The Trail Book Page 12

  XII

  HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME TO TUSCALOOSA: A TELLING OF THE TRIBUTE ROAD BYTHE LADY OF COFACHIQUE

  "There was a bloom on the sea like the bloom on a wild grape when theAdelantado left his winter quarters at Anaica Apalache," said thePrincess. "He sent Maldonado, his captain, to cruise along the Gulfcoast with the ships, and struck north toward Cofachique. That was inMarch, 1540, and already his men and horses were fewer because ofsickness and skirmishes with the Indians. They had for guide Juan Ortiz,one of Narvaez's men who had been held captive by the Indians theseeight years, and a lad Perico who remembered a trading trip toCofachique. And what he could not remember he invented. He made Sotobelieve there was gold there. Perhaps he was thinking of copper, andperhaps, since the Spaniards had made him their servant, he found itpleasanter to be in an important position.

  "They set out by the old sea trail toward Alta-paha, when the buds atthe ends of the magnolia boughs were turning creamy, and the sandhillcrane could be heard whooping from the lagoons miles inland. First wentthe captains with the Indian guides in chains, for they had a way ofdisappearing in the scrub if not watched carefully, and then the footsoldiers, each with his sixty days' ration on his back. Last of all camea great drove of pigs and dogs of Spain, fierce mastiffs who madenothing of tearing an Indian in pieces, and had to be kept in leash byPedro Moron, who was as keen as a dog himself. He could smell Indians inhiding and wood smoke three leagues away. Many a time when theexpedition was all but lost, he would smell his way to a village.

  "They went north by east looking for gold, and equal to any adventure.At Achese the Indians, who had never heard of white men, were sofrightened that they ran away into the woods and would not come outagain. Think what it meant to them to see strange bearded men, clad iniron shirts, astride of fierce, unknown animals,--for the Indians couldnot help but think that the horses would eat them. They had never heardof iron either. Nevertheless, the Spaniards got some corn there, fromthe high cribs of cane set up on platforms beside the huts.

  "Everywhere Soto told the Caciques that he and his men were the Childrenof the Sun, seeking the highest chief and the richest province, andasked for guides and carriers, which usually he got. You may be sure theIndians were glad to be rid of them so cheaply.

  "The expedition moved toward Ocute, with the bloom of the wild vinesperfuming all the air, and clouds of white butterflies beginning totwinkle in the savannahs."

  "But," said Dorcas, who had listened very attentively, "I thoughtSavannah was a place."

  "Ever so many places," said the Princess; "flat miles on miles of slimpines melting into grayness, sunlight sifting through their plumy tops,with gray birds wheeling in flocks, or troops of red-headedwoodpeckers, and underfoot nothing but needles and gray sand. Far aheadon every side the pines draw together, but where one walks they are wideapart, so that one seems always about to approach a forest and neverfinds it. These are the savannahs.

  "Between them along the water-courses are swamps; slow, black water andwide-rooted, gull-gray cypress, flat-topped and all adrip with moss. Andeverywhere a feeling of snakes--wicked water-snakes with yellow rimsaround their eyes.

  "They crossed great rivers, Ockmulgee, Oconee, Ogechee, making a bridgeof men and paddling their way across with the help of saddle cruppersand horses' tails. If the waters were too deep for that, they madepiraguas--dug-out canoes, you know--and rafts of cane. By the time theyhad reached Ocute the Spaniards were so hungry they were glad to eatdogs which the Indians gave them, for there was such a scarcity of meaton all that journey that the sick men would sometimes say, 'If only Ihad a piece of meat I think I would not die!'"

  "But where was all the game?" Oliver insisted on knowing.

  "Six hundred men with three hundred horses and a lot of Indian carriers,coming through the woods, make a great deal of noise," said thePrincess. "The Spaniards never dared to hunt far from the trail for fearof getting lost. There were always lurking Indians ready to drive anarrow through a piece of Milan armor as if it were pasteboard, and intothe body of a horse over the feather of the shaft, so that the Spaniardswondered, seeing the little hole it made, how the horse had died.

