Текст книги "Aztec Blood"

Автор книги: Gary Jennings

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

When I entered the mine, it was predawn and dark. And the sun was down when I came out. I no longer knew from personal experience whether the sun still warmed the earth or eternal night had fallen.

My world became one of darkness and drudgery. I was often too tired to even think and that helped heal the horror in my brain, forged by the fiery holocaust that had consumed Don Julio and his family.

Once I learned to deal with the arduous cycle of work, eating, sleep, and intermittent floggings, I began to think about breaking out. I knew escape could mean my death, but that was of no consequence. My greatest fear was dying anonymously in a cave-in, buried eternally under a mountain of rock—and never avenging Don Julio.

Escape would not be easy. The harsh physical conditions were more than matched by the brutal vigilance of the guards. Nonetheless, I gradually saw a way. Once, while waiting in an abandoned tunnel for the blasting to finish, I noticed a slender thread of light slanting through a crack about the thickness of a fingernail.

How did light penetrate a tunnel that was hundreds of feet beneath the earth's surface?

Gonzolo saw me staring at the light and laughed. "Do you think it's magic, marrano?"

"I don't know what it is," I confessed.

"It's coming through the mountainside. Crawl through that crack for ten or twelve feet, and you'll be standing above a river. Tell you what. Make it through that crack, and I'll let you leave this mine."

He laughed long and hard at his witless jest.

Someday I will not only walk out, I will strangle you with your whip, I promised myself.

But that certain slant of light stayed with me. Maybe it was Don Julio's training. He had taught me to question physical phenomena, and every question I asked myself about that stream of light produced the same answer: Beyond that wall of rock stood freedom.

All I had to do was work my way through the crack.

Obviously, hammering through a dozen feet of stone was not an option. But I did have something that would widen that crack in a heartbeat, and as a lifer I knew how to use it: black powder.

The crack already existed. I'd have to widen it by cramming enough powder in. After blowing that mountainside to kingdom come, I'd have to work my way out through all that rock... assuming the mountain did not fall upon my head...

Stealing the black powder would be difficult. The powder was stored in a windowless adobe hut with a locked iron door. As for the powder we used, it was brought in in small quantities and heavily guarded.

But when I packed the charges into the mine face, I was alone with it. If before each blasting, I could steal a pinch of the powder, secret it on my body, and hide it later, the small thefts would add up.

If I was caught, there would be hell to pay.

If I didn't try, I would die in the mine.

NINETY-NINE

Over a period of months I collected and hid the powder a thimbleful at a time near the crack in the abandoned tunnel. With a little of my wet urine, I created cakes out of it. After the cakes dried I broke them up and crushed them into what Don Julio called "maize" powder because each chunk was about the size of a kernel of maize.

With each surreptitious trip to the abandoned tunnel, I packed some black powder into the crack.

Stealing the powder, sneaking brief moments in the tunnel, packing the crack, the beatings, the cave-ins, sheer physical exhaustion were all taking a toll on me. By the time I was ready to make my move, I was more than just frantic, I was now deranged by the sheer horror and impossibility of what I was doing.

Furthermore, Gonzolo was after me. In order to pull all this off, I was increasingly late for work, and though once at the mine face I was among the hardest of workers, lateness was something Gonzolo would not tolerate.

That last afternoon when I arrived late at the mine face he struck me across the head with the buttstock of his quirt so hard my ears rung, then said, "Tonight, when I finish with you at the flogging post, marrano, you'll never be late to the mine face again. And you'll remember the Inquisition as angels of mercy. Assuming, that is, you survive what I give you."

So that was that; it was today or never.

For the rest of the shift, he would not let me out of his sight. When I carried back my burden baskets of ore, when I went to get black powder, tools, anything, everything, he was on me like a shadow. And when it was time for the shifts to change, he walked me back personally, his right hand locked on my elbow.

We were just passing the abandoned tunnel, when I turned to him and stopped. "I just want to ask you one favor," I said, in my most contrite voice, my eyes downcast.

I needed to make sure we were alone. Gonzolo was always the last man to leave the tunnels, and he automatically looked around for stragglers. The last men rounded the bend in the tunnel ahead, and we were alone.

"You have the right to ask nothing, marrano!" he hissed, and swung the whipstock at me again.

