Xolotl Strikes!

by William Stafford

  “But that doesn’t answer your question about the sacrifices. I am coming to that.

  “Long ago, when there were only the gods, it was very dark. It was decided that they would need a sun. It seems reasonable but in order to create the light in their darkness, one of the gods would have to sacrifice himself. No, it wasn’t Xolotl - I’ve already told you he guides the sun through the underworld every night. No, the lucky fellow who got the job, so to speak, was Nanahuatzin. He made a fine job of it except he didn’t move much. In order to get the sun to move, the gods gave up their blood - well, their hearts, really. Xolotl was the executioner of the gods. In some versions of the myth, he killed himself last of all - well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it? In others, he refused and escaped by changing himself into a maize plant.

  “And that is why the Aztecs were so enamoured of cutting people’s hearts out, to repay the gods for sacrificing themselves. The Aztecs believed it was the only way to ensure the sun would move across the sky. Now, we might scoff at this, knowing as we do that the Earth moves around the sun but it wasn’t that long ago that in Europe you could be burned at the stake for suggesting such a thing.

  “Xolotl is a lord of misrule, a thing of destruction. To bring him back into the world would be catastrophic. Trask is a fool if he thinks he’ll be able to exercise any form of control over him. This is one dog you do not want to let off the leash.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I drank. The rum hit my stomach like a punch. A rum punch, hah!

  “Mr Mortlake,” the professor leaned over the table, “this Trask guy - if he performs the ritual correctly - will unleash the power of Xolotl onto an unsuspecting world.”

  “Xolotl the god, yes? Not Xolotl the king?”

  “Yes! Trask may have mentioned he wants to rule the world. With the power of Xolotl - the god - coursing through him, he will be unstoppable.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We stop him, of course!” He waved at a passing waitress to bring more rum.

  “That would seem like a good idea,” I conceded. “But I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin.”

  The professor pointed a finger in the direction he thought my face was. He must have been seeing at least double. “And that’s why,” his words were slurring, “you should have talked to me. I’m an arc - an narc - an archefrellologist, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “And I know where they are going to perform the rick - the rish-”

  “The ritual! Of course!”

  “That’s right. We must go there at once!” He slapped the table and got to his feet. The waitress returned with the rum so he sat down again. He polished off one drink but before he could do the same to the other, I grabbed it and poured the colourless liquid down my throat. It seared my insides on its way down and, had I not been temporarily robbed of the power of speech, I would have flagged down the waitress and asked whether there had been some ghastly error and she had served us paint-stripper by mistake.

  “But how, professor?” I asked as soon as my eyes had stopped watering. “It must be hundreds of miles from here and there are no trains.”

  The professor grinned. He tried to tap the side of his nose in a conspiratorial manner but after three failed attempts he gave up. He hunched over the table.

  “Fly!” he breathed no doubt flammable fumes into my face. I touched my nose as if to dislodge an insect. Professor Pepper shook his head. “No, we shall fly,” he expanded.

  I sat back - as much to get out of range of his heady exhalations as anything else. “You mean... ?”

  “Yes!” he nodded vigorously. “How do you think I got down here so damned fast?”

  “Golly,” I said. The professor held up two fingers as a signal to the waitress. I closed my hand around them and forced his arm downwards. “If you’re going to pilot us to Mexico, old boy, I think you’ve had more than enough.”

  * * *

  We were forced to take lodgings for what remained of the night. A dockside doss house had to suffice - I could not risk booking into a proper hotel in case enquiring minds were seeking me out. Oh, I knew Trask and Miss Pepper were probably already miles away. That scoundrel Washington Melville too, I shouldn’t wonder. What was he hoping to get out of this, I asked myself? But because I had no answer to give, I merely shrugged and decided to ask the gentleman himself, should I ever get the chance.

  It comes to something when one may no longer trust a railway employee with one’s life.

  Professor Pepper was out like a light, filling the air with snores and other assorted noises no gentleman would ever make in company. I lay awake, convinced I could hear the tiny inhabitants of my mattress on some kind of sponsored walk. I was fully clothed - let the bed bugs deem me unsporting - and was on the alert for sounds from the other bunks, where stevedores and navvies and goodness knows who else, were sleeping off the evening’s intake of white rum and other beverages. At any moment, I felt anyone of them might approach and try to rob us. I had no money, clad as I was in Cuthbert’s livery, but the professor had been flashing the cash in an altogether reckless manner.

  As it was, we survived the night unmolested, and at dawn’s crack, I roused the old fellow and said we ought to be getting on if we were to make the most of the daylight.

  “Quite so, quite so,” he tipped cockroaches from his shoes and put them on - the shoes not the cockroaches. He scratched at his belly before buttoning his shirt and hitching the braces that held his trousers up over his shoulders. Apart from a slightly grizzled air to his chops and a darkening of the skin beneath his eyes, the professor did not seem too worse for wear. “I guess we can pick up breakfast along the way.”

  “Along the way to where?” I asked.

  “The plane,” he said, as if I were an idiot.

