‘Yes, Lord,’ she assured him, wide-eyed. ‘Not a word more shall they get from me.’
He patted her on the cheek. ‘Well said, Juanita. But you will all be subjected to a lot of unpleasantness and for that I am determined to compensate you.’ As he spoke, he took the pair of magnificent ear-rings from his pocket, held them up to her so that their pear-shaped drop pearls glistened in the light of the lamp, and went on:
‘These are for you; but you must not attempt to sell them, otherwise you might get into serious trouble. Before the Señorita leaves here you are to give them to her. They are worth several thousand pesos. She will either buy them from you, or sell them for you and send you the money. She has many jewels; so no-one will question her ownership of them and what they fetch will make a handsome dowry for you, with which you can buy a pleasant house where I hope you will live happily with your man for many years.’
Hesitantly she accepted the jewels, then dropped him an awkward curtsy and murmured, ‘Lord, your generosity overwhelms me. I have done nothing … nothing to deserve this wonderful gift.’
‘You have done more than enough,’ he assured her. ‘As for your parents and brothers, the Señorita’s father will see to it that for all their lives they will never know want. And now I must sleep. Can you keep awake for six hours or so?’
She glanced at a cheap wrist watch she was wearing. ‘It is now a quarter to eight. At what time, Lord, do you wish to be awakened?’
‘Let’s say two o’clock. But should you feel yourself dropping off before that, you must rouse me.’
‘Have no fear, Lord. I shall be doing my knitting and will wake you on the minute.’
Gratefully he stretched himself out on the palliasse. She moved the lamp so that his face was in shadow. Within minutes he was fast asleep.
Faithful to her promise, at two o’clock she shook him by the shoulder until he opened his eyes. For a moment he did not know where he was, then memories of the previous day came back to him. Sitting up, he knuckled the sleep from his eyes, and asked Juanita:
‘Did you manage to get all the things?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, Lord. I took them out after my family had gone to sleep, and they are now in the wine-press shed.’ Producing a pair of scissors, she added, ‘If you will turn round, I will cut off your hair.’
A quarter of an hour later she had given him a crew-cut and trimmed his beard as closely as possible. She then brought him a saucepan of warm water that she had left on the range and gave him the family razor to shave off the rest of his beard.
Standing up, he stepped across to Chela. For several moments he looked down on her lovely face, now a little drawn. Silently he cursed the conspiracy that had been the cause of all his troubles and now forced them to separate. They had known such wonderful happiness together; but now it seemed certain that they must part for ever. Taking from his pocket the finest of the jewelled bracelets that had been put on him as Quetzalcoatl, he slipped it on over her wrist and kissed her lovingly on the forehead.
Turning to Juanita, he asked, ‘Do you think we can get out of the house without rousing your family?’
She shrugged. ‘They all sleep like logs, Lord. But what matter if one of them does wake? They would never think of stopping you.’ Having turned down the wick of the lantern until it gave out only a faint glow, she opened the door and he followed her into the living room.
The other Zupangos were sound asleep, two of them snoring loudly. Adam and Juanita tiptoed past them and eased back the wooden bar of the outer door. Once it creaked loudly; the old woman gave, a grunt and turned over, but went off again. Two minutes later they were out in the cold, crisp air.
Juanita led him to the wine-press shed, turned up the lantern and got out from behind a cask the things she had procured for him. The clothes consisted of a pair of blue dungarees that were just broad enough to take his shoulders but much too short for him, a checked cotton shirt and a loose-fitting leather jacket with tarnished brass buttons. Quickly he changed into them then, pointing to his own clothes on the floor, he said:
‘I want you to burn these. And tonight. It is important that the police should not find them.’
She nodded. ‘It shall be done, Lord. Here are the other things.’
He saw then that she had got for him the type of pack used for countless generations by the Indians, which is worn on the back and supported by a strap across the forehead. He feared that at first he would find it awkward; but it had the advantage that, when wearing it, he would have to lean his head forward, which would make him appear less tall, and it was in keeping with his new role.
