Late Spring, 1727

 

high plains

New Spain, North America

 

 

 

 

 

Roberto Rodriguez died the first time in 1727.  He was 25.

He was also a subofficer in the army of Spain, attached to the alcalde of Missión San Miguel in what would someday be New Mexico.  When he died, however, he and thirteen soldates ordinarios were well over a hundred miles north and east of the mission, following their commander, Teniente Olvidades-Castillo de Lopez.  Who was convinced that somewhere up ahead was the fabled Kingdom of Gold -- El Dorado, the Seven Cities of Cibola.  Never mind that for almost two centuries soldiers of Spain and like adventurers had searched these seemingly endless plains and found nothing but primitive Indios.

.

Trudging along, Roberto licked his dry lips and for the hundredth time told himself not to do that.  It only made them crack worse from the hot dry air that issued into his lungs.  He pulled off the shapeless hat with its floppy brim, closing his eyes completely against the bright light of the sun, and wiped his face with a handkerchief stiff with the dried salt of his own sweat.  Clapping the hat back on he opened his eyes back to slits and through his eyelashes scanned the landscape for the ten thousandth time.

The dry yellow plain with its ankle-high brown grass was unchanged.  It spread out all around them like an ocean.  Far on the edge of the horizon back toward the mission floated the grey clouds that was a mountain range.  And ahead closer on the horizon was a tiny point of grey-green that was likely yet another mirage.

Roberto walked on for another half hour and the point grew to a line of grey-green and finally to a distant stand of a few dozen wispy-looking trees.

"Lieutenant.  Look up ahead.  To your right."

The officer jerked from his half-coma to blurry-eyed alertness.  He stopped, swayed, and stared.  The rest of the squad stopped likewise.  After a full minute or more Lieutenant Olvidades-Castillo drew in a ragged breath and shouted.

"We're saved!  Forward!"

He broke into a rapid stumbling walk  The thirteen other soldiers followed at a similar pace.

Roberto yelled, "Slow down!  Keep watch!"

They ignored him.  He cursed and sped up his own pace to keep up with them, scanning the trees ahead for lurking Indians.  Nearer to it he tugged the inexpensive chain mail under his serapé into a better position around his body and loosened his sword in its scabbard.

The lurkers when they came were not from the forest.  All around the little group they seemed to spring up from the earth itself.  Bowstrings thrummed, arrows whipped through the air.  Half the men screamed, several falling.  More arrows.  The lieutenant's light plate armor stopped one, two arrows, and he managed to get his sword out.  The remaining soldiers had crouched and brought their long spears down to point at their enemies.  Roberto ran to join the nearest, turning to face backward when he reached them and halting.  But not before he saw the lieutenant fall with an arrow in an eye-socket.

"Circle!  Circle!" Roberto shouted.  The soldiers obeyed him, moving toward each other and facing outward toward the Indians.  Who were closing fast.  One last arrow flashed and broke on Roberto's hidden chain mail.

An Indian directly in front of him dropped his bow, brought up the short spear he held in his other hand, and lunged arm-extended like a swordsman.  The spear stabbed toward Roberto.

The subofficer swept the spear aside with one arm and his sword darted under the bare-chested savage's ribs, through his body, and out his back.  Roberto jerked the sword back and twisted it to open the wound.  The Indian slumped, glaring at Roberto before his eyes glazed over.

The Spaniard did not see this.  He whipped around to survey his squad.  Already two more of them lay on the ground and one knelt, hands around the spear in his belly.  But they had not gone without company.  The longer spears of the soldiers had taken toll of at least a half dozen attackers.  Even as he watched two more long spears brought down Indians.

The soldiers were now surrounded by Indians.  The adventurers had backed up into a tight knot, however, and the attackers were at a disadvantage with their shorter spears.

Roberto spun again to face out of the circle.  At a short distance another Indian was plucking an arrow from the quiver on his back.  The subofficer stooped swiftly and grabbed the short spear that had fallen from his kill's hands.  As the bowman strung his bow Roberto snapped the short spear forward and released it.  It flew unerringly and plunged into the man's chest just above his belly button.  The arrow flew, but wobbling off to one side.

"Stay!" the subofficer shouted to his men and dashed forward.  He wrested the bow from the dying man's hand and plucked an arrow from the quiver.  An instant's inspection and Roberto strung the arrow and sent it into an Indian's side.  Five more savages were struck down before the quiver ran out.

Taking one or a few steps between shots had returned Roberto to his small group of four men.

"Toward the trees!  Four steps!  One…two…three…four!  Halt!"

The Spaniard could see that some of the remaining Indians were taking care of their wounded.  In one case that meant slicing the fallen Indian's throat out of mercy, apparently.  Others were disposing of wounded soldiers or looting them.  One man was examining the iron pot that was the lieutenant's helmet.  Two of the Indians were scalping their foes.

