Casca 10: The Conquistador

by Barry Sadler

  If Juan de Castro had been able to see what his friend had been dreaming of, he would have thought him a man gone mad. For him it was enough that he was part of this magnificent adventure, and his thoughts, while not as bloody-minded as some, still clung to the riches they might find and take home, riches enough to make them all kings. Casca didn't have to wonder what his young friend was thinking about. He knew the signs all too well and only hoped that cruel death, instead of gold and silver, did not wait for his gallant companion.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At a river the Indians called Tabasco, the ships of the fleet dropped anchor. The place looked familiar to Casca. He was certain that he had been there before and that this was to be the beginning of the old priest's prophecies. He had returned.

  Many Indians had gathered on the shore to watch the anchoring of the fleet. They were well-built, handsome men who showed no overt sign of fear at the arrival of the Spaniards. They had seen ships similar to those of Cortes when Juan de Grijalba had anchored in these same waters, though he had not set foot on shore.

  Cortes took the brigantine and a few of the ship's small boats loaded with men and several pieces of artillery up the river half a league, reaching a large city inside a wall of logs. It was filled with adobe houses roofed with straw. As they approached, several of the native boats, called tahacups, filled with warriors and set out to meet the Spaniards. The Indians seemed ready to fight. Casca watched over Cortes's shoulder, taking a long look at the men paddling toward them. Their faces were painted in whorls and circles of scarlet and black. They were armed with bows and light spears.

  Cortes spoke to them through Geronimo de Aguilar, offering them friendship, saying only that they wished to trade for food and water. The warriors in the tahacups said that they would take the strangers' words to their chief and return with his answer. Casca was still pleased that Cortes appeared to be behaving in a most gentle and conciliatory manner toward the Indians they met. Perhaps Cortes would be able to put the lie to the visions of the old priest. He hoped so.

  In a short time, the Indians returned in their dugouts, bringing cakes of flat bread, fruit, and turkeys. These they offered as a gift from their chief. Cortes argued that what they had brought was too little for the number of mouths he had to feed and asked for permission to enter the city walls to buy more food. The Indians refused him, saying that they would return in the morning with word as to whether he would be permitted to land.

  Cortes took his men to a small island in the center of the river to wait. While he was there, the Indians took all their goods and hid them, along with their women and children, in the woods. Cortes landed all his men with their matchlock arquebuses and crossbows on the island and then sent a strong scouting party upriver to look for a crossing in the event they were denied access to the village from the river. He sent word back to the fleet for the soldiers on board to join him on the island. These he took with him to where his scouts had located a place where they could cross. The waters were only waist deep, and the current was not strong enough to drag down the heavily armed Spaniards.

  Casca hoped that the waters they were crossing didn't hide any of the large crocodiles he knew lived in many of the rivers and waters of these lands. Through thick brush and trees, they were able to get near the town without being detected by the Indians, who thought the Spaniards were still on the island. Cortes had left behind enough men in sight of the Indians' side of the river to make them think that all the men they had seen earlier were still there. He left two of his captains, Alonso de Avila and Pedro de Alvarado, with fifty men each. They were concealed in the brush with orders to make no sound or fires. They would be in a good position to attack the town from the land side if the Indians proved hostile to them and their demands.

  The night was uneventful, the only activity being the endless droning of mosquitos and gnats, which did their best to make the new arrivals welcome. With dawn, eight of the tahacups came toward them. The warriors in them were armed more heavily than those of the preceding day. Cortes didn't like the looks of it but was determined to put on a good face for them.

  The Indians stopped short of bow range from the Spaniards on the island and cried out for them to accept what they had been given and go home. There was nothing more for them in these lands. Cortes responded with arguments, asking them to reconsider. If they did, the Spaniards would show them how much they could bring to the Indians. The leader of those in the tahacups cried out: "We have no need of advice from such as you. You are not welcome here. We do not trust you or want anything from you. If you want water, dig wells for it as we have. If you want food, hunt for it on the other side of the river as we have. From us you will receive nothing."

