"Yes, I speak Nahuatl. I saw you today in Cempoala when you met with the commander of the Spanish." He had to use the English word for Spanish, since he knew there was none in the Nahuatl of this period.
"Ah, yes. I recognize you. The giant who towered above the others, even though he wore no hat of metal on his head, and who wore different clothing. I thought you perhaps a priest of the teteuhs. Why do you come? Perhaps to bear me a further message from Malintzin, the chief of the teteuhs?"
"Malintzin? His name is Cortes."
"But already the inhabitants of these lands have begun to call him Malintzin, from the name of the girl Malinalli who acts as his tongue and is sometimes called La Malinche for that reason. To her name we have added tzin which, of course, means chief."
"I see," Don said. "But, no, I do not bring a message from Malintzin."
The Indian was puzzled, and said, "If you speak our language so well and that of the teteuhs, why did you not translate for us this day?"
"Because I did not wish the Spanish to know I spoke your language."
Axayaca, across the small fire, had also stood. He said, "But you are a teteuh yourself. How could they not know?"
"No, I am not," Don said to him definitely. "I am a white and hence of the same race, but I am not Spanish. I come from a distant land and once we even fought a war with the Spanish." He hesitated, then added, "And defeated them completely and took some of their lands from them."
"Your people defeated the teteuhs!" Cuauhtemoc blurted. "But one cannot win in a war against teteuhs." He scowled puzzlement again. "But then, of course, you too are a teteuh. Do then the gods fight among themselves?"
"I am not a god," Don said grimly. "Nor are they gods. They are men like yourself."
"I have seen today the terrible weapons of what you call men, but they are the weapons of the gods."
"No. They are terrible weapons but made by men. Gods do not have weapons. They do not need them."
The Indians stared at him.
Axayaca said, "Why do you come here now with your strange words? Is it to spy upon us?"
"No. I come seeking refuge. The Spanish made me a prisoner and then attempted to kill me. Instead, I killed him who came after me and escaped."
"You killed a teteuh! But that is said to be impossible," Cuauhtemoc said.
"It is not impossible," Don said grimly. "As someday you will find when you fight them."
One of the subchiefs, still squatting at the fire, shook his head. "We will never fight the teteuhs. The Tlacatecuhtli, Motechzoma, fears them. He would never lead us against the teteuhs."
Don said to Cuauhtemoc, "Nevertheless, I seek refuge in Tenochtitlan where I can tell your leaders much about the Spanish and their plans." Precious lot of good it would do them, but this, now, was his sole chance of survival.
Axayaca said stubbornly, "No. You wish to spy upon us. Motechzoma has ruled that none of the white men shall enter Tenochtitlan. He has sent them much metal, for which they have such a strange love, to bribe them to return across the seas from whence they come."
Don snorted. "The worst thing he could have done was to send those presents. As Cortes himself once said, the Spanish have a malady of the heart which can only be cured by gold. They will never rest now, not until they have come to your city and scoured it of every ounce of gold you have."
One of the subchiefs said, "Why should we care? It is of no value save as ornaments, baubles for the vain. Let them have our gold, if they will but go away."
"But they won't go away," Don told him. "They will kill you, enslave your women, and make your children work in the mines for still more gold."
He shook his head and looked back at Cuauhtemoc.
Though the boy was probably the youngest Indian present, he had an air of command and dominated the others. A natural-born leader, Don Fielding thought. Well, the Indians were going to need some leaders in the near future. Not that it would to them any good.
But he must survive. He said, "I have much to tell your Tlacatecuhtli and his high council."
Cuauhtemoc said, "It is not his high council, it is the Tlatocan, the council of chiefs. He is but a member of it. We continually get the impression in our contacts with the teteuhs that they think Motechzoma alone is the government of Tenochtitlan, and all other cities and lands, for that matter. He is merely the war chief of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcuco, and Tlacopan, the three cities of our united league. He can do nothing without the concurrence of the Tlatocan."
