by Paul Clayton
Calling Crow was about to tell how he had seen the demon men operate the turning pole, when he and the others saw Fire Hair Mateo and some demon men running over. Three of the demon men were armed with the long knives and three of them carried the thunder sticks. They immediately attacked with their long knives, and Calling Crow fought hard alongside Ahopo and his warriors, managing to drive them back. Then the thunder sticks erupted all at once in a blinding cloud of smoke and fire. Calling Crow’s ears echoed with the sound as he coughed and choked, and he did not know if he was alive or dead. Dazed, he spotted Ahopo in the acrid haze. He, too, appeared stunned, but was still on his feet. Three of his braves, however, lay sprawled on the blood splattered ground. Calling Crow felt as if he were in a dream as he watched one of the braves slowly pick himself up off the ground. The man’s bloodied, purple innards were hanging down and he clutched them tightly to his stomach. Moaning like a ghost, his eyes unseeing, he staggered to the edge of the cloudboat and fell over into the waters. Calling Crow saw a flash of movement. Ahopo’s big form moved swiftly across the short distance between the braves and the demon men. He quickly jabbed his lance into Fire Hair Mateo’s back and dove over the edge of the cloudboat into the sea. The demon men swarmed forward. Calling Crow was knocked up against the edge of the cloudboat, and his heart raced when it looked like he, too, would go over into the waters. He was thrown roughly to the ground and his arms tied tightly behind him. As they jerked him to his feet, he saw that Fire Hair was still standing, although he looked weak. He and the other demon men were looking into the waters. Calling Crow looked over. He saw Ahopo’s large head pop from a wave. He gave it a shake like a dog, and began swimming powerfully for the shore. Closer in, the gutted brave who had fallen out of the cloudboat swam slowly with one hand, holding his billowing innards to his stomach with the other.
They put Calling Crow below into a large animal pen packed tightly with a great many people. Some of them clustered around two of the holes in the wall in order to look out upon the world. They would turn round every so often to shout back to the others about what they saw. Men, women, and children all stood jammed together, looking dazed and confused. Others lay on the straw that was strewn about, their eyes glazed in fear.
One of the men pushed through the crowd and came over to Calling Crow. “What people are you?” he asked, using his hands and his own strange-sounding language.
Calling Crow recognized him as one of Ahopo’s personal braves. “I am Muskogee,” he said.
“What do they call you?” said the man.
“Calling Crow. And by what name are you known?”
“I am Tencheehee. How did you get here?”
“They captured my friend and me. They put us deep inside this place. We got sick and my friend died.” Calling Crow looked over at a man who doubled over to vomit violently. “Why did you and these people come out here?”
Tencheehee spat. “They tricked us. They gave us a drink they call wine. It is bad medicine. It made us crazy and we were easily fooled.”
Calling Crow looked at the man and said nothing.
Tencheehee bristled with anger. “Do you think we are cowards? We fought! You saw us! But it did no good, for they have the powerful medicine sticks that make thunder. What terrible things they are! When we ran at them, many men dropped dead before they could get close enough to fight.”
Tencheehee turned away from Calling Crow to call over to the people looking out at the world. “Do you see anything?”
One of the men turned and shouted in a worried voice, “No, just the big waters.” He noticed Calling Crow and left the hole in the wall and came over. He stared wildly at Calling Crow. “You! What are they going to do to us?”
“I don’t know,” said Calling Crow, put off by the man’s lack of composure.
The man looked around furtively. “I think they are going to eat us!”
“No,” said Calling Crow. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, they have penned us up like dogs to be fattened!”
Tencheehee turned back to Calling Crow. “I think they are demons. They are taking us far out into the big water so that we will fall off the end of the earth.”
“Aieyee!” said the other man. “That is what it is. They are demons and are taking us to the underworld!”
***
Calling Crow was sleeping on the dry grass when all of a sudden the cloudboat leaned over violently. He awoke as, all around him, people moaned with pain and fear. Calling Crow was vaguely aware of a difference in the air. The weather was changing! With a sense of foreboding, he got to his feet and made his way to one of the two holes in the wall. Calling Crow stuck his head out and a gust of wind whipped his hair. In the distance he saw a dense black mass of clouds on the horizon. It colored the sky above and the sea below.