  Cortes took on a firmer attitude once he saw that smooth words would not have any effect on his unwilling hosts. This was the first time Casca had seen him act in this light. He rose to his full height, pointing the tip of his fine Toledo blade at the leader of the Indians: "I will not be denied that which I have asked for in a reasonable manner. I have been sent here by the greatest king on earth to explore and bring to the savages the word of the living God. I wish only that which is good for you. But if you refuse me in this matter, I will put myself and those of my company in the hands of our god to accomplish our divine purpose."

  The Indian in the canoe only replied, "I care not for you or your gods. We have strong gods of our own. Leave us and go to a weaker people with your demands. You will not be permitted to enter our country or our city. If you try, we shall kill you and all your men."

  Cortes tried once more to reason with them, but he was mocked by the Indians, who laughed at him and his offers to save their immortal souls. He was getting peeved at the Indians' unreasonable attitudes, and he ended his entreaties with: "I will give you till sundown to accept us as friends and admit me to your city. If you refuse, then I shall, with the help of God, sleep in your town this night in spite of you. Whatever the cost is to you and your people will be on your head."

  The vision of the priest of the Teotec seemed suddenly to be much closer. There would be bloodshed.

  Near sunset, when the Indians made no attempt to contact them again, Cortes alerted his men who were hidden in the brush to prepare themselves for battle. He donned his armor, put his shield on his arm, and then, calling upon God, Saint Peter, and Saint James, beached the brigantine by the wall nearest the shore, landed the artillery, and began his assault on the walls with two hundred men.

  The Indians fired at them with their stone-tipped arrows and light lances, doing little damage to the armored soldiers of Castile. Twenty-two were wounded, but none of the injuries were of a fatal or even crippling nature. The noise and smoke of the cannons confused and frightened the Indians more than anything else. They didn't know how to deal with such a thing. Many simply went to their knees and began praying to their gods to save them, though most continued to fight bravely. The sound of the cannons was the signal for those in hiding among the trees and brush to begin their assault from the rear of the village.

  Casca and Juan were in the first line of soldiers that clambered over the stockade walls, using ropes and ladders they had brought for that purpose. They met little resistance; their steel blades sliced through the wicker and skin shields of the Indians as if they weren't there. More than once an Indian simply held up his hands to await the death that was coming after he'd struck a Spaniard full in the chest with an obsidian lined ax, only to see it bounce off the steel breastplate of his bearded foe. When the Indians turned to meet the new attack from their rear, they had to take men away from the wall Cortes was attacking. With that, Cortes had little difficulty breaching the walls. The Spanish forces had the Indians between them and began pushing them to the city square like the jaws of a vise, drawing ever tighter.

  Juan got a bit too eager and overconfident. He rushed a knot of painted, howling warriors, attempting to beat them back by himself. His sword took out two of them before they swarmed over him, draggi
ng him down, trying to peel him out of his breastplate. If Casca hadn't been keeping an eye on him, he might have gained fame by being the first Spaniard killed in the Cortes expedition. Slashing the throat of one Indian with his sword, Casca slashed at the others until they ran shrieking from the battle, convinced they'd been fighting devils instead of men.

  When the two forces met, it was more of a slaughter than a battle as they finished off the surviving warriors, who had already resigned themselves to their fate. Fewer than thirty of the Indian warriors were able to escape into the woods. The rest, numbering nearly four hundred, were killed or taken prisoner.

