Captain from Castile (33 page)

Pedro gripped the thwart. "Stop the Gallega from sailing." He stared blankly at Alaminos through a growing mist. "Signal the ships—"

The bottom of the boat swung up at him, and he crumpled forward to meet it.

XXXVI

While the Gallega was being dismantled and her crew put under arrest; while Coria, mounted on Escalante's own horse, galloped through the dawn to carry the news and earn his reward from Cortes; while later the captains at Cempoala sat in council, debating whether similar attempts at desertion to Cuba might not be made and how to prevent them, Pedro de Vargas lay half-dead in the fort at Villa Rica. Luckily or not—for opinions might differ—Antonio Escobar, Bachelor of Arts, physician, surgeon, and apothecary to the army, being but newly recovered from a flux, had not attended the troops on their diplomatic march to Cempoala and neighboring Totonac towns. He was therefore available for professional aid to the General's equerry. It was not the policy of physicians at that time to take a cheerful view of their patients' condition. If the ailment was slight, the credit of curing it was greater; if the patient died, God's will had been done. Escobar frowned and sucked in his breath at the first glimpse of Pedro stretched on an Indian mat in a corner of the fort which had been thatched over with palm leaves. The camp followers, Isabel Rodrigo and Maria de Vera, fanned away at the cloud of flies settling on his

head or sopped at the flow of blood with dirty clouts. Escobar frowned and sucked more ominously still when he searched the wound with his long fingernails.

"Muy grave! Gravisimo!" he gloomed. "What a gash! Six inches at the least. Look, women, I can put my thumb in it. And down to the skull." He tapped with his nail. "Perhaps into the skull. Not much hope, women—very little."

Under the probing and scratching, Pedro, though only half-conscious, writhed and groaned.

"Color of death," said Escobar, "cold sweat. Bad signs. I wish Father Olmedo were here. Juan Diaz is in the bilboes. Still, a priest's a priest and can give absolution even if he's a scoundrel. I'm afraid the good youth is beyond human skill."

"At least. Master, stop his bleeding," put in Isabel, "and the Lord love you. It's a pity to see him drain out like a stuck pig. A fine body of a man too. Look," she added, pointing to the cut straps of Pedio's wallet, "someone has got his purse already."

"Captain Escalante himself, the more shame to him—and he a gentleman," said Maria de Vera acidly. "He cut the purse after talking with Coria. I saw him myself. You'd think he might have left us some pickings for our trouble."

Escobar chucked her under the chin with a still bloody forefinger. "Bodies and purses are what you girls think about, eh? Well, I'll have to do my best for him, though it's a poor chance, God pity him!"

"Bah!" interrupted a stern voice from the doorway. "God pity you, Master Surgeon, if you don't do your best and if anything happens to him!" Juan de Escalante, commander at Villa Rica, took a step inside and stood arms akimbo, his smoldering eyes on Escobar. "If a soldier handled his job like you do yours, with a long face and a Lord-a-mercy, where'd he get on the campaign? Hitch up your breeches, man, and do your office. The glancing shot of a crossbow quarry isn't the worst. Stop his bleeding. You should have done it at once without dawdling."

"Hold me excused then if he dies of the shock, Your Worship. He's weak from the labor of the night—"

"Hold you excused nothing!" retorted the Captain. "Let me tell you, the General sets high store by this gentleman—not to speak of others. You'll have Bull Garcia to reckon with if he dies. As for you wenches, I took the purse to keep your fingers out of it. Look alive now, all three, or you'll have the whip to your backs."

Thus activated, the medical staff" of Villa Rica prepared to operate. From the doorway, Escobar bawled for his aide, Chavez, a lumbering

giant of a man who could hold any patient on the table. He had been cleaning out the horse stalls and now appeared wiping his hands on his breech. Meanwhile, Isabel and Maria fetched a brazier and bellows, also a couple of irons and a pot of pitch. A rough plank table completed the equipment. Chavez then lifted the patient in his arms and dumped him onto it. Word had gone around, and several of the garrison, with a visiting Indian or two, sauntered in to look. The sun now blazed down; the cell-like space buzzed with flies and conversation.

"Strip off his doublet and shirt, muchachas/' the surgeon directed. "He'll be the cooler. Probably he won't be needing them again anyway." Escobar shot a sulky glance at Escalante.

"I'll dice you for the shirt," said Maria to Isabel. "It's of prime linen. A pity he tore it."

