“Balboa” a short story by Sabina Murray

AS YOU READ Pay special attention to descriptions of Balboa's relations with the Indians and the Spaniards. Write down any questions you generate during reading.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa ascends the mountain alone. His one thousand Indians and two hundred Spaniards wait at the foot of the mountain, as if they are the Israelites and Balboa alone is off to speak with God. Balboa knows that from this peak he will be able to see the western water, what he has already decided to name the South Sea. He takes a musket with him. The Spaniards have been warned that if they follow, he will use it, because discovery is a tricky matter and he wants no competition. The day is September 25, 1513. Balboa ascends slowly. His musket is heavy and he would have gladly left it down below, but he doesn’t trust his countrymen any more than he trusts the sullen Indians. So he bears the weight. But the musket is nothing. He is dragging the mantle[1] of civilization up the pristine slopes, over the mud, over the leaves that cast as much shade as a parasol[2] but with none of the charm. Balboa is that divining line[3] between the modern and the primitive. As he moves, the shadow of Spain moves with him. Balboa steps cautiously into a muddy stream and watches with fascination as his boot sinks and sinks. He will have to find another way. Upstream he sees an outcropping of rock. Maybe he can cross there. He tells himself that there is no hurry, but years of staying just ahead of trouble have left him anxiety-ridden. He would like to think of himself as a lion. Balboa the Lion! But no, he is more of a rat, and all of his accomplishments have been made with speed and stealth. Balboa places his hand on a branch and pulls himself up. He sees the tail of a snake disappearing just past his reach. The subtle crush of greenery confirms his discovery and he shrinks back, crouching. In this moment of stillness, he looks around. He sees no other serpents, but that does not mean they are not there. Only in this momentary quiet does he hear his breath, rasping with effort. He hears his heart beating in the arced fingers of his ribs as if it is an Indian’s drum. He does not remember what it is to be civilized, or if he ever was. If ever a man was alone, it is he. But even in this painful solitude, he cannot help but laugh. Along with Cristóbal Colón, backed by Isabel I herself, along with Vespucci the scholar, along with the noble Pizarro brothers[4]on their way to claim Inca gold, his name will live—Balboa. Balboa! Balboa the Valiant. Balboa the Fearsome. Balboa the Brave. Balboa the gambling pig farmer, who, in an effort to escape his and tastes like dirt, which is a relief after what he has been drinking— water so green that the very act of ingesting it seems unnatural, as though it is as alive as he, and sure enough, given a few hours, it will get you back, eager to find its way out. He has been climbing since early morning and it is now noon. The sun shines in the sky unblinking, white-hot. Balboa wonders if it’s the same sun that shines in Spain. The sun seemed so much smaller there. Even in Hispaniola[5],the sun was Spanish. Even as he prodded his pigs in the heat, there was Spain all around, men with dice, men training roosters, pitting their dogs against each other. But here…then he hears a twig snap and the sound of something brushing up against the bushes. Balboa stands. “I give you this one chance to turn back,” he says, raising his musket as he turns. And then he freezes. It is not one of the Spaniards hoping to share the glory. Instead, he finds himself face-to-face with a great spotted cat. On this mountain, he's thought he might find his god, the god of Moses, sitting in the cloud cover near the peaks, running his fingers through his beard. But no. Instead he finds himself face-to-face with a jaguar, the god of the Indians. He knows why these primitives have chosen it for their deity. It is hard to fear one’s maker when he looks like one’s grandfather, but this great cat can make a people fear god. He hears the growling of the cat and the grating, high-pitched thunder sounds like nothing he has ever heard. The cat twitches its nose and two great incisors show at the corners of its mouth. Balboa raises his musket, ignites the flint[6], and nothing happens. He tries again and the weapon explodes, shattering the silence, sending up a big puff of stinking smoke. The cat is gone for now, but Balboa knows he hasn’t even injured it. And now it will be tailing him silently. There is nothing he can do about it. He should have brought an Indian with him. The Indians have all seen the South Sea before, so why did he leave them at the foot of the mountain? They have no more in claiming the South Sea than they do rowing off to Europe in their dug-out canoes[7] and claiming Spain. But Balboa’s hindsight is always good, and no amount of swearing—which he does freely, spilling Spanish profanity into the virgin mountain air—is going to set things straight. He is already in trouble. His kingdom in Darién on the east coast of the New World is under threat, and not from the Indians, whom he manages well, but from Spain. Balboa had organized the rebellion, supplanted the governor—all of this done with great efficiency and intelligence. What stupidity made him send the governor, Martín Fernández de Enciso, back to Spain? Enciso swore