  “The plain?” I asked, but he was already shuffling from the room. I followed him out into the street. The docks were already abuzz with activity. Cargos were being loaded and unloaded by swarms of men. Everywhere I looked, muscles were being flexed and rippled. A pang of missing Cuthbert ran through me, reminding me why I was still going along with this bally business.

  “The aircraft,” said the professor. “I have secreted it in a barn a mile from here. Now, look there’s a man here selling salted fish on bread rolls. That will do the job.”

  He made a purchase. I declined to partake. I have never been a fan of fish-flavoured things.

  We walked further inland, cutting through the garden quarter to find the barn. It was not an unpleasant morning and away from the smells of the docks, the air was quite bracing - until the professor belched and filled my face with the fishy stench of his breakfast.

  We reached the barn, a bright red edifice in a field of green. The professor cast about to see if we were being watched and then took the bar from the doors. He had used no padlock. “Not an oversight,” he explained. “Were anyone to come across the craft, they would not know what to do with it.”

  He opened the doors as wide as they would go and I got my first look at an aircraft - save for that fragment of the Silver Moth in the Johnsonian. Strips of sunlight fell across the wings and chassis. It was an impressive machine all right. Professor Pepper exhorted me to take hold of a length of rope and help him pull the aircraft out into the open.

  It was surprisingly light. I saw then that it was mainly canvas, stretched taut over a frame that was for the most part wooden. There were two sets of wings, held together by a framework of struts. A huge propeller extended its blades like the hands of a clock face.

  “It’s only a prototype, of course,” but the professor’s face was beaming with pride. “Belle made another, larger model for her maiden flight. That was when I thought I’d lost her for good.”

  “Ah, yes,” I nodded. “The boys she ferried to Mexico.” Not forgetting Cuthbert’s chu
m, Bobby!

  “The silly girl. This is the one she should be presenting to the world before those Wright boys beat her to it.”

  “Quite,” I said. “Time is against her.”

  “Which is why she’s sided with that Trask lunatic. Some foolish notion of extending her life beyond its normal span.”

  “You don’t agree?” I diagnosed.

  “Of course I don’t agree! She should be here now, making her invention known. That is the only sure-fire way to secure immortality. Those Wright boys won’t be forgotten, you mark my words.”

  “You begrudge her eternal life, then?”

  The professor looked at me long and hard. “Don’t be a damned fool,” he spat. “Now, let us get this thing airborne and our sorry hides to Mexico.”

  He paused to thump his sternum and emit an unsavoury belch born of his breakfast’s revenge.

  It was my job to turn the propeller by jumping up and pulling the blade downwards, while the professor sat in the driving seat and cranked the engine. It was not, I imagined, too different from starting my Bessie, who could be an obstinate old girl of a cold and frosty morning. Here, the warmth and humidity of the Louisiana day seemed to help the engine spring to life. The entire craft vibrated and shook as the propeller took on a life of its own and the professor urged me to climb up beside him.

  I strapped myself in and donned the rubber-rimmed goggles he offered me. The cabin was open to the elements and I feared I should catch a sunburn.

  The aircraft wobbled across the field and out onto the road. The tips of the wings sliced through the hedgerows. We picked up speed as we trundled down an incline but it was clear we were running out of road and were still very much earthbound.

  “Er, professor?” I had to raise my voice over the racket of the engine.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he shouted back, giving me another waft of fishy breath. As the road took us further into a built-up area I could not help but worry, certain we would collide with something - a tree, a lamppost, a house or a horse and carriage - at any second.

  We rolled along a busy thoroughfare. Professor Pepper yelled at people to get out of the way. Early morning shoppers flung themselves into doorways. Horses reared up and squealed, upsetting their wagons and spilling goods. A barrow of fruit went for a burton and crates of live chickens released their inmates into the general alarm and confusion.

  “Professor...”

  We were running out of thoroughfare. Ahead I could see the masts and funnels of the sailing and steam ships at the docks. We were sure to crash into at least one of them, or plunge into a watery grave.

  “Relax...” said the professor, gripping the controls tighter than ever. “Belle showed me how to do it.”

  “She showed you but have you ever done it?”

  “Sir, I am a university professor; how difficult can it be?”

  Dock workers were fleeing our path. Several dove into the water, leaving barrels and crates behind.

  “Professor...”

  The largest ship in the docks loomed ahead. A collision seemed inevitable. I screwed my eyes tightly shut and wished I was a believer in something - in anything - even old Xolotl himself, if he would save me from my imminent death and restore my happy existence with my dear Cuthbert.

  The engine strained and puttered. I tried to brace myself for the crash.

  But crash came there none.

  I ventured to open an eye. All in front of me was blue sky and wisps of cloud. I opened the other eye to match and peered over the edge of the cabin. Already, the docks and the rest of New Orleans were dropping away, little more than a patchwork blanket. The upturned faces of the populace shrank into dolls, gaping in astonishment, as the strange and wonderful invention flew higher and higher, up, up and away.

  I laughed but a rush of air stole the sound and my breath along with it.

