The Moor's Account (26 page)

Most of the men were afraid of setting up camp in an unknown part of the island, so they all agreed that we should remain near the beach. But four men, all of them soldiers, sided with Ruíz. They left the very next morning, taking with them their weapons and some of the tools we still had and said they would return to the beach in the spring so that we could all leave the island on the same raft. Dorantes tried to reason with the soldiers: they would be safer with us, since our group was larger in number; they would have better access to food and water; they could receive confession if they wished. When they refused to listen to his pleas, Dorantes became angry. As your captain, he said, assigned to this office by His Majesty the King, I order you to remain with us.

Ruíz's reply was swift and scornful. If the king wants me to remain with you, he can come and tell me himself.

I
N A CLEARING
just behind the beach, we set up three simple huts, modeled after the Capoques' dwellings and covered with tree branches. One look inside showed you that we had tried our best to make it into proper quarters: in one corner were the water jars we had taken from San Miguel Island; in another corner were the tools and weapons we still had; and laid out in the center was the cloak of marten and ermine skin, which Dorantes had salvaged, and which served as bedding for the hut he shared with Diego, Father Anselmo, Castillo, and me. The hut kept out the worst of the cold, but the rain leaked through the openings between the branches and more than once during the night we were drenched with rainwater.

Three days later, I went to the Capoques' camp to return their baskets. Dorantes and Castillo decided to come with me, in the hope that they could convince the Indians to give us some meat to supplement the oysters
and seaweed we had been collecting. As we approached their site, the dogs began to howl and a group of children ran out to greet us. Excitedly, they led us by the hand toward the square, where a small crowd was gathered, noisily trading comments and questions, but it was only after the Indians parted that I saw a white man. He turned around—it was Cabeza de Vaca.

What a shock it was to see him. We had given him up for dead and now he was standing there in the flesh. He hugged Dorantes and Castillo mightily, saying Gracias a Dios and Increíble, but only glanced in my direction. As we sat around the Capoques' campfire, he told us his story, which I record here for the reader, as best as I can remember it.

Amigos, Cabeza de Vaca said, this is what happened. As the governor did not see fit to throw me a line, I endeavored to remain close to the raft nearest mine, which was that of Capitán Peñaloza. We sailed together for two days and two nights, but were separated by a storm. At dawn on the third day, I heard the sound of breakers, though I could not be sure if it were a dream or not. With my men too weak to row, it was left to the skipper and me to land the raft. I sent one of my men to reconnoiter the area and he found some Indians returning from a fishing trip. They gave us their catch and later brought us some roots and nuts. All of this was a great succor to us. But as I could not be completely sure of their intentions toward us, I had my men repair the raft and we set it back on the water the next day. We had gone only a crossbow shot from the shore when a wave hit us and we lost our oars and some of our tools. The next one overturned the raft entirely, forcing us to swim back to the beach with only the clothes on our backs. But poor Solís refused to let go of the boat, and he and two others drowned underneath it.

The tax inspector is dead? Dorantes asked.

Yes. He and two others drowned.

God have mercy.

Lord hear our prayer. I also lost three other men to the fever. The Indians, who are from a tribe that calls itself the Han, returned with more food later that day and, when they learned what happened to us, they entreated us to go with them to their camp. We told them we were too weak to endure the walk, but they built bonfires along the path from the beach and carried us all the way to their encampment, where they held a feast in our honor, with much singing and dancing. That was when I
noticed on one of the dancers some yellow beads of the kind we brought from Castile, and I asked him where he had obtained them. From a nearby tribe, he said, where some white men like me had visited. So I told him to bring me here, that I might find out who these white men were.

Now that Cabeza de Vaca had finished his story, Dorantes informed him of Ruíz's desertion, which he said he had been unable to stop. Cabeza de Vaca replied that he had had desertions among his ranks, too: four soldiers and one criado—strong and healthy all of them—had decided to try swimming to the mainland. Once on the continent, they planned to walk along the coast to Pánuco, where they would report news of our shipwreck. It is too far to swim, Dorantes said, but perhaps they will be lucky.