that he would have Balboa’s head on a platter. He was yelling from the deck of the ship as it set sail. Why didn’t he kill Enciso? Better yet, why didn’t he turn Enciso over to some Indian tribe that would be glad to have the Spaniard, glad to have his blood on their hands? How could Balboa be so stupid? Soon the caravels[8] would arrive and his days as governor (king, he tells the Indians) of Darién will be over. Unless, Balboa thinks, unless he brings glory by being the first to claim this great ocean for Spain. Then the king will see him as the greatest of his subjects, not a troublemaking peasant, a keeper of pigs. Unless that jaguar gets him first. Balboa looks nervously around. The only sound is the trickle and splash of the stream that he is following, which the Indians tell him leads to a large outcropping of rock from which he will see the new ocean. Insects swoop malevolently[9] around his head. A yellow and red parrot watches him cautiously from a branch, first looking from one side of its jeweled head, then the other. Where is the jaguar? Balboa imagines his body being dragged into a tree, his boots swinging from the limbs as the great cat tears his heart from his ribs. He hears a crushing of vegetation and ducks low. He readies his musket again. “Please God, let the damned thing fire.” He breathes harshly, genuflecting[10], musket steady. The leaves quiver, then part. There is no jaguar. “Leoncico!” he cries out. Leoncico is his dog, who has tracked him up the slope. Leoncico patters over, wagging his tail, his great wrinkled head bearded with drool. Leoncico is a monster of a dog. His head is the size of a man’s, and his body has the look of a lion—shoulders and hipbones protruding and muscle pulling and shifting beneath the glossy skin—which is where he gets his name. “Leoncico” means little lion. “Good dog,” says Balboa. “Good dog. Good dog.” He has never been so grateful for the company, not even when he was hidden on board Enciso’s ship bound for San Sebastian, escaping his creditors, wrapped in a sail. No one wondered why the dog had come on board. Maybe the dog had been attracted by the smell of provisions, the great barrels of salted meat. The soldiers fed him, gave him water. Balboa worried that Leoncico would give him away, but the dog had somehow known to be quiet. He had slept beside Balboa, and even in Balboa’s thirst and hunger, the great beast’s panting and panting, warm through the sailcloth, had given him comfort. When Enciso’s crew finally discovered Balboa—one of the sails was torn and needed to be replaced—they did not punish him. They laughed. “The Indians massacre everyone. You are better off in a debtors’ prison,” they said. Balboa became a member of the crew. When the boat shipwrecked off the coast of San Sebastian (they were rescued by Francisco Pizarro), Enciso had been at a loss as to where to go, and Balboa convinced him to try Darién to the north. Once established there, Enciso had shown himself to be a weak man. How could Balboa not act? Enciso did not understand the Indians as Balboa did. He could see that the Indians were battle-hardened warriors. The Spaniards had not been there long enough to call these armies into existence. Balboa’s strength had been to recognize this discord. He divided the great tribes, supported one against the other. His reputation spread. His muskets blasted away the faces of the greatest warriors. Balboa’s soldiers spread smallpox and syphilis. His Spanish war dogs, great mastiffs and wolfhounds, tore children limb from limb. The blood from his great war machine made the rivers flow red and his name, Balboa, moved quickly, apace[11] with these rivers of blood. Balboa is loved by no one and feared by all. He has invented an unequaled terror. The Indians think of him as a god. They make no distinction between good and evil. They have seen his soldiers tear babies from their mothers, toss them still screaming to feed the dogs. They have seen the great dogs pursue the escaping Indians, who must hear nothing but a great panting, the jangle of the dogs’ armor, and then, who knows? Do they feel the hot breath on their cheek? Are they still awake when the beasts unravel their stomachs and spill them onto the hot earth? Balboa’s dogs have been his most effective weapon because for them, one does not need to carry ammunition, as for the muskets; one does not need to carry food, as for the soldiers. For the dogs, there is fresh meat everywhere. He knows his cruelty will be recorded along with whatever he discovers. This does not bother him, even though one monk, Dominican—strange fish—cursed him back in Darién. He was a young monk, tormented by epileptic[12] fits. He approached Balboa in the town square in his bare feet, unarmed, waving his shrunken fist. “Your dogs,” screamed the monk, “are demons.” As if understanding, Leoncico had lunged at the monk. Leoncico is not a demon. He is the half of Balboa with teeth, the half that eats. Balboa has the mind and appetite. Together, they make one. It is as if the great beast can hear his thoughts, as if their hearts and lungs circulate the same blood and air. What did the monk understand of that? What did he understand of anything? He said that he was in the New World to bring the Indians to God. So the monk converts the Indians, and Balboa sends them on to God. They work together, which is what Balboa told the monk. But the monk did not find it