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  The reinforcements never came and if they did, I doubt if we would have made much of a difference. After a mile down a narrow path, I saw the river. I had passed many times, but I never knew how grand it was until then. I stared at it; studied in all its power, and I was caught in its trance. The Incas called it the Sacred River. It certainly was large and encompassing. If there was a God, this certainly would be it. Pure. Strong. Eternal. It was easy to surrender to, and surely if this was a god it was one I could pray to. And I understood fully why the Incas prayed to it every day.

  I looked beyond and saw Gonzalo’s Inca wife. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she too stared at the river. But I could tell her sobs were not all from grief. She was crying because she wanted to, but there was a firm conviction to her face. She stood tall and defiant, and she watched the river. She too was caught in the same trance I was. We stared at the river and watched it flow down, all the way down as far as our eyes could see. Words were as meaningless as they ever were, and as we stared at each other and each of us had understood. We didn’t need words. A look was enough.

  Then it was over.

  Her guards and Inca servants caught up with her and then took her away, and I never saw her again.

  I stared back into the jungle. It was only for a few hours but it felt like a year. I stared out to the canopy. I stared beyond the streams. I stared at the frogs and snakes, and I waited for the moon. Then I was tapped on the shoulder. The tap was followed by a smack to the head. I turned around and found that it was Gonzalo. I was told to wait and that I would be wanted in a few hours, and I watched him disappear through the jungle.

  I waited the entire night and well into the sunrise. I hadn’t slept in all that time. Then a young scout approached me and I was called forward to meet Gonzalo and his appointed sergeants. We were met first by Orellana who read from a scroll. I nodded off and drifted deep into sleep, and all of Orellana’s words escaped me. I was still exhausted, and the river and the slush of the rising tide once again mesmerized me. Gonzalo met us a few minutes later and I woke up startled, and my weariness got the best of me. After a few minutes, Orellana and Gonzalo dominated the meeting and I heard them bicker at each back and forth. I tried my hardest to pay attention. I dipped my head frequently, so I decided to close my eyes and focus on the words said.

  “We have no other choice. We have to return to Cusco.” I heard Orellana say.

  “Again?”

  “We have to go, Gonzalo.”

  “You don’t need to tell me. I accepted it.”

  “I haven’t.”

  Then Orellana pleaded his case to stay in the jungle, but Gonzalo reasoned him back to reality.

  “Almagro’s nearing Cusco. He might already be there.”

  “But Hernando’s there. We needn’t worry.”

  “I wish that were the case. I wish we had a choice.”

  Finally, I knew exactly why I was summoned. I didn’t need to hear any further discussion. All of Gonzalo’s soul wanted to stay and hunt down Manco in the jungle, but Gonzalo didn’t have a choice, and the reasoning for his stalling was that he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that Cusco needed to be saved.

  Then Gonzalo and Orellana went on and discussed the obvious. Again I heard the words, but I didn’t pay any attention. Instead, I stared into the river.

  “Why now?”

  “Almagro. That’s the only reason.”

  “Almagro? He's still alive?”

  “Apparently he is.”

  “The last I heard he was moving to Lima.”

  “You’ve heard wrong. He’s heading to Cusco.”

  “Cusco?”

  “Three scouts confirmed it.”

  “Why Cusco?”

  “He still thinks it’s his.”

  “But what about El Dorado?”

  “You think I haven’t thought about it?”

  “Certainly not. But this is quite a dilemma, Gonzalo.”

  “There will be no El Dorado if we lose Cusco.”

  “Your brother has enough men to defend it.”

  “Not nearly enough, Orellana.”

  “But what about Manco?”

  “One bastard at a time.”

  Then Gonzalo approached me with a sack of gold. It felt heavy and full. He stared at me with a look of concern. He asked me questions and I answered all of them, but with great hesitation. I knew for a fact that my pauses bothered him. No doubt he took this as a sign of my own ignorance, and no doubt he was probably right. The spaces in between our words seemed greater, and the silence was unnerving to him, but I simply couldn’t say or do anything else, and words, particularly the right words, never came to me when I needed them, so silence more than not sufficed.

  “What are you doing, Sardina?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “Why do you hesitate?”

  “Forgive me, sir.”

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “I’m praying, sir.”

  “Praying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who, may I ask, are you praying for?”

  “The dead.”

  “Never mind the dead, Sardina. Focus on the living.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “The dead can’t take orders. Only the living can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gonzalo gave me his orders, and I was put in charge to hunt down Manco. I remembered Gonzalo’s last words, and besides one other horrible thing that was about the only thing I remember of that day.

  “Do what you do best, Sardina. Stay here. Hunt him down."

  And with that, Gonzalo left. He returned back to Cusco to help his brother, Hernando. The rumors turned out to be true. The Almagros had returned, and they were there in force.

