The Moor's Account (39 page)

With these niceties out of the way, Díaz asked us who was our leader. Cabeza de Vaca stepped forward and said he was the surviving member with the highest rank. In the flowery language he knew so well, he thanked the alcalde for his warm welcome and for extending his hospitality to us. Then he offered gratitude to God for having led him to this outpost of the empire, where he could once again speak his native language and enjoy the companionship of civilized men, and where he might yet again serve His Holy Imperial Majesty. And now, he said, I would like to ask for your assistance in the matter of the Indians who accompany us.

As he listened to Cabeza de Vaca's relation of our dispute, Díaz stroked the ends of his mustache, twisting them in thick half-moons. Then he shook his head sadly. I must apologize for the behavior of Alcaraz, he said. I have told the settlers that the province of Nueva Galicia is losing all its Indians and that we cannot survive as a town if they keep selling slaves to the capital. We need our Indians here to till the land. But as you can see, we are here at the farther reaches of the empire, and it seems some of the men have trouble retaining the logic that is the privilege of their race, as well as the good manners our society requires of them. You must not trouble yourself with this matter any longer; I will have it taken care of presently.

Alcaraz stepped forward, but Díaz held up his palm as if to say he would hear nothing more about the matter. Then he ordered one of his deputies to take us to our quarters, where servants would be waiting for us.

I knew it, Cabeza de Vaca said as soon as we rounded the corner; I knew that the alcalde would understand.

But as we reached the bend in the road, we noticed that the soldiers had put all of our Indian followers in what looked like a horse run across from the garrison; the tents were being set up. This is probably the only
place where they can accommodate them, Cabeza de Vaca said out loud, in answer to a question no one had asked, but all of us had thought.

We continued past the horse run to Culiacán's Indian settlement, where several dwellings had been assigned to us. I found Oyomasot unpacking our bundles and preparing our bedding, thick blankets that we used for winter nights. No sooner was I alone with her than I reported to her all the arguments with Díaz about our followers. Silently, she closed the door of our lodge and leaned back against it, as if she could not trust it to remain shut. Listen, she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I do not trust this chief. We should warn the people to leave.

I shook my head. I warned them already and yet they want to follow. We should never have allowed this custom to develop. I told you about this last year. I said that no good would come from having so many followers. There was a tone of blame in my voice that I was powerless to stop. My guilt, which had been bubbling inside me for a while, erupted now, its hot embers burning the person closest to me, the woman dearer to me than myself.

From somewhere far away came the sound of a trumpet, announcing dinner at the garrison. A horse clopped in the distance, then came to a sudden stop. Dogs barked.

Calmly, Oyomasot said: The people refuse to leave because you have never given them reason to fear. But perhaps they will heed your warning if I speak to them instead. I will tell them to leave the city.

But how will you speak to them without attracting the soldiers' notice?

She put her hand on my arm. I will speak to the women and they will pass the story on to all the others.

Be careful.

It was without hesitation that she left the house and disappeared into the night, charged with a mission in which I had already failed.

I
N THE MORNING
, Dorantes, Castillo, Cabeza de Vaca, and I were called to the alcalde's office. On our way there, we stopped by the horse run to visit the Indians. They told us that, having heeded Oyomasot's warning, two families had tried to leave a little before sunrise, but they had been caught by one of the soldiers and returned to the horse run. This had caused a great commotion among the people. But Cabeza de Vaca repeated all the assurances that the alcalde mayor had given him
and promised to ask why the soldiers had prevented the Indians from leaving.

We went straight to the alcalde's office. Díaz greeted my three companions as if they were old friends, getting up from his desk and embracing them, and then nodding in my direction. I have just received a message from Nuño de Guzmán, he said. The governor of the province, I mean. He is very eager to meet you and to hear your amazing story for himself. Are you well rested? When might you be able to undertake the journey to the capital?

Soon, Cabeza de Vaca said. First, I must ask about the Indians. A dozen of them wanted to leave this morning. Why did your soldiers prevent them?

