The King's Fifth (23 page)

These questions race through my mind, but it is too soon to know. The royal fiscal is cunning. He may come back to the death of Captain Mendoza later.

Zia has turned to look at me. She says nothing and the fiscal clears his throat.

"When Captain Mendoza died, who took possession of the treasure?" he asks again.

"Señor Sandoval."

"The one who sits there?" he asks, pointing at me.

"Yes, Estéban de Sandoval."

"As you know," he says slowly, "this man stands guilty of withholding a portion of the treasure, the King's Royal Fifth, which came into his hands at the death of Captain Mendoza. Furthermore, he has admitted the crime of hiding the treasure, and in a place known only to him and to you."

A falsehood. Never have I said that Zia was with me when I hid the gold. But this she does not know.

The royal fiscal fans himself with the sheaf of papers he holds in his hand, then fixes her with a friendly eye.

"You were with Estéban de Sandoval," he says, "at the time he buried the gold. You therefore know how it was buried and where. Tell the Royal Audiencia just what you saw at this time."

Zia stands calmly before the three judges. Her face is without expression. Often have I seen this look before.

"I know nothing of the thing you speak of," she says. "The gold belonged to him. To Señor Sandoval."

She pauses and once more turns to look at me. Her eyes are the color of obsidian stone, so large that I see nothing else.

"The gold belonged to Señor Sandoval, it is true," the fiscal says. "But you were there at the time it was hidden. Tell me, what did you see?"

Zia glances at the judges, at the royal fiscal.

"If he hid the gold," she answers, "I did not see it done. I know nothing more about the gold."

"You were not there?"

"No, not there."

The royal fiscal must be disappointed at this answer, but he does not show it. He asks the question again, in different words, and gets the same reply.

He looks at his papers. "Going back to the bags," he says. "To the bags carried by the mules and horses. How do you know that they were filled with gold?"

"Because I saw the gold."

"When did you see it?"

"Once when a bag fell from the pack saddle and broke open, I saw it. And when Señor Sandoval and I showed the gold to an Indian."

"What did the gold look like? Like rocks? Pebbles?"

"Not like rocks nor like pebbles. It was like salt. Fine like salt."

"And how many bags did the mules carry? Fifty? A hundred?"

"They were many bags."

"All filled with gold?"

"Yes."

Zia looks at me. It is a questioning look, as if she hopes that the truth, which she must speak, is not against me. I answer her as best I can, trying to tell her in a glance that what she has said has not harmed me with the Audiencia.

Is this all that the royal fiscal wishes to know? Nothing more? Were there in the
conducta
that left Tawhi a hundred leather bags of gold, as I have testified? Was the gold of absolute purity, not mixed with sand or tailings? Are these the questions she has been brought here to answer? I wonder, but not for long.

"The City of Tawhi," the fiscal says. "Where is it?"

"Near the Land of Cíbola," Zia answers.

"Could you find it again? Could you lead people there to see the lake whose bottom is covered with gold?"

"I could find it. But now it is bad there. Spaniards went to this city, I have heard. They went to the cliff, but could not climb to the city because the Indians of Tawhi would not let down their ladder. Also they killed all the Spaniards, eleven of them, with stones. One of the Spaniards the Indians killed was Señor Roa who was with Captain Mendoza when the gold was found."

I am distressed to learn of Roa's death but not surprised, for like Mendoza he feared nothing and loved gold.

"The gold at the bottom of the lake," the royal fiscal says. "Do you know where it came from?"

"The cacique of Tawhi once told us that it came from a mountain. In the city of Nexpan we heard that it came from a stream."

"Do you know this mountain or this stream?"

"There are many mountains near the City of Tawhi. I do not know the one where the gold is found. Nor do I know the stream."

"If you were to go to the City of Tawhi, if you went there with soldiers, could you find the mountain?"

"I will never go to the City of Tawhi again," Zia says. "With the soldiers or without them. Never again."

