Captain from Castile (60 page)

In this effort, he was naturally the leader. Except for him, Garcia and Catana, who lacked hidalgo principles, might easily have succumbed. But he kept them to the mark. If Garcia yielded to the charms of native women, he was not allowed to forget that he must baptize before embracing them. Catana, who loved to dance, got a swingeing once when she participated in a stately Indian figure. Weren't the zarabanda and other Christian dances good enough!

Partly to combat these tendencies, Pedro insisted on teaching his two friends their letters. He got nowhere with Garcia, who could never see the connection between sounds of speech and scratches on bark paper. Catana learned to print her name and to make words after a fashion. But the labor was great and the achievement small.

To Pedro, chafing at his exile from civilized and military life, it seemed that his companions were much too content: Garcia, because the mines were rich and the girls amiable; Catana, because she had her lover more to herself than in the days of the company.

"You're like the Lotos-eaters in that romance of Captain Ulysses," he told them once.

"Who were they?" Garcia asked.

"They were mutineers. Senor Ulysses, a notable cavalier, was trying to get his company home overseas after a war. He kept in mind his duty to the King. But they touched on a rich land where these lazy cantoneros settled down and went to sleep. It cost the good captain much trouble to pry them loose."

"Aye," grumbled Garcia, who rejected the point of the story, "you've always got captains and cavaliers disturbing the peace of honest men."

Meanwhile, the chief of the Zapotecs—Zociyopi in his own tongue, Coatl among the Aztecs—held an increasing place in the minds of his guests. Not only were they dependent on him, but he impressed them personally. They stopped identifying him with other savages and accepted him as an individual. His Spanish became more fluent with practice, so that he and Pedro had frequent talks, which often became personal and intimate. Seated cross-legged on a mat, a tobacco reed between his fingers, Coatl, except for his tawny skin and the turquoise in his lower lip, seemed hardly different from any other gentleman.

"You ask me why I take trouble save your Hfe, Sefior Pedro," he remarked once when they were together on the rooftop of his quarters. "You say me not like other Indians and heathens you know. I ask why you save my life two times. You not like other Spaniards and Christians I know. Maybe someone cut out our hearts—find them alike."

Coatl enjoyed recounting his escape from Spain, the voyage to Cuba, the desperate crossing in a stolen small-boat from San Anton to San Juan de Ulua.

"I see nothing stop me after you give that gold, seiior. I surely get home. You give all you have. I see your purse empty. That bring luck to me—now to you." And noting Pedro's brooding expression, he would add, "You get home too, sefior. Perhaps then you be glad remember these days."

On another occasion, Coatl asked oddly enough: "Tell me, my friend, what you want in life? You cross Great Water, fight Tenochcas, try take their land, work, suffer, lose everything, almost get killed. Maybe your god come, say, 'What you like me give you, Sefior Pedro?' What you tell him?"

It took de Vargas back to his talk with Olmedo on the hill near Trinidad. The same question. He thought it over honestly but could hit on nothing truer than the usual answer.

"Well, I suppose what I want most now is success in the world. As you know, my father is a great cavalier who brought the reputation of

our family to a higher point than he found it. Starting where he leaves off, I'd like to equal him if I could. That takes doing, for Don Francisco has set me a hard course. Also it takes money. If I could have had my wish, it was to get back to Spain with a good record and a pile of gold." He added gloomily, "That's over now."

Coatl made a careless movement of the hand. "In Spain, what you do with good record and gold?"

Pedro dreamed on. "Rebuild the Casa de Vargas. Be decorated by the King. Get a command in the army. A noble marriage."

With a gust of bitterness, the memory of Luisa de Carvajal crossed his mind. That too was over.

"You leave the Senora Catana here?" asked Coatl.

The question brought up a problem that Pedro always put off meeting. Catana did not fit in with the return to Spain. He realized, of course, that sometime the break must come. But until then—

A long minute passed before he answered, "I don't know."

"Well," Coatl observed, "you not want much. I think your god give it to you."