Only three Indians were near the explorers, spears stabbing forward but being jerked back from counter-attacking long spears.

"Four more steps!  One…  Two…."

In such a manner the five survivors approached the trees, tall thin white trunks and long narrow leaves making a sparse canopy.  The trunks of the trees would offer a bit of barrier to attack and the canopy some protection from the sun.

Suddenly the Indians around them were falling, arrows appearing in their bodies as if by magic.  Frenzied screaming broke out from within the trees and a dozen or more other Indians raced forward to stab at the first group of Indians.  Roberto turned toward the trees to see Indians between them just as arrows leaped from the new group at the Spaniards.

Something flashed before his face and Roberto felt an impact at his throat and then another at his chest.  The heart shot snapped a faulty ring of his mail and pierced his chest.  It was just beginning to burn inside him when his vision greyed.  He knelt, tilted forward, and fell onto his face.

For infinite moments the two shafts caused him agony. Then there was a rushing-retreating sound in his ears as if from the breakers a distant seashore.

All around him was an infinity of blackness.  Before his sight glimmered a ghostly white tree.  It loosed itself from a dark shadow tree that had the exact shape of the first and readied itself to drift away.

Then all went away and Roberto Rodriguez, soldier of Spain, 25 years old, died.

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Roberto Rodrigues woke.  There was no pain.  In fact, he felt full of energy.  He opened his eyes cautiously, lay still, tried to keep his breathing to the pace of one asleep.

Above him a brown-grey curtain flickered with firelight.  Then there was the sound of movement and an old woman stood looking down at him.

A very, very old woman she was, face as full of wrinkles as a raisin and not much lighter.  Her face was sunken-cheeked and pure white hair straggled about her face and down her front.  She wore a dress of some kind of leather.  A leather-strung necklace of bones, some of them the skulls of small animals, hung around her neck.

She knelt beside him and proffered a reddish bowl to him, at the same time blowing across the surface of the bowl.  A delicious beef-soup smell filled Roberto's nose.  Hunger struck his stomach like a knife.

He struggled onto his side and slowly sat up.  He was on some sort of pallet.

He was light-headed and weak and at the same time full of energy and -- strange, strange -- joy.  His heart seemed to lift in his chest.

He smiled at the old woman and took the bowl in two hands.  The weight of it was more than he expected; he almost dropped it.  He took a careful sip.  It was hot and salty and utterly delicious.  It hit his stomach almost like strong liquor.

He quickly finished the bowl, stopping once and slowing as the old woman laid a warm hand on his to warn him not to eat too fast.  She said something.  The words were gibberish to him.

He looked around him as he ate.  The curtain above him was the side of a conical tent and was made up of some kind of skins in irregular patterns with fat thread or cords binding them together.  Several long poles made the cone which had an opening at the top.  When he saw the small fire in center of the teepee and the smoke rising from it and leaving through the hole he realized why there was an opening.

Another pallet like his was on the opposite side of the tent.  Scattered around the circumference of the tent were various piles of possessions.

His eyes drooped and he jerked upright.  He had almost fallen asleep.  Of course.  His stomach was full.  And he was still weak.

The old woman took the bowl from him and stood.  There was something odd about the way she moved.  After a moment he realized it was as if her body hid a young woman of much grace.

She looked down at him for a moment.  Then she said something to him, and the sound of her voice was odd also.  It was warm and resonant and strong, the voice of a mature and vigorous woman.

"Sleep."  That was what she meant, he was sure.  And he fell gratefully into darkness.

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Roberto came easily awake and opened his eyes.

The hole in the top of the tent sent a golden ray of light slanting across the air and splashed onto the side of the tent.  Uncomfortable warmth bathed his body.  He sat up, saw that the fire was out, the old woman gone.

He could hear around him and outside the tent the sounds of people, moving calmly, chatting.  In the distance he heard a shout.  It was friendly; another, further away, answered it.  He strained his ears and heard the first shouter when he spoke again.

Odd.  He knew exactly how far away the shouter was and in which direction.  And the man's second shout had seemed much louder -- and yet he knew that it was not.  It was as if his ears were suddenly more sensitive the time of the second shout.

He stood up in one smooth and graceful movement.  He felt strong but -- now that he thought about eating -- suddenly so hungry that his belly hurt.

He moved cautiously to the slit in the side of the tent.  It had been peeled back to left and right and tied, outside, somehow, so that he could see through a triangular opening.  Carefully he edged closer to the exit, scanning the scene outside as more and more of it was revealed.