  After the prisoners had been secured, the village was searched, but to Cortes's displeasure, they found no sign of gold or treasure. The Spaniards, except for those who now guarded the walls, followed Cortes into the temple grounds. The idols there were destroyed, and the Spaniards took over the temple as their headquarters. It provided the most room and was the strongest building in the village in case of a counterattack by the hostile Indians. Cortes, true to his word, slept in the village that night, and his stay was most definitely at the expense of the Indians. The conquistadors had fought and won their first battle. There were more attempts made by Cortes to open the lines of communication with the chief of the region by releasing many of his captives, but this did no good. As a result, there was some minor fighting over the next few days as the rest of the Spaniards, along with the horses and six cannon, were offloaded and brought into the village. The ships remained anchored at a safe distance with enough men to ward off any attack, which Cortes didn't think likely. The Tabascans, as could be seen from their ill-made canoes, were not fond of the sea beyond their harbors. There were a few skirmishes during this time, in which many minor wounds were received by the Spaniards, but still there were no fatalities.

  Cortes was confident that he had taught the Tabascans a lesson they would not soon forget. In this he was mistaken. The Tabascans sent word to all their tribes to send warriors to drive back the invaders. Eight thousand answered the call. The Spaniards used horses to scout the countryside, and it wasn't long before the movement of so many warriors was discovered. Cortes had no desire to fight from a static position behind the walls of the village, where the attrition rate would be in the favor of the Tabascans. Once he was fairly certain of the enemy's position, he formed his small army and set out for the village of Cintla, where some of his men had been ambushed earlier. By the time they arrived, the Tabascans had formed their army and waited for the arrival of the Spaniards.

  Juan stayed with the infantry, and Casca was sent with the cavalry on the left flank, following Cortes as he attempted to lead them around to the rear of the Indians. He would go through the woods and come in behind them. Cortes placed the rest of the men and cannon where they'd have a fair field of fire across the cultivated fields that were to be their battleground. The terrain was not very good, crisscrossed with canals and ditches, but there was no other place for it. The Tabascans didn't wait very long before they threw themselves on the Spaniards. The sheer weight of their numbers forced the Castilians back.

  It was the horses that saved the day. When the cavalry made its appearance at the rear of the Tabascans, they broke in terror, thinking that the strange creatures attacking them were half man and half beast. With only thirteen horsemen, Cortes was able to force the Indians out into a more open spot where the lances of the cavalry did good and bloody duty. The screaming of the war-horses frightened the Indians more than the thunder of the cannon. Once the pressure was off the Spanish infantry, they were able to join the fray, adding to the flight of the Tabascans with their crossbows and arquebuses. The heavy bolts from the crossbows went through the Indians' puny shields as if they weren't there, and the wounds were such as they had never seen, tearing out great chunks of meat, blasting chests open, ripping off faces and heads from their bodies.

  This, with the devil beasts trampling them, was too much. The Tabascans broke, leaving over three hundred dead behind them. Seventy-three Spaniards were wounded, but again none were killed. Casca wondered how long their luck could hold up. He knew the effect that not being able to kill any of the Spaniards was going to have on the primitive Tabascans.

  The Spanish wounded were taken into the city of Cintla and treated. The prisoners taken from the Tabascans were herded into the temple grounds in the center of the town. By Cortes's orders, they were also given aid for their wounds and treated with courtesy. In the morning he released five nobles and allowed them to return to their chiefs. They carried another message from him, saying: "I regret that mistrust and ill fortune have caused me to do such harm. Though I swear by my god, it was not of my doing, but your own. Yet if you will come to me, I will forgive you and make peace. If you do not come within two days, I shall have no other choice but to ravage your lands and burn your cities. As you have seen in our battles, you have not been able to kill even one of my soldiers. Yet hundreds of your warriors lie dead or have been taken prisoner. Come to me within two days or all of your men shall die. Come to me and I shall reveal great mysteries to you, and you shall be the better for my coming."

  The freed captives delivered the messages to their chiefs, who after council sent fifty nobles to speak to the Spaniards. They asked for permission to take their dead away and the promise of safe conduct for their chiefs if they came to speak to the chief of the Spaniards. This was granted with the warning that they not repeat their acts of treachery or their chiefs would meet with certain death, bringing great tragedy to their country.