“Is it coming our way?” Calling Crow asked the man keeping a vigil at the other hole.
The man’s eyes narrowed grimly as he nodded.
The cloudboat raced down a deep sea and Calling Crow felt light headed and dizzy. A few large drops of rain rattled down against the side of the cloudboat as the sky darkened. All the people in the animal pen were awake now. In the dim light they looked about worriedly. Again the cloudboat rolled way over, and a collective moan filled the air.
“Pray to the god Hurracane!” shouted someone from the gloom. “He is angry with us all!”
Chapter 13
Wind-driven seas slammed into the ship with a raging roar. Down in the helmsman’s shelter, Diego braced himself against a beam as he stood behind the helmsman. Both men looked out at the lightning streaked blackness. A wave smashed over the bow, angling the ship down into the foam-capped black water. The helmsman cursed as he fought the shuddering whipstaff which controlled the rudder. Lightning flashed close by and Diego looked up. Even with the sails trimmed, the wind howled ominously as it blew through the rigging. Diego made the sign of the cross and climbed up onto the quarterdeck. He knelt and peered down at the helmsman. “Keep her before the wind,” he shouted. “I am going forward.”
Jagged lightning streaked down to the ocean’s surface. In the flash, Diego saw stark fear in the helmsman’s face. Thunder crashed like a cannonade. God help us, Diego thought, there is no better seaman than this, and if he is frightened then things are a lot worse than I believed.
As Diego carefully made his way along the rail, he tried to put the image of the other man’s frightened face out of his mind. He thought of the Indians locked away in the blackness of the hold. Surely they were frightened half to death too. There was nothing he could do about their horrible confinement, but at least he could go down and try to calm them. He thanked God that his wife, who was an Arawak Indian, was not here to see them penned up like cattle.
Diego moved slowly, holding tightly onto the rail. He was shocked to notice a figure before him in the darkness. He couldn’t see them, but they called his name from the blackness and his blood ran cold. A gust of wind tore past Diego, past the darkened figure. Diego heard a flapping sound and saw what looked like large leathery wings spreading out and then being folded back in. Images of the devil filled him and he almost jumped overboard when the dark figure called his name again. Lightning flashed in the distance and relief flooded through Diego as he recognized Miguel Pinzon, a farmer. Pinzon was on his knees in prayer, his helmeted head bowed. His large hide cape flapped about him.
Recovering, Diego moved closer. “Miguel, are you all right?”
Miguel called out in a loud sorrowful voice, “Diego! Hear my vow. If the Lord God will spare me, I shall go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I swear it! As soon as we land I shall make my plans.” Miguel shook his head and uttered a short prayer.
Diego started around him and Miguel grabbed his leg. “Diego! Please hear my confession so that I may attain forgiveness!”
Diego broke away. Lightning flashed and he saw that there were other pairs of men kneeling about on the deck, hearing each other’s confessi
ons. The sight frightened him to his soul. The ship careened down the back of a wave, and Diego thought it might go straight to the bottom of hell! What if the Council of the Indies, the Pope, and the Bishops had all been wrong about this business of slavery? What if it truly was a sin against God? That would explain the terrible storm which now threatened them.
A wave smashed into the ship’s starboard, knocking Diego to his knees. The ship’s timbers groaned like a huge beast in its death throes. Then, with a roar, the sea washed quickly over the deck. Diego worried that the ship was not riding well and it was no longer able to slough off what the sea threw at it. He got to his feet and quickly headed for the ramp to the gundeck. As he approached the Indian pen, he noticed a crowd of men at the forward part of the gundeck. As he drew closer, he could hear their angry voices over the sounds of the storm. A colonist named Rodrigo Escabar ran up to him.
“Diego! It’s Senor Roldan. He is trying to talk his men and others into throwing the Indians overboard so the ship will ride better in the storm.”
The report dazed Diego like a blow to the head. He approached the throng of men. All around them, hammocks swung violently from the beams. He pushed through them and shouted at Roldan. “What kind of talk is this? It is madness to propose such a thing!”