  "Day after day the expedition would wind in and out of the trail,bunching up like quail in the open places, and dropping back in singlefile in the canebrake, with the tail of the company so far from the headthat when there was a skirmish with the Indians at either end, it wouldoften be over before the other end could catch up. In this fashion theycame to Cofaque, which is the last province before Cofachique."

  "Oh," said Dorcas, "and did the Chief Woman see them coming? The one whowas Far-Looking!"

  "She saw too much," said the Egret, tucking her eggs more warmly underher breast. "She saw other comings and all the evil that the White Menwould bring and do."

  "Whatever she saw she did her best to prevent," said the Princess."Three things she tried. Two of them failed. There are two trails intothe heart of Cofachique, one from the west from Tuscaloosa, and theother from Cofaque, a very secret trail through swamp and palmettoscrub, full of false clues and blind leads.

  "Far-Looking sat in the god-house at Talimeco, and sent her thoughtalong the trail to turn the strangers back; but what is the thought ofone woman against six hundred men! It reached nobody but the lad Perico,and shook him with a midnight terror, so that he screamed and threwhimself about. The Spaniards came running with book and bell, for thepriest thought the boy was plagued by a devil. But the soldiers thoughtit was all a pretense to save himself from being punished for notknowing the trail to Cofachique.

  "Nobody really knew it, because the Cofachiquans, who were at war withCofaque, had hidden it as a fox covers the trail to her lair. But afterbeating about among the sloughs and swamps like a rabbit in a net, andbeing reduced to a ration of eighteen grains of corn, the Spaniards cameto the river about a day's journey above the place where Lucas deAyllon's men had died. They caught a few stray Indians, who allowedthemselves to be burnt rather than show the way to their towns,--for sothe Cacica had ordered them,--and at last the expedition came to avillage where there was corn."

  "But I shouldn't think the Indians would give it to them," said Dorcas.

  "Indians never refuse food, if they have it, even to their enemies,"said the Princess.

  The children could see that this part of the story was not pleasantremembering for the Lady of Cofachique. She pushed the pearls away asthough they wearied her, and her women came crowding at her shoulderwith soft, commiserating noises like doves. They were beautiful andyoung like her, and wore the white dress of Cofachique, a skirt ofmulberry fiber and an upper garment that went over the left shoulder andleft the right arm bare except for the looped bracelets of shell andpearl. Their long hair lay sleek across their bosoms and, to show thatthey were privileged to wait upon the Chief Woman, they had each asingle egret's plume in the painted bandeau about her forehead.

  "Far-Looking was both aunt and chief to me," said the Princess; "it wasnot for me to question what she did. Our country had been long at warwith Cofaque, at cost of men and corn. And Soto, as he came through thatcountry, picked up their War Leader Patofa, and the best of theirfighting men, for they had persuaded him that only by force would he getanything from the Cacica of Cofachique. The truth was that it was onlyby trusting to the magic of the white men that Patofa could get to us.The Adelantado allowed him to pillage such towns as they found before hethought better of it and sent Patofa and his men back to Cofaque, but bythat time the thing had happened which made the Cacica's second planimpossible. Our fighting men had seen what the Spaniards could do, and Ihad seen what they could be."

  Proudly as she said it, the children could see, by the way the Princessfrowned to herself and drummed with her fingers on the cypress wood,that the old puzzle of the strangers who were neither gods nor menworked still in her mind.

  "The Cacica's first plan," she went on, "which had been to lose them inthe swamps and savannahs, had failed. Her second was to receive themkindl
y and then serve them as she had served Ayllon.

  "They made their camp at last across the river from Talimeco, and I withmy women went out to meet them as a great Cacique should be met, in acanoe with an awning, with fan-bearers and flutes and drums. I saw thatI pleased him," said the Princess. "I gave him the pearls from my neck,and had from him a ring from his finger set with a red stone. He was ahandsome and a gallant gentleman, knowing what was proper towardPrincesses."

  "And all this time you were planning to kill him?" said Dorcas, shocked.

  The Princess shook her head.

  "Not I, but the Cacica. She told me nothing. Talimeco was a White Town;how should I know that she planned killing in it. She sat in the Placeof the Silences working her mischief and trusted me to keep theSpaniards charmed and unsuspicious. How should I know what she meant? Iam chief woman of Cofachique, but I am not far-looking.

