The Moor's Account (32 page)

How thoughtful of you to give us advance notice, Castillo replied.

You cannot say that you were not warned, Dorantes shot back.

Castillo shook his head slowly, in a way that suggested that Dorantes was either too proud or too foolish to acknowledge a legitimate grievance. I listened to my companions quarrel, but all the while I wondered whether the Yguaces were really as harsh as Dorantes had made them sound. Having just completed one frightful escape, I felt unprepared for another one. What would happen if the Yguaces treated us as poorly? What if I had to run away again? Was I meant to go from tribe to tribe, fearing for my life at every moment? The prospect of an endless exile weighed so heavily on me at that moment that I would have given anything not to feel adrift.

But when the Yguaces took us on a hunt the next day, I discovered that unlike other tribes with whom I had lived they ran after the deer for great distances, sometimes for as long as three or four hours, before attempting to spear them. If it was arduous work, at least it did not require as much skill with a bow and arrow. Castillo and I managed to hit a young stag and the taste of its meat over the fire that evening made up for the labor it had cost. As for Dorantes's other complaint, the mosquitoes in these parts were so numerous and so vicious that the only way to keep them away was to burn damp wood; the smoke chased them off, although it also made our eyes water. We had to take turns feeding the fire at night, but even that was not an impossible task.

And yet, Dorantes persisted in his intention to go live with another tribe, one that would not make him work as much as the Yguaces. As soon
as the spring rains ceased, he began to make preparations to leave. He had fashioned himself a small satchel from scraps of deerskin, and this he filled with nuts, dried strips of meat, and other provisions for the road.

Dorantes, I said. Stay with us. Traveling alone is too dangerous.

I will manage, he replied.

Castillo intervened. What if you come across a hostile tribe? The Carancahuas journey through these parts as well.

You need not concern yourself with my safety, Dorantes replied. His voice had taken a sharp edge. He was still grieving for his dead brother and rebuffed any signs of friendship from Castillo.

The next morning, when Dorantes left, I did not join him and neither did Castillo. The Yguaces had treated us fairly and, although the work was not always easy, we had learned how to do it properly. Why leave them now?

In the summer, the Yguaces struck their camp and moved southward to the bank of a long and winding river, which in their language is called the River of Nuts. All along its slopes were leafy trees that yield a fruit much like the walnut, although the shell is smoother in appearance and the seed sweeter in taste. The Yguaces fed on these nuts for the entire summer and harvested more for the cold months. They also hunted deer and fowl, and traded with neighboring tribes whose peregrinations brought them to this river as well. Whenever I think back about that summer, what I remember most is how the sound of cracking nutshells filled the entire valley. Other sounds added to that cacophony: new arrivals pitching their tents, neighbors calling out to one another, children playing hide-and-seek, the wind rustling through the leaves of the trees, the fires crackling in the night, the singing and dancing that accompanied the many betrothals and weddings that took place over the summer.

The music often started out slowly, with only two or three drummers sitting in line on their knees. Once the camp had begun to quiet down, a flute player would join in with a melody, and another, and another. Then the dancers would step forward, in twos or threes, their seashell anklets echoing every movement of their feet. In many ways, the dancing reminded me of the great feasts we had on market days in Azemmur—everyone coming out to enjoy the cool evening, singing and dancing and gossiping until the early hours of the morning. One night, spellbound by the music, I joined the Yguace dancers, at first imitating their movements
and later letting the rhythm guide me as I moved about the field with the other dancers.

As the days passed, I began to look upon my fate with new eyes. I often lamented the wicked turns my life had taken, but I rarely considered how much I had to be thankful for, how I had survived so long where so many others had perished, how I had seen wonders that no other Zamori had. Had even Ibn Battuta witnessed the things, both terrible and wondrous, that I had seen? I had been so intent on counting all the miseries and humiliations I had endured that I had neglected to thank the Almighty for the blessings he had bestowed upon me: saving me from disease, from the treacherous seas and rivers, and from the Carancahuas.