When he had tucked his torch, her scissors and the shaving kit into a corner of the pack, she helped him adjust the single strap, then handed him a battered hat. Putting it on his close-cropped head, he took both her hands, kissed her on the cheek and said:
‘Juanita, you have proved a true friend. I thank you from my heart for all you have done for me.’
Her dark eyes shining like stars, she sank to her knees, still looking up at him. As he turned away, she murmured, ‘May heaven defend you, Lord. I pray that you may come to me again in my dreams.’
With a last smile to her, he went out into the night.
At a rough estimate he believed the coast to be a hundred and twenty miles away; but that was as the crow flies. Owing to the mountainous nature of the country, the roads made many detours; so he expected to have to cover at least half as much ground again and perhaps twice that distance.
The track from the farm wound down the lower slope of the volcano. At about four in the morning he entered the village of Xalcatlan. The moon was still well up and by its light he could see that the place was the usual huddle of, mostly, one-storey houses with patched roofs and plaster peeling from the walls, grouped round a small, dusty square. The village was utterly silent, the windows of the houses shuttered, the stalls in the square now empty of fruit and vegetables. There was only one road leading out of the village, and he knew that it must lead to the local town of Apizaco.
Juanita had said that it was about nine miles from the farm; so, even walking at a good pace, he could not expect to reach it before half past five. By that time people would be stirring, so it would be dangerous to enter it. In any case, he had decided to make his way round it, for, although he had rid himself of his wavy hair and beard, his unusual size might still draw attention to him. Once the hue and cry was up the odds were that, had he passed a policeman, the man would remember having seen him and his only certainty of remaining uncaptured lay in keeping out of sight of everyone for several days to come.
When the first few straggling houses of Apizaco came in view, he left the road and took a turning that led east. The moon had set, but the grey light preceding the early spring dawn was now sufficient for him to see his way without using his torch. To his annoyance, the road curved south towards the town, so he had to leave it for a track. The track led only to a farm. As he approached, the sound of an empty pail set down with a clatter on the stone-paved yard warned him that the inmates were already up and tending their cattle. Taking to a field, he skirted round the farm and soon found himself in open country.
By then a rosy glow crowning the distant range of mountains to the east told him that dawn was near and gave him his direction. He walked on towards it for another hour, keeping, as far as he could, to paths between patches of cultivation. During this time there were always one or more dwellings in sight, but no wooded areas, and the peasants were already coming out to work in their fields. As he looked about for a suitable place to go to earth during the day, he became increasingly anxious at not being able to find one.
At length the fields gave way to an area of coarse grass and, ahead of him, he saw a mound about fifty feet in height. As he came nearer, he recognised it as one of the smaller pyramids, still covered with the earth of centuries, that are scattered about the country. When he reached it, he found that near the base at one side there were some br
oken stone steps leading down to a low arch. Getting out his torch, he went down the steps and flashed it round. The arch gave on to a passage blocked about ten feet from the entrance by earth and fallen debris. It was quite roomy enough to serve as a hideout, but was by no means a pleasant one, as the floor showed that it had been used many times by the field workers to defecate. None of these unpleasant souvenirs left by human visitors appeared to be recent, which led Adam to hope that he would remain undisturbed there; and, although the place stank of urine, he decided that ‘beggars cannot be choosers’.
Taking off his pack, he sat down with his back against the wall and looked through the items that Juanita had secured for him. There was a good blanket, a large piece of lean bacon, a knife to cut it with, some two dozen tortillas, a slab of guava jelly, a great hunk of coarse cocoa-chocolate, two packs of cigarettes and a box of matches. From what must have been the very limited supplies available at the farm he thought she could not have done better. The bacon, being smoked, would not go bad, the guava jelly would make the cold tortillas much more palatable, and few things were more sustaining than chocolate. Again he blessed his luck that he should have come upon such a well-disposed and intelligent girl.
