by Paul Clayton
Peralta noted that the old cacique and the bravos also watched the exchange with rapt fascination.
“He speaks the language quite well,” said Valdez.
“Si,” said Father Tomas, “much better than Salazar speaks theirs.”
Several men nearby laughed nervously, then began muttering in speculation.
Peralta’s face reddened. “Our people are hungry. Our food stocks were destroyed through no fault of our own. You must trade us food!”
“We will give you food if you promise to return to your island,” said Calling Crow.
“That’s crazy,” said Peralta. “We have no ship. We won’t see a ship until after the season of storms.”
“You can build dugout canoes. These people will help you.”
“No! Who are you to put such conditions on us?”
Calling Crow raised his smoothly muscled arms. “Then there is nothing further to discuss. There will be no food.”
“This is an outrage!” said Peralta.
“Do not come to this place again,” said Calling Crow, unmoved.
Peralta looked around and quickly surveyed the position of his men, relative to the bravos.
Calling Crow’s voice cut through the noisy tumult. “Don’t think that you can frighten us with your shootingsticks. I know what they can do. We are far too many for you and there are many more outside. If you fight you will never get out of this village alive.”
Peralta cast a last angry look at Calling Crow and turned to Valdez. “Get the truk and let’s go.”
Valdez pointed to the chests. “Pack it up. We are leaving.”
The men were tense and quiet as they left the Indian village and headed for the forest. Soon the village was far behind and the men relaxed somewhat. In the sad, shaded quiet, their curses and the clatter of their swords against the thick bushes and vines did not bother Father Tomas. He was still thinking of the village and all they had seen there. It was everything he had expected, and more. Sadly, back on the island of Hispaniola, most of the native population was gone. Of those that remained, only the ones hiding in the mountains were wild; the vast majority having been Christianized. This was God’s will, of course, and it was good, but he had always wanted to study these people before their pasts had been obliterated. He had heard so many stories and all of them could not be false. What was it that tempered their reputed savagery? He thought of the many theories he had heard in Castile of contact between the Indios and the people of antiquity. The cacique himself wore what looked to be a Turkish turban, although made of skin. There was even a theory that these people might possibly be one of the lost tribes of Israel. Perhaps. They were a handsome people, well organized, healthy and strong. They had a noble bearing and dignified looks, especially the cacique and his advisors.
Back in their meeting hut, one of the bravos had worn leggings and a sarong of sorts cut from the hide of a bear. It reminded Father Tomas of a painting of Saint John the Baptist he had seen in the Royal Palace years ago. He could still see the details in his head of the Baptist, knee deep in the river Jordan, the barren desert a backdrop behind him. One other image had come to him, that of the Roman senate in session. Yes, put the wise old Indian elders in togas and it could be the same.
Father Tomas prayed while he walked. He must secure permission from the Indians to come to their village. Perhaps they would let him come alone. Then he could begin work on their conversion. If he could convert the old cacique, what was he called? Atina, yes, that was it. And the other one. Yes. He would work on the tall, un-tattooed one who spoke the language. How long, Father Tomas wondered, had he been a slave on Hispaniola. He hadn’t said. But given his command of the language, it must have been quite a while. Yes, him or the cacique. Once he converted one of them, the others would follow.
Chapter 9
Two moons after the delegation of Spanish called at Aguacay, the mild winter weather turned ugly with the arrival of a series of violent rain squalls. After the rain, cold winds blew off the sea every day, and at night freezing temperatures descended on the land. Frost covered the fields in the mornings. Everyone told Calling Crow this was the coldest winter they had ever experienced. On one frosty morning, Calling Crow awoke to the sound of sobbing. In the dim glow of the embers he saw that Green Bird Woman had gone. He hadn’t heard her leave. Calling Crow’s eyes strained in the dark. Santee was gone also. Bright Eyes stood in the entryway crying, her woven bark cape pulled tightly around her. She looked worriedly out into the darkness.
Calling Crow walked over to her. “Why do you cry?” he asked her.
