The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (26 page)

“Sure,” Howard said smiling. “But leave your worries for another day. Help yourself to a good dinner. It’s all waiting for you.” Then to Dobbs: “Hey, cook, what about the coffee?”

“Yes, ma’m, coming.” Dobbs pushed the coffee over to the old man.

“As I have said to you guys several times, to bring everything safely home and have it credited to your account isn’t quite so easy as wading in clay and having water at hand to wash your feet afterwards.” Howard was taking up this problem once more. It seemed that he could think of nothing else, and to him this problem had become really acute since they had decided to close the mine and leave for the port. He simply couldn’t free his mind from the difficulties which he foresaw would be theirs on the march.

He went on: “Did you ever hear the story about that treasureburdened woman, the most honorable and distinguished dona Catalina Maria de Rodriguez? I’m sure you haven’t, because there aren’t many people in this world who have. I mean, of course, the true story. With her it was not the question of how to get the gold and silver, but how to get it home, where it would have done her the most good. Gold is of no use to anybody as long as it is not where he wants it.

“It seems that in the Villa de Guadalupe there is an image of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe—that is, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the holy patroness of Mexico and all the Mexicans. The little town is a suburb of Mexico City and can be reached from that city by street-car. To the Mexicans and the Indians of Mexico this image is of great importance, because whoever is in trouble or pain undertakes a pilgrimage to that shrine feeling sure that the Holy Virgin will help him out of his worries, whatever they are. Our Lady of Guadalupe has a very great heart and she understands fully the depths of the human soul. She is even supposed to help a peasant to a piece of land which belongs to his neighbor and to help a girl out of the natural consequences of a wrong step. Anyway, the Mexicans know how to use her to their benefit, and so do the holy persons who take care of the lady and are in charge of everything, including collecting the fees.”

“That’s all superstition. To hell with all those people who coin money out of the superstitions of the ignorant!” Curtin interrupted the tale.

“I wonder,” Howard said. “You have to believe, and then it will help you. It’s the same with the Lord. If you believe in the Lord, then there is a Lord for you; if you don’t believe in Him, there is no God for you—nobody who lights up the stars for you and directs the traffic in the heavens. Now, don’t let’s argue about such details; let’s come to the plain story. I’m telling you that story just as it happened.”

2

At about the time of the American Revolution there lived in the vicinity of Huacal, in northern Mexico, a well-to-do Indian farmer, who, in fact, was chieftain of the Chiricahua Indians. These Indians, very peaceful people, had settled in this region hundreds and hundreds of years before and had found more pleasure and riches in tilling the soil than the neighboring tribes who went marauding whenever they felt like it.

The chieftain, who was otherwise so blessed with well-being, had a great sorrow which overshadowed his whole life: His only son and heir was blind. In former times this son would have been done away with right after being born. But under the influence of the new religion even the Indians had become more generous in such things, and the child, as he was otherwise normal, was allowed to live. The boy was a strong and healthy child, handsome and well formed. He grew not only in size but in intelligence, and the nearer he came to manhood, the more sorrowful became his father.

It so happened that a monk came that way, a holy person who understood well how to live on the hospitality of the Indians without giving them more in return than an occasional story about events supposed to have taken place between two and three thousand years ago, concerning people entirely different from the Indians. Finally the monk felt that he had to do better if he wished to stay longer without having to plow and to sow for his living. Besides, he needed ready cash for some purpose or other. So he began bargaining with the chieftain, telling him that for a worthwhile consideration he would give him advice as to how to win the grace of the Holy Virgin and make her do what no doctor ever could do: give light to the eyes of the chief’s only son. The monk was expert in giving good counsel to the suffering and afflicted. He had been trained for it.

“Of course,” he explained to the chief, “this heavenly grace of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe is not easily gained. You understand, my son, such a great lady cannot be treated like an ordinary hussy. Therefore do not spare the rich offerings, as the Holy Virgin, just to make it quite plain to you what I mean, is always in a very receptive mood toward money in any form and also jewelry. And so are the most holy persons who wait upon this great lady.”