Once more the fiscal glances at his papers. He does so, I feel sure, to cover his disappointment. He has learned that the treasure exists and in a large quantity. But he has neither learned where it was mined nor, more than my notes show, where it is hidden. He has not asked about Mendoza's death, because he already knows the details of that happening.

The counsel makes a short speech in my behalf, the fiscal a long one, of which I hear little, and closes the case for the King. That is all, except for the verdict of the judges, in the trial of Estéban de Sandoval, cartographer, a native of Ronda in the province of Andalucia.

The verdict will be delivered on the morrow, or so Don Felipe tells me as we reach the terrace. I watch the
crowd that comes from the courtroom, in the hope of seeing Zia before I am taken back to my cell.

She is walking through the doorway. I hear the silver bells before I see her. Her black hair shines in the sun. She walks over the stone terrace the way she walked on the trails of Cíbola, with long strides and silently.

She starts to speak, but seeing Don Felipe behind me, pauses. Then, as he moves discreetly out of hearing, she says, "I hope that my words did not harm you with the judges."

"You spoke the truth," I say, finding it difficult to say anything. "They did not ask you about Captain Mendoza's death. Why?"

"Because they asked me long before about this. They wrote a letter to the alcalde of Compostela asking. And he wrote back to them and told them what I told him, that Captain Mendoza had been killed by the dog."

It is still difficult for me to speak. It seems strange that she has come the long journey from Compostela and is standing beside me.

"The alcalde," I say, "what did he do about the colt I gave you?"

"She is mine. The alcalde made a new law for me and let me keep her, because I was with Coronado on the
jornado.
I ride her everywhere. I would have ridden to Vera Cruz if my aunt had allowed me to."

I smile at the thought of Zia riding five hundred leagues and more to Vera Cruz, but know that she could.

"Do you make maps now?" she asks.

"Not like the ones we once made together."

"I think of the maps. Someday you will make another map and I will help you mix the colors."

"Someday," I answer. "You always liked the maps. That is why you went with us from Háwikuh, because of them and the blue foal."

She looks at me as if I had become a fool.

"Not for one nor the other," she says.

"And when we made the maps no more, after Tawhi, you left me."

"I left because of something else, which I told you about. Because I hated Captain Mendoza and what he did to the Indians of Nexpan and the Cloud City. Because, when he died, you were much like him."

"Then why did you come here?"

"Because I heard, everybody heard it, that you had buried the gold. That is why I came to speak for you."

I am aware that Don Felipe is scraping his feet on the stones. Before I can answer, he has me by the arm and is leading me away.

A long night stretches before me. The candle burns well. Through the barred window the star shines over a calm sea. Now I must write down the story of Father Francisco and the journey we made together into the Inferno from which few ever return, for it is this story that has brought me here to the Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa.

W
E WENT SOUTHWEST
that day, Father Francisco and I and the eight mules and the four horses of the gold-laden
conducta.
Zia and the Indians were in front of us, but we went so slowly that they soon disappeared from view. Late in the afternoon we came to a place where their tracks curved off to the east. Here we encamped.

I lay awake that night, thinking of what I would say to Father Francisco when morning came. For I had already made up my mind that I would not take the gold to Háwikuh.

All that day, while we had skirted the high mountains, watched the Indians grow small in the distance and at last disappear, I had thought of the gold.

If I carried it on to Háwikuh, there would be trouble. Torres would claim a share, which was not due him. Velasco, who had loaned Captain Mendoza two mules, and was known as a usurer, would claim more than his share, perhaps a fifth of the treasure. And there were others who would make claim upon it for one reason or another—the loan of powder and lead, a matchlock, a breastplate, or merely a pot to cook in.

But it was not that I feared the trouble Torres, Velasco and others would cause so much as I feared Roa. At the moment of Captain Mendoza's death, though he was away on his journey to Háwikuh, he had become the leader of the
conducta.
The treasure was therefore his.

