Destination Paraguay

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  A cold wave kissed Sebastian awake from a very deep sleep. He was surprised to find that the sun had almost set. Smells of seaweed and dead fish made him sick to his stomach. He retched. His heaving was in vain, however, because his stomach had not been full for almost an entire day. It began to growl its hunger in protest. More than hunger, though, was the power of thirst. Sebastian was extremely thirsty. There were four water flasks left in the survival pack in the dinghy. He pushed himself up from the wet shore and walked over to the place he had tied his boat.

  It was gone! Sebastian looked around, swinging his arms with every wild turn. It was nowhere to be found, not even floating out on the waves. Gone!

  Water dripped from his hair into his mouth, making him crazy with its tempting moisture and its promise of salt. The sailors had mentioned how the water should turn sweet when they entered the giant bay, but this was still ocean water. His eyes followed the coastline. At the thinnest edge of horizon, toward the main land, he could see that the water turned brown. That was a good thing - the mud was carried out into the ocean by a river. Find the river, find fresh water. But maybe there was a lake or a pond - or a puddle - somewhere nearer.

  He studied his surroundings. Nothing but thick, overgrown trees in a sort of marsh that rested on red soil. He recognized some of the trees from home - pines, poplars and laurels - but many of the low green shrubs rising from the marshland were completely unfamiliar.

  He sank to his knees, trembling from the chill. It would not have been so bad if he had only been hungry, thirsty, and tired, but he was also soaking wet. Besides, September meant the end of winter here in this new southern hemisphere, though spring didn’t feel like it was coming any time soon. And he was alone.

  Feeling very sorry for himself, Sebastian began to cry again. Nothing in his life ever went right! His brothers always picked on him and now they were dead; his sweet-smelling mother who always wore a flower in her hair and smiled at all his jokes – she was dead also. His father had chosen the life of a soldier of fortune, which meant that he only came home every two years or so, and whenever he saw Sebastian he always frowned in disappointment. He had no home, and this rude introduction to the New World did not make him feel better about what awaited him in Asunción.

  To add to all of life’s injustices, now his father’s livestock were stolen. How would he ever face his father without them? Sebastian thought about his father’s three horses, all purebred, and the fourteen pigs, six chickens, four goats, a prize bull, and a cat for keeping mice away. There were also dishes, a set of bright silverware, two goose-feather mattresses, his grandfather’s desk, the ruby-and-emerald necklace, earrings, bracelet and ring that was his mother’s only good set of jewelry, a table with six chairs, and various other household necessities. And the tapestries! Sebastian’s mother had been famous for her intricate designs, and also for her quilts. Sometimes, when Don Segovia had been away and money for food was running low, she would make and sell her tapestries and quilts, and then they would feast for months. Each piece took a very long time to make, but Doña Segovia loved her work and was happiest when she was busy creating her works of art.

  Self-pity turned to guilt as Sebastian kneeled there in the mud, too tired to stand to his feet. It was his fault that everything was stolen! If he had been a braver boy, maybe he could have stopped the pirates. Instead, he just ran away like a coward.  Yes, the captain gave him an order to take the documents to Asunción, but only a coward would have saved his own self and nothing else. He hadn’t even tried to save the crew of the Santa Clara.

  Dry tears stung at his eyes and great sobs racked his body. He laid himself flat in the mud again, weeping up at the stars. “I am a coward!” he shouted at them. “I am nothing but a coward!” Thoughts of his father’s disappointment caused another large sob to shake his body.

  Eventually, guilt gave way to an overwhelming anger as Sebastian realized the unfairness of his situation. He was angry at his mother for leaving him alone in Spain, with nobody but his uncle to care for him. He grew angrier at the thought of his father always being gone and never being around to help take care of the small farm or his mother. But he grew furious when he thought of Santino and Rodrigo and the pirates, who made their living by taking so easily what others had worked so hard for.

