Chapter 2

The old man's hand slapped his back and the mouth parted to show ugly blackened teeth and the old man laughed so hard spittle spotted his beard. "As if you didn't know," he managed to say. "As if you didn't know, Martin Pinzon. It's that weak-minded sailor again, the one who claims to have a charter for three caravels from the Queen herself. Drunk as Bacchus and there's his pretty little daughter trying to get him to come home again. I tell you, Martin Pinzon, if he isn't ..."

* * * * *

But now Danny wasn't listening. He looked around the tavern until he saw the butt of all the laughter. Slowly, drawn irresistibly, Martin Pinzon--or Danny Jones--got up and walked over there.

The man was drunk as Bacchus, all right. He was a man perhaps somewhat taller than average. He had a large head with an arrogant beak of a nose dominating the face, but the mouth was weak and irresolute. He stared drunkenly at a beautiful girl who could not have been more than seventeen.

The girl was saying, "Please, papa. Come back to the hotel with me. Papa, don't you realize you're sailing tomorrow?"

"Gowananlemebe," the man mumbled.

"Papa. Please. The Queen's charter--"

"I was drunk when I took it and drunk when I examined those three stinking caravels and--" he leaned forward as if to speak in deepest confidence, but his drunken voice was still very loud--"and drunk when I said the world was round. I--"

"You hear that?" someone cried. "Old Chris was drunk when he said the world was round!"

"He must a' been!" someone else shouted. Everyone laughed.

"Come on, papa," the girl pleaded. She wore a shawl over her dress and another shawl on her head. Her blonde hair barely peeked out, and she was beautiful. She tried to drag her father to his feet by one arm, but he was too heavy for her.

She looked around the room defiantly as the laughter surged again. "Brave men!" she mocked. "A bunch of stay-at-homes. Won't somebody help me? Papa sails tomorrow."

"Papa sails tomorrow," said someone, miming her desperate tones. "Didn't you know that papa sails tomorrow?"

"Not sailing anyplace at all," the father mumbled. "World isn't round. Drunk. Think I want to fall over the edge? Think I--"

"Oh, papa," moaned the girl. "Won't someone help me to--" And she tugged again at the man's arm--"to get him to bed."

A big man nearby boomed, "I'll help you t'bed, me lass, but it won't be with your old father. Eh, mates?" he cried, and the tavern echoed with laughter. The big man got up and went over to the girl. "Now, listen, lass," he said, taking hold of her arm. "Why don't you forget this drunken slob of a father and--"

Crack! Her hand blurred at his cheek, struck it like a pistol shot. The big man blinked his eyes and grinned. "So you have spirit, do you? Well, it's more than I can say for that father of yours, too yellow and too drunk to carry out the Queen of Castile's bid--"

The hand flashed out again but this time the big man caught it in one of his own and twisted sideways against the girl, forcing her back against the table's edge. "I like my girls to struggle," he said, and the girl's face went white as she suddenly let herself go limp in his arms.

The man grinned. "Oh I like 'em limp, me lass. When they're pretty as a rose, like you, who's to care?"

"Papa!" the girl screamed. The big man's face hovered over hers, blotting out the oil-lamp lights, the thick lips all but slavering....

* * * * *

"Just a minute, man!" Danny cried, striding boldly to them. Hardly pausing in his efforts to kiss the again struggling girl, the big man swatted back with one enormous arm and sent Danny reeling. Whoever he was, he was a popular figure. The laughter was still louder now. Everyone was having a great time, at Danny's expense now.

Danny crashed into a chair, upending it. A bowl of soup came crashing down, the heavy bowl splintering, the hot contents scalding him. He stood up and heard the girl scream. Instinctively, he grasped two legs of the heavy chair and hefted it. Then he sprinted back across the room.

"Behind you, Pietro!" a voice cried, and at the last moment the big man whirled and faced Danny, then lunged to one side, taking the girl with him.

Danny couldn't check his arms, which had carried the heavy chair overhead. It came down with a crash against the edge of the big plank table. The chair shattered in Danny's arms. One leg flew up and struck the big man in the face, though, bringing blood just below the cheek bone. He bellowed in surprise and pain and came lumbering toward Danny.