LXIV

In December these cordial relations with Coatl underwent an odd change. An Aztec embassy, the first in five months, appeared at the pueblo, and the Spaniards kept under cover while their enemies were present. It would not do, Coatl insisted, for the Tenochcas to learn that they had been cheated with regard to the prisoners' sacrifice, and that Captain de Vargas with his companions still lived. The Zapotecs, loosely tributary to the Aztec empire, had nothing to gain by raising an unnecessary issue with their overlords.

But following the departure of the envoys, Coatl immediately summoned Pedro to his azotea. He wore the circlet and plume of his rank, the embroidered mantle, jeweled earrings and arm clasps. The heavy, graven features expressed an oflEicial attitude. He raised his arm in greeting but for a while kept silent. Without being sure, Pedro sensed embarrassment and chagrin.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

A queer, veiled look crossed the other's eyes. After a moment, he answered: "Senor, we Zapotecs are few leaves on an old tree. Not

strong, not ready for war. The Tenochcas are many. We guard you from them, you and your friends."

Pedro nodded. "Yes, of course: we owe you our lives."

"Now they find out you here. Now they say give us back the white victims you not kill. We kill. The gods hungry. Give them back, or we come in war, burn your towns, take your young men to feed our gods."

"Oho!" said de Vargas. "Well?"

Again the shrewd look narrowed Coatl's eyes. "I say no. They leave angry. They mean war."

Pedro's heart leaped. "Mark you, Coatl, if I can't hold the passes of this country with the men we have, aye, and feed the buzzards with those dogs' carcasses, call me no soldier. On my honor, we'll singe the Aztecs' tails and send them home yelping."

"You train my men like Spanish hombreSj eh?"

Pedro hesitated, thinking of the tough, even Spanish ranks. "Juan and I would do our best. At least they'd be trained as compared with the Aztecs, and better equipped. We'll leave them their glass-bladed macuahuitl baubles and get us hardened copper swords of the right shape. We'll get us fifteen-foot lances such as Cortes used in the Narvaez fight. There's a hedge to stop even horses."

"You say horses, senor?"

"Aye, horses, let alone the Aztec dogs. Then there's the proper marshaling of the square in support of slingers and bowmen; the management of night attack that our friends from the north don't relish. We'll show them a few sleights before we're done."

"You make strong the passes?"

"Not too strong. They must be lured in and trapped."

Coatl's teeth showed. "Who can match white men! They live to kill. Your eyes happy, senor, at thought of killing."

Suddenly Pedro found himself remembering Montezuma. Just as then, he had an impression here of something under cover, though he could not define it. Why, for one thing, did Coatl not seem incensed against the Aztecs or pleased at the prospect of defeating them? The smolder in his eyes was directed rather against the bloodthirsty craft of the whites. At the moment, it appeared even to include Pedro himself.

"Aztecs call themselves warriors," Coatl added. "They children beside you."

"We do our best," said Pedro dryly. "How long, do you think, before they'll attack?"

"Who know?" shrugged the other. His vagueness sounded almost indifferent. "Maybe soon; maybe three-four months."

Pedro and Garcia set themselves with a will to the work of military defense, in which Coatl gave them every encouragement. De Vargas enjoyed war as an art, and Garcia was a born drillmaster. Officers were picked out and trained in the Spanish tactics. They in turn instructed others. A rough imitation of ordered ranks and evolutions was achieved. Equipment approximating Spanish weapons took the place of more primitive arms. The passes were fortified, and a strategy was worked out.

But nothing happened. Weeks became months without a sign of impending attack from the north. Except for the fun of it and that various Zapotec warriors, becoming admiringly attached to Pedro, had themselves baptized, there seemed to be no profit or point in these warlike gestures.

"By the mass, it's queer!" Pedro complained to Garcia. "We're supposed to be training against those hounds of the Valley, but our friend Coatl never mentions them. He talks only about us Castilians—how we do this or that. I sometimes wonder whether the Aztecs made any threats. And if not, what are we stewing for?"

"Cosas de Indios!" Garcia grumbled. "They're a crooked race. You never quite know what they're up to. But don't worry, I expect the Aztecs won't give long warning. Then, by God's grace, we'll remind them of our dead comrades. I pity the cahron that falls into my hands."