Mateo's fencing lessons at last bore fruit. I parried the blow with my double-headed mine hammer, then smashed him in the nose with its iron top. Grabbing him by the throat, I dragged him into the abandoned tunnel and slammed him into the wall.

"Die, you son of a whore, die!" I hissed in his face.

I backhanded the hammer into his left temple, killing him instantly—a death far more merciful than any he had dispensed.

Now I had two choices: blow this mountain to kingdom come or be tortured to death by an army of mine guards.

I hurriedly packed the rest of the hidden black powder into the crack and inserted the fuse. Down tunnel was the fire stove where we lit the brands we used to light the powder. I hurried down tunnel. I had to get to it before the next shift reached the shaft.

At the stove I took a brand—a small shank of wood soaked in pitch at the tip—from the brand box and lit it.

A guard shouted, "You, prisoner, what are you doing here? Where's Gonzolo?"

Another guard's voice said. "Why aren't you with the rest of your shift?"

I raced back to the abandoned shaft as fast as I knew how.

I beat them to the shaft and lit a fuse. I had no idea how effective it would be. It was little more than twine soaked in urine and black powder. I had no idea how fast it burned. It might burn in five seconds. It might not burn at all. I hadn't had time to test it.

Cupping the blazing brand, I lit the fuse as the two guards charged into the tunnel.

Both were armed with short swords, and again Mateo's instructions saved my life. When the first guard—a short, skinny africano with close-cropped hair and no front teeth—thrust at my throat, I slipped into my fencing-dancing posture and ducked. His momentum carried him into me, throwing him off balance and, at the same time, blocking any assault the other guard might be planning.

I drove my fist into his Adam's apple—while my heavy hammer pulverized his pelvis. He screamed and went limp in my arms.

Using his body as a shield I dodged his partner's sword blows while I groped for the short sword his partner had dropped on the tunnel floor. At last I had it in my hand. Letting the guard fall groaning, I faced the other guard, sword in one hand, hammer in the other.

Mateo had taught me that when fighting with rapier and dagger, the only practical use for the dagger was as a stabbing weapon. In other words, I was to occupy my opponent with my rapier, then kill him with my knife.

Well, this short sword wasn't a rapier and my hammer wasn't a dagger, but the strategy still seemed sound. Especially when combined with Mateo's other piece of irrefutable wisdom: Always stay on the attack.

I sprung at the man like a crazed tiger, the hammer raised and pulled back in my left hand, the sword blade flashing and feinting, cutting and thrusting in my right.

Seeing himself closely confined with an armed maniac, he turned and fled; and I raced after, thirsting for blood, crazed with rage.

Which was the only thing that saved my life. For the fuse worked all too well. It's two-foot length exploded in less than half a minute, sympathetically detonating a full two pounds of black powder I had hidden in the tunnel wall but had not had enough time to relocate down the tunnel and well out of the blast radius.

The explosion buried the guard and myself in a small mountain of collapsing rock. I came to slowly, groggily. By now I could hear voices coming from up the shaft. The next shift, plus guards, would be coming straight here to clear the rubble and learn what had happened.

I had killed a supervisor, two guards, and blown up half the shaft. I had to make good my escape. I scrambled back down the shaft to the abandoned tunnel. It had caved in too and was filled with rock and rubble almost to the ceiling. But through rock and rubble something else had broken through: light.

I scrambled over the deadfall like a cat. With hands and hammer I began clearing a jagged, foot-high crawl space. I could make it to the outside, I thought, except for one rocky scarp jutting up near the exit. I hoped and prayed I could break it off with my hammer.

The shouts up shaft were growing louder, and the crevice was groaning and shaking. I didn't have much time. Soon the guards would be here—and the mountain would come back down, resealing my escape hatch.

I shouldered my way into the crevice.

It was a tight, jagged, bloody crawl to the light, and what lay beyond God only knew. By the time I reached the bloody scarp, I was a mass of cuts and blood. Furthermore, I could hear men entering the abandoned shaft, meaning they would hear my hammer blows.

To hell with it.

I laid into the rocky scarp with both hands as hard as I knew how. The din of my hammer blows was loud enough to wake the damned, and the screams behind me grew louder. On the fourth blow, the scarp broke off and went flying off through the crevice. At the same moment, some man behind me grabbed my sandaled foot, crawled up the tunnel, and grabbed my thigh. I turned and was about to hammer his skull to pieces, when he shouted, "I'm coming with you!"