Danny was aware of the girl cowering to one side, aware that another of the chair's legs was still grasped in his right hand. He was but a boy, he found himself thinking quickly, desperate. If the giant grabbed him, grabbed him just once, the fight would be over. The man was twice his size, twice his weight. Yet he had to do something to help the girl....

The giant came at him. The big arms lifted over the heavy, brutal face.... And Danny drove under them with the chair-leg, jabbing the tip of it against the man's enormous middle. Pietro--for such was the man's name--sagged a few inches, the breath rushing, heavy with garlic, from his mouth. But still, he got his great hands about Danny's throat and began to squeeze.

Danny saw the wood rafters, the window, a bargirl standing, mouth open, watching them, the drunken man and his daughter, then a blurry, watery confusion as his eyes went dim. He was conscious of swinging the club, of striking something, of extending the club out as far as it would go and then slamming it back toward himself, striking something which he hoped was Pietro's head. He felt his mouth going slack and wondered if his tongue were hanging out. Exerting all his strength he struck numbly, mechanically, desperately with the chair-leg.

And slowly, the constriction left his throat. Something struck against his middle, almost knocking him down. Something pushed against his legs, backing him against the table. He looked down. His eyes were watery, his throat burning. The giant Pietro lay, breathing stertorously, at his feet.

A small hand grabbed his. "Father will come now," a voice said. "I don't--don't even know who you are, but I want to thank you. I thank you for myself and the Queen, and God, senor. You better come quickly, with us. Does it hurt much?"

Danny tried to talk. His voice rasped in his throat. The girl squeezed his hand and together with her and the drunken man who was her father, he left the tavern. The giant Pietro was just getting up and shaking his fist at them slowly....

* * * * *

It was a small top-floor room in an old waterfront building in the Spanish port of Palos. Or, Danny corrected himself, the Castillian port of Palos. Because, in this year of our Lord 1492, Spain had barely become a unified country.

"Are you feeling better, Martin Pinzon?" the beautiful girl asked him.

He had given the name he had heard, Martin Pinzon, as his own. The room was very hot. The August night outside was hot too and sultry and starless. The girl's father was resting now, breathing unevenly. The girl's name was Nina. One of the small caravels in her father's three-ship fleet was named after her. Her full name was Nina Columbus.

Nina brought another wet cloth and covered Danny's swollen throat with it. "Does it hurt much?" she said, and, for the tenth time, "we have no money to thank you with, senor."

"Any man would have--"

"But you were the only one. The only--never mind. Martin, listen. I have no right to trouble you, but ... it's father. Tomorrow is the second day of August, you see, and it is all over Palos that tomorrow he sails with the Queen's charter...."

"Then if you're worrying about that big man, Pietro, you can forget it. If you're sailing, I mean."

"That's just it," Nina said desperately. "Father doesn't want to sail. Martin, tell me, do you believe the world is round?"

Danny nodded very soberly. "Yes, Nina," he told her softly. "The world is round. I believe it."

"My father doesn't! Funny, isn't it, Martin?" she said in a voice which told him she did not think it was funny at all. "All Spain--and Genoa too--think that tomorrow morning my father, Christopher Columbus, will journey to the unexplored west confident that he will arrive, after a long voyage, in the East--when really my father, this same Christopher Columbus, lies here in a drunken stupor because he lacks the courage to face his convictions and ... oh, Martin!" Her voice broke, her pretty face crumpled. She sobbed into her hands. Gently, Danny stroked her back.

* * * * *

"There now, take it easy," he said. "Your father will sail. I know he'll sail. Do you believe the world to be round, little Nina?"

"Yes. Oh yes, yes, yes!"

"He will sail. He will prove it and be famous. I know he will."

"Oh, Martin. You sound so sure of yourself. I wish I could ..."

"Nina, listen. Your father will sail."

"You'll help us you mean?"

"Yes. All right, I'll help you. Now, get some sleep if you want to wake up and say goodbye to him in the morning. Because I'll be getting him up before the sun to--"

"Are you a sailing man too? Are you going with him?"

"Well ..."

"Wait! Martin, I remember you now. Martin Pinzon. At the meeting of the organization to prove the Earth's round shape. You! You were there. And once, once when he was not drunk, father said that a Don Pinzon would command one of our three ships, the Nina it was, the caravel which bears my name. Are you this Don Pinzon?"