I know not, Señor Cabeza de Vaca. I will have to investigate.

But your soldiers stopped them from leaving.

I will have to hear from the soldiers first. I am sure you agree that we cannot know what truly happened until we have talked to the soldiers? Or do you now take the Indians at their word and discount what your countrymen have to say?

Cabeza de Vaca looked at the alcalde with great frustration, but in the end he nodded his agreement. Yes, he said. Yes, of course. Please talk to the soldiers.

The alcalde frowned. Are you still worried about the Indians being turned into slaves? He looked at all of us, seemingly wounded by our lack of faith. I apologize, señores. I forget that you have been gone for eight years. You have not heard that His Majesty, after conferring with His Eminence, has forbidden the enslavement of the Indians in New Spain. So, you see, you have nothing to worry about. It would be against the law. In fact, if I may share a little gossip with you. Here, he paused and lowered his voice to a whisper. Our governor, Nuño de Guzmán, who made a name for himself out here in the frontier, is said to be in great disfavor at the moment, precisely because of his vile treatment of the natives. We are entering a new era, señores. A new era for the empire. He sat back in his chair and stroked the ends of his mustache with evident satisfaction.

O
N OUR WAY BACK
to our quarters, an idea occurred to me. We should offer to buy the Indians from Díaz, I said. If Díaz could be compensated, surely he would agree to let the Indians go. (Now that I had returned to
the old world, it seemed I had also set aside what I had learned in the new: that gold and freedom could not be traded.)

But the others agreed with my suggestion. So the four of us pooled all of our valuables together: five emeralds shaped into arrows, ten leather pouches of the finest quality, a small bag of oyster pearls, and other things that had been given to us as gifts. Cabeza de Vaca took them to Díaz the next day, but the alcalde said that the value of the gifts was far below that of the Indians, and that in any case there was no need for gifts because the Indians were not slaves and did not need to be freed. Conversations with Díaz always had a hint of the absurd about them.

The Indians in the horse run began to run out of corn and meat and, increasingly, they depended for their meals on whatever the soldiers gave them. Many of them were becoming sick with colds and even the fever. In all ways, they looked pitiful, but Díaz remained implacable. Cabeza de Vaca's arguments with him continued for two months, but they always ended with the same assurances that the Indians would be well treated and that they were not slaves. Then he sent us word that we could not tarry any longer in Culiacán—the governor of Nueva Galicia was expecting us.

Compostela was not the sprawling capital of Melchor Díaz's gossip: it had a church, a prison, a bathhouse, soldiers' barracks, and only forty dwellings, not all of which were completed. Still, its sidewalks were swept clean, and horse-drawn carts and carriages traveled along its main thoroughfare, testifying to its nascent farming and trade. The ten horsemen who had escorted us to the city led us directly to the town hall, where a sergeant and several deputies, standing under the tall wooden cross of its facade, were waiting for us. In spite of the warm spring sun, the sergeant wore a plumed cap, a long-sleeved doublet, and hose of immaculate white. Bienvenidos, he said.

The sergeant informed us that the governor, Nuño de Guzmán, had been called away on urgent business but that he would be delighted to have our company for dinner that very night. The governor had also ordered that comfortable lodgings be arranged for us: Dorantes, Castillo, and Cabeza de Vaca would stay at the hacienda of a certain Capitán Flores; Satosol, Kewaan, Tekotsen, and Oyomasot would be quartered together at the military barracks; and I would board in the sergeant's own home.

I followed the sergeant down the main road of the town, to a simple but elegant little house, with whitewashed walls and a red-tiled roof. The inner courtyard had a gurgling water fountain, much like the one Bernardo Rodriguez had built for himself in Seville all those years ago. I could almost hear the squeals of Isabel as she chased Sancho and Martín around it, trying to catch the edge of their shirts, then shrieking that she had won and that it was her turn to be chased. The memory made me
uncomfortable, a feeling that was exacerbated by the stifling heat in the room that had been assigned to me. I tried to open the windows, but after wrestling with them for a while, I realized that the knob had long ago rusted in place. I lay down on the bed; the mattress was too soft, I decided, and I would have to spend the night on the tiled floor. As for the pillow, it was a luxury I had forgotten existed and I wondered what it would feel like under my neck once again.

