Teresa of the New World Read online

  Now when they moved on, they were followed by more people than ever before, so many they stretched out in a long line. Her father exclaimed that he saw over two thousand men, women, and children. With his hands and fingers, he tried to show Teresa how big that number was. She nodded. She could see for herself.

  To help feed this crowd, the men who had arrows and bows went up into the mountains nearby and brought back deer, five or six at a time. If they found a herd of peccary, they slaughtered all of them. Hunters also traveled ahead of the group, carrying curved throwing sticks that they used to kill hares. Sometimes they made a sport in which they drove the animal from bush to bush, hunter to hunter, until the frightened creature ran straight into a human hand.

  As darkness sifted through the tall yucca plants, Teresa and her father would climb a rise and watch the campfires below. The lights flickered on the ground like fallen stars. The nights were cold, and the people used the fires for warmth and comfort, sitting idly around the dying coals, nibbling on prickly pear, juniper berries, and piñon nuts. Sometimes they roasted a small animal they had caught during the day. Usually they simply sat doing nothing, eating nothing, saying nothing. They sat amazed, just like Teresa, just like her father, wondering what miracle the next day would bring.

  3

  Teresa wasn’t often afraid. She had her father. She had the Moor. But that day, her father was so angry, shouting at Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo. The guides also looked angry, their bodies tense. They had just refused to take the Children of the Sun farther west. They said the land was too desolate, without food or water. Also, the villages west of here were the homes of their enemies, bad people who did not deserve to be blessed or healed. Instead they would guide the healers north to friendly villages.

  “Then we will go alone, without you,” her father said in Spanish and in sign, motioning to himself and then to the setting sun. Spittle glistened in his gray and brown beard.

  “Wait,” Alonso del Castillo murmured. “How can we find our way alone?’

  “This is not the time to lose faith, Alonso,” her father scolded.

  “Let us stay calm,” the Moor suggested.

  But her father’s face was growing red. “We will go forward! We will not stop! We are being led by Christ Himself!”

  Dorantes looked at the Indians, who each carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. “Remember where we are,” Dorantes warned.

  That night, Teresa woke to a desert silvered by the moon. Cries came from the people sitting around the campfires, for three men had died of a sudden illness, three hunters esteemed by their tribe. In the morning, the people from this group stood before the ramada of grass mats where Teresa and her father and the other Children of the Sun slept. The women had already cut their faces, mixing blood with ash and dirt. No one looked directly at Cabeza de Vaca but spoke to the side of his body, as though addressing an invisible presence there. Now they would take the healers wherever they wanted to go.

  “What have you done?” Alonso del Castillo whispered, his liquid-brown eyes bulging even more than usual.

  Her father waited for the Indians to move away. “I haven’t done anything,” he whispered back, hugging Teresa closer to him. “There has always been sickness in this camp. These men died because they were sick. Do you think I wanted that? Do you think I have the power to harm men?”

  Alonso del Castillo moaned and turned away, and from that point on, the people who traveled with them believed the Christians could cause death by willing it. Also, the guides were walking into the land of their enemies, and when they reached a village, they said goodbye to the healers and left quickly the same day. Now the men and women and children of that village did not run out smiling but stayed inside their mud houses, seated on the ground, faces to the wall. All their property was placed on the floor, ready to be taken. But these farmers did not have much to give. Little rain had fallen in the last two years, and even wild plants like mesquite and prickly pear had no fruit. The people signed to the Spaniards: nothing in the sky loves us anymore.

  Teresa trailed behind her father, west through the desert, accompanied by only a few followers. Each morning, Cabeza de Vaca gave everyone a handful of grass seeds and roots and ate a handful himself. By late afternoon, when Teresa became too weak to walk, the Moor would carry her. “More water,” she begged, but the Moor only shrugged.

