The Seven Serpents Trilogy (13 page)

The beauty of the falling water, the arching trees, the bright-colored birds, and the living breath of the world that lay about me slowed my footsteps. Casting my eyes upward in thanks to my Maker for this great gift of beauty, I failed to see a stone hidden in the grass, fell headlong upon the earth, and for a moment stayed prone and breathless, thinking, This has happened to me before.

I soon realized that it had not happened to me at all, but to another, and that I had read about it in a history book. It was Scipio, the Roman general, who, upon reaching Africa, stumbled as he leaped ashore. His sol diers took the accident as an omen of evil. But Scipio, clasping the earth, cried out, “Thou canst not escape me, Africa. I hold thee tight between my arms.”

Not clasping the earth, feeling foolish, I picked my self up and went on, at sundown reaching a treeless savannah covered with thorn bushes and strewn with rocks. The thorns on the intertwined bushes were sharp as needles, long as a finger, the same kind of thorn with which I had fastened my poncho.

From this open place I had a good view of St. John the Baptist, and I was delighted to see that I had not wandered off the path I had chosen. The gray plume spread out to westward, moved by a wind that did not blow here on the savannah. Through the falling night I could see a ring of fire just below the summit and from it a fiery rivulet flowing downward.

In the dusk I came unexpectedly upon a barrier of tumbled lava that I soon discovered marked the edge of a deep and heavily forested ravine. From its distant bot tom the sound of rushing water reached my ears. I had gone as far that day as I could go.

 

N
EAR THE EDGE OF THE RAVINE
I
FOUND A FLAT ROCK AND MADE A
bed upon it, high off the ground. While offering me a secure place to spend the night, it unfortunately was surrounded by trees.

I had no sooner stretched myself out on my hard bed than I heard a stirring far above me. The stirring be came a murmurous, drawn-out sound, like wind rising. Then there fell from above a short silence, broken abruptly by a single cry that was soft and almost hu man. The cry changed to a long, inhuman shriek, and again there was a short period of silence.

Suddenly, a congregation of voices broke forth from the treetops. A hundred, a thousand, anguished fiends in the halls of hell could not have made a mightier roar. It shook the trees around me, the very rock where I lay. My discomfort, as the sound of the howling monkeys beat down upon my ears, was not lessened by the thought that I had neglected, while I'd had the chance, to gather fruit for my supper.

Before the sun rose, I was on my way into the wooded ravine, where I struggled downward for hours before I reached the stream. I followed the stream, which trended toward the volcano and rose, I believed, some where on its slopes.

I passed its source, which I named
Dos Manantiales
, for two large springs that flowed from a rocky cavern. I left the trees and climbed steeply through barren fields strewn with ash and pitted boulders.

I had climbed only a third of the distance or less to the mouth of the volcano, but already the earth felt hot beneath my feet, and on my tongue was the coppery taste of smoke. Deciding that it would be dangerous to travel farther, I set off to explore the country that lay immediately around me.

Leafless trees and stumps of various sizes that looked like black fangs were scattered over the slope, evidence that the volcano had erupted at times in the past. A wisp of smoke rose from one of the stumps, and upon examination I found deep inside it a core of living coals. These I scooped up in the conch shell, wrapped the shell in grass, and at a trot started off down the mountain.

From this height I was able to see my broad meadow, the white beach, and the reef running out into the chan nel where the
Santa Margarita
lay. Then northward for a league or two stretched a blue jungle without any sign of habitation. But just beyond the jungle I made out what seemed to be a number of towers grouped to gether along a curving arm of the sea. The wind had changed, sending clouds of smoke swirling around me, so I could not be certain of what I saw. The towers, I de cided, could be something I had conjured up.

I went downward, faster than I had ascended, but often stopped to blow the coals alive. I kept an eye out for dry twigs and, finding none when an hour passed and the fire grew faint, I hammered a piece from my poncho, using rocks, rolled the cloth tight, and placed it among the coals. Repeating this procedure from time to time, though I found no dry twigs, I managed to keep the fire alive while I struggled in and out of the deep ravine and came at last within half a league of home.

