Lord de Soto stepped off the platform and walked to where he could see Cooquyi’s face. “Who among these servants misled my captains?” he asked softly. “Tell me and I will spare your hand.”
Cooquyi twitched and twisted his arm. His lips quivered. His teeth clenched, but he said nothing.
The interpreter stepped between the two with his own plea, “Answer your governor and commander. Save your hand!”
Cooquyi’s expression grew hard. His chest swelled. His eyes spread wild.
One of the guards grabbed Cooquyi’s free right arm and twisted it back and up. Cooquyi bent and bowed his head out of pain, not out of respect. The hairy Spaniard raised his axe.
Lord de Soto strolled back to the platform and returned to his throne. Resting on one elbow, he studied the faces of the remaining servants in the breathless hush.
“¡Entregar!” he yelled.
A powerful swing buried the axe blade deep into the wood between Cooquyi and his left hand. He shuddered. The Spaniard wrestled his axe from the log and swept Cooquyi’s lifeless hand aside. It fell to the plaza floor with a hollow thump.
They untied Cooquyi and stood him up. He swayed. One knee buckled, but the determination on his face did not change.
“All that are here know the compassion I have for lost souls,” Lord de Soto called to the crowd. “In the eyes of God ‘to lie’ is among the greatest of sins, and great sins must be punished.”
He turned back to Cooquyi. “Forego further punishment. Tell me who among these servants brought failure to my expedition?”
Cooquyi had humbled himself before the Spanish too many times. He had seen too many die, too many tortured, and been taken too far from his homeland. He raised his handless arm, wiped the blood across his chest, then began to dance and chant.
Lord de Soto shouted, “Off with his other hand! Cut off all of their hands!”
Most of the servants around me understood his commands. Some begged for mercy. The Spanish hooted and hollered. Cooquyi continued to dance. And I did nothing.
I did nothing—nothing when they beat him down, nothing when they strapped his other arm to the log. I did nothing but watch the blade crash down. His right hand flopped loose and slid onto the ground next to the left. They dragged Cooquyi out and threw him on the bloody pile of mangled Pa-caha bodies.
Then I stood. I stood and shouted, “He is not dead!”
De Soto pointed, “Take him.”
The other servants retreated as the guards came for me. They forced me toward the cutting stump with a tight hold on each arm and a sword at my back. I moved without senses or struggle. A strange calm spread over me. My spirit, like my voice, floated above the commotion.
The guards strapped down my left arm. The axe man stepped in close. My fingers stretched and strained. The Spaniard raised his axe. The fingers closed one at a time and my thumb folded over them.
“¡Entregar!” Lord de Soto shouted.
“¡Alto! ¡Alto!” someone yelled even louder.
The guards eased their hold on me.
“Master Diego,” I called out.
The axe man wavered for a moment. I heard his blade split the air. I jerked back. I saw the ugly Spaniard pull his blade from the log. I heard him grunt. I smelled the blood. But I felt nothing.
When my senses found me, I gasped for breath. He had missed my wrist, but my hand, across the heel to the bottom of the thumb, was gone.
Diego de Guzman pushed his way across the plaza. He untied my arm without looking at me. Still, I could see the pain in his eyes.
Lord de Soto jumped to his feet and demanded, “Follow my orders. Cut off both hands.”
Master Diego struggled with the guards as they held down my right arm. The axe man raised his blade. I had no struggle left. Master shoved him aside and put his right hand over mine.
“Take my hand,” he shouted, “before you take another from this boy.”
The axe man lowered his weapon. De Soto sat down. The two guards loosened their hold and Master Diego helped me to my feet.
“Walk tall, Chipmunk,” he whispered.
I stumbled alongside Master Diego to the center of the plaza.
“Governor de Soto,” he said, “I am a man of some wealth and great heritage, yet with all that, I have no right to interfere with your given commands. For that trespass, I humbly ask your forgiveness.”
De Soto waved Master Diego away with the flick of his hand. “I will hear no more talk of Chisca or failed expeditions,” he commanded.
Master pushed me toward the mound steps. I stumbled through the crowd.
Behind me, I heard the Son of the Sun shout. “Men and servants, return to your duty. Remember what you saw here today.”
I will always remember. I could never forget that day and the darkness I fell into.
Chapter 37
Manaha’s Journey
Ninety-four years after “their” arrival
When Manaha woke, the story-fire had died and Father Sun was well into the morning. What would Ichisi think of her sleeping so late? The tribe must be far ahead by now.
She sat up with a grunt. A glimpse of last night’s dream came to her. It was Grandfather waving to her with his good hand. A brief warmth filled her chest, then it was gone, and she was alone again.
“No sense in wasting any more time,” she told herself and began rolling up the bedding. With her walking stick leading the way and haste in her stride, Manaha left the knoll and the stream behind.
She walked the rest of the morning before coming on the tribe’s campsite, abandoned since early dawn. She picked up the pace. The land remained flat and open with few trees for shade. Looking back, she realized that she had been slowly climbing out of a shallow valley up to a low ridge. The distant mountains called to her with a tug she could feel. She listened a moment before she turned away.
