The Black Pearl (10 page)

All this was done with a false smile and a flourish, like a magician getting ready for an act. I had the feeling he had vowed to himself thai he would kill the Manta Diablo, no matter how long it took or at what cost. He would kill it to show that after all Gaspar Ruiz was more of a man than I could ever hope to be.

I thought I had forgotten our old rivalry, that when I found the great pearl the feud between us had come to an end. I was wrong, it had not ended.

Sitting there with my hands folded, as I watched him prepare to kill the Manta Diablo, all the old hatred came back. I jumped up and pulled my knife from its sheath. It was a sharp knife, but not one I would have chosen to fight the Manta Diablo. Now I know that there is no such knife in the world.

"We will kill him together," I shouted.

The Sevillano glanced at the knife and then at me and began to laugh. "With that you could not kill the manta's grandmother," he said. "Sit down and hold onto the rail. If the manta starts to dive, cut the rope. Or else you and the boat will go down with him. And remember this, mate, do not touch the pearl."

An instant later the Sevillano leaped. He landed upon the broad platform of the Manta Diablo's back, slipped to his knees and crawled forward to where the harpoon stood embedded. He grasped the shaft with one hand and with the other drew his knife.

I doubt that the Manta Diablo was aware of him, either when he leaped or when he crawled along its spine or later as he grasped the harpoon's shaft. For it swam steadily on, half in and half out of the water, the pitch-black fins rising and falling without a change.

With all the strength of his powerful body, the Sevillano plunged the knife deep into the monster's neck, until it would go no farther. A tremor ran through the Manta Diablo and he rose out of the sea and fell back and his tail lashed the air over my head.

At a second thrust of the blade, as small waves streaked with blood washed across his back, the Manta Diablo struck the sea with his tail and a dull groan came from deep within him. He raised his fins over his back, as if to brush the Sevillano away. Then he dived and the rope snapped tight and the boat shot forward, spilling all the provisions into the sea.

I had not the least chance to cut the rope, as I had been told to do, in the brief moment before the sea-beast disappeared from sight.

At once, the boat moved sidewise and dipped forward and the bow scooped up a wave. All in a breath, we were going under when the rope began to fray, then hung by a thread and broke.

The Sevillano was on his knees. In his hands he held the harpoon. It could have been that he meant to drive the steel barb deeper, but while he knelt there and bloody spray almost hid him from my view, the end of the parted rope flew forward and wrapped around him, as a rope wraps around a maypole when children set it free.

Not a word came from the Sevillano nor a cry. His back was turned toward me and for a moment I glimpsed the tattoo he was proudest of, the picture across his wide shoulders in red and green and black of him killing the twelve-armed octopus. Then he went down with his sounding enemy, still with the harpoon grasped in his hands.

I righted the boat and after a time found the drifting oars and rowed back and forth over the place where the Sevillano had disappeared. The only thing I saw was a patch of foam and floating in it his cork-handled knife, the blade pointing downward.

At sunset I raised the sail and set a course toward La Paz. Only then did I think of the pearl. It lay in the bow of the boat where the Sevillano had put it, the one thing of all the things that had not been thrown into the sea.

T
HE TOWN WAS ASLEEP
when I sailed into the harbor, but cocks were crowing and there was not much time left before sunrise.

I pulled the boat up the shore and took off my shoes and tied the laces and hung the shoes around my neck. In my bare feet I walked softly along the Malecón so as not to disturb the stray dogs that sleep there under the trees, or the homeless who sleep in the doorways, and up the hill by a roundabout way. As I crossed the plaza the first light of morning shone on the church tower and its big bells.

The door creaked loudly when I opened it and I waited in the shadows until I was sure that no one had heard the sound.

A wooden screen stands just inside the door of our church where announcements are pinned up for people to read. In the center of the screen was a large sign, larger than any of the others, which offered a thousand pesos for the arrest of the thief who had stolen the Madonna's pearl. I took the sign down and put it in my pocket.

The church was deserted and only a few candles burned at the altar.

I walked down the aisle to the niche that was shaped like a shell, where the Madonna-of-the-Sea stood dressed in Her white gown and Her hair bound in a garland of flowers. The sweet smile was still on Her face and Her hand was held out to all sinners, whoever they were, even to me.

In Her hand I placed the great black pearl. "This now is a gift of adoration," I said, "a gift of love."

I then said a prayer for the soul of the Sevillano and one for my own. I also said a prayer for the Manta Diablo, that creature of beauty and of evil whom only two have seen with their ¡yes, though there are many who say they have and whom everyone in this life at sometime comes to know.

After my prayers I went quickly up the aisle. As I came to the door I stopped and turned back

and climbed the long flight of steps that leads to the belfry and its three bronze bells.

The town lay below me. Women and sleepy children were on their way to the fountain with empty jars on their heads. The first blue smoke was rising from the chimneys everywhere. And across the plaza I could see one of the Indian girls sweeping the cobblestones in front of our big gate. It was Luz, whose husband had been drowned with the fleet at Punta Maldonado.

Beside me hung the big bells. I pulled hard on the rope and set them to swinging. It was yet an hour before the first service, so as the bells boomed out, people came running from the houses, to learn the reason for the alarm.

I untied my shoes and put them on and gave the rope another hard pull. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs the church was crowded, so it was easy for me to slip away unnoticed.

Outside, the sun now lay golden on the roof tops and the big bells were still ringing over the town. They rang in my heart, also, for this new day was the beginning day of manhood. It was not the day I became a partner in the House of
Salazar nor the day I found the Pearl of Heaven. It was this day.

But as I walked homeward in the golden sun and the sound of bells hung in the air, I tried to think of a story to tell my mother. For she would not believe what had happened, any more than I believed the story she had told me long ago.