  One day, they stumbled down a hill to see a line of deep blue gleaming at the horizon. They all began to run. As if she were dreaming, Teresa heard the sound of waves lapping against sand. She felt the stir of memory. She saw an upturned mouth and gold flecks around each iris. Her father grabbed her, shouting in a hoarse voice, “Look, Teresa! We did it! We have walked all the way to the South Sea!” He knelt and began to pray, “Thank you, Our Lord, for your guidance. Thank you for your magnificence and glory! We ask fervently, with tears of joy and sorrow, that you show us the way back to the arms of the church and our most compassionate King.”

  Looking up, he motioned at Teresa to kneel, too, and she did, happy to be beside him again on a wind-swept beach.

  They turned south and east because the people by the sea were very poor, with hardly anything to eat. Every day, Teresa watched a range of mountains watching her. At the end of the range, a fang-toothed mountain stood apart like a man or woman standing apart from a crowd, looking straight at Teresa. By the time they were at the foot of this fang-toothed mountain, they had entered the country of the Opatas, an impossibly wealthy tribe who grew fields of yellow maize and green-leafed beans, with shirts made of soft dyed cotton cloth and villages of grand houses built of stone and adobe. As before, fabulous stories ran ahead of the healers, and large groups followed them to the next village, where they were given food and supplies. Most of these villagers chose to return home, but others stayed to join the Children of the Sun, their numbers once again increasing.

  At each place, her father asked if the people had seen other men like himself, with long noses and hairy faces. Finally one leader said that a wise woman just outside his village had something that may have come from such men.

  “What is this something?” Dorantes asked.

  The man shrugged and spoke to the Moor, who translated. “We do not see this woman often. She is a healer like you, but she lives alone on a hill we do not like to climb. She is strange and makes us nervous.”

  “Show me the way,” Teresa’s father commanded.

  Dorantes, the Moor, and her father strode ahead, following their guides up the slope of the hill and talking all the while. Teresa lagged behind. Deliberately, she lingered, wanting to be alone.

  She couldn’t understand why the people here did not like to climb this hill. For it delighted her! The plants were nothing out of the ordinary: thorny mesquite and catclaw, the prickly pear she had eaten all her life, the humped cactus and long-limbed cactus, tall yellow grass, and summer flowers—white daisies, purple asters, orange poppies. The plants were common, nothing out of the ordinary, but on this hill they were much louder than Teresa had ever heard before. She listened to their musical rings, a sharp ding-a-ling for the sunflower, a milder note for the blue phlox. Behind the flowers, trees hummed and bushes murmured, songs of growing and leafing and rooting. The hill was a celebration of sound.

  Teresa tried to concentrate on the animals, the chatter of mice and packrats, hares and rabbits. Though she had heard their voices before, the images they sent were stronger here and much clearer. If she focused on one particular animal, she could enter its very thoughts.

  A young coyote whimpered alone in his den, his mother gone hunting. Awake and restless, the pup snarled: come back, come back. Come back and I’ll bite you. I’ll grab your muzzle. I’ll hold on! The pup twisted and chewed his tail. I’ll come find you, he decided. I’ll surprise you!

  Teresa shushed the animal. Wait there, she said sternly. Don’t go outside without your mother.

  The coyote startled and put his paws over his face.

&n
bsp; By now, her father was far ahead, and Teresa stopped. The earth whispered through the soles of her sandals made of yucca rope. Listen, the earth said. We have a song for you. Teresa listened. Yes, she could hear them, veins of silver singing through rock. Limestone hissing with the sound of waves. Boulders of lava remembering fire. They were all talking. Most stones said the same thing again and again and again, finding that one thing of great interest, repeating themselves and content with that.

  “Teresa!” her father called from above. Teresa held up her hand, wanting him to be quiet. “Teresa!” her father called and laughed at how pensively she stood. “Hurry now. We are waiting for you.” He was in a good mood, on the trail of this something left behind by men like himself, Spanish hidalgos who had passed this way perhaps recently. “Come on, precious girl. Stay in my sight.”

