Jose and the other man had gone silent, looking in his direction.
“Who’s there?” the other man said and began marching over.
Seeing he had no other choice, Lucas left the safety of the shack and made for the trail at full speed. It meant revealing himself in the moonlight for a moment, and he could hear the shouts of the men behind him as he raced across the soft sand.
Lucas reached the edge of the trail and was thankful for the harder ground that he could run much faster on. His elation was short lived, however, as he became aware that there were a myriad of other trails that crossed the pathway he’d taken to get down here. They all looked very similar, and soon the landscape began to look unfamiliar. He had taken a wrong turn, as the trail he was on now was not heading back to the pueblo but farther into the canyon. The inclines were getting steeper, and the vertical drops led straight down to the ocean. If he lost his footing now, there would be little he could do to save himself.
The gravity of the situation hit Lucas, and real fear filled his heart.
A chilling sound erupted from behind. A loud crack and the sound of something exploding next to his foot.
A harquebus shot.
It was clear what the men intended to do if they caught him. Lucas felt his heart leap in his chest, and he kept running. The trail he was on was still unfamiliar, but it seemed to be rising towards the top.
Lucas was soon above the level of the pine trees that hugged the pathway and reached a spot where the trail petered out into open countryside that led north. The pine trees opened up into empty terrain that was flat and lit well by the moonlight.
But there was no cover. Lucas would be an easy target for someone with a harquebus. He had to get out of sight.
Then he noticed it. Just beyond the edge of the trail he stood upon, the edge that overlooked a vertical drop all the way back to the beach below, was a ledge. It was very narrow, but something in Lucas knew that if he could climb down to it, he would be out of sight of the men long enough for them to believe he went running into the open countryside. He would have to wait until they left, then return down the trail that would take him to La Herradura.
But the ledge was narrow, just large enough for him to plant his toes on. And if it didn’t hold his weight, the fall would kill him.
Not giving himself time to think about it, Lucas crouched, swung his legs over, and lowered himself onto the ledge below.
Panic seized his heart. The ledge was smaller than he’d thought, and there was little but soft earth to grab hold of. He felt as though his body was sinking down the cliff face while memories of being on the watchtower ladder filled his mind.
Lucas had to calm himself. The men were still coming. He had to stay quiet. But he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.
The men arrived. He heard them scrambling about on the trail above, trying to figure out which way he’d gone.
“I don’t see him. You think he kept going?” Lucas heard Jose say.
“That would have been foolish,” the other voice said.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Let me think.”
There were footsteps. The other man was walking towards the edge of the trail. Lucas saw the tips of his shoes just over the edge. Lucas panicked and jerked his body. The ledge under his feet began to break loose.
Then the man’s face came into view as he gazed out into the ocean.
It was Martin Figueroa. And he had no idea the boy he was chasing was just an arm’s length below him.
“Forget him,” Martin said. “Whoever it was, we’ll soon find out. We have work to do tonight. Venga.”
Martin stepped away from the edge, and Lucas heard both men go back down the trail towards the beach. Soon their footsteps faded into the hush of the crashing waves below.
Lucas let himself pant now as he felt the ledge slowly falling away under his weight. He plunged his hands into the earth, searching for anything to grab hold of, but it was no use. It all came away in clumps.
One part of the ledge collapsed from under his left foot. Lucas cried out, his right hand grasping for a small root protruding from the soil above. He managed to grab it with two fingers just as the rest of the ledge fell out from under his feet.
Now Lucas’s life depended on that root, as it was the only thing holding him up. Below him was the sound of soil and pebbles cascading their way down to the beach. And if he moved too much in any direction, he would join them.
He was trapped. He could call out for help, but it would be Jose and Martin who would get to him first. There was nothing to do now but hope someone came by before the root gave way or he became too exhausted to hang on.
But most frightening was how when he closed his eyes, what he saw wasn’t this cliff or Martin Figueroa or the shack on the beach or even Armada.
It was the watchtower.
Chapter Twelve
Armada sipped his sherry, but it had long since lost its effectiveness. Despite two glasses, he had never felt more sober.
Armada wrapped his aching fingers around the mug, trying to get them to relax their painful grip. The pain was getting worse, having spread up his arm and into his shoulder this time, making sleep impossible.
But it wasn’t his hand that had awoken him. That had been Peru. A harquebus. A native’s dying expression. The sound of the shots. Always that one memory. Out of all the ghosts of his past, why was it this one that had come back to haunt him tonight?
Armada stared at the dying campfire, listening to Captain Salinas snore away as if mocking him. It was hours before sunrise would bring the welcome distractions of the day. So he tried to concentrate his thoughts on Lucas, who had not yet returned. It was worrying. The boy might be in trouble somewhere. But there was little he could do until morning.
Footsteps approached from behind Armada, which annoyed him. Then Pedro plopped down beside him.
“Nice to know I’m not the only one who can’t sleep,” Pedro said.
Armada didn’t respond and stared off into the horizon, hoping Pedro would get the message that he wanted to be alone with his nightmares.