As he had fed so well the previous day and knowing it to be important to conserve his stores, he decided that he would not eat until evening; but he had a cigarette while he calculated roughly the time it should take him to reach the coast. With his long legs, he could easily cover four miles an hour, so if he walked for eight hours a day he should do it in less than a week. But it might not prove so straightforward as that. There would be times when he had to leave the road, and he meant to move only at night. If there was no moon, having to cross open country in the dark would greatly reduce his speed. Again, if clouds prevented him from using the stars as a guide, he might go for several hours in a wrong direction before he discovered his mistake. Anyhow, he would be certain to lose his way now and then and have difficulty in finding it again, for he had no map and the strange names of towns on signposts would convey nothing to him.
Although it was less than five hours since he had slept, his past two days had been extraordinarily onerous ones and he soon began to feel drowsy. Stretching himself out, he used his pack for a pillow and soon dropped off. Well before midday he awoke and had to face the long afternoon with nothing to occupy him. The minutes seemed to crawl by, but at last the sun set and he was able to leave his smelly refuge.
After trudging along paths and across fields for over two hours, he came upon a road and, taking his direction from where he knew the mountains lay, turned left along it. But now he had to use greater caution, as he was anxious not to get caught in the headlights of a car. Fortunately, there was little traffic; but each time a vehicle approached he had to get off the road quickly, crouch down with his back to it in order to remain unnoticed and keep still until the car or lorry had passed.
From time to time he took a brief rest and, at about midnight, a long one during which he made a meal off a strip of bacon and a tortilla, washed down with a draught of water from his flask, for which he again blessed Juanita, as she had had the forethought to fill it for him.
An hour later he came to a township, skirted round it and lost the road again. Another hour went by without his succeeding in finding it. Judging by the moon, he knew that there was still a long time to go until dawn, but he felt too tired to go any further, so dossed down under a hedge. At first light he woke and covered another two miles, by which time the peasants were coming out into the fields and, as he was most averse to risking an encounter, he began to look about for a hideout. Soon afterwards he came upon a burned-out shack. Settling himself in a corner, he ate some of the chocolate and tried to sleep, but found that he could not get off.
The day seemed never-ending, but at last sundown came and he was able to go on his way. Again, after walking for some eight hours, he had to give up and spent the rest of the night sleeping among some bushes.
And so, with little variation, matters continued. Each night, when fatigue forced him to stop and sleep, he grudged losing the hours of darkness during which he might have covered another eight or ten miles. But the days were the worst.
Again and again he went over in his thoughts scenes through which he had lived since his arrival in Mexico: Chela—tall, broad-shouldered, superbly gowned and incredibly lovely—as she had made her entrance in her father’s penthouse on that first evening they had spent in each other’s company; Alberuque—hawk-faced, cynically smiling at the moment he had admitted that he was a reincarnation of Itzechuatl; the top of the pyramid at San Luis Caliente with the slaughtered pig and the smell of its hot blood; Chela, naked, laughing, utterly adorable, as he had known her in her villa at Acapulco; Jacko strangling the wounded warder; Alberuque, his dull black eyes radiating evil when he had threatened to sacrifice Chela; the crowd, the smell and the mosquitoes at Mérida airport; Jeremy Hunterscombe lying hors de combat in the cave; Ramón playing the gracious host at the Bankers’ Club; the Zupango family falling on their knees, believing him to be Quetzalcoatl; Alberuque’s face showing stark terror as he was thrown from the helicopter to die in the boiling lava of the volcano; Father Lopéz discoursing genially on the life of Cortés beside the swimming pool of the Hacienda Hotel at Uxmal; Chela, wan and still under the herbal drug, as he had last seen her at the farmhouse.
