Jacob knocked on the window of the living room to attract Sarah’s attention. She looked up, her face tear-stained and abstract. She was engaged in painting a picture from memory of poor sweet-tootsie-little Evans.
“Luis and I are going over to Mac to see him about that business of last night.”
“Oh…. All right, dear….”
“We may not be back till quite late, I don’t know. Be sure to lock and bolt all the doors, particularly the back one into our patio. I’ll get in from the front patio. Okay?”
“Oh…. All right, dear….”
She had forgotten all about him by the time the door to the front patio had closed. How fortunate that she had thought to bring these paints and papers with her. And that she’d gotten the idea to do this picture while his little memory was still fresh in her mind — not that it could ever possibly fade! — but still…. She brushed her hair back, absentmindedly smearing her face with paint. Then she smiled fondly as she looked at the outlined figure on the paper. Perhaps a black background, to show off his white markings? No … that would never do … it would fail to show off his black markings. Blue, perhaps … or red…. Blue would go best with his poor little golden eyes.
Sarah bent over her portrait.
Sometime later she looked up, aware of being faintly disturbed by something. What was it? Hunger, that was it. The tamales had been very good. Perhaps some of them were still left. But would Jacob want some? No, Jacob had gone to Mac’s place and he said he’d be there quite late, which meant that he would eat as well as talk. Sarah got up slowly, considering. Heat up some tamales … and what else? Not much, of course…. Maybe a few tostados. Nothing heavy. Cheese, perhaps. And a little salad on the side. A cup of tea. And a pastelito, if there were any. Perhaps a piece of fruit.
People had to eat; they had to keep their strength up, even if their hearts were just breaking. Look at all those rich, yummy recipes Martha Washington was always working on. She probably had cried buckets while George and those tootsie soldiers were freezing their toes at Valley Forge, but that didn’t prevent her from trying out a new way to make pound-cake, did it? Although, when you come right down to it — Sarah moved into the kitchen — what it was that George saw in her, well, really. “She’s nothing to look at, wouldn’t you agree?” Sarah asked aloud of no one in particular.
Certainly of no one in the kitchen, for there was no one in the kitchen. Oh, well. She would toss up her little meal by herself. She looked around for pots and pans and utensils and dishes. There were none. “Hasn’t Lupita finished washing them yet?” she exclaimed. And went, frowning, out into the patio. The dishes and pots and other utensils were there all right, grease and all, in the concrete sink by the water barrel. Only Lupita was not there.
“La Lupita?” repeated the landlady, looking a bit displeased. Yes, Lupita had been seen. First, el joven Luis had gone into the oficina of Don Jacobo. Then, la Lupita, the without-shame, had been perceived to listen at the door. Then she had left the patio — “going very, very rapidly” — and the house, and disappeared into the streets. Donde? “Ah, where indeed? Who knows? The Señora would be well-advised to examine well among her own possessions, to see if la Lupita did not have ‘little hands.’”
The usually most pleasant landlady struggled with her feelings, finally admitted, “She is neither amiable nor sympathetic, that girl.”
Sarah gave a small moan. “Do thou was knowing also possibly to have another girl for employer more responsible?” she inquired.
Señora Mariana shrugged, threw out her hands. “Ah, poor lady! But these girls today prefer to go to ‘Mexico’ to seek employment, because there they can obtain more pesos.” She quirked her mouth and made a circle with thumb and forefinger to indicate the roundness of the peso. But more than this she was unable to do.
Sarah returned, slowly, and lugubriously. She reheated the tamales and ate them, somberly. Then she went out and looked at the pile of dirty, greasy dishes and pots again. She tested the water with her little finger. It was very, veiy cold.
• • •
Mac, advised in English that a matter of the gravest importance was to be discussed, had sent his lady friend and her ancient aunt out to buy pulque, and grilled carnitas. “Be sure to hurry there and back,” he had told them.
The lady scowled. “Securely, we will sprout wings like the birds and fly,” she said. “With the gringos it is always, pronto, pronto, pronto!”
