The Moor's Account (36 page)

Halfway through our assembly, Beaset sent his shaman away and took the vacant seat beside me. I want to try, he said. His smile confused me—I could not tell if it was friendly or mocking—and when he abruptly put his foot in my lap, I almost jumped. On his toes were a dozen warts, all of them hard to the touch and very brown. Can you make them go away? he asked me.

None of my mother's herbal treatments would have worked on warts, but when I was living with the Yguaces, I had seen the healer Chaubekwan cure a similarly afflicted child. Now, in imitation of Chaubekwan, I tied strings of yucca fiber on each toe and in my most confident voice I told the man that the warts would fall off on their own.

And it worked—the warts fell off in just three days. This time, I was not so surprised, because I had seen how a good cure, combined with just the right story and a little showmanship, could restore anyone's spirits. In payment for my services, Beaset gave me a very handsome satchel made out of a painted deer hide, a turquoise necklace, and three bone bracelets, all of them of very fine quality. These gifts I shared with my companions, just as they shared whatever they received with me. From the beginning, that had been our agreement: we would share all of our earnings.

I
N THE MORNING
, as my companions and I were packing up our belongings to return home, Beaset came to tell us that the Coachos had sent for us. I had already rolled up my black bear pelt and was trying to fit it into my leather satchel while, beside me, Oyomasot was tying up the bundle that contained our cooking pots and utensils. Kewaan and Tekotsen were folding the animal skins we used as bedclothes. A warm
wind blew, rattling the feather-and-bone vestment that had been used in a dancing ceremony the night before and that still hung on a pole nearby. And who are the Coachos? I asked.

Allies of mine, Beaset replied. Their cacique is married to my sister. It would be an honor for me if you visited them as well.

He put his hand on my shoulder, as though we were old friends. At the base of his neck was a small scar, which pulsated now with the beating of the blood in his jugular vein. I could not help wondering how Beaset had sustained this injury and, considering its position, how he had survived it. I know not where the Coachos live, I said.

These women can guide you, Beaset replied with a smile. He pointed at three women, who were sitting on their haunches some distance away, watching us.

There is no need for guides, I replied. I was so unsettled whenever I was near Beaset that I was eager to be away from him and his servants. I think, too, that I was irritated to be forced into another long visit away from home. We can find the Coachos' camp on our own, I said.

Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca did not mind this change in our plans, but Castillo reproached me. You should have consulted with me, he said.

Did you see the look on Beaset's face? I asked. How could I say no to him? If I acted quickly, it was only because I had no other choice.

The argument distracted all of us and after only two hours on the road, we realized that we had lost the trail. We found ourselves in a sandy stretch of land, as near a desert as we had seen in the new world, and we had no idea how to find a source of water. We wandered around for the rest of the day, all of us getting increasingly thirsty and nervous, until we noticed a hawk in the sky—we walked in the direction of its flight until we came across a spring.

There, we found the three Arbadao women, sitting on their haunches, as if they had been miraculously transported from their camp to this watering place. One of them, a large woman with a tattooed chin, began to refill our flasks for us, clicking her tongue at us as she did so. You should have waited for us, she said. You are not familiar with these parts and you will get lost. She continued scolding us for a while, telling us that she and her friends could have saved us a great deal of time and hapless searching. By then, everyone in our party was so tired that we all agreed to let the three Arbadao women guide us.

The Coachos lived in a village of nearly one hundred thatched-roof
dwellings, set against a chain of mountains. The village was on the other side of a wide river, which the three guides insisted on crossing ahead of us, in order to announce our arrival to the Coachos and to tell them about the cures we could perform. Their recommendations must have been strong because, by the time we shuttled across the river, a large crowd was already waiting for us. It seemed as if the entire village of the Coachos, sick and healthy, young and old, had come out to get a proper look at the exotic healers. We walked to the square under a cacophony of overlapping joy cries and hooting calls, and another banquet was given in our honor that night.

The shamans among the Coachos carried rattles—dried calabashes filled with pebbles—that they used in all their healing ceremonies. I had not seen calabashes since I had left Azemmur and, not having come across any fields in this area, I asked these shamans where they had obtained them. They said the gourds come to them from the gods: once every year, when the great river floods, the gourds travel downstream and wash out on the banks. By now, I knew better than to tell the medicine men that these gourds must have fallen from their vines and been carried down the water, for it would have seemed to them a great sacrilege and, in any case, these fruits, like their vines, and the river, and everything else around it, came from God. So I accepted the gift of a rattle, and added it to the growing array of medicinal herbs, dressings, and tools that I carried everywhere. Little by little, my cures were becoming more elaborate and, perhaps not unrelatedly, more convincing.

Because the Coacho village was larger than others we had visited as healers, there were more than eighty people waiting to see us. Dorantes began to complain about the amount of work there was to do, especially since some of the Indians were not ill at all; they only wanted to get a closer look at the foreign shamans, or to receive a blessing, or to ask a question. All I hear is their endless talk, Dorantes said. Can they just tell me what they want and save me all the chatter?

These complaints were discreet, spoken in Castilian, and only when the four of us were alone, for fear that our hosts might overhear them and doubt our talents. Our shared experiences made fellows and allies out of us. We always consulted with each other and never openly disagreed about cures, because we knew that our comfort—nay, our freedom—depended on our success. I came to feel that Dorantes, Castillo, and Cabeza de Vaca were men I could trust and that they trusted me in return.

•  •  •

W
ITH OUR VISIT
to the Coachos drawing to an end, we began, at long last, to make preparations to return to our homes with the Avavares. We stood side by side on the riverbank, trying to decide how many canoes we would need to carry us and the many gifts we had received across the river. Its water was dark and fast and, as I turned to say something, I noticed Cabeza de Vaca staring at it with a wistful look on his face. What troubles you? I asked him.

