Aboard Cabrillo's Galleon

by Christine Echeverria Bender

  Understanding now that the gifts would mean more if presented directly by him, he smiled and nodded. When Taya called Alow and Muhu nearer, Cabrillo said to the boys as he showed them each face of a coin, “These carry the marks of my king and my land. They are for you.” He leaned forward, separately looped a necklace over each small head, and sat back to observe the looks of wonder on the enchantingly similar faces.

  Taya said to them with a gravity that held their attention, “Wear these gifts with care, my sons. They carry much power.”

  Wide-eyed, the boys ran their fingers over the shiny metal with stamped images and raised edges, and looked up at the bearded man. Almost in unison, they gave him a sign that represented appreciation, and Cabrillo bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  Suddenly restless, the boys asked their mother if they might show their new treasures to a friend and, receiving her permission, they scurried outside with their aunt close behind. Cabrillo smiled as he watched, then turned to their mother and said, “I must return to my duties, Taya.”

  She knew she had no choice but to accept this. “Will you come tomorrow?”

  “I will try.”

  As he left her embrace and the warmth and relief she’d given him, he also relinquished the sense of family that he’d found for a few moments and with these surrenderings the feeling of guilt returned to steal much of the pleasure he’d known in her company. Yet as he walked away from her lodge he knew that he would return. He told himself that in the weeks to come the culpability that resulted from his weaknesses might grow easier to bear; no less damning, just less weighty.

  He might even come to believe that God could forgive his frailties when he could not.

  Chapter 23

  THE BOY WHO DREAMED

  Their days glided into an uneven pattern that ebbed and flowed with Cabrillo’s visits to Taya and her family and his returns to the countless demands of the fleet. Wind and rain became familiar if unwelcome companions, but he didn’t let weather forestall the work at hand. Food was caught in abundance and meted out with prudence, and there seemed more than enough fresh water to see them through their stay. Within the first two weeks, Cabrillo was pleased to see the ships sealed, scrubbed, and much closer to seaworthiness, especially the San Miguel. Men began to turn their free energies to trading for warmer clothing fashioned from the otter and sea lion skins harvested from around the island.

  As intermittent winter storms broke out at sea and raged with fury, the harbor shielded them well. Cabrillo, his captains, and his pilots spent many hours studying the changes in the winds and reviewing the currents they’d charted, and they laid and relaid plans on how to seek the best route northeastward when the time came. With the days growing colder, winter delivered an occasional soft snow flurry to display the harbor in a picturesque whiteness.

  Although squabbles inevitably broke out among the men over who was chosen to visit the “women’s hut,” as it was soon dubbed, nothing arose between Cabrillo’s own men that couldn’t be quelled by a couple of whacks from his boatswain’s well-aimed billet. Not unusually, and despite Father Gamboa’s unflagging efforts, tensions rose high aboard the San Miguel and the whip was called into action from time to time. Though Cabrillo was aware of these stirrings of discontent, he knew that Captain Correa and his officers made every effort to keep things controlled enough to avoid reporting their troubles.

  What concerned Cabrillo even more than this was the growing strain between the fleet’s men and the Chumash warriors. Fistfights had already taken place, and during the third altercation one of his men had been slashed by a stone knife. Fortunately the wound had not been serious and the responsible warrior, threatened by Matipuyaut with banishment if he did not offer adequate gifts for reconciliation, extended his olive branch. So things had settled into a delicately pendulating peace, but Cabrillo feared it would not last.

  He did what he could to foster and maintain close ties with the island leaders, visiting them often, seldom empty-handed. In time the captain-general and his small group of close companions grew to be such a familiar sight that the natives began to lose some of their uneasiness around him. Much to the disquiet of Vargas, Cabrillo occasionally walked with only Taya, her father, or one of her brothers along various paths of Isla de Posesión, taking note of all he learned and working to improve his abilities with the Chumash language.