  But before Gonzalo left, he did one last thing. I knew exactly what it would be. And when it happened, I felt my heart drop. Before he departed, Gonzalo gave one final speech that was horrible and cruel.

  “Let the bastard know,” He repeated.

  His words were sufferable. His eyes were red and festering. Then he gave the orders, and when I heard them my heart dropped again, but there was nothing I could do.

  And when I saw the box, I almost fell down. Then when I saw Gonzalo’s sick grin of evil, I shook my head. Later I turned my head and heard ungodly screams and shrieks, and I saw Cura fight for her life as a half a dozen guards chased after her. She bit and scratched and crawled her fingernails into the guards’ faces, and that was the last time I saw her alive.

  An hour later we were ordered to carry the box all the way back to the river. Inside was Cura’s corpse. She had been shot by arrows and her body was wrapped in banana leaves. The box was light and six of the men including myself carried it to the edge of the brook. None of our men shared any emotion, and while carrying the box, I must admit, I too had no emotion. I merely set the wood on my shoulder, marked my steps, and kept my balance, as other men did the same. We set the box down to the crest of the river, left it aloft, and watched it float down. I didn’t see her die, but I heard her screams in my mind as that box floated away.

  Afterward, a devastating pain went through my chest, and I finally felt something. It was a sadness. It was a deep sense of sadness that I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the painful feeling of being alive, and it was a feeling that I thought I had lost.”

  X

  A few days passed, and Manco saw the same box float down the river. It came and flowed down, and the Incas whimpered in absolute shock and sorrow.

  At first, Manco merely watched, but as the box flowed down closer he cried and prayed. He refused to open the box. He knew what was inside. He cradled Titu and turned him away. The box floated down the Amazon, and Manco sobbed, winced, and knelt to the ground. The Incas said a prayer through their tears, and when it was over, Manco took Titu by his hand, and they walked away.

  CHAPTER 7

  “So we marched on in search of Manco. I was in charge of thirty men, all o
f them much younger than me. My men and I searched every inch of that jungle. All we thought about was Manco and what he was hiding, El Dorado or otherwise, and we were still that we could find him.

  The jungle, though, proved to be a difficult trek. I almost forgot how hellish it was. I almost forgot how impossible it felt. But the heat reminded me, and I paid with interest. Ahead and what remained were the endless vines and the enormous trees. We slashed our way through and followed many trails that went nowhere. After a while the streams disappeared, and so too did the river. Many nights I kept awake and listened to my surroundings, and sometimes I could hear the entire jungle swirl and breathe as if it was singing a song that I simply could not understand.

  Every morning in the jungle was wet and damp. The air was dense and moist and hot and ungodly, and every morning I wanted to vomit. It was a horrid feeling, especially when it rained. And every morning the jungle's heat started before sunrise. Although Cusco was very hot at the midpoint of the day, it was nothing like the jungle.

  Words were vague and confused. We hardly used them. There was no place for them. It was a familiar routine that I was used to, and my men were getting used to it. We spat. We sprawled. We took off our armor. We languished. We put our armor back on. Words were replaced by our movements. They came in wishes and smacks. Then slides and shifts. But the cacophony of the jungle’s sounds was louder. The jungle took our souls. The jungle didn't care.

  It all felt like a graveyard. Our faces were red and filled with welts. Flies and spiders and fleas bit at our faces. We itched all over and constantly scratched ourselves until we bled, but we pressed on and slashed at everything in sight. When it rained it came at a drenching pace, enough to drown us. It splattered on our helmets and pelted us and soaked our skin, and when the sun emerged from the clouds so too came the heat. The air was suffocating and for long periods of time, we didn’t breathe.

  After a week, we were no nearer Manco. We didn’t find any clue of any kind. There was only the jungle. And after another week, it all seemed like a horrible mistake.

  The men cursed the air. Then they cursed the birds and cursed the assumed Incas that were up in the trees watching over us. Small fights broke out among the men, but I allowed it. The frustration of our marches was enough to make any man lose his mind, and my men frequently did. I couldn’t blame any of them. Damn fools could have killed themselves for all I cared. It would have been easier for me.

  One morning I saw about a hundred red ants crawl all over one man’s face. He had been sleeping against a rotten log all throughout the night, and my guess was that was the same place that the anthill was located. The man’s face was swollen and grew about two sizes larger as the day progressed. The other men made fun of him at first, but then man collapsed in the midday sun, and he died two days later. No one knew his name, but nonetheless, we gave him a proper Christian burial.

  More days passed, and still there was no sign of the Incas. The fog continued and spiraled each morning. We forged through it. But in all that time we found nothing and encountered less. I kept the men moving, hoping the jungle would end. It didn’t. The elevation gradually grew higher and higher and our movement slowed down considerably. Another day passed and with it came a heavy dense fog. The men kept looking up, and again they anticipated an ambush, but it didn’t come.