Aware of my small part in the gathering of the gold, that I did not favor the breaching of the dam and was not even trusted to help with it, Roa would consider a bag, one small bag—if that much—ample payment for what I had done. It was not fair, I thought, that I should receive so little. I therefore had decided to take the gold to the King's officers in Culiacán, where I would have a better chance of getting my rightful share.

In the morning I rose in the dark. Working like a madman, I had packed six of the mules by the time Father Francisco awakened.

"You are in a hurry to get to Háwikuh," he said.

I said nothing, but went on loading the mules.

"Roa should be here today," Father Francisco said. "He will bring mules and men to help. Why kill yourself? We will take the day to rest and look for what we can find in the way of flowers and insects. Yesterday I came upon one that I have seen before near Jerez. A fuzzy little fellow with eight legs."

Mendoza's death gave me an extra horse, so I was able to lighten each of the loads. The sun was more than two hours high before we started off and I was so tired I could scarce mount the saddle. To Father Francisco I said nothing of my plans. Passing the place where the Indian tracks
curved away, I headed the
conducta
south, for the Valley of Hearts and Culiacán.

Father Francisco lagged at the end of the line. He stumped along with his eyes turned up to the sky, watching the flight of an eagle. I waited for the moment when he would see that we were traveling not toward Háwikuh but in the opposite direction. Minutes went by. An hour. It was mid-morning, as I stopped at a stream to rest and water the animals, before he spoke.

He came up to me, holding a bag filled with flowers he had gathered along the way. Even then I wondered if he knew that we were not traveling toward Háwikuh.

"Where is it that we go with our evil burden?" he said.

"With the gold," I answered, "we go to Avipa. Then down Coronado's trail to Culiacán."

"Why?"

"Because the treasure belongs to us. Not to the leeches in Háwikuh."

He began to sort out his flowers. "The gold," he said, "belongs to the people of Tawhi."

"To Roa," I answered. "To him first. Afterwards to the rest of us."

"If the gold belongs to Roa, then give it to him. Wait here until he overtakes us and put it in his keeping."

"That means trouble in Háwikuh," I said. "Everyone will demand a share of the treasure."

"It is not your problem. It is Roa's."

I swung into the saddle. There was no point in further talk. The morning was almost gone and we had made
only a league. Father Francisco went on sorting out the flowers.

"Do you go?" I said.

He glanced up at me. In his eyes was a look I shall never forget. I see it now. I shall always see it. It was a look of compassion and pity. But it was more. It was a look of fear, as if he saw my soul poised on some noisome brink.

"I go with you," he said. "With you and the devil's burden. We go together and may God go with us both."

The country was open, with no mountains that I could see. At noon I took a reading on the cross-staff, and made a slight change in our direction. We had traveled less than two leagues since morning, so riding back and forth, I urged the
conducta
along. I had a strong feeling that Roa had met the Indians and learned that we were behind them, that he would come to the place where we had curved off to the south, and follow us. Whenever we reached the crest of a hill I would look back, thinking to see him.

The country continued open and grassy. We passed through vast fields of wild flowers, yellow and blue and red, bright as the paint the Indians used. Father Francisco was beside himself with joy. He ran everywhere, plucking blooms until his sack was full.

"What do you do with all the flowers?" I asked, for some reason annoyed, though I never stopped for him and he always caught up. "What," I asked, though I knew very well.

"I press them between slabs of stone or wood," he answered.

"What then?"

"I put them in this."

From the sack he drew forth a book with thin, wooden covers, two spans across, which I had noticed before, but never asked about.

"That is all you do?"

"That is all I have done. But someday when I reach Culiacán or Compostela I will send a letter to my brothers in Toledo and tell them about the book and the flowers I have gathered in the Land of Cíbola."

"That should please them," I said, still annoyed.

"I hope so."

We came to a ridge from which I could look back along the way we had traveled. I saw a herd of deer grazing, but no sign of Roa. Yet I urged the
conducta
on, traveling until dark, in fear that he was somewhere behind me. If he were, and caught up with us, there would be a bitter fight, for I was determined that I should receive my share of the treasure.