"Then come along," I shouted, "wherever the hell we're headed!"

Grabbing the outside edge of the crevice, I poked my head out. I had had several minutes to gradually adjust to the light, but still it was blinding. I shielded my eyes and kept moving. I had to get out before the guards came and grabbed us both.

I was halfway out of the crevice when my eyes adjusted enough that I could see the escape route. To my right, perhaps a hundred feet away, was a slanting fissure in the cliff face, transversing a good four or five hundred feet I couldn't see how far down it went, but it was my only shot I had to scramble across that vertical cliff and then work my way down the fissure.

Now the prisoner behind me was in hysterics. A guard had worked his way into the crevice and had his ankle.

"No, no!" he screamed. "I can't go back."

I shared his sentiments completely. The crevice—with a million tons of rock pressing down on it—was groaning and screaming like a dying animal. I groped a couple of handholds and swung out over the abyss. My sandals went flying off my feet, falling what looked to be forever into the roiling, white-water rapids below. It was just as well. My bare feet would be better in feeling out footholds.

I found one and started out across the cliff face toward the fissure.

One hundred feet, a foot at a time, as I worked my way across that wall of rock, it seemed more than a hundred miles. My feet and fingers trembled in agony, bled profusely, and, as if in sympathy, the mountain itself groaned, moaned, vibrated, as if agonizing over all the horrible pain I'd caused it.

Still I almost reached it. I was within five feet of the slanting fissure, down which I could climb, perhaps to safety. At least I wouldn't have to crawl across this cliff face like a frightened bug.

But the mountain would have none of it. I had hurt her too badly; and being a mountain, her vengeance was vast. My black power blasts had collapsed tunnels all over the mountain. Long-forgotten cracks and holes and fissures along that cliff face were exuding smoke and dust. To my right black smoke was still pouring out of the crevice I'd crawled through.

In fact a guard's head was poking out of the opening. He was black with mine dust, as was I, and he was screaming obscenities I could not hear because the mountain was also screaming. It was shaking and trembling, thundering and roaring—and a million tons of rock came down on the crevice, sealing it forever. From my perch I could hear and feel more and more tunnels collapsing all up and down the mountain. More puffs of smoke and dust billowed out of the cliff face.

A wolfish grin split my face, and I could not resist laughing. I had not only rid the mine of Gonzolo, I'd rid the mountain of the mine.

I reached out with my left hand for the slanting fissure, but instead of grabbing its edge, I was hit by the reverberation of a shaft cave-in on the other side of my piece of cliff. My left hand reached only air. The mountain shook me like a jaguar shaking a jungle rat. The outcrop my right hand clung to broke off, and I was holding onto nothing. The mountain was now vibrating furiously and shook me loose. It rid itself of its despoiler, and I was falling, falling, falling.

I felt so free, soaring through space, I did wonder for a brief second if this was how angels felt—except then I reminded myself, angels don't fall, they fly. And I was definitely falling. In fact, looking down I could see the foaming river rushing up at me with dizzying speed.

My last coherent thought was whether I would meet Don Julio and his family in hell.

ONE HUNDRED

At the last second I had the presence of mind to lower my legs and straighten my back, so I did not belly flop or cannon ball. I hit the cataract upright, feet first, arms at my sides. Even so, the earth shook as the plummeting plunge into the white-water rapids knocked me senseless.

Eventually the icy, white water brought me to my senses. The cataract was in violent turmoil from the spring snowmelt from the mountains. Madre de Dios, it was cold. The pain was bracing as well. The plunge had wrenched both ankles, twisted a knee, and almost dislocated my left shoulder.

Still, when I came to, the first thing I heard above the river's din were the muffled explosions above me, which sounded like Mount Olympus in her death throes and the roar of gods gone mad. My detonation had apparently hit some sort of nerve in that mountain, perhaps an entire spinal cord. Every shaft, tunnel, cavern, crack, crevice, nook, and cranny was collapsing. The riverbanks, even the water trembled with the blasts, and the only semicoherent thought banging in my brain was: The mountain has reclaimed her mines.