Roldan was only momentarily distracted by Diego’s words, and continued addressing to the crowd. “It is the only way!” he shouted. “Come, we haven’t much time!”
“Si,” cried a colonist. He pointed angrily at Diego, “he would have us drown along with the savages.” A chorus of angry agreement broke out, and Diego flinched at its vehemence.
“Let us go then!” yelled Roldan.
Diego turned and started back toward the stairs. Francisco Mateo was still sick from the wound inflicted by an Indian lance. The key to the armory was in his cabin. With harquebuses and crossbows and some of the other colonists, Diego thought they could stop Roldan.
Roldan’s voice cried out. “Seize him!”
Two men grabbed Diego, pinning his arms behind him.
“You cannot do this,” Diego shouted. “This is a crime against God!”
“Shut up, fool!” shouted Roldan. He turned to his men. “Let us go!” He pushed past Diego and the mob followed him. Some of the men held back a bit in fear. Diego was pulled along behind them.
“In the name of God,” Diego shouted, “don’t do this thing!” The men’s faces were haunted with fear and they didn’t hear him as they followed the others.
Upon reaching the main pen, Manuel Ortiz unlatched the gate. With drawn swords, he and four others pulled a dozen frightened Indians out.
The man holding Diego released him in the excitement. Diego stood on his toes to see over the crowd. “Madre de Dios,” he cried. A woman with a baby held tightly in her arms was among those pulled out.
“Move out, move out,” yelled Roldan and Ortiz as they forced the Indians along at sword point.
Once up on the deck in the driving wind and rain, the Indians tried to run back into the hold of the ship, but were kept back by the swords of the men.
“Quickly,” shouted Roldan, “do it now. Throw them over.”
The men holding the Indians hesitated, none of them wanting to be first.
“Do it or we are all dead men!” shouted Ortiz. He grabbed an old man and pried him away from the arms of the others. The man fought as Ortiz shoved him roughly back to the rail. Ortiz then pushed him backward over the rail and he disappeared. The mob became emboldened.
“Come,” shouted a colonist, “let us be done with it.”
“Overboard with the others!” shouted another. “Throw them all over!” They grabbed two more Indian men.
“No!” shouted Diego. “For the love of God, don’t do this.” His words were whipped away by the wind.
The Indians fought back but were over matched and pushed over the rail with a chilling ruthlessness, one by one, disappearing into the black water. Two men seized the woman holding the baby, and Diego was filled with revulsion. He pushed wildly through the crowd, knocking men out of the way. “Spare her! Spare her and the child!”
A soldier armed with a crossbow stepped before him. Kneeling to steady himself on the swaying deck, he aimed it at Diego’s chest. Diego’s heart stopped. “Please,” he cried, “please.”
“Go ahead,” said the soldier, “save her.”
Diego looked at the crossbow and could not move. The men holding the woman watched for a moment, then dragged the screaming woman toward the rail. Diego watched in horror as they pushed her and the babe over. He fell to his hands and knees.
“Now, the others. Hurry!” shouted Roldan.
The mob was charged with a fury as wild as the storm as they rushed past Diego, trampling him. Unable to get to his feet, he crawled to the rail and held on, vomiting violently.
***
The women and children screamed in terror as they waited for the demon men to return and drag more people out. Calling Crow watched the dimly lit area near the pen opening. Keeping his back against the bulkhead, he was grateful for something solid to hold on to as the cloudboat rocked back and forth crazily. All around him, people were wild with fear. A great stench filled the hold from the many people who had gotten sick, and it seemed as if every woman, and child in the hold was crying in his ears.
“Why did they take them?” a man said over and over. He had been repeating the words ever since the first people had been pulled from the pen. Calling Crow thought that perhaps the demon men really did mean to eat them after all. A loud noise erupted from behind the bulkhead as the large demon dog that Fire Hair had ridden earlier screamed and kicked at the walls of his pen. A woman screamed a shrill cry of despair, raising the hairs on Calling Crow’s neck.