Threatening clouds had built up steadily since noonday, and as I neared the meadow a driving rain overtook me. I slipped out of my poncho, covered the conch shell, and ran for home, crossing the stream in one long leap.

Inside the hut I unwrapped the conch shell—first my poncho, then the layer of grass—and shook the coals out on the earth floor, using great care with them. They looked pale and dead. I stirred them carefully with my finger, but still they appeared dead.

Getting down on my knees, I blew gently upon the lifeless dust, all that remained of the coals I had taken from the volcano. Suddenly, a spark leaped out of the gray mass, making a small sound. A second spark crackled and flew away. I hurriedly stripped a dry palm leaf from the roof over my head, placed it among the coals, and gently blew again. The leaf curled and crackled and to my great delight burst into flame.

I had nothing to cook that night, but I did have a fire. Sitting beside it, eating fruit and berries, I regaled my self with thoughts of the food I would cook in the days to come. In the meantime, I also thought of breasts of pigeon garnished with cream and flour. Of black Ubeda olives swimming in oil, and ham hocks not too lean for tasting.

The rain drummed on the thatch. Here and there, water dripped through and made pools on the floor, but still I was snug. Valiente, the coatimundi, curled contentedly beside the fire, perhaps the first he had ever seen.

Before I lay down for the night, I gathered up odds and ends left over from building and put them on the burning logs. I fell asleep with fire shadows dancing merrily on the roof and the sound of the rain.

Exhausted from my long journey, I slept late, until the sun shone hot through the opening. I awakened hungry, with thoughts of food, of cooked clams and a fish, should I be able to snare one among the tide pools. But first I would go to the beach and gather driftwood for the fire.

I glanced across the room and saw to my dismay that the fire had died. Ends of palm fronds lay in a circle around a bed of gray coals. Jumping to my feet, I blew upon the ashes. I stirred them with a stick and blew again. But to no avail. The fire that I had brought home from the volcano, after an arduous journey, had died while I dreamed of a roasted haunch and skewered ham from the grape-fed pigs of Jerez.

 

I
N A CHASTENED MOOD, AFTER A MEAGER BREAKFAST OF BERRIES
, I
WENT
along the beach, as was my habit, in search of flotsam left by the tides that had come and gone dur ing the night.

I found two pieces of timber from the
Santa Marga rita
, sound wood but of no value, since I had given up all thought of building a raft. I also found two large kegs marked
pólvora
, the letters burned deep into the oak. The gunpowder would be dry, for the kegs were tight and sealed with wax. Although I could foresee no need for powder, lacking as I did a weapon with which to use it, I rolled the kegs high on the shore beyond the reach of the tide.

At the northernmost part of the cove, wedged between two rocks and wound about by kelp, I came upon the body of a man. The bones had been picked clean by creatures of the sea, except for the legs, which were en cased in tight cordovan boots.

It could have been the skeleton of one of Don Luis's retainers, possibly the barber, for he had worn boots of a similar style. It was not that of Don Luis, however, it being too tall in stature.

I buried the skeleton in the sand and, kneeling, again said a prayer for the salvation of the souls of all the men who had gone down with the
Santa Margarita.
And for the Indians of Isla del Oro.

I had not been in this part of the meadow before, a longbow shot from the flat rock. It was a place where a small grove of trees stood isolated from the edge of the jungle, the trees bound together in a dense thicket of pendulous vines covered with thorns.

As I passed the grove, by chance the sun glittered on a curiously shaped stone which caught my eye. Looking closer, I saw that it marked a narrow path leading from the meadow into the heart of a woody thicket.

This path I followed, mindful of the thorns, and soon came upon a clearing, triangular in shape and some twenty paces from base to apex. At the far end of the triangle there stood a stone figure twice my height, of such a ferocious mien that the blood ran chill in my veins.

The figure was twice as large as the one I had seen on the island of gold and of a rougher stone, painted in bright colors. The head bore a crown of fruit intertwined with leaves and what looked to be some form of flying monster, small yet enormous eyed, with many sets of wings, one set folded in upon the other.

