The Moor's Account (35 page)

Soon, the Avavares began to receive visits from their allies the Maliacones and the Cultalchulches, and other bands that call themselves the Coayos and the Atayos. These tribes brought their sick with them and I could not attend to all of them by myself, so my companions had to join me in honoring people's requests as best as they could. Castillo relied on memories of his father's practice in Salamanca. Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca used soldiers' remedies they had learned when they fought in their king's wars. As for me, I used what I had learned growing up in Azemmur. I gave infusions of wild garlic for pain in the joints; I cleaned wounds with the ground bark of young oak trees; I treated constipation with verbena; for a sore throat, I suggested gargling with salted water.

If I was confronted with an illness I did not recognize, I listened to the sick man or woman and offered consolation in the guise of a long story. After all, what the sufferers needed most of all was an assurance that someone understood their pain and that, if not a full cure, at least some respite from it lay further ahead. This, too, was something I had learned in the markets of Azemmur: a good story can heal.

I had feared that Behewibri would resent our success, but, as it turned out, he welcomed it: the tribes that visited us always brought many gifts
with them, gifts that were shared among all the Avavares, particularly the cacique and the shaman. And Behewibri taught me many things, too. From him, I learned how to use hot stones on the body, how to cut the skin around a wound and draw blood from it, how to blow warm air on an afflicted limb. Of course, not every cure was effective, but it is a fortunate law of human nature that our greatest accomplishments are more easily remembered than our occasional failures. The stories of successful cures seemed to be the only ones that were told over and over in the neighboring camps, heightening people's interest in us, while our failures were quickly dismissed or forgiven.

By the end of the winter, the Avavares began to treat us as honored members of the tribe rather than drifters who had to be tolerated. No longer did they ask us to collect firewood or fetch water or wash animal skins. Nor did they ask us to take part in hunts, since we received so much deer and hare meat in payment for our cures. And as the Avavares' treatment of us changed, so, too, did our behavior toward them. We never refused to attend to a patient, whether his complaints were serious or trivial. We listened carefully to the stories the Avavares told around the campfire, about their ancestors, their neighbors good and bad, the spirits that populate their world, but also stories about their origins, the dangers they had faced, and the murderous white aliens who were now snatching them away.

When the Castilians heard about the abductions, they always insisted that not all aliens were the same. Indeed you are not, Behewibri replied. You come from the direction of sunrise whereas those people come from the sunset. You speak our tongue and that of our neighbors, whereas they speak an alien language. You do not carry weapons, whereas they are armed and ride upon animals. You helped us heal our people, whereas they snatch or kill them.

The cures we performed may not have healed everyone we attended, but I can vouch that they saved at least four lives: our own. We were finally able to walk the land without fear for our safety; we had food, shelter, and companionship; and everywhere we went, we were treated with kindness and respect. One night, as I took my seat next to Behewibri, I noticed that the disdain in his daughter's eye was gone, replaced by a glint of curiosity.

I
HAD THOUGHT
that my condition of poor exile would forever doom me to a life of loneliness, but as my position changed, so, too, did my prospects. The Avavares had already begun to treat me as one of their own, but after Dorantes and I helped set a young boy's broken leg, Tahacha decreed that we would all marry maidens from his tribe. Cabeza de Vaca, who was still in mourning over his wife and child, declined the offer, but the rest of us accepted. Dorantes married the cacique's daughter, Tekotsen. She was a plain girl, with a narrow face and thin lips, who had been taken with Dorantes almost from the moment she saw him. Every cure he performed, she declared a miracle. Every fawn he caught, she proclaimed a stag. In her, Dorantes found not only a devoted wife, but a relentless advocate.

Castillo married Kewaan, the youngest daughter of Tahacha's deputy. Kewaan was a great beauty, and her sudden marriage caused some grumbling, for there were two youths among the Susolas who had wanted her for a wife. She was also known for her crafts, particularly her basket designs and the bracelets and anklets she fashioned out of deerskin.

