the silver bells on the corncake hat, that I hear. They sound different here in the courtroom from the time long ago when I heard them in the Land of Cíbola. Yet I cannot mistake them.

She is somewhere behind me. I turn my head. A woman, wearing the hat of Nayarit, stands against the wall, but it is not Zia. She must be making her way through the crowd, though there is no sound of her steps, only the tinkle of the small bells. While I search for her behind me, she appears from another part of the courtroom and approaches the three judges.

She stands facing them, hands at her sides, in leather jacket and skirt and red-laced leggings, with long black hair lying on her shoulders, grown up yet still a girl.

After she swears upon the cross, the royal fiscal asks, "How long were you a member of Captain Mendoza's expedition?"

"Many months," she replies.

"From the summer of '40 to the spring of '41?"

"Yes."

"In that time did Captain Mendoza find a great treasure of gold?"

"Yes."

"In the City of Tawhi?"

"There at the bottom of a lake, which the people had."

"Of what dimension was this treasure?" Zia does not understand the word "dimension." "What was the size?" he asks. "How many bags were needed to hold the treasure?"

"Many."

"And many horses and mules to carry it?"

"Yes."

"When Captain Mendoza died, who took possession of the treasure?"

I lean forward in my seat. I glance at my counsel and catch his eye. He is surprised as I am that the fiscal has passed over the death of Captain Mendoza. Has the fiscal decided to drop the charge of murder against me? Has he already learned from Zia the truth of my innocence? Is it only the gold he is concerned with—if it were really found and in what quantities?