In the year 1549, the ship carrying young Hernando De Escalante Fontaneda wrecked on the Florida coast. The survivors were captured by Indians who proceeded to sacrifice them all, except for Fontaneda, who somehow learned enough of their language to be useful. During the seventeen years that followed, he learned several native dialects and served as a translator for the Calusa king, Carlos.
Kismet was already familiar with much of the story; Fontaneda’s memoir of his captivity was a matter of public record. But the book he now read contained a slightly different recollection of those events.
During his time with the Calusa, Fontaneda heard many rumors of a magical pool capable of healing grievous injuries and extending life indefinitely — the very thing he claimed had brought Ponce de Leon to the Florida peninsula. But the pool…the Fountain…was far from Carlos’ territory. Fontaneda, a slave and prisoner, had no opportunity to ascertain its location, but he never stopped thinking about it. He even wrote about it in his memoirs, calling it the “River Jordan” and claiming he had never found it. He had even spoken mockingly of the many natives who had believed the legend over the years. ‘So earnestly did they engage in the pursuit, that there remained not a river nor a brook in all Florida, not even lakes and ponds, in which they did not bathe; and to this day they persist in seeking that water, and never are satisfied.”
The claim, written for publication in Spain, was disingenuous. It was true that Fontaneda hadn’t actually found it, but he knew exactly where it was.
Risking the last of his inheritance, he set out once more for the New World, and this time, he brought with him a small army, mercenaries all — outcasts and fugitives, conversos and Moriscos fleeing the persecution of the Inquisition, freed Negroes desperate to make their own fortune and avoid being returned to a life of servitude. The expedition debarked at Saint Augustine sometime around the turn of the 17th century. Fontaneda would have been about seventy-five, far too old to be tramping around the fetid swamps and jungles of the Florida peninsula, especially at a time when surviving to fifty years was an accomplishment.
At first, the expedition traveled through lands inhabited by peoples known to Fontaneda, and whose languages he spoke. But the Spaniard had not come seeking peaceful relations. His forces attacked the village where Carlos’ hoard was kept, and they took the treasure with them as they continued on, intent on finding an even greater prize.
For several days, as they traveled deeper into the interior, the surviving Calusa harried them but after a while, the Indians turned back, content to let the wilderness finish what they had begun. Some of Fontaneda’s men fell prey to wild beasts — panthers, alligators and poisonous snakes. On more than one occasion, the voyagers would awaken to discover some of their number missing, carried away in the night by unseen attackers. Later on, they would find the headless corpses of their comrades, a warning to the survivors.
A warning that went unheeded.
Eight days after the massacre of the Calusa village, their party now reduced by half, they discovered a village of natives living near the shore of a great lake. In the middle of their village, bubbling up from the ground, was a spring of water. The purity of the water and the abundance of healthy plant and domestic animal life, as well as the vigor of the villagers bespoke a single truth; they had found the Fountain.
Yet this spring was clearly not the source. Its potency was diluted; its power nothing like that of which they had heard. The villagers still grew old and died. Fontaneda knew they must continue their search. They entered the village, and demanded to know the source of the waters. When the natives were not forthcoming, the Spaniards slaughtered them and took to living in the village. Soon after, they located a cave entrance in a place revered by the slain villagers, and Fontaneda led the expedition into the dark entrance. The cavern was holy ground for the natives; no human had entered its depths in centuries. Not far inside the cavern, they discovered a miraculous chamber, where fire danced upon the surface of a shimmering pool. The merest taste of the water from the pool invigorated Fontaneda magically stripping away the years and healing his wounds.
Natives who had survived the village massacre fled into the forest, spreading the news of the Spanish atrocities. Ancient tribal feuds were forgotten in the face of the new threat, and several tribes combined their forces to make war with Fontaneda’s army, most of whom died when the attack finally came. Fontaneda and six other survivors fled back into the cavern.
They fortified their position, setting up traps to protect themselves, although none of the natives dared enter the sacred cavern. After a long period of time, they decided to venture from their refuge, only to discover that the village had been burned to the ground, and overtaken by an unnaturally dense thicket of foliage. A few of the survivors claimed that the ill fortune of the expedition was evidence of God’s judgment upon them; they were being punished for partaking in such an unholy quest. Had they not been warned, before ever embarking on their endeavor, that the search for life eternal apart from Christianity, was the search for the profane; the will of the Devil, not the will of God? Now, they knew it was true.
The discovery of the Fountain had indeed given them youth and virility, but at great cost. The restoration was useless as long as they were imprisoned in a foreign wilderness. Moreover, many that had drunk of the Fountain's water had perished. The Fountain had not proved to be the source of life eternal for them, but had instead caused death, and quite possibly, damnation.
The decision was finally made; they would return to the shore of the ocean and wait there for ships from the island colonies to arrive. Upon returning to civilization, they would confess their crimes, and remain silent before all others concerning the profane Fountain.
They attempted to reach the coast, but were attacked several times, and forced to retreat once more to the fortified cavern. In the end, only Fontaneda and two comrades, all of them badly wounded, reached the safety of the Fountain chamber. The sparkling waters were a constant temptation; they had only to drink of the unholy water and be healed. His companions held out, refusing the easy path of sin. Hernando however vacillated. Drinking from the Fountain, he immediately felt his body restored to health. His comrades died, cursing his weakness.
For untold years Fontaneda lived alone, at times lapsing into madness because of the virility burning with no outlet, inside him. His magically begotten youth would fail him from time to time, blessing him with long spans of lucidity, but in his weakness he would always return to the cavern, and the restorative waters of the Fountain.
As the Spanish increased their presence in the New World, Fontaneda gained the courage to return to his countrymen. The presence of fellow humans gave him an outlet to his carnal frustration, and his first return was blessed with over a decade of normal existence, married and living as he was accustomed thanks to King Carlos’ treasure stash, but never revealing who he really was, or the secret of the Fountain.
It was at this point that Fontaneda’s account ceased to be a reminiscence of days past, and instead became a day to day record of his life. Kismet, lost in the story, began skimming the sometimes brief entries and soon reached the point in the tale where Fontaneda had made his drunken boast to the colonial governor. The account was not quite verbatim with what he had read in the letter, but sufficiently close to convince Kismet that the author of the diary was the same man that Andrés Rodríguez de Villegas had written of.
Hernando Fontaneda born sometime around 1535, was still alive — still robust and vital — a hundred years later.