As they left, twitching their rebozos indignantly, he smiled at his guests. “That should insure us at least an hour…. So. What’s up, Doc?”
Jacob sighed. “Well…. It doesn’t sound as crazy to me as it would have yesterday. But … well … Luis claims that those oddballs in the boondocks, the Aztec-god ones, I mean … he claims that they captured him early today and tried to turn him into a human sacrifice. The cardiectomy clinic — just like you said.”
Macauley pursed his lips and let out his breath in a near-whistle, so that his golden mustache floated up. “Well, well,” he murmured. Then he turned to face Luis. “Digame,” he ordered.
Luis, after hesitations and stumbling starts, began by recapitulating the various rumors sweeping the town on the eve of the fiera of the Holy Hermit: that lights had been seen on both Popo and Ixta, that the government was going to take away the Tlaloc from under the Monte Sagrado, that smoke had been seen rising from Popo, that soldiers were in town on an unholy mission, that there would be trouble with the procession, that the abominable Naguales, or were-coyotes, had been seen once more, and so on.
He described his visit to the Moxtomí pueblo, San Juan Bautista, in hopes of discussing these rumors — how he found them in an uproar, how they put him off. He described the fight, the genuine and not symbolic attempt to seize the catafalque as it passed through the Barrio Occidental, and then: “And then, hombre! My word of honor! The catafalque fell and the Hermit tumbled out and then he walked away — he walked away!”
And so all the other details came out, how the Hermit was really the long-time Guardian of the Entrusted Object and how the Entrusted Object was the Heart of Tlaloc, only it was not really a heart; how the true or false “Aztec gods,” the Huitzili, were, like the pseudo-gods of the old Olmec and Toltec days, really denizens of other and distant worlds … detail by incredible detail, the story emerged.
Macauley chewed the ends of his long mustaches. “Wow, boy,” he said. “Well, Jake, I think we’ve got two choices, count ‘em, two. The first is that Luis’s story is the real McCoy, the clean quill, weird and way-out as it is. And the other is that some body out there” — his hand gestured toward the wild uplands crowned by the snowy sierra of Ixtaccihuatl and the shining cone of Popocatapetl — “has (a) been reading one hell of a lot of science fiction, and (b) been spending one hell of a lot of time and money and effort….
“On the whole,” he said, thoughtfully reaching for his gigantic mustache-cup of coffee, “on the whole, I tend to think that the first one proposes far fewer problems.”
Jacob asked, “What’s to do about it, then?”
Macauley smiled. “Find out about it! I wouldn’t go near that pseudo-Aztec crowd with a ten-foot ack-ack gun. But Luis seems impressed with the good will of the pseudo-Olmec/Toltec boys. I vote that we take a nice hike up in the general direction of Uncle Popo and see what we can see.”
The vote went with aye.
Jacob, afterwards, was not sure that it should not have been ai!
• • •
Huitzilopochtli blared and brayed his rage and his delight. “You have done well, you have done well, woman!” His Dragon-Head and blunt-beaked muzzle darted up and down. “We have returned to reward you all and we will reward you all, but we have also returned in that we are necessitous of obtaining once and for all the Great Heart of Tlaloc. And now that we know that the Great Old Ones, our enemies, have returned as well, it is certain that we know that they, too, seek this Puissant Object. They know where it is — they must know!
For it is they who malignantly concealed it in the first place!”
And his fellows stamped and howled and it was agreed by all of them that they would go up to Popo and espy out all there was to espy, and then decide on what was to be done.
And thus it was Jacob and Macauley and Luis were observed as they climbed. And were followed, as the sun sank and the shadows grew.
IX
The immense golden-bronze bell voice of the Elder Old One was raised but a single note, yet it seemed that all the sounds of the forest and the night fell silent and hearkened to it. “We have not been here long,” he said, “nevertheless, we have been here long enough. Both the lights and the smokes of our vessel have been seen on Popo. There has been talk, suspicion must follow, eventually attempts to investigate will be made. I believe it would not be well for our star-ship to be seen where it is concealed within the upper crater of the mountain which once smoked itself.”
