The Confusion

THAT NIGHT THEY LODGED at an inn where they had to suspend their boots and stirrups from the ceiling in order to prevent them from being carried away and eaten by rats. They paid an outrageous price and departed before dawn, and after getting clear of certain f?tid suburbs where Vagabonds dwelt, they began the first leg of their journey north: traveling through the high Valley of Mexico. This was quite a bit more interesting to Edmund de Ath than to the others, who had seen it before. The Belgian was silent as they trudged over marshy plains gouged with the remains of failed flood-control projects, and splotched here and there with weirdly colored mineral springs. From cocoa and vanilla plantations rose gaudy churches and monasteries thrown up by Spaniards who had made ludicrous amounts of money, and in some cases half torn down by the thieves and Vagabonds who infested this country far in excess of Europe.

Moseh’s ineffable Leadership Qualities had caused a whole retinue of sanbenito-and-dunce-cap-wearing crypto-Jews to fall in step behind them. They paraded through inexplicable concentrations of Negroes and Filipinos and over foamy puddles of congealed lava, past sugar-works smoking and steaming. At riverbanks they struck complicated bargains with Indians, naked except for loincloths and lines of tattooed dots on their faces, and were towed across on balsas made of planks lashed across bundles of air-filled calabashes, while other Indians back-carried the burros across fords. They steered clear of settlements or else rode through them as directly as possible, for now that they were out of the city, most of the townspeople were criollos (mixed-blood, born here) who bore a mad hostility towards Europeans. They’d have drawn much unwanted attention, and criollo boys would have been darting out and chucking stones at them, even if they hadn’t been wearing sanbenitos.

All in all it seemed advisable to get clear of settled areas as quickly as possible, so Jack, Moseh, Jimmy, Danny, and Tomba payed very little attention to all of the Roadside Attractions that so fascinated Edmund de Ath, and bent all efforts to putting miles between them and the City. Only food was worth slowing down for, as when a miniature deer appeared at the edge of a copse or they happened upon a large tree whose branches were crowded with turkeys. Then sudden loud noises, clouds of smoke, and roadside butchery.

“Your ransom cost us a fortune,” Danny remarked, “but as luck would have it, we have several.”

“Have you been making new deals during our absence,” Moseh said nervously, “or only making deliveries on the old?”

“We sold all the mercury for sixpence a ton,” Jimmy answered sharply, “and spent that on whiskey and prostitutes.”

Silence, then, for a mile or two. Then Moseh tried again, patiently: “As I am still part owner of the quicksilver, I am entitled to know how much has been delivered, how much committed, and how much held back.”

“Before we came on the scene, the King of Spain’s men were gouging the mine-owners to the tune of three hundred pieces of eight per hundred-weight of quicksilver,” Danny reminded him, “and when we began selling it for two hundred, the Spaniards dropped the price to one hundred, which is nearer its natural market-price. At the time you and Dad were arrested by that Inquisition, we were takin’ a breather from sellin’ of it, waitin’ for the price to stiffen up a bit.”

Jimmy continued, “When Danny and Tomba and I came back from the Cape of Currents with a mule-train of quicksilver, and learned you’d been arrested, the price was still no higher than a hundred twenty-five, and so we contented ourselves making good on the deliveries you’d arranged, Moseh, and hidin’ the proceeds in various locations ’tween here and Vera Cruz. But lately we’ve had nothin’ to occupy ourselves, and the price has crept up to one-sixty-”

“Near two hundred in Zacatecas,” Tomba put in.

“And so we’ve been strikin’ some deals of our own, if that’s all right with you.”

“It is perfect,” Moseh said. Three sombreros swiveled in his direction, looking for sarcasm, but Moseh was sincere: “Without delay, I want to liquidate my assets.”

“Or since we are speaking of quicksilver, solidify ’em,” Jack said.