The King's Fifth (15 page)

The royal fiscal walks away with his self-satisfied step. I watch him while he stops at the table to drink a cup of water, while he thumbs through the sheaf of papers which are stamped with the official seal, which hold the testimony of Guillermo Torres. Torres, who once was a thief and now is a liar. I am calm, if memory serves me, much calmer than at this moment as I sit here at my bench.

After Counsel Gamboa has spoken, one of the judges announces the end of the session. The trial will begin again in three days, on the tenth day of October.

"What a misfortune," Don Felipe says, while we are walking back to my cell. "And just when things were going well for us, or as well as could be hoped for."

I say nothing in reply. It is another hot day, with waves of heat rising above the leaden sea, but chills run down my back, thinking of the charge that has now been brought against me.

Before Don Felipe can ask about Mendoza's death, we have reached the cell, and there Counsel Gamboa is waiting. Gamboa insists upon speaking to me alone, so Don Felipe is forced to leave. This displeases him because he thinks of me, or so he says, as a son, and therefore should be privy to all that I do.

Gamboa waits until the jailer's steps fade in the pa sage. "The Royal Audiencia," he says, "will bring the charge the fiscal has requested. May I ask, before we go further ... did you murder Bias de Mendoza?"

His question has an ominous sound, even here in my cell.

"I am innocent."

Judging from his expression, Counsel Gamboa does not believe me. "It is best to tell me the truth," he says.

"This is the truth," I answer, and not too patiently, I fear.

"As I thought," he says to calm me down. "But I wish to be certain. The royal fiscal will call a witness in an attempt to prove the charge of murder. His name is Guillermo Torres. At this moment, I have learned, he is in Vera Cruz."

Gamboa watches me closely, waiting, I suspect, for me to change my mind at this news and admit my guilt. I am silent.

"Who is this man?" he asks. "Since you are innocent of the charge, what is his purpose in coming here to testify against you?"

Torres, it is. I am surprised and not surprised. Anger tightens my throat, yet I manage to tell Gamboa all that I know about him from the time we met on the ship until I saw him last in the winter of '40.

"Why he wishes to accuse me of murder, I do not understand."

"Did you have the gold when you saw him last?"

"Only what would fill two helmets."

"The sixty thousand
onzas
were found later?"

"Months later. The next spring."

"Could Torres have heard of the treasure?"

"They have heard of it in the City of Mexico. On the frontier, in Guadalajara and other places."

"Then we can assume that he knows about it," my counsel says. "Do you suppose that he would testify against you if he thought that by so doing he would receive a share of the treasure? Is he capable of such an act."

"Torres," I answer, "is capable of any act."

My counsel gets up from the bench and straightens the frayed cuffs of his doublet. "Sixty thousand
onzas
of gold," he says. "One could do much with that amount. I have a father, who is crippled and cannot work, and three sisters and three young brothers to support. If I had two handfuls of the treasure, it would..." He pauses, looks at his frayed cuffs, and takes his leave.

I have more faith in him than before, yet I still have
doubts, mostly about his youth. It is one thing for him to defend me on the charge of defrauding the King, especially since I have plead guilty to this crime. It is something else for him to defend me against the charge of murder, facing a man as cunning and experienced as the royal fiscal. It is as if I were to compete in the subject of cartography with Mercator or Amerigo Vespucci.

My supper is fulsome, made up as it is of delicacies from the officers' table. Though I have no hunger, I make a show of eating to please Don Felipe, who hovers over me as if it is to be my last meal.

A wind has sprung up. The sky is cast over with rain clouds, which hide the star I have seen each evening. It is difficult for me to put the trial out of my thoughts, but I shall try. Before I again face the Royal Audiencia, it is necessary to write of those events that took place in the winter of '40 and the spring of '41, so they will be fresh in my mind once more.

T
HE SUN SHONE HOT
in a clear sky as we started our climb out of the Abyss. But when we reached the rim, where Torres waited with the animals, the air was gray and heavy and smelled of snow.

Although our hoard of gold now filled two helmets brimming full, Mendoza decided not to return to Háwikuh.

