Chapter 23

It had been many years since Benjamin had seen a white man. He had stopped keeping track of the years because he knew that years meant nothing to him. He would be on the earth until it ceased to exist. He continued to speak to himself, every day, in English, Spanish and the basic French that he knew. He had decided long ago that it would be best to remember all three in case he ever ran across a white man again, although he had seen no sign of a white man since he landed on the big island and made his escape from Columbus' ships.

He survived by hunting and gathering edible plants. Many times he had eaten a plant after seeing an animal eat it, only to find that it was poison to him. Many times he had suffered from eating a poisonous plant. Several times he got so ill that he knew the plant would have killed an ordinary man, but he did not die.

He crossed a range of mountains and the land started to get greener as he traveled west. He wondered if he would be able to walk to India. He had not found an ocean in all his travels. It had been many, many years since he saw another human. The stories about him had grow to where the natives were afraid to even let him see them. Once he stumbled upon a village and all of the inhabitants ran away and never returned to the village.

As he continued westward, he came across a forest that contained the largest trees that he had ever seen. They were evergreens, but they were huge. He put his arms around one of them and his reach was only a fraction of the tree's girth. He knew that just one tree would make many houses back in England. The land was unlike anyplace that he had ever been. In the evening a dense fog would come in from the west and soak the trees. In the morning, the fog would dissipate and the trees would drip the moisture left by the fog for hours.

He continued westward cautiously. He wondered if he would eventually walk into an area where the fog was so dense that further progress westward would be impossible. He came across a fast moving creek and saw salmon fighting to get upstream. Several bears stood in the water trying to catch the salmon as they jumped out of the water. Benjamin walked down stream to get away from the bears and made traps to snare what salmon he could and also speared several of the big fish. He dressed the fish and smoked them as the natives had taught him many years ago. He feasted on a large salmon cooked fresh that night. When he had smoked as many as he could carry, he continued on his westward journey. He was determined to reach India.

The trees started to thin a bit. One morning he noticed sea gulls and wondered if somehow these birds had evolved to become land based. Benjamin rested one night in a valley outside of the forest of the big trees. He made his supper on the smoked fish. In the morning he would continue his journey to India.

The next morning he climbed an small mountain. As he gazed out to the west he watched as the fog started to thin. In the distance he could make out whales jumping out of the water. As the sun burned away the last of the fog, he saw water as far as he could see. He sat down, his heart filled with sorrow. He had come to the end of this new land. He was sure that England, the home that he would never see again, was across this great sea. He knew now that he could not walk to India. Columbus had been wrong. You could not reach India by sailing westward.

The next morning he decided to follow the coastline, traveling south. He traveled for many days, not even seeing any signs of the natives. The water of the sea was cold and rough. He had to stay away from the shore as it was very rocky and made his travels hard.

One morning he saw smoke in the direction that he was traveling and started toward it. It had been so long since he had seen another human; he had to confirm to himself that there were still humans on earth.

Suddenly he heard voices. The voices seemed to be approaching him. He quickly hid behind a rock outcropping and waited, hoping to catch a glimpse of the natives. As the voices got closer he heard them speaking Spanish. He became fearful. The Spaniards had returned.

The voices belonged to soldiers. They were dressed like no Spanish soldiers he had ever seen, although he was sure that the dress had changed over the years. Although he did not know how long he had been in this new land, he knew that it had to be over two hundred years.

The soldiers stopped to rest on the other side of the huge rock that shielded him from their view. They started to laugh and kid each other. Although his Spanish was still sketchy, he could make out what they were saying. They discussed the problems that they were having getting enough natives to build the mission. He heard them call the natives Indians. Had he somehow made it to India?

Eventually the talk turned to the complaints they had about being in this strange land away from Spain. One of the soldiers said that they shouldn't complain as they had an Indian woman in their bed every night. Benjamin got the impression, from their conversation that the priests had said that it was not a sin to rape the Indian women since they were sub-human. The priests made every attempt to convert them, although they were sure that it was impossible for an Indian to get to Heaven. The priests hoped that if they converted the Indians that they would become docile and accept their role as slaves.