"Very well," Don sighed. "However, I have much to tell your people and request that you take me with you." Axayaca, frowning still, said, "No. It is forbidden for a white man, even though you say you are not a teteuh, to enter our city."
But Cuauhtemoc was obviously thinking about it. He said, "You are not a warrior?"
"No. I am a scholar."
Cuauhtemoc was surprised. "But you are not an elder."
"No. Nevertheless, I am a scholar. A teacher of the ... young."
"You are a priest, then?"
"No. I have no gods. Our customs are different than your own."
"Obviously." The Tenocha thought some more.
Finally, he looked about the fire. "I am in 'favor of taking him to the Tlacatecuhtli. It is for Motechzoma to decide. It is as though we were bringing in a prisoner. He can tell us much about the teteuhs. We would make a great mistake if we were to lose this opportunity."
Axayaca repeated, "No."
But the four subchiefs thought about it. They seemed to have some method of communicating among themselves that Don didn't catch. One of them finally said, "Very well, we shall take him."
From a distance, Don could hear the clatter of horse's hoofs. He snapped, "They are searching for me."
Young Cuauhtemoc was a man of quick decisions. "Out of your clothes!" he rapped.
Don could do nothing but put himself in the hands of the others. He stripped.
"And your strange sandals," the other said. He snapped something else to one of the porters.
Don's things, gun and all, disappeared into one of the loads. Another porter hurried up with Indian garb, including a large poncholike tilmantli mantle, such as all the others wore. They made no attempt to find him sandals; none would have been large enough. There was no time to get him into the breechcloth. Cuauhtemoc himself helped him into the tilmantli, tied it over his shoulder in standard fashion. The Indians had neither buttons nor pins.
The Indian leader pointed at one of the fires around which porters were sleeping. The fire was almost out. "Sit there, the tilmantli over your head, looking as though you are asleep as the others."
There was nothing to do but comply. Don Fielding squatted down, brought the mantle over his head, as some of the others had it. How they were able to sleep sitting up, he didn't know, but some of them were doing it. He realized that his feet were white, a sickening white by Indian standards, and tucked them inside the blanket-sized serapelike mantle—and prayed still once again to his nonexistent agnostic gods.
The horses came up in a charge.
Gonzalo de Sandoval, bareheaded and without armor, and in a fury, led them. His bare sword was in hand.
There were four others, including one of the Alvarado brothers—which one, Don couldn't remember. He pretended to be asleep but watched through a tuck in his covering.
The horsemen slammed to a halt.
Sandoval shrilled, "The stranger! The tall one! Have you seen him?"
The Indians looked at him blankly.
He shot his eyes around the camp, swore, "By my faith! Such a filthy group!" He dug his spurs into his animal and was off with the others, up the path toward the mountains.
When they were gone, Cuauhtemoc looked at Don Fielding in thought. There was an element of humor in the Indian's face. He said, "I begin to believe you, my giant friend. You are not loved by the teteuhs."
"They aren't gods," Don said wearily. "They're some of the biggest bastards ever to hit this world."
They hadn't brought
the dogs. Not yet, at least. They would have been too slow, perhaps. Evidently, several groups of horsemen had set out in various directions, probably north, west, and south, along what inadequate roads—paths would be the better term—existed, in hopes of rounding him up immediately. He wondered again who it was he had killed with his entrenching tool.
Don remained where he was. He knew very well that Sandoval's troop would be back shortly. He hadn't had the time to get more than a couple of miles distance from Cempoala. The Spanish would go up the road that distance and then decide that if he had come in this direction, he must have headed cross-country. He wished that he'd had the presence of mind to keep his gun. He could have concealed it under the mantle. He doubted that he could bring all five of the armed men down before they got to him, rode him down, or skewered him with their lances, but he could have given them a bit of trouble.
He was right. In about fifteen minutes the horsemen came charging back. This time they didn't bother to pause at the Indian camp but dashed on.
Cuauhtemoc came over and said to him, "They have gone."
Don let the tilmantli mantle slide back from his head and looked up.
