Pastwatch_ The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus Part 25

"Seor Pinzn, would you kindly organize a search?"

His fury properly focused now, Pinzn immediately divided the men into search parties, not forgetting to leave a good contingent behind to guard the stockade against theft or sabotage. Pedro could not help but see that Pinzn was a good leader, quick of mind and able to make himself understood and obeyed at once. That only made him more dangerous, as far as Pedro was concerned.

When the men had dispersed, Coln stood on the sh.o.r.e, looking out over the many bits of wood that were bobbing on the waves. "Not even if all the gunpowder on the Pinta exploded all at once," said the Captain-General, "not even then could it destroy the ship so completely."

"What could have done it, then?" said Pedro.

"G.o.d could do it," said the Captain-General. "Or perhaps the devil. The Indians know nothing about gunpowder. If they find this man who supposedly did it, do you think he'll be a Moor?"

So the Captain-General was remembering the curse of the mountain witch. One calamity after another. What could be worse than this, to lose the last ship?

But when they found him, the man wasn't a Moor. Nor was he an Indian. He was white and bearded, a large man, a strong one. His clothing had obviously been bizarre even before the men tore much of it from him. They held him, a garrotte around his neck, forcing him to his knees in front of the Captain-General.

"It was all I could do to keep him alive long enough for you to speak to him, sir," said Pinzn.

"Why did you do this?" asked Coln.

The man answered in Spanish - thickly accented, but understandable. "When I first heard about your expedition I vowed that if you succeeded, you would never return to Spain."

"Why?" demanded the Captain-General.

"My name is Kemal," said the man. "I'm a Turk. There is no G.o.d but Allah, and Mohammad is his Prophet."

The men muttered in rage. Infidel. Heathen. Devil.

"I will still return to Spain," said Coln. "You haven't stopped me."

"Fool," said Kemal. "How will you return to Spain when you're surrounded by enemies?"

Pinzn immediately roared out, "You're the only enemy, infidel!"

"How do you think I got here, if I hadn't had the help of some of these." With his head, he indicated the men around him. Then he looked Pinzn in the eye and winked.

"Liar!" cried Pinzn. "Kill him! Kill him!"

The men who held the Turk obeyed at once, even though Coln raised his voice and cried out for them to stop. It was possible that in the roar of fury they didn't hear him. And it didn't take long for the Turk to die. Instead of strangling him, they pulled the garrotte so tight and twisted it so hard that it broke his neck and with only a twitch or two he was gone.

At last the tumult ended. In the silence, the Captain-General spoke. "Fools. You killed him too quickly. He told us nothing."

"What could he have told us, except lies?" said Pinzn.

Coln took a long, measured look at him. "We'll never know, will we? As far as I can tell, the only people glad of that would be the ones he might have named as his conspirators."

"What are you accusing me of?" demanded Pinzn.

"I haven't accused you at all."

Only then did Pinzn seem to realize that his own actions had pointed the finger of suspicion at him. He began to nod, and then smiled. "I see, Captain-General. You finally found a way to discredit me, even if it took blowing up my caravel to do it."

"Watch what you say to the Captain-General." Segovia's voice whipped out across the crowd.

"Let him watch what he says to me. I didn't have to bring the Pinta back here. I've proved my loyalty. Every man here knows me. I'm not the foreigner. How do we know that this Coln is even a Christian, let alone a Genovese? After all, that black witch and the little wh.o.r.e interpreter both knew his native language, when not one honest Spaniard could understand it."

Pinzn hadn't been present on either occasion, Pedro noted. Obviously there had been a lot of talk about who spoke what language to whom.

Coln looked at him steadily. "There would have been no expedition if I had not spent half my life arguing for it. Would I destroy it now, when success was so close?"

"You would never have gotten us home anyway, you posturing fool!" cried Pinzn. "That's why I came back, because I saw how difficult it was to sail east against the wind. I knew you weren't sailor enough to bring my brother and my friends back home."

Coln allowed himself a hint of a smile. "If you were such a fine sailor, you'd know that to the north of us the prevailing wind blows from the west."

"And how would you know that?" The scorn in Pinzn's voice was outrageous.

"You're speaking to the commander of Their Majesties' fleet," said Segovia.

Pinzn fell silent for the moment; perhaps he had spoken more openly than he intended, for now at least.

"When you were a pirate," said Coln quietly, "I sailed the coast of Africa with the Portuguese."

From the growling of the men, Pedro knew that the Captain-General had just committed a serious mistake. The rivalry between the men of Palos and the sailors of the Portuguese coast was intensely felt, all the more so because the Portuguese were so clearly the better, farther-reaching sailors. And to throw in Pinzn's face his days of piracy - well, that was a crime that all of Palos was guilty of, during the hardest days of the war against the Moors, when normal trade was impossible. Coln might have b.u.t.tressed his credentials as a sailor, but he did it at the immediate cost of losing what vestiges of loyalty he might have commanded among the men.

