The Immortal Conquistador Read online

  “Ah, you do remember!”

  He’d met Diego in Mexico City, where they’d both listened to the stories of Cíbola and joined Coronado’s expedition. Side by side they’d ridden those thousands of miles. They’d both grown skinny and shaggy, and, on their return, Diego had broken away from the party early to seek his own fortune. Ricardo hadn’t seen him since.

  “Where have you been? Come into the light, let me look at you!”

  A lamp shone over the doorway on the brick building on the corner. Ricardo touched Diego’s shoulder and urged him over. His old compatriot turned but didn’t move from the spot. Ricardo squinted to see him better. Diego had not changed much in the last decade. If anything, he seemed more robust. He had a brightness to him, a sly smile, as if he had come into some fortune, discovering what the rest of them had failed to attain. His clothing, a leather doublet, breeches, and sturdy boots, were worn but well made. His hair and beard were well kept. He wore a gold ring in one ear and must have seemed dashing.

  “You look very well, Diego,” Ricardo said finally.

  “And you look tired, my friend.”

  “Only because I have ridden fifteen miles today over hard country.”

  Diego grimaced. “Yes, playing courier for the garrisons along the road to Mexico City. How do you come to do such hard labor? It’s not fit for one of your station.”

  Typical hidalgo attitude. Ricardo was used to the reaction. Smiling, he ducked his gaze. “The work suits me, and it won’t be forever.”

  “Hoping to earn your way to a land grant? A silver mine of your very own, with a fine estancia and a well-bred girl from Spain to marry and give you many sons? So you can return to Spain a made man?” Diego spoke with a mocking edge.

  “Isn’t that the dream of us all?” Ricardo said, spreading his arms and making a joke of it. He really was that transparent, he supposed. Not dignified enough to lead the life of dissolute nobility like so many others of his class. Too proud and restless to wait for his fortune to find him. But the secret that he told no one was that he didn’t want to leave and take his fortune back to Spain. He had come to love this land, the wide desert spaces, green valleys ringed by brown mountains, hot sun and cold nights. He wanted to be at home here.

  Diego stepped close and put a hand on Ricardo’s arm. “I have a better idea. A great opportunity. I was hoping to find you, because I know no one as honest and deserving as you.”

  The schemes to easy wealth were as common in this country as cactus and mountains. Ricardo was skeptical. “You have found some secret silver lode, is that it? You need someone in the government to push through the claim, and you’ll give me a percentage.”

  Diego’s smile thinned. “There is a village a day’s ride away, deep in the western hills. The land is rich, and the natives are agreeable. A Franciscan has started a church there, but he needs men to lead. To make their mark upon the land.” He pressed a folded square of paper into Ricardo’s hand. A map, directions. “You are a good, honest man, Ricardo. Come and help us make a respectable town out of this place. And reap the rewards for doing so.”

  Such a village should have fallen under the governor of Zacatecas’s jurisdiction. Ricardo would have heard of a priest in that region. Something wasn’t right.

  “I still dream of gold, Ricardo,” Diego said. “Do you?”

  “The Cities of Gold never existed.”

  “Not as a place. But as a symbol—this whole continent is a Cíbola, waiting for us to claim it.”

  “Just as we did the last time?” Ricardo said, scowling.

  “But you’ll come to this village. I’ll wait for you.”

  Diego patted Ricardo on the shoulder, then slipped back into shadows. Ricardo didn’t even hear him go. Thoughtful, worried, Ricardo made his way to the fort for the evening.

  Ricardo followed Diego’s map into the hills, not because he was lured by the promise of easy wealth, but because he wanted to discover what was wrong with the story.

  The day was hot, and he traveled slowly, keeping to shade when he could and resting his horse by dismounting and climbing steep hills alongside it. He followed the ridge of mountains and hoped he had not lost the way.

  Then he climbed a rise that opened into a valley, as Diego had described. A large pond, probably filled by a spring, provided water, and fruit trees grew thickly. A meadow covered the valley floor, and Ricardo could imagine sheep or goats grazing here, or crops growing. Much could be done with land like this.