  "I showed the Adelantado the god-house with its dead Caciques allstuffed with pearls, and the warrior-house where the arms of Ayllon werelaid up for a trophy. It would have been well for him to be contentedwith these things. I have heard him say they would have been a fortunein his own country, but he was bitten with the love of gold and mad withit as if a water moccasin had set its fangs in him. I had no gold, and Icould not help him to get Far-Looking into his power.

  "That was his plan always, to make the chief person of every city hishostage for the safety of his men. I would have helped him if I could,"the Princess admitted, "for I thought him glorious, but the truth was, Idid not know.

  "There was a lad, Islay, brought up with me in the house of my aunt, theCacica, who went back and forth to her with messages to the Place of theSilences, and him I drove by my anger to lead the Spaniards that way.But as he went he feared her anger coming to meet him more than hefeared mine that waited him at home. One day while the Spanish soldierswho were with him admired the arrows which he showed them in his quiver,so beautifully made, he plunged the sharpest of them into his throat. Hewas a poor thing," said the Princess proudly, "since he loved neither menor my aunt enough to serve one of us against the other. We succeededonly in serving Soto, for now there was no one to carry word for theCacica to the men who were to fall upon the Spaniards and destroy themas they had destroyed Ayllon.

  "Perhaps," said the Princess, "if she had told me her plan and herreason for it, things would have turned out differently. At any rate,she need not have become, as she did finally, my worst enemy, and diedfighting me. At that time she was as mother and chief to me, and I couldnever have wished her so much bitterness as she must have felt sittingunvisited in the Place of the Silences, while I took the Adelantadopearling, and the fighting men, who should have fallen upon him at herword, danced for his entertainment.

  "She had to come out at last to find what had happened to Islay, forwhose death she blamed me, and back she went without a word to me, likea hot spider to spin a stronger web. This time she appealed toTuscaloosa. They were of one mind in many things, and between them theykept all the small tribes in tribute.

  "It was about the time of the year when they should be coming with italong the Tribute Road, and the Cacica sent them word that if they couldmake the Spaniards believe that there was gold in their hills, she wouldremit the tribute for one year. There was not much for them to do, forthere were hatchets and knives in the tribute, made of copper, in whichSoto thought he discovered gold. It may be so: once he had suspected it,I could not keep him any longer at Talimeco. The day that he set outthere went another expedition secretly from the Cacica to Tuscaloosa.'These men,' said the message, 'must be fought by men.' And Tuscaloosasmiled as he heard it, for it was the first time that the Cacica hadadmitted there was anything that could not be done by a woman. But atthat she had done her cleverest thing, because, though they werefriends, the Black Warrior wanted nothing so much as an opportunity toprove that he was the better warrior.

  "It was lovely summer weather," said the Princess, "as the Spaniardspassed through the length of Cofachique; the mulberry trees weredripping with ripe fruit, the young corn was growing tall, and theIndians were friendly. They passed over the Blue Ridge where it breakssouth into woody hills. Glossy leaves of the live-oak made the forestspaces vague with shadows; bright birds like flame hopped in and out andhid in the hanging moss, whistling clearly; groves of pecans and walnutsalong the river hung ropy with long streamers of the purple muscadines.

  "You have heard," said the Lady of Cofachique, hesitating for the firsttime in her story, and yet looking so much the Princess that thechildren would never have dared think anything displeasing to her, "thatI went a part of the way with the Adelantado on the Tribute Road?" Herlovely face cleared a little as they shook their heads.

  "It is not true," she said, "that I went for any reason but my own wishto learn as much as possible of the wisdom of the white men and to keepmy own people safe in the towns they passed through. I had my own womenabout me, and my own warriors ran in the woods on either side, andshowed themselves to me in the places where the expedition halted,unsuspected by Soto. It was as much as any Spaniard could do to tell onehalf-naked Indian from another.

  "The pearls, too,"--she touched the casket with her foot,--"the finestthat Soto had selected from the god-house, I kept by me. I never meantto let them go, though there were some of them I gave to a soldier ...there were slaves, too, of Soto's who found the free life of Cofachiquemore to their liking than the fruitless search for gold...."