The lids of his benign eyes lifted but a trifle more, the golden and glowing pupils flashed a message to his fellows and to the Moxtomí. “The synchronism of events is distuibing. It cannot be helped that both the Huitzili-things and the forces of the present government of this land are both now intent upon the same mission as we are, though for far different reasons. The alien and evil enemy may begin at any time to proceed against the hidden Object. We know what time the military intends to begin: tomorrow.
“I say that we have, accordingly, only this single night in which to accomplish our intention. If any have reason to gainsay me: speak. I wait. I listen.”
The night was silent, the fire glowed, reflecting glowing sparks in both the golden eyes and the brown ones. Old Santiago Tue said at length, “I know of nothing that we Moxtomi, your servants, can say against your words. Go, Viejos Poderosos — go, Lords, and we will follow.”
The lips of the Great Old Ones moved in mild smiles and their eyes exchanged consent. Their senior said, gently, “It will be in this way, younger brothers: let the Moxtomi go before, as befits their position of prime dwellers in this land. And we will follow.”
Old Tuc rose from his haunches and fell upon his knees. “It is too much honor,” he murmured. Then he got to his feet and gave crisp orders, pointing with his finger and naming names. In a very few moments only, the pueblo of San Juan Bautista Moxtomi was left in the charge of its women and children and patron saint. And the silent night was penetrated by the slight but sustained sounds of marching feet. Domingo Deuh went before, with a torch in one hand and a spear, formed of a knife lashed to a pole, in the other. Behind him came Tata Tue, holding a censer of burning coals of the old pre-Spanish fashion in one piece, and a pouch of beads of copal-gum, from which he, from time to time, took a pinch and cast it on the embers. Behind him came a man with the pueblo’s single shotgun, then the other men, armed with clubs, knives, and improvised but, nonetheless, deadly spears.
And behind them, carrying nothing which the Moxtomí knew to be weapons, but serene and utterly self-confident, huge bodies and massive limbs, towering so high that they now and then were obliged to lift their hands and push away thick and overhanging limbs as though they were mere twigs, came the Great Old Ones.
They wore only what seemed to be the lightest of garments and the Indians were swathed from chin to calf in thick, blue-black serapes; but neither appeared in the least bothered by the bitter-cold mists which wreathed the trees and paths like wraiths and parted only before the chill winds which now and again blew gustily down from the snowy mountains behind them.
The group did not always take the best-known and most-worn paths, those which followed at an easy slope to avoid difficulties of the terrain; but frequently they availed thernselves of shortcuts of the most precipitous kind. Yet not so much as a pebble was dislodged, and all difficulties vanished before their feet as though magically smoothed away.
By and by the intense cold grew less and the descent of the land less abrupt. They halted. The Indians consulted among themselves a moment. Then old Tuc turned to the towering figure of the Elder Old One.
“Lord, here we can take one of two paths,” he said. “This, to the left, is unavoidably longer than this, to the right. But the one to the right connects with the old road from Ixta, and — ”
“And there the evil Huitzili-things are encamped. I understand. It would be well to avoid them. They have often defeated us. They may defeat us again. It is possible. It is possible that we may defeat them. Or we may miss them or they miss us altogether. Indeed, all things are possible, except that none may miss Time and none may hope to defeat Him.
“Therefore: the path to the right.”
In a moment all had passed: torch, censer, Indians, aliens. Nothing remained to mark their passage but a fallen and trampled leaf and on the still, chill air the fragrant smell of copal-gum.
• • •
The Huitzilopochtli paused, lowered its monstrous head. Behind him … well behind him … one of its men-priests said, “Dragon-Head, Drinker of Blood, the path to Moxtomi-town and thence to Popo lies in the other direction. Pardon your slave: pardon, pardon — ”
“It is neither the town as a place nor the mountain as a place which concerns us,” the Huitzili said, subduing its terrible voice to a muted murmur. “We are concerned with the creatures called the Great Old Ones: principally concerned with them: and I smell that they have passed along this way and that they have turned down that way. More: many men have passed with them, and their bodies contain beating hearts and their bodies contain the essence of life, which is blood … which is blood….”