“Not sure how much longer we can keep camping up here. Not with winter coming.”
Pedro had two thin blankets, full of holes and tattered on the edges, wrapped around his shoulders, and he leaned in to be close to the pulsating embers that were all that remained of the fire.
“Not much to do up here during these long, cold nights except think, is there?” Pedro said. “For soldiers like us, that’s the last thing we want.”
Armada still didn’t respond, although he was beginning to feel petty. Something about the lonely morning hours brought out the worst in him. He was used to being alone at this time of the night, for a volley of cannon fire couldn’t awaken Lucas at such an hour. He had gotten used to letting his darkest, most private thoughts run wild, and it wasn’t something he wished to share with anyone else.
But from how Pedro was settling in next to him, it was not going to be an option.
“Indeed,” Armada said.
“It’s the nightmares that get me,” Pedro said. “Sometimes I feel like it’s not even worth trying to sleep anymore. I just get by on occasional naps now. I can’t remember the last time I felt well rested.”
Armada flexed his hand, unable to hold back a groan as he felt the stiffness in the fingers. Pedro glanced at the marks on his palm.
“It comes out in my teeth,” Pedro said. “I used to gnash them so bad at night my jaw would ache. My wife, Angela, had to cook nothing but soup for a week, and she…”
“Your wife? You’re married?”
“I was,” Pedro said.
“And she left?”
Pedro didn’t answer, but for a moment, he looked as if he were offended.
“A commander of mine once said talking about it helped him through the worst of the long nights,” Pedro said. “The things he told me about his time fighting in Catalonia turned my blood to
ice. But it worked. He slept better. At least for a little while…until he hanged himself.”
“There is more distance between the soul and the tongue than between Earth and heaven,” Armada quoted.
“I like that,” Pedro said.
“It’s from a play. Lope de Vega. Theatre, that’s how I survived. It saved my life. Reminded me there was still beauty in this world. That and sherry, of course. But they both have their limitations.”
Armada flexed his sore hand. “It’s the scent of this place. There’s something here that reminds me of…darker times.”
“It’s the ships,” Pedro said.
Armada looked at him.
“Twenty-five of them, all rotting at the bottom of this bay. They were part of a fleet that sank one night during a bad storm a century ago. They say there are still bodies down there, trapped in the hulls that sank too deep for anyone to retrieve. It gives these waters a smell of death that I don’t think will ever go away. This place isn’t a bay. It’s a graveyard.”
It made sense now. That little bay in Peru—it was where they dumped the bodies. The smell of it after that…was that same smell of death. The same one as here.
“There’s bits of those ships that wash up on the beach all the time. Everyone in town has something. Esteban was interested in that stuff for a while. He was always asking people to see what they’d found over the years. He laid eyes on every piece in town by the end.”
Pedro threw another log onto the fire, then stoked it until the flames were enough to give a bit of warmth.
“The bones sometimes wash up too. As if God were always reminding us those men are still down there just under the surface.”
Just under the surface, Armada thought. Just like the memories.
Armada’s hand ached. His fingers were digging into the palm again. He picked up his empty sherry glass and held it, trying to give his hand something to clutch, something to numb the pain.
“We were sailing down the coast,” Armada said, more to himself than to Pedro. “We had spent months fighting to put down a rebellion in the territories to the north. We were exhausted and hungry and just wanted to go home. But we got caught in a storm, and our commander had us take shelter in a bay that was uncharted.”
The memories began to flood Armada’s mind, and he had to take a breath.
“It was Spanish territory, but I don’t think the native tribe knew that. My commander demanded they provide us with provisions for our journey home, as we’d lost most of them in the storm. They refused, and my commander decided to make an example of them. Having just put down a rebellion, he had no desire to let another flare up. So he had us arrest all of the elders, line them up on the beach, and execute them.”
Armada thought of the wide, fearful eyes of the man whose life he had taken that day.
“The tribe gave us all the food they had, and we sailed back to our barracks two days later. I found out the next year that the tribe had died out over the winter, as my commander hadn’t allowed them to keep any food for themselves.”
The flames of the fire were catching the new logs and reaching higher into the air, warming Armada’s face. But he couldn’t feel it.
“We slaughtered them,” Armada whispered. “And the worst of it was the rest of the men didn’t think much of it. They said the natives should have known better. That’s how easily they swept away their responsibility.”
“It’s not that easy,” Pedro said, stoking the fire with a stick. “You can’t be the only one from your company huddled around a campfire tonight, wondering if you’ll ever sleep again.”
Armada felt the glass slip from his fingers and smash onto the ground, startling them both from their thoughts. Armada realised his fingers had relaxed somewhat, although the stiffness was still there.
Pedro looked to Armada and the broken glass, then began to laugh. For reasons he didn’t understand, Armada joined him, then kicked away the broken shards into the darkness beyond.
“So,” Armada said, “what is keeping you up tonight?”
The smile faded from Pedro’s face. “There’s so much of it, it all blurs together. Battles, faces, death. The ghosts, they just come at me from all sides.”
