The Gate of Worlds, page 16
"Skip the history lesson, Topiltzin. What do you have in mind?"
"Conquer the garrison. Take over the land. Make ourselves monarchs here. We can do it easily."
I scowled at him. "Sometimes we never learn, eh, Topiltzin? You propose to do exactly what you did at Taos. And it'll end the same way. Maybe the garrison is small, but it's made up of Aztec soldiers, and you've got nothing to throw against them but naked savages. Sorry. Count me out."
"But sometimes we do learn, Dan! What was the real lesson at Taos?"
"That we should forget about trying to grab provinces of the Aztec empire."
"No!" Topiltzin's eyes glittered with strange fervor. "What I learned at Taos is that I should have taken Sagaman Musa's advice. I should have invited the subject populace to join the uprising. Instead I was too proud, too heroic to accept the help of mere farmers. I won't make that mistake again. These Choctaws and Muskogees will fight by our side, thousands of them. All they need is a leader, and they'll rise up and drive their overlords out!"
"It won't work, Topiltzin."
"Why not?"
"Because they won't risk their lives in a revolution only to replace one set of masters with another. If they toss out the garrison, do you think they'll elect you king?"
"I do. They aren't capable of ruling themselves, and they know it. They've been Aztec subjects for three hundred years. They need someone to make the decisions for them. I'll be available for that. So will you. Bit by bit, we'll become indispensable to them. Until I'm the king and you're my prime minister. We won't force ourselves on them. We'll slide gently into positions of permanent authority. As the heroes of the revolution, we'll be great men to them."
"You be a great man without me," I told him. "I'm going to Africa with Takinaktu."
"Don't be a fool. This is the opportunity of your lifetime-it's what you've been looking for since you left England. Don't compound old errors by letting them guide you."
"I saw one uprising fall flat on its face in Taos, Topiltzin. I got out of Kuiu before another one turned into a certain massacre. I don't want any part of this one."
"But it's different here! Thousands of well-armed men on our side! We can't lose!"
"Do it without me. I'll read about it in the papers when I get to Ghana."
Topiltzin seized my arm as I walked away, and poured more persuasion into my ear. But I wasn't having any. I had nearly lost my life in Topiltzin's last wild scheme, and that was sufficient.
I felt very smug at having made a sensible choice for the first time in my life. I wanted someone to praise me for my shrewdness in turning Topiltzin down, so I went to Takinaktu and told her the story.
She pulled a long face during the first half of the tale, undoubtedly because she suspected I was working up to telling her that I was going along with Topiltzin. Then I sprang my surprise, quoting my pious rejection of his temptations.
Her eyes fluttered a bit. "You aren't going to do it?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Oh, Dan, how wonderful! I was sure you would, and then you'd be killed, and everything would be ruined!"
She flung her arms around me. For one dizzying moment her lips touched mine and her soft, yielding body was deliciously close. Kissing is not a custom of her people, I understand; she must have learned such things from reading Shakespeare. In any case, it was a splendid thing, an unforgettable instant. I go back to it in my mind from time to time, since it is the high point of my friendship with Takinaktu.
After a high point usually comes a descent down the other slope. That's what happened. Let me tell it without skipping any of it, but also without drawing out the details too painfully.
Takinaktu let go of me and stepped back. That was the beginning of the downward slide. She looked shy and bewildered at what she had done. We grinned at each other a bit, and then she turned and loped off like a frightened doe. I rubbed my lips with my hand. They were tingling.
I told myself I had been wondrous clever to say no to Topiltzin. It was a sign of maturity. To abandon my folly of wealth through conquest meant I had grown up.
But if I was as mature as all that, why did I change my mind and go with Topiltzin after all?
* * *
The process of changing your mind is a tricky one. You start at Position A, which you hold with stern stubbornness, resolving never to give it up. Then you stop to question your original resolution. Is it wise to be so stubborn? Perhaps you should consider alternate ideas. You revise your original inflexibility a little, abandoning Position A and adopting Position B, which is very much like it in most ways, with only a few ifs and maybes added. Then, by a gradual series of compromises, private deals, and shifts of purpose, you slide spinelessly through the alphabet until you arrive at Position Z, the total opposite of your original point of view.
Something like that happened to me. I'll spare most of the intermediate stages, merely saying that I reconsidered. I began to think Topiltzin might just succeed. I remembered Opothle and his two companions, how strong and resilient they were, and how much they hated Aztec rule. I recalled my own dreams of empire and allowed that this particular part of the world was more desirable than most. I even felt that I had a certain obligation to go along with Topiltzin's plans, though I can't imagine why.
Inch by inch, I slid from A to G to M to P. And at Position P, I remained a while, more than half determined to join Topiltzin, but not yet letting anyone know about it.
The problem was Takinaktu. I knew she was opposed to any such enterprise, and that it would provoke a mighty quarrel if I asked her to approve of it.
So over the next couple of weeks, as we moved eastward into Muskogee country and as I moved closer to Topiltzin's outlook, I delicately sounded Takinaktu out, trying to discern changes in her position.
Would she like to settle here instead of going all the way on to Africa?
Not very much.
How would she care to take part in a small battle or two?
Not really.
Wouldn't she like to win wealth and power?
Elsewhere.
Of course, I tried to be more subtle than that. I didn't come right out and tell her what I had in mind. But she wasn't subtle at all in her answers.
And one day she said, "Dan, are you going to get mixed up in this war of Topiltzin's after all?"
I was flustered. I fished for words and caught none.