“My mother has gone.”
“Yes. Where has she gone?”
Bright Eyes turned to him but kept her head down and did not meet his eyes. “It was time for the baby to come out.”
Calling Crow said nothing. It was the way of the Coosa women to go into the forest by themselves when they gave birth. He prayed silently to the Great Spirit to protect Green Bird Woman and her baby. He looked out at the gray dawn and thought of the bargain he had made with her. Going away now and leaving her and her child behind seemed strange to him now, as if another man had made that threat a long time ago.
Calling Crow paced the confines of the hut as the sounds of the waking village drifted in. Dogs barked sporadically. An old man cleared the phlegm from his throat as somewhere a just-started fire crackled hungrily. Bright Eyes continued to stand in the entryway sniffling. Then she was gone. Calling Crow stared at a tiny crack of daylight appearing in the mud-smoothed, woven cane wall. He wanted to go to Green Bird Woman and make sure she was safe, but could not. To go to her at this time was taboo.
He went outside and looked around. He wondered where she was. A fat brown dog, one of Green Bird Woman’s, ambled by, its nose sweeping the ground for scraps of food. It sniffed at Calling Crow’s feet. Moving on, it pawed the ground and uncovered a small bone. Circling twice, it sat down to chew. Calling Crow paced. He wondered what the child would look like. She had said that it was a boy. Would it be big, healthy?
Something in the distance caught Calling Crow’s eye. Down by the square, Red Feather was waving. Calling Crow grabbed his bow and quiver and ran to meet him. Despite the cool of morning, Red Feather’s worried face ran with sweat.
“What is it?” said Calling Crow.
“I came to tell you before Black Snake and the others find out,” said Red Feather breathlessly. “The whites have found the east granary. They are stealing grain!”
Calling Crow and Red Feather ran through stubble-filled maize fields. Two maidens ran up to them, pointing to the large, thatched building. “They are inside!” one shouted. “There are seven of them,” shouted the other girl, “men and women!”
Calling Crow and Red Feather ran through the entryway. At the back of the building, three Spanish women were sitting on the ground, eating raw grain, while the men loaded several baskets they had pulled down from a shelf. A woman saw them and screamed. Along with the other two, she got to her feet and pushed through a large hole the men had torn in the back wall. Two of the men ran out behind them. “Stop!” Red Feather demanded. A man brought his crossbow up to his cheek and Calling Crow dove for the ground, pulling Red Feather with him. The iron bolt shattered the wooden post where Red Feather’s head had been.
By the time Calling Crow and Red Feather got to their feet, the man had disappeared. One man remained. A frail, pathetic specimen, he was scrambling through the hole when his doublet caught on a stick. Struggling and in a panic, he was unable to free himself.
Red Feather shrieked out a war cry and ran at him. He threw the man down. The man screamed, his sunken eyes wide with terror. Red Feather raised his axe to strike him, but Calling Crow held his arm fast.
“What are you doing?” said Red Feather angrily.
“Does killing a man who is too weak to even raise his arms in his defense make one a great Coosa warrior?” said Calling Crow.
Red Feather’s anger ran out of him like water from a cracked pot.
Shame spread across his face. The man on the ground got to his feet and scrambled through the hole.
On the way back to Aguacay, the faces of the hungry Spanish at the granary haunted Calling Crow. Many of them would die if their ships did not come soon. Why hadn’t they stayed on their islands, he thought angrily. He had managed to keep the Coosa from attacking them, but after this, Black Snake would agitate for an attack and he might sway Atina and the old ones.
His face grim, Calling Crow said a quick prayer to the Great Spirit. May their cursed ships come and take them away! Aieyee! He could not protect them forever.
Calling Crow approached Green Bird Woman’s hut. These past three moons the small bulge the baby had made in her belly had worried him. He hoped she had gotten her wish, a strong baby boy. He entered the darkened hut and looked at his deer skins hanging from the walls, interspersed with her painted pots and weavings. The cookfire had burned out and the place was sad, as if a ghost were hovering about. He was about to go back outside when he noticed something in the far corner. Green Bird Woman seemed to have shrank and now looked as small as her daughter. She lay with her back to him. He went to her. She heard him, but she did not turn around. He saw no baby. Santee or another woman must be taking care of it for her. He wondered what it looked like. He waited but she did not acknowledge his presence.