From the ridge, a path made by the tribe flowed down the gentle slope. Manaha searched the open forest and meadows in front of her. No one was in sight. Farther south across the horizon stretched the rim of Lone Mountain, hazy blue against the bright sky. Unlike the mountains she knew to the north, this one stood alone—untouched by any other mountain. The land of the Tulla was across the Akamsa River among the rolling hills on the far side of Lone Mountain.
Ichisi said there would be two ridges to cross before reaching the river, Manaha thought as she trotted down the first. The heat and distance proved greater than her will. She stopped long before day’s end and set up camp in a field of small furrows like she had seen snaking across the land of the Orb Stones.
It was well after dark before Ichisi found her fire. “Greetings, Storyteller,” he called out.
She smiled, as she looked up from her carvings on the walking stick.
“The tribe is camped on the bank of the Akamsa River,” he announced.
She set her work aside.
“What are you making?” he asked.
She said nothing.
“Akamsa River is much wider than I imagined,” he said.
“And the Mizzissibizzibbippi is greater than three such rivers,” boasted Manaha, feeling the need.
“Well ... the canoes that left from our old village were waiting at the river’s edge. The tribe will cross tomorrow.”
Manaha put away her knife and began gathering the shavings she had carved from the walking stick.
“That next ridge overlooks the river ... It is not far,” he said while he studied the old woman hunched over her work. “You can camp there until you are ready to cross the river, and I will come back every day.”
“Once, you carried wood from the lightning struck tree for my first story-fire,” she said as if she had not been listening.
Ichisi lifted his shoulders and rocked his head.
“To every story-fire after that, I have offered three pieces from the center of that tree, with a prayer to the ancestors to guide my path and the stories I tell.”
She handed her basket of shavin
gs to Ichisi. “One by one, drop three pieces onto the flames.”
After long, silent moments, Manaha said, “I will tell a story.”
Chapter 38: My First Sunrise
Nanza’s Journey
Forty-nine years after “their” arrival
On my last night in the Ozark Mountains, a half-moon slid with its following of clouds across a sky—black and speckled with countless pricks of light. I found no comfort in my insignificance. My sleeping guide grunted a snore. Even Taninto had been a part of something—had friends, and a family with names. He had a story.
I will find my people. I will know their names, I told myself until dreams overtook hope. In the battle between the two, I rolled from side to side while the heavens faded from black to blue. Exhausted from the struggle to rest, I sat up.
Few stars remained. I could have counted them all, but I wanted to see Nine-Rivers Valley in the day’s first light. I stood and pulled my cloak up around me. Neither Little Pup nor my guide stirred. To the west, I could make out a few trees against a forest of shapeless grays. To the east, the horizon glowed.
I turned toward the coming light. Little Pup stretched front legs out and tail up. The old man breathed softly, the weight of time gone from his face.
“Come on,” I whispered. She stretched again, back to front. Then with the suddenness of an attack, the lazy puppy jumped to one side, twisted in the dirt, and bolted after me. She jumped and bounced off my leg. I pushed back, too late. Snorting and hopping backwards just in front of my next step, she challenged me.
“I am not going to chase you,” I said, “not today.”
The sky was clear but for a few stubborn clouds just above the horizon, the last blackness in a deepening blue. My thoughts turned to last night’s story.
“This is my day,” I announced to Little Pup and the world. “I am not going to think about hands, dogs, the axe man, or gold.”
Little Pup and I hurried across the field to where I had stood the night before. Among patches of briars lay two large boulders. Side by side, they seemed as out of place as the Orb Stones I had seen in the fields above Two-Falls-One. Neither of these boulders was at all round. One of them leaned forward as if ready to tumble down at any moment. The other one nested firmly into the hillside.
Little Pup ran off to explore a rustle in the briars. I climbed atop the leaning boulder and hung my legs over the side. Nine-Rivers Valley, the land of my future, the homeland of my ancestors, lay below, a mystery—still dark. As I waited for Father Sun, I remembered a morning prayer that Grandfather had taught me.
“Great Spirit, Father of all that I have received.
Creator of all that is known and all that is unknown
grant me this day and time to understand your greatness
to walk in harmony with all your creation.”
Birds began to chatter. Soon there were so many songs, I could not tell one from another. A gray fog crept in from behind and spread down the hill. An owl gave her last hoot of the night. Little Pup yelped and came running. She leaped onto the boulder and lay next to me. I watched her paw at her nose and whimper.
“Did you stick your nose in the briars where it did not belong?” I asked and rubbed her head. In the moments Little Pup had my attention, a sliver of burning red appeared above the distant flat horizon.
Father Sun’s first rays broke through and flew over Nine-Rivers Valley to paint the mountainside about me with golden light. Suddenly everything vibrated with life. Even the brown winter grasses waved their bent stems with pride. The trunks of trees stood apart from their leaves and leaves from their branches. Each color vibrated with separation. Morning dew twinkled on the new leaves as they swayed in the gentle breeze rolling up from the lowlands.
