Aboard Cabrillo's Galleon (34 page)

Standing at the taffrail of his upper stern deck, Cabrillo gazed beyond the mouth of the harbor at the sky and the sea as he listened to a singing wind.
How long? How long will it blow?
This morning had done much to initiate ties with the islanders and heighten the promise of a relatively calm stay, but remaining here kept them away from their goal. They needed to conquer the coast with all haste, and haste was being denied them.
Curse this devilish wind!

Then, there was the girl. She could too easily become an excuse to loiter here. Cabrillo was honest enough with himself to admit his attraction, and to know it should not be allowed to develop into more than that. And what about his men? They had been allowed ashore but ordered under threats of the harshest penalties to remain on the beach and within sight of the ships. And they had been strictly forbidden from interacting with the island's women. Their long restrained sexual hunger must be kept from igniting and resulting in actions that extended well beyond the hospitable offerings of the Chumash leader, or beyond the tolerance of the fleet's commander. Cabrillo and the other officers accepted the challenge of maintaining a balance between allowing their men enough freedom to remain hard-working and loyal yet restricting the opportunities that might entice disobedience. Beyond the fleet's leaders, the Chumash men of this island were powerfully built and vigilantly watchful, adding another influential deterrent to philandering.

Turning back toward shore, Cabrillo watched the outwardly peaceful scene of his men eating amongst the natives. Vargas and his guards stood in relaxed poses around the gathering, as did several Chumash warriors. So far, so good, but it might take little to stir contention.

As if to taunt him, a strong breeze found its way into the harbor and ruffled his long, curly hair.
Yes, I feel you, but you will not last forever.

Three days aged into four and then seven, and Cabrillo began to pace the deck even when not on watch; his patience with the wind now all but spent. Two days earlier, just after most of them had celebrated Mass ashore, one of the usually well-behaved hands of
La Victoria
had been sent in chains to the
San Miguel
for a thankfully interrupted tryst with one of the Indian woman. Apologies, assurances, and trade goods were offered in an attempt to soothe the islanders, particularly the woman's husband, but these atonements proved to be only moderately effectively. Since then, shore leaves had been severely restricted, and Cabrillo knew that the innocent sailors felt their unearned confinements acutely. He and his officers kept them busy cleaning, repairing, and stocking, but the restlessness was growing.

He had also minimized his own visits to the island and had allowed Taya and her boys to come to the ship only once, and Father Lezcano was always with them. Matipuyaut came to each of the ships once and to the
San Salvador
twice, observing and questioning the purpose and workings of guns, riggings, cooking devices, nautical tools, and armaments until he was satisfied at last. Or so Cabrillo thought.

On the last visit, just as Matipuyaut was about to retake his canoe, Master Uribe sent a man aloft to grease the mainmast. The chief fastened his gaze on the sailor scaling the rigging with the agility of a spider climbing its webbing and proclaimed, “I wish to climb up.”

Cabrillo's heart sank. Though he didn't surrender without a gallant effort, no amount of cajoling or persuading could change Matipuyaut's mind without offense. The determined chief even refused to wear a safety line. The only consolation allowed Cabrillo, and upon this he insisted, was that two sailors would accompany Matipuyaut as he climbed. Silently praying as he watched the first and every other grasp and foothold, the captain-general's stomach knotted but he managed to keep his face blank. When Matipuyaut made it to the crow's nest successfully more than a few sailors breathed sighs of relief. Cabrillo waited with hard fought patience for what he considered a gracious allotment of time and then invited the chief to rejoin him on deck, but it took a great deal more coaxing to convince the chief to finally leave his lofty vantage point and descend. When the chief once again planted his feet upon the
San Salvador
's solid planking, Cabrillo ushered him politely to his canoe, immediately went to his cabin, filled and lifted a goblet of sherry to acknowledge the chief's survival, and kept his door closed for fifteen minutes of rare and much needed quiet that he shared only with his glass.

During the early evening of the seventh day in Isla de Posesión's harbor, Father Lezcano found Cabrillo and his pilot with their heads bent over several charts. He waited for a pause in their calculations and suppositions and then asked, “Do you intend to go ashore tomorrow, sir? If so, I would like to go along.”

