Aztec Autumn

by neetha Napew

  "Hm..." murmured Esteban, considering this.

  "Convince the friar that you can lead him to those cities of immeasurable wealth. He will be the more easily persuaded if he thinks you are revealing to him something the white heroes will not. He will assume that they are waiting to tell their secret to the Marqués Cortés. He will rejoice in the delusion that he can get to those riches—with your help—ahead of Cortés or any treasure-seekers Cortés may send. And he will arrange for you to take him there."

  "But... when we get there and I have nothing to show him? Only laughable mud hutches and worthless blue pebbles and..."

  "Now it is you, my friend, who are being estúpido. Lead him there and lose him. That should be easy enough. If he ever finds his way back here to New Spain, he can only report that you must have been slain by the vigilant guardians of those treasures."

  Esteban's face began almost to glow, if black can glow. "I would be free..."

  "It is certainly worth the trying. You need not even lie, if that troubles you. The friar's own greedy and dishonest nature will supply to his mind any exaggerations necessary to convince him."

  "By God, I will do it! You, amigo, are a wise and clever man. You should be the Marqués of all New Spain!"

  I made modest demurrers, but I must confess that I was fairly glowing myself, with pride in the intricate scheme I was setting in motion. Esteban, of course, did not know that I was using him to further my own secret plans, but that would not lessen his benefiting from the scheme. He would be free of any master, for the first time in his life, and free to take his chances of staying free among those far-off River People, and free to browse as much as he pleased—or dared—among their womenfolk.

  I have recounted much of our night-long conversation in detail, because that will make clearer my explanation—which I will provide in its place—of how my meeting with the heroes and the friar did redound to the furtherance of my intended overthrow of the white men's dominion. And there was yet another encounter in store, to give me added encouragement. By the time Esteban and I finished talking, the morning was dawning, and with the morning came one more of those seeming coincidences that the gods, in their mischievous meddling with the doings of men, are forever contriving.

  Four new Spanish soldiers on horseback came suddenly—from the direction Tiptoe and I had come—clattering into the camp and startling awake everyone else there. When I heard the news that they bawled at the Teniente Tallabuena, I was again heartily relieved; these men were not pursuing me and Tiptoe. Their horses were heavily lathered, so they had obviously been riding hard, and overnight. If they had passed that empty outpost away back yonder, they had not paused to pay it any attention.

  "Teniente!" shouted one of the newcomers. "You are no longer under the command of that zurullón Guzmán!"

  "Praise God for that," said Tallabuena, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "But why am I not?"

  The rider swung down from his horse, flung its reins to a sleepy soldier and demanded, "Is there anything to eat? Our belt buckles are rattling our backbones! Ay, there is news from the capital, Teniente. The king has finally appointed a virrey to head the Audiencia of New Spain. A good man, this Viceroy Mendoza. One of the first things he did was to hear the many complaints against Nuño de Guzmán—his countless atrocities against the slave indios and Moros here. And one of Mendoza's first decrees is that Guzmán be removed from the governorship of New Galicia. We are galloping to Compostela to take him in charge and fetch him to the city for his punishment."

  I could have heard nothing that would have pleased me more. The news-bringer paused to take a massive munch at a cold chunk of deer meat before he went on:

  "Guzmán will be replaced by a younger man, one who came from Spain with Mendoza, un tal Coronado, who is on his way hither as we speak."

  "¡Oye¡" exclaimed Fray Marcos. "Would that be Francisco Vásquez de Coronado?"

  "It would," said the soldier, between bites.

  "¡Qué feliz fortuna!" cried the friar. "I have heard of him, and heard only praise of him. He is a close friend of that Viceroy Mendoza, who is in turn a close friend of Bishop Zumárraga, who is in turn a close friend of mine. Also, this Coronado has recently made a most brilliant marriage to a cousin of King Carlos himself. Ay, but Coronado will wield power and influence here!"

  The other Spaniards were shaking their heads at this abundance of news coming all at once, but I sidled out of the throng to where Esteban stood apart and said in a low voice:

  "Things are looking better and better, amigo, for your soon getting back among those River People."