  A small village sat a hundred yards or so from the pond. The Franciscan’s church was little more than a square cottage made of adobe brick, with a narrow tower. Wood and grass-thatched huts gathered around a dusty square.

  No people were visible, no hearth fires burned. Not so much as a chicken scratched in the dirt. Four horses grazed in the meadow beyond the village. They glanced at Ricardo, then continued grazing. Riding into the village, he shouted a hail, which fell flat, as if the empty settlement absorbed sound. Dismounting, he left his horse by a trough that was dry.

  A smarter man might have traveled with a troop of guards, or at least servants to ease his way. He had thought it easier to travel alone, learn what he could, and return as quickly as possible to report this to the governor. Now, the skin of his neck crawled, and he wondered if he might need a squad of soldiers before the day was through. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword slung on his belt.

  He went into the chapel.

  The place might have been new. A few benches lined up before a simple altar. The wood was freshly cut, but they seemed to have been poorly built: rickety legs slotted into flat boards. Those seated would have to be careful if they didn’t want to tumble to the dirt floor.

  In front, the wood altar was bare, without even a cloth to cover it. No cross hung on the wall. The place had the sickly beeswax candle smell that imbued churches everywhere. At least that much was familiar. Nothing else was. He almost hoped to find signs of violence, because then he’d have some idea of what had happened here. But this . . . nothing . . . was inexplicable.

  “¡Hola!” he called, cringing at his own raised voice. He had the urge to speak in a whisper, if at all.

  A door in the back of the chapel opened. A small body in a gray robe looked out. “Who is it?”

  A shiver crawled up Ricardo’s spine, as if a ghost had stepped through the wall. He peered at the door, squinting, but the man was hidden in shadow.

  “I am Captain Ricardo de Avila. Diego Ruiz asked me to come.”

  “Ah, yes! He told me of you.” He straightened, shedding the air of suspicion. “Come inside, let us speak,” the friar said, opening the door a little wider. Ricardo went to the back room as the friar indicated.

  Like the chapel, this room had no windows. There was a table with a lit candle on it, several chairs, and a small, dirty portrait of the Blessed Virgin. There was a trapdoor in the floor, with a big iron ring to lift it. Ricardo wondered what was in the cellar.

  “Take a seat. I have some wine,” the friar said, going to a cabinet in the corner. “Would you like some?”

  “Yes, please.” Ricardo sat in the chair closest to the door.

  The friar put one pewter cup on the table, poured from an earthenware jug, and indicated that Ricardo should take it. He took a sip; it was weak, sour. But his mouth was dry, and the liquid helped.

  The friar didn’t pour a drink for himself. Sitting on the opposite side of the table, he regarded Ricardo as if they were two men in a plaza tavern, not two dusty, weary colonials in a dark room lit by a candle. The man was pale, as if he spent all his time indoors. His hands, resting on the table, were thin, bony. Under his robes, his entire body might have been a skeleton. He had dark hair trimmed in a tonsure and a thin beard. He was a stereotype of a friar who had been relegated to the outer edges of the colony for too long.

  “I am Fray Juan,” the man said, spreading his hands. “And this is my village.”

  Ricardo couldn’t hide his confusion. �
�Forgive me, Fray Juan, but Señor Ruiz told me this was a rich village. I expected to see farmers and shepherds at work. Women in the courtyard, weaving and grinding corn.”

  “Oh, but this is a prosperous village. You must take my word that appearances here aren’t everything.” His lips turned in a smile.

  “Then what is going on here?” He had started to make guesses: Fray Juan was smuggling something through the village; he’d failed utterly at converting the natives and putting them to useful work and refused to admit it; or everyone had died of disease. But even then there ought to be some evidence. Bodies, graves, something.

  Juan studied him with cold eyes, blue and hard as stones. Ricardo wanted to hold the stare, but something made him glance away. His heart was pounding. He wanted to flee.

  The friar said, “You rode with Coronado, didn’t you? The expedition to find Cíbola?”

