Zia (9 page)

I went back to bed and hid the big iron key under my blankets. In the morning I planned to take it down to the beach and throw it into the sea.

Now that our people were outside I was sure we would not fail. Stone Hands had told me that while the fiesta was going on he had put a powder in the glasses of the overseers, the two men and the two women. It was a powder that he got from plants that grew wild in the hills. Just a little of it put you to sleep for hours. You awakened with a headache but nothing else.

The five fathers had not taken any of the powder but they slept far off from the main building. Therefore they heard nothing that night.

The first word arrived at breakfast when only the old women and men came down to eat and found bare tables. The commotion was great. The old people, fearing Stone Hands, would say nothing to Father Merced, who asked the questions. He then asked me what my thoughts were.

"Do you know where they have gone?" he asked.

"I know little," I said, which was the truth.

"Why did they leave us? We treat them well."

"Because they are used to living in another way."

"They like living in squalor, in brush huts, on the beach with no roofs over their heads? Not knowing where their next meal will appear from? Eating roots and grasshoppers? Living not in the presence of God but with the devil himself?"

Father Merced was a serious man with glasses who read many books and prayed for hours at a time. He had white hair that was like wire and stuck up straight all over his head, except where his tonsure was.

"They prefer this life?" he said.

"They seem to," I replied.

He gave me a sharp look. "Why are you here? Why are you not with them, since you apparently believe as they do?"

What I would have answered, I do not know, probably not the whole truth, because just then Captain Cordova came into the room. He was the head of a garrison of would-be soldiers that lived a league away, guarded the Mission, and sponged off of our labor.

He bowed to Father Merced. "I have just heard the news. It is not more than an hour ago. I have ten men with me and we have ridden without stopping since the word came. I can tell you, sir, that we will have them all before night falls."

Captain Cordova turned to me. He was short and stout and he wore boots that came up to his waist and a leather
cuero
that would stop any arrow. He held his silver helmet across his chest in deference to Father Merced.

"What do you know?" he said, turning to me.

"She knows nothing," Father Merced replied.

"Is she deaf?"

"No," I said. "I do not know where they are."

"Did you know of the plan? Did you hear about it yesterday? The day before? Sometime? These things do not happen in one night."

"She knows nothing of value," Father Merced answered.

Captain Cordova bowed again. "We will find their prints and follow them. You will hear from us before nightfall."

But at nightfall there was no news of Stone Hands and his band of girls and boys. Nothing except word from a sheepherder that he had seen smoke rising in a place where he had never seen smoke before. It was to the south, five leagues away in the direction of Mission Buena Ventura.

There was no one left to do the work at the Mission, and the dinner hour seemed lonely and quiet.

At mass that evening Father Merced asked us—those few of us who were left—to pray for the runaways. I prayed for them with all my heart, not that they would "see the light" as Father Merced told us, but that they were safe and happy whenever they were.

Afterward I left the chapel and went outside and down to the beach. Waves were coming in and running up the sand. I knelt down and prayed to Mukat.

In the beginning of the world, according to our tribe, there were two gods, Mukat and Tumaiyowit. The two gods quarreled about many things. Tumaiyowit wished people to die so the earth would not be crowded. Mukat did not. Tumaiyowit went down to another world. He took all his belongings with him, so people die because he died.

I prayed to Mukat for the runaways and for Karana. I had already prayed to the white man's god and now I prayed to our own. I thought that two gods would help me better than just one.

Then I decided to pray to Coyote because Mukat, in the time of creation, had become quarrelsome and people got very tired of him. They burned Mukat but Coyote saved his heart and ran north with it and wherever he went Mukat's dripping heart left quantities of gold.

But at last, before bed that night, I went to the chapel of the Virgin and prayed to Her as Father Vicente had taught me to pray.

Chapter 17

I
N THE MORNING
Captain Cordova came to the Mission with three of his men and asked Father Merced if he could talk to me.

Captain Cordova was waiting in a small room Father Merced used sometimes for an office. His mustaches were curled and his gold buttons shone and his high leather boots glistened.

The captain was very polite. He bowed to me, which he never did to an Indian.

First he gave a short report to the father. The meaning of it was that they had not found the runaways but that his men were on their trail and success would come at any moment. Then he turned his gaze upon me. His eyes were polite also. He did not look at me as he usually looked at Indians, as if they were some sort of strange creatures that he neither had seen before nor wished to see again.

"What is your name, señorita?"

That was another thing they did not do, these officers. They never called an Indian girl señorita.

I was suspicious and began to be afraid.

"My name is Zia."

"Zia what?"

"Zia Sandoval."

"You are an Indian and you have a Spanish and Indian name. How is that, señorita?"

"Because my father's name was Sandoval and my mother called me Zia. He was a Spaniard and she was an Indian."

The answer did not seem to please him, but he went on.

"Why is it that you failed to go with the runaways?"

"My aunt is coming soon from the island."

"You wish to be here at the Mission when she appears?"

"Yes."

"If your aunt was not coming, what would you have done?"

"About what?" I asked.

"Would you have run away with the other Indians?"

I liked the fathers, some more than others. But they all had been kind to me. And Father Merced had given Father Vicente permission to go off to the island, with the chance that he would never return. And Father Vicente himself had made a voyage that few men would have the courage to make.

He had gone because, as he said, "It is hard for me to sleep and think of a girl living there on an island alone with no one to talk to. And certainly without the Lord's blessing, because she knows nothing of our Lord, if I may judge from what you have told me."

Captain Cordova repeated his question. "Would you have run away had it not been for your aunt?"

I did not want to hurt Father Merced. Or Father Vicente. Nor did I want to give Captain Cordova anything that he could use against the Indians who had gone, or against me.

