by Scott O'Dell
"Tlascingo," I said, "is no fool. When we leave here he will have us followed, until we are well out of his country."
"Perhaps. It is the chance we take. But we have little to lose. Here there is nothing for us, since we have only three cards and a piece of mirror to barter with."
"We have mules," I said. "Tlascingo would trade all the gold in his storehouse for a mule."
"It is against the King's law."
"The law forbids the sale or gift of a horse. It does not speak of mules."
"Are you certain?"
"Certain."
"Then, Estéban, you have an interesting idea. We will barter one mule for all the gold it can carry."
Reaching the end of the terrace, we turned to retrace our steps. For the first time I noticed that a lively spring poured forth from a cleft rock in the center of the terrace and fell tinkling into the lake from a stone in the shape of a serpent's mouth. Beside this figure was a low bench or platform carved of stone. From it steps led downward to the lake in winding, snakelike curves.
"Something takes place here," I said. "A ceremony."
Mendoza, deep in thought, did not answer.
The surface of the lake was smooth as a shield. At the far end, where the cliff dropped away into air, clouds were mirrored. Nearer at hand the water was clear and I could see small fish darting about. As I watched them I became aware that the water cast up an unusual light. It is a reflection of the evening sky, I thought. Yet when I looked closer I saw that the light came not from above but from below, from the very bottom of the lake.
I grasped Mendoza's arm. "Have you seen that color before? Under the water, there on the bottom."
Mendoza stared long into the depths of the lake, glanced at the sky and then back into the depths.
"I have seen it before," he said quietly.
"At Nexpan?"
"Yes, there. In the sand of the stream."
We looked at each other.
"It is the color of gold," I said.
"It is gold," Mendoza whispered. "The bottom of the lake is solid gold."
Darkness fell as we stood there speechless, staring into the depths of the lake. The startled cry of a waterfowl, the sound of a breaking twig brought us to our senses. We turned and hastily groped our way back along the path.
The plaza was ringed with evening fires. The smell of piñon smoke and roasting meat hung heavy in the air. The two young men were nowhere in sight. Through the doorway of our hut I could see Father Francisco and Zia sitting beside a small fire.
Mendoza stopped outside. "Tell the dear Father nothing," he said. "Speak no word of what we have beheld. And think with all your wits. While you are eating, think. Think also while you sleep. For there exists some way that we can dredge up that golden reef." His tongue trembled with excitement. "A thousand hundred-weight lies there beneath the water, waiting to be taken. But how? How? If only I had ten armed men. Or five!"
Our supper, brought by the young Indians, was plentiful, of deer meat in thick slabs, and parched cornmeal mixed with deer fat, but Mendoza and I ate little. After the meal was over we walked outside.
"Have you thought of anything?" he asked.
"Of nothing," I answered. I did not speak what I really thought—that any plan to capture the gold was doomed to fail, and that it was madness to try. "Nothing," I repeated.
"You are one who observes things," he said. "The height of a mountain, the way a river runs, a bird's color. Tell me, how is the lake situated? Does it lie higher than the plaza and the city?"
"Four or five varas higher. Remember that we climbed a flight of steps to reach the terrace. And the terrace is only a vara above the surface of the lake."
"Therefore, the lake is not natural. It has been made by hand."
"Perhaps in the beginning there was a hollow place in the rock between the spring and the edge of the cliff, which is the higher of the two. Someone had the idea of making the lake larger, so they built a dam behind the spring and thus backed up the water."
"Then it is the terrace that serves as a dam."
"No," I said, "the dam is made of earth. There are small trees, bushes, and grass growing on it. The terrace is of rocks set together. A sort of capping to keep the earth from washing away."
"Now that you speak of it, I remember the trees and the grass. What is the thickness of the dam, do you say?"
"Six varas."
"At the base of the dam?"
"There it might be thicker."
Mendoza asked no more questions as he stood there with his eyes on the lake, but I knew what he was thinking.
The lake formed by the earthen dam was a third the size of the whole city. If somehow the dam could be breached, the water would rush out, down upon the city in a roaring flood, sweeping everything before it, leaving the gold exposed.
The moon rose. It made a pathway across the lake.
"I have a plan," Mendoza said.
He did not need to tell me what it was.
23
IN THE MORNING I awakened to the sweet-sounding note of a horn. The horn blew again and I heard the murmur of voices, the shuffle of feet, and as I sat up saw a young Indian in the doorway, beckoning to me.
I shook Mendoza awake. Dressing hurriedly, we followed the Indian, one of the two young men who had sat outside our hut the day before, across the deserted plaza. Against the paling sky, on the terrace above the lake, stood a group of robed figures.
"A ceremony to the sun," Mendoza whispered.
"Different from Nexpan," I answered.
"Like the one in Peru," Mendoza said. "The one Torres talks about."
The Indian led the way along a path that circled the terrace and silently left us. We found ourselves among a growth of pines near the lakes edge, partly hidden yet with a good view of the terrace and the robed figures.
The cacique stood apart, beside the stone serpent from whose mouth water ran forth into the lake. He was naked except for a clout and a plumed headdress. Behind him hovered retainers, and on both sides, filling the terrace were his subjects, the Indians of Tawhi.