But then I was rocketing downstream. Everything was moving so fast I wasn't able to focus on anything except trying to stay above water and stay alive. My whole world was suddenly that river. It was as if I had always been in the river and had never had a life except the river. I couldn't even remember hitting the water—just the pain and the cold and the cataract's power. I couldn't even think about the mountain and the mine. I was out of sight, touch, and earshot of that hellhole. I was in the midst of white-water, and it was growing whiter and wilder by the minute. That was all that mattered.

Rocks and outcrops were growing in size and number, and I was now bouncing off of them with painful regularity. The river turned, angling right, hard right, and the whitewater now was ferocious. Swimming was not an option. It was all I could do to keep my head above the surface.

More rocks, more outcrops, then a protracted din. I butted my head against a barn-sized boulder and was again knocked semiconscious. I came to to a roar that made me think of the mine explosions, but the din was protracted as well as ear-shattering.

The river curved and there it was: falls. I was now angling down toward it and could actually see over the rim.

I was going over.

Again, I was falling. This time I had no illusions about flying angels. I was dropping like a rock, except that this rock was now pain-wracked and hard-used. And falling.

I hit the river below like a black-powder explosion bringing down a mountain of rock.

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

How long I lay snarled in that deadfall dam of rocks and logs there beside the riverbank, I do not know. For a long time I thought I heard the mine detonating, but I finally realized those explosions were only in my head.

I was aware almost as soon as I regained consciousness that I had to get up and walk. Lying there in the freezing water was not an alternative. To rest was to get caught. To get caught was to be flogged, castrated, dismembered, killed. To rest was to suffer and die. I crawled out of the deadfall and clambered up onto the shore. Follow the river,I thought, away from the mine.Aimlessly, mindlessly, almost senselessly, I began walking downstream.

When I came to the tributary, I followed it away from the river. I had to get away from civilization, away from Spaniards, and become just another indio. Alone, dressed in dirty, torn, water-logged rags, bruised, battered, I didn't have much. But I was still alive. If I could find food, clothes, shelter, I might make it awhile longer.

I followed the tributary downstream, downhill. To survive in the wilds, always go downhill, the Healer had told me; and I found no reason to doubt him now. But even going downhill, the land was still relatively high, and now it was approaching dusk and growing chill. Furthermore, the surrounding terrain provided almost no cover—no jungle, dense brush, or forest, but only a few scraggly, stunted trees and scattered clumps of low brush.

For a time this bothered me. I was a wanted man, and naturally I feared pursuit; but then it finally dawned on me, was I wanted? Was I being pursued? Surely no one in the mine had survived that cataclysm. No one would know I had. I was a dead man.No one would pursue me because I was dead.

Not only was I cold and in rags, the temperature falling, my stomach was rumbling and I was growing faint with hunger and exhaustion. No, I was long past exhaustion. I was the snake operating without a head, wriggling around on raw nerves.

That night I found a stand of trees. The ground beneath their limbs was covered with leaves and deadfall. I used an old trick the Healer once taught me. I gouged out a body-sized depression with a rock, filled it with leaves and twigs, then covered myself with leaves and branches. It wasn't the cleanest bed I had ever slept in, but it kept me warm.

I went in the only direction that I had strength enough to drag myself: Just like the Healer. It was comical, but all I could think of was his advice. It ran over and over in my brain, like a prayer, and would not let me go:

"When lost, go downhill, always go downhill. You will eventually come to a valley, and in the valley you will find water, and where there is water you will find provender and people, and where you find people you will find companionship. You will not be alone."

Down the mountain foothills I stumbled, fell, crawled, and rolled. True to the Healer's word, I reached another river, this one not a mountain cataract but a peaceful, meandering stream. Since I was traveling downhill, the weather warmed. Of course, now that I no longer feared pursuit, I did find something else to worry about: the Chichimecas. Dreaded untamed savages, they hunted in small bands and often their prey was two-legged, and the northern mines were in their territory. It would be a great pity to have escaped a death sentence in the mines only to end up in the bellies of the Dog People. The Healer would have likewise found a wry irony in that one; if a man, who carried Aztec blood in his veins, ended up nourishing his own Aztec cousins in one of their infamous rituals.