  The house where the wise woman lived was large, a rambling adobe built on top of the hill. Teresa saw that the walls were crumbling and the roof sagged. Nearby, a weedy garden looked half-dead, the odor of rotting fruit in the air. Just outside the house, the leader of the village stopped and shouted to let the old woman know she had visitors. When there was no reply, he shrugged and told the Children of the Sun to sit and wait. Dorantes grumbled that he did not want to wait, that he was thirsty, that he was hungry. Her father only nodded, willing to show another healer his respect.

  The time passed quickly for Teresa as she lay on the earth and listened to what the hill had to say—the questions of a darkling beetle, the complicated story of an owl watching them from a mesquite. This place was so loud, so rich with voices. Teresa felt she could lie here forever.

  As was his custom, the Moor took the opportunity to nap, shading his forehead with one black hand. The leader of the village also closed his eyes. Only her father and Dorantes sat and did nothing and grew bored. By the time the wise woman emerged from the doorway, both men were impatient.

  The woman looked older than anyone Teresa had ever seen. Her face creased into a web of wrinkles. Her braided hair was bone-white, her eyes black, her skin and teeth a light brown. Slightly stooped, she had dressed in a cotton loincloth and nothing more. Over her shrunken breasts, around her neck, she wore a seashell necklace, white like her hair, with gleams of coral pink.

  In the language of his tribe, the leader introduced them. The Moor whispered in her father’s ear and then spoke to the woman. She nodded without warmth and motioned for them to enter her home.

  The world was cooler inside, dim and musty. The smell of something rotting lingered here, too, and Teresa wrinkled her nose. The old woman seemed indifferent to the matter of where her visitors would sit, and so they stood while she lowered herself onto a mat of woven yucca rope.

  “What is this thing?” Dorantes asked in Spanish. “What does this witch have that we want?”

  The leader looked sharply at him, and her father pulled his friend’s arm. “Quiet,” Cabeza de Vaca said. “Can’t you feel it? She is . . . she has . . . something important.”

  Her father sounded eager, and the wise woman peered at him more closely than before. Grunting, she shifted her thighs as if to struggle again to her feet. Then she sighed, sank bank, and instead spoke to the leader, who nodded and suddenly left the house. The Moor went with him, while Teresa’s father and Dorantes stood awkwardly as the woman seemed to doze.

  Teresa tried to see into the shadows of the room, where a cooking pot stood against the outline of a hearth. Clay pots lined up against the wall, and bundles of plants hung from the ceiling. A spotted animal skin lay crumpled on the floor. Teresa craned her neck to see what it was. A blocky head with yellow eyes glared at her.

  But now the leader returned, the Moor behind him, carrying a pole. “She was using it as a scarecrow.” The Moor grinned. “Out in her corn field.”

  On top of the pole perched a gleaming object, its silver showing through the dirt and leaves. To her surprise, Teresa recognized the magic hat almost immediately. This was exactly what her father had described to her, what the conquistadors wore when they fought against their enemies. Spears and knives could not pierce this hat, which was meant to shine in the sun and frighten the wicked. From the helmet, four horseshoe nails and the buckle from a sword belt also dangled, tied on with yucca thread.

  Dorantes grabbed the magic hat and wrestled it off the pole. “Where did you get this?” he demanded, as if this were his house and he the master.

  The wise woman just looked at him. The leader spoke to the Moor, who said, “It came from the south. A man brought it to her before he died.”

  “What did the man say?” Teresa’s father knelt before the woman, radiating charm, all his good will and peaceful intentions. “How far south?” he coaxed. “Don’t be afraid. Tell us what the man said.”

  The wise woman smiled for the first time. Again she spoke to the leader, who spoke to the Moor, who said, “He was dying of a wound in his leg that had turned black. The man who had killed him sat on a giant deer and had hair on his face like you, like the Children of the Sun. There were other men, on giant deer, who carried long knives that they used to murder two boys. They tried to capture this man but he escaped.”

  At this news, Dorantes gave a glad shout, “They are close by!”

  Her father rose and nodded. Teresa knew he was also glad, with just a bit of sorrow for the man and two boys who had died.