"They'll be back," he said. "In the camp two of those large dogs you saw are what are called bloodhounds. They are able to follow a trail by smell. They will know my smell from the blankets on which I slept in the priests' quarters in the temple."
Cuauhtemoc thought about it. "Very well," he said finally. "We will hasten on." He gave a shout to the camp and in moments there was a great bustle as the porters took up their baggage and kicked out the fires.
Cuauhtemoc in the lead, they swung out across the fields at a trot. Barefooted on the gravel, twigs, and rough vegetation, Don Fielding's feet were shortly bruised by stone and sore. At this rate, he would be lamed in half an hour.
He called a halt finally, put a hand on the Indian leader's arm, and said, "I can't go on like this. I'll have to have my footwear."
Cuauhtemoc himself wore sandals as did the other chiefs, although the porters were barefooted. He stopped and sighed. "My giant friend, you are more trouble than I had bargained for. Perhaps we should have left you here."
However, he called for the porter who had hidden Don's things in his bundle. In moments, Don had fished out the shoes and socks, sat down on the ground and hurried into them. He stood again and fished his gun, holster, and belt from the pack and belted it about his waist, under the mantle. They were off again.
They ran two abreast over the rugged way, Don and Cuauhtemoc in the lead. He had spent the whole summer tramping around in the back areas of Mexico and was now in fairly good shape, though the Indians were setting quite a pace. He wondered how long they could continue like this.
He gasped to the other, after a mile or so, "Where do we go?"
Cuauhtemoc grinned at him. "There are many advantages to having such deer as the teteuhs ride..."
"They are called horses," Don got out.
"... however, there are disadvantages as well, for it is obvious that there are places a man can go that they cannot."
Shortly, to Don's relief, the trot was slowed to a walk. He realized that the porters were holding up the pace of the group as a whole. Their burdens looked as though they must average at least fifty pounds and a man does not run with a weight of fifty pounds for long. They walked briskly for about another mile and then Cuauhtemoc led them into a trot again.
By the time they slowed to a walking pace once more, Don was thankful. He wondered if the young Indian leader planned to continue this all night. He didn't know if he could take it. If they'd only had a road to follow—but this overland thing was rugged.
He realized now why the dogs hadn't yet manifested themselves. They would assume that he had headed north, in an attempt to return to his own country. So they would have sent the dogs north, first. Undoubtedly, later on, when they failed to pick up his scent in that direction, they'd bring them down here. Well, at least he was getting a good head start.
Toward morning, they came upon the road—narrow though it was—he had prayed for and their pace was speeded. Nevertheless, to the rear, far back, he could hear the baying of the dogs.
He looked over at Cuauhtemoc. "Those are the bloodhounds. They are on our trail."
He said to Don, "We'll forge ahead. Just you and I."
"They'll catch up with your column here."
"But it will not occur to them that there is any connection. The scent which the dogs follow will indicate that we are ahead."
The two took up a faster pace and had soon outdistanced their party.
Don was beginning to blow.
The Indian looked over at him and grinned. "Your giant body does you little good at a time like this, my friend. It takes too much strength to push it along."
Don didn't take the breath to answer. The baying was considerably closer and an unhappy thought came to him. Were the trainers managing the dogs mounted, rather than on foot? If they were, then they would be held back only by the speed of the running bloodhounds, now well on the scent and making good time.
But then the meaning of what Cuauhtemoc had said earlier about the disadvantages of riding the "deer" came through. They had arrived at a steep hill, rugged with great boulders, and the narrow road dribbled away to a path, along which they had to ascend single file.
"Ha," the Indian chortled. "We have defeated their pursuit."
"We hope," Don puffed.
The dogs couldn't have been more than a quarter of a mile behind now and the pace of the two had slowed considerably as the path steepened. The baying grew less questioning and more excited. Undoubtedly, the dogs could sense the nearness of their quarry.
The path became increasingly rough and Don decided that the horsemen were going to have to call it off. They couldn't possibly get their animals up here. The dogs, yes, but never the horses.