  "She means," said the Snowy Egret, seeing that the Princess did notintend to say any more on that point, "that she gave them for bribes toone of Soto's men, a great bag full, though there came a day when heneeded the bag more than the pearls and he left them scattered on thefloor of the forest. It was about the slaves who went with her when shegave Soto the slip in the deep woods, that she quarreled afterward withthe old Cacica."

  "At the western border of Cofachique, which is the beginning ofTuscaloosa's land," went on the Princess, "I came away with my women andmy pearls; we walked in the thick woods and we were gone. Where can awhite man look that an Indian cannot hide from him? It is true that Iknew by this time that the Cacica had sent to Tuscaloosa, but what wasthat to me? The Adelantado had left of his own free will, and I was notthen Chief Woman of Cofachique. At the first of the Tuscaloosa towns theBlack Warrior awaited them. He sat on the piazza of his house on theprincipal mound. He sat as still as the Cacica in the Place of Silences,a great turban stiff with pearls upon his head, and over him thestandard of Tuscaloosa like a great round fan on a slender stem, of finefeather-work laid on deerskin. While the Spaniards wheeled and racedtheir horses in front of him, trying to make an impression, Soto couldnot get so much as the flick of an eyelash out of the Black Warrior.Gentleman of Spain as he was and the King's own representative, he hadto dismount at last and conduct himself humbly.

  "The Adelantado asked for obedience to his King, which Tuscaloosa saidhe was more used to getting than giving. When Soto wished for food andcarriers, Tuscaloosa gave him part, and, dissembling, said the rest wereat his capital of Mobila. Against the advice of his men Soto consentedto go there with him.

  "It was a strong city set with a stockade of tree-trunks driven into theground, where they rooted and sent up great trees in which wild pigeonsroosted. It was they that had seen the runners of Cofachique come inwith the message from Far-Looking. All the wood knew, and the Indiansknew, but not the Spaniards. Some of them suspected. They saw that thebrush had been cut from the ground outside the stockade, as iffor battle.

  "One of them took a turn through the town and met not an old man nor anychildren. There were dancing women, but no others. This is the custom ofthe Indians when they are about to fight,--they hide their families.

  "Soto was weary of the ground," said the Princess. "This we were told bythe carriers who escaped and came back to Cofachique. He wished to siton a cushion and sleep in a bed again. He came riding into the town withthe Cacique on a horse as a token of honor, though Tuscaloosa was sotall that they
had trouble finding a horse that could keep his feet fromthe ground, and it must have been as pleasant for him as riding a lionor a tiger. But he was a great chief, and if the Spaniards were notafraid to ride neither would he seem to be. So they came to theprincipal house, which was on a mound. All the houses were of twostories, of which the upper was open on the sides, and used forsleeping. Soto sat with Tuscaloosa in the piazza and feasted; dancinggirls came out in the town square with flute-players, and danced forthe guard.

  "But one of Soto's men, more wary than the rest, walked about, and sawthat the towers of the wall were full of fighting men. He saw Indianshiding arrows behind palm branches.

  "Back he went to the house where Soto was, to warn him, but already thetrouble had begun. Tuscaloosa, making an excuse, had withdrawn into thehouse, and when Soto wished to speak to him sent back a haughty answer.Soto would have soothed him, but one of Soto's men, made angry with theinsolence of the Indian who had brought the Cacique's answer, seized theman by his cloak, and when the Indian stepped quickly out of it,answered as quickly with his sword. Suddenly, out of the dark houses,came a shower of arrows."

  "It was the plan of the Cacica of Cofachique," explained the Egret. "Themen of Mobila had meant to fall on the Spaniards while they were eating,but because of the Spanish gentleman's bad temper, the battle begantoo soon."

  "It was the only plan of hers that did not utterly fail," said thePrincess, "for with all her far-looking she could not see into theAdelantado's heart. Soto and his guard ran out of the town, every onewith, an arrow sticking in him, to join themselves to the rest of theexpedition which had just come up. Like wasps out of a nest the Indianspoured after them. They caught the Indian carriers, who were just easingtheir loads under the walls. With every pack and basket that theSpaniards had, they carried them back into the town, and the gates ofthe stockade were swung to after them."