“Of course, Father. Tomorrow,” he sighed broodingly. “We will have been anchored here twice as long as at any stop of our voyage.” He glanced at the priest. “Can you offer a special prayer, something that will remind God of our need?”

“I have been praying most fervently, sir,” he said gently, “in six languages. Perhaps if you and I were to pray together for awhile...?”

“Willingly. Say, some of Ignacio's prayers might be best. He is a Basque, is he not? He must have sympathies for men of the sea. There just might be something in his words that yield a little extra grace for us sailors.”

Father Lezcano did not waste his breath muttering warnings about such a presumption. “Possibly so, sir. I brought his writings with me.”

“Very well. Pilot, if you do not mind us continuing with the charts later...?”

“Of course not, sir.”

Just as Pilot San Remón was about to withdraw, Cabrillo added pointedly, “Another voice surely would do no harm, eh, Father?” With little choice and no real reluctance, San Remón unloaded the rolled charts he'd just collected and went down on his knees between his commander and his priest. Their heads bowed low and Father Lezcano started reading aloud from the book in his hands. Later, they uttered together words of devotion that each had learned as young children. After the last prayers had been recited, Cabrillo rose and went to command his watch with a hopeful heart.

At the passage of midnight he returned to his cabin, fell into his bunk, and enjoyed the first sound sleep he'd known in a week.

The morning of October 25 was still cloaked in the deep darkness that lingers before dawn when Cabrillo bolted upright in his bunk and shouted a gruff, inaudible word. Manuel and Mateo scrambled into the cabin but the captain-general jerked out his arm in a silent command to keep still. His ears strained. Nothing. Nothing at all. Then he knew it had been the silence that had awakened him.

“Do you hear?” he asked, his eyes blinking the remaining lethargy away.

Manuel suddenly beamed with relief, “The wind. She stopped, sir. She stopped at last.”

Throwing off his cover and scrambling for his clothes while Manuel lit a lamp, Cabrillo dressed so quickly that Paulo got to the cabin in time to do nothing more than ask peevishly what was wanted for breakfast. He was further put out when Cabrillo joyfully exclaimed, “Breakfast! No breakfast until the ships are underway. Who knows how long we have before the wind returns? Dear God bless Father Ignacio de Loyola and our own Father Lezcano!”

Whatever crewmembers still clung to their slumbers were immediately rousted and called to the capstans and lines. While the ships were being readied Cabrillo briefly considered going ashore to bid their host farewell, but in the end he sent Father Lezcano off in his stead with parting gifts and orders not to linger.

The breaking light quickened the hands of the crews, many of them as happy as their commander to be setting their sails again. Cabrillo, pacing the stern deck, studied the sky with a building hope that fueled his impatience to be off. The priest's boat rowed back to the flagship and was hurriedly secured as the bergantine began to maneuver into a position from which she could assist her flagship through the harbor's maze of rocks and reefs.

Father Lezcano had landed on deck wearing a broad smile, and he'd come directly to his captain-general. Although his expression made it evident that more could be shared, for now he said only, “They sent their farewells, sir.” Whatever else he might have wished to convey he saved for a time when Cabrillo's attentions were not consumed by the need to safeguard his departing fleet. At times such as these, every one of his men knew enough to keep his silence and his distance unless life or limb was imminently imperiled.

At last, after all three ships had sailed to a safe distance from the reefs, Cabrillo relaxed his stance and expression, and thereby eased the tenseness of his men. They all welcomed the feel of their ships' keels slicing the sea beneath them and rejoiced at the now friendly breeze upon their faces. Arms reached energetically toward any task while backs welcomed the strain of muscle and sinew.

By noon, however, the lighthearted moods of the men and officers began to fade away with the continued slackening of the gentle gusts. They slowed, and slowed even more, and eventually floated to a near halt that left the ships within tantalizing view but beyond reach of the mainland. Hour followed hour but no amount of praying, wishing, or cursing was able to coax the advance of more than a few fathoms at a time from the whiffs of wind.