"Dispose of the body," said the Captain-General. Then he turned his back on them and returned to the camp.

The runner from Guacanagari couldn't stop laughing as he told the story of the death of the Silent Man. "The white men are so stupid that they killed him first and tortured him afterward!"

Diko heard this with relief. Kemal had died quickly. And the Pinta had been destroyed.

"We must watch the white men's village," said Diko. "The white men will turn against their cacique soon, and we must make sure he comes to Ankuash, and not to any other village."

Chapter 12 - Refuge.

The woman up in the mountain had cursed him, but Cristoforo knew that it was not by any sort of witchery. The curse was that he couldn't think of anything but her, anything but what she had said. Every subject kept leading back to the challenges she had issued.

Could G.o.d have possibly sent her? Was she, at last, the first reaffirmation he had received since that vision on the beach? She knew so much: The words that the Savior had spoken to him. The language of his youth in Genova. His sense of guilt about his son, left to be raised by the monks of La Rdbida.

Yet she was nothing like what he looked for. Angels were dazzling white, weren't they? That's how all the artists showed them. So perhaps she wasn't an angel. But why would G.o.d send her a woman - an African woman? Weren't black people devils? Everyone said so, and in Spain it was well known that black Moors fought like demons. And among the Portuguese it was well known that the black savages of the Guinea coast engaged in devil worship and magic, and cursed with diseases that quickly killed any white man who dared set foot on African sh.o.r.es.

On the other hand, his purpose was to baptize the people he found at the end of his voyage, wasn't it? If they could be baptized, it meant they could be saved. If they could be saved, then perhaps she was right, and once they were converted these people would be Christian and have the same rights as any European.

But they were savages. They went about naked. They couldn't read or write.

They could learn.

If only he could see the world through his page's eyes. Young Pedro was obviously smitten with Chipa. Dark as she was, squat and ugly, she did have a good smile, and no one could deny that she was as smart as any Spanish girl. She was learning about Christ. She insisted on being baptized at once. When that happened, shouldn't she have the same protection as any other Christian?

"Captain-General," said Segovia, "you must pay attention. Things are getting out of hand with the men. Pinzn is impossible - he obeys only those orders he happens to agree with, and the men obey only those orders that he consents to."

"And what would you have me do?" asked Cristoforo. "Clap him in irons?"

"That's what the King would have done."

"The King had irons. Ours are at the bottom of the sea. And the King also had thousands of soldiers to see to it his words were obeyed. Where are my soldiers, Segovia?"

"You have not acted with sufficient authority."

"I'm sure you would have done better in my place."

"That is not impossible, Captain-General."

"I see that the spirit of insubordination is contagious," said Cristoforo. "But rest easy. As the black woman in the mountain said, it will be one calamity after another. Perhaps after the next calamity, you'll find yourself in command of this expedition as the King's inspector."

"I could not do a worse job of it than you."

"Yes, I'm sure that's right," said Cristoforo. "That Turk would not have blown up the Pinta, and you would have peed on the Nina and put the fire out."

"I see that you forget in whose name I speak."

"Only because you have forgotten whose charter I bear. If you have authority from the King, kindly remember that I have a greater authority from the same source. If Pinzn chooses to blow over the last remnants of that authority, I am not the only one who will fall in that wind."

Yet no sooner was Segovia gone than Cristoforo was once again trying to puzzle out what G.o.d expected of him. Was there anything he could do now to bring the men back under his command? Pinzn had them building a ship, but these weren't the shipbuilders of Palos here, these were common sailors. Domingo was a good cooper, but making a barrel wasn't the same as laying a keel. Lopez was a caulker, not a carpenter. And most of the other men were clever enough with their hands, but what none of them had in his head was the knowledge, the practice of building a ship.

They had to try, though. Had to try, and if they failed the first time, try again. So there was no quarrel between Cristoforo and Pinzn over the effort to build a ship. The quarrel came over the way the men were treating the Indians that they needed to help them. The generous spirit of cooperation that Guacanagari's people had shown in helping unload the Santa Maria had long since faded. The more the Spaniards ordered them around, the less the Indians did. Fewer and fewer of them showed up each day, which meant that those who did got treated even worse. They seemed to think that every Spaniard, no matter how low in rank or station, was ent.i.tled to give commands - and punishments - to any Indian, no matter how young or old, no matter ...

