Tom Foran Clark

They stayed two nights at the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, Pike visiting the neighboring Cathedral of St. James at every opportunity. He said he didn't know what he was looking for, but he knew it was here -- or in Finesterre. He searched the Cathedral high and low. He asked for, and got, special permission to view treasures behind locked doors -- brocades, jewels, diamonds, Chinoiseries, Japoneries.

Emery and Rita went to cafes and stayed in the shade as much as they could. Santiago was just about on fire -- it was boiling hot. The two held hands and talked about everything in the world except for whatever it was that had happened to her. She just hoped, she said, that Pike would find what he was after. At a little bar on St. Francis Street, to pass the time, Rita resumed her tale of Lazarillo of Tormes and his alternating good and bad luck. “Do you remember when we were in Cartagena, I told you how Lazarillo had come to be there?"

"Yup. His luck had changed for the better. He was departing Cartagena to go fight the Moors in Algiers -- and to seek his further fortune."

"Right. Lazarillo had got himself a good job, he'd married, and he was thinking he was set for life. Then people began telling him he was being cuckolded. Like an ostrich, he buried his head in the sand. He simply didn't want to hear about it. Well, it wasn't very long before his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby daughter. Lazarillo had mixed feelings.Though he was pretty sure he was the father, Lazarillo still wanted to firm things up in his family. He figured he could only do that through great wealth. So he embarked from Cartagena, going in search of his fortune, setting sail for Algiers. As you guessed in Cartagena, the boat, in fact, sank."

"I knew it!" Emery said, thrilled with himself. "But of course Lazarillo didn't drown."

"He almost drowned," Rita said. "He was on the verge of drowning, reflecting on how unfair life could be! The ship’s treasures lay all around him amid the wreckage at the bottom of the ocean. It hurt him that he should be so near to death when he was simultaneously so near to being rich. So much for his dream of building up his capital, living off the interest, and buying a summer house in Toledo! Frantically, Lazarillo tore off his clothes, tied one end of a rope to a treasure chest and the other to his foot, and then began swimming. When he got tangled up in fish nets, the fishermen cut his rope and hauled him aboard.

"Lazarillo was displeased. 'The fishermen had cut off all my hopes of ever becoming one of the landed gentry,’ he complained. When he grumbled they'd just caused him to lose a fortune, the shrewdest of them proposed to throw him back into the sea. They'd then wait for him to come back -- with the treasure. But no. Instead, they returned to land and kept quiet about the treasure, so that others wouldn't find out about it. It wasn't long before the local people began to ask just who or what this man or thing was, which had been hauled in with the tuna. The fishermen, not wanting to reveal their secret, told them Lazarillo was a sea monster. They got permission from the bishops and the Inquisition to display this fish with a man's face through all of Spain. They tied up his hands and put a mossy wig and beard on him. ‘I tried to tell people I was no monster, nor even anything out of the ordinary. I said I had come out of the ocean because I had fallen into it along with some other men who'd drowned while going to make war on Algiers. But they didn't want to hear it. Three men went on tour with me -- a mule driver, a man who pulled on a rope to shut me up whenever I tried to say anything, and a man who delivered speeches. 'They not only got rich,' Lazarillo complained. 'They also made fun of me.'

“One night, Lazarillo almost got loose. He began to shout for help. The fishermen began to shout, too, even louder, 'Help, help! Call the law!' The innkeeper ran out with an ax. The entire neighborhood turned out, armed with iron pokers and sticks, and a constable and six deputies who happened to be passing by. When they found Lazarillo, he was no longer breathing. They put him in a sack, threw him across the back of a donkey, and set out to throw him down a well. As his head was hanging downward, he began to spew out water. He again cried out, 'Help, help!' Some people ran up, their swords out and ready, and found poor Lazarillo. The fishermen were imprisoned and Lazarillo went free. In court, the fishermen were fined two thousand pieces of silver, two mules, and a cart. After all the assorted court costs were paid, Lazarillo found himself the owner of two hundred pieces of silver. He figured he'd finally struck it rich.

“When he got home, he not only found his wife with another new baby -- and a new husband -- it was revealed hat his daughter had been born only four months after he’d first slept with his wife. ‘My daughter wasn't mine at all,’ Lazarillo realized, in despair. He sought the advice of friends and, since he’d come into some money, his friends were multiplying now like flies. Lazarillo wanted to go back to his wife, but his friends advised him he should press charges against her -- the hussy, trollop, slut. And he should press charges against the priest, too, they advised, for conspiring to put a stain on Lazarillo’s honor. The constables who arrested them took them from their bed and off to jail in their nightshirts. But, inside of only two weeks, the priest and Lazarillo’s wife were out of jail on bond, charging Lazarillo with false witness. He had to apologize and pay the court costs. Also, he was banished from Toledo!