“How do you endure?” Armada asked.
“You have to put it all away somehow, don’t you? Otherwise, it drives you mad. That’s the problem with watchtower duty. You have too much time to think. So you learn…you learn to put it away…put it all away…”
“Why stay doing watchtower duty?”
“His Majesty ended his wars. There is no one left to fight. Posts like these are the only way a soldier like me can earn a wage. I’m not made for the life of a vagabond, wandering around, looking for work during the harvest. All I know how to do is stay here and hope another war comes along soon.”
Armada wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he wanted to see how genuine Pedro was being. He risked ruining what could be a new friendship, but Armada couldn’t help himself. There was more to learn here.
“Perhaps you could return to your wife. Angela, was it? It’s never too late for—”
Pedro shot to his feet. “Maybe another night. I have watchtower duty in the morning and want to try and get a little rest. Goodnight, Constable.”
Pedro stomped back to his shelter, leaving Armada a bit confused. He had told this man so much about himself, but the favour had not been returned. What was he hiding?
Armada wondered if he was being overly suspicious. He tended to see everything in the manner of a murder investigation. There were times it felt like the only way he knew how to relate to anyone anymore. Was he being unfair to Pedro? Had Pedro simply come for a friendly chat?
Or was it possible Armada had something to be suspicious about?
Chapter Thirteen
October 1562
“You’ve been working too hard today, Hector. You need to rest. Maybe don’t go down to the beach tomorrow. Rest yourself. This won’t do you any good to keep working like this.”
“I can’t. They need all the men they can get right now,” Hector said.
Mencía tried to keep quiet as she hid in the back bedroom, but her stomach was rumbling and the scent of the broth Ana had made had been wafting into the bedroom. She considered revealing herself before Ana was ready, but Ana had been very clear. She was to hide herself when Hector came home until Ana told her it was all right to come out. This had to be done right if Mencía was going to be able to stay.
But Hector had come back a broken man. It had taken him half an hour before he calmed enough to eat, recounting to Ana how he had spent the day using his fishing boat to retrieve bodies, many of which were already being picked at by the swarms of predatory birds that circled overhead. What he had seen that day would forever haunt him, Hector had said.
Mencía knew this wasn’t the best day to ask him to take in a fugitive. But what could she do?
Ana eased into telling Hector about her day while he gulped down hot soup. She told him about Mencía.
Upon hearing her name, Mencía found she couldn’t wait any longer and burst from the door, desperate for a bit of soup. The startled glare of both Hector and Ana meant she had come out too soon, but Mencía didn’t care. She and her baby were starving.
“Why are you running away?” Hector asked after being explained the situation. “Your father must be worried sick.”
“I can’t go back to him,” Mencía squeaked out.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Hector glared at Mencía, who knew her answer wasn’t enough. But it seemed overwhelming to try and describe it all to him now. He was either going to be kind to her or not, regardless of her circumstances. And she still wasn’t sure he deserved to know. It was a private affair.
Mencía knew she was being defensive. It was the way Hector was looking at her with stern judgement in his eyes. It reminded her of the way her father looked at her, and she hated him for it. Although she couldn’t blame
Hector for that.
In fact, he looked nothing like her father. Where her father had a long, regal face with deep, sunken eyes, this man’s face was round with big, expressive eyes layered over with folds of skin above the eyebrows. He was short and quite wide, with the bronzed, leathery skin of a fisherman who’d spent his whole life on the ocean in the open sun. Some of his teeth were missing, but his face still lit up when he smiled, or so Mencía had been told. Ana had described Hector as a joyful man who was unambitious and just needed a bit of food on the table, a bit of wine, and a bit of company to enjoy his life.
But the man in front of Mencía now was quite different. This man looked haunted, and his shoulders sagged, his head hung low. His experience today had changed him, perhaps forever. And on the very day when Mencía needed his kindness most.
“She’s in trouble, Hector. That’s all that’s important,” Ana said. “And she needs our help.”
“No, she needs to return to her father, which is why first thing tomorrow morning I will go down to the beach and tell him—”
“I’ll run,” Mencía said. “If you don’t let me stay here, I will. I can’t go back to my father. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t be silly, woman. You have a good life with him. What are you going to do in La Herradura? Learn to fish?” Hector said.
“I don’t know. But I won’t go back. I’ll take my chances in the wilderness.”
“Now, don’t talk nonsense, Mencía,” Ana said. “You have a baby to think about. You can hardly have it out there in the countryside without any help.”
“I don’t care,” Mencía said. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Hector, wanting him to understand her conviction. “I won’t go back.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Hector said, raising the tension in the room.
A chill went down Mencía’s spine. She knew Hector was right. She knew Ana was right. She couldn’t leave La Herradura. Not on her own. She was pregnant with no money and no water, and the nearest village was days away on foot. She could try to depend on the kindness of passing strangers, but what would she be when she arrived anywhere? A beggar. Nothing more. What kind of life was that to bring a child into the world?
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