Slowly, Danny nodded. He remembered his history now. The Nina _had_ been commanded by one Don Pinzon, Don Martin Pinzon! And he was now this Martin Pinzon, he, Danny Jones. Which meant he was going with Columbus to discover a new world! A nineteen-year-old American youth going to witness the single most important event in American history....

"Yes," Danny said slowly, "I am Don Pinzon."

"But--but you're so young!"

Danny shrugged. "I have seen more of the world than you would believe, Nina."

"The Western Sea? You have been out on the Western Sea, as far as the Canary Islands, perhaps?" she asked in an awed voice.

"I know the Western Sea," he said. "Trust me."

She came very close. She looked long in his eyes. "I trust you, Martin. Oh yes, I trust you. Listen, Martin. I'm going. I'm going with you. I have to go with you."

"But a girl--"

"He is my father. I love him, Martin. He needs me. Martin, don't try to stop me. I want you to help me aboard, to see that he ... oh, Martin, you'll have so much to do. Because the rest of our crew--some of them being hired even now by the three caravel pursers--will be a crew of cut-throats and ne'er-do-wells embarking into the unknown because they have utterly nothing to lose. Father needs you because the others won't care."

"The three caravels will sail west," Danny told her. "Believe me, they'll sail west. Now, get some sleep."

Her face was still very close. Her eyes filled with tears, but they were not tears of sadness. She took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him softly on the lips. She smiled at him, her own lips trembling.

"Martin," she said.

His arms moved. They went around her, drew the softness of her close. She murmured something, but he did not hear it. His lips found hers a second time, fiercely. His hands her shoulder, her throat, her ...

"Flat," Columbus mumbled. "Flat. Abs'lutely flat. The Earth is--flat as a pancake...."

"Oh, Martin!" Nina cried.

* * * * *

It was raining in the morning. A hard, driving rain, pelting down on the seaport of Palos. The three caravels floated side by side in the little harbor and a large, derisive crowd had gathered. The crowd erupted into noisy laughter when Columbus and his little party appeared on foot.

"I need a drink," Columbus whispered. "I can't go through with it."

"Father," Nina said. "We're with you. I'm here. Martin is here."

"I can't go--"

"You've got to go through with it! For yourself and for the world. Now, stand straight, father. They're looking at you. They're all looking at you."

Columbus, thought Danny. The intrepid voyager who had discovered a new world! He smiled grimly. Columbus, the history books should have said, the drunken sot who didn't even have the courage to face his own convictions.

They walked ahead through the ridiculing crowd. Danny's throat was still sore. He was not frightened, though. He possibly was the only man in the crew who was not frightened. The others didn't care what their destination was, true: but they wanted to reach it alive. Danny knew the journey would end in success. The end of the journey meant nothing to him. It was written in history. It was ...

Unless, he suddenly found himself thinking, I came back here to write it. He grinned at his own bravado. What would they have said in freshman psych--that was practically paranoid thinking. As if Danny Jones, Whitney College, Virginia, U.S.A., could have anything to do with the success or failure of Columbus' journey.

They reached the small skiff that would take them out to the tiny fleet of caravels. The crowd hooted and jeered.

"... going to drop off the edge of the world, Columbus."

"If the monsters don't get you first."

"Or the storms and whirlpools."

Columbus gripped Nina's hand. Martin-Danny took his other arm firmly and steered him toward the prow of the skiff. "Easy now, skipper," Danny said.

"I can't--"

"There's wine on the Santa Maria," Danny whispered. "Much wine--to make you forget. Come on!"

"And I'm going, father," Nina said. "Whether you go or not."

"You!" Columbus gasped. "A girl. You, going--"

"With Martin Pinzon. If--if my own father can't look after me, then Martin can."

"But you--" Danny began.

"Be quiet, please," she whispered as Columbus climbed stiffly into the skiff. "It may be the only way, Martin. He--he loves me. I guess I'm the only thing he cares about. If he knows I'm going."

"To the Santa Maria!" Columbus told the rowers as Danny and Nina got into the skiff.

"To the New World!" cried Danny melodramatically.

"What did you say?" Nina asked him.

His face colored. "I mean, to the Indies! To the Indies!"