Over lunch, Rita told Emery how Lazarillo had then come to meet a hermit, one Father Anselmo, who soon after died. "When the hermit died," Rita said, "Lazarillo looked high and low for a secret treasure he knew Father Anselmo had hidden. Picking up a spade, he went to work on the hermit’s altar. In less than two clouts, he had half the altar on the ground. He discovered some relics, and a jar full of coins -- six hundred silver pieces. He took some money and left some there, then put the altar back the way it had been before. He put on the hermit's garb and went into town to tell the prior of the hermit’s brotherhood all that had happened -- well, not everything. Soon a woman came along, calling Lazarillo a thief. ‘You’ve robbed and killed my husband!' she said. 'We have three children. If you don't give us his property, we'll have you hanged!' But Lazarillo showed her great courteousy, and the widow showed great brains. She grabbed Lazarillo around the neck and began to kiss him on the lips. Lazarillo, burning inside, asked the widow to take him for her own."

It wasn't lost on Emery that Rita was really rolling now. She'd never gone on this long before. All through their journey together, along the way, she'd teased him with just little chunks or snippets from the long sagas that she had stored up there, in her brain. She'd whet his appetite, pour forth, and then pull back, saving something for some future date. Now it seemed as if her pause button had got jammed, or was snapped loose. She not only continued regaling Emery, she was speeding up as she rolled on. Sweat, like dewdrops, gathered on her forehead. She stabbed distractedly at the food on her plate, but hardly ate any. Emery didn't even think to ask her if she was all right.

"Lazarillo, who continued to deny he knew anything about the treasure, was a terrible liar, so when he went with the widow to the scene of the crime, his eyes darted right to the spot. Money in hand, the widow confronted Lazarillo, who figured she'd blast him to pieces in her fury, but instead of damning him she said, 'Look, with this we'll have a wonderful life' and then asked him to marry her! The next day, there was a great feast and, among the guests were six beautiful ladies, close friends of the widow. 'It was a good supper and even better drinking,' Lazarillo rejoiced, 'and even better dancing afterwards, what with these several lovely partners -- I thought I was in paradise!’

"The six beautiful girlfriends took Lazarillo to a nicely decorated room where there was a big, soft bed, and they told him to get into it," Rita rolled on. "While his bride-to-be undressed, one of her lovely friends pulled off Lazarillo's shoes and stockings even as another tore off his shirt and pants. 'For these ceremonies,' the ladies told Lazarillo, 'you will have to be completely naked,' and Lazarillo obeyed. Insisting it was the first duty in their splendid ceremony, the six lady friends had Lazarillo kiss his bride's ass and, when he did, four of them grabbed him, two by the feet and two by the arms, and tied four ropes to him and then fastened the ends of the ropes to the four bedposts, and then they poured hot water on his head and ice cold water on his cock and when he tried to protest or shout out they beat him with whips. Then they cut off his beard, his hair, his eyebrows, and his eyelashes and told him, 'The best is yet to come! You will have what you've so greatly been desiring.' Lazarillo tried to tell them he no longer had his former appetite, but they weren't listening.

“The ladies, taking scissors in hand, cut off the hair around Lazarillo’s balls, then one of them brought out a ten-inch butcher's knife and said, 'Hold him down. I'll cut off his plums! He'll never jump on another woman again!' When Lazarillo saw his precious testicles in danger, he pulled away so hard he broke one of the bedposts. ‘I grabbed my jewels with one hand and clutched them so that even if they had cut off my fingers, they couldn't have gotten to them!' he said. 'They untied me, wrapped me in a sheet and, beating me half to death, they said this was only the beginning of the wedding ceremony!' If Lazarillo would come back the next day, they said, they would show him the rest! The women picked him up, carried him out, and threw him to the street. Right then and there Lazarillo resigned himself to dying and he did die shortly after that."

"Crazy," Emery said. It occured to him that this was supposed to be a funny story, but he wasn't laughing. He was blue because he realized Rita had come to the conclusion, The End, of Lazarillo's story -- as she'd likewise come to The End of the story of the treasure hunter of St. James.

