Guaicaipuro's gold
By José Rodríguez
Story published in Chiricú, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1994, University of Indiana
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We walked in single file led by Francisco, Ernesto followed, I came after Ernesto and last was Chucho, the youngest and smallest. Francisco led our expedition because he was the oldest and biggest. Ernesto and I were about the same age and size so it didn't matter who led or who followed. The narrow footpath winded its way through a maze of mango and eucalyptus trees, sinking and rising with the hills. Tall gamelote grass grew along the trail's edge with its long and slender leaves stiff and sharp like slanted swords pointing skyward. Wandering off the trail meant being painfully cut by their razor-like spires; grabbing their stems to point the living sword away from one's body meant diminutive white pricks painfully embedding themselves into one's hands. Francisco could grab the gamelote and part it away with his calloused hands, impervious to its itching pricks and sharp edges. He was strong, and tough, and dark. Indian blood tinged his skin and protected him from the gamelote and gave him the right and the power to painlessly move about. My fair skin was no match against those cutting blades.
A strong land this is, cruel, heartless and ruthless on the white man, demanding and merciless on my European lineage. Having been born on this soil didn't make me a native; I am an outsider who can only be treated with pitiless contempt, a member of a race who does not belong here, of a race who carved an extension of Spain out of a new world using steel, gunpowder and fire, and who forever gave this land and its people a cruel and deadly character. European and Indian and Negro blood mingled under the glow of burning Indian villages and the sound of chains dragged across slave quarters' floors, the offspring inheriting the worst of all races and making cruelty their birthmark. I could see it in their dark eyes, their disdain for my pallid skin (they knew why their skin was bronzed, and if they did not, then they had a gut feeling, deep inside, that told them "Don't trust his fair skin"). I could feel it in the hills and forests, a heartless presence of vanished Indian Gods looking at me with avenging eyes and frightening me as if revenge for the deeds of my ancestors was due and forthcoming.
The slope of the hill increased and trees became fewer as the footpath crawled over the ridge of the hill. Gamelote sprouted downhill on both sides of the hill as a prickly green fur falling away into the crevases of neighboring hills. Dark and far away, the hilltop showed itself against a hazy blue sky — and there it was, a patch of clay smudged onto one side with a small black dot suspended in its center: Guaicaipuro's cave. The fierce and indomitable Caribe Indian chieftain's cave was a known landmark among the townspeople, but that day we knew something they did not. We knew about Guaicaipuro's gold.
History books did not lie; they could not; they were printed with the authorization of the Ministry of Education, and I had seen the Ministry's building at the capital, gigantic and majestic, an official repository of our national wisdom. I had brought my history book to the mango tree where we always met; an old tire hanging from a long rope made that tree ours. Our Mango stood on a very steep hill and swinging from its tire was to slip gravity's bondage, arching high above the terrain, the rope taut and below, flashing in a green blur, myriad grass blades pointing their spires at us. We sat on the thick and moist grass in the big mango's shade, the empty tire gently swaying as a giant pendulum, listening to us through its empty circle.
"It says here the Spaniards killed Guaicaipuro because they wanted to know where he got his gold from."
Francisco and Ernesto looked at me with great attention; Chucho lay on his back chewing on a grass blade and looking at the spotted mangoes above, his thoughts among them. I paged through the book looking for a new statement of government authorized truth, and I found it.
"Here it says our town was well known during the Conquistadores time by its gold. A gold mine existed somewhere around here back then."
Ernesto scratched his head, "I don't remember anybody mentioning anything about gold mines. The only things in this town were coffee and mangoes."
My history book lay in my hands, a gospel of irrefutable and official proof, "It's right here. The Conquistadores had a gold mine in this town. They killed Guaicaipuro for it."
"What happened to it?" Francisco voice was neither amazed nor cynical; it was just a voice of sincere curiosity.
"I don't know. Maybe the whereabouts were kept secret. Maybe the location was lost during the wars of independence, you know; the Spaniards probably never told anybody where they got their gold from."
Ernesto smiled from ear to ear, his black eyes shining like polished obsidian rocks deep inside the well of his eye sockets. "It would be neat to find that gold mine."
Ernesto's words were what I was waiting for and without hesitation I let my deductions— children of my imagination, come out, "I bet you that Guaicaipuro's cave is the entrance to that gold mine."
My words stiffened their necks, made their eyes grow rounder, even made Chucho stop looking at the mangos hanging from the branches above. Silence stepped among us, as if a great and gigantic truth had been uttered, as if a prophecy of dire consequences had been revealed, as if a national secret of presidential dimensions had been carelessly blurted in public. Francisco broke the expectant silence with words of wisdom, "I know people who have been there, and they haven't seen any gold mine." Ernesto and Chucho's eyes turned in my direction, waiting for my response to the challenge.
"They did not see it because they were not looking for it. We know better."