L
ITTLE BY LITTLE
, the Land of the Indians, which I had viewed first as a place of fantasy and later as a temporary destination, became more real to me, and I began to take greater notice of its beauty. Often, I took a break from my work just to sit under the lilting branches of a magnolia tree and smell its fragrant flowers. Or I would watch the dance of dragonflies and the flitting of hummingbirds all around me, and, for a while at least, I would stop worrying about the fate of the world or the end of my exile. At night, when everyone settled down to sleep, I watched the peerless evening skies or listened to the crickets singing to their mates. In this way, I taught myself to savor what joy was within my reach. The world was not what I wished it to be, but I was alive. I was alive. I set my mind to surviving my trials, which would end soon enough, delivering me only to the eternity of death.

Even my appearance began to change. Since I had bartered my scissors for food on the Island of Misfortune, I usually trimmed my hair by borrowing a comb and a blade from one of the women. But now I allowed my hair to grow and began to braid it in tight plaits along my scalp. I made myself a deerskin vest and a pair of slippers, in the style worn by people of the tribe. These alterations, however modest, made it easier to live and work with the Yguaces.

My days followed a comforting pattern. In the morning, I attended to my duties, usually in the company of Castillo. Life among the Indians had tempered both his candid belief that he was right all the time and his constant need to have the approval of others. Now, free of those pressures, his true nature blossomed; I discovered he had a good sense of humor
and a great resilience, qualities that were most helpful in our new environment. We worked side by side, taking turns with the more unpleasant tasks: curing animal hides or removing the entrails from the game the hunters caught. Whenever I trace back the history of my friendship with Castillo, I always return to that summer we spent with the Yguaces and to the work we did together. I still cannot smell cured deerskin without thinking of him.

In the afternoon, I sat with Chaubekwan to help him with whatever chore he was completing. Some years before, he had adopted a boy whose father had been killed in battle and he would spend long hours sewing winter garments for the child. Other times, I helped Chaubekwan prepare his concoctions or stitch up the elaborate costumes he wore when he performed his cures. Once, I asked him: Why do you take as much care of one as the other? Is the cure not more important than the dress? It was a question he found strange and I had to rephrase it two or three times before my meaning became clear to him.

This is like asking why an ibis has a curved bill, he replied, or why a heron has long legs, he said. Because they need to.

Chaubekwan taught me that, just as unfounded gossip can turn into sanctioned history if it falls in the hands of the right storyteller, an untested cure could become effective if the right shaman administered it. From him, I learned how to grind roots without destroying their power, how to store medicinal plants, how to prepare various poultices, but also how to wear a costume and entice a patient to drink a bitter potion.

In the evening, everyone gathered around the campfire, to eat a meal, report what they had seen, or trade news about neighboring tribes. This was how I heard that the Mariames, the tribe with whom Dorantes had gone to live, had recently arrived in the valley. They were a smaller band, known for the artistry of their bone ornaments, which they traded for animal furs and other necessities during the summer, when their travels brought them to the River of Nuts. The Mariames had friendly relations with the Yguaces, so Castillo and I traveled to their camp one night, after the day's labor was done. All along the riverbank, bonfires lit our way, though they did not entirely keep out the flies and mosquitoes that flew in thick, fearless clouds. A swift breeze brought us the smell of roasting meat and singed fur, the cries of children, and the croaking of frogs.

Dorantes looked healthier than when we had last seen him, with a
good color on his face and a little thickness around his waist. Still, when we asked him how he was getting on with the Mariames, he began, as usual, with a string of complaints: like the Yguaces, the Mariames went on day-long hunts; they, too, struck their camp every few weeks; they, too, made him carry huge quantities of firewood on his back. And yet, just as Castillo and I had grown accustomed to our tribe, so, too, in the end, had Dorantes.