After a few moments, I left the sergeant's house to go see Oyomasot at the military barracks. The sentinel raised his musket when I approached, but immediately lowered it again when he saw that it was I. The women's quarters turned out to be nothing but a large pantry, from which the clanging of the pots and pans in the kitchen could be heard. There were no beds or windows, but uncomplainingly each of the women had set her things in one of the corners. Satosol was not so accommodating. Before I had even had a chance to greet him, he asked me, Why am I quartered here?

We are guests, I said. We have to take whatever lodgings are offered to us.

He sniffed, then looked through the open door at the other side of the barracks, where some Indians, dressed in deerskin shirts and cotton breeches, were chatting amiably with the guards. By then, the sun had begun its afternoon descent to the west, and on the grounds the watchtowers cast long, dark shadows.

I turned my attention to Oyomasot. How are you?

Tired, she said.

It was not in her nature to complain, and I searched her face for signs of illness, but saw only exhaustion and worry. I wished we could be alone, so that the others would not hear our conversation. I wanted to tell her that the journey would be long and that there would be moments when it would seem arduous, but that it would come to an end before long and in the end we would be home. I can make you an infusion, I offered. A bit of rosemary might restore your spirits.

Why can I not stay with you? she asked.

Guzmán forbade it. He forbade all of us from having our wives in our lodgings. The customs are different here.

She looked down at the coverlets she had been folding, and which had been given to us by the Indians of the Land of Corn. They were blankets
of fine cotton, decorated with vibrant patterns that told their makers' stories, whether real or imagined. Ancestors had crossed the Shadow Waters and settled into this continent; some of them had tethered themselves to the land, while others had freely followed its rhythms wherever they led. After a moment, she said: Maybe this new chief will accept the gifts the first one refused.

We intend to make him the same offer.

Is he not more powerful?

Yes, Guzmán is much more powerful than Díaz. He governs the whole of the province.

So he can free the people we left behind?

He can, I said. But I know not if he will.

Why would he not listen to you?

My voice grew soft. Things are different here, I said.

Oyomasot looked at me with dismay. For nearly as long as she had known me, I had had the power that came with healing: when I spoke, people listened. But here, in New Spain, my words did not hold the same value, and neither, it seemed, did those of my companions, for none of them had yet been able to secure the Indians' freedom. We were no longer healers. We were merely petitioners, and we were as likely to be indulged as we were to be rebuffed by the governor.

We will talk to Guzmán, I promised. We will not give up.

A moment later, my three companions arrived. The house where they were staying was not far from the barracks, which meant that Dorantes and Castillo would be able to come see their wives whenever they wished. Leaning against the doorjamb, Cabeza de Vaca added that Guzmán would be sending food for the women, but that the four of us were expected for dinner at the hour of vespers. And, he said with a wry smile, he wants us to take baths.

I
N THE BATHHOUSE
, servants were already waiting for us, with tubs filled and braziers lit. We discarded our loincloths, earrings, necklaces, anklets, and amulets, and stepped inside the baths. What a miracle an iron basin was! Warm water embraced me and, within moments, I felt lulled into indolence. I closed my eyes, but the first image that came to me was of the Indians in their hundreds, penned in the horse run at Culiacán, like lambs for the slaughter of Eid. If I had not said anything about
the shard of glass in the wilderness, perhaps those Indians would still be free. Was I, however obliquely, responsible for their fate? Would I ever be able to stir a finger without bringing harm to somebody? And what about me in all of this? No bondsman would have been given a room in the sergeant's own home, I knew, and yet no free man would have been separated from other free men, either. So who was I in New Spain?