But a cuff from the Captain silenced her.

''Chiton, puta!'' he thundered. "Have you no shame? You'd cast lots on a dying man's belly for his shroud. I'd rather be nursed by buzzards."

In these circumstances, Pedro became deliriously conscious and looked wildly around. The heat, his half-naked condition, the Captain's cursing, the ring of faces, Chavez leaning over him, the glowing red iron, which Escobar at that moment held up and spat upon to test it, gave a scrambled impression of torture room, Indian sacrifice, and hell. He tried weakly to rise from the table, but Chavez shoved him back.

"Not so fast, sefior! We haven't finished with you yet. We're only going to singe your head."

''Misericordia!" said Pedro faintly.

Escalante took a hand without bettering matters. "Ha, de Vargas! Pluck up a heart, hi jo. It's this or bleeding to death, d'you see? What the devil! You're a lad of spirit." He tried a joke. "We're going to cure you if we have to bum your head off."

His words fitted in with the rest of the dream.

"Sefior Captain"—Pedro struggled, his mind reeling—"if you were in this case, I would take your part. Por piedad! What have I done to be burned?"

"He rambles," said Escobar. "A bad sign. Is the pitch boiling? Good." He looked critically at the white-hot poker and added, "Now"

Escalante seized one of Pedro's wrists and drew it back; a bystander gripped the other; Chavez shifted to the legs, spread-eagling him. As this was the position of Indian sacrifice, one of the Totonac guests uttered an alala in honor of the gods.

"Somebody take de Vargas by the throat," said Escobar, "and hold his head quiet. He'll jerk otherwise."

In a complete daze as to the meaning of his execution, Pedro commended his soul to God.

A soldier forced his head down. "Have a care, Sawbones. If you miss de Vargas and burn me, I'll cut your heart out."

The surgeon now lifted the glowing iron and jabbed at the open wound on Pedro's head; but, as it moved convulsively, he missed it by a half-inch. A cry and the smell of singed hair rose. The next attempt had no better luck.

"Oh, Santa Maria de los Dolores!" seethed Escalante, his face dripping. "If I did not have to hold the man's wrist, you besotted surgeon, I would bend that poker over your skull!"

With pursed lips, Escobar tried again and this time laid the white-hol; iron squarely between the gaping edges of the wound.

A scream shivered up, and the hiss of blood. Pedro's body went limp.

"He's finished, by God," said Chavez, loosing his hold and running a sleeve across his forehead. "Look at him."

The patient's face was dead white. Several soldiers crossed themselves. The Indians nodded at each other in appreciation of the white man's capacity for inventing strange and cruel deaths.

"As I thought," remarked Escobar sagely. "You would not be warned, Senor Captain. Even my science cannot defeat the will of God. However, we've stopped the bleeding. You'll admit that it's a well-seared wound."

With startled eyes, Escalante had clapped his palm over Pedro's heart and stood for some moments in suspense. Then his face quickened.

"No, by the saints, he's more alive than you are!"

Escobar rose to the occasion. "Why not? To the man of true science, God lends a hand. Senor Captain, you may think that anyone could lay a hot iron on an open wound. Far from it. The timing must be right to the half of a second. If I had removed the iron too soon, the wound would not have been seared; if I had applied it a moment longer, the patient must infallibly have died. Know, Senor Captain, that the volatile liquor of the brain boils easily, and once it is brought to the boiling point—"

"Ho!" interrupted the Captain. "Right! Chavez, fetch me some liquor here. That native rot-gut aguardiente would raise the dead. We'll revive him, Master Surgeon, and then you can pour in the pitch."

Escobar protested. "The wound is well seared, Your Worship. Pitch is unnecessary."

"Nevertheless we'll have it," Escalante declared. "It can't be too well seared, can it?"

"No, sir."

"Then we'll spare no pains. We'll have no twopenny jobs in this case. Revive the gentleman."

Somebody brought liquor in a cannikin, but Escobar dissented. "Sir, we can do it better while he is in a faint. No need to tax the strength of you gentlemen with holding him."

This opinion prevailed, though Escalante vowed that he thought no effort a trouble if it would benefit so gallant a cavalier. Pedro's wound was therefore plastered with boiling pitch, which had a vivifying result and brought him screaming out of his swoon to find himself once more facing the implacable Chavez.

"What cheer, sir?" roared Escalante, highly gratified. "Take heart. The thing's over. And I'll say this for Bachelor Escobar, that Galen himself could not have wrought a sweeter job on you. No leakage now. You're caulked as tight as a careened ship. . . . Here, drink."