  He nodded and said exactly what I was thinking. "The Lying Monk will persuade his friend, the bishop—and the bishop's friend, the viceroy—to send him thither, ostensibly as a missionary to the savages. Whether he tells the bishop and the viceroy why he is really going does not matter. So long as I go with him."

  "And this new Governor Coronado," I added, "will be eager to make his mark. If you bring Fray Marcos by way of Compostela, I wager that Coronado will be most generous in providing horses and equipment and weapons and provisions."

  "Yes," Esteban crowed. "I owe you much, amigo. I will not forget you. And if ever I am rich, be sure I shall share with you."

  At that, he impulsively threw his arms around me and gave me the crushing squeeze that is called in Spanish the abrazo. A few of the Spaniards were watching, and I worried that they might wonder why I was being so exuberantly thanked, and for what. But then I had a more immediate worry. Over Esteban's shoulder, I saw that Tiptoe was also watching. Her eyes went wide, and abruptly she made a dash for our horses. I realized what she was about to do, and wrenched myself loose from the embrace and pelted after her. I got there just in time to prevent her snatching one of our arcabuces from the packs.

  "No, Pakápeti! No need!"

  "You are still unharmed?" she asked, her voice trembly. "I thought you were being assaulted by that black beast."

  "No, no. You are a dear and caring girl, but overly impetuous. Please leave any rescuing to me. I will tell you later why I was being squeezed."

  A good many of the Spaniards, now, were eyeing us curiously, but I smiled a reassuring smile in all directions, and they turned back to the news-bringers. One of those was telling his listeners:

  "Another news, though not of such portentousness, is that Papa Paulo has established a new bishopric here in New Spain, the diocese of New Galicia. And he has elevated the Padre Vasco de Quiroga to a new and august station. Another of our couriers is riding to advise Padre Vasco that he is now to wear the miter, as Bishop Quiroga of New Galicia."

  That announcement pleased me as much as any of the others I had heard here. But I did hope that Padre Vasco, now that he was such an important dignitary, would not forswear his good works and good intentions and good nature. No doubt Pope Paulo would expect his newest bishop to wring from those Utopia colonists yet more contributions to what Alonso de Molina had called the pope's "private King's Fifth." Be that as it may, this also augured well for my and Esteban's scheme. Probably Bishop Zumárraga would see Bishop Quiroga as a rival, and be even more ready to send Fray Marcos scouting either for new souls or new riches for Mother Church.

  I purposely delayed departing from that place until the four newcome soldiers had gone galloping on toward Compostela. Then I bade farewell to Esteban and Teniente Tallabuena, and they and all their troop—except the three white heroes and the Lying Monk—cordially waved me off. When Tiptoe and I rode on, leading our two extra horses, I turned us slightly northward from the direction the soldiers had gone, in what I hoped was the direction of Aztlan.

  XVII

  Not many days later, we were among mountains that I recognized from the journey with my mother and uncle. It was still early in the rainy season, but on the day we reached the easternmost bounds of the lands ruled by Aztlan, the god Tlaloc and his attendant tlalóque spirits were amusing themselves by making a storm. They jabbed down from the skies thei
r forked sticks of lightning and thunderously shattered their immense water jars to pour rain down on the earth. Through that curtain of rain, I espied the glow of a campfire on a hillside not far ahead of us. I halted our little train among some concealing trees and waited for a flare of lightning to show me more. When it did, I counted five men, standing or crouching around a fire sheltered by a lean-to made of leafy branches. The men all appeared to be wearing the quilted-cotton armor of Aztéca warriors, and seemed almost as if they had been put there to await our coming. If they were, I thought, this was a matter of some puzzlement, for how could anyone of Aztlan have known of our approach?

  "Wait here, Tiptoe, with the horses," I said. "Let me make sure these are men of my people. Be prepared to turn and flee, if I signal that they are hostile."

  I strode alone out into the downpour and up the hillside. As I neared the group, I raised both hands to show that I was without any weapon, and called, "Mixpantzínco!"

  "Ximopanólti!" came the reply, sociably enough, and in the familiar accent of old Aztlan, good to hear again.