'I think that Chief Quantah spoke the truth," he said, "about the stream that has much gold and flows into the stream at Nexpan. But I do not recall how far it is."

"He did not say," I answered.

"It is called Tawhi," Roa broke in.

"We know that," Mendoza said.

"The Cloud City," Roa continued. "It is a journey of eight suns into the northwest."

"How is it that you know so much," Mendoza asked, "when I know nothing?"

"I talked to one of the Indians."

Mendoza glanced at Zia, who nodded her head, agree ing with Roa.

"The Cloud City is eight suns away," she said.

Without further talk, the
conducta
set off, moving fast for we feared a storm.

We traveled all day, under cloudy skies, until we could see no longer. That night, powdery snow began to drift down through the pines. At dawn it was ankle-deep and still falling. But the horses were fresh, the Abyss lay behind us, our way trended into lower country, so we had good hopes of outriding the storm.

We would have escaped had the blue roan not lost a shoe.

Mendoza discovered the loss a little after midday. Because iron shoes were of great value, being scarce, and the snow had ceased, we retraced the trail to where the roan had stumbled over a hidden rock. The shoe was not found, and we lost two hours. By this margin the storm caught us.

Snow began to fall again late in the afternoon, softly at first, then in wind-driven flurries. Between flurries we caught glimpses of an open mesa about two leagues away and below us, where the sun was shining. We spurred our horses into a
pasotrote.

Near this time, while crossing a meadow and a small stream fringed by willows, Zia pointed out a cave high on the face of a cliff. On the way from Háwikuh we had explored several of such caves and had found pieces of turquoise and silver, besides fine earthen pots which were of no use to us. But it was now a race against the storm and we did not tarry.

We had gone no farther than three hundred
varas
before the wind burst out of the north. Soon the air was
thick with snow, blinding both rider and horse, so thick that I, at the rear of the
conducta,
could not see our captain who rode in the lead.

Shouting, Mendoza pulled aside under a pine tree and waited for us to catch up.

"We cannot go on," he said, "though an hour's ride will bring us to the open mesa. Nor remain long where we are. We shall return to seek shelter in the cave which we have passed."

He himself took the halter of the mule that carried the gold.

"And hear me," he said. "Do not straggle. Keep together. Be quick. A more monstrous storm I have not beheld since the days of the Sierra Nevadas."

The trail we had just made was now covered by drifts, yet we safely reached the meadow, and by following the stream, the cliff. At its base was an overhang of rock, which formed a long gallery, large enough to protect the animals. By a series of handholds cut into the cliff, we clambered aloft to the lower lip of the cave.

Snow lay there, but within, the cave was dry, possibly thirty paces in depth and width, twice the height of a tall man. In one corner was a pile of half-burned logs, sifted over with dust which might have been the dust of centuries, and beside it a pile of faggots. Ranged neatly against the wall nearby was a row of earthen pots.

The cave was similar to those we had already seen, even to the wood and utensils. It was as if, long ago, those who had lived here had suddenly left, from hunger or fear of enemies. The bones we found, as in the other
caves, belonged not to humans but to deer and coyote.

We made ourselves at home, first by building a fire. Our store of dried meat was enough to last five or six days, so we cooked a good meal and ate with relish, making lame jokes about the snow, lame because we were still very cold and far from the city of Tawhi.

"What did the Indians tell you about this Cloud City?" Mendoza asked Zia.

"All that they told me, Roa told you," Zia answered.

"It is nothing," Mendoza said.

"Yes, nothing," Zia said.

Below us the horses were restless and she went to the lip of the cave and listened. She was more concerned about the foal than about the Cloud City.

"Since it is nothing," Mendoza said, "we shall not be disappointed with what we find there."

"We shall find Indians," said Father Francisco, who as usual was more interested in souls to save than in treasure. "As we did at Nexpan."

Torres said, "If it is a journey of seven days to your Cloud City, it likewise will be seven days returning. On top of that, to reach Háwikuh, means eleven days more. In all, twenty-five days. Over two hundred leagues of hard travel. Horseshoes are scarce. Do we have sufficient to last for such a long journey?"

