Infinite Devotion (22 page)

The beach is terribly quiet with the soft lapping of the now calming seas in the morning light. The sands are covered with items washed up from the wreck, and as I draw closer, I realize they’re all bodies. I couldn’t have imagined such a sight. Ravens and wild dogs are taking advantage of the bounty. I run and throw rocks, trying to shoo the animals away, turning each body over, searching their faces. Most are badly disfigured due to blows from mallets and clubs, and I realize that many of these men had made it to shore alive. All were stripped of their clothing and robbed of everything they tried to save on them. Every crate and barrel was pried open and emptied. Body after body all strewn on the sands like fish after the tide’s gone out. There are hundreds upon hundreds, and still, bodies are floating up in the sleepy waves.

“Luis!” something croaks downwind.

I turn and see Andres clutching his soaked self and running toward me, shivering so hard he can barely run. Limping in the background, I see the captain, smiling. I run to Andres. I grab him and spin him around.

“I told you you’d be fine!” I give him another hug.

He laughs. “Yeah, I held onto the captain and never let go,” he says between shivers.

I see the large blood stain down the captain’s pants.

“What happened, Captain?”

He winces as he takes another step forward. “Oh, a wave carrying a piece of floating timber came right down on my legs.”

“Where’s Pepe?” Andres asks, searching the shoreline behind me.

“He’s not with you?”

“No,” Andres answers, and his eyes fill.

“Did you see him after we hit the water?’

“No,” Andres says.

“Is the judge with you too?” I ask the captain.

He shakes his head. “No, sunk right to the bottom. I’m guessing his whole coat must have been sewn with gold.”

We stand and look at what lies all around us.

The captain proclaims, “Well, we must get out of here before that warrior-thing comes back. There must be someone who’ll take a fellow Catholic in.” He takes his cross from underneath his shirt and kisses it.

We make our way slowly, with the captain grimacing with every other step.

“Luis! Stay off the path,” he shouts from behind as he puts his arm out for Andres, “and help me here.” He stumbles over the rocks on the edge of the path.

We travel for less than an hour when we come upon a smoking stone church at the top of a knoll. Andres and I make to run up to the church, but the captain grabs hold of our wet shirts and pulls us back and whispers in our ears, “
Never
run up to a smoking church.”

We inch up to the small and charred holy place. The thatched roof is completely gone, and we see shapes hanging from the iron bars of the windows. Once inside, we see that twelve Spaniards were slaughtered within. Each youthful face blue, each one struggled out of the water and escaped the warrior to come to this place of refuge to be hanged.

Was there no escape?

Everything’s hypnotically still‌—‌a silence that only follows a tragedy.

Evil swallows all sound.

We leave the desecrated ground, walking backwards, attempting to undo a curse. Behind the church, the captain notices a faint path through the thick woods and nods toward it. No one talks for half an hour. We keep looking for death in every direction. Andres sees her first, crouches down instinctively, and we follow. An old lady pulls five cows down the path but halts as soon as she sees us and tries to push her cows back down the path to no avail.

The captain jumps forward, which causes her ancient eyes to open wide. He says, “Spain! We are from Spain! We mean you no harm.” But she doesn’t seem to understand a word and keeps trying to move back down the path, her cheeks flaming pink from the hard work.

The captain smiles his friendliest smile and holds his hands to his chest over his heart. The women watches this movement with curiosity. The captain points to his bloody leg, and she winces in sympathy. Then the captain mocks shivering and rubs his stomach to show hunger. The old woman looks at us sadly, shrugs, and put her hands up empty. She points to the woods behind her and puts her hands out like a musket and points to us. She raises her fingers up in a cross and points to us and then shakes her head at what was back in the woods. She points at her cows and then covers one of her hands over the other and points forward. The captain seems to understand it all and nods in thanks for her assistance. She smiles as she pulls her cows past us, hunched over with age.

“What did she say?” I ask.

“She warned us the English were that way, and we should go back from where we came.”

“Back to the church?” Andres fumes.

“Never doubt an old woman hiding her cows.” And he steps forward, even more sore than before, and we follow tiredly behind.

We pass the church again in silence, and we stare at our feet. The sound of Spanish words make us glance up at once as two naked figures run toward us.

Chapter 12

“Forget all about me!” one yells as they near, his arms bent at the elbows and swinging as he runs awkwardly.

My heart jumps as I see a familiar form. Andres must have recognized him also, since he goes running to him.

“Pepe!” I say, and the captain looks up, pursing his thin lips, trying to keep from smiling but his eyes well up.

“You’re all alive!” Pepe says as he hugs Andres. “I was sure you all drowned!” He reaches to hug me and engulfs me in his arms.

He goes to hug the captain, but the captain draws back. “I never hugged a naked man and don’t want to say I did now.” We laugh, and Pepe suddenly looks self-conscious and tries to cover himself with his hands.

“How did you all keep your clothes?” Pepe points to his companion. “As soon as we came up to that beach”—he points to the strand next to ours—“the natives were all dancing with their sticks above their heads, just waiting for us to make it to shore.” He grabs the man next to him. “They took every stitch we had off us, and Carlos, here, took a bad blow to the head.” He turns the skinny man to the side, showing a river of blood down to his neck.

Pepe’s brow knits. “I could care less about my clothes, but they took Auradona, my father’s knife, and my sewing kit my mother left me.”

I immediately take my top layer off and hand it to Pepe. “It’s still wet, but it’s something.”

He gives me a grateful look and happily throws it over his head. Andres eyes Carlos’s shivering form and begrudgingly removes his top layer. He throws it to Carlos, who thanks him eagerly.

“Are the beaches clear?” the captain asks.