“This day is mine!” I shouted into the sweet, moist air. I had dreamed of this, and now the time had come. “What will I find?” I lifted Little Pup’s head and turned her curious face toward mine.
“What will I say?” I asked. “Will my people accept me?”
I looked into her eyes and shook my head. “You do not know, do you?”
“He would know,” I mumbled.
Little Pup stood and turned around, tail wagging. I pulled her to me. Taninto was behind us. I hoped he had not heard my doubts.
The last two clouds in the sky burned purple as the red disk took full form. Once again, I looked down on Father Sun as I had done at the start of our journey. Not a setting sun this time, but a rising sun marking the coming of my day.
The life-giving light rolled slowly down the hillside and into the valley as lazy whiffs of fog drifted up. Father Sun changed from red to bright yellow as I strained to see a village, growing fields, or even the smoke from a campfire. The sunlight exposed nothing but forest, green, vast, and unbroken. Soon, all that remained of the morning fog rose in a thin line weaving a path along the edge of the valley and off to the southeast.
“That last bit of fog,” Taninto said as he climbed on the other boulder, “drifts up the White River.” He motioned with his bad hand.
I turned away. He dropped it and pointed with the other hand.
“There,” he said. “This side of the White River is the Little Red River. Just above where the two merge, you will find the villages of Palisema along the banks of the Little Red.”
I stood up and declared, “I am ready.”
Little Pup leaped off the back of our boulder and ran to the front, but Grandfather did not even move.
“You promised to take me there,” I said.
He reached across the gap between the boulders. I stepped back and glared down at him.
“This is your journey,” he said. “You must face the sun and travel your own path. It is time for you to leave me and the mountains.”
“You promised to take me.”
“I can go no further,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You can find it from here. I will tell you the way.”
“What do you mean, you can go no farther? Is your strength lacking or is it courage?”
He looked away. I sat back down and stared over the valley.
“Long ago, I vowed never again to enter Nine-Rivers Valley.”
“I will not go without you,” I said.
“You have to go, and I have to stay in the mountains.” He reached across the boulders again. “Nanza ... my child.”
I did not pull away.
He squeezed my hand. “It is my hope,” he said, “that you will forgive and forget my lies, but that you will remember the stories. They are the truth, and all that I had to give to you.”
“You have to tell me why,” I shouted and scooted out of his reach.
We both stared out across the land of our ancestors.
He glanced around. “The morning is glorious and young. I will tell you my reason. I will tell you what happened after I lost my hand.”
Chapter 39: All Things Lost
Taninto’s Journey
August 5, 1541
Wrapped in a smothering dark dream, I woke to a confusion of murmurs. Sounds tumbling through the blur like a mountain stream, too rapid to grasp. My body ached. I had no memories of where I lay or how I got there.
Afraid to move, I eased one eye open. It was still dark, but I could see that I lay on a pallet. The sounds I heard were two men mumbling in Spanish words a few paces away. The tattered bottoms of their long, brown robes told me they were Spanish priests. I had nothing to fear from these gentle men.
I opened both eyes and raised my head.
In two quick steps, the tallest of the priests stood next to me and stammered, “This is Cleric Francisco Del Pozo from Cordola, and I am Friar Luis de Soto.”
“De Soto?” my dry throat crackled.
“Yes, I am a cousin of Governor de Soto.”
“Where am I?”
Instead of an answer, he offered me a drink. I rose up and reached for the water bottle. Then it all came back: Lord de Soto, the dogs, the
axe man. I fell back and closed my eyes.
I told myself, just a bad dream. With eyes still shut, I raised my left hand and wiggled my fingers. I felt them all. “Just a bad dream,” I said and opened my eyes.
They were gone. “I feel my fingers!” I yelled at the priest. “How can I feel my fingers? I have no fingers. I have no left hand!”
I held my right hand next to the bandaged stump. “I have only one hand,” I mumbled over and over, as I watched my remaining fingers dance. The second finger had a sore on the inside. I turned my hand and saw more: black boils on my arms, on my chest, everywhere I looked.
“Yes, my son,” the friar said. “You suffer from smallpox. Your people call it the Black Sleep.”
I reached to comfort as one hand often does for the other. “What can I do now? I have only one hand.”
The priest raised the water bottle to my lips.
I grabbed it and snapped, “I can hold it.”
He pulled the water away before I had my fill then placed a soft hand on my forehead. “The fever is gone,” he said. “Tomorrow you should be fit enough to walk.”
“Walk? Walk to where?”
“Quiguate. I am told that it is the main town in this province.” The friar spoke in an unsettling union of Casqui and Pa-caha words. “We are two days south of the last Casqui village,” he said.
I cleared my throat. “How did I get here?”
“Slaves of your master have carried you for four days, delirious with fever.”
“How is it that you speak my language?”
“I and my five brothers are here to tend to the souls of all men. Learning some of the languages is my contribution in our mission to teach the word of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
I tried to sit up, but he easily pushed me back down.
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