I followed the river farther downstream. The Healer could not have been more correct about where such declivities led. The river sprouted streams and creeks, spreading out into a narrow valley, which included a lush field of maize. A haze of smoke curling upward told me the location of the mud hut of a farmer. I hid and watched the hut. The farmer was a big, stupid-looking, half blood, with a belly bloated from too much pulque and too many tortillas. When I saw him he was chopping wood outside the hut. His wife came out of the hut while I watched. She was a full-blooded indio, small build, youngish, pretty. I did not see any children. When the woman came out of the hut, the mestizo told her that she had not brought enough wood down from the hills. His voice toward his wife was as spiteful and stupid as his face. She took the criticism with the silent passivity that was the lot of indias. Life was hard and speaking out against a husband who might beat you solely because you were smaller and physically weaker did not make your life any easier.

The maize was barely ripe, but I took an armful and found shelter in a cave formed by river-eroded boulders. I peeled the cobs and ate the raw kernels, attacking them as if I was one of the Dog People. My Aztec bloodline traced their own roots back to these barbaric northern tribes, so perhaps it was natural that I would act like one of them.

Eating the raw corn and washing it down with river water bloated my belly, but did little else to assuage my hunger. It rained later, and I spent the night in the cave. Cold, clammy, I curled up in a fetal position and tried to keep my teeth from chattering. Exhaustion is, however, the best soporific; and though awakened periodically, I did sleep.

I stayed in the cave until the sun was well up, then lay atop a flat rock to soak up its rays. Like reptile limbs, my arms and legs began to operate better as the sun warmed my blood. When my body was warm, I took off the rags and went into the river water to bathe.

The river was cold, but I'd been so filthy for so long that even my trip down the rapids hadn't scrubbed me clean. Eh, for a few moments in a steam hut, I would have bartered my soul to Beelzebub.

Along the riverbank I found a dry tree limb that made a serviceable spear, and I sharpened the tip with a sharp rock. I stood on the edge of a small, clear pool and tried repeatedly to spear a fish. After what must have been a hundred tries, I impaled a foot-long bottom-feeder with whiskers and insane eyes. I ate it raw, whiskers, bones, scales, all—after which I passed out from exhaustion.

I was still naked from my bath and now tried to wash my rags. I tore them even more beating them on the rocks and wringing out the water. I at last gave up. Laying them on the rocks to dry, I likewise lay myself out naked and dozed in the sun.

I awoke with a sense of unease, with the strange feeling I was being watched. I did not see or hear anything. It may have been simply the chronic on-edge fear that had been my lot for so long. Still I was apprehensive. A moment before some birds had taken sudden flight, and I could not help but wonder what had started them. I did not want to startle my watcher either by sudden moves, so I sat up slowly.

I did not see her at first. She was in the bushes on the far riverbank. How long she had watched me, I did not know. I was still undressed, but did not bother to cover myself. My nakedness had not bothered her so far.

My eyes found hers. I expected her to bolt like a startled deer. Instead she remained crouched in the bushes, returning my stare as impassively, studying me as if I were a bug on the rock.

"Hello," I said, first in Náhuatl, then in Spanish. She said nothing. She could not have lived this long in mining country without knowing what an escaped mine slave looked like. But something told me that she would not turn me in for a reward. Unlike other women, an india would not think in terms of earning money unless she was forced into prostitution. Had this one been driven by greed or fear, she would have fled long ago.

I rubbed my stomach and said in Náhuatl, "I'm hungry."

Again, she stared at me, silent, her eyes expressionless. Finally she got up and left.

I debated whether I should grab my rags and flee. Or grab a rock, run her down, and crush her skull before she spread the alarm. Neither alternative was workable. In my weakened state I could not run far; and in a fair fight, she would have probably taken me.

As far as fleeing went, the headless snake was no longer running on raw nerves. I had no strength left, nerve, muscles, brain, heart, anything. I needed rest. Lying down on a broad, flat rock, I went back to sleep, soaking up the sun's warmth. Awaking at midday, I was still tired. I feared I would always be tired. Worse, I hurt—everywhere. My entire body was a single aching wound.

I slipped off the rock. Unable to rise, I slid down to the riverbank for a drink. At the water's edge, I spotted a small reed basket on the rock across the river where the woman had hid. I could see tortillas sticking out.