But I was the luckiest one of all, for I married Behewibri's daughter, Oyomasot. My experience with women was limited and, since my arrival in the Land of the Indians, I had had few interactions with them. After our encounter by the mulberry tree, I had dared speak to Oyomasot only once or twice—when I had sat beside her father for the evening meal and when I brought some wild mint for one of his cures. But perhaps Oyomasot had seen some merit in me, for she did not object to the proposal. Her eyes shone with a fierce intelligence that had intimidated me. Now that she was my wife it made me proud, though I had no part in it.

With trembling fingers, I undid the shoulder knot on the tunic Oyomasot wore on our wedding night. She stood before me, unembarrassed of her glorious nakedness. For a moment I feared I would not be able to move; my heart was pounding in my chest. But she put her hand on my cheek and traced the outline of my face with her fingers. Her touch was light and gentle, unlike any I had known before, and I heard myself call out her name. Then her fingers found the scar on the back of my neck. How did you get this? she asked.

I had grown so accustomed to leaving out details of my life story in order to survive that, for a moment, I considered making up some reason for the scar. But her gaze swept away all of my reservations. I had to tell
her the truth, the whole of it. As I spoke, she slipped her hand in mine and pulled me down to sit beside her. Propriety prevents this servant of God from describing that night any further, but I wanted to record it in this relation, because it marked the beginning of a new time in my life, a time when I was no longer alone and bereft. (I know that none of the Castilians have mentioned their wives in their Joint Report, but I feel bound by honor to reveal everything that came to pass, without leaving anything out.)

This was how I began to fashion a new life for myself in the Land of the Indians. When I had sold myself into bondage, or trudged behind Narváez in the wilderness, or embarked on that crude raft with patchy sails, my keenest desire had been to go back to my old life in Azemmur, where I could start my days with my mother's blessings and end them by contemplating the rustling river from the solid safety of our rooftop. Instead, I had been pushed further and further into a fate from which no escape or reprieve seemed possible. And so there came a moment when I stopped struggling, when I decided that I would cease making any more plans to return to the old days. I made up my mind to look upon the present as exactly what it was: it was all I had. To add to my sense that my curse had turned into a blessing, not only was I free—I was no longer alone.

In the spring, just as the Avavares were preparing to strike their camp and move east, an emissary of the Arbadaos arrived, bearing many gifts and an invitation. I was not familiar with his tribe, because they lived well outside the areas we visited in our seasonal travels and, even though I was busy with packing provisions, I offered him the pipe and asked what ailments afflicted his people that they should have come so far in search of healers. What the emissary described—a skin rash, a knife cut, a spider bite—sounded neither urgent nor out of the ordinary and, when he spoke, his voice had a flat tone that seemed, to my ears, a little too imperative. So I was inclined to reject his invitation.

But, that evening, when I told Oyomasot about it, she stopped sharpening the spearhead she had been hunched over when I came into the hut. She was a good spearwoman, who could hit a target from as far away as ten qasab with unerring aim, but the tribe's traditions precluded her from taking part in a hunt. What was more, she was not supposed to make or carry a weapon. In another girl, such violations would have been severely punished, but in Oyomasot, they were tolerated the way one tolerates the peculiarities of misfits, mystics, and madmen.

Did you already send him away? she asked me.

Not yet, I replied. We were sitting on a black bear pelt that had been given to me by a Maliacone elder, after I had relieved his neck pain with an infusion of ground willow leaves. But the night was unseasonably hot and Oyomasot had pulled up her tunic well above her knees. I took one of her feet in my hands and ran my thumb on the soft part of her sole. You have such tiny feet, I teased.

You should not send him away, she said.

Why not? Gently, I tugged at her foot so that she would come sit a little closer to me.

Because his people need you.

But the Arbadaos are at least four days' walk from here. If I go visit them, and you move eastward with your family, it might be weeks before I catch up to you. I cannot be away from you for so long.

I can come with you.

Your mother will not like that.

What if she doesn't? Oyomasot asked with a smile. Her eyes challenged me. Besides, she said, the cacique of the Arbadaos is very powerful. It would make little sense to refuse him.