  “You did it, professor!” I clapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Mexico, here we come!”

  The professor grunted. He looked at me, a woeful glance through his goggles. He looked more than a little green around the gills.

  He leaned over the edge of the cabin and vomited. The perils of buying food from a street vendor! You would never catch me making the same mistake.

  And then it occurred to me, I may not live long enough to enjoy my smugness. The professor was barely conscious. He was slumped in his seat, sweating like a defendant in the dock, and drooling a viscous liquid I tried not to look at.

  The nose of the aircraft dipped in an alarming fashion. We were heading toward the water which, I was sure, would smash us like a hand swatting a fly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The only option open to me, other than letting us get smashed (and not in a good way), was for me to grab the controls and hope for the best. It wasn’t easy when there’s a substantial fellow already strapped into the seat, flailing around and generally being ill. What adds to the difficulty is not knowing what one is doing. I had seen the professor work the controls but I hadn’t been paying close attention - I hadn’t expected to be taking on co-pilot duties without proper training or even a job interview.

  I pulled back what seemed to be the main control, a long stick with handles on. Immediately, the craft’s nose pointed upwards. So much so we were soon vertical in the sky and heading, like Icarus, toward the sun. This won’t do, I thought, and essayed to level us out a bit. The professor rallied a little to tell me I was doing well. I flinched from his praise - well, more from his projectile vomiting. I didn’t want to have to explain to Cuthbert how I had got another man’s mess all over his uniform.

  We bobbed along, through the clouds rather than above them. The professor jabbed a finger at a couple of dials and said as long as I kept that one level and that one pointing south-west, we were on course for Mexico and just might get there alive.

  As the morning wore on and, I suppose, because we were heading ever closer to the Equator, the cloud cover burned off and we were buzzing through a perfect azure. The rattle of the engine was quite soporific - indeed, the professor nodded off for a while - leaving me to enjoy the view alone.

  The Gulf of Mexico was flat below us, twinkling gently in its deadly beauty - I was under no illusion: I had to keep our craft out of the water at all costs. Down there was certain death - and what good is that to anyone?

  Eventually, land loomed ahead and unless I’d got us turned around somewhere along the way, those trees were Mexican trees rather than Louisianan ones. It was exciting! And also concerning; the professor had given me instructions on how to keep the thing up but no clue to how I might get it down again without wrecking the machine and ending our lives.

  I took a chance on nudging his stained shirt. He stirred and grunted and I caught a whiff of stale breath. It took him a while to recollect where he was.

  “Land ho!” I pointed at the horizon.

  “So it is!” his voice was cracked. He rooted around for a canister of water. “Take us down beyond those trees, will you?”

  “Take us down? I don’t know how.”

  “Oh, it’s easy as pie.”

  “I don’t bake. It would be simpler if you would just retake the controls.”

  The professor guzzled the water, draining the container. Cheers, I thought bitterly. No friendly drop to help me after.

  He clasped the main stick thingamabob and pushed it gently forward. The nose began to dip but not by much. We gradually lost altitude as the line of trees rushed to meet us. I feared we would bowl straight into them or at the very least get our bottom scraped but somehow the bleary-eyed professor kept us clear.

  The trees passed harmlessly beneath us but close enough for me to make out the surprised faces of several astonished and colourful birds, who squawked in outrage that their domain had been penetrated by Man.

  Be
yond the trees: an expanse of grassland.

  “This’ll do,” said the professor. “Brace yourself.”

  I sat back and checked my straps. It seemed to me like we were coming down too fast and I had to remind myself that the professor was the nearest thing we had to an expert.

  “How many landings have you made, Professor?” I yelled against the rush of air.

  “Including this one?”

  “Yes!”

  “One,” he said.

  It was my turn to feel sick.

  “Easy... easy...” I don’t know whether he was talking to himself or the machine but he coaxed the controls. The long grasses seemed to be under us very quickly. The wheels bumped and bounced and I very nearly bit my tongue. I held onto my seat as we touched down and skittered along the uneven terrain. The professor leaned back, pressing on the brakes.

  Eventually, we came to a halt. My first flight was at its end and I was alive.

  Exhilarated, I climbed from the cabin. My legs were unsteady but I would have dropped to my knees in any case, to worship terra firma.

  The professor watched me with a bemused expression. “Nothing to it, my friend,” he laughed. He put a hand to his brow and surveyed our surroundings, then he pulled a map from his pocket and surveyed that as well.

  “We’re not far away. Perhaps a day’s ride in that direction,” he waved vaguely inland.

  “Ride? Can’t we fly?”

  He pulled a face. “No fuel. We were lucky to get this far.”

  “You mean... ?”

  “Yes,” he nodded and pointed at the sky. “We could have been stuck up there for good.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Your face! You Brits need to lighten up.”

  “And what are we to ride? There doesn’t seem to be anything around for miles.”

  “Quit worrying. I’ve been here before, remember. I know where there are horses.”

  I must have paled visibly. Horses! My discomfort amused the professor. “Don’t you Brits ride horses from birth? In your fox hunts and so on?”