Time stood in suspended expectation while Francisco, Ernesto and Chucho let my amazing conclusions sink into their minds. A smile of understanding and triumph flowered on their lips: it was so obvious that it was hard to believe that nobody had found it before. Now we shared a secret and were partners in adventure. With great diligence, as Conquistadores preparing a long journey in search of gold, we made our preparations for an expedition to reach the cave perched atop the hill overlooking our town. Everybody would bring a knapsack; Francisco was to bring a machete even though there was an accessible trail. The machete was more of a weapon than a tool. If we found the gold, how could we protect it? I was going to bring the rope my dad used for trimming trees, just in case we had to descend into a mine shaft. Ernesto would bring his canteen loaded with Pepsi-Cola, and the flashlight out of his dad's truck. Chucho promised to bring a small pick and a shovel his mother used for working in her geraniums. Swearing great secrecy, with the solemn seriousness of young boys embarking on the greatest adventure ever, we parted company that evening, our minds full of golden fantasies and dreams, our hearts excitingly thumping with the anxiety of discovery and the fear of yet-to-be-seen ghosts.
From my room I had a view of the hill where Guaicaipuro's cave was nested. Looking through the window panes I could see the dark and massive hill jutted out of the landscape pressing its dark presence against a horizon illuminated by a distant electric storm. Long and jagged lightning streaks and fuzzy flashes of light clearly delineated the curved lines of the hill which sat as a king among smaller hills, its entrails rich with bloodied gold and the dry bones of Indians and Spaniards. A rooster crowned and dogs barked somewhere out of the unfathomable darkness. The veil of a glowing and translucent fog shrouded the street lamps in front of my house and made their lights softly blend into an absolute blackness. It was late but I could not sleep as the excitement of the yet-to-come day was too much for my nerves. As the hands of the clock on the night stand moved forward, minute by minute, tick by tick, slowly spinning in their safe world enclosed beyond the clock's cracked face glass, my mind slipped into drowsiness and oblivion.
Lying in bed, tucked under its covers, my reality diffused itself into unconsciousness but did not reach complete sleep. Reality and dreams met in that borderline between being half awake and half asleep, both mingling and losing their proper identities, reality and dreams creating a living world of the possible and the impossible, both coexisting in the confused state of a mind suspended in semi consciousness.
Steel glittered atop the gamelote. Spaniards in steel and leather moved through the grass, their helmets just above it and their archebusses, crossbows and swords parting the sharp leaves, stems trampled under heavy boots. Leather and steel protected these men. Gold and untold reaches motivated them. They moved through the grass, silently, their weapons at the ready, their mastiffs leashed. The Spaniards were quietly converging on a lonely wisp of white smoke lazily curling up ahead somewhere in the gamelote field; a Caribe settlement had to be there; maybe Guaicaipuro, the fearsome chief, the scourge of the Spaniards, was at the foot of the smoke column. Indian women and children worked and played at the camp while the men, resting from the hunt, lay in their hammocks, placidly rocking themselves in their straw huts, pleasantly talking in voices which mimicked a bird's song.
A woman screamed, then another. Archebusses detonated and flashes of fire came from the edge of the gamelote. Steel and leather rushed into the camp, a wave of terror and destruction flooding the Indians with misery and death. Well-tempered Spanish swords slashed brown flesh which bled red, as red as European blood. Soldiers reloaded. More flashes. Clouds of acrid bluish smoke drifted across the camp carrying away the agony and the souls of the Caribe. The great mastiffs were on the loose dragging lifeless bronzed bodies with their powerful jaws, jerking them like empty flower sacks, collar bones crushed by their strong teeth. Guaicaipuro stood on his feet with a spear in his hand, but crossbow bolts had met his naked body. He kneeled down, one knee at a time, holding the spear in front of him. His hut burned with a rage, and he remained on his knees with the spear in his hand and looking at the Spaniards with cold eyes and without uttering a word of pain. The hut collapsed and Guicaipuro disappeared in a whirl of smoke and fire.
Screams, blood, fire, smoke, dogs of war, open flesh, archebusses spitting a death shrouded in flashes of red and yellow, and I was there, watching. I stood close to a soldier who was reloading his weapon; our eyes met and I recognized him: he was my father. Reality and dream clashed without a clear victory for either. My father is a Spaniard, my mother too, and their parents were Spaniards whose Iberian roots reached beyond the time of the Romans. My father is a carpenter, and a good one, and a gentle man, but his blood, and my blood, is the same blood as the Conquistador— maybe not— I cannot picture my father slaughtering Indians or anyone, but the truth is our people killed Guaicaipuro. Guaicaipuro's blood survives in Francisco; still, Francisco and I both play in the big mango's shade. My father finished reloading and moved forward; he shouldered his weapon, aiming it at a group of cowering women and children, and he fired; an old woman dropped to the ground with a crimson blotch sprouting on her naked chest. I place my hand on his shoulder and he turned around; in a detached manner he pronounced those latin words which garnish the modern Spanish coat of arms, Plus Ultra, and which my mother told me means más allá or further beyond, beyond the frontiers. What kind of riddle was this? Images and sounds faded as my mind tried to find the significance of those words, Plus Ultra, beyond the frontiers, Plus Ultra, beyond the frontiers . . . Plus Ultra . . . beyond the . . . frontiers.
