The King's Fifth (11 page)

"The notes will arrive today," he says, "today or tomorrow. When they do, they will be given to me. By the messenger whom I sent, who is in my pay. They will be given to me first, not to the Royal Audiencia. I will then give
them to you and from them you will draw the map of Cíbola, the hiding place of the treasure. When this is done, and only then, will I release them to the Audiencia. Do you understand?"

I nod, though determined that the map shall be no more complete than the notes from which it is drawn.

The hour is now too late for visitors. My quill is sharp and I have a new supply of paper, thanks to Don Felipe. Beyond the barred window the star glows in the west. The trial continues tomorrow, whether the notes arrive or not. But perhaps I will have time to write down the details of our journey to Nexpan, City of the Abyss, and of the stream we found there, which was strewn with gold.

T
WELVE DAYS FROM
H
ÁWIKUH,
the last day through heavy stands of pine and spruce, we came near evening to a break in the forest. In the distance rose a series of cliffs, at the same height we were traveling, scarlet-tinted and oddly shaped, like spires, terraced walls, and battlements.

Captain Mendoza reined in his horse. "
Hola!
" he shouted, "the scarlet cliffs!"

He need not have shouted, for we all saw. Throughout the day, every league we traveled, we had looked for the scarlet cliffs, the sign that marked the location of Nexpan, City of the Abyss. Or so Captain Mendoza had been told by the cacique of the sixth village of the six villages near Háwikuh.

At the foot of the cliffs, the chieftain had said, wound a mighty river. And near the river, at a place marked by three pinnacles (here, according to Roa, the chieftain had made three marks on the ground) was a large city, which could be reached by following a stream that ran into the river.

The chieftain said nothing about the presence of gold in the city. It was for this reason that Mendoza believed him, this alone, and decided to make the journey.

"Where is the river?" Zuñiga asked.

"Below the cliffs," said Torres. "Where you cannot see it."

"What if there is no river?" Zuñiga asked.

"Or no city,"Roa said.

"Then we return to Háwikuh," I answered.

"Though we find the city," Roa said, "will it not be another like Red House?"

"Or like Háwikuh," Zuñiga said. "Where we fight with few against many."

Father Francisco, gathering things among the trees, said nothing. Nor did Mendoza, but he led us on toward the scarlet cliffs where the last light hung.

The cliffs retreated, or seemed to, then the light died and darkness gathered among the trees. As we were about to halt for the night, a small wind sprang up. It smelled not of pines but of
mizquitl
bushes and open spaces.

My horse pricked up its ears, and at the head of the column, Mendoza's roan suddenly neighed. It was a warning, a sound of fear, which chilled my blood and brought us all to a halt.

I sprang to the ground but held onto the reins. Fighting the heavy Spanish bit, the roan neighed again. Father Francisco hobbled past me in the darkness and I followed, leaving my horse. I came to a flat place, a rock ledge. The sky was lighter than the earth and against it I saw Francisco standing with arms outstretched.

"A chasm," he cried, "an abyss bigger than half the world."

I groped my way to him across the ledge. Below us lay blackness, fold upon fold, deep and endless. From it a warm breeze welled upward, as if the earth itself were breathing.

The others came and stood beside us. Roa found a stone, which he threw out into the darkness, and we waited for it to strike. Second followed second and we heard nothing. Then, far and faint, a sound, a rustle like a leaf falling, drifted up from below.

"Holy Mother," someone whispered.

One by one we silently crept back into the trees, away from the Abyss. We tethered the animals and ate supper and lay down, but few of us slept. At daybreak we went to the ledge where we had stood the night before.

There we found a rampart of rock, shaped like a great sickle. Below its rim, as if sheared off in one mighty stroke, the rampart fell downward for more than a league. At its foot was a wide bench covered with stones that had fallen from above. A pine which grew there seemed no larger than a bush. Many leagues away, at the eastern boundaries of the Abyss, stood the scarlet cliffs we had seen at dusk.