He saw the back of the old woman sitting on the ground in front of the tent, then trampled grass all around, and the boles of trees a little further on.  Two Indian women walked by, chatting, carrying something.  Several children ran in the opposite direction.  As they passed from view his ears kept track of them and he knew exactly where they were.

The old woman twisted and looked over her shoulder.  She said something.  "Come out."  Surely that was what it meant.  He memorized the sound.

Slowly he bent his head and pushed it through the door.  A man walking by looked at him curiously but continued walking on, carrying a bow, a quiver of arrows on his back.  A knife handle projected from a scabbard on his belt.  He was a strong, lithe Indian.  His only clothing was a loin cloth and shoes of some tan, thin leather.

Roberto looked down at himself, felt the loin cloth that covered his crotch.  He wore no shoes but his feet were perfectly comfortable on the trampled grass.

"Eat this," the old woman said.  Or so he guessed, and memorized that phrase too.  She held up a haunch of meat, seared and dripping juices.  His mouth watered and his stomach cramped.  He took it from her and said, "Gracias, Yaya".  It seemed perfectly natural to call her by the affectionate form of "Grandmother."  Then he tore into it.  The first mouthful was so delicious that he salivated uncontrollably and his jaws locked painfully for a moment.

She smiled back at him and a little shock ran through him.  He had expected yellow and snaggled or missing teeth.  Instead strong white teeth flashed back at him.

Roberto stood looking around as he ate.  Indian men, women, and children were all around, the women doing domestic chores, men working on weapons or leatherwork.  A pair of men walked by, one in front of the other, a big chunk of meat suspended on a pole between them, dripping blood and trailing flies.  No one seemed surprised to see him.  Several looked at him with a touch of animosity, or curiosity, or awe, or respect.

He found it interesting that he could read the subtle signs of body language that told of the emotions.  He had always been good at observing people, but this was a doubling or tripling of this talent of his.

As his stomach filled he looked further afield and saw that the camp, with a dozen or more of the teepees, was in a long break in the trees around them, more of the tall trees with long grey-green leaves that he had seen earlier, but closer together and more numerous.  Off to his right and mostly behind him he could hear water chuckling.  When he glanced that way he saw a small creek a good distance away.

It seemed much louder than it should, and suddenly the sound was much quieter, almost silent.  Somehow his ears had adjusted back to normal sensitivity.

He strained to hear the water better and suddenly it was quite loud in his ears.  Quickly he reflexively dropped the volume back to the "normal" level that he expected.

He was alive, though he could not understand how, from the wounds that he had received and his reaction to them, he expected to be dead.  HAD he died?  And somehow been reborn?  Better?

He peeled the last shred of meat from the bone and absent-mindedly bit into the bone.  It crunched nicely and he chewed it well.  Only until he swallowed the first mouthful did he realize what a stupid thing he had done.  Sharp bones had killed men before, perforating their guts and causing death by bleeding inside, where no one could get at it and stop it.

He quelled the panic that shot through him and concentrated on the feeling of the bones going down.  He seemed to know exactly what was happening inside him, and there was no problem.  His intestinal tract toughened as the bolus of bone and bone-marrow passed through it and extra-strong stomach acid dissolved it.  He even imagined he could feel the bone-fragments pass into his bloodstream and go somewhere to make his own bones grow stronger.

Or was it imagination?

At that he noticed that "Yaya" was watching him closely, and despite her solemn face he knew that she was laughing inside at him.

He glared back at her.  Well, actually, he did not.  He thought about glaring at her.  And somehow she read his body language and laughed even harder -- with a perfectly straight face.

He mentally shrugged this off.  He obviously was living in a more interesting place than he had ever been before, and he decided to make the most of it.

He finished off the bone.  As he did so, he noticed that his bowels and his bladder needed emptying.  He looked around, then at Yaya.  She seemed to understand without his saying anything.  She pointed off into the trees.

He took a step in that direction, and stopped, looking at her.  She waved her hand in a "go on" gesture and turned back to mending a piece of clothing.

Roberto looked all around.  Nobody was paying him much attention.  So he set off into the woods.

Shortly his nose told him that he was nearing a latrine-like area.  Sure enough there were several rows of shallow pits, some filled in and some open and with little matching piles of dirt beside them.  He stripped a handul of leaves from low-hanging branches and squatted and relieved his bowels and bladder, wiped himself with the leaves, then used a stick that was obiously intended for that purpose to cover the waste with the pile of dirt.

Interestingly, his urine was almost as clear as spring water and his stool was drier and more compact than he was used to.  Apparently he had been improved in a variety of ways.

Back in the camp he noticed a small group of young men.  They were tramping into the camp, carrying weapons and small game.  At the head of them was a big youth powerfully built.  When he caught sight of Roberto walking toward Grandmother he speeded up his walk and stopped in front of Roberto, glaring down at Roberto's face.  A string of angry words burst out of him.