These thoughts come from her, Cristoforo realized again. Until I spoke with her, I didn't question the right of white men to give commands to brown ones. Only since she poisoned my mind with her strange interpretation of Christianity did I start seeing the way the Indians quietly resist being treated like slaves. I would have thought of them the way Pinzn does, as worthless, lazy savages. But now I see that they are quiet, gentle, unwilling to provoke a quarrel. They endure a beating quietly - but then don't return to be beaten again. Except that even some who have been beaten still return to help, of their own free will, avoiding the cruelest of the Spaniards but still helping the others as much as they can. Isn't this what Christ meant when he said to turn the other cheek? If a man compels you to walk a mile with him, then walk the second mile by your own choice - wasn't that Christianity? So who were the Christians? The baptized Spaniards, or the unbaptized Indians?

She has turned the world upside down. These Indians know nothing of Jesus, and yet they live by the Savior's word, while the Spanish, who have fought for centuries in the name of Christ, have become a bloodthirsty, brutal people. And yet no worse than any other people in Europe. No worse than the b.l.o.o.d.y-handed Genovese, with their feuds and murders. Was it possible that G.o.d had brought him here, not to bring enlightenment to the heathen, but to learn it from them?

"The Taino way is not always better," said Chipa.

"We have better tools," said Cristoforo. "And better weapons."

"I meant, how do you say? The Taino kill people for the G.o.ds. Sees-in-the-Dark said that when you taught us about Christ, we would understand that one man already died as the only sacrifice ever needed. Then the Taino would stop killing people. And the Caribs would stop eating them."

"Holy Mother," said Pedro. "They do that?"

"The people from the lowlands say so. The Caribs are terrible monster people. The Taino are better than they are. And we of Ankuash are better than the Taino. But Sees-in-the-Dark says that when you are ready to teach us, we will see that you are the best of all."

"We Spanish?" asked Pedro.

"No, him. You, Coln."

It's nothing but flattery, Cristoforo told himself. That's why Sees-in-the-Dark has been teaching Chipa and the other people of Ankuash to say things like that. The only reason I'm so happy when I hear such things is because it makes such a contrast to the malicious rumors being spread among my own crew. Sees-in-the-Dark wants me to think of the people of Ankuash as if they were my true people, instead of the Spanish crew.

What if it was true? What if the whole purpose of this voyage was to bring him here, where he could meet the people G.o.d had prepared to receive the word of Christ?

No, it couldn't be that. The Lord spoke of gold, of great nations, of crusades. Not an obscure mountain village.

She said that when I was ready, she'd show me the gold.

We have to build a ship. I have to hold the men together long enough to build a ship, return to Spain, and come back with a larger force. One with more discipline. One without Martin Pinzn. But I'll also bring priests, many of them, to teach the Indians. That will satisfy Sees-in-the-Dark. I can still do all of it, if I can just hold things together here long enough to get the ship built.

Putukam clucked her tongue. "Things are very bad, Chipa says."

"How bad?" asked Diko.

"Chipa says that her young man, Pedro, is always begging Coln to leave. She says that some of the boys have tried to warn Pedro, so he can warn the cacique. They plan to kill him."

"Who?"

"I can't remember the names now, Sees-in-the-Dark, " said Putukam, laughing. "Do you think I'm as smart as you?"

Diko sighed. "Why can't he see that he has to leave, he has to come here?"

"He may be white, but he's still a man," said Putukam. "Men always think they know the right thing, and so they don't listen."

"If I leave the village to go down the mountain and watch over Coln, who will carry the water here?" asked Diko.

"We carried water before you came," said Putukam. "The girls are all getting fat and lazy now."

"If I leave the village to watch over Coln and bring him safely here, who will watch over my house so Nugkui doesn't move someone else in here, and give away all my tools?"

"Baiku and I will take turns watching," said Putukam.

"Then I'll go," said Diko. "But I won't make him come. He has to come here under his own power, of his own free will."

Putukam looked at her, impa.s.sively.

"I don't make people do things against their will," said Diko.

Putukam smiled. "No, Sees-in-the-Dark. You just refuse to leave them alone until they change their minds. Of their own free will."

The mutiny finally came out in the open because of Rodrigo de Triana, perhaps because he had more reason to hate Coln than any other, having been cheated out of his prize for being first to see land. Yet it didn't happen according to anyone's plan, as far as Pedro could see. The first he knew about it was when the Taino named Dead Fish came running. He spoke so rapidly that Pedro couldn't understand him, even though he had been makinff Drogyress with the language. Chipa understood, though, and she looked angry. "They're raping Parrot Feather," she said. "She's not even a woman. She's younger than me."

At once Pedro called out to Caro, the silversmith, to go fetch the officers. Then he ran with Chipa, following Dead Fish outside the stockade.

Parrot Feather looked like she was dead. Limp as a rag. It was Moger and Clavijo, two of the criminals who had signed on in order to get a pardon. They were the ones who had obviously been doing the rape - but Rodrigo de Triana and a couple of other sailors from the Pinta were looking on, laughing.