He rattled the rim of the cup against Pedro's teeth and emptied its contents down his throat. Then, on fire inside and out, the patient, choking and purple, was again lowered to his mat; a clean bandage, donated from the tail of Escalante's shirt, was applied to his head; and the medical staff of Villa Rica took pride to itself.

"Unless," the surgeon concluded with professional reserve, "he should die from weakness and shock, which is in God's hands."

XXXV\l

Weakness, a touch of fever, and Escalante's cupful of raw spirits plunged de Vargas into a dreamy state disturbed only by the flies and Isabel Rodrigo's chatter. After a time the pain in his head grew more bearable. At midday he roused enough to partake of salt-pork stew and cassava bread, washed down by a dram of Spanish wine from the precious sacramental supply. He even felt restored to the point of chatting briefly with Escalante about the events of last night, and of reassuring himself that the emeralds were safe. Escalante reported that the mutineers were in irons and would doubtless hang upon Cortes's return. Pedro drifted back into sleep again.

He was awakened late in the afternoon by a breeze on his face which contrasted with Isabel's languid fanning, and looked up to see a huge, agitated fist, pumping air at him from a palm-leaf fan. Behind the fan, equally broad, loomed the sunburned face of Juan Garcia. It was startling to see the latter's heavy eyes full of tears, while the wide mouth suppressed evident emotion.

''Hola, Juan! What the deuce—"

"Silence!" whispered the other, laying a forefinger on his lips. The movement of the fan redoubled. "Silence! Do not speak. Save your strength, by God, and all \vill be well. I have come but now from Master Escobar. He says your life depends on quiet."

"Pooh! It depends on keeping away from him. I'm all right. But what ails you? The headache? How did you get here?"

Garcia's face expressed such urgent entreaty that Pedro fell silent.

"For my sake, not a word more. If you must talk, let me do it."

De Vargas smiled.

"You know what I mean," said Garcia huskily. He ran a thumb under his nose. . . . "Ails me? Lord! A broken heart. When I woke up this morning— Such a thirst, comrade! Such a head! The devils in hell could have no worse. I say, when I woke up to find what I had done— my insults to the good companions, calling them Indian dogs, drawing on Captain Velasquez de Leon, making a wild ass of myself, and how you left your post to bear me aid—it was a near thing that I did not take my cursed life. Then I find you gone and the camp in a dither and the General in a rage. Then comes Bernardino de Coria spurring with news for Cortes, who calls the captains to council. But the gist of it leaks out, and that you're for death. My fault, everything my fault! The grief of it unmanned me. I sat down on the lowest step of the p\Tamid and banged my head with my fists. I called down curses on myself to the admiration of the army. They gathered round but could give no comfort."

Garcia bowed his head at the recollection; his great chest heaved. Then, fiercely agitating the fan, he went on.

"Who should come up but the General himself. 'Senor Garcia,' he said, 'nothing cures grief but action. Take the horse, Soldan, and ride to Villa Rica. It may be you will find Pedro de Vargas alive. And you may carry a letter for me to Juan de Escalante. The army returns to Villa Rica tomorrow.' So I got up, and here I am. Praise to God! I don't deserve—I don't deserve to find you still—"

He pressed his lips together and turned his face. The fan drooped.

After a pause, he muttered, "Do you think you can forgive me? It

seems my luck always to be landing you in pickle. I'm not asking you to speak. If you forgive me, nod; if you don't, shake. Shake's what I deserve."

This time Pedro laughed.

"Forgive you? Not for a peso! Not for a thousand pesos! Never! Damned if I do!"

Garcia stared back uncertain. "You sound almost natural," he faltered.

"Almost. What I want to know is how much pulque you drank. It's thin stuff. I might forgive you if you drank a gallon."

Vastly relieved about his friend's condition, Garcia beamed. "Two gallons, on my honor."

"Liar."

"It may have been three—to judge by the weight in my head. So I'm forgiven?"

"Call it that."

Garcia put down the fan. "That skull-and-bones, Escobar, gave me the fright of my life," he growled. "Led me to think he was just keeping you breathing. Said he couldn't vouch for you. I'll kick his rump. / can vouch for you, praise God! But as for pulque, beer, wine, and liquor! Seiior! I hate and renounce them. God help the whoreson who tempts me even to smell 'em!"