  Surviving that trip at all gave one a certain reputation. “Yes, I did. Along with Ruiz.”

  “Even if he hadn’t told me I would have guessed. You have that look. A weariness, like nothing will ever surprise you again.”

  Ricardo chuckled. “Is that what it is? Something different than the usual cynicism?”

  “I see that you are not a youth, but you are also not an old man. Not old enough to have the usual cynicism. Therefore, you’ve lived through something difficult. You’re the right age for it.”

  A restless caballero wandering the northern provinces? He supposed there were a few of that kind. “You’ve changed the subject. Where is Ruiz?”

  “He will be here,” Fray Juan said, soothingly. “Captain, look at me for a moment.” Ricardo did. Those eyes gleamed in the candlelight until they seemed to fill the room. The man was all eyes, shining organs in a face of shadows. “Stay here tonight. It’s almost dusk, far too late to start back for Zacatecas. There are no other settlements within an hour’s ride of here. Take the clean bed in the house next door, sleep tonight, and in the morning you’ll see that all here is well.”

  They regarded one another, and Ricardo could never recall what passed through his mind during those moments. The Franciscan wouldn’t lie to him, surely. So all must be well, despite his misgivings.

  And Fray Juan was right; Ricardo must stay the night in any case. “When will Ruiz return?”

  “Rest, Captain. He’ll be at your side when you wake.”

  Ricardo found himself lulled by the friar’s voice. The look in his eyes was very calming.

  A moment later, he was sitting at the edge of a rope cot in a house so poorly made that he could see through the cracks in the walls. He didn’t remember coming here. Had he been sleepwalking? Was he so weary that a trance had taken him? For all his miles of travel, that had never happened before. He hadn’t eaten supper. He wondered how much of the night had passed.

  His horse—he didn’t remember caring for his horse; he’d left the animal tacked up near the trough. That jolted him to awareness. It was the first lesson of this vast country: Take care of your horse before yourself, because you’d need the animal if you hoped to survive the great distances between settlements.

  Rushing outside, he found his bay mare grazing peacefully, chewing grass around its bit while dragging the reins. He caught the reins, removed the saddle and bridle, rubbed the animal down, and picketed it to a sturdy tree that had access to good grazing, since no cut hay or grain seemed available. He had found water in a small pond in the meadow.

  Now that he was fully awake, studying the valley under the light of a three-quarters moon, Ricardo’s suspicions renewed. This village was dead. He should have questioned the friar more forcefully about what had happened here. Nothing about this place felt right, and Fray Juan’s calm assurances meant nothing.

  Ricardo had reason to doubt the word of a man of God. It was a friar, another man of God, who had brought back the story of Cíbola, of a land covered in lush pastures and rich fields, of cities with wealth that made the Aztec Empire seem as dust. Coronado had believed those stories. They all had, until they had reached the edge of that vast and rocky wasteland to the north. They had whispered to each other, “Is this it?”

  Ricardo de Avila would find Diego Ruiz and learn what had happened here.

  The wind spoke strangely here, crackling through cottonwoods, skittering sand across the mud-patched walls of the buildings. In the first hut, where he’d been directed to stay, he found a lantern and lit it using his own flint. With the light, he examined the abandoned village.

  If disease had struck, he’d have expected to see graves. If there had been an attack, a raid by some of the untamed native tribes in the mountains, he would have seen signs of violence: shattered pottery, interrupted chores. He’d have found bodies and carrion animals. But there was not so much as a drop of shed blood.

  The huts were tidy, dirt floors swept and spread with straw, clay pots empty, water skins dry. The hearths were cold, the coals scattered. He found old bread, wrapped and moldy, and signs that mice had gnawed at sacks of musty grain.

  In one of the huts, the blankets of a bed—little more than a straw mat in the corner—had been shoved away, the bed torn apart. It was the first sign of violence rather than abandonment. He picked up the blanket, thinking perhaps to find blood, some sure sign that ill had happened.

  A cross dropped away from the folds of the cloth. It had been wrapped and hidden away, unable to protect its owner. The thought saddened him.