February and March passed—nine months since the flight from Mexico. Then down from the north in April came not the Aztecs but a trickle of other Indians, wretched, desperate, and exhausted, seeking refuge in the pueblo. De Vargas happened to meet them in the valley below the town, and at first glance he could see that they came from beyond the Zapotec territory. At sight of him and Garcia, however, standing fist on hilt beside the trail, the men cowered and slunk past. Apparently by now every white man went by Cortes's nickname, for they shouted something about Malinche and added other gibberish.

Pedro turned to one of his Zapotec lieutenants, whom he had baptized by the name of Martin and who had picked up a few Spanish words. "What did they say, those fellows?"

"They say Malinche burn their pueblo, Cuauhnahuac."

"Malinche! What do you mean? What Malinche? Are there Spaniards to the north?"

But the man's face looked blank, as one who has spoken out of turn.

Pedro's arm shot out. Martin found himself pinned by the throat against a tree.

"Will you speak! By God, find your tongue before I tear it out. Are there Spaniards to the north?"

He relaxed his grip enough for a word to pass. It seemed to Martin that the white lord's eyes were two gimlets boring into his brain.

"Si, senor."

"Malinche? Hernan Cortes? I say Herndn Cortes?"

"SiJ senor."

"How long have you known this?"

Half-suffocated, the man made a vague gesture. Pedro gathered that he had known it some time.

"Did you hear that, Juan?" Releasing the Indian, de Vargas turned to Garcia, who stood gaping. "Did you hear that?"

The other nodded heavily with a dazed look.

"The General in the north!" whispered Pedro. "It can't be!" He stiffened. "But we'll find out. Coatl has something to explain. Come

on.

Surmise, suspicion, anger, billowed through de Vargas's mind. He did not notice the steepness of the winding street, the groups that melted away at the expression of his face. Upon reaching the palacio, he and Garcia brushed aside the warriors on guard, crossed the series of familiar rooms and, unannounced, entered Coatl's council chamber.

They found him with two of the refugees, who were crouching in front of him, evidently begging sanctuary.

"Hold the door, Juan," said Pedro.

He walked over to Coatl, disregarding the two suppliants. He also overlooked Coatl's frown.

"I hear that Hernan Cortes is but three days' march to the north. Is this the truth?"

Met by de Vargas's cold stare, Coatl's eyes flickered, but he answered, "Yes."

"Cuerpo de Dios! Have you played us for fools? You told us that our comrades were killed at Otumba. You promised to send us to any Spanish company that reached New Spain. Well? What's the explana-. tion of this?"

1 Coatl drew himself up. "You talk bold, sefior. Remember I master here."

Pedro laid his hand on his sword. "I'll do more than talk, you false friend. I ask again, have you anything to say?"

With a gesture, Coatl dismissed the two Indians from the north, who

stood cowering at one side. When they were gone, he answered: "Listen, Seiior Pedro, and you, Sefior Juan. I say the Spaniards die at Otumba. I think they die. I think that long time."

And indeed, as Coatl said, who could have supposed that the few-hundred survivors of the Sad Night, exhausted, despairing, with no arms except sword and buckler, with only twenty decrepit horses and a rabble of Indian auxiliaries, could make good their retreat to Tlascala against the forty thousand picked braves awaiting them on the plain of Otumba?

"They warriors!" exclaimed Coatl, torn between hatred and admiration. "They warriors!

"Then, long after," he went on, "the Aztecs come—you know when, sefior. They tell what happen. They say Malinche bring all east tribes against them. He cross mountains back into Mexico. They say he have more white men, guns, horses, from across Great Water. They ask help. . . . Then, senores, for first time I lie."

He paused a moment, struggling with his imperfect Spanish. "To me my people come first. I must defend them from Malinche who destroy all. So I get you and Senor Juan train my men. Therefore I lie."

"By God," de Vargas burst out, "so we've been preparing you against our own friends! Against the King's interest! It wasn't enough to keep us malingering here, deserters from the company, while our good comrades won honor in the field, but you must trick us into being renegades and traitors! A fine stroke, Coatl!"

But his thought ran more coolly than his tongue. It was unlikely that Cortes, preoccupied with Mexico and other more accessible lands, would be interested for some time in this southern region, and by that time the superficial military training of the Zapotecs would have faded. Besides, powder, guns, and steel made all the difference against arrows and copper.