  He sat up, breathing in the cold jungle air. Clouds of vapor fumed out of his nose. He would find those pirates, Santino and Rodrigo as well as those of the Blue Sparrow. He would find them and make them pay for their crimes. Probably he would never be able to recover his property, but the thought of watching them hang to death somehow gave Sebastian the strength to get through his first night in the New World. After finding a dry patch of grass in the marshes, he fell asleep dreaming of revenge.

  Morning brought severe pangs of hunger. Despite the chill of the muddy ground, and numerous twigs and pebbles poking at his back, somehow Sebastian had slept without waking. Now he could sleep no more. Twitters and chirps greeted his ears, familiar but different from his birds back home, reminding him that he was on the other side of the world. It was too cold to keep lying there, anyway. He sat up and let out a sharp cry of pain. His back and arms were on fire! The ache of rowing for almost sixteen hours finally caught up to him. He could barely move. Slowly, ever so slowly (and wincing with each tiny movement), he stood up. It took a good deal of concentration to stretch his muscles. They were so tight that it felt as if any quick movement might cause them to tear.

  He had to find water. He could wait no longer - tomorrow he’d be so weak that he wouldn’t have the energy to search. Food, too, but water first. Maybe a juicy fruit could provide both. But what was edible here? And even if he recognized something from home, what if he chomped on a poisonous plant by accident? Wishing he had not tucked one of the water flasks from the boat into his belt, he knew his best chance of finding help was to head toward Spiriti Sanctu. They would recognize him as a Spanish citizen and help him for the rest of his journey.

  It surprised him how reluctant he was to leave the salty ocean; it was all he had known for the past several weeks. Not only that, but how would he report the location of the pirates when he left this spot, when he didn’t even know where this spot was? But the muddy fresh water obviously came from the great Río de la Plata, which would lead him to the fort. A fort meant soldiers. Sebastian had no delusions of recovering his livestock or his property, but the thoughts of cold revenge gave him the energy to begin walking.

  It was so early in the morning that dew still clung to leaves and made diamonds on the ground. Sebastian noticed that mud clung to his feet as he lifted them, releasing with a loud sucking noise. He wondered if he was the first person to walk on this beach, and suddenly he felt very alone again. He looked behind him at his footprints. They were filling with dirty brown mud, disappearing, as if he had never been there at all.

  He kept his gaze fixed past the thick trees in hopes of finding a familiar fruit tree, but he was disappointed. Besides, if it was really springtime - and not autumn, as Sebastian kept thinking - then fruits were ready to bloom, not harvest.

  The birds grew noisier as the sun rose higher. Finally, too thirsty to continue, he sat down to rest. After staring at the ocean behind him for a while, he grew bored with it, and turned his gaze to his footprints again. One of them was a little deeper than the others. He watched it. Dew slipped in, making a tiny puddle. After a few seconds, it filled with mud and disappeared like all the rest.

  Something about the mud bothered him, but he could not pinpoint his source of dismay. Frustrated, he poked a hole in the mud with his finger and watched. The same thing happened – dew and water filled up the hole, mixing with the mud until it disappeared completely.

  Suddenly he knew how to get fresh water – even if it was dirty and muddy. The thought of drinking it made him sick, but his need for water overcame his need for cleanliness.

  With his hands, he dug out a hole. As fast as he could di
g, water and mud filled it in. He dug faster, splashing mud all over his shirt. It did not matter; he was already filthy from sleeping on the ground, and still wet from waves washing over him. It was hard work, getting enough water to take a sip, but slowly he drank the brown liquid until his thirst abated.

  When he could drink no more, he sat back and tried to calculate his chances of survival. Although he felt better, his situation had not changed. He would need to keep walking. Twenty kilometers a day. Twenty kilometers a day. He had a goal, and he would keep it. Twenty kilometers a day.

  But how? He would starve to death before he arrived at Sancti Spiritu! He wondered if he could catch fish with his bare hands – his father had mentioned doing it in his letters – but he figured it would take quick reflexes for that.