“Well,” he said finally, “where is it?”
“It is dead,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice. “It was born dead.”
“Aieyee!” He knelt and put his hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry”
She did not move and said nothing.
He left the hut and ran into the forest. He wished he could take away her pain, like removing a thorn from a hand or foot, but he knew he could not. He was surprised at how much her pain had become his own. He found a trail and ran till the shadows grew long and his fatigue hurt more than the pain in his heart.
Chapter 10
Over a thousand miles south of the faltering settlement of New Castile, a bright, tropical sun shone down on the city of Santo Domingo on the Spanish island-colony of Hispaniola. A horse-drawn carriage wound its way through narrow stone streets fronting two story houses of white-painted adobe. Despite the carriage’s jostling, its lone occupant, Captain Demetrio Lozano, sat upright with an air of military decorum. The speeding carriage came perilously close to native women carrying baskets of bright red spices and green and white vegetables on their heads. Lozano paid no notice to them nor to his soft, white beard which fluttered in the air. His mind was on the task ahead. Of the forty or so French buccaneers that had recently been captured at Monte Christi on the other side of the island, thirty had been hanged on the spot by angry vaqueros and farmers. Of the remainder, seven had died during the interrogations that followed, and still they had not learned the location of the French Heretic colony in the Floridas. Lozano’s stomach tightened as he thought of Excellency Zamora’s anger if he let forty French heretics slip away into the Hell that surely awaited them without learning that secret. But, Lozano reminded himself, he had had a stroke of luck. His men had discovered the hidden outpost the French kept in the mangrove swamps along the coast and four of their Indian women had been captured and brought in the night before. They would be the tool that would allow him to secure the information.
Soon the road straightened and the carriage glided down the slope to the harbor. Lozano saw the small French caravel in the harbor that his forces had captured. The carriage turned at the quay and the ship was lost to view. The carriage clattered on toward a row of warehouses. The driver reined in his horse at the first one and locked the wheels of the carriage. He indicated the door.
Lozano entered and walked toward the rear of the large building. He came to a jail enclosure built against the back wall. Five soldiers stood guard outside. Inside, two men sat on the straw-covered dirt floor, chained to a wall. A third knelt before a wooden tub of water. His hair and face were wet from the dunking the soldiers had given him. The odor of urine and human feces mixed with the smell of straw.
Lozano stepped into the cell. The soldiers bending over the kneeling Frenchman stood up at attention.
“What have you learned since last night?” said Lozano.
The older, ranking soldier indicated the man at his feet. “That he is their leader, sir.”
Lozano nodded appreciatively. “Good. I was afraid that their leader might have been one of those hung by the farmers.” Lozano looked at the Frenchman. The man’s eyes were still angry and unrepentant. “What is his name?”
“Bouchard,” said the older soldier. “He wouldn’t tell us.” He pointed to one of the men chained to the wall. “But he did.” The man lay still. His head hung limply, his hair touching the straw and dirt.
“I think he’s dead,” said Lozano. “No matter; he has served his purpose.” He looked at the soldier. “Go get the women.”
The man nodded and left the jail, walking to the other side of the warehouse. A moment later he returned with four native women. Dressed in drab brown, woolen gowns, they had their hands tied behind them. One of them was striking in her beauty, despite the dirt on her gown and face. She ran to Bouchard and knelt beside him. Crying, she rubbed her face against his. Bouchard spoke to her softly in French.
“Take the others away,” said Lozano, “we won’t be needing them.”
The soldier led the women away as the kneeling woman continued to caress Bouchard’s face with tenderness.
Lozano addressed the remaining soldier. “Get her to her feet.”
The soldier roughly yanked the woman to her feet. She cried and struggled to free herself. Bouchard looked at her in despair.