Yaya said something sharp to the youth.  He turned and spoke angrily back at her.  She said one more thing.  He shook his head and began to turn back toward Roberto.  Suddenly Yaya moved and was beside the young man so swiftly she seemed to blur.  Roberto blinked.

The old woman spoke to the man again and again he shook his head and tried to turn toward Roberto.

The woman reached over and clasped the wrist of the man.  She squeezed.  He yelped and tried to pull away from her.  The woman swayed a tiny bit away from him but otherwise the man, who seemingly was much heavier than she, did not budge her a bit.

The old woman twisted her hand and the young man drew in a hissing breath.  Slowly she twisted more and he was forced inexorably to his knees, his huge muscles straining and quivering with effort, face getting red and redder, veins in his face and neck distending.  Finally he caved in and fell forward onto his face.

The old woman -- if she was indeed old, or even a woman -- said something.  Roberto interpreted it as "Give up?"  The prone man answered "I give up."

Roberto definitely memorized THAT phrase.  He swore to himself that he would use it before the -- old woman? -- forced it out of him.

Yaya told the young man (Roberto guessed) to get up and shake hands with Roberto.  Shamed yet glowering at the Spaniard, he did as ordered.  Roberto took the outstretched hand and squeezed lightly.  The man squeezed back, hard, obviously intending to prove that the woman might intimidate him but that Roberto was a different matter.

Roberto resisted the squeeze with one of his own and for several seconds they competed.  But the young man was no match for him and as their grips increased Roberto knew that he could crush the man's hand as easily as he crushed paper.

At this he slacked off and jerked his hand from the grip.  He shook his hand as if it pained him and smiled ruefully up at the man's face.  It rarely paid to reveal to an enemy your true strength.

Suddenly the young man was jovial.  He reached across and lightly punched Roberto's shoulder, said something to him, and strutted off with his companions following him.  Several of them looked sidelong at Roberto, one or two of them not entirely convinced that the Spaniard had truly lost.

Roberto looked at the old woman.  She smiled back at him.  She knew what Roberto could do, and she approved of his restraint.

.

That afternoon, and that night and the succeeding days, Roberto did as the old woman indicated and followed her around.  She had many roles.

One of them was as a healer.  She soothed the scrapes and cuts and the worst of the bruises of the children with a touch and a few joking sentences.  Once she stopped a woman's badly bleeding cut and blocked the pain of the wound, again with just a touch.  Then she sewed it up with a thin black thread.  She sometimes dispensed pills of her own making, or had patients eat a leaf, or had the friends or family of patients brew a tea for them.

She gave advice to women and children alike, sometimes spending an hour or more listening to someone and prompting them with gentle or sternly pointed questions.  Once she sharply rebuked a group of old men about something.  They were at first angry with her and then shamefaced.

Roberto quickly picked up the language of the Comanche, though it was well over a century later that he came to hear that name for them.  In their own language they were simply The People.

He had always been good at languages, partly natural talent and partly because he had grown up bilingual, speaking both his native Galician and the Spanish of his homeland's conquerors.  Too, his Spanish grandee father had insisted that his children get a formal education, which included learning Latin and Greek.  But the speed that he picked up Comanche was much faster than normal.  Or what had been normal before he had -- died.

For he believed, most of the time but not all the time, that he had indeed died.  He strongly suspected the old woman of bringing him back to life, or at least of being a midwife for his return from death.

As the days and weeks went by he came to be accepted by the Comanches, or at least became a familiar and unthreatening sight.  The young man who had threatened him became friendly, slapping him on the shoulder as if Roberto was a younger brother.  This was just as he treated all the men his age, which led Roberto to survey himself more closely and realize -- without the tiniest bit of surprise -- that he had become a teenager again.  He seemed to be about fifteen.

Summer became Autumn and one night Roberto -- now know as Young Bull, for he was quickly putting on weight and height and was now acknowledged as very strong -- woke to hearing wind shrieking around the tents.  The air had also become much colder, though it did not bother him, for as he slept his skin had thickened and grown a thin layer of fat underneath it.  Something had also happened to protect his lungs, too, though he did not know what.

He heard some hanging object outside come loose and go rolling off to fetch up against a teepee.  He left his pallet and went outside, naked but perfectly comfortable -- even exhilarated  by the caress of the frigid breeze -- and retrieved the pot.  At the teepee of the owner he tucked it just inside the teepee door.

Then he walked through the village checking on other matters.  At one point one of the older men peered out his tent and saw Young Bull.  He nodded approval and drew back inside.

The next day the small clan of Indians packed up and moved south toward a warmer clime.

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