  The sharp squawk of a bird reminded him that he did not know which animals lurked in the marshes. The sooner he found shelter, the safer he’d be. Maybe he was just lucky last night that a wolf hadn’t eaten him. He decided to walk as far as he could today until the sun had nearly set, and then make some sort of shelter to protect him from the night.

  With no more of a plan than that, Sebastian set forth again.

  Walk. Walk, walk, walk. Stumble over uneven terrain, trip over long green slender vines that covered the ground, walk some more. Tread. Tread, tread, tread. Try to ignore the growing agony of hunger. Try to not remember how good roast potatoes in herb sauce are, or jellied oranges or crunchy bread crisps. Trudge. Trudge, trudge… too tired to think of anything, too sore to care, too hungry to go on.

  Fall. Fall? Sebastian’s mind, which had turned itself off for the last hour or so, suddenly found itself screaming an alert to Sebastian’s body. He tripped heavily over an animal skeleton and landed on his face. It felt as if his nose could be broken, although there was no blood. He sat up and started to sniffle, again feeling sorry for himself. Tears flowed down his cheeks but he did not have the energy to voice his sorrow.

  Presently his nose stopped throbbing. He sighed, a deep and helpless sigh, and sat with his head in his hands. Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the world around him, imagining himself home in his cozy bedroom with its little fireplace and warm blankets. It was very difficult to block out his surroundings, though. Everything was so new. Little furry animals with human faces and long tails screeched at him as he sat there. Ants half the size of his thumb scurried around his swollen feet, busily carrying pieces of leaves. Birds with croaking voices or angelic whistles sang their songs high in trees overhead.

  And then Sebastian heard a familiar sound – one that filled him with both joy and dread.

  It was the sound of a man shouting.

  His eyes popped open and he strained to listen. The shout came again – it was not a mistake!

  Sebastian stood to his feet and began walking in the same direction as before, except that now he had a destination and it did not seem as if walking would take forever. He quickened his pace. The man’s voice grew louder, and as he drew closer, Sebastian could hear other men’s voices as well.

  Suddenly he stopped, gasped in terror, and fled into the thickness of the jungle. The Blue Sparrow was sailing right toward him! It was very far away, but Sebastian knew from experience that a watchman was always on the lookout.

  It took a full five minutes for the Blue Sparrow to reach Sebastian’s former standing place. Sebastian held his breath, clinging to the smooth bark of a thick tree, but the ship did not slow down.  It passed him swiftly. Even so, Sebastian stayed behind his tree for another ten minutes until it was out of sight, and another ten minutes after that deciding what to do.

  He was not used to making decisions for himself. All his life, he had been told what to do and how to do it. His older brothers used to boss him around and make him serve them. His mother often had him run small errands. His father, though usually not present, still gave orders through his letters – where Sebastian was to go to school, what chores he was to do at home, even if he could or could not have a horse of his own. After his mother died, his uncle took over and Sebastian worked from daybreak to sunset, always doing what he was told. And now there was nobody to tell him what the best thing was to do!

  The voices still seemed near, so he knew that a ground crew was close by on the beach somewhere. But was it the Blue Sparrow pirates? Was it the crew of the Santa Clara, miraculously escaped? What if the crew was there, but the pirates were guarding them?

  Sebastian’s conscience, still guilty about abandoning his crewmates so easily, recognized a way to redeem his virtue. He decided to have a look. If it was his men, maybe he could rescue them.

  He approached the voices cautiously, weaving in and out of trees, always careful to stay hidden and to move slowly. He was afraid of snapping twigs or stepping on dry leaves, but the jungle floor was damp, so wet twigs tended to bend instead of break. He crouched behind a low bush. Through its leaves, he could see the Santa Clara anchored beside a long dock.

  Beside the dock, laughing, were several pirates from the Blue Sparrow.

  And on the beach, strewn for the world to see, were all of Sebastian’s possessions.