using his pet name. “You can go to my papa’s home in Toledo. He’ll hide you. We can join you there.”
Adan, who had been standing before the open hearth, now moved to the oaken table where he sought to help Pedro gather his belongings. “That may work for awhile, dona Catalina,” he said, “and it’s good that you have a place to go. But they’ll follow you and compel Pedro’s return. He has a few days—perhaps a few weeks at most. Maybe your father can help you get to the coast where you can make use of the license for overseas travel you obtained a few years ago. That license may be your ticket to freedom. Anyhow,” Adan said, “we’ve no time to talk. They’ll be here at first light. Take only what’s required.”
“Go, Pero,” Catalina begged. “We’ll follow you.”
“They won’t let you,” Pedro replied. “That’s how they’ll get me to return.”
“We’ll find a way to get them out,” Adan promised. “We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. I’ve got mules waiting below the walls.”
“Go, Tio,” Luis urged while putting a comforting arm around his aunt’s shoulder. “We’ll meet you in Toledo. Two days only. Mi Tia, Ana, Diego, mi tocayo, Luis and Lucia. We’ll meet you in two days!”
“At the Pena del Rio,” replied Pedro who was at his best when designing and executing a plan, “you’ll have to avoid the Moorish bridges and the river is the most shallow there. I’ll have lines strung across the Tagus at the great rock. We’ll use them to steady the cart and to pull you across. Look for the towers of Malpica, Luis. Use them to guide you,” he stated emphatically as he held and kissed his wife for the final time. “Day after tomorrow, Luis,” he said as he stuffed several items including his journal into a leather bag. “Wait for light, Luis,” he added as he and Adan moved though the open doorway. “Wait for light.”
***
As Catalina and Luis approached the river, they traversed the barren slopes of the Castilian meseta, a high tableland of fertile plains, broken here and there by a lone olive tree, piled gray stones, sparse scrub, and a tangle of undergrowth all dusty-gray but excellent cover for game. As they rode in the darkness, Catalina confirmed what Luis had been hearing for some period—hounds in full cry apparently in pursuit of game. They tried to assure themselves that these were the sounds of an early hunting party, but both knew this to be unlikely. They were, they feared, the ones being hunted.
Catalina and Luis had for some period been picking their way through a riverine forest of tamarisk and willow in their attempt to reach the river. Luis, who was holding his three-year-old cousin of the same name, flailed at the oxen with his right hand. The cart, which was filled with the two adults and a locust of children, rose and fell with great jolts as it bumped and rocked its way towards the steep bank.
Suddenly—almost miraculously—they emerged from the tangle and were at the water’s edge where they were confronted by a raging torrent now swollen with rain. Luis dismounted and entered the slower water that flowed near the bank, testing its depth with his oaken pole.
“Here, Tia,” he said urgently. “We can enter the water here.”
“How do you know this is the right place, Luis?” his aunt asked in a whispered tone as he reentered the cart. “Your Tio said to wait for light, and we don’t have the towers to guide us.”
“It will be all right, Tia,” Luis replied. “We may be a little above the rock, but the current will carry us downstream where the lines will stop us.”
“No, Luis,” his aunt said, holding her son Luis and his four-year-old sister Lucia to her side. “Let’s wait. It will only be a short time till light. Then we can see.”
“We have no choice, Tia,” Luis replied as he prodded the oxen with the point of his long goad. “They’re behind us. We’ve got to go!”
The oxen were balky. The sound and the smell of the muddy water, which carried a river of debris, frightened them. They required the whip to compel them to enter the raging stream, a dark swirling torrent which they could now also feel, taste and see . . . and it was terrible. Luis immediately realized he had made the wrong decision, that he had chosen the wrong time and place which was more than two harquebus shots above the spot suggested to him by his uncle. His frightened beasts, tethered to an oaken shaft that was but an extension of the framework of the cart’s body, plunged into a deep hole. His beasts, with only their horns and eyes visible, bellowed with fright as they sought firm ground. Luis again entered the water where, holding on to the horns of the nearest beast, he attempted to turn his team toward shore. Momentarily, the docile animals quieted and began to turn with the current. The cart, however, snagged on an obstruction, lurched forward, and then overturned, dragging its massive beasts below the surface. The wooden frame and the bows of their harness, which had assured their bondage and servitude, now guaranteed their death.
As the cart overturned in the intense current—with the frame yet bumping and reeling as it dragged along the ragged bottom—Diego was thrown into the turgid stream. He was pressed against one of the wheels, a solid barrier of three pieces, which was attached to the one axle. He struggled to remain upright as he held onto his five-year-old sister, Ana, who had entered the water on his side of the cart.
“My babies! My babies!” His mother cried as she desperately flailed in the raging water. Diego could not see her for both she and Lucia were on the other side of the second wheel.
“I’ve got Ana, Mama,” he cried as he fought to hold on to her. “I’ve got Ana.”
“And Luis?” she screamed.
“I don’t know, Mama,” he cried as he searched the water around him. “I don’t see them.”
Diego, six-years-old, and the oldest of the four children, held Ana around her waist as the water worked to tear her from his grasp. In an instant, the rushing water pulled her thin body from beneath his arm.
“Diego,” she said quietly. Just his name. Nothing else.
“Hold on to my neck, Ana!” he cried as he tried to work his way around the wheel, his move encumbered by his hold on her wrist. “Hold on to me, Ana!” he yelled in desperation. “Don’t let go!” he cried as the first light of dawn came up on his face.
As he inched his way around the ancient wheel, the Stygian water filled his mouth and nostrils with mud, and he feared that both he and Ana would also be swept away. It was beginning to become light now, and he thought he could see the distant shore, although the muddy water which cascaded over his back and shoulders made it difficult to see. Ana’s thin arms encircled his neck while the cart reeled and groaned, turning this way and that as it moved down the streambed. In the dim light he could see the oxen’s yoke. One of the two bow-shaped pieces of wood which had been inserted from beneath the neck of one of the oxen had broken. Its occupant was now gone, and hanging from below the horizontal bar was a hook to which a draw line was still attached. He released his grip on Ana’s wrist and reached for it, hoping to put it to some use. “Hold on, Ana,” he begged. “papa will get us.”
As he reached for the rope, Ana began to lose her hold on him. He could feel her small hands grasping and tearing at him as she slowly slid from her place on his back. And when he turned, he could see her, a beautiful elfin doll, who appeared to be suspended on a cushion of air, the cold black water revealing a deep gash on her forehead. He reached for her. She looked back at him with eyes seemingly filled with wonder, said nothing, and then she was gone.
***