I had been so wary for so long, I first wondered whether it was a trap. Maybe her vicious husband was waiting with a machete and dreams of a rich reward. But I didn't see that I had much choice. I had to eat. Somehow I managed to stand. Sloshing across the hip-deep river, I grabbed the basket. I was eating a tortilla before I got back to the other side.

Like a primal beast, I took the food to my cave. There were plain tortillas, a tortilla wrapped around a piece of beef, a tortilla filled with beans and peppers, and even a tortilla smeared with honey. Gracias Dios, a feast for a king. I ate until my belly almost burst. Then I crawled back onto the rock in the sun. Like a crocodile with its belly full, I basked in the sun, my spirits soaring, giving my muscles new strength.

I fell asleep again and slept for another couple of hours. When I awoke, she was sitting on a rock across the riverbank. Nearby was a pile of clothing.

I waded across to her and sat down beside her, not bothering to cover my nakedness.

"Gracias," I said, "muchas gracias."

She said nothing but looked at me with sad, dark eyes.

I knew what her life was like. Just as the españols treated indios and mestizos as their work animals, a farm woman was a work animal to her husband. They lived a life of hard work and silent desperation, aged fast, died young.

We talked just a little, only a few sentences. I repeated my "muchas gracias." She gave me her obligatory "Por nada." I asked her how many children she had. She answered, "None." When I expressed surprise that a young woman so beautiful did not have scores of muchachos, she answered:

"My husband's pene is muy malo, mucho por nada, no bueno. And so he beats me, as you were beaten."

She pivoted her hips, and her back bore the broad white stripes of her abuse.

The human body is a strange animal. I had previously been too worn out to even stand, but apparently the male garrancha is immune to such weakness. As I sat beside the river talking to this young woman, my garrancha rose.

We lay together by the riverbank that afternoon—and every afternoon for the next five days. When I finally left her, I wore pants and a shirt of coarsely woven cotton, and a straw hat. I carried the traditional indio manta over my right shoulder and under my left arm and a blanket rolled up around a woven maguey rope over my left shoulder. The blanket would ward off the cold at night, and the tortillas, rolled up in the blanket, would last me for days.

Working in the mines had burned every bit of fat from my bones, but the work had left my muscles hard. A few days of nourishment did not fill out my frame, but combined with rest I was now able to walk.

If I could avoid the local cannibals, I would survive awhile longer.

Before leaving my riverbank cave, I foraged a bit and found a thick tree limb, a little longer than my leg. I could use it as a walking staff and a club. A long, straight sapling, sharpened at the end, served as a spear. I lashed a split-wood handle to a long, slender piece of obsidian, given to me by the girl, and sharpened it into a blade.

I wore my straggly hair shoulder-length, and my beard was creeping down past my Adam's apple. I know I looked like a mountain beast that had escaped from the Place of the Dead.

With instructions from the girl, I crossed the nearby hills, where I intersected a trail leading to the Zacatecas' main road. I kept a weather eye out for the Chichimeca during the entire trip. They were nowhere to be found. If the Dog People saw me, they were no doubt frightened off by my lunatic appearance.

In the far distance smoke curled up to the sky. The girl had warned me this way led to mines. I knew the smoke meant silver smelters. I touched the scar on my cheek, the brand that mine slaves wore. I was fortunate that the brand was neither large nor deep and that my beard was exceptionally heavy, but while the scar would not be noticeable to a casual observer, I would not fool anyone who knew the mines.

I sat hidden by bushes on a hillside and studied the road until dark. Mule trains constituted the heaviest traffic, which was to be expected on any major road in New Spain. The trains came up the road loaded with supplies for the mines. None came back down empty. Not every mule was loaded with silver. Some packed tools or parts to be repaired. Others carried sulfur, lead, and copper ores, which would be transferred to the appropriate refineries.

Except for the occasional indio, packing maize, beans, and maguey to market on mule back, the only four-footed traffic was the infrequent Spaniard on horseback. The two-footed traffic consisted of mine workers, indios, mestizos, and africanos, going to or from the mines. These men traveled in groups, usually about ten or twelve at a time. Even the horsemen rode with companions for protection.

It was to be expected. The mine roads attracted not only the usual run of banditos, but renegade indios and escaped mine slaves added to the hordes of highwaymen.