The voice died away to a drone, the fearful head wagged as it turned. Its fellows droned their understanding and their acceptance, they turned, too. And the men-priests and the women, too, understood, turned … shivered with more than the cold wind and the freezing mists and icy dews … shivered with anticipation and exultation.
“Blood …”
“Blood …”
They turned, swung about, followed the lead figure. Its monstrous snout, which only the monstrous imagination of the Aztecs could have likened to that of a hummingbird, swung from side to side, snuffing up the wind, gathering information from the lingering scents along earth and air. From time to time it muttered, “… men …” and from time to time it mumbled, “… hearts …” and from time to time it droned, “… blood … blood …”
Gorgeous in glittering embossment and plumage, hideous in masklike visage, the other Aztec “gods” went clinking and clattering, stumbling-dancing, swaying-stamping, flapping-prancing, bawling and braying reduced to a minimum — stopped abruptly as the chief Huitzili-thing stopped in front where it had been smelling as it ran, like a dog.
“Other men were here,” it grunted, half-pleased, half-annoy ed. “Three other men…. All paused a while but not a great while…. Odd. No anger. I smell no anger. Different men, quite different, but no anger between them. How perverted. Enough!” The great head swung up once more. “Onward and after them! For we seek the Puissant Object called the Great Heart of Tlaloc and it may be that they will lead us to it, after which, if so, we will accept their hearts and drink their blood and nourish our needs. But let us be wary of both entrapmeiits and willful resistance, never forgetting how perversion engenders a disposition towards both.”
In another moment all had passed in the darkness, leaving behind a trampled leaf and an odor of rotting blood, of hatred hot as fire, of stale sweats engendered by alien suns and ancient lusts, and of hungers long unappeased by never so loathsome feasts under never so distant moons.
Far away, far down the valley, a dog sleeping behind a heap of corm raised its muzzle and widened its nostrils. For a moment it stayed quite rigid. Then it shivered violently, a deep growl muted in its chest; and then it lifted its head and it howled.
Luis moved as fast as any of them, but he heard scarcely a word which was said. His eyes were glazed with bliss and his face wore an expression of frozen joy. A song sang in his heart and in his head, and its
words were of the true old gods, the veritable angels, the return of the proper patron saints of the Moxtomi-Toltec-Olmec peoples, older than either the god or angels or saints of Mexican Christendom. Its words were of the terribly long delayed, but now about to be realized, return of the great days, with all things to be as they were, not only before the Spanish conquest but before the Aztec conquest as well. Sometimes his words passed his lips and sometimes they did not, but he was scarcely aware of this, either.
The Elder Old One said, “You are called Roberto?”
“Yes, Your Reverence,” Macauley answered, feeling more than a little confused, but desiring very much to be polite, at all events.
“What is that, Roberto, which you have with you?”
Ahead, tight, tiny, the few lights of Los Remedios had begun to gleam an uncertain welcome in the black velvet fabric of the night.
“Why, it’s called dynamite, Your Honor…. I used to be a miner, that’s to say — but I guess you know. Anyway, more or less out of habit, I generally have some on hand in case of who-knows-what. These are sticks of dynamite, these are detonation caps, fuses — ” He explained the uses and applications as they proceeded on towards the town.
The Elder Old One nodded. “Crude, but effective in a limited way. We will hope its use will not be necessary. Perceive: that light which appears to be burning in the middle of the air: it is on top of the hill now called Monte Sagrado?”
Macauley nodded. “Yes…. And the entrance I suggest is on the other side of the hill. For that reason as well as the obvious one of secrecy, I suggest that we go around the town instead of trying to go through it.” He took out a Cuautla puro and lit it and let a mouthful of smoke billow out.
He had scarcely taken a second puff when a dog howled somewhere off in the distance and one of the Moxtomi gave a fearful exclamation. They halted, on one leg, so to speak, turned behind them without precisely knowing why. The wind veered about and struck them in the face and they recoiled. “The Huitzili! They are following us!” a Moxtomí cried, as the telltale air brought its message.
Clash of Star-Kings Page 9