The sun burst from the plain and, as at Nexpan, a cry of exultation rose from the crowd. From Torres and the word of travelers in the country of Peru, I had heard tales of a golden god, but to see him take shape there before our eyes was a magic I shall never forget.
Into gourds filled with glistening oil, retainers dipped their hands and ran them over Tlascingo's body and his face, even the bottoms of his feet. Other retainers stepped forward and with gourds, like giant salt cellars, sprinkled him over with fine dust, until he was a figure of gold, bright as the sun itself.
Tlascingo raised his arms to the east. While the crowd chanted, he went majestically down the steps and into the lake, far out, until only his face and plumed headdress could be seen above the water. There his retainers, who had followed at a distance, overtook him and washed his body free of gold. Then lifting the cacique, they threw a feathered cloak about his shoulders and triumphantly carried him back to the terrace.
"Thus," whispered Mendoza, "has come the gold that paves the lake. Through the centuries, from the bodies of countless caciques."
I doubt that he saw much of the ceremony. For whenever I glanced at him his eyes were turned to the dam, measuring its height and thickness and slope, fixing the whole thing in his mind. It was frightening to know and to see clearly by daylight, that his mad scheme was possible.
In mid-morning, Mendoza began to trade with the cacique. It did not last long. He made a show of bargaining, so as not to arouse suspicion, but by noon we were on our way down from the mountain. Before we left, Mendoza promised that he would return after two suns had gone.
"To the east," Mendoza said, "there are many Spaniards." This was said to warn the cacique that if he attacked our small band he would have to answer to an army. "From them I will get many things to trade. I will also bring with me, to the foot of your ladder if possible, one of our animals, a gentle one, which I w
ill also trade for the gold it can carry on its back."
The cacique's face brightened. He pointed to the gilded cuirass that Mendoza wore. "The little house you live in," he said, "you will bring one of these, too?"
"Yes," said Mendoza and he stepped back, inviting the cacique to shoot an arrow at him, which the cacique did. As the arrow struck the armor and bounded harmlessly away, Mendoza said, "I will bring a little house like this one, an animal, and many things to barter. In two suns, I will bring them."
Mendoza had promised to return in two days because this was the time needed to make more pouches with which to transport the cacique's gold. In our winter camp we had killed deer and the hides we had cured and carried away with us, hoping to put them to good use.
At our hidden camp below, we now set to work on these hides, working from dawn until darkness and then by firelight. The pouches were sewn tight at the seams, since the Tawhi gold was dustlike. They were made to hold an arroba, the weight Mendoza deemed one man could easily carry.
My part of the task I did without enthusiasm and therefore poorly. One of the bags I was finishing Mendoza took from me and held to the light.
"This will not hold dust," he said. "I doubt that it will hold rocks." He tossed it into my lap. "You do not like the making of bags?"
"I am not a wielder of thread and needle," I answered.
"Neither is Roa nor the others, but they do twice the work." A suspicious glint showed in his eyes. "Perhaps," he said, lowering his voice so that Father Francisco and Zia would not hear him, "there is another reason why you work slowly and what you do is bad. Is it that you are not pleased with my plan?"
"I am not pleased."
"Why?"
"Because it is dangerous."
"What, señor, is not dangerous? Have we not breakfasted on danger? Nooned and dined upon danger? Is not every moment lived in danger? You are no coward, though you are a young man of great timidity. There is a difference between the two. Tell me, you must have another reason."
"The plan is dangerous," I repeated. "To us and likewise to the Indians of Tawhi."
Mendoza laughed. He looked at Roa and Roa laughed, too.
"Our comrade worries about the Indians," he said. "Let me tell him about Tlascingo. He owns a lake whose bottom is covered with gold. It is thicker than the thickest carpet. Thicker than the cobbles that pave the streets of Seville. We dig a hole through the dam. Out runs the water."
"You dig a hole in the dam?"
"A tunnel."
"You will drown in any tunnel you dig below the surface of the lake."
"Perhaps a trough, a channel across the terrace," Mendoza said. "Do you think this would be better?"
I did not answer.
"When the channel is dug," he said, "out runs the water."
"Where does the water run to?" I asked, as if I did not know.
"It runs across the plaza and through the houses, which have nothing in them except a few pots. It runs out and over the cliff."
"When the water runs across the plaza and through the houses, what happens to the people?"
"They scramble to the roof tops, of course."
"The young ones and the old?"
"All of them. For all are nimble as goats, else they would not live on a crag. And as they sit on the roofs we shovel gold and fill the bags."
"Those on the roof tops," I said, "what do they do while you fill the bags?"
"They sit."
"And do nothing?"
"No, they sit and think of the weapon which makes the noise of thunder. The shaft that sinks itself so deep that it cannot be found. Of the little iron houses that protect us from their stones and arrows. Of the army waiting behind us. They think of these and do nothing."
"The people have courage, like those at Háwikuh."
