Clash of Star-Kings (9 page)

Health and rest
…. He had received both, no doubt of that.

The hut he was in was unremarkable, a pile of mats and a sheepskin for a bed. Next to that on another and smaller mat was a small brown earthen mug of
atole-
gruel and the familiar small basket containing a napkin with warm tortillas and bean paste. The gruel was still warm, too. So…. He ate and sipped and reflected. They had said, the Great Old Ones, that they would see him and talk with him and answer his questions another time. But they had not named when that time would be. So
… entonces
… he, Luis, was going to decide that time. Now … or as near to now as it would take him to find them. True, he could not force them. If it was their pleasure to put him asleep again, he would be put to sleep again:
nada más
. And maybe again and again. But eventually they would tire of it and then the moment of true confrontation was bound to arise.

He went out of the hut and stopped to urinate and while he was doing so he looked all around him. There,
there
was San Juan Bautista Moxtomi, not more than a quarter mile away as the hawk flies … but Luis, keenly aware that he was not a hawk, knew that it was a good hour’s walk from where he now stood. Besides, he had no desire to go there now, it looked its usual sleepy self, with the woodsmoke escaping through the open eaves and the only sign of life the figure of a man who was doubtless engaged in the same simple necessity as he himself. Which necessity being concluded, Luis buttoned himself up and started to walk. He had two of the tortillas in his pocket and he might find something on or under the fruit and nut trees which were said to be still bearing (although not well or abundantly) around the ruins of the old hacienda which had been stormed and burned during the Revolution when the Zapatistas came pouring up from Cuautla. Possibly a corner of roof and wall were yet standing, and he just might shelter there if bad weather set in —

One never knew, so close to Popo, when squalls of snow might not descend. One
did
know, though, that beyond the ruins there was no human habitation in any condition on this side of the mountain. And it was thither that he was bound, up through the woods and up through the forests, over the fallen rocks and trees and over the gorges, up into the dominions of the wolf and the eagle and the bear, up into the black and barren volcanic sand which fringed Popocatapetl like a trailing mantle, up the snowy sides by narrow and twisting trails, over the flanks of ice, until — if need be, if he lived to get that far — over the frozen lips of the crater and down, down, down, into the slumbering, but still vulcanous, depths inside….

As far as he had to go, that far he would go, but he would find those he sought after.

If he lived.

Luis took the paths more or less as he found them, as long as they went in the general direction of his goal. Where there were no paths heading upwards he struck out across the unmarked land that was open. From time to time he saw the last settlement dwindle in size and finally vanish away altogether. Once, looking down, he saw the shadows of the clouds pacing across a great valley, and, finally, he was able to look down upon clouds themselves; and at last he looked down upon the hawks and the eagles as they wheeled and circled and sought their meat from God.

The trees became fewer, the bare bones of the earth thrust up at him, the air grew thin and chill. He walked very close to the side of the rock-face now, and avoided further looks down into the deep gorge. And when he heard the growl and snarl of the beast and felt his male flesh shrink in upon itself and his heart swell in cold fear even before he, edging around a turn in the trail, saw the great golden eyes and the golden pelt spotted with black markings and the lips drawn back from the teeth —

He felt in his bones, cold fingers upon cold skin, and drew out the amulet, the sign of the Great Old Ones, and held it out as far as the cord would reach. The jaguar gazed at it, gold reflected into gold. The jaguar bowed his head down upon its paws. The jaguar retreated. When Luis made the next turn it was gone. It could have neither gone up nor down and even if it had gone back it would still be visible. But, of course, it was no ordinary jaguar, as he had known from the first, for this was not the natural habitat of such. It was the magic jaguar of the Olmec, it was a guardian beast….

Coming out upon a broad and bare plateau, he could not resist removing the loop from around his neck and fondling and admiring the amulet. It was gold, it was certainly gold, but it was not as heavy as gold should be, and he wondered if it was partly hollow — and why.

The first shout and shot startled him. He cried out, the object slipped, his lunge for it missed, he saw it fall and jumped for it. The second shot spun him around and spun the world around and he saw the darkness close in and the shouts became a roar. He crawled, with the weight of the whirling world upon him, seized and grasped the
ocelotl
, and surrendered to the clamoring dark.