  The Tabascans had made the proper sacrifices before the battle at Cintla. They had given the gods the hearts of brave men to feed upon. They had made, as was right and proper, manstew of the flesh of the victims, sharing it among the eight thousand warriors to give them the courage of those braves who had been chosen as heavenly messengers. This had done them no good. They had fought bravely, but who could be expected to stand against men whose shining armor stopped the fiercest of blows, men who had the thunder of the heavens at their command, able to spit death and fire at their enemies, and most terrifying of all, the beasts with the two heads – the deerlike creature who screamed, pawing the earth, outrunning their fastest man as if he were a crippled child. The chieftains of the Tabascans were all in agreement that the gods of their fathers had deserted them and that the power of these newcomers was such that they could not be resisted any longer. They would go to the chief of the bearded men, asking for the mercy he had promised.

  At the end of the time set by Cortes, the chiefs of the Tabascans made their appearance before the gates of what once had been one of their cities to ask permission to enter and parley with the chief of the strangers from the sea. With them they brought food, turkeys, maize, fruits, and other edibles. They also had with them twenty female slaves to do the cooking and grinding of maize for the Spaniards. In addition, there were a few small items of gold and turquoise which the Spanish valued at not more than two or three hundred pesos. It was certainly not anything like the treasure they had come after. Cortes still believed that great wealth was to be found – if not here, then elsewhere. From the Tabascans he questioned, he learned of another, greater kingdom where they said there was gold and silver to fill rivers. The land was ruled by a great king with warriors at his command like the grains of sand on the beach. It was a nation of warriors who ruled over a hundred vassal tribes that paid them tribute. If they went to the land of the Aztecs ruled by the priest king Moctezuma, they would find what they sought.

  From the directions they gave, Casca was certain of the prophecy, for the Tabascans had described the lakes and the valley near the city of Teotihuacan. He was returning!

  Although the Tabascans were not on the best of terms with their neighbors, it was the scarcity of gold in Tabasco that convinced Cortes the Indians were telling him the truth, though the former would have been the more logical reason. For the Tabascans had to buy peace from the Aztecs by providing them with victims for Aztec al
tars.

  The monks with Cortes went about their job of saving the souls of the heathen and bringing them to Jesus, whose power was greater than that of the Indians' multitude of gods. The victory of the Spaniards over the Tabascan army made the conversions easy, and the idols of Tabasco were cast down and replaced with the symbol of the cross. Cortes was being very careful to keep the Church on his side in this expedition. He knew that his enemies in Cuba would move against him one day, especially if he found that which he truly sought – the great wealth of an unknown world.

  Cortes didn't delay; he gave the orders to set sail for the river named after its discoverer, the Alvarado, which the Indians called the Papaloapan. Up the river, they would come to the first of the cities inhabited by the Aztecs. There they would find gold, silver, precious stones, and, what many of the Tabascans hoped for, death.

  The Alvarado was wide and deep, the banks dripping with heavy foliage and wild with animal life. There were birds of many kinds: cormorants, gulls, black ducks with white wings valued by the natives for their feathers and white herons called god-birds, or Teoquechal. The waters held sea lions and shad the size of tuna. A strange large lizard with a spiked body and four toes could be found swimming or climbing trees. Its flesh tasted like that of a rabbit and was much favored by the Spaniards once they had a sample of it. Pigs, deer, monkeys, puma – all were seen on the banks of the river. There was one strange little beast that fascinated the Spaniards, for they had never seen anything even remotely resembling it in Spain or Cuba. The Indian slave women with them said it was called the ayotochli, meaning pumpkin rabbit. It was the size of a large cat, with the face of a duck, the feet of a porcupine, and a long tail. It was covered with hard plates that fit together like a suit of armor, which the beast would curl up in when threatened. The Spaniards named it the "armored one," el armadillo.