The cloudboat shook violently, as if in the jaws of a great sea beast, and the screams crescendoed. Calling Crow waited for the jaws to crush the cloudboat, expecting at any moment to see great white teeth descending upon them. He heard new shouts of alarm, and the demon men, led by Fire Hair’s Enemy, reappeared at the door to the cage, carrying their thunder sticks. With a howl of fury, they pulled the cage open and charged in. Three braves ran at the demon men, only to immediately fall dead as the thunder sticks erupted in smoke and fire. Two of the demon men dragged off the bodies. More demon men poured into the pen and two women threw themselves onto their knees, begging for mercy. The men seized them by the hair and began dragging them away. Calling Crow said a prayer to the Great Spirit. He must fight and die bravely. Screaming a war cry, he ran at the nearest demon man. The man’s face blossomed in fear as Calling Crow threw him onto the floor and grabbed the woman he had been dragging out. As he pulled her back, two demon men seized him. He managed to slam one up against the timbers, but the others struck at him with their fists, knocking him to the ground. Many more of them came and seized him, carrying him up to the top.
Under the stormy sky, Calling Crow couldn’t believe his eyes. In the intermittent flashes of lightning, the sea boiled and bubbled like a soup pot with a rock fresh from the fire thrown in. Several demon men grabbed a single woman and dragged her to the edge of the cloudboat. The old Gray Hair who had wanted Calling Crow to pray with him earlier protested, but the men ignored him and pushed the woman into the sea. She disappeared immediately into its black mouth. Calling Crow realized they were going to throw him into the sea. The sea would swallow him up just as it had his father. The thought made him wild with terror.
A man was thrown over next, and then more women. The wails of the people were louder now than the boiling waters and the shrieking winds.
The men dragged Calling Crow to the rail. Panting for breath, he fought furiously. Somehow he managed to break away when the cloudboat almost turned over in the wind. He ran for one of the trees growing from the cloudboat and began climbing up. Some of the demon men started after him and he kicked at them, keeping them at bay. The demon men continued dragging more people up from the pen and throwing them into the boil
ing black waters. Their screams distracted Calling Crow and he didn’t see the two demon men coming at him from different limbs of the tree. They pummeled him as they attempted to pry his arms loose from the cords. Another came up from below and pulled on his legs. Yet another demon man ripped Calling Crow’s medicine bag away and threw it into the sea. As it disappeared, Calling Crow felt the last of his strength leave him. Without his medicine he was powerless.
They began to pull him down. He couldn’t think. Someone hit him on the head and he grew weak. As they dragged him to the edge he saw a man who had been pushed overboard, screaming for mercy as he tried to climb back in. A demon man swung his long knife down, cutting one of the man’s hands off. It fell onto the deck and the man disappeared over the side. Another demon man stabbed an old man, then picked him up and heaved his body into the boiling waters. All around people were screaming and dying. Calling Crow cried out as they dragged him to the edge. The black waters reached up hungrily for him. The demon men were pushing him, punching him, when suddenly they stopped and he managed to crawl back down to the deck. Fighting for breath, he looked up. Fire Hair and some others carried thunder sticks and the strange little bows. Fire Hair’s Enemy and the other demon men seemed cowed. Even the wind had begun to die down and the sea to grow calmer. Fire Hair shouted angrily at the demon men and they began leading people back to their pens inside the cloudboat.
Back in the pen, Calling Crow was grateful for the dark. He felt shame for having been afraid. He lay on the straw, breathing heavily like an animal that had been run down in a hunt. Many of the people had been thrown into the sea. In the darkness, not one of those who were left spoke. Calling Crow put his hand where his medicine bag had hung and sorrow engulfed him. Now that his medicine was gone, it was the end of him. All around him people sobbed in the blackness.
***
Gray light appeared on the horizon as the wind moaned over the decks. The worst of the storm had passed, but the ship still rolled heavily. A crowd of men stood on the deck. Diego Vega stood with them as they faced Francisco Mateo and his officers. Paco Nacrillo had his arm about Mateo to help support him. Mateo shouted at the nervous mob. “Where is Roldan?”