Prologue
July 1520, Bank of the Caloosahatchee River, Southwest Florida
The Spaniards marched northeast, up the river and away from the coast. It was a sloppy, loud slog through the pine meadows and marshes -- the burdensome tools and animals slowed the expedition, and the undisciplined farmers and craftsmen in the march worried the soldiers. Those inexperienced in fighting the natives in the New World laughed at their nakedness and their primitive bows and stone and shell arrow points. But the soldiers who had fought them for years in the Caribbean and on the peninsula knew better. The Indians were silent among the pines and invisible in the marshes, and their small bows flung poison-dipped arrows with a speed and accuracy that shamed the greatest Spanish archers.
The leader of the expedition rode in front, mounted along with a half-dozen armor-clad soldiers. The marchers were triumphantly overconfident, happy in the knowledge that their quest for a New Spain was about to take a great leap forward in La Florida -- they would build from the wilderness a fort and a colony and restart their squalid lives with a hope for a better future. A future with all they lacked -- enough food, enough land, and most of all -- freedom.
Their leader, however, had other plans. Bigger plans. The new colony would of course be a shining accomplishment and would civilize and save the souls of many savages. But it was not another Spanish New World settlement that would ensure his place in history; there were other conquistadors roaming across vast portions of the Americas exterminating Indians and founding colonies. It was what this particular colony would embrace and protect. It was Fuenta de la Eterna Juventud. The quest was almost over.
Juan Ponce de Leon had been the greatest conquistador of the Caribbean islands for almost a dozen years, founding colonies and pacifying natives in the name of Mother Spain. He discovered La Florida seven years ago, and there he heard the stories of the free flowing spring that turned old men into young men, young men into boys. He explored island after island, capturing and questioning and torturing, gradually narrowing his search to this small area on the southwest side of the peninsula, where the native stories converged.
The very spot had come to him in a vivid dream, Jesus himself offering the silver chalice from a small pool, water cool and clean with just a hint of tannic brown. Cypress trees surrounding, sunlight shimmering through. Jesus smiled peacefully as he handed Ponce the Cup, but then suddenly vanished into an explosion of light and color, as if God’s Own Meteor had struck the Fountain. Jesus and the Cup were gone – but Ponce was still there. Some might believe such a dream foretold failure, but Ponce believed it promised the reward of perseverance. And persevere he had, with the faith of the righteous and the might of the Spaniards.
As he pulled off his helmet to wipe the sweat which dripped steadily onto his face, as if with a sudden clap of thunder the humid forest silence was shattered by the horrific shriek of Indians -- from the left? “INDIOS!” screamed the captain of the soldiers as he turned and fired his musket. Ponce turned also to fire, and as he reached to reload felt an arrow graze his unarmored calf. “Ungrateful savages,” he thought. He dismissed the wound – a nuisance really -- and his soldiers quickly dispatched the small band of Caloosahatchee, who as swiftly as they had appeared, melted back into the swamp. Afterward, the Spaniards regrouped, slapped each other’s backs in celebration of another victory over their inept foe, and slogged on toward their date with destiny.
But Fate had other plans, and that evening, around their small fire, as his leg swelled to the size of a large gourd and fever gripped his mind and burned his body, Juan Ponce de Leon, Discoverer of Many New Lands, was cursed by his life’s greatest irony – de Leon’s unswerving quest to establish eternal life on earth was ending his. As his eyes closed and the pain fell away, his failing mind struggled to make sense of it. In the end he simply drifted away, as mundanely mortal as you and me. But the sins of Ponce de Leon did not die with him; they live on to haunt us still. A kindred connection to those brave and foolish souls endowed with the audacity to challenge the Rules of Nature and the Word of God. No, the price that must be paid for such impertinence is not limited to Conquistadors. In the end, it must be paid by us all.