Do you still have your raft? Cabeza de Vaca asked.

Yes. But I doubt it is navigable in this weather. It is best to wait for spring.

Then bring your men to my camp. We can remain there together.

Why not bring your men to my camp?

The argument between Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca was not about survival. It was about who would dictate what camp we stayed in, and who would be the leader. Leaning against my walking staff, I said: The Capoques have given us food, water, and even animal skins for the cold. If we leave to go with their neighbors across the island, they might take it as an insult.

It would be smart to join together, Cabeza de Vaca said.

Smart, but not wise, I said. The Capoques saved our lives. We would do well, I said, to try to be good guests to our hosts, since we depend on them to show us the best places to fish and forage. The storms that led us to this island are not over yet and it would be dangerous to leave now, with no reserves of food. In the spring, God willing, we can join forces, repair our raft, and leave the island.

And you, Dorantes, do you agree with this? Cabeza de Vaca asked.

My men are in no condition to go anywhere, Dorantes replied. We have to wait for spring.

So it was that Cabeza de Vaca and his men returned to the Han village, while we remained with the Capoques.

M
Y MEMORIES OF THE WINTER
we spent on the island are colored now by sorrow and guilt: sorrow at what we had to endure and guilt at
the calamity that befell the Capoques. But in the late fall of the year 935 of the Hegira, as we settled ourselves for the rainy season, we had some reason to be optimistic. The dwellings we had built for ourselves and the abundance of drinking water curbed the spread of disease in our ranks. We picked oysters and seaweed or looked for bird nests and edible fruit in the wilderness behind our camp. The terrible hunger and constant uncertainty we had felt on the rafts began to recede.

But now we craved hardier fare, especially on evenings when it rained and we lay in our huts shivering with cold. We asked the Capoques for meat and they gave us freely of whatever they had—fish, fowl, squirrel, rabbit—but very quickly we turned into a tribe of beggars, constantly pleading with them for more. Delenchavan, the cacique, put a stop to all of this. He decreed that we were to work for the meat his hunters were giving us: we had to collect firewood or fetch water or grind nuts for it. A fair judgment, but one that, I noticed, several among the Castilians appeared to resent—they considered it beneath them to work for the Indians.

One day, Kwachi and Elenson invited us to go hunting with them. Dorantes and Castillo said they could not use Indian weapons, so only Diego and I went. We departed at dawn, creeping into the woods behind a dozen young lads from the village. The bows that had been lent to us were so large that they slipped off our shoulders, but resolutely we kept up pace with the others. An owl flew low overhead, silently swooping down on a squirrel before I had a chance to even reach for my bow. Diego mistook crackling branches for the footsteps of a beast and shot arrows into the bushes. Neither one of us caught anything. For men raised in the city, even for those who, like us, had marched through the wilderness for so long, the trackless fields of green still retained much mystery. Disconsolately, we watched as Elenson skinned a rabbit, cutting around the legs and the neck to pull the fur off. The animal's pink skin was revealed, its heat turning into steam in the cold morning air.

We thought we might do better at fishing, but the Capoques catch their fish by spearing it, a task that requires a great deal of patience and precision. A long day spent in the bay yielded us only two sea trout, which we shared with the others in our hut, under an unspoken agreement that each man must share his food with his hut companions. In this way, we were able to partake of the fruit that Father Anselmo collected during his foraging trips, and the oysters that Castillo and Dorantes picked.

But our poor hunting skills caused the other Indians to tease Kwachi about his new friends, until he tired of it. One day he said: Go pick roots with the women. He scratched the scar on his chin, his eyes avoiding us in embarrassment. It is easy work, he said.

Reader, it was not. The roots came from tall plants with thorny stems that grew in a marsh half a league from the village. By then, the oyster beds near our camp were almost entirely depleted, so Dorantes and Castillo joined us in the bog. The water was cold and murky and the long leaves of the plant tangled around our feet. We had to burrow deep into the mud with our hands and when we managed to pull out the roots it was often at the expense of deep cuts on our hands and arms.