After the Spaniards left, heading back in the direction they had come from, he decided to follow them. He intended to see if the Spaniards were really building a permanent settlement. Benjamin stayed out of sight far behind the soldiers and kept to the brush as much as possible. In late afternoon the soldiers reached their camp. He climbed a hill and surveyed the activity below him.

The camp was a semi-permanent affair. It probably housed no more than fifty soldiers. At the edge of the camp, a building was being erected. He saw that all of the laborers were Indians. Several soldiers used whips to hurry the work along and once an Indian was taken to the front of the building and was executed by a soldier with a lance. It was obvious that the building was to be a church. In the evening a large group of Indian women were taken into the soldier's camp. All though the night he could hear the cries of the women as the soldiers raped them repeatedly.

In the morning Benjamin made his way north. He was sick to his stomach after seeing the way the Spaniards treated the Indians. He had to put distance between the Spaniards and him. He traveled over a month without seeing anyone. He knew that the Indians watched him at times, although he never saw them.

One morning he awoke at dawn and ate some berries that he had found. After he had eaten, he climbed a small mountain to survey the terrain before continuing. In the distance he saw a small group of soldiers marching along the beach. They had a wagon pulled by a horse. He watched for a while, trying to figure out why they were so far from the camp. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in the woods. The soldiers were walking toward the thing that had caught his eye. Suddenly a large band of Indians swept out of the woods. Because of the surprise and the fact that they were outnumbered, the battle was over in a short time.

The Indians went through the soldier's belongings, taking anything that they could use. A few of the Spaniards were still alive and were killed while they lay on the ground. Benjamin decided to go down and try to see what the soldiers had been carrying on the wagon. He crept toward the Indians being careful to stay out of sight. He did not see the Indian that had been left behind as a lookout in case there were other soldiers close by.

A lance came out of the woods, striking him in the chest. The lance pierced his heart. The pain was as bad as anything he had ever felt. The Indian raced to him to finish him off. Benjamin grabbed the lance and pulled it out of his chest. He dropped on his knees and waited for the wound to heal. The Indian stopped when he saw him pull out the lance. In a little over a minute the wound healed and he stood up. The Indian started babbling and ran down to the band that had killed the soldiers. After telling them about the God who could not die, they all ran into the woods. He could hear them running for a long time. They made no attempt the hide their movements. They had heard stories about this God and they were sure that he would follow them and kill them.

Benjamin walked to the wagon. There were no papers on the wagon only a box that had a stout lock on it. He searched all of the soldiers and found no papers on them. The horse had calmed down and was standing as if waiting to be told what to do next. Benjamin found a large rock and after a considerable amount of work knocked the hasp off of the box. When he opened the box his eyes grew large. The box was filled with gold jewelry, ornaments, coins and religious icons. He sat down to think. He had no use for money or gold. But, then again, if the Spanish were here to stay, one day he might need money. He decided to hide the box in a safe place in case he ever needed the gold.

He found a shallow cave half way up the small mountain and dragged the box into the cave. He pushed and pulled the box to the back of the cave. He knew that if he did not conceal the cave, someone would find the gold someday. He worked for a week dragging rocks to the cave to hide the entrance. After he had filled the entrance with rocks he covered the rocks with dirt and planted some bushes in front of the hidden entrance. He looked around for a significant landmark so that he could find the cave if he had to. The mountain that concealed the gold had a weird crack in it. He would use that crack to identify the mountain. He did not know that he had put the gold in a mountain that sat on a fault line.

He went back down to the wagon, unhitched the horse and got on the horse's back. It felt good to have a horse under him again. The horse was not a draft horse; it was bred to be a riding horse. The soldiers had apparently used the horse to perform whatever task was required of it. It was even possible that the Spanish only had riding horses with them. He turned the horse toward the northeast. He had to get away from the coast. It seemed that the Spanish were only settling the coasts of the new land.

Chapter 24