For a long time, no one spoke. Then Mendoza raised his sword, claiming all that lay before us in the name of His Cesarean Majesty, Charles the Fifth. Father Francisco planted the cross and we knelt beside it and thanked God who at the last moment had snatched us back from death.

Yet, for all our good fortune, we were faced with a hard decision.

Should we go northward, along the rampart, or to the south, hoping to find a way into the Abyss? In both directions the rampart curved away beyond sight. Should we turn back and retrace our steps to Háwikuh? Our first amazement gone, our thankfulness forgotten, we stood beside the cross and lamented our fate.

Mendoza said, "The chieftain is a liar of great proportions. May he roast in hell."

"Indians everywhere are liars," Roa said, "from the Province of Panamá to Háwikuh."

"May they roast in the fires," Zuñiga said.

"But the scarlet cliffs are there," Father Francisco replied, "as the chieftain said."

"So is the Abyss," Mendoza answered, "of which he did not speak. And where, dear Father, is the river which he did speak of?"

Zia had left us to wander along the rampart. As she stopped to toss a rock into the air, I heard her call. She was always finding something that interested her but no one else, so she called again before I went to where she stood, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Look," she said and pointed toward the bottom of the Abyss. "There, by the small hill of yellow stone."

I looked, saw the hill, and nothing else.

She pulled my head down. "Look where I point."

I looked again, grew dizzy with looking, but at last made out a strip of green. "Grass," I said and turned away.

"Not grass," she cried, pulling me back. "See, it is water. Water that runs. A river!"

I looked anew and found the hill of yellow stone, the strip of green no larger than my hand. I saw that it was not grass but a bend of shore, and on both sides of it was white sand.

"Do you see?"

"Yes," I said.

"A river?"

"A river," I said, "a mighty one."

W
E SPENT A DAY
in search of a path into the Abyss. Forming two parties, Mendoza sent one south along the rampart, the other to the north, in the hope that if there were a city beside the river its people would have a trail by which to go up and down.

No trail was found nor footprints, save those of deer and mountain lion. But we did find a shallow crevice, overgrown by wind-bent pine, that wound downward along the stony face of the rampart. This we decided to try, there being no other choice.

The animals, including the big gray dog, were left in the care of Torres. Food was taken for eight days.

"If we are not back by the eighth day," Captain Mendoza said, "return to Háwikuh for help."

"While you are gone," Torres replied, "I will search for abetter path to the river."

"Remain here and search for nothing," Mendoza said. "If time grows heavy, spend it on Tigre. He progresses, but he is still more lamb than tiger."

"You will not know him when you return," Torres said.

Experience gained in the fearsome Gorge of Sonora helped us greatly. Before the sun was a lance high, we had descended deep along the crevice, scrambling from one tree to another. This crevice led to a second, then to a ledge from which we could see the cross and Torres waving from the rampart.

By a series of such crevices, which were like steep ladders, we reached a bench covered with bushes, heavy with berries bitter to the taste.

It was now afternoon and since clouds hid the sky and portended rain, we made camp. From branches and brush we made a good shelter and were safe within before the first thunder rolled.

Rain fell until dusk. Around us water ran, hanging from the ramparts above in silver threads. The sky cleared and through the clear air we saw a different stretch of the river. It was off to the south, but so far below that it looked like the coils of a green serpent.

By nightfall we had explored the bench, finding that on two sides it was an unbroken scarp. To the east, however, the rock had broken away and formed a fan-shaped slope. At dawn, with much difficulty, we descended this slope and came to a second bench.

Here there were no pines, only sparse-leaved bush, similar to those in the Valley of Hearts. Here Zia found a shell, half buried in the earth, the size of my fist and fluted. It was like those she had picked up around the lagoon on the Sea of Cortés. It puzzled me how a shell could be in this place, so far from the sea. And it puzzles me still.

Next afternoon, having traveled the morning down a tortuous steep, we came to sand dunes and the river.

The river was about two hundred paces in width and ran faster than a man can walk. Gray rocks broke its surface and below the surface unseen rocks were marked by whirlpools and white water. The sound of its running was like the groans of a thousand demons.