The trail came upon a blackened plateau covered with ashes, the gloomy relic of a recent wild fire. Bright green shrubs haphazardly dotted the undulating terrain. The fresh greenery juxtaposed to the blackened ground had a quality of life after death, of vitality from where only decay had existed. We walked over the ashes, our feet raising smells of burnt life and earth, lifting a fine gray dust which had been green and hard gamelote.
"Look at that," Ernesto said while pointing to a dry and burned runlet. An assortment of darkened bones lay on a small pile over the ashy ground. We stood in a circle around the pile and Francisco knelt to pick the biggest skull up in the bunch. He brought it close to his eyes, the dark remains gently swaying, rotating in his fingers, the empty sockets making a mockery of life.
"It's from a dog," concluded Francisco. He tossed the skull back to the ground where it bounced among the other bones, the jaw separating from the upper skull.
"The smaller ones must have been her puppies. She got caught in the fire and burnt with her litter."
He stood and wiped his ashy hands on his pants. Without saying anything else he faced the hill and went back on the trail, unaffected by the presence of death. An unwieldy sorrow pressed on me as I looked at the now scattered, lifeless bones half buried in the ashes. The mother barking and her puppies yelping; terror coming alive in their brown eyes; the orange flames licking their paws and fur; her puppies trying to find cover under their agonizing mother to no avail. Mother and offspring burnt alive, yelping in agony to the deaf hills and uncaring Indian gods. With a grieving heart I followed Francisco and Ernesto in our quest for Guaicaipuro's gold.
Guaicaipuro and his wives and his children were burnt alive by the Spaniards. I remembered my father loading his firearm and using it; I remember Guaicaipuro burning under his hut. I, who carry the blood of the conquistador who killed Guaicaipuro and his people without blinking an eye, was getting squeamish over a burnt bitch and her litter. History was glorious, the invincible Spanish infantryman conquering a new world for his king and his God, destroying a savage race and bringing the enlightenment of Christianity to the survivors. Europe had become too small for the Spanish Empire, gold was needed to outfit new armies and armadas, common men saw a land ripe with opportunities and devoid of stagnant nobility, and they came searching for fame and riches but instead found misery and suffering and death, all for the good of their king, of Spain, and of the Holly, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. Plus Ultra, beyond the frontiers. But reality was harsh; blackened bones and the fact of irreversible death were enough to make me nauseated. But were not enough to deter me from looking for gold.
The clay smudge became bigger; the black dot took the shape of a vertical fissure. We were getting closer to the cave and our excitement grew as fast as our memory of dark bones became extinguished by the spangle of bright gold. Expectations ran wild and unrestrained in our young minds: finding the centuries old entrance to the mine; finding the bones of Spaniards lying mingled with rusted armor and broken swords; finding gold scattered on the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling, all waiting to be taken. The trail became an almost vertical furrow which expired at the mouth of the cave. Francisco pulled his machete out of his knapsack and led the rest of us as we charged up the trail, ready to confront the ghosts of the Caribes and the Spaniards.
We entered the cave dragging behind us a silent cloud of orange clay dust. Standing four abreast, we took charge of Guaicaipuro's cave. The cave was a clay chamber no more than fifteen feet deep; it looked like a furrow for a giant armadillo. Trash littered the ground: crushed beer cans, cigarette butts and packages, empty rum bottles, dry human droppings, and flattened condoms among the most notorious. Slowly, we spread in all directions and faced the walls, kicked the trash, touched the clay, and looked at each other with disappointment clearly drawn on our faces. Guaicaipuro's cave was a dusty hole in the side of a hill, a cave of thieves, a trash dump, and an illusion in the adventure-hungry mind of four young boys.
Facing a wall, Chucho unzipped his pants; his stream of urine was quickly soaked by the dry clay. His sarcastic voice rose above the noise of his gushing stream, "Ain't nothing in here." As if Chucho's actions had been a prearranged signal, the three of us also faced the wall and followed his actions. The only sound inside the cave was the rushing stream of liquid splashing against the earthen walls and trickling on the ground between our legs. One by one we zipped our pants and faced the center of the cave, our faces looking at each other. I felt like a fool. Gold and Indians and Conquistadores and adventure, dreams crashed and shattered against the hard reality of a hole full of trash; imagination cannot overpower the facts unless insanity rules; inevitably, reality will expose our dearest visions and will show us the futility of our dreams.
The descent from the hill was a silent one, our high expectations miserly fulfilled; the humble old tire hanging from the mango called to us: it seemed a better way to spend the rest of the day.
That evening, after the sun had fallen beyond the serrated outline of the western hills under traces of suffused red and yellows, a flutter of wings could be heard coming from inside Guaicaipuro's cave. One . . . two . . . then three, then many more, bats emerged from the cave's mouth, fluttering like drunken creatures into the advancing night. Inside, bats were appearing through a small shaft opening hidden high among mounds of ocher clay. Hundreds of bats streamed out searching for the freedom of the night, coming from the entrails of the hill rich with bloodied gold and the dry bones of Indians and Spaniards.