He smelled the sour, stale stink of them … old sweat, old clothes, old pulque, and something else … worse than any of the others … his mind tried to identify this. Why, he could not say, particularly since part of his mind was aware that with some effort he could identify at least which puzzled him — and then recognition came: it was the evil, fishy reek of old blood, like a butcher who hasn’t changed his apron for days. So.

That done, now to the voices. He did not know them well at all, but he did know them … that is, he knew that he had heard them. The memory was neither clear nor pleasant. He kept his eyes closed.

“A nice piece of venison,” said one, poking a thick finger into Luis’s ribs. An ordinary voice, this one.

“Not dead, I hope?” This one was hoarse and phlegmy, one of the familiar ones — and, whereas the first comment had been made in Spanish, this second was in Nahua. And now the first one spoke again, and in Nahua, too.

“I don’t think so….” A hand was laid roughly on Luis’s heart. “No … this is still good….” The all but imperceptible pause was succeeded by a sigh of genuine longing, such as one might hear from a mother awaiting her long-delayed child or a woman yearning for the arms of a distant lover. It was not at all the sort of sound which one might expect to hear from the man, whoever he was or whatever he was, with the ordinary voice.

And now a third voice spoke, a thin and whining sort, this. “What is one? One is nothing, nothing at all. There must be hundreds, thousands!”

The hoarse one said, “Everything starts with one thing —
Vamanos!
” he concluded, abruptly. They tied Luis hand and foot and one of them tossed him over a shoulder as though he were a sack of cobs, and jogged off, the others (as Luis could hear) trotting alongside. It was almost insufferably uncomfortable, but he would hardly expect that anyone would shoot at him with the intention of subsequently buying him a ride on a
primera clase
bus. Furthermore, he had something else to occupy his mind besides his discomfort.

It was the last word that had done it, supplied the key. What the man’s name was, he didn’t remember, perhaps had never known. But he knew now who he was — the barrel-shaped, frog-faced fellow who presided every Saturday and Sunday in the marketplace over a caldron of hog
-tripas
frying in dirty, viscid oil … and spent the rest of the week holding up the wall in one of the filthy pulquerias of the
Barrio Occidental
. Hardly anyone except his fellow slummy neighbors bought the evil-smelling chitterlings, and it was his habit, as he slapped each leathery-looking portion, oozing oil, into a piece of paper, to shout, as though encouraging the next customer,
“¡Vamanos!”
— “Let’s go!” Ruiz. His name was Ruiz.

His going and the going of his comrades of course made a complete nothing of all of Luis’s goings since he had started that morning. But his regret in this was swallowed up in the thudding of his blood in his ears — however far they were intending to take him, he might not be alive if he continued to be half upside-down as he was now. A genuine groan escaped his lips and he did not attempt to prevent it. The jogging stopped, abruptly, and he was dumped onto the ground.

“Come to, have you?” the gut-fryer asked. Luis nodded. “
Bueno
. Then you can walk by yourself….” He knelt with a grunt and loosened the cord at Luis’s ankles. “Walk, that’s what I said. Try running, and you’ll get some lead sauce for your
tortas
.” He gestured towards the old rifle held in the arm of one of his friends, a rat-faced fellow.

“Let’s kill him right now,” said Rat Face — in Nahua.

Luis just sighed and rubbed his head with his fists.

“Doesn’t understand,” Rat Face said.

The third, he of the ordinary voice and by his looks an ordinary
Barrio Occidental
lounger-around, probably supported by a washer-woman wife, said, “How would he understand the Tenocha-talk? Look at him — wears stockings — probably pretends he’s a
bianco puro
— father is a landowner — grandmother was a dirty Moxtomi — ”

The three of them spat.
“Vamanos,”
said Hog Guts, giving Luis a kick in the fundament to emphasize his point. They started off once more, perhaps not so swiftly as before, for if Luis had tried to run his hobbles would have sent him flying. They were, it seemed, heading away from Popo … but not precisely downhill, either … towards Ixta … or at least in that general direction. Who were they? What did they want with him? Surely, despite it having been known to at least one of them that his father did own a
granja
, surely then it must also be known that it was a small one, only. If it was known, too, as much about his family that his grandmother was a Moxtomi, then wouldn’t they also realize how very little favored he was by his father on this very account? That, even if his father could afford to pay a ransom, he was most unlikely to do so?