  Then one afternoon, the inevitable happened. I could read it on the men's faces, and some had awakened to their epiphanies already. There was dissension among the men that we had gone too far into the jungle. Being their leader, I couldn't let them believe anything but our mission. But I knew these men could not be brought back. They still believed in Cusco, because they saw it. They saw that it was real. So they decided to leave.

  I was fair to them. There were ten men in all, a third of the entire company. I saw their exhaustion. I knew their intentions. I told them to forfeit their attempts and to leave the party entirely and return back to Cusco. I neither gave them my blessings nor damned them to hell. I just saw them disappear.

  The dissension still lingered, especially with the men who remained. Some of my men said I went too easy on them. They were right. I could have tried them all for treason and hung them before the end of the afternoon.

  I could have. But I didn't.

  I knew cruelty only went so far, and that trust was something that was supposed to be mutual. I had seen the cruel way Gonzalo went about us when he had full command. I had seen that absolute control led to absolute madness, and before I slipped into that trance, I resolved within myself to never rule with such irrational measures.

  So I let the men go to their own demise.

  For the men who stayed, they asked me several times of what was happening in Cusco, and I told them in confidence that Cusco would remain secure and peaceful and that our focus was on finding and killing Manco. I told them that our luck was bound to change, that Manco and El Dorado were closer than we thought they were. Many days and nights passed, but our bad luck remained.

  The rain poured down, and we looked up the canopy. One night I saw the pale moon come up before the mountains. The mountains looked different facing west, and the moon looked much smaller. I dreaded the nights and wanted nothing else but to remain blank and void of thought, yet I knew that this was utterly unavoidable and I knew that my mind was at war with itself. My thoughts though had no merit in reality and were only leaps of mental fancy or measure. And the thoughts rushed in and lingered throughout the night.

  My thoughts were almost all about Soto, and they took control of my mind without any resistance. The prime thought I had during those nights was the thought of Soto being my father instead of my friend. I thought of the hell that would have been. What kind of painful life that would be? What would have Soto taught me had I been his son instead of his friend? And if so what would have I of learned? And what position of power would I possess? We were only ten years apart, but it felt very much as if Soto was my contemporary. However, if Soto were my father, I'd be in the same situation Almagro's son would be in. To follow without question. To perform orders. To live in the shadow. Much like Christ. Much like any son who was obliged to follow in his father's footsteps. But at the end of the night, I drew a swift conclusion. If Soto were my father, I'd simply have to kill him.

  I awoke from that dreadful dream and I found myself dripping in my own sweat, but I woke up relieved. Soto wasn’t my father. My father was dead and I accepted that fact even before I left Spain, and I thanked God he was. But the second thought never quite left me. Soto was my brother. That was real and undeniable, and I was grateful of that. He wasn’t a brother in the flesh. He was my comrade, and that’s probably what I missed the most. He thought me what he knew. He didn't teach me as a priest would. He didn't tell me right or wrong. He didn’t pontificate. He thought me to look at the board and see the pieces for what they were as if looking at a valley from a high mountain, and the story of Peru followed very much like the game, and I knew my place. I knew I was a pawn, and I knew that the last words Soto said to me were the most important words. I was my own man, and I knew that was the fear I would never truly come to terms with.

  But the more I thought, the more I still believed that a pawn could kill a king if he made the right moves. A pawn could be anything he wanted to if he crossed enough squares to the other side. It was a horrible pace to go about, but it was my pace and I understood it very well. It was a ridiculous notion, but I believed in it. It was my belief and I was in love with it, for made me alive again, and when I thought about life in these terms, my mind suddenly was at ease. One square at a time.

  Another day passed. I kept my armor on and paced my way through, leading my men by slashing and hacking and marching and adjusting for miles at a time. Then I heard a queer faint sound that I thought was whistling. At first, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. Then I heard it again. I thought it was a bird at first, but the whistling was too complex and sincere. For the moment, it continued, and I was part
icularly glad. I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew it would end eventually, so I savored it. I savored every note and fell in love with its melody. It was a moment I’d remember for a long time. A moment that I’d long to return to. For it placed everything in context. And I felt very much alive and in awe with all the world.

  But then the whistling stopped, and the hum of the jungle took over. Its song was endless and it seemed to rain every goddamn day.

  We spent two months going in circles, spotting the same trees. Manco was nowhere in sight. Nor was El Dorado. Not a trace. Not even a hope of one.

  During one peaceful night, I reached into my bag and retrieved the gemstone that I found in Cajamarca. I stared at it for a long time. I simply forgot about it. It was still smooth and it still glimmered. It seemed so timeless and absolutely stable. And still I was convinced; convinced that it was all worth it.