The skiff bobbed out across the harbor toward the three waiting caravels. Departure time had arrived.

Two hours later, they were underway.

* * * * *

The sea was calm as glass, green as emerald. The three caravels, after a journey of several days, had reached the Canary Islands where additional provisions and fresh water were to be had.

"This," said Columbus, waving his arms to take in the chain of islands. "This is as far as a mere man has a right to go. There is nothing further, can't you see? Can't you?"

He was sober. Danny had come over in a skiff from the Nina to see that he remained sober at least for the loading and the departure. It was as if he, Danny, was going to preserve Columbus' name for history--single-handed if necessary.

"We will not go on," Columbus said. "We're going back. The only way to the Indies is around the Cape of Storms, around Africa. I tell you--"

"That's enough, father," Nina said. "We ..."

"I'm in command here," Columbus told them. It surprised Danny. Usually, the drunken sailor was not so self-assertive. Then it occurred to Danny that it wasn't merely self-assertiveness: it was fear.

Danny called over the mate, a one-legged man named Juan, who walked with a jaunty stride despite his peg leg. "You take orders from Columbus?" Danny said. "Would you take orders from me?"

Juan shook his head, smiling. "You command aboard the Nina only, Martin Pinzon. I heard what the Captain said. If he wants to go back and give up this fool scheme, it's all right with me. And you know the rest of the crew will say the same."

Nina looked at Danny hopelessly. She said, "Then, then it's no use?"

Danny whispered fiercely, "Your father loves you very much?"

"Yes, but--"

"And doesn't want to see anything happen to you?"

"But--"

"And believes the world is flat and if you sail far enough west you'll fall off?"

"But I--"

"Then you're coming with me aboard the Nina!"

Columbus gasped, "What did you say?"

"She's coming with me, on the Nina. If you don't want to find the western route to the Indies, we will. Right, Nina?" he said, taking her hand and moving to where the rope-ladder dangled over the side of the Santa Maria to the skiff below.

"Don't take her from this deck," Columbus ordered.

Danny ignored him. "Don Juan!" cried Columbus, and the peg-leg came toward Danny.

"I'm sorry, Don Martin," he said, "but--"

Still holding Nina's hand, Martin stiff-armed him out of the way and ran for the side. Someone jerked the rope-ladder out of reach and someone else leaped on Martin. For, he was Martin now, Martin Pinzon. His own identity seemed submerged far below the surface, as if somehow he could look on all this without risking anything. He knew that he was merely a defense mechanism, to ward off fear: for, it wasn't true. If Martin Pinzon were hurt, _he_ would be hurt.

He hurled the man from his back. Nina screamed as a cutlass flashed in the sun. Martin-Danny ducked, felt the blade whizz by overhead.

"Jump!" Martin-Danny cried.

"But I can't swim!"

"I can. I'll save you." It was Danny again, completely Danny. He felt himself arise to the surface, submerging Martin Pinzon. Because the Spaniard probably couldn't swim at all, and if Danny made promises, it was Danny who must fulfill them.

He squeezed Nina's hand. He went up on the side--and over. The water seemed a very long way down. They hit it finally with a great splash.

Down they went and down, into the warm murky green depths. Down--and finally up. Danny's head broke surface. He was only yards from the skiff. He had never let go of Nina's hand, but now he did, getting a lifeguard's hold on her. He struck out for the skiff.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later, they were aboard the Nina. "I command here," Danny told the crew. "Is that correct?"

"Aye, sir," said Don Hernan, the mate.

"Even if Columbus tells you different?"

"Columbus?" spat Don Hernan. "That drunkard is in command of the Santa Maria, not the Nina. We follow Martin Pinzon here."

"Even if I give one set of orders and Columbus another?"

"Even then, my commander. Yes."

"Then we're sailing west," Danny cried. "Up anchor! Hurry."

"But I--" Nina began.

"Don't you see? He thinks I'm abducting you. Or he thinks I'm sailing west with you to certain death. He will follow with the Santa Maria and the Pinta, trying to rescue you. And we'll reach the Indies. Columbus will sail across the Western Sea to save his daughter, but what's the difference _why_ he'll sail. The important thing is, Queen Isabella gave him the charter and the caravels and with them he's making history. You see?"