The Capoque women were amused by our slow progress, but they taught us how to pull the plants without getting hurt and how to clean up the roots before roasting them. Sometimes, when they took a break under the shade of the trees, they shared their meals with us. They sang and gossiped and giggled and nursed their babies and strapped them to their backs before going back to the marsh.

It was while listening to the women that I began to learn their language. At first, I found it difficult to pronounce the strange and guttural sounds of the Capoque tongue. Words like Teshedalj or Hamdoloq, so different from any names I knew for Bone or Feather, taunted me, appearing when I least expected them. I was puzzled by the order of words in Capoque, by the fact that the doer and the done-to were spoken of before the deed itself. When I said, Bawuus ni kwiamoja, one of the women inevitably corrected me, Ni bawuus kwiamoja. But every day, as a child does, I learned new words.

Eventually I was able to carry on longer conversations with my new friends. How did you get the scar on your chin? I once asked Kwachi.

We were sitting outside his hut, with the last of the day's sun on our faces. I was helping him make a new arrow. My task was to hold the sharp end in place while he fastened it with deer sinew to the wooden shaft.

Kwachi cocked his head toward Elenson, who stood a few paces away, showing a group of boys the proper way to hold a bow. My brother gave it to me, he said. We were racing in the woods, tugging at each other. Then he pulled me a little too hard and I fell against a tree trunk.

Though Kwachi called Elenson his brother, the two were not kin. Kwachi had lost his mother as an infant and would have died if Elenson's mother had not nursed him. So the two of them were very close, and
one was rarely seen without the other. Perhaps that was why I thought of them as a pair, an indistinguishable twosome. But as the weeks passed and I grew more familiar with them, I discovered that Kwachi was more generous with us castaways, more tolerant of our mores, and more sympathetic to our plight. He would have continued to give us of his game, even over the objections of the cacique, had Elenson not insisted that he cease.

O
NE DAY IN WINTER
, the blacksmith Echeverría complained of stomach cramps. His companions counseled him to keep the fast and say his Hail Marys, but despite this, his moans of pain did not abate. He threw up even in his sleep. Father Anselmo was bringing water from the spring one morning when he found him curled up under a tree, his right hand still clasped tightly around a pinecone. We carried Echeverría to a little clearing south of the river and as we were about to put him in his grave, Fernándes, the carpenter, called for us to stop. He wanted Echeverría's belt.

No, Father Anselmo said.

But he will not need it, Fernándes protested. What is the harm? He stripped Echeverría of his belt and took it to the village, where he exchanged it for food.

The shame of this trade was added to all the others we had known, and had come to accept, and then taught ourselves to forget. Before long, the men began to trade all the small luxuries that belonged to the dead—hats, boots, rosaries—reasoning that, if some of us had to die of the bowel disease, the others should at least try to survive however they could. And when the dead had no more to trade, the living took up the habit. Dorantes gave up his sword; Castillo his gloves; Diego his collection of birds; and I my precious sandals.

With frightful speed, the bowel disease spread among the Capoques. In one week alone, I remember, they buried ten of their people. One day, a woman who had lost two of her children accused us of willfully making them sick. She had no trouble getting the rest of the tribe to turn against us, because the sickness had already ravaged them—men were too sick to hunt, women too sick to nurse their babies, and those children not sick with fever already weak with hunger and deprivation. Some of the Capoques wanted to kill us, which would not have been hard for them,
or even unfair, but the cacique Delenchavan told them that, had we been powerful enough to kill, we would have been powerful enough to save our own men from the bowel disease.

W
E WERE FEEDING THE FIRE
for our dinner one night when Ruíz returned. He appeared quietly out of the wilderness, his black beard so bushy that his eye, small and yellowish, seemed to disappear in his face. The dirt and the rain had turned his clothes a greenish shade of brown. So insistent had he been about wanting to stay away from the Capoques that we were stunned to see him venture into our camp, where he could run into the Indians at any moment. Ruíz! one of us said. Is that really you? Where are the others?