  "All night," said the Egret, "the birds were scared from their roost bythe noise of the battle. Several of the horses were caught inside thestockade; these the Indians killed quickly. The sound of their dyingneighs was heard at all the rookeries along the river."

  "The wild tribes heard of it, and brought us word," said the Princess."Soto attacked and pretended to withdraw. Out came the Indians afterhim. The Spaniards wheeled again and did terrible slaughter. They cameat the stockade with axes; they fired the towers. The houses were all ofdry cane and fine mats of cane for walls; they flashed up in smoke andflame. Many of the Indians threw themselves into the flames rather thanbe taken. At the last there were left three men and the dancing women.The women came into the open by the light of the burning town, withtheir hands crossed before them. They stood close and hid the men withtheir skirts, until the Spaniards came up, and then parted. So the lastmen of Mobila took their last shots and died fighting."

  "Is that the end?" said Oliver, seeing the Princess gather up her pearlsand the Egret preparing to tuck her bill under her wing. He did not feelvery cheerful over it.

  "It was the end of Mobila and the true end of the expedition," said thePrincess. Rising she beckoned to her women. She had lost all interest ina story which had no more to do with Cofachique.

  "Both sides lost," said the Egret, "and that was the sad part of it. Allthe Indians were killed; even the young son of Tuscaloosa was found witha spear sticking in him. Of the Spaniards but eighteen died, though fewescaped unwounded. But they lost everything they had, food, medicines,tools, everything but the sword in hand and the clothes they stood in.And while they lay on the bare ground recovering from their wounds cameJuan Ortiz, who had been sent seaward for that purpose, with word thatMaldonado lay with the ships off the bay of Mobila,--that's Mobile, youknow,--not six days distant, to carry them back to Havana.

  "And how could Soto go back defeated? No gold, no pearls, no conquests,not so much as a map, even,--only rags and wounds and a sore heart. Inspite of everything he was both brave and gallant, and he knew his dutyto the King of Spain. He could not go back with so poor a report of thecountry to which he had been sent to establish the fame and might of HisMajesty. Forbidding Juan Ortiz to tell the men about the ships, withonly two days' food and no baggage, he turned away from the coast, fromhis home and his wife and safe living, toward the Mississippi. He had nohope in his heart, I think, but plenty of courage. And if you like,"said the Egret, "another day we will tell you how he died there."

  "Oh, no, please," said Dorcas, "it is so very sad; and, besides," sheadded, remembering the picture of Soto's body being lowered at nightinto the dark water, "it is in the School History."

  "In any case," said the Egret, "he was a brave and gallant gentleman,kind to his men and no more cruel to the Indians than they were to oneanother. There was only one of the gentlemen of Spain who never had_any_ unkindness to his discredit. That was Cabeza de Vaca; he was oneof Narvaez's men, and the one from whom Soto first heard ofFlorida,--but that is also a sad story."

  Neither of the children said anything. The Princess and her women lostthemselves in the shadowy wood. The gleam here and there of their whitedresses was like the wing of tall white birds. The sun sailing towardnoon had burnt the color out of the sky into the deep water which couldbe seen cradling fresh and blue beyond the islets. One by one thepelicans swung seaward, beating their broad wings all in time like thestroke of rowers, going to fish in the clean tides outside ofthe lagoons.

  The nests of the flamingoes lay open to the sun except where here andthere dozed a brooding mother.

  "Don't you know any not-sad stories?" asked Dorcas, as the Egret showedsigns again of tucking her head under her wing.

  "Not about the Iron Shirts," said the Egret. "Spanish or Portuguese orEnglish; it was always an unhappy ending for the Indians."

  "Oh," said Dorcas, disappointed; and then she reflected, "If they hadn'tcome, though, I don't suppose we would be here either."

  "I'll tell you," said the Man-of-War Bird, who was a great traveler,"they didn't all land on this coast. Some of them landed in Mexico andmarched north into your country. I've heard things from gulls at Panuco.You don't know what the land birds might be able to tell you."