  Another few steps and I was close enough to see—by the next lightning flash—the man who had replied. A familiar face from old Aztlan, but not one very pleasing to encounter again, because I well remembered what he was like. I imagine my voice reflected that, when I greeted him without much enthusiasm, "Ayyo, Cousin Yeyac."

  "Yéyactzin," he haughtily reminded me. "Ayyo, Tenamáxtli. We have been expecting you."

  "So it would seem," I said, glancing around at the four other warriors, all armed with obsidian-edged maquáhuime. I supposed they were his current cuilóntin lovers, but I did not remark on that. I said only, "How did you know I was coming?"

  "I have my ways of knowing," said Yeyac, and a roll of thunder accompanying his words made them sound ominous. "Of course, I had no idea it was my own beloved cousin coming home, but the description was close enough, I see now."

  I smiled, though I was not in a mood for smiling. "Has our great-grandfather again been exercising his talent for far-seeing, then?"

  "Old Canaútli is long dead." To that announcement the tlalóque added another deafening smashing of water jars. When Yeyac could be heard, he demanded, "Now, where is the rest of your party? Your slave and the Spaniards' army horses?"

  I was getting more and more disturbed. If Yeyac was not being advised by some Aztécatl far-seer, who was keeping him so well informed? I took note that he spoke of "Spaniards," not using the word Caxtiltéca that had formerly been Aztlan's name for the white men. And I remembered how, just recently, I had been made uneasy when I learned that the Governor Guzmán had set his province's capital city so close to ours.

  "I am sorry to hear of great-grandfather's death," I said levelly. "And I am sorry, Cousin Yeyac, but I will report only to our Uey-Tecútli Mixtzin, not to you or any other lesser person. And I have much to report."

  "Then report it here and now!" he barked. "I, Yéyactzin, am the Uey-Tecútli of Aztlan!"

  "You? Impossible!" I blurted.

  "My father and your mother never returned here, Tenamáxtli." I made some involuntary movement at that, and Yeyac added, "I regret having so many grievous tidings to impart"—but his eyes shifted away from mine. "Word came to us that Mixtzin and Cuicáni were found slain, apparently by bandits on the road."

  This was desolating to hear. But if it was true that my uncle and mother were dead, I knew from Yeyac's manner that they had not died at the hands of any strangers. More lightning flashes and thunder roars and lashings of rain gave me time to compose myself, then I said:

  "What of your sister and her husband—what was his name?—Káuri, yes. Mixtzin appointed them to rule in his stead."

  "Ayya, the weakling Káuri," Yeyac sneered. "No warrior ruler, he. Not even a deft hunter. One day in these mountains he wounded a bear in the chase, and foolishly pursued it. The bear of course turned and dismembered him. The widow Améyatzin was content to retire to matronly pastimes and have me take on the burden of governing."

  I knew that, too, to be untrue, because I knew Cousin Améyatl even better than I knew Yeyac. She would never willingly have yielded her position even to a real man, let alone this contemptible simulacrum whom she had always derided and despised.

  "Enough of this dallying, Tenamáxtli!" Yeyac snarled. "You will obey me!"

  "I will? Just as you obey the white Governor Guzmán?"

  "No longer," he said, unthinking. "The new governor, Coronado—"

  He shut his mouth, but too late. I knew all I needed to know. Those four Spanish riders had arrived in Compostela to arrest Guzmán, and they had mentioned meeting me and Tiptoe on their way. Perhaps, by then, they had begun to wonder about the legitimacy of my churchly "mission," and made their suspicions known. Whether Yeyac had been there in Compostela, or had heard the word later, no matter. He was clearly in league with the white men. What else this might mean—whether all of Aztlan and its native Aztéca and resident Mexíca had similarly donned the Spanish yoke—I would find out in good time. Right now, I had to contend only with Yeyac. In the next lull of the storm's commotion, I said warningly:

  "Take care, man of no manhood." And I reached for the steel knife at my waist. "I am no longer the untried younger cousin you remember. Since we parted, I have killed—"

  "No manhood?" he bellowed. "I too have killed! Would you be my next?"