That evening, the three of them ate together at the Hotel de los Reyes Católicos restaurant. Rita had her fair share of the beautifully set out meal, but she took only tiny bites and was very quiet. Pike and Emery both tried to cheer her up, exchanging stories of how they'd nearly killed each other low in the ravines and high in the mountains of Italy, but Emery could see Rita's occasional smiles were more polite than authentic. She excused herself abruptly, and went up to bed alone.

The next day, while Pike scoured the downtown for clues to he knew not what, Emery and Rita visted the Padròn, called Iria Flavia by the Romans where, in the year 44, the bones of St. James had first been brought. Then they returned to the hotel and drifted over to a cafe, idling away the morning snacking on breadrolls and coffee. "Would you like to hear about St. James or something?" Rita asked Emery. He took her hands tight in his on the tabletop and searched her eyes. He wanted to climb inside her head.

"Jesus called St. James the son of thunder" she said. "St. Luke called James impetuous -- hot stuff. Jesus took James for what he was, but Luke was really critical. He didn't like it that James had called down fire from Heaven on the Samaritans for their lack of faith. Luke felt James should back off -- chill out. So off James went off to Samaria, Judea, and Spain. When James got back to the Holy Land, King Herod Agrippa cooled him down. He cut off his head.

"Wow," Emery said. "So then what happened?"

"Two of his disciples, Anthanasius and Theodore, just happened to be going by in a boat. They carried his remains to Spain. St. James was then forgotten -- for about eight hundred years. He was rediscovered during the time of the Moorish occupation, around 814 AD. A shepherd saw stars falling on a hill near the river Sar, which coincided with a dream revealed to a latter day disciple of St. James. The two unearthed the saint's bones. A church was built on the spot -- here -- Santiago de Compostela -- St James of Campus Stellae -- 'field of stars'. Pilgrims started coming in from all over, navigating by the stars. But, in fact, the path itself was not new. It had been traveled since the dawn of human spiritual history, since the time of the Druids and their forbears. Whether they worshipped God, or Gods, or Godesses, they all traveled the road which only later was called El Camino de Santiago."

Now Pike walked up, frustrated, scratching his head. "Whatever it is," he admitted, "I haven't found it.".

"What's next?" Emery asked.

"Well, I do know we need to go to O Pindo and Cape Finisterre," he said. "They're marked boldly in the diary, and on the map."

And so, at Pan's hour, the faunal noon, the three took a bus west to the rugged coastline known as the Costa da Morte -- the Coast of Death -- to the little fishing village of O Pindo. They walked from the village to the peak of Monte Pindo, also called A Moa, which offered spectacular views to the ocean up and down the coast. Then they ventured into the wild canyon of the River Xallas, the only river in Europe that ends at the ocean in a waterfall, where a sudden wind carried Pike's gold Stetson hat from the scene like a frisbee, even as the three fell to the ground. At Cape Finisterre -- Land´s End -- they got unlikely lodgings in the renovated signalhouse adjacent to the Finisterre lighthouse, and slept like so many ships crashed on the Costa da Morte.

In the morning, they got on the bus going on to Noia, or Noya, where, as legend had it, Noah’s ark had once landed. They walked along the cliffs to nearby Muro, and ate octopus in the Muro restaurant, on the Street of Suffering -- its actual name. After returning to the renovated signalhouse at Finisterre, they paid their respects at the Pilgrim's Cross and then walked another couple miles to the actual cap or end of the European landmass -- The End of the World.

It was a beautiful, sunny day. They found a quiet place near the water's edge on the rocky promontory to sit. The three sat for a long time. Pike was very animated, telling quiet Rita all the things he'd formerly told me about brother Giles, the friend and disciple of St. Francis who, amazingly, had been right here, perhaps right on this spot, in his time.

It was now that Pike got the illumination he'd been looking for.

This nice old fellow came up, an elegant, bald English gentleman with a soft white beard and rosy cheeks. He'd overheard parts of what Pike had been saying, and he'd found it very interesting. He introduced himself, and asked if he could join the three. He sat down and started telling them how it had come to pass that he -- Roger Shepperton -- had come to be here this day. He said he'd been a colleague of a man he'd come here to honor. That man was Arlen Townsend.

Pike and Emery about sprang from the cliff.

Shepperton said he and Townsend had gone to school together. No, no -- that wasn't quite right. Shepperton said he meant to say they had been colleagues. They'd both been teachers in Wyoming, but the school had been shut down. Shepperton had then lost touch with him. He'd heard that Townsend had gone mad. He'd heard about his moving to Assissi, after living several years in Spain.