  Perhaps the villagers had fled. He went out a little ways to try to find tracks, to determine what direction the villagers might have gone. Behind the church, he found a narrow path in the grass, like a shepherd might use leading sheep or goats into the hills. Ricardo followed it. He shuttered the lantern and allowed his vision to adjust to the moonlight, to better see into the distance.

  He was partway across the valley, the village and its church a hundred paces behind him, when he saw a figure sitting at the foot of a juniper. A piece of clothing, the tail of a shirt perhaps, fluttered in the slight breeze that hushed through the valley.

  “Hola,” Ricardo called quietly. He got no answer and approached cautiously, hand on his sword.

  The body of a child, a boy, lay against the tree. Telling his age was impossible because his body had desiccated. The skin was blackened and stretched over the bones. His face was gaunt, a leathery mask drawn over a skull, and chipped teeth grinned. Dark pits marked the eye sockets. It might have been part of the roots and branches. Ricardo might have walked right by it and not noticed, if not for the piece of rotted cloth that had moved.

  The child had dried out, baked in the desert like pottery.

  It looked like something ancient. Moreover, he could not tell what had killed it. Perhaps only hunger.

  But his instincts told him something terrible had happened here. Fray Juan had to know something of what had killed this boy, and the entire village. Ricardo must find out what, then report this to the governor, then get word to the bishop in Mexico City. This land and its people must be brought under proper jurisdiction, if for no other reason than to protect them from people like Fray Juan.

  He rushed back to the village, went to the church, and marched inside, shouting, “Fray Juan! Talk to me! Tell me what’s happened here! Explain yourself!”

  But no one answered. The chapel echoed, and no doors cracked open even a little to greet him. Softly now, he went through the strange decrepit chapel with no cross. The door to the friar’s chamber was unlocked, but the room was empty. Not even a lamp was lit. The whole place seemed abandoned. He tried the trapdoor, lifting the iron ring—the door didn’t move. Locked from the other side. He pounded on the door with his boot heel, a useless gesture. So, Fray Juan was hiding. No matter. He’d report to the governor, and Ricardo would return with a squad to burn the place to the ground to flush the man out. He wouldn’t even wait until daylight to set out. He didn’t want to sleep out the night in this haunted valley.

  When he went to retrieve his horse, a man stood in
his way.

  In the moonlight, he was a shadow, but Ricardo could see the smile on his face: Diego Ruiz.

  “Amigo,” the man called, his voice light, amused. “You came. I wasn’t sure you would.”

  “Diego, what’s happened here? What’s this about?”

  “I told you, Ricardo. This land is rich. We are looking for men to help us reap those riches.”

  “I see nothing here but a wasted village,” Ricardo said.

  A new voice spoke, “You need to see with different eyes.”

  Ricardo turned, for the voice had come from behind him. He had not heard the man approach—he must have been hiding in one of the huts. Two more came with him, so that together the four circled Ricardo. He could not flee without confronting them. He turned, looking back and forth, trying to keep them all in view, unwilling to turn his back on any of them.

  The four were very much like Ricardo—young men with pure Spanish features, wearing the clothing of gentlemen. Others who had swarmed to New Spain seeking fortunes, failing, and turning dissolute.

  Ricardo drew his sword. One of them he could fight. But not four. Not when they had every advantage. How had they taken him by surprise? He should have heard them coming. “You’ve turned bandit. You think to recruit more to run wild with you? No, Diego. I have no reason to join you.”

  “You do not have a choice, amigo. I brought you here because we can use a man like you. Someone with connections.”

  Ricardo smiled wryly. “No one will pay my ransom.”

  They laughed, four caballeros in high spirits. “He thinks we’ll ask for ransom,” another said.

  Ricardo swallowed back panic and remained calm. Whatever they planned for him, he would not make it easy. He’d fight.

  “Señor, be at ease,” spoke a third. “We won’t hold you for ransom. We have a gift for you.”

  Ricardo chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, yes. We’ll bring you to serve our Master. It’s a great honor.”

  “I will not. You all are evil.”