When Father Lezcano again made his way to the captain-general's side, Cabrillo stared at the beckoning land and said regretfully, “We asked that the wind take us from the island, rather than asking to be delivered to our next port. Next time we had better take more care with our prayers, eh Father?”

Chapter 18

L
AND OF
L
UHUI

A
n hour before midnight the stillness was violently shattered by a squall so sudden and forceful that it threatened to drive the fleet onto the now looming shore. Cabrillo swiftly gauged their plight and swung the ships away, tacking farther out to sea where they could battle to round Cabo de Galera. As the wind whipped clothing against bodies with bruising strength and sails shrieked and masts groaned while straining to obey the commands of those at the lines, every man grittily bent to his work. Throughout the long night and into the next morning much was demanded in order to veer the ships back and forth at a safe distance from land, yet keep from surrendering precious miles. When even the laudable vigor of the crews began to ebb, finally, blessedly, a more cooperative breeze reached out from the south, huffing them around the cape and guiding them up an entirely new stretch of coastline.

Now, heartened by a warming sun, the weary yet grateful men of Cabrillo's fleet managed to sail on for twenty-five more miles. Their sustained ability to hug the shore lifted their spirits even higher and allowed them to admire the profuse flora and villages along the way. Manned canoes could be seen ashore, but none attempted to approach the ships. It may have been the anticipation of a new gale that kept the natives ashore, Cabrillo speculated, but whatever the reason he would not delay the voyage to meet with them. In the weeks to come he intended to take advantage of every favorable condition.

The weather, however, again foiled his hopes by loosing a volley of ferocious and fickle crosswinds that held them deadlocked for five days. From where they lay captive Cabrillo could see sure signs of a river, and he longed to put ashore to search its boundaries. But this coastline was far too rocky to attempt an approach during such treacherous weather.

Though on the first morning of November Father Lezcano reminded Cabrillo that it was All Saints' Day, the captain-general saw no sign of heavenly benevolence in a dawning that brought a cold wind to bite at exposed skin and penetrate all but the heaviest clothing. He knew that their supply of firewood must be getting dangerously low, so he descended into the hold with his steward and took a cheerless inventory of the small pile left to them. His steward stared at the stack and shook his head as he stamped his chilled feet to encourage a warm flow of blood.

“That is it, then,” said Cabrillo.

“Yes, all of it, sir.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Cabrillo pictured his men working in the cold all day and night without so much as a warm bowl of soup to comfort them. Even if they were willing to forego the solace of the heat, little of their consumables, mostly beans, rice, and salted meat and fish, could be made edible without the ability to boil it. Their dried biscuit was growing so populated with weevils that the men had taken to calling it weescuit.

As he climbed the steps out of the hold and those that led up to the main deck, he tried not to dwell on the quickening season and weather, or question for the hundredth time the location of the nearest Asian coast. Approaching Pilot San Remón, he buried his own disappointment as deeply as he could and said, “We are nearly out of firewood, pilot, and we dare not try to land here. We must ease the ships back and once again seek shelter behind Cabo de Galera.”

Hard as it was to utter the words, the bitter wind made his commands easily acted upon and swiftly fulfilled. Within hours they had anchored near a large village that Father Gamboa named Galera Puerto de Todos Santos, and Cabrillo sent men ashore in search of wood and water. To his disheartened surprise the landing party returned empty handed, explaining that the villagers had little wood for their own use and could spare them none. The closest anchorage Cabrillo knew to have plenty of water and firewood was Pueblo de las Sardinas and, after a short conversation with his officers, he announced that they would set sails for that destination first thing in the morning.

Upon their arrival at the pueblo Cabrillo and his men had every reason to feel grateful that they had treated the natives so honorably during their visit two and a half weeks earlier. People from the villages on both sides of the river welcomed their return by providing enough wood to warm their food and chilled extremities for some time to come and enough fresh water to fill many empty barrels. In light of their congenial reception, Cabrillo decided to remain here a day or two so that his men could make ship repairs as well as sew stout clothing to protect them against the cold weather ahead.