So soon as Pike sensed he had an opening, he delivered his little shocking bit of news to Shepperton. Pike told him everything. Shepperton didn't seem shocked at all -- nor even surprised. He listened carefully, nodding knowingly from time to time.

Trembling, Pike went over the territory, right up to how brother Giles, amazingly, had been right here, perhaps right on this spot, in his time. He told Roger Shepperton all about St. Dominic -- Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221) -- Santo Domingo -- the founder of the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars, named for Domingo of Silos, the St. Dominic who'd saved the life of Lorenzo -- Lawrence. He told Shepperton how Joan de Guzmán had prayed at the shrine of Domingo of Silos prior to conceiving the child, Dominic. Pike again told Shepperton how Arlen Townsend had insisted on calling Pike and me Giles and Dominic -- repeatedly. At first, as Arlen Townsend had chosen to live in Assissi, Pike had chosen to believe it was all about St. Francis -- it being the treasure, or at least the treasure hunt. But it was not about Francis, Pike had concluded -- it was about Giles, who'd sat right here, and so on. And it wasn't about Dominic Guzmán, the founder of the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars, born in Old Castile -- it was about Dominic of Silos who, for all we knew, had also sat right here.

Roger Shepperton nodded, listening. “That’s interesting,” he said finally. “But I’m disinclined to agree with you," he said. "I'm afraid it’s most definitely not about Dominic of Silos, and it’s not about his namesake Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans. I think what you’re not onto here is still another Dominic -- or Domingo, or what have you. I think you need to have a good long look at Santo Domingo de la Calzada in La Rioja -- St. Dominic of the Road.”

Before they knew it, the purple dusk was turning iron black. The four went back to the lodging, the signalhouse by the Finisterre lighthouse, where Shepperton was also staying -- where else? They ate tapas and uncorked a bottle of wine. Shepperton filled their glasses with the good red, Rioja wine. His expression was very kindly -- soft -- but around his eyes he looked like some sort of fossil find. There were dozens of lines etched there, impressed on him like the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone.

"Not that I was around then, mind you," Shepperton began self deprecatingly. "It's not known when Santo Domingo de la Calzada was born, but he died in 1109. Dominic, a Basque, was one of life's misfits. As a young man he tried to join an order of monks at Valvanera, but he was turned away. He wasn't good looking at all, perhaps even ugly, and he wasn't studious, quick-witted, nor even literate. Since all he ever had wanted to do in life was be a monk, he decided he'd become a hermit. Around 1039, St. Gregory of Ostia discovered Dominic the Hermit, and became his admirer, advisor, and patron. Dominic, who Gregory had the guts to ordain a priest, was a staunch supporter for Gregory, a man with a mind to reforming the world. In fact, Dominic went out on the road, campiagning or stumping, if you will, for these changes. When the bishop died in 1044, Dominic retired from the world, into a wilderness. As it happened, Dominic's Forest of Bureba, in the Rioja area south of the Ebro River, bordering Navarre, had no proper road passing through its dark tangle, though it was on the route traversed by pilgrims visiting the shrine of Santiago de Compostela. Dominic built a little hermitage there, then he began to improve the road -- the calzada -- the causeway -- and then he built a bridge, and then a hospice. He did this solely to make easier the journeys of the pilgrims. He opened a hostel for them to stay at. King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile learned about the good work he was doing, and chipped in to help. In time, a town grew up out of the settlementname of the town, of course, was San Domingo de la Calzada -- St. Dominic of the Road."

"That's such a beautiful story," Rita said.

"It is," Shepperton agreed. "But what's most important to remember is what Domingo had to teach -- each of us needs to help everyone in need. We do not have to circle the world to discover someone in want. That is what Dominic the Hermit realized -- help fellow pilgrims on their way; smooth their paths and bridge their perils. Poor Arlen,” Shepperton now said. “A more courageous heart or more cascading tongue were never united in one body. Like Domingo de la Calzada, he did not fit in. He was in love with his wife, but he couldn’t take it -- what she gave him. It was always a rollercoaster with them.”

Shepperton was himself serenely calm. Peacefulness emanated from the man. “One day he simply couldn’t stand it any longer," Shepperton remembered, wincing, the etched furrows by his eyes tightening -- "her perennial bitching. He struck her. My understanding is, he knocked her down.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a man knocked a woman down,” Pike offered, reaching over and rubbing his fingertips lightly and considerately on Rita's shoulder.

“He used an ax.”

This threw Pike.

