Song of Tides

Twenty-One

 Twenty-One  15 June 1569 The ship is loaded, its hold heavy with the Indians’ gold. Even now the soldiers are boarding. A bedraggled lot they are, their scabbed, bony arms poking from torn uniforms, barely able to heft rusted weapons. The queens, Doña Antonia and the others, cluster together on deck, comforting each other. And searching seaward. She’s out there, Aesha is, watching, waiting. She knew. After we sifted through the smoldering wreckage and found their stores of silver and gold, what then? How long would we last in this foreign land? With the Indians fled, why would we stay? What else could we do but leave? It was to no avail that the soldiers made chase. The Indians simply melted into the bay in numbers too small to be worth the effort. When, out of frustration, the Captain hacked his way through the jungle for hours, his only reward was an abandoned hut. We still see them, a canoe gliding in the distance, the smoke from a cooking fire. They wait patiently for the day they know will come. This day. I try to turn my eyes to Salamanca, to the Spain I’ve yearned for so long. Instead, my gaze keeps turning back. Such a fool I am. Such 322 joseph fools we all are. The wealth we carry is as illusory as our victory. We leave behind the only riches that matter, the scorched land that has already begun to renew itself, the tide that will ever wash the shores afresh. I take with me naught but the memory of what could have been and wasn’t. ...