For this sure remedy the monk expected his own reward at once, as no one, regardless of how holy he may be, is expected to live on hope for the manna which once came, but which may never come again. The monk, having received his pay, gave the chief, his wife, and his son his blessing and went on his way to find another tribe that might be willing to support him well for telling stories about miracles.

The chieftain left his possessions in charge of his uncle, gathered together all the money and all the jewelry he had, and went on his long pilgrimage to Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. No horse, mule, or burro was to be used on this dreary way. With his wife and son and three servants, he had to make this journey of nearly fourteen hundred miles on foot. At every church on his way he had to kneel down and say three hundred Ave Marias and to offer the church a certain number of candles, a silver eye, and money. To make this pilgrimage last as long as possible may have been of importance to the monk for reasons of his own, but since he was a loyal Christian, let us presume the journey had to be made in this way so as to be a success.

The chief reached Mexico City at last. After having made his offerings in the cathedral, confessed, and prayed there for a whole day, and with special blessings from the fathers, he went about the last part of his hard task.

It is slightly more than three miles from the cathedral to the image of Guadalupe. These three miles the chief, his wife, his son, and his three servants had to walk on their knees, and each of the pilgrims had to carry in his hands a lighted candle, which must not be permitted to go out, no matter what the weather. If a candle should burn out, it had to be replaced with a new one. Since the candles had been specially blessed in the cathedral, they were far more expensive than ordinary candles, and whenever a new one was lighted, a hundred extra Ave Marias had to be said. It should be added that the Ave Marias were practically the only prayers the chief and his family knew how to say.

So they went chanting and praying all the way, being blessed and crossed by all the faithful persons who passed by.

On the knees any trip will last long. So this journey lasted all afternoon and the whole night through. The little boy fell asleep, but was wakened again and again. He whined for water and for a tortilla to eat. But it was against the rule to eat or drink on such a pilgrimage.

Not everyone who passed by blessed them. Many shrank in horror from the little group, thinking what terrible sinners they must be to have been commanded by the church to go through such an ordeal.

Wholly exhausted, they reached the base of the Cerrito de Tepeyac. This was the hill on which, in the year of Our Lord 1531, the Holy Virgin in person had appeared to the Quauhtlatohua Indian Juan Diego and had left painted in his ayate, a sort of over-shirt, her picture. No one had taken notice of this miracle at the time it happened. Not until one hundred years later were the faithful reminded of the fact that this miracle had occurred on the 12th of December 1531. But the picture was there, and it was framed in a costly gold frame, where it can be still seen, and it has brought, and still brings, to the church more money than a successful comedy on Broadway makes for its producers and owners.

The story of the image, true or not, was of no importance to the chieftain, who was in sorrow. And the story has never been of consequence to anybody who has come faithfully to the shrine and asked the help of the Virgin.

Three days and three nights the chief, his wife, his son, and his servants prayed on their knees before the image. They did not eat, they did not drink, and they used up all their strength to avoid falling asleep. But nothing happened.

The chief had promised the church all his cattle and his whole crop for the year should it please Our Lady to light the eyes of his beloved son.

On the seventh day, as the Virgin still refused to perform the expected and paid-for miracle, the chief, urged by the clergy in attendance, offered all his worldly possessions, including his huge farm, to the Virgin, in exchange for the eyesight of his child.

Still no miracle took place, and the chieftain began earnestly to doubt the power of the Virgin. His own gods had done better under similar circumstances.

The boy had meanwhile become so weakened by the long fast, the constant praying, and the attempts of his parents to keep him awake during these days that his mother finally asserted herself, took her son out of the church, and, Virgin or no Virgin, devoted all her time to the boy, saying: “I prefer my boy alive, even if blind, to a boy dead who could see once.”