“She was only in the hospital a week," Shepperton said, leavening the severe moment, helping Rita and Emery lift Pike and his chair from the hardwood floor and set them back at the table. "Her Minorcan lover brought her flowers. Divorcing Townsend, she moved to Minorca. Arlen, as you know, packed up his blighted hopes and morbid melancholy and moved to Assissi. Here’s to philosophy,” Shepperton said, raising his glass. The four raised their glasses, touched them together, and drank to philosophy.

“I first met Arlen in Wyoming,” Shepperton went on, opening a second bottle of wine and refilling all the glasses, "at the Two-Top Mountain School -- there was the one campus in Wyoming, and the other in Maine. We were at the height of our powers,” he remembered. “We felt like we were going places, just staying there. We had four rules: say what you mean, doubt what you're taught, aim for excellence, and practice kindness.Arlen was a fine teacher -- loved his students, was very caring. He was like a roaming sage, wandering the campus distractedly, preoccupied, studying little scraps of paper that he always had at hand. His students, the bright young men and women at Two-Top, were attracted to him like a magnet. The girls especially. I think they sensed the man was somehow dangerous and this, perversely enough, drew them to him like an aphrodisiac. He never, so far as I know, cashed in those chips, however. He was very sane at the time. He really only wanted to be of service to his students. He told me a parable about how a little boy sees a bird and dreams of winding rivers, canoe trips, caves, encampments, climbing mountains, and adventures in far-off places; a young man sees a bird and dreams of human female down and black holes in the cosmos; a man in middle-age sees a bird and thinks of his next meal; an old man sees a bird and maybe feeds the thing -- the bird -- the bird as it is.

“Here’s a picture of the two of us at Two-Top,” Shepperton showed us, taking out a tiny, crumpled, faded photo from his wallet. Sure enough, there they were -- the two teachers, wooden barracks and log-cabins, presumably classrooms, and a snowy, double-capped peak behind these and them. Now he took out a second picture. It was a picture of Arlen Townsend in mountaineering garb, with waffle-stomping boots on his feet and a black Basque beret on his head. “I took this picture of him here, at Finesterre. It was after the Wyoming school closed down -- a nasty political nightmare impossible to explain. What mattered was, Arlen and I were both out of jobs.

“That’s when he and I first came here,” Shepperton said. “I suspected he was coming unloose at that time -- which was proved afterwards. In Valencia -- Murcia, actually -- we’d met a man who sold soda and oranges to tourists -- also treasure maps. In fact, the map Arlen got at that time is the one that you have,” Shepperton told Pike. “I’m sure of it. But that diary that you got with it, which you claim is ‘antique’ is no more antique than the underwear I’m wearing -- though pee-stained, coffee-stained, and so forth, these shorts are certainly no older than this bottle of wine. I’d bet you Arlen’s so-called treasure diary got beat and dark and soiled in the same way he did -- he and it both whiskey-sodden.

“It was that orange seller in Murcia,” Shepperton went on, “who’d planted the names Giles and Dominic in Arlen’s head in the first place -- ‘Francisco and Domingo’ it was. When Arlen learned Francis had not himself made the pilgrimage to Santiago, but had instead sent his emissary Giles, it was Giles and Dominic that Arlen then pursued. But he couldn’t get the thread of it -- he couldn’t make the connection. Now I see it clearly. He had the right Franciscan, St. Giles, but the wrong St. Dominic. Just like you, coming here, he was not going in the right direction. Failing to find the treasure he was after, Arlen went on to Assissi, where Francis came from. As for me, I went on to the Two-Top campus in Maine, which eventually met the same fate as the other, western school -- both now gone, shut down. I wound up, like you, traveling to Assissi but, unlike you, I did not get to see Arlen. He'd burned his notebooks, loose papers, the wall posters -- all. I found him dead as a brick on the floor in the front room of his cabin. The authorities took possession of the hut, let me put up a memorial gravestone nearby, and permitted me to have him cremated. He’s with us here, right now.”

Shepperton brought out a small stainless steel flask from an inner coat pocket. “In this canteen are Arlen's ashes. I came here today, in fact, to distribute these over the waters at Cap Finesterre. I would like it very much if you would join me in doing so, first thing in the morning. Would you?”

“Yes, of course, yes,” Pike sputtered. “Yes.”

"There once was a king of Thule," Shepperton began singing. "The king of Thule was not a fool, he got from his mistress a gold goblet." They steered Shepperton to his bunk and laid him down and tucked him in. "There once was an old king of Thule," he sang himself to sleep. "He threw the goblet into the sea. The king of Thule, he died peacefully."