Lozano addressed Bouchard in French. “We are growing tired of your stalling. Where is the Protestant colony located?”
Bouchard looked at the floor in sullen silence.
Lozano pulled a small sharp dagger from his belt and turned to the Indian woman. He grabbed her ear and with one swift motion, cut it off. She screamed in pain as Lozano threw it on the floor before Bouchard.
Bouchard began to cry. “For the love of God, Sir,” he said in Spanish, “she has done nothing.”
“You know the location,” said Lozano. “Tell me and I will let you and your woman live.”
“My pilot knew, but your men have already killed him.”
Lozano grabbed the woman’s other ear and swiftly cut it off, tossing it in front of Bouchard. The woman cried as blood ran down her neck staining her gown. Lozano grabbed her nose, pulling her head forward roughly. “Do you want her nose too?”
“Please, stop,” cried Bouchard, “I will tell you. Stop!”
Lozano pushed the woman backward and looked at the soldier holding her. “Take her back and bandage her up.” He nodded to the other, older soldier. “Come with me.”
They walked to the sunlit entrance. Lozano stopped and turned to the soldier. “Bring in a pilot to get the latitude and the other details on the colony.” Lozano looked back at the torch-lighted jail. “Then hang them all.”
“Bouchard’s woman too?”
Lozano smiled at the soldier. “Hang the lovely couple side by side.”
The soldier nodded curtly as Lozano walked through the doorway and out into the bright light of noonday.
Chapter 11
Calling Crow sat on a log with some bravos as they waited for Rain Cloud to come and begin Calling Crow’s initiation into the Fox society. A man called Little Hawk told a story. When Rain Cloud was a young man, his uncle had been teaching him how to hunt alligators. Rain Cloud had grabbed ahold of a small alligator’s tail. The creature thrashed about with such violence he dared not let go. He pleaded with his uncle to kill the alligator with his lance, but the old man had refused for the longest time, wanting the lesson to stick.
Rain Cloud approached carrying a skin-covered bundle. Little Hawk called out to him, using his childhood name. “Holds-On-Long, they said you were in the swamp catching alligators.”
; Rain Cloud’s usually somber face blossomed into a smile. “Yes, but I had to stop. My hands grew tired.”
Little Hawk and the others laughed and Rain Cloud put his bundle down. The others grew solemn as he withdrew a green stone knife, adorned with red feathers. He raised it in offering to Father Sun and then nodded to Calling Crow, who faced away. Rain Cloud knelt behind him. Using swirl, deft movements, he began carving the distinctive markings of a Coosa bravo into Calling Crow’s back. A crowd of boys who had been standing off at a respectful distance drew closer as Calling Crow’s blood began to flow. At the point of both Calling Crow’s shoulder blades, rivulets of blood coursed down to his breechclout. Red Feather frowned as he watched; he would be tattooed after another summer had passed.
Calling Crow’s face grew dark as Rain Cloud carved the marks into him. He decided to feel the knife cutting into his back like the bite of stinging ants. He thought of how the brotherhood of these men had given him a new life. He moved about the village now as if he had always been here. He looked around at these brave men and realized he was now a part of them.
Rain Cloud finished and stood. The others grew silent with respect. Closing his eyes, Rain Cloud leaned his head back and sang out his prayer. “In one moon’s time I will fill in the scars I have made with color. It will be the color black, the color of the panther. Black bands will encircle Calling Crow’s arms, chest and legs. Like the black of the panther, they will give him great power over his enemies and he will use that power for the good of the Coosa, his people.”
Rain Cloud’s cousin’s boy ran up to them. “Atina has called a council. You must come quick.”
Calling Crow, Rain Cloud and the others filed into the great hut. The bravos from the other societies looked at the coagulated blood tracings that would become Calling Crow’s tattoos. Many of them nodded their heads in approval. Black Snake, Running Wolf, and the Wolf bravos glared in open hostility at Calling Crow and the other Fox society bravos as they sat before Atina.