"I did not go. Is that not enough?"

"No," the captain said. "It is not enough. It is not an answer to my question."

"That she is here and her aunt is coming here, should be an answer," said Father Merced.

He did not like the garrison. None of the fathers liked it. All of them wished that the garrison would move far away.

"Do you know, señorita, that the Indians stole property that belonged to the Mission—clothes, blankets, pots, food?"

"I know nothing about stealing."

"Do you know that stealing is a crime?" Captain Cordova asked me.

I was silent, not knowing what to say.

"Do you know where the Indians are hiding?" he suddenly asked.

I shook my head.

Captain Cordova walked to the door and nodded to the soldiers who were lounging outside. They came into the room and two of them took me by the arms.

Father Merced lifted himself from his chair and went and stood in the doorway, blocking their path.

"You have no right to take this girl," he said to the captain. "You have no right in this room or on this land. It belongs to the church. I order you to leave at once."

The captain made a gesture to his soldiers. Father Merced still stood in the doorway and blocked their path.

"My dear Father Merced," the captain said politely, "some of what you say is true and some is untrue. If you do not care if the Indians steal your blankets and your food, that is not my business. This is your church and if you want them to steal everything in it and the church itself, that too is not my business. But the Indians you protect killed, as they ran away, two steers and two calves that belong to Don Blas Corrientes and six sheep that belong to Don Baltasar Moreno.

Captain Cordova put his hand on Father Merced's shoulder.

"The gentlemen do not like their cattle to be killed. And who can blame them? They came to me, therefore, and demanded that I do something. So I do something. Do you wish me not to do something? Do you wish me to mock my position as commander of the garrison? No, of course not. So I come here to talk to the one Indian who did not run away, who did not steal blankets and food, who did not kill cattle and sheep. As you suggest I will leave your church, but with me I will take the girl who is a friend of the runaways and who only stayed behind for a personal reason."

"Let the gentlemen whose cattle were killed make their complaint to the gringos," Father Merced answered.

"The gringos will do nothing," Captain Cordova replied.

It was true that the gringos would do nothing. What went on between the Spaniards and the garrison and the Mission was none of their business.

"The gringos will laugh in their sleeves at me and at you likewise," Captain Cordova said.

He put out his hand and pushed Father Merced aside. "With your permission, we will now leave," he said. "We have much to do."

He nodded to the soldiers and they took me outside and put me into a cart and drove me off to the garrison.

Chapter 18

T
HE GARRISON
was built by Indians from the Mission, using adobe bricks. It lies on the edge of a low bluff. At high tide when the sea comes in waves beat against the rocks that it sits upon.

The room where they put me was three paces one way and four paces the other way. The floor was made of mud mixed with ox blood. It was very hard and cold. In the wall that faced the sea there was a slit and a heavy door. The slit was too small for even a child to crawl through and it had three square iron bars but no glass.

A very fat woman, who moved up and down more, as she waddled along, than she moved forward had charge of the women's part of the garrison. Her name was Señora Gomez.

She closed the door behind us and told me to undress. She hung my clothes carefully on a peg fastened to the back of the door. From a reed bag she carried under her arm she drew forth a thin cotton shift and told me to put it on, which I did.

"Now take off your sandals," she said in a sweet voice, "and put them beside your bed."

My bed was a pile of straw in one corner of the room and beside it I placed my sandals.

I looked at her for a long time, until she looked at me with her little black eyes that peeped out from folds of flesh.

"Why do you take my clothes away?" I asked her, already feeling the cool breeze from the sea and the cold, hard floor.

"It is orders," she said, still speaking sweetly. "The orders come from the capitán. I do not ask him why he gives the order, I just do what he commands."

Señora Gomez left me an olla of water and five tortillas. "These will last you until tomorrow," she said, pushing herself into the doorway. Halfway through she stopped and said, "El Capitán is a wise man. What he asks, I advise you to answer truthfully. That way it is easier for you."

She pushed herself further through the door and with a final gasp reached the outside. She closed the door and barred it and went away.

I went to the window and looked out. I could see the islands and whales spouting in the long curving channel. The tide had ebbed and birds were running along the edge of the waves dipping their beaks in the sand as they fed.

The sun went down and the sea came in and beat against the rocks below the garrison, sending gusts of spray through the barred window. No one came near nor were there any sounds above the beating of the surf.

It grew cold. I tried covering myself with straw from the pallet in the corner, but every little while I would have to get up and move around the cell to keep warm. I put a bundle of straw on the floor and stood upon it and jumped up and down. Before morning came I thought I had frozen and nothing, no sun ever, would thaw me out again.

In mid-morning Señora Gomez came. She was too short to see through the window so we talked through the door.

"Did you have a good night's sleep?" she asked.

"Excellent," I said.

"Were you warm enough?"

"Yes, very warm, thank you."

"Good," she said and went away.

In an hour she was back with four tortillas. She opened the door a crack, shoved them through, closed the door, barred it, and disappeared.

The sun came into my cell in the afternoon. I grew warm again, but I dreaded the night when I would have to jump up and down to keep from freezing.

A ship had sailed into the channel and anchored about a league offshore. The sun was in my eyes and at first I thought that it might be Captain Nidever's boat that had come in. But it was a Yankee whaler, trailing behind it two dead whales. At once the men began to cut the whales up with their knives and toss chunks into pots. Great plumes of black smoke began to rise and float across the channel and into my cell.

At dusk Señora Gomez came again and talked through the barred door.

"El Capitán has returned from Ventura," she said. "He is very tired from his long journey but he wants me to ask you if you have changed your mind."

"Changed it about what?" I asked.