The shock I had felt on Isla del Oro was nothing to what I now felt. I stood rooted to the earth, unable to move.

Beneath the elaborate headdress was the face of a woman. The broad cheeks were scarified, cut crosswise with delicate slashes, as was the chin. Naked to the waist, with four hanging breasts, she bore upon her shoulders and arms the coils of writhing snakes whose heads she cradled in her hands.

It was the feet, however, that held my gaze. They were bare under the folds of a dress that was adorned with flowers of many colors. The toes were long and grasped the earth. They were not toes but talons, hooked and pointed, dripping with blood.

In horror, I stepped back. “God!” I cried out to the sky. “Oh, God in heaven!”

Carefully placed in the grass in a circle around the stone image were what I took to be offerings—a bundle of the fruit I often ate, baskets of nuts and berries, and a scattering of cacao seeds and flowers.

Someone had put them there at the feet of the god dess. And within the last day, for everything was freshly gathered. The island was not deserted. I was not alone. Not alone!

I looked around for footprints and found none, but in back of the stone image there was a well-worn path that led away from the clearing and grove of trees, north ward into the jungle.

I followed it for a way and then returned to the clear ing, drawn back by the serpent goddess. The sun was higher now and shone upon her, revealing things about the face that I had not seen before. The eyes were heavy lidded and nearly closed. Yet, as I stood there, her gaze sought mine and held it. The stone lips were parted, as if she were about to speak to me.

Against my will, I listened for her words. What would they be? Why did this monstrous image hold me there at her feet, fascinated and trembling?

I waited, unable to move. The sun rose higher. Now I saw a half smile on her parted lips. The serpents on her arms seemed alive, the scales glistening as they uncoiled. With great effort, I wrested myself free and, stumbling, fled through the thicket. I ran until I reached the sea. I walked the shore while the waves came in, and in time got my thoughts in order.

I had come to New Spain to bring Christ's message to those who had never heard it. On Isla del Oro, my ef forts had failed, but now there was another chance for me. The island, as I had observed from the volcano, was large, much larger than the island of gold, and though I had not seen a single native or even his footprints, still there must be upon it habitations and villages, perhaps a city.

I had lived on the island for more than a month. In this time I had done little except think of my own com forts. I had found shelter. I had gathered food and re gretted that I didn't have more and of a different kind. I had found fire on the mountain and then slothfully lost it. I had said prayers morning and night, but by rote.

What made the past days even more barren was that since boyhood I had admired and tried to emulate in small ways the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He who slept upon the ground, ate dry crusts, and when a thief took his coat and ran away, ran after the man and insisted that he take his trousers, too.

Humbled, with the two pieces of timber, binding them together with seaweed, I made a cross, which I set on the headland. I knelt before it and at dusk returned and sang the Salve Regina to the homing gulls and my beautiful stallion and mischievous coatimundi, to all things God had made, the world that lay about me.

 

T
HAT NIGHT THE MONKEYS RETURNED AND ROARED UNTIL THE MOON
had set. At this time, in the deep silence that fol lowed their horrendous cries, I heard a sound, a faint stirring softly repeated. At first I thought it came from the waves on the shore. Then it sounded to me more like the stallion moving about as he grazed in the meadow.

At dawn when I went outside, my eyes fell at once upon a series of footprints marked clearly in the grass. The prints were small, possibly left by a very young boy.

I recalled that the natives of Isla del Oro were small, the tallest scarcely reaching to my chest. The natives on this island—and there was at least one—were probably small, too. But I doubted the tracks left there during the night were those of a man.

Whoever made them had approached within a dozen paces of where I lay, unsuspecting. Had this person come to do me harm? Had he spied upon me from afar as I went about my daily rounds? Was he spying upon me now, at this moment? These thoughts were unsettling.

Valiente was of no use as a watchman, for he usually spent his nights abroad. So I gathered green creepers in the jungle and braided them into a clumsy rope with which, before I went to bed, I tethered the stallion near the hut, thinking that he would raise an alarm should someone approach. This was small comfort, since I had no weapon. But to be forewarned of an attack, I rea soned, was better than to be killed while I slept.