But he didn’t ask. It was best to say nothing, for who knew what ideas it might put into their heads! And with that an idea came into his own head: perhaps these bravos were in some way connected with the alleged sulfur-stealers of the crater of Popo…. Frightened away, perhaps, by the presence of the Great Old Ones … it could be that they were for some reason afraid of his, Luis’s — well, what? Betraying their presence to the authorities? The theory did not hang together well, but it was at the moment the only other one he could think of.

He was glad, though, that he hadn’t revealed that he knew anything of the Nahua language — Tenocha, as they called it — Meshika, or Azteca, as others called it. The threat or proposal to kill him then was obviously only a ruse to find out if they could speak together in that tongue without his knowing what was being said. Keep your ears open, he told himself.

He couldn’t think of anything else he could do for the moment, anyway.

• • •

“We should wear the skin for a week,” Rat Face was saying, as they passed through a meadow wet with distilled mist. “Thus it was done, and was a thing of great honor, too. That is,” he corrected himself, “
one
of us should wear it for a week.”

The man whom Luis had come to think of as “Ordinario,” in a very sharp voice, demanded, “
Which
one of us?”

Rat Face scowled, and seemed to remember that he had the rifle. But Hog Guts, in his rough, mucousy voice, said, “Can’t be done now. Whoever did it would stink like a dead dog…. He’d have to hide out and there aren’t enough of us. Wait. There is going to be plenty of time … and plenty of skins, too.”

Ordinario grunted his agreement. Rat Face once again uttered his blissful sigh, and the look of one who sees a beatific vision settled on his face and almost made it good to look upon.

Luis was not sure what they were talking about. He knew that there were many pagan cult ceremonies involving in one way or another the wearing of animal skins — coyotes or deer, for example. But he had never heard of anyone wearing such a skin for a week, or why, even so, he would “stink like a dead dog” … unless the skin hadn’t been well-tanned first. Nor could he imagine what kind of dance or ritual they could have in mind in speaking of “plenty of skins” at some future date. It was a mystery. Perhaps he just didn’t know Nahuatl well enough; there might be idioms and usages … for example, the curious phrase used by the man who had felt his heart to see if it was beating:
This is still a good one …

But let it mean what it might; it all added up to something which he had felt for a long time, that no good thing ever came out of Aztec land. The Tenochas had been barbarians in the beginning and they were still barbarians now. And bigots as well. “Dirty Moxtomi” indeed! As though the Moxtomi had not been partners in the grandeur and greatness of the Olmecs and Toltecs at a time when the Tenocha-Aztecas had been named snake-eaters in the remote and barbarous deserts of the north!
Pues
… they would see soon enough … the Great Old Ones had returned and soon would, he had no doubt, impose their victorious rule over all the land. And then — once those of
Hispanidad
had been expelled — then the Moxtomi would gain their rightful place as inevitably as water seeks its own level; Tenocha-Azteca would remain as they were and deserved to be.

This sequence of thoughts comforted him all the way along to the
baranca
. This gorge twisted like a snake; Luis was totally unfamiliar with it, as he was with the small bowl-shaped valley to which it eventually led. And he was totally unprepared for what he saw.

He was, had been, of course, as familiar with pictures of Aztec temples and pyramids as a Greek is with the Acropolis or an Egyptian with the Pyramids. But this was no picture; this was no ruin. These walls, this temple, this pyramid, were — true — exceedingly old … they seemed to be older than the old church in Los Remedios … but they were in at least as good a state of preservation. He stood stock-still and stunned, and scarcely noticed when the cord around his ankles was removed and retied with almost no slack at all. The structures he saw now, here contained an unmistakable message: that in this place from a time before the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, throughout the centuries of
blanco
rule, the centuries of Christian supremacy, this temple to the Aztec cult had been secretly and successfully maintained and preserved.