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clink of metal and creak of leather. Then the sudden beating of hooves reached her as horses responded to spurs, and their rolling cadence increased as it escaped farther and farther into the distance. She barely breathed until her ears could no longer perceive the slightest reverberation of the earth.

Chapter 3
    T HE D OUBLE A NCHOR T AVERN
    C aptain Antonio Correa impatiently banged his pottery tankard on the rough wooden table and proclaimed, “We should start without them, Captain-General. Any man who fails to appear at the stated time for such an important meeting deserves to miss what comes. The noon hour has long since passed.”
    Accustomed as Cabrillo was to the man’s crusty character, such intermittent outbursts caused little uneasiness. Cabrillo gave a nod of acknowledgement but offered no sign of acquiescence.
    Scholar and navigator Andrés de Urdaneta, Captain-General Villalobos, Captain Bolaños, and Captain Ferrelo of Cabrillo’s own fleet also sat close by on long wooden benches in a private chamber just off the Double Anchor Tavern’s main room. The year-old pub had been constructed of adobe, posts, and beams, and thatched with palm leaves, and the inspired owner had symbolically proclaimed its name by mounting a pair of crossed anchors above the entry. In the smaller room now occupied by the seamen a single window provided the only entry for an occasional breath of breeze, which seemed to be forever accompanied by a handful of whining mosquitoes. The warm, muggy air was beginning to make the room feel more crowded than it already was as the six men awaited the appearance of the two late arrivals.
    â€œWith your permission, gentlemen,” said Cabrillo, bowing his head toward Villalobos, Bolaños, and Urdaneta, and then returning his attention to Correa, “we shall give my men a little longer, Captain.” At the use of his title, Correa’s irritation eased a bit, just as Cabrillo had hoped.
    The captain-general valued this short-tempered Portuguese for many reasons, including his commendable skill as a pilot and significant experience as a captain. Correa had even sailed with Francisco de Bolaños, who had just returned from his ill-fated voyage over the first stretch of water Cabrillo’s fleet intended to navigate. Under Bolaños, Correa had journeyed as far as Abreojos, which lay roughly 300 miles up the western coast from the tip of California’s baja. At that point they had been forced to turn back and ultimately await a rescue from Captain Ruy López de Villalobos, the viceroy’s own cousin. Cabrillo knew that Correa was anxious to erase the unpleasant taste of failure left by that futile attempt.
    Cabrillo had given Correa command of his bergantine San Miguel and planned to consult him frequently about the land and sea he had already explored. In addition to the San Miguel’s sails, thirteen pairs of oars would power Correa’s small ship, and he would need every ounce of his obvious toughness to control that crew of rowers, several of whom had been condemned to such hard labor because of their crimes.
    Directly across the table from Cabrillo sat Bartolomé Ferrelo, captain of their mid-sized ship La Victoria . Ferrelo’s ability to steer a vessel under any conditions was so acknowledged that the captain-general had also given him the title of chief pilot. Cabrillo knew him well and held him in unusually high regard. They’d sailed together before aboard the Santiago , a ship Cabrillo had constructed but General Alvarado had later commandeered. Several times in the past Cabrillo had seen Ferrelo bring a group of unruly sailors under control with nothing more than a word or an icy stare, and his current crewmen already recognized him as a strict but fair leader. Cabrillo felt confident that those aboard La Victoria would be in proficient hands.
    At the moment, Ferrelo was smiling with leniency into his tankard of wine, silent as