The chieftain, being desperate, said now quite openly to the priests that he did not believe any longer in the Virgin and that he would rather go home and have the medicine-men of his tribe treat his son’s eyes once more. The fathers accused him of blasphemy and warned him furthermore that were he not an ignorant Indian, they would take him before the court of the Holy Inquisition and torture him into swearing away his heathen gods and then fine him for his blasphemy until he and all his relatives had nothing left and he would be grateful that he was spared the fate of so many other unbelievers who were burnt alive at the stake on the Alameda. Eager not to lose the whole tribe of which he was the chief, the fathers explained why the Holy Virgin had refused him help. Perhaps he had not said three hundred Ave Marias in each church on his way; it might have happened that he had said only two hundred and eighty in some places, and he might even have skipped a few churches, being in a hurry to reach the shrine. The Virgin knows such things and he could not cheat her as he perhaps had done with his own gods, who could not see farther than to the top of the nearest mountain. Possibly he had drunk water in the morning before crossing himself and saying his prayer. Perhaps he had made mistakes with the candles on the last stretch of his pilgrimage.

The chieftain finally had to admit that it was possible that he had not always said the full number of Ave Mamas, but this was not his fault, because he was not used to such high figures and he might have skipped a few. And he remembered now that he had drunk water hastily without first crossing himself, because it had been very hot and he was thirsty, as he had given all the water they carried in pumpkin bottles to his wife and his son, who were dying in the heat. So the fathers said that under such circumstances he should not blame the Virgin, who is stainless and blameless for ever and ever, but should blame only himself, because he was a great sinner and not an asset to Christendom, and he had better go back home and repeat the pilgrimage after six months, when the Virgin surely would grant him what he asked in good faith and as a true believer in the church.

The chief, however, had lost faith in the power of the goddess, for he was an Indian who belonged to a tribe that always received the rain its medicine-men prayed and danced and chanted for. A goddess that cannot or will not help men when in need and pain is no good for an Indian.

He took his family and returned to Mexico City, ate and drank heartily, and was happy once more. He even took his young wife again into his arms, as he had not done since they had left their home, for the monk had told him that if he committed such a sin, he would lose the grace of the Holy Virgin.

While in Mexico City, he was looking about for a doctor whom he might consult. He was given the name of don Manuel Rodriguez, a famous Spanish doctor who had become prominent on account of an eye operation performed on the wife of the prefect of the city. Before this successful operation he had been but a quack. Having made a careful examination of the boy’s eyes, he told the chief that he was sure that he could cure the boy—that the boy might regain the full use of his eyes. “The main question,” he added, “is what you can pay me.”

The chief, clad like all his kind, did not look like one who could pay as much as the prefect had. He said that he owned a good farm and cattle. “That is not cash,” don Manuel said. “What I need and what I want is cash—money, you know— heaps of it. I wish to go back to Spain, to a civilized country. I cannot live in this godforsaken country here. And when I return to Spain I wish to return rich, and when I say rich, I mean, of course, very rich. Your farm and your cattle don’t interest me. Gold is what I want.”

To this the chief answered that he could make don Manuel the richest man in New Spain, as Mexico was called in those times, if the doctor would make his son see like other human beings. How could he do that? the doctor asked. The chief said that he knew a very rich gold and silver mine and that he would show it to him on the day they reached his home and the boy had his eyesight.

Don Manuel was not easily convinced, so they made a cruel contract stipulating that don Manuel should have the right without being prosecuted to destroy the boy’s sight again if the mine which was to be his did not exist or belonged to somebody else or was exhausted.

Don Manuel worked as he never had worked before. He operated on the boy and treated him for two months, with so much care and attention that he neglected all his other patients, including even men high in office. The fact was that he had become professionally interested in this case, although he did not forget for one hour the reward awaiting him for his labor. When ten weeks had passed, don Manuel called the chief and said that he might come and get his boy.