Almost no one visits this area of the coast. Sun and storm, both equally cruel, dispute this domain. When the heat rules, sea spray sizzles as it splashes upon the hard-crusted earth: no man’s foot can bear the heat of the fine black sand that penetrates, and desiccates, the strongest leather breeches. The stream bed dries up like the skin of an ailing hawk, and in its meanders agonize the ruins of ancient shipwrecks. The beach is an oven with neither breeze nor shadow; to walk along it, one must fight the suffocating weight of this sun-drenched terrain. To walk this beach is to wish to escape from it, climb the baking dunes, then mistakenly believe it possible to cross on foot the desert separating the shore from the mountain range.
But the desert is as unmarked as the hands of a cadaver, all lines of destiny wiped clean. Everyone knows the stories of shipwrecked men who have perished here (for only disaster can lead a man to this remote territory), turning in hopeless circles, fighting their own shadows; inveighing against them because they do not rise from the sand; imploring them to float like cool phantoms above their owners’ heads; kneeling, finally, to straddle and strangle those implacable ghosts. The brains of the ill-fated melt in this heat, and when that butter-yellow sun no longer rules the coast, the tempest reigns in its stead to complete the task.
A world of spoils awaits the hapless man, still another man who, almost defeated by the sea, hopes to find salvation here: empty coffers and demagnetized compasses, skeletons of ships and carved figureheads recarved by wind and sun to resemble broken phalanxes of petrified squires, a desolate battlefield of statue and shadow: tillers, tattered banners, and sealed green bottles. Cabo de los Desastres, it was called in the ancient maps: the chronicles abound in notices of galleons from the Spice Islands, Cipango, and Cathay sunk with all their treasure, of ships vanished with all hands aboard, their crew of Cadizmen as well as captives of the wars against the Infidel, master and servant made equal by the catastrophes of fate. But as if to compensate they also speak of sailing vessels battered against these rocks because lovers were fleeing in them. And if not the chronicles, then superstition, often an unacknowledged source of the former, says that on stormy nights a flotilla of caravels, more spectral than the fog enveloping them, passes by here, their mainmasts flaming with St. Elmo’s fire, illuminating the livid faces of captive caliphs.
Four men on horseback and eight on foot had returned with the exhausted hounds, confirming the news: this hart had been hunted before. Guzmán, fingering the moustache that fell in two thin plaits to his Adam’s apple, stood in his stirrups and issued commands in rapid succession: ready more hounds than usual, and use only four dogs for each foray; the hunters must be very quiet and strongly discipline their dogs so their growling will not alert the hart.
From his saddle, El Señor pondered the paradox: the timid hart requires more precautions than the pursuit of a courageous, if ingenuous, quarry. Innocent movement, cautious cowardice. Fear is a good defense, he said to himself as he rode forward under the sun, his face hidden beneath the sheltering hood.
They unleashed twelve dogs to cover the mountain and locate the hart’s territory; riding beside El Señor, Guzmán told his Liege that the hart was seeking new feeding grounds but because it was summer any new feed would be found in the haunts of the previous summer: where there was water. “It will be easy, Sire, to follow the only stream bed in this arid land and find where the water collects in marshy ground.” El Señor nodded without really listening, then cautioned himself he must be more alert … his indifference, the burning sun … Guzmán still waited for an answer, and as El Señor studied the bronzed face of his chief huntsman he realized he was awaiting not only the practical answer his present duties required but also another, more intangible response involving hierarchy: Guzmán had suggested what should be done, but El Señor must give the order. The Liege reacted, and told his deputy to prepare a replacement of ten dogs for the moment when the first dogs, flews frothing, should return from the search. Guzmán bowed his head and repeated the order, adding a detail El Señor had overlooked: a band of men should immediately climb to a high position where they could oversee the whole operation in silence.
He pointed to this one, that one, another, until he had selected ten men. A mutter of protest rose from the huntsmen chosen to form the party that must climb still higher. When he heard the rebellious murmuring, Guzmán smiled and raised his hand toward his dagger. El Señor, flushed, checked the movement of his lieutenant, who was already caressing the hilt in anticipation; he stared coldly at the men, who felt themselves diminished by an order to fulfill a task that held no danger. Their barely veiled expression of rancor changed now, revealing the anticipated fatigue of that climb to the highest, most rugged parts of the mountain, and also their dejection at not being able to kill the hart they would be the first to sight but the last to touch.
Angered, El Señor spurred his horse toward the band of rebels: the action alone was sufficient; they hung their heads and ceased their muttering. They avoided looking either at each other or at El Señor, and from among them Guzmán chose three men he could trust; those three lined up their sullen fellows and posted themselves one at the head, one in the middle, and one at the end of the line, like guards leading a chain gang to garrison.
“Do not take the crossbows” was Guzmán’s final order. “I see too many impatient fingers. Remember, this hart has been hunted before. I want no sound of voices. I want no shots fired. Signal only with smoke or fire.”
El Señor no longer listened; he continued up the hard-baked mountainside, displaying nobility in his attitude, although to himself admitting indolence. That rebellious muttering, immediately quelled by Guzmán’s actions and his own presence, had drained him completely. Then his eye caught the majestic outlines of the mountains, and as he fingered his reins, he reminded himself that he was here to give a rest to his powers of judgment, not to make them more keen. How many times, as he knelt before the altar or walked about the cloister, had the memory of the obligation he was now fulfilling interrupted his most profound meditations. He spent more time secluded than he should: he needed to be in the field performing heroic feats to be witnessed and remembered. But until now he had always managed to dominate his natural inclinations; he had always given the order for the hunt before Guzmán had to remind him of it, or before his wife’s ennui yielded to mute reproaches. And to El Señor’s pragmatic reasons, his wife had contributed another of purest fantasy: “Someday you may find yourself in danger, some animal may threaten you. You must not lose the ability to take physical risks. You were young, once…”
More judicious now, El Señor consciously exaggerated his noble attitude and gallant posture to gain respect. For long hours in the saddle beneath the burning sun he would not ask for water, so that his vassals might feel the strength of his royal presence, so that when he was once again in prolonged seclusion they would ignore the counsel divulged from mouth to mouth, dark mysteries, imagined disappearances: has our Liege died, has he secluded himself forever in the holy sanctuary, has he gone mad, does he permit his mother, his wife, his deputy … his dog, to govern in his stead?
Squinting, he peered up the mountainside. The lookouts, forbidden the use of horns, were excitedly signaling the sighting of the buck. The hounds were brought up from the rear; they would follow the scent of the prey sighted by the men high on the mountain. As they passed by his side, straining but silenced by their handlers, El Señor could sense the trembling strength of their bodies, compounded by restraint and enforced silence.