“We had to wait until the scavengers were gone, and we don’t know when the horses will come back. I think we should stay off the beach. There’s a church there.”

The captain shakes his head. “Nothing holy that way.” He starts to hobble toward the beach. “We need to find some biscuits or wine that wash up if we’re going to make it anywhere.”

From the knoll, I can see two strands of beach, the one we came in from and the one where Pepe had landed. I’m surprised to see an equal number of bodies on both beaches. Coming closer, I can see more had washed up since we’d been there. Andres runs to an opened crate nearest to us, and the captain yells, “Now, why would you go to an
opened
crate?”

Embarrassed, he runs farther down the shore to the crates that have recently washed up, and Pepe and Andres kick away at one, trying to open it. Finally, it pops open, and soggy biscuits glob out on the lid. I never tasted such delicious mush in my life. We were starving and all too quickly finished the crate; then we ran off for another. After we filled our bellies with the contents of three crates, the captain points to a group of natives coming toward us. Three short savages come up with foreign tongues wagging and spears high. We all put our hands up as they begin to pull off our clothes, but the captain screams, “Please, we are friends of Ireland!” to no avail.

Luckily, a larger savage comes down and pulls them away from us. He picks up my shirt and throws it back to us apologetically. After his stern command, the others back away and go off looking through the wreckage. The leader turns and sees us all in our misfortune and points up to another dirt road that disappears through a different patch of woods. He thumps his fist against his chest and points up the path, and we all think he’s saying it is his village.

We bow and make our way to the path. The captain pants as he hobbles. “Quickly, before they change their minds.”

After trudging over sharp stones and rocky paths, the captain commands wearily, “Give me pause here.”

We stand watching him, anxious to get through the eerie wood to some shelter. He arches his back and looks to the sky through the short, wind-hindered treetops.

“It’s hard to tell when dusk is falling due to how grey and dismal the weather is here,” the captain says with his mouth opened, panting slightly.

Suddenly, we all turn to the noise coming from the path ahead of us. It’s too late to jump into the underbrush to hide. The group sees us and are hurrying straight at us.

Two men lead the way, and the captain quickly pushes us behind him as he brings the stick he’s walking with out in front of him. One of the men draws out a knife and quickly stabs at the captain’s already wounded leg. The captain catches the blow with his stick, but the knifepoint breaks flesh. The captain grunts and lunges at the men out of range. The other man swings at his head and knocks the captain over easily. Carlos jumps forward, only to put his hands up as soon as he sees the man brandish the knife with a grin of intent. Out of nowhere, a very beautiful girl with orange, shining hair jumps in front of them and says something feverishly to the young man with the knife, causing him to lower it to his side. An old man pulls the other young man back and says something in a calming tone.

The man steps around the girl and old man, toward Carlos. He lifts Carlos’s already too short tunic Andres loaned him and pushes him away in disgust, seeing he’s completely naked underneath. The man looks at me, Andres, and half-naked Pepe and realizes we carry no worth and focuses on the captain lying on the ground, still.

The two men step over him and pull off his clothes. One removes his doublet and the other pulls off his pants. They rip open every seam, from which drop coin after coin. Our mouths fall open at the sight of so much gold as the savage’s eyes sparkle. While pulling off his undershirt, they gasp as they unveil the thick gold chain and a thinner gold chain with a red jeweled cross around his neck. In seconds, they remove them from him. They pull off his hose and leave the captain in an unflattering position on the ground.

The men start stuffing the captain’s clothing into the satchels they have on their sides, but the girl again stays their hands with a touch and pleading look, and the young men throw the captain’s clothing back to the ground. The man with the knife puts his hand up to the girl’s face gently and dangles the chain with the cross in front of her. She smiles sweetly and takes the chain as the man turns and motions for the young man and the older man to continue on the path toward the shore. They leave the girl behind with us.

She picks up the clothes and hands them to the captain. As he pulls back on the ripped hose and cut doublet, she puts his cross around her neck and smiles. She pulls up the cross and kisses it, obviously trying to show she’s a Catholic and wants to keep it.

The captain scoffs and turns to us. “A savage Catholic,” he says, and he groans as he gets back on his feet. “Are there no good Catholics in this wretched place?”

The beautiful girl motions for us to follow her back up the path. We watch her graceful form dance between the large stones on the path ahead of us. As the light’s fading, all we can see is her shiny orange hair, and she keeps spinning and smiling at us like some strange nymph or fairy. Just when we can barely see right in front of us, the path opens up to a small village on top of a hill. There are small wooden houses with thatched roofs, all with smoke coming out of their centers. She points to one in the center, and as we open the door, a small boy runs to the girl. I try to figure out if this is her son, but she looks too young to be a mother. She speaks to him, and he runs off. We all happily sit next to the fire, but the captain has trouble getting to the floor, and beads of sweat appear on his brow.

The boy returns carrying a pitcher of milk, loaves of oaten bread, and butter. My mouth opens, and drool spills out on the dirt floor. Pepe, seeing this, pulls away to his side and laughs.

The girl points to herself and says, “Carra,” and we all point and say our names, which pleases her. After giving us generous helpings, she sits very close beside the captain and motions for the boy, who brings a small jar to her from a basket in the corner.

She pulls at the captain’s trousers, and the captain balks once at the request, but Carra pulls even harder on them with an angry look. The captain turns red in the face and tries to pull off his pants and hose as discreetly as possible as we all look away. He bundles up his pants and covers himself with them as Carra spreads some herbal concoction over his wounds. When the fire begins to warm the concoction, a pungent smell fills the cottage, opening my sinuses, and makes my eyes sting. I’m forced to close them and soon fall asleep, happy, with the warm fire and full belly. We just might make it home.