How vast this country was, I remember thinking, and how complicated the alliances between its tribes. If I refused the invitation of the Arbadaos, I could cause friction with the Avavares. I still had much to learn. Oyomasot set aside her spearhead and sharpening tools, carefully covering them with a rabbit fur. What do your brothers think? she asked.

Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca want to go, I said. But Castillo refuses.

Then talk to him.

He has already made up his mind.

Did you not tell me once that you could convince a dove it was a hawk?

Reader, beware: the things you say to impress a beautiful woman have an odd way of being repeated to you when you least expect them. I was embarrassed by my boasting, but, in my defense, I had said those things many months earlier, when I was starting out with the Avavares and I was still trying to attract Oyomasot's notice.

Besides, she added, Kewaan would welcome the chance to travel.

Very well, I said. I will talk to Castillo.

At last, she leaned closer to me.

So
IT WAS
that we ventured westward, across a trackless wilderness filled with yucca, wild grass, and prickly pear bushes. The march was long and arduous, and we all felt a little lost, but the emissary behaved as if he were simply taking a trip down a cobblestone road in any city of Barbary. In the middle of what looked like nothing but an empty stretch of land, he would stop, examine a green thicket for a moment, and suddenly change course. At length, we came within view of the Arbadaos'
encampment. It was set in a wide expanse of dry land, without the usual protection provided by a canopy of tall trees. It gave me the impression of a fearless people.

Living so far from the coast, the Arbadaos did not fish at all. Instead, they hunted deer and fowl, as well as a hoofed beast that looked like a cow, though it had horns. The skins of all these animals they used in their homes or traded to their allies, but the Arbadaos were just as often involved in wars against their neighbors. At such times, they were known to be merciless in battle—this was another reason why Oyomasot had warned me against rebuffing their invitation.

On the night of our arrival, the cacique Beaset gave an extravagant banquet for us, with many different varieties of game skewered on wooden spits before us. Eat! Eat! he said cheerfully. He sat cross-legged, periodically cocking his head to the side to hear whatever one of his deputies whispered into his ear, and then he would smile, displaying a set of perfectly aligned teeth. All over his body, he had scars of different sizes and shapes—far more than would have been caused by a hunting injury or a fall in the wilderness. I found it hard to enjoy the lavish food or even the music and dancing, because I was not sure what he expected from us.

A special tent was set up for us the next morning, wide enough to accommodate all the patients who wanted to consult with us. Although the Arbadaos' language was intelligible to us, it was distinct enough from the languages we spoke that we needed an interpreter to conduct proper examinations. Right away, Dorantes's brother-in-law, a young Avavare by the name of Satosol, declared himself the man for the task. It occurs to me now that he acted as more than just a translator—he was also an usher, an aide, and a eulogizer, with an instinctive flair for spectacle.

I asked the Arbadaos' shaman to sit beside me when I received the day's patients, in order that I might share any success with him, and mitigate any failures. The stream of patients started early and continued for the rest of the day: an old man complained of swollen feet; I advised soaking them in salted water. A teenage girl said she had a cough; I offered her some of the nut oil we had brought, telling her she should take a few drops of it after every meal. A mother brought a child covered with bug bites; I suggested some wild marjoram. Throughout the day, Satosol translated my advice. And then Oyomasot began to render it in rhyme, a skill I had not known her to possess: If your sleep is troubled and your
mood is sour, old auntie, drink a brew of passionflower. Or: Little boy with a stuffy nose, a tea of gumweed cures your woes. Or: For the baby with loose bowels, I made a drink of cactus flowers.

These rhymes made it easier for our patients to remember our cures, though it seemed to me that, coupled with Satosol's introductions and eulogizing, they also turned our session into a kind of theater. The memory of the traveling healer in the souq of Azemmur returned to me all of a sudden. Every market day, he set up his large, black tent, where he told stories and healed the sick, providing spectacle and service all at once. Though I had traveled far from Barbary, I had come across a similar tradition in the Land of Corn. And I found comfort in it.