  He soon discovered that the chert tools Taya had shown him on his first visit to her lodge represented only a small sample of the articles made from the local stone, and his interest in it often led him to the southeastern point of the island, where the natives conducted extensive mining activities. While either at the quarry or back among the knappers’ lodges, Cabrillo enjoyed studying the methods of these artisans as they unearthed and shaped their points and edges. One of Taya’s uncles even permitted the captain-general to try his hand at knapping, but this clumsy though concentrated endeavor created little more than a few minutes of amusement for the expert, several cuts to Cabrillo’s fingers, and a distinct absence of interest in a second knapping attempt.

  On other occasions, he and Taya walked to small quarries of another kind. He counted more than fifteen different sites where a type of volcanic rock could be extracted and worked to provide pestles, grinding stones, and huge oblong mortars. These pumice goods may have lacked the luminous beauty of the tools flaked from chert, but Taya informed him that they were highly prized by their mainland neighbors. During one of their first visits to a pumice works on a very early morning, he innocently asked if such heavy stones were difficult to transport in their small canoes.

  Her expression became distant, and she said weakly, “Men can be lost. Good men.” She started to turn away from him, but Cabrillo took her hand and drew her back.

  In answer to his unspoken question, she said, “My husband was lost at sea.” Showing grief that had lost much of its anguish but had not fully healed, she explained reluctantly, “He was a member of the Brotherhood-of-the-Canoe. Such men are much respected.” She looked out at the ocean and let herself remember. “Nearly three years ago several canoes left our island to trade across the passage. One was his. A sudden storm came from the north and the waves took all but one of the canoes. My husband could not be saved.”

  Moments passed before Cabrillo asked, “Was he found?”

  Uncertain of his meaning yet disinclined to further explanation, she said, “He is gone.”

  Deciding it would be best to learn about their beliefs in afterlife at another time, he let the matter rest. For a while they watched the waves slide onto the beach and away again, the earlier need for speech replaced by a desire for reflection. It was the kind of cloudy day that worked the sun’s light mysteriously, making colors and contours exceedingly brilliant and rich, and for some time they stood in the breeze and let their eyes feast. In the same silent reverie they backed away from the view and allowed their steps to turn them toward the village.

  But they had gone only a few dozen yards when a terrible wail burst from a hidden rocky outcropping behind them. As they pivoted and their gazes sought the source of the cry, it grew even louder with distress and helplessness. Suddenly a Chumash warrior appeared from behind the rocks, his face stricken with anguish as he struggled forward carrying the limp body of an adolescent boy.

  At the sound of the first outburst Vargas and his handful of guards, standing watch on the plateau above, came rushing down the path toward Cabrillo, their hilts tightly gripped or their arrows at their strings. The captain-general waved to indicate there was no danger, and his men slowed but kept coming.

  In his distress, the Chumash man saw Cabrillo not as a potential enemy but as someone who might have the power to save his unconscious son, and he called out to him for help. Cabrillo ran forward to support the boy’s shoulders while the father took his knees. The young face was as still as death, his chest barely moving. The father was talking too excitedly for Cabrillo to grasp his words but Taya said, “We must take him h
ome.”

  As Vargas and his soldiers scattered out of their way and they eased by with the boy, Cabrillo asked Taya, “What has happened to him?”

  Quickly posing this question to the warrior, she then relayed his answer. “The boy was on his dream quest.”

  This helped Cabrillo not at all. “Did he fall?”

  After exchanging a few more words with the father, Taya tried to explain by saying, “No, his vision holds him captive.”

  Again, Cabrillo was at a loss. “Has he eaten something that made him ill?”

  She said quickly, “I have seen this once before. Another boy was overcome by momoy.”

  “What is momoy?”

  “A drug, given by Kipomo to help a boy find his animal spirit.”

  At last, Cabrillo had something to work with. He turned back to Vargas and called out, “Send for Dr. Fuentes! And Father Lezcano!” Two of his men raced around them and back along the path. Vargas and the others kept coming, now trailing close behind their commander as more and more Chumash hurried toward the burdened group.