"Sufficient," Mendoza answered, closing the subject.

Our most serious problem was feed for the animals. Torres had gathered bundles of dry grass while he waited for us at the Abyss, and these they now were eating. But on the morrow more feed must be found.

Snow fell through the night and when we climbed down from the cave it lay waist-deep in the meadow. Working together, we cut willow branches along the stream, ample feed for that day and the next.

About noon, with a wan sun at the top of the cliff, Captain Mendoza saddled the roan and struck off through the meadow, saying that he would try to make a trail which we could follow.

Fearfully, I watched him go, the horse rearing high on her back legs as she came to the first drift, then settling down to rear again. Thus I saw them disappear.

"A fool's errand," Torres said, and some agreed.

We waited beside the fire through the afternoon, but near nightfall, when it began to snow again, Roa got up and said that he was going in search of the captain. While he was saddling his horse, Mendoza appeared, so stiff from cold he needed to be helped down from the roan.

"I traveled no farther than we did yesterday," he said. "We will have to wait for a thaw or until the snow hardens, if it takes a month."

That night we ate another good meal and made more jokes about the storm. Next day, in need of wood, we spent many hours cutting dead branches, which we pulled up to the cave by means of picket ropes tied together. That night, as I remember, we ate less, but there was still food enough for three or four days and we were not worried.

"If we have to," Torres said, "we can kill one of the mules. There is enough meat on a mule to last for weeks."

"Excellent meat, too," said Roa. "It requires the teeth of a shark, yet gives strength and is the equal of any."

"To those who are hungry," Torres said. "But I have also eaten the hide. That was on the
entrada
into Yucatán with General Vejar."

"How is the taste of a mule hide? I have often wondered about this," Roa asked.

"If the weather does not change," Mendoza said, "you will soon know."

"Tough, I am certain," said Roa.

"That depends upon several factors," Torres said. "The hide must be from a young mule. Nothing ancient. But of chief importance is the preparation. You first cut the hide into pieces of the right size to fit the pot. These you singe over a hot fire, removing all hair. Then they are scraped clean and put into the pot to boil. The boiling takes many hours and should not be hurried by an impatient eye. 'Not until the pieces are very soft and melt together in one mass do you cease the boiling. Then you set the pot aside and allow the mass to cool. When it is cold and stiff, you have a jelly, which is gray in color and looks like glue."

"How is the taste?" Roa asked again.

"Like glue," said Torres. "Loathsome."

"With pepper and salt?"

"Equally."

"But strength-giving?"

"Yes," said Torres, "it gives much strength."

Mendoza fingered his beard. "We shall eat no mules,
young nor old," he said, thinking perhaps of treasure and the mules needed to transport it. "First, before that comes to pass, we shall eat one another."

"This I have also seen," said Torres. "In the summer of '29. On the great desert of Vizcaíno."

While Torres told about his ill-fated journey, a south wind began to blow and by morning the sky was clear and water ran everywhere. That day we cut willow for the animals and made ready to leave the next dawn.

T
HE WIND
died during the night, but the sound of water went on, trickles of it from the roof of the cave, a roar from the stream in the meadow. It was like a thaw in springtime.

I awakened near daylight to the stamping of horses. A moment or two later I thought that I heard someone call my name. The voice came from far off, or seemed to, not from the cave. I sat up and listened, straining my ears, but heard nothing more, except the loud running of water.

Around me my companions were asleep, all save Guillermo Torres. It was his voice, then, that I had heard, calling from below. Deliberately, I pulled on my boots, pausing several times to listen. One of my chores was to help him curry the horses, which I was never happy to do, and no more on this morning than others.

I found my doublet, which I shook free of dust and carefully straightened. As I slipped it on, I glanced beyond the fire at Zia's pallet of pine needles set against the wall. I always rose before she did and, as on this morning, my eyes never failed to seek her out. The habit of sleeping on her back, with both hands clasped beneath her head, amused me. I was amused too, and touched, by her face when she was asleep. It had the look of a very small child, so different from the serious, grown-up face she wore at other times.