Nowadays he had the good fortune, he said, of working for a family that did not require him to go on hunts, but instead gave him more mundane and therefore more manageable tasks: he cooked their meals, washed their clothes, set up their tent, and struck it when it was time to move. The reason he did this was because all of them—grandfather, father, mother, and three boys—were blind.

All of them? I asked. How can that be?

It was the pox that made them blind.

Heavens, Castillo said. Are you not afraid you will catch it from them?

The marks on their faces and arms are already healed.

But how did they get the pox?

I suspect it was from someone who traded in New Spain.

Do you think—does that mean we are close to Pánuco?

There is no way to know for certain. These tribes move their camps so often and cover such great distances …

Then one of the women called out to Dorantes that he was needed with the cooking, and Castillo and I had to take our leave. As we walked back to the Yguaces' camp, it occurred to me that Pánuco rarely intruded on our conversations these days. And now that it had, it was in connection with a disease we all feared. There were moments when it seemed to me that Pánuco was not a city, but merely a myth we had dreamed up or been told about by others.

W
E WERE SWIMMING
in the river the next day when Dorantes came to find us, waving his arms like a madman. His face was alight with the fire of excitement. There is another Castilian upriver, he said. It must be one of our men.

It was hard to resist his enthusiasm—we wondered who this man could be and what news he may have for us. Hurriedly, we made our way to the camp, about a quarter of a league upriver, where the white man was said
to be. It was the camp of the Charrucos, who had arrived at the River of Nuts just the day before. We asked a young boy about the stranger living with them, and he pointed us to a simple hut, beside which a white man was sitting on his haunches, grinding something in a mortar. The man turned around when he heard us approach. It was Cabeza de Vaca.

Dorantes and Castillo spoke in one voice: You?

The three Castilians hugged each other mightily, for it had been almost three years since they had last seen each other. I leaned against my walking staff, watching them. Then Cabeza de Vaca turned to me and embraced me, too. In my surprise, I dropped my staff and stepped back, but he was not deterred. He hugged me like a brother, squeezing the breath out of me.

How did you end up here? I asked. What happened to you?

Cabeza de Vaca sat down to recount his tale for us, a tale I have committed to memory and which I repeat here for my gentle reader. Amigos, he said, I stayed with the Han on the Island of Misfortune until the end of the fishing season, after which I moved with them to the mainland. The cacique had died of the bowel disease by then, as had many of the tribe's elders, so there was always great disagreement among them about matters small and large: which routes to take, or when to set up camp, or whose son was ready to have his nipple pierced. The cacique's daughter—my wife, Kakunlopa, whom you have met—urged her people to stay together and to follow the same traditions their ancestors had used. But there was constant quarreling.

In the middle of the spring, when we had migrated farther inland for the season of the blackberries, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. Amigos, I am nearly forty years old. I had always longed for a son, but I had not before been blessed with one, so you can imagine my joy at this birth. I named him Pedro, after my grandfather Pedro de Vera Mendoza, of whom you may have heard, if you enjoy stories of chivalry and adventure. I could already see myself in this little boy, in the tuft of curly hair that sprouted from his head, the way his smile dimpled his face. But by the end of the season, he caught a fever, which did not break no matter what remedy I tried.

After we buried Pedro, I told my wife that we should join another tribe along the coast, like the Charrucos or maybe the Quevenes. The reason for my proposal was that her people had thinned to no more than forty
souls, many of them women, and it seemed to me they would not be able to survive another winter on the Island of Misfortune without their hunters and fishermen. But my wife refused to leave her tribe. She said she had a sister and an uncle left, not to mention the rest of her people, and that they needed her. So I had to take her back to the island, while I returned to the mainland to trade with the tribes along the coast.

I brought with me seashells, deer hides, ocher, and pigments, and traded them for dried meat, ground corn, and other useful things. Whenever I went back to the island to bring back provisions, I would try to talk some sense into Kakunlopa, but she refused to leave the island. Then, last winter, while I was trading on the mainland, she came down with the fever, too. She died before I could see her.