These and many other memories kept passing through his mind like the pictures made by a Victorian revolving silhouette wheel. Utterly weary of them, he tried to pass the time by thinking out plots for stories, reciting all the poems he could remember, repeating the multiplication tables, endeavouring to do intricate sums in his head, playing noughts and crosses against himself and inventing other games.
Several times he succeeded in sending his spirit back to the past and lived again for a while either as Ord the Red-Handed or Quetzalcoatl, whom he now knew to be one and the same. On one such occasion he found himself as the Man-God, alone, tired and hungry, making his way by night through a forest. He was lost, yet dared not go into a village to ask his way in case the inhabitants proved to be enemies. Eight days earlier he had succeeded in escaping from Itzechuatl and was now about two hundred miles from Tenochtitlán; but he still had a long way to go before he could hope to rejoin his own people. He was not only in danger from the warriors whom he knew must have been sent in pursuit of him, but sad at heart because he had fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful Mirolitlit and knew it to be most unlikely that he would ever see her again.
When Adam came out of his dream he thought how strange it was that he should have made his present journey, or a very similar one, in that long-past life and in almost identical circumstances; for in this present incarnation he was again tired, hungry, lost, pursued by enemies with little hope of ever again seeing the great love whom he had had to leave behind. Nevertheless, this vision gave him new courage to endure. As Ord the Viking become Quetzalcoatl, he had succeeded in reaching Yucatán; so he should be ashamed of himself now if, as Adam Gordon, he failed to reach Vera Cruz, which was nowhere near so great a distance.
None of his other returns to the past were of any special interest and, although they gave him something to think about, they were useless for killing time. The many hours, or even days, they seemed to cover were an illusion; when he came out of his visions the sun had not perceptibly moved in the heavens, so, in fact, he had not left his body for more than a few minutes.
Travelling mainly over rough ground eight hours out of twenty-four was as much as he could manage and the discomfort of his resting places made it impossible to sleep for more than six hours; the remaining ten had to be got through somehow. His every thought grew stale and, day after day, waiting for darkness to fall again so that he could go on his way almost drove him mad with impatience and frustration.
At no time could he with certainty have put a pin-point on a map within twenty miles of where he was. No road led directly towards the east for more th
an a few miles, then it curved either to north or south. After a time the cultivated lands gave way to jungle. Often he found difficulty in finding a stream of fresh water from which he could refill his flask and sluice his face. To eke out his rations, he stole fruit from trees growing on the outskirts of villages and twice ran down chickens which he afterwards encased in mud and baked over a wood fire. Once he trod on a snake and narrowly escaped being bitten, another time when the moon was hidden by clouds he fell headlong into a pond and he was bitten by mosquitoes until he thought he would go mad.
But one thing buoyed him up. Day after day during his wearying journey he managed to avoid coming face to face with any human being. In the early morning of the twelfth day he emerged from a patch of mimosa bushes to see the sun rising over the sea.
Hardly able to believe that he had at last reached the Atlantic, he retreated into the bushes and considered his next move. The past fortnight had greatly changed his appearance. Three times during his journey he had shaved and trimmed his hair as short as he could with the scissors; but he had allowed his moustache to grow and, by feeling the bristles, he knew that it must now be an obvious feature. Even though he had remained in hiding for the greater part of each day, the torrid sun baking the lower lands had considerably increased his tan; his face was puffy from mosquito bites and his fingernails were black with grime. As he now looked, and in his cheap Indian clothes, he thought it very unlikely that anyone he had met while in Mexico, except perhaps Chela, would recognise him; so he need no longer fear to enter a town.
The great port of Vera Cruz was the obvious place to try to get aboard a ship, but the problem was how to set about it. Without a passport, he could not sail as a passenger, even had he had the money to buy a ticket. Out of the money with which Hunterscombe had provided him he had given Juanita three hundred pesos. That left him with six hundred and fifty and some small change—about nineteen pounds. Far too little to offer a sea captain as a bribe for getting him out of the country illegally.
Unholy Crusade Page 38