  His face was contorted with rage as he raised high his heavy maquáhuitl and stepped toward me. His four companions did the same, right behind him, and I backed away, wishing I had brought with me some weapon more formidable than a knife. But suddenly, all those menacing black blades of obsidian turned to glittering silver, because Tlaloc's lightning forks began to jab and jab and jab in rapid sequence, close about the six of us. I was not expecting the thing that happened next, though I was gratified and not very much surprised when it did happen. Yeyac took another step, but backward this time, reeling, and his mouth opened wide in a cry that went unheard in the immediately succeeding tumult of thunder, and he dropped his sword and fell heavily on his back with a great splash of mud.

  There was no need for me to fend off his four underlings. They all stood immobile, maquáhuime lifted and streaming rainwater, as if the lightning had petrified them in that position. Their mouths were as wide open as Yeyac's, but in astonishment, awe and fright. They could not have seen, as I had, the bright, wet, red hole that had opened in the cotton quilting of Yeyac's belly armor, and none of us had heard the sound of the arcabuz that had done that. The four cuilóntin could only have assumed that I had, by some magic, called down upon their leader the forked sticks of Tlaloc. I gave them no time to think otherwise, but bawled, "Down weapons!"

  They instantly and meekly lowered their blades. Such creatures, I surmised, must be like the frailest of women—easily cowed when they hear a real man's voice of command.

  "This vile pretender is dead," I told them, giving the body a disdainful kick—I did that only to heave Yeyac over onto his face, so that they should not see the hole in his front and the bloodstain spreading from it. "I regret that I had to invoke the gods' assistance so suddenly. There were questions I would have asked. But the wretch gave me no choice." The four stared glumly at the corpse, and took no heed when I made a beckoning gesture back toward the trees, to summon Tiptoe forward. "Now," I went on, "you warriors will take orders from me. I am Tenamáxtzin, nephew of the late Lord Mixtzin, hence, by right of succession, from this moment on, the Uey-Tecútli of Aztlan."

  But I could think of no order to give them, except to say, "Wait here for me." Then I sloshed back through the rain to intercept Tiptoe, as she came leading all our horses. I intended to tell her, before she joined us, to hide the arcabuz that she had so timely and so accurately employed. But when I got close, I saw that she had already prudently stowed it away again, so I said only, "Well done, Pakápeti."

  "I was not too impetuous, then?" She had regarded my approach with some anxiety in her face, but now she smiled. "
I was afraid you might scold me. But I did think that this one, too, was a beast attacking you."

  "This time you were right. And you did splendidly. At such a distance, in such poor light—your skill is enviable."

  "Yes," she agreed, with what I thought rather unwomanly satisfaction. "I have killed a man."

  "Well, not much of a man."

  "I would have done my best to kill the others, too, if you had not waved to me."

  "They are of even less account. Save your man-hatred, my dear, until you can start killing enemies really worth the killing."

  The sky's tlalóque were lustily continuing their clamor and downpour as I commanded the four warriors to sling Yeyac's cadaver across one of my packhorses—thus he was still facedown, the wound in his front invisible. Next, I ordered the four to accompany me as I rode, two each on either side of my horse; Tiptoe brought up the rear of the train as we proceeded onward. When there came a pause in the thunder rumblings, I leaned down from my saddle and said to the man trudging alongside my left stirrup:

  "Give me your maquáhuitl." He meekly handed it up to me and I said, "You heard what Yeyac told me—of the several convenient deaths that so fortuitously promoted him to Uey-Tecútli of Aztlan. How much of what he said was true?"

  The man coughed and temporized, "Your great-grandfather, our Rememberer of History, died of old age, as all men must, if they live to be old."

  "I accept that," I said, "but it has nothing to do with Yeyac's marvelous quick elevation to the status of Revered Governor. I accept also that all men must die, but—I warn you—some must die sooner than others. What of those other deaths? Of Mixtzin and Cuicántzin and Káuritzin?"

  "It was just as Yeyac told you," the man said, but his eyes shifted just as Yeyac's had done. "Your uncle and mother were set upon by bandits—"

  He got no further. With a backhanded swipe of his own obsidian sword, I took his head off his shoulders, and both pieces of him toppled into a rain-running ditch beside the trail. In the next interval between thunderings, I spoke to the warrior at the other side of my saddle, who was goggling fearfully up at me like a frog about to be stepped on.