Evidently, the pursuers had no intention of calling it off. Shortly, Don and his companion could hear their shouts behind them.
"Faster," the Indian gasped. His breath too was now short, almost as short as Don's own.
But Don Fielding was rapidly reaching the end of his endurance. They had been on the march, on the run, for hours, without a single real rest. He was amazed, in actuality, that he had been able to continue even this long. Only the fear of death had allowed him to rise to the occasion.
They puffed on. Dawn was breaking. Behind them they could hear both dogs and soldiers, the dogs out ahead. The soldiers, who had been riding, as Cuauhtemoc and Don ran and walked, were considerably fresher than their game. The dogs broke into excited barking when they spotted their quarry and the soldiers shouted success. They must have wondered who the individual was who ran with Don Fielding.
The dogs sped up their pace now, outdistancing the men. They were only a couple of hundred feet behind and below the scrambling fugitives.
Don sank down behind a rock. "I can't go any further," he gasped, his chest heaving. The Indian looked down at him in dismay.
"There are four of them and well armed with the weapons of the gods."
Chapter Eight
Don brought forth his own weapon of the gods and thumbed off the safety. He doubted that so small a caliber would penetrate the Spanish armor, but he'd go down trying.
He held the gun in both hands to steady it and balanced it on the top of the rock. The dogs were no further than fifty feet below them and coming in fast, their teeth bared now. Obviously, they were trained to take on the objects of their chase.
When the lead one was no more than twenty feet away, Don gently squeezed the trigger. The gun snapped and the animal yelped, but continued on, frenzied now with blood lust. There was a twang and a feathered shaft buried itself in the beast's chest and he went down, an almost human scream coming from his mouth.
Don didn't bother to look over his shoulder at his Indian companion. He fired again and again into the second animal. He hit it twice out of three shots, and the bloodhound collapsed.
Gallant at its job, it fried to work its way to its feet once more and come on. But another arrow whizzed past Don's head and sank into its carcass and down it went, this time to rise no more.
Cuauhtemoc was staring at the gun. "It is one of the weapons of the teteuhs but much smaller."
Dion saved his breath. The Indian had leaned his lance against the cliff side and held his bow in his right hand, another arrow already notched on the bowstring. The quiver was over his right shoulder, handy to access.
About a hundred feet down below, the Spanish, undoubtedly astonished at the sound of gunfire, had come to a halt. They took shelter behind rocks, and although Don Fielding couldn't make out their words they were jabbering in obvious confusion.
He doubted very much that they had brought any arquebuses with them. The heavy matchlocks were simply too awkward. They were undoubtedly armed with swords alone.
But at that moment a crossbow quarrel spanged into the rock behind him and ricocheted off with a whine.
Oh, oh. At least one of the enemy had brought one of the smaller size crossbows with him, the type that could be handled on horseback.
Cuauhtemoc, an edge of apprehension in his voice, demanded, "What was that?"
"A type of bow which shoots a small metal arrow. Stay well down. They are very dangerous, though clumsy and slow to load. However, he cannot fire at us without exposing himself."
The Spanish, although probably bewildered at the fact that they had heard four shots, one right after another, must have decided that Don, too, would take considerable time to reload. They probably thought he had some fancy four-barreled gun of some sort. Such were not unknown, particularly in Italy. At any rate, they made a rush.
Don fired just once, got a satisfying scream of pain from the target, who must have been hit in an arm or some other body area not protected by armor. The four assailants dropped down behind rocks again.
Don had noted the one who carried the crossbow and waited for him. Sure enough, in a minute or so the bearded, helmeted soldier, his teeth bared, reared over the large rock behind which he had been crouched and tried to take a bead. Don fired twice. One bullet missed by inches, whining off the stone cliff behind the other. The other splatted dead center in the soldier's breastplate. Don had his answer. A .22 Long Rifle bullet would not penetrate the chest armor of the enemy. He was going to have to aim at more vulnerable portions of the body. And although he wasn't a bad shot, he was no expert marksman.
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