"Also, they have much gold," Mendoza said. "Enough there at the bottom of the lake to burden the backs of a thousand mules. Do you think that they will risk their lives because we take a few bags? And remember, hidalgo, the mine, of which the cacique boasted, so rich that a hundred years will not exhaust it!"
Mendoza went on, speaking quietly but in a sort of frenzy. At last, aware that he could not change my mind, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
On the second afternoon, when the bags were finished, Mendoza scoured the camp for things he could trade to Tlascingo—an iron bar, a worn-out surcingle, a shirt lacking buttons, a mirror of Zuñiga's, which he broke into five pieces. These he packed each in a separate bag. The rest of the bags he divided in two parts, stuffing one within the other, to make it seem that he brought many things to barter.
At dawn he made four bundles and wrapped the digging tools in a hide. He then called me away, out of the hearing of Zia and Father Francisco.
"I leave you with the animals," he said. "For you are better here than on the mountain. See that they are watered. And have them ready at sunrise tomorrow. Pack saddles. Everything."
"I understand."
"And take care that you say nothing to Zia or Father Francisco. Is all of this clear, señor?"
"Yes."
"May you go with God."
"And may you, also," I said.
But as the two men left the camp and went up the trail with the bags and implements loaded on a mule, I said to myself, "I shall never in this life see them again."
24
I WAITED while Roa and Mendoza climbed the ladder and disappeared into the Cloud City. Then I went to the meadow where the animals were tethered and curried each one, except the colt.
As I worked, taking most of the morning to do the task, I made my plans for the next day. I decided that before dawn I would break camp, pack all of our baggage, and when the sun rose have the train ready beside the cliff. If by mid-morning the men had not come down from the mountain, I would leave and travel east until nightfall. There we would stay for two days. Then, if the men did not appear, I would go on to Háwikuh by the trail we had broken.
Near noon, as I started back to camp with the train, Zia came running through the trees. Her eyes were fixed on the animals plodding along behind me.
"Where is Blue Star?" she cried.
"In the meadow, grazing."
"You have combed the others, I see."
"And Blue Star also," I said to tease her. Never a day passed that she did not curry the colt. This was her task and no one dared to undertake it. "She was in need of the comb," I explained.
"I combed her yesterday."
"Not well."
Her eyes took fire and she scolded me in the language of Nayarit. Whenever she was angry, forgetting her Spanish, she always spoke to me in this outlandish tongue.
Zia had changed. She was not a child any more. In the six months or so between winter and spring, she had become a young woman. She was no longer all arms and legs and awkward movements, but filled out, more graceful, and more serious.
I think there was a moment, an exact time, when she put her childhood behind. It was on the trail moving away from our winter camp on a spring day. We had passed a nest of twigs and leaves, into which at our passing a half-dozen or more creatures much like her aguatil had scurried. Returning to the nest, she took Montezuma from her pocket, and with a little ceremony, set him on the ground, said something under her breath, and left.
The mules went by as she spoke. Blue Star, recognizing her voice, came trotting up the path. The colt understood Nayarit better than I did, for she spoke to it only in that language. If she had not, still the colt would have understood more than I. Words of the Nayarit country make a soft hissing sound, like steam in a pot.
In a glance Zia saw that the colt had not been combed that day. She fell silent and a small smile hovered around her lips. Yet I knew that she was not ready to forgive the teasing.
"Look," I said in the tone of a conspirator. "I have been thinking a big thought. All day it has been tumbling around in my head."
She had snatched up a handful of grass and flowers and was about
to feed it to the colt. She paused but did not look at me.
I walked over to the colt and threw a halter around its neck.
"Today," I said, "you ride Blue Star."
Zia stepped back. Her eyes grew large. She took another step backward.
"The Captain has forbidden it," she said. "Many times I have asked him."
"The Captain is not here. Nor Roa. Only Father Francisco and he will say nothing."
Zia cast a frightened look over her shoulder, as if she expected to see Mendoza bearing down upon us.
I brought the colt to where she stood and cupped my two hands into a stirrup.
"Your foot, señorita."
Slowly she put out her foot, the wrong one. She was trembling.
"The left foot, young lady. Or else you will ride facing the rear."
She changed feet and with a quick thrust I boosted her to Blue Star's back. I grasped the halter, which was looped over my arm. Mendoza and Roa had taken turns that spring at breaking the colt, yet I was not certain what would happen. The forest around was thick with pine needles. If she falls, I thought, it will be upon a soft bed.
To my surprise the two walked off together, girl and colt, as if this were the way it had been always. I walked along beside them, ready if Blue Star took the notion to stand on her hind legs or to lie down or bolt through the trees.
"Give me the halter," Zia said, after a short distance.
With misgivings I handed it up. "Watch for the limbs of trees," I warned her. "Hold tight and do not trot. Recall that you are not yet a vaquera."
We had nearly reached the camp, without mishap, when Zia slid down from the colt's back. She held the reins and walked to where I stood admiring her. On her toes, she reached up and, to my immense surprise, kissed me on the cheek.
"Before you ride again," I said to cover my embarrassment, "help me with the cross-staff."
"But I helped you yesterday," she replied, holding tight to the halter. "Since we have not traveled anywhere, why do you need to use it again?"