"We can never reach the far bank," said Roa.

"Nor do we need to," Mendoza answered. "Unless the city lies there."

"If it does, then we will never see it," Roa said.

"If it does, having come this far, we shall," said Mendoza.

"God be with us," said Zuñiga.

Southward the river ran between high bastions, but to the north were stretches of beach. Setting out toward them, we had gone for an hour when fog overtook us. Since we could not see farther than a few steps, we made a fire and camped.

"What I wish to know," Roa said, standing beside the burning driftwood, "is how we carry gold back to the mules."

Looking up at the ramparts we had left almost two days before, a thin line nearly lost in the sky, I wondered also.

"We carry it on our backs, of course," Mendoza said. "One
arroba
to the man. More, if need be."

"I have much trouble carrying myself," said Father Francisco.

"If we die, as we may," said Zuñiga, who often spoke
foolishly, "we will become angels. Then we can fly straight up with the gold."

"Angels," said Father Francisco, "have no use for gold." He turned to Mendoza. "How does a man carry one
arroba
of gold back along the way we have come?"

"Gold," Mendoza said, "can be very light. The lightest burden of all."

The first stars came out. It is said that stars seem brighter when seen from the bottom of a well. Of this, I do not know. I do know that these were as bright as wondrous jewels.

With night a wind rose and blew along the river. It carried a smell, faint yet familiar.

"Indian fires," Zia said. "
Mizquitl
wood."

Mendoza jumped to his feet and shouted.

His voice was drowned in the roar of the river. It made no difference. The Indians of Nexpan already had seen us.

It was still dark beside the river as dawn broke, but above us light swept the bastion's rim. There, like figures of burnished copper, stood three men. They were too far away to hear us so we waved, beckoning them to descend. In answer they pointed down river and vanished.

It was a moment of excitement. The chieftain, for all our doubts, had spoken the truth. We had found the scarlet cliffs, the mighty river he had described. The Indians proved that a city lay near at hand. It was a moment of caution also, for Háwikuh we still remembered.

We did not wait to eat but set off down the river, singing. Our only lack was music—drum and flute having been left behind. Within the hour we sighted three spires on the far side of the river, and at the same time, a place where the bastion was cleft.

The cleft was not much wider than my outstretched arms. Its sides towered straight toward the sky, black as a raven's wing. Through it coursed a swift stream which flowed into the river over black, gleaming stones. Beside the stream was a path worn by many feet.

This path we took and once inside the cleft found ourselves in half-darkness. Giant ferns that grew along the stream dripped water, and cold mist wet our faces. The stone path was slippery underfoot.

Soon the defile narrowed and closed over our heads. We could only find our way by touching the dank walls. The stream thundered beside us, as we scrambled along in utter darkness. Abruptly we came into sunlight.

Before us lay a vast meadow, more than a league in breadth and in width, enclosed on all sides by high, rock bastions, like those that enclosed the river. Through it wandered the stream we had followed and along the banks grew cottonwood and willow and ripening berries. Brown, wheatlike grass stretched away to the far bastions like a placid lake, broken only by islets of grazing deer and mountain sheep.

Speechless, I stared at the peaceful world that lay before me.

"Paradise," Father Francisco said, "must have looked like this on the first day."

"But where," said Mendoza, "lies the city?"

I pointed to a blue cloud above a distant field.

"Smoke," Mendoza said, "but not house or hut."

He set the matchlock and fired. Deer foraging nearby raised their heads and looked at us curiously.

"That will bring someone," Mendoza said.

Before the echo of the blast died away, an Indian rose up from behind a tree and came to where we stood and touched his forehead to the earth.

He said nothing in reply to Zia's questions, of which there were many. Nor did he show surprise at the deafening blast. Nor at the object that caused it. Nor at our strange presence. He looked at each of us in turn, out of eyes that were like the eyes of a lizard, then he started up the stream, motioning us to follow.

Zia said, "He understands nothing of what I asked. I used three languages and still he did not understand. We shall have much trouble, I fear."