wandering at the bottom, its walls were multicolored, shimmering with gold and red and blue and dancing green. Lovely trees, bent from the wind, adorned its rim and sometimes tried to creep down the sides, their tall crowns like tiny tips of fern, so far away they were. And as the afternoon sun moved across the deep gash of the canyon, it threw weird shadows upon pinnacles far below, and new colors emerged as if some great power were redecorating what was already a masterpiece.
'A miracle!' Cardenas gasped. 'God has prepared this wonder to show us His power.' They had discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and Garcilaco felt himself growing inches taller when Army-Master Cardenas said with affection, as he ruffled the boy's hair: 'Remember, this one found it. Let's christen it El Canon de Garcilaco.' There was cheering, but in the midst of the celebration the boy looked eastward, for he could not forget that the true adventure still waited there, in what Cabeza had described as the land of many lands.
Cardenas and his swift-marching men required three months for this trip to the canyon, and when they rejoined the main party they found that it had acquired a stranger, to whom
Garcilaco took an instant dislike. Tins man, in his thirties, was a good-looking Indian whose height, facial tattooing and turban headdress identified him as belonging to some tribe far from Cibola, perhaps a Pawnee from north and east. He had been captured by the Zurii of Cibola in a raid years ago and was now a slave, except that he seemed more clever than those who held him. He had a glib manner, a sly, knowing look, and Garcilaco often saw him calculating how to play this white captain off against that Indian chief, and it was clear that he did not propose to stay a slave indefinitely.
He was called El Turco, and nothing else, because the soldiers who found him thought that he looked the way a Turk should, although none had ever seen one, and if the boy intuitively disliked El Turco, the Indian reciprocated with intensity, for he saw in Garcilaco the kind of innocent intelligence which might quickly pierce the lies he was about to tell. El Turco had but one ambition, and everything else was subservient to it: trick Coronado into marching toward the empty east, where his army would perish in the desolate wastelands. When confusion was at its peak, he would escape and travel north to his home village of Quivira, whose valleys and running streams he remembered each night of his captivity.
And the tales he told! He started cautiously, for like Fray Marcos, whom he resembled in certain ways, he always wanted to know first what the Spaniards hoped for, then he tailored his reports to please them. For example, after listening closely to every word the soldiers spoke he learned that coins were of extreme value, but he had never seen one. Cautiously he began: 'We have coins, you know.' When pressed as to what form his coins took, he guessed blindly: 'Colored stones,' and then withdrew into his shell as the Spaniards ridiculed him. To demonstrate how foolish he was, the men showed him coins of silver and gold, and in that instant those two metals became part of his arsenal.
To a different group of soldiers he said casually one day, using signs and grunts and a smattering of Spanish words: 'In my land the great chief has a staff made of something that glistens in the sunlight . . . yellowish . . . very heavy.' He did not at this time mention the word gold, nor did he again refer to the chief's staff, but he could almost see his rumors whirling about the camp, so that when Cardenas came casually by to ask, as if the question were totally unimportant, in your land, have you any hard things like this?' as he tapped on his steel sword, the Indian said: 'Oh, yes! But in my tribe only our big chiefs are allowed to own it. Glistens in the sunlight . '. . yellowish . . . very heavy.'
At first Cardenas affected not to have noticed the description, but
'A miracle!' Cardenas gasped. 'God has prepared this wonder to show us His power.' They had discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and Garcilaco felt himself growing inches taller when Army-Master Cardenas said with affection, as he ruffled the boy's hair: 'Remember, this one found it. Let's christen it El Canon de Garcilaco.' There was cheering, but in the midst of the celebration the boy looked eastward, for he could not forget that the true adventure still waited there, in what Cabeza had described as the land of many lands.
Cardenas and his swift-marching men required three months for this trip to the canyon, and when they rejoined the main party they found that it had acquired a stranger, to whom
Garcilaco took an instant dislike. Tins man, in his thirties, was a good-looking Indian whose height, facial tattooing and turban headdress identified him as belonging to some tribe far from Cibola, perhaps a Pawnee from north and east. He had been captured by the Zurii of Cibola in a raid years ago and was now a slave, except that he seemed more clever than those who held him. He had a glib manner, a sly, knowing look, and Garcilaco often saw him calculating how to play this white captain off against that Indian chief, and it was clear that he did not propose to stay a slave indefinitely.
He was called El Turco, and nothing else, because the soldiers who found him thought that he looked the way a Turk should, although none had ever seen one, and if the boy intuitively disliked El Turco, the Indian reciprocated with intensity, for he saw in Garcilaco the kind of innocent intelligence which might quickly pierce the lies he was about to tell. El Turco had but one ambition, and everything else was subservient to it: trick Coronado into marching toward the empty east, where his army would perish in the desolate wastelands. When confusion was at its peak, he would escape and travel north to his home village of Quivira, whose valleys and running streams he remembered each night of his captivity.
And the tales he told! He started cautiously, for like Fray Marcos, whom he resembled in certain ways, he always wanted to know first what the Spaniards hoped for, then he tailored his reports to please them. For example, after listening closely to every word the soldiers spoke he learned that coins were of extreme value, but he had never seen one. Cautiously he began: 'We have coins, you know.' When pressed as to what form his coins took, he guessed blindly: 'Colored stones,' and then withdrew into his shell as the Spaniards ridiculed him. To demonstrate how foolish he was, the men showed him coins of silver and gold, and in that instant those two metals became part of his arsenal.
To a different group of soldiers he said casually one day, using signs and grunts and a smattering of Spanish words: 'In my land the great chief has a staff made of something that glistens in the sunlight . . . yellowish . . . very heavy.' He did not at this time mention the word gold, nor did he again refer to the chief's staff, but he could almost see his rumors whirling about the camp, so that when Cardenas came casually by to ask, as if the question were totally unimportant, in your land, have you any hard things like this?' as he tapped on his steel sword, the Indian said: 'Oh, yes! But in my tribe only our big chiefs are allowed to own it. Glistens in the sunlight . '. . yellowish . . . very heavy.'
At first Cardenas affected not to have noticed the description, but
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