LC 02 - Questionable Remains by Beverly Connor Read Free Book Online Page B

She shook her head and
reached for her map to the first stop on her trip: Brian
Parker's sixteenth-century Indian village.

     

Chapter 4
    PIAQUAY ORDERED HIS men to set down the heavy ransom.
He stood, grim faced, and waited for the devils. Concealed beneath
deerskins on litters were the most treasured objects in his chiefdom. He heard the sounds, like birds: the calls of his scouts warning of the arrival. They were coming; marching the stolen women
and children, they were coming.
    Esteban Calderon licked his lips when he saw the litters laden
with treasure. He wanted to savor the moment he removed the
hides, revealing the silver, gold, and diamonds. He was moments
away from being wealthy, a few short weeks away from returning
to Spain a prosperous man. He pictured himself riding down the
streets of Madrid lined with cheering throngs of people, the iron
shoes of his horse announcing his presence with every step, banners flying. Already he was thinking how he was going to keep it
to himself. He watched his men, tired, gaunt, and as hungry for
gold as they were hungry for food, hot in their armor, bitten unrelentingly by the insects of this sweltering world with its dark shadowy forests. And there was that stupid Pardo to outmaneuver.
Calderon would have to exercise care if he was to keep his treasure.
    Calderon sat astride his horse, looking down at Piaquay, who
was naked except for the doeskin wrap that hung like a skirt from
his waist to his thighs. He stood with arms folded over a smooth,
hairless chest, his dark skin tattooed with intricate dark blue and red designs, snakelike down his arms, around his neck, and on his
chest like a sunburst. There were bands, like flowers, around his
legs and pointed designs along his abdomen. His black hair,
streaked with gray, flowed down his back, except for one lock,
which was tied in a topknot like a horse's tail atop his head. The
chief's only jewelry was copper spools in his ears. Calderon dreaded dismounting and facing the chief,• he would have to look up to
him because the Indian was a good head taller than Calderon. He
simply would not. He would stay on his horse and make the
Indian reveal the ransom to him, treasure by treasure, as if he were
Calderon the King.

    Pia quay saw his family and the families of his villagers tied
together and led like beasts by the devils. His sister was holding
on to her son's hand. His wife, beside her, holding their young
daughter in her arms. Both stood still, like trees in the eye of a
storm. Soon he would be rid of these foreign devils, if they kept
their word.
    Calderon called for the interpreters. Three of them. It was a nuisance, but there was no alternative. The savages had too many
languages. He told the first to tell the chief to bring the treasure
before him and show him the bounty. The first interpreter told the
second, who told the third, who relayed the message to the chief.
    Piaquay stepped forward and motioned for his men to bring the
litters. When the litters were sitting on the ground before the
devil, Piaquay removed the hides, revealing the ransom: twenty
sheets of mica, thirty sheets of copper, five clay pots filled with
freshwater pearls, five baskets of flint, ten baskets of conch shells,
fifty beaver hides, twenty bear hides. To Piaquay it was an enormous wealth, but worth the return of his family. His chiefdom
once had a thousand times the wealth represented on these litters,
but in a mere ten seasons the sickness, the precursor to the appearance of the devils, had decimated his chiefdom to only one village.
What manner of power had they that they could send out invisible warriors to weaken his people so before they arrived? While his
braves revealed the treasure, Piaquay looked for the first time into
the face of the devil sitting on his beast before him.

    Esteban Calderon stared at the treasure in front of him, eyes
wide, his brain trying to make the copper turn into gold,