funny. How dare he find fault with Balboa? Is not Spain as full of torments as the New World? The Spaniards are brought down by smallpox at alarming rates in Seville, in Madrid. Every summer the rich take to the mountains to escape the plague, and in the fall, when they return, aren’t their own countrymen lying in the streets feeding the packs of mongrels? Half of all the Spanish babies die. It is not uncommon to see a peasant woman leave her screaming infant on the side of the road, so why come here and beg relief for these savages? Why not go to France, where, one soldier tells Balboa, they butcher the Huguenots[13] and sell their limbs for food in the street? Why rant over the impaling of the Indians when Spaniards—noblemen among them—have suffered the same fate in the name of God? In fact, the Inquisition[14] has been the great educator when it comes to subduing the Indian population. Why take him to task when the world is a violent place? “May your most evil act be visited on you,” said the monk. “I curse you.” The monk died shortly after that. His threats and bravery were more the result of a deadly fever than the words of a divine message. Did the curse worry Balboa? Perhaps a little. He occasionally revisits a particularly spectacular feat of bloodshed—the time Leoncico tore a chieftain’s head from his shoulders—with a pang of concern. But Balboa is a busy man with little time for reflection. When the monk delivered his curse, Balboa was already preparing his troops for the great march to the west. His name had reached Spain, and the king felt his authority threatened. He is the great Balboa. But here, on the slope of the mountain, his name does not seem worth that much. He has to relieve himself and is terrified that some creature—jaguar, snake, spider—will take advantage of his great heaving bareness. “Leoncico,” he calls. “At attention.” Not that this command means anything to the dog. Leoncico knows “attack,” and that is all he needs to know. Leoncico looks up, wags his tail, and lies down, his face smiling into the heat. Balboa climbs onto a boulder. Here, he is exposed to everything, but if that jaguar is still tracking him, he can at least see it coming. He sets his musket down and listens. Nothing. He loosens his belt and is about to lower his pants when he sees it—the flattened glimmer, a shield, the horizon. He fixes his belt and straightens himself. He stares out at the startling bare intrusion, this beautiful nothing beyond the green tangle of trees, the Mar del Sur, the glory of Balboa, his gift to Spain. Balboa, having accomplished his goal, luxuriates in this moment of peaceful ignorance. He does not know that his days are numbered, that even after he returns to Darién with his knowledge of the South Sea, even after he has ceded the governorship to Pedro Arias Dávila, even after he is promised Dávila’s daughter, he has not bought his safety. Dávila will see that as long as Balboa lives he must sleep with one eye open. With the blessing of Spain, Dávila will bring Balboa to trial for treason, and on January 21, 1519, Balboa’s head will be severed from his shoulders. His eyes will stay open, his mouth will be slack, and his great head will roll in the dust for everyone—Indians, Spaniards, and dogs—to see.

COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION Why is Balboa more successful in managing his relationships with the Indians than his relationships with other powerful Spaniards? Discuss with a partner how Murray describes these different relationships. Cite specific evidence from the story to support your ideas.

Cite Text Evidence Support your responses with evidence from the selection.
1. An allusion is an indirect reference to a famous person, place, event, or literary work. What allusion is made in the first paragraph of the story? How does this allusion shape readers’ understanding of Balboa’s character?
2. Balboa could be described as self-aware. Even as he revels in the thought that “his name will live, ” he is aware of the incongruity that he, a debt-ridden pig farmer, should now be standing “at the very edge of the world.” He also assesses his errors in judgment honestly. What is the author’s purpose in developing this trait of self-awareness?
3. After Leoncico surprises Balboa on the mountain, the action of the story is interrupted by a flashback. What do readers learn about Balboa from this flashback? What theme does it suggest about the nature of power?
4. At the beginning of the story, the narrator says that Balboa is “dragging the mantle of civilization up the pristine slopes, over the mud, over the leaves” (lines 12–13). What does this image suggest about Balboa and the “civilization” that he is bringing with him?
5. Note the many references to and images of dogs throughout the story. What ideas does the author convey through these references?
6. The vantage point from which a writer tells a story is called the point of view. What point of view did Murray choose for this short story? What does this choice add to the narrative?
7. One form of irony is the contrast between expectations and what actually happens. What is ironic about Balboa’s first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean? Why does the author present the crowning moment of Balboa’s achievement this way?
8. What is revealed by the flash forward at the end of the story? How does this knowledge help bring out a theme of the story?