  The wise woman glanced at Teresa and closed her eyes, as if tired of so many people crowded into her dark and cluttered adobe house. She lifted her hand and turned it palm out. Teresa stared. Then the wise woman whispered to the leader of the village. When he shrugged, she whispered again, and the leader spoke to the Moor, who translated, “What you have lost will be restored to you.”

  The wise woman looked straight at Cabeza de Vaca, and Teresa felt a shiver of energy up her spine. She felt suddenly lonely and went to lean against her father’s leg. Once he, too, had ridden a horse and carried a long knife. He, too, had worn a magic hat. The future and past were racing toward each other, and the wind they made prickled the hairs on the back of her neck.

  4

  Teresa could feel the weight on her shoulders, the sorrow on the land, as soon it became clear that the Spanish traveling this southern country were slave hunters, capturing people to work in the King’s silver mines. Her father no longer looked so happy. In most villages, the slavers took half the men and all the women and children, burning the grass houses or dragging them apart with their horses. Those who escaped wandered the hills, afraid to return home. Everywhere now, people crept about frightened and depressed, hiding in the woods and canyons. Over and over, her father promised the refugees that he would find the Spanish conquistadors and tell them to stop. When they heard these promises, many of the people looked hopeful. They signed back to the Moor: ask about my sister. Ask about my mother.

  Dorantes worried their new followers would blame the Children of the Sun for what the slavers were doing. “Eventually these people will turn on us,” he said.

  “They think of us as healers, men from Heaven,” her father argued. “They treat us with kindness, giving us whatever they have. We must go forward.”

  “If we can,” Dorantes worried. “There are no crops. No one has planted food.”

  “We are so close,” Teresa’s father said. “Can’t you feel it?”

  The very next day, their group came across four wooden stakes left in the ground. Flies buzzed in the afternoon air. “They tied their horses here,” her father said to Dorantes. “We have to hurry!”

  But most of the people who traveled with them could not hurry but only walk slowly out of grief and hunger. Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo also sat down and declared they were too weak to move another league—or even half a league. Her father decided that he and the Moor would go ahead, with just a few guides. “Of course,” he said to Teresa. “You will come with me.”

  They walked quickly, almost running, through the scrubby oak, twisted juniper trees, and pric
kly pear. A black raven followed them, its gurgly kro-ak, kro-ak insistent from the stunted pines. Now the bird flew ahead and croaked from another thin-leafed bush. Teresa tried to listen, to understand. The raven cawed and flapped its black wings. Kro-ak! Kro-ak!

  First, the Moor saw hoof prints in the sand. Then at the top of a gravel rise, four men on horseback stood outlined against the blue sky. The Spaniards saw Cabeza de Vaca and his guides, too, and the horses stopped walking. With the sun in her eyes, Teresa tried to count the shadowed shapes. She stepped forward, ready to run toward the animals her father had talked about so lovingly. But a pressure held her back. It was the Moor’s heavy hand.

  Her father was the one to move and speak. His voice shrilled, “I am Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. I am Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca! I am Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, grandson of Pedro de Vera, treasurer of the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, a loyal subject of King Charles the Fifth!”

  The long knives swung and pointed down the hill. The horses shifted. The Spanish men on horseback were silent. They looked huge, dressed in bulky clothes of leather, metal, and thick padded cloth. Teresa recognized what her father called armor, the layers of a hammered gleaming material. Her father had explained to her all the parts of this costume, and she knew the words in Spanish—for helmet, for lance, for breastplate. Still, she had never imagined that her father’s friends would be quite this monstrous, their hats burning silver in the white sun, high on their horses on the gravel slope.

  Her father faced them dressed in a cloth around his waist. His gray hair and beard flew about his naked chest as he climbed up toward the men. One of them bent his arm as though to throw his long knife. Her father laughed like a woman, his voice oddly pitched. “Are you going to kill a miracle? Are you going to kill a man who has spent so many years trying to find you?”