  When Cabrillo and the father reached the plateau Vargas and his men flanked them and cleared the way toward the village. By the time they reached the boy’s lodge Indians had surrounded them completely, but the father shouted them out of the way, and he and Cabrillo carried the youth inside. The mother rushed into the room and stumbled toward her son with an agonized cry of his name. Cabrillo helped lower the youth to a bed as other relatives entered the house more quietly.

  The boy’s breathing had grown so shallow it was hard to detect. His mother had begun to weep, his father to sway on his knees and mutter in lamentation.

  Cabrillo searched his mind for anything he’d ever learned of physicians’ remedies for such cases. He thought of the herbal curatives the natives of the south had recently taught him. A tea used as a purgative came to mind. He had no experience in its brewing or its outcome, but trying it was better than doing nothing. He glanced around the room in search of dried plants.

  Taya had been watching him closely and, guessing his intention, she said under her breath, “Kipomo might not want your help, Cabrillo. Someone must have gone to tell him what has happened.”

  He had already considered this and its potential outcome. “Did the other boy live, the one who had taken momoy?”

  She paused for an instant, and then said, “No.”

  “Then we must try to save this boy.”

  Cabrillo asked the mother to boil some water and bring him her herbs. She jumped to obey him, and he was quickly scrutinizing the small collection of dried plants as he prayed for Dr. Fuentes to hurry, but it was Kipomo who arrived first. The shaman nudged his way to the bedside and stared down at the youth. Reaching into his pouch, he produced a bundle of herbs and a small stone bowl. From a coal at the cooking fire, he lit the bundle and began to sing in a pitch so high and uneven that it made Cabrillo’s tightened nerves stretch to a dangerous level. There was no time for this. Where was that damned physician!

  Kipomo breathed smoke into the boy’s face and began to chant once more. When this song ended, he looked again at the youth’s face and placed his hand upon his chest. There was real concern written in his expression, maybe even regret. Perhaps he was remembering the first young man who had died. Suddenly, he seemed to reach a formidable conclusion. Turning to Cabrillo, Kipomo spoke the first words he’d ever delivered directly to him. “His spirit is leaving us. Can your god bring it back?”

  Surprised by this willingness to put the boy’s welfare over the sanctity of his own power, Cabrillo was about to offer his tea as a possible cure when he heard the pounding of running feet. At last. He answered Kipomo by saying, “My men are coming. They will try.”

  Father Lezcano appeared at the door, and Cabrillo waved him forward.

  “I was at the beach, sir,” he began, but then he spotted the boy. Kipomo moved aside and motioned for the priest to do what he could. Father Lezcano glanced at the unnaturally still face and asked Cabrillo, “Do you expect him to live, sir?”

  “I know little of these things, but it looks grave. Where is the doctor?”

  “He must be with the men I saw coming up from the beach behind me. He will be here very soon.” He looked at the boy again and swallowed. “May I baptize him, sir?”

  Cabrillo needed no more words. “Yes, Father.”

  “What is his name?”

  Taya recognized the word and answered him. “He is Shuluwish.”

  At the priest’s request, Taya brought him a bowl of water. He blessed the clear liquid and uttered the simple words, “I baptize you, Shuluwish, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He then traced the sign of the Christian cross upon the boy’s forehead, lips, and chest, and the shortened baptism was complete. Father Lezcano then drew his rosary from his belt and placed its crucifix on the center of Shuluwish’s chest. He began to pray, and Cabrillo and Vargas joined him. Taya had learned many of the words from her lessons with Father Lezcano, and where she could she added her soft voice to those of the men. In moments every person in the dwelling, even Kipomo, was kneeling on the floor and muttering intonations along with Father Lezcano, knowing none of the strange words but profoundly understanding the spirituality with which their mutual request was being made.

  Dr. Fuentes found them just then. He entered respectfully but quickly, and they inched outward to make room for him near the patient. “He’s been given a drug to help him dream,” Cabrillo provided.

  The physician lifted an eyelid and examined a reddened eye, and then he pressed his ear to the boy’s ribcage. When he raised his head, his expression was grim. “What was the drug, sir? Was it Datura, the one the natives call momoy?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago?”