"I ... I think so," Nina said doubtfully.

A heady wind sprang up. The square-rigged sails billowed. The Nina began to surge forward--into the unknown West.

Tackle creaked aboard the nearby Santa Maria and Pinta. The two other caravels came in pursuit. But they won't catch us, Martin knew. They won't catch us until we reach--Hispaniola. And then, pursuit will be no more. Then, it will no longer matter and we'll all be heroes....

* * * * *

Which is the way it turned out--almost.

The Santa Maria and Pinta pursued all through August and September and into October, but the Nina kept its slim lead. The ships were never out of sight of one another and once or twice Columbus even hailed them, imploring them to return to Spain with him. When they ignored him, his deep voice boomed to his own crew and the crew of the Pinta: "Then sail on, sail on!" It was these words, Danny knew, that history would record. Not the others.

One morning in October, he awoke with a start. Something had disturbed his sleep--something ...

"Good morning, captain," a voice said.

He looked up. It was a giant of a man, with a hard face and brutal-looking eyes. He knew that face. Pietro! The giant of the tavern.

"But you--"

"I was aboard all the time, my captain," Pietro said. "An auxiliary rower. You never knew." He said nothing else. He lunged at Martin's bunk--for I'm Martin again, Danny thought--a knife gleaming in his big hand.

* * * * *

Martin-Danny sat up, bringing the covers with him, hurling them like a cloak at Pietro. The giant's knife-hand caught in the covers and Danny swung to his feet, shoving the big man. Pietro stumbled into the bunk, then lashed around quickly, unexpectedly, the knife loose again. Danny felt it grating across his ribs hotly, searingly. He staggered and almost fell, but somehow made it to the door and on deck. He needed room. Facing that knife in the close confines of the cabin, he was a dead man and knew it.

He hit the stairs and headed for the deck. He reached the door--tugged. It held fast. He heard Pietro's laughter, then threw himself to one side. The knife thudded into the wood alongside Danny's shoulder.

Then the door came open, throwing him back. He stumbled, regained his balance, plunged outside. With a roar, Pietro followed him, knife again in hand.

Danny backed away slowly. Only a few crew members were on deck now, and a watch high up in the crow's nest. The watch was crying in an almost-delirious voice: "Land, land! Land ho-oo!" But Martin-Danny hardly heard the words. Pietro came at him--

Suddenly Don Hernan was in front of him. Don Hernan's hand nipped up and then down and a knife arced toward Danny. He caught it by the haft, swung to face the giant. But, he thought, I don't know how to use a knife. I'm Danny Jones, I ...

Pietro leaped, the knife down, held loosely at his side, underhanded, ready to slash and rip. Danny sidestepped and Pietro went by in a rush. Danny waited.

Pietro came back carefully this time, crouching, balanced easily on the balls of his feet. For all his size, he fought with the grace of a dancer.

Danny felt warm wetness where the blood was seeping from his ribs. Feet pounded as more of the crew came on deck in response to the watch's delirious words. Instead of crowding at the prow, though, they formed a circle around Danny and Pietro. Danny thought: But I'm the captain. The captain. They ought to help me ... they ... He knew though that they would not. They were a fierce, proud people and the law of single combat would apply even to the captain who had piloted them across an unknown ocean.

Pietro came by, attempting to slash with his knife from outside. Danny moved quickly--not quick enough. The knife point caught his arm this time. He felt his hand go numb. His own knife clattered to the deck as blood oozed from his biceps.

Once more Pietro charged him. Weaponless, Danny waited. Pietro was laughing, sure of himself--

Careless.

Danny slipped aside as Pietro brought the knife around in a wicked swipe. He spun with it and when he came around Danny was waiting for him. He drove his left fist into the great belly and his right to the big, bearded jaw. Pietro slumped, disbelief in his eyes. He swung the knife again but only succeeded in wrapping his giant arm around Danny. He bent his head, shook it to clear it of the sting of Danny's blows. And Danny rabbit-punched him.

Pietro went down heavily and someone shouted. "The face! Kick him in the face!"

Wearily, Danny shook his head. He went with Nina to the rail and saw the green palm-fringed island of the New World. Nina smiled at him, then ripped something from what she was wearing and began to bandage his ribs, his arm.

* * * * *