I asked him, “Why is it that these Indians here seem glad for us to go?”
He sighed impatiently, drawing one hand through the other, with him a recurring gesture. “It is the women! Certain of our men—” I saw him look at Gutierrez who passed.
“Tomaso Passamonte, too,” I said.
“Yes. And others. It is the old woe! Now they have only to kill a man!”
He arraigned short-sightedness. I said, “But still we are from heaven?”
“Still. But some of the gods—just five or six, say—have fearful ways!” He laughed, sorrowfully and angrily. “And you think there is little gold, and that we are very far from clothed and lettered Asia?”
“So far,” I answered, “that I see not why we call these brown, naked folk Indians.”
“What else would you call them?”
“I do not know that.”
“Why, then, let us still call them Indians.” He drummed upon the rail before him, then broke out, “Christ! I think we do esteem hard, present, hand-held gold too much!”