  Cabrillo and Taya translated this question to Kipomo, received an answer, and Cabrillo told the doctor, “It was given during a ceremony in the middle of the night.”

  This seemed to thin whatever optimism Dr. Fuentes had held, and he asked no more questions. “I will do what I can, sir, but I have little hope. Can these people be sent away?”

  All of the villagers except the parents, Taya, and Kipomo were guided outside, many pausing at the entrance or in nearby houses. The doctor asked for water to be quickly heated as he pulled two bottles from his crowded pouch. Cabrillo, watching closely, was acutely aware of his good fortune at having a physician who understood the properties of herbs and who could mix his own medicines when an apothecary was not at hand.

  In moments the water was hot enough, and Dr. Fuentes added a heavy dose of crushed dried roses, explaining to Cabrillo that he would attempt to induce vomiting. When the brew had steeped just long enough the physician hurriedly combined it with sugar syrup and then a measure of cooler water. At last Dr. Fuentes lifted Shuluwish’s head, poured the concoction into the boy’s mouth, and worked his jaw to ease it down his throat.

  In hushed tones Father Lezcano and Kipomo continued to pray using their vastly different languages and methods.

  The boy’s mother and father sat quietly now, confused by these strange ministrations but desperately hoping their only son would not be taken from them.

  As Cabrillo waited along with the others, willing the young stomach to rise up and expel the poison it had consumed, he watched the crucifix lift and fall with each weak breath. He again muttered the prayers of the rosary with his priest, but his mind melted the many words down to just one, and that single word surged repeatedly from his heart. “Please.”

  It seemed like a very long time had passed but in less than an hour, as they looked on, Shuluwish stirred a single forefinger. They all stilled in tense anticipation of another sign, but a moment later the crucifix stopped moving. Kipomo came close and called out the boy’s name, then he shouted in a tone of terrible suffering.

  From the other side of Shuluwish’s bed Dr. Fuentes again placed his ear to the young chest. At the sadly conclusive shake of his head, Kipomo
lowered his eyes in defeat and the boy’s mother released a keening, heart-wrenching wail. The father, Taya, and many of those outside gave voice to their grief, and their mingling cries of woe circled the house like a newly abandoned wraith.

  As the shaman and the doctor moved away, Father Lezcano approached Shuluwish’s body, slowly picked up his rosary, and again made the sign of the cross.

  Dr. Fuentes, saddened by so wasteful a death, muttered needlessly, “I was too late, Captain-General.” Glancing at the heart-broken parents, he added, “I am sorry, sir.”

  At that moment Cabrillo saw Matipuyaut standing at the door, his arms crossed and his head bowed. When the chief’s chin lifted and their eyes met, Cabrillo recognized the emotion carved upon Matipuyaut’s face all too well. He knew it as he knew his own heart, for the same crushing sorrow had found him every time he’d lost a man, or a hundred men, in battle or in peace, and these glimpses into perdition had carved slices of him away whenever they’d come.

  Heavily, he stood up and went to Matipuyaut. He took the chief’s hand and clasped it briefly in both of his, and from the vice-like strength in the responding grip this seemed to have been enough to express what he felt. He motioned for Taya to stay with the family, and he and his men quietly left the village, allowing its residents to mourn according to their own customs.

  To avoid intruding on the burial ceremonies of the natives, Cabrillo kept himself and his men from visiting the island for several days. When he finally came ashore again, Taya made him aware of how earnestly he’d been missed by showing him affectionate attentiveness as they ate with her sons and, as soon as they were alone, by giving her body with an enthusiasm that left him breathless.

  After their lovemaking, with the sun still high and the boys due to return at any time, they left their sleeping furs and helped each other dress. With the lure of their bare skin now reduced, it was easier to concentrate on things beyond the two of them, and Cabrillo’s thoughts drifted to the past few days. As she added wood to the fire he sat down beside her and asked, “Taya, will you tell me about the boy, about his burial?”