The Coachos told me that their neighbors want us to visit them, he replied.

We have to return home.

Why do we have to?

We cannot stay on the road forever. We live with the Avavares. That is our home now. We have wives and—

I have no wife.

Are you saying you want to travel from tribe to tribe like this?

It would not be a bad life, Cabeza de Vaca said. We would no longer need to worry about providing for ourselves, or fear for our safety among Indians, or be the subject of suspicious jokes or vicious taunts. If it involves traveling from tribe to tribe every few weeks, then that is a small price to pay for it.

Farther upriver, three women were washing animal skins. One of them raised up and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. Behind her, on the bank, a group of small children played in the dirt, rattles and marbles and scraps of deerskin scattered around them.

Dorantes had overheard my exchange with Cabeza de Vaca and now he came to stand between us. If we return to the Avavares, he said, we will have to return to our tasks sooner or later. Do you miss hunting? Do you miss picking prickly pears?

These things I did not miss, it was true, but I was surprised that both Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca had come upon the same idea all at once. Neither of them had been keen on the tasks that the Avavares imposed upon them, but it could not have been sheer coincidence that they both wanted to become itinerant healers. How long have you two been talking about this? I asked, suspicion burrowing into my mind. I signaled to Castillo to get closer. Listen to this, I said. I repeated what Cabeza de Vaca had suggested, expecting Castillo to share my disagreement, but he only cocked his head to the side.

Well, Castillo said, regardless of which tribe we live with, we will have to move camp every few weeks. If we go back to the Avavares, who is to say that they will not tire of us as the others have tired of us before? So it seems to me that the better course is to work as traveling healers with different tribes.

I could feel my resolve weakening in the face of their arguments. Our wives had noticed our council and, when they found out what we had been discussing, they offered their opinions. Both Tekotsen and Kewaan sided with their husbands; they wanted to travel on to the next tribe. The more experienced we became, they said, the more gifts we would receive, and the more our reputation would grow. Satosol agreed with them, too.

But do you not wish to return to your home? I asked.

Satosol looked beyond me at the Coachos' village. Hunters were returning to the camp, carrying deer and fowl, and a group of young girls were setting up the fires for the farewell banquet and dance that was being planned for us that night. Look, he said, opening his arm wide, in a gesture that took in the entire scene before us. You can have this every night.

It was a good life—there was no denying that. We were providing comfort and service to people who needed it; we all enjoyed the many gifts that were bestowed upon us; and everywhere we were treated with respect. Though Oyomasot had refrained from taking sides, I knew that she had especially loved the time we had spent away from home—out here, she did not have to listen to her mother's complaints about her many idiosyncracies. And as for me, having tasted the heady sweetness of fame, I found it hard to forget it. Greed, that dreadful monster, ate what remained of my resolve.

When it was finally time for us to leave their village, the Coachos gave the Arbadao women gifts of deerskins, and they returned home content, but now the Coachos, too, wanted to have their own guides escort us to the next village. This custom seemed to develop almost overnight and without our realizing it. It was at once a relief and a burden—a relief because we no longer needed to worry about finding a good spring or a place to camp while we traveled, but also a burden because the guides always expected gifts from the tribe to which they had brought us.

As we moved from tribe to tribe over the next few weeks, we tried to put a stop to this custom, by telling our guides that we did not need
their services. Once, I remember, we even left in the middle of the night, alerting only our families of our plans, but the guides caught up with us less than half a league away from where we had been camped. I think now that Satosol was encouraging the guides, for he thought that this way of traveling the land assured us an increasing fame—and increasingly large gifts. Dorantes tried to send Satosol back several times, but his wife, Tekotsen, would intervene and unfailingly prevail upon him to keep her brother with us. So we were powerless to put a stop to this custom.

B
UT ONE RESULT
of this new habit was that we received a warm welcome everywhere we went because the guides always preceded us, boasting of our talents. They began to call us the Children of the Sun, by which they meant that we were strangers from the east. The Children of the Sun had treated warts, sewn up wounds, or delivered a child whose mother had previously been cursed with stillborn babies. Over time, the name itself lent us greater power; it made us seem different from the local healers, more special, more successful. And the guides made our feats seem greater than they were: the Children of the Sun had raised a man from the dead or had returned to a lame woman the use of her hands. It was difficult to escape these elaborate tales, even though they were tales we had, unwittingly, helped start.

Over the next year, so many people wanted to join our traveling band that our numbers swelled from just twelve souls to twelve hundred. There came a moment when I realized that these new additions were no longer scouts or guides, but something else entirely—disciples and followers—and I grew worried. This will not turn out well, I said to Oyomasot one morning. All these people following us.

She had just come in from the river; her hair and face were still dripping with water. I pulled one of the blankets from the pile by the doorway and, standing up, wrapped it over her shoulders. You worry too much, she said, shaking her head. From her ears dangled new turquoise earrings.

Why should I not worry? This is dangerous, I said.

On the contrary, it is much safer to have so many people with us.

But can you not see that they all expect something? What will happen when I cannot deliver what they expect from me?

She slipped on a new garment, a dress with a fringed hemline that had been given to her as a gift, and began to wring what remained of the
water out of her hair. You always manage to give them what they want, she said.

What do I give them? Tell me.

When you listen to people talk about their ailments, you always give them hope that they will get better.

It had not troubled me that I was offering hope to the people. But now it came to me that I was wrong. It was one thing to console a dying man or a barren woman, but another to offer them hope against things that could not be healed. Hope was what disciples wanted. But I was not a prophet and I had no need for disciples. Yet the look of admiration in my wife's eyes silenced my worry. How long will this last, I wondered.