She went on, "I just want you to know, in case you're considering it, that I won't have any part of it. I'm going on to Africa, with or without you. Clear?"
I calmed her down with some vague assurances.
In my own smug way, I assumed she was bluffing. Since I loved her, I figured she therefore must love me just as much, and would never go through on her threat to sail to Africa alone. I was confident of bringing her around to our side-that is, if I decided I was on Topiltzin's side.
That decision was made when we were deep in Muskogee territory, less than two days' journey from the sea. We had passed any number of neat villages, each with straight, well-laid-out streets, a central plaza which had a temple mound at one end and a chief's house at the other, and carefully-tended fields of tall corn on the outskirts. Green fields, blue sky, yellow sun, brown earth-a warm and lush land it was, far more appealing than any part of Mexico. I liked the moderate climate; even here in summer it was much cooler than lowland Mexico, and without the thin, chilly air of the highland part. I could easily have ended my quest in this land.
Topiltzin sent for me one afternoon when I came back from a fishing trip. I went to his tent and found him in conference with a broad-shouldered man in Muskogee costume.
The Muskogee looked up. I recognized him.
"Opothle!"
"Dan Beauchamp!"
We slapped each other's backs, pumped each other's hands, did a little jig of reunion. I pulled out my knife-his knife, really-and said, "This has saved my life a million times!" I let fly, sending it thwicking into the tent-pole. Opothle unsheathed a new knife of his own and tossed it after mine; it landed half an inch away and twanged a bit, the butts touching.
We retrieved our knives and embraced again.
Opothle said, "I knew you would visit us one day, Dan!"
"Believe me, I didn't expect to be here. But I'm glad I am." I turned to Topiltzin. "This man and I shared a cabin for a thousand years, it seemed, when we crossed the Ocean Sea. There were two others, also. How are they, Opothle? Well?"
His face darkened. He told me that one of our shipmates, the youngest one, was dead. He had liquored himself up at a festival and had slapped an Aztec officer; the Aztec had shot him where he stood. The other man was currently away, on a trade mission to the Mohawks in the north.
Topiltzin said, "I have spoken with Opothle about an uprising. He is no lover of his people's masters. He is with us, and pledges five thousand men from thirty villages."
Right then and there all my lofty resolutions evaporated. What had seemed like a vain and foolish endeavor suddenly took on a new look. Topiltzin had won strong allies. With this determined army, how could he lose against a garrison of several hundred men at best?
More than that: I put aside my childish dreams of becoming a prince in this land, and saw the campaign in a new light. It was a war of liberation. I would be fighting beside my friend Opothle to dethrone the imperial overlords and make his people free. As a descendant of Englishmen who had writhed under the lash of the Turk for four hundred years, I did not need the advantages of freedom advertised to me.
We had undertaken a sacred trust. Opothle and Topiltzin and I would begin the job of rolling back the cruel Aztec regime that had dominated the Upper Hesperides so long. The glorious revolution would begin here, and would spread throughout the country in one thunderclap of rebellion. Solemnly we grasped hands on it. I knew now how the soldiers of James the Valiant had felt in their war against the Turk.
In short, I had arrived completely and irrevocably at Position Z.
Opothle had brought tobacco, and we smoked a few pipes to celebrate our alliance. Then he left, and I went to tell Takinaktu all about it.
I was puffed up with the nobility and grandeur of it all. And, despite her earlier hostility, I was certain she'd catch the martial spirit. She herself came from a nation that had lost its freedom; she would understand Opothle's yearnings and our eagerness to aid him.
I told her what had been decided and waited for her to fling her arms up and kiss me again.
Instead her face grew stony and she said, "That is a very poor joke."
"It's no joke at all."
"You really mean to stay here and fight?"
"That's right, Takinaktu."
There was fury in her eye, and I thought she had never looked so beautiful before. She said, "This is not your war. You'll get nothing from it but your grave."
"Opothle is my friend. But for his knife, I'd have found my grave two thousand miles west of here."
"There is no magic in his knife. Any knife would have been just as useful."
"That's not the point. His people are enslaved by the Aztecs. This is their time of freedom. How can I ignore that? How can I sail off, knowing that I've failed to help them throw off the Aztec yoke?"
"Topiltzin himself is an Aztec," she reminded me. "He dreams of being king. You would replace one master with another."
"No. He's a very unusual Aztec, Takinaktu. He doesn't care for his family. He's more or less an exile. He doesn't have any of the proper patriotic Mexican ideas. That's why he's willing to overthrow the garrison here. Afterwards, do you think he'll be able to push anyone around? He'll be part of the government, yes, but he won't be a dictator. And we'll be part of the government too."
"Perhaps you. Not I."
"But-"
"This is not my war, even if you think it's yours, Dan. I want to get far away from this continent where one race must own another. I want to go to Africa, where men are free, where each nation observes its own boundaries, where science and art are alive. This place means nothing to me."
"It means something to me, though. You were willing to run off and let your own village get shot up by the Russians. Well, that was a hopeless fight, but this one isn't. I'm staying, Takinaktu. I have to."
"Fool! Idiot!" she spat at me.
"Please. Stay here with me."
She drew herself up to her full height, looking proud and imperious in the jade necklace and feather cape I had given her. There were razor-keen edges on her words as she said, "Tomorrow I ride to the port and buy passage on the next ship to Mexico. At the Mexican port I buy passage to Africa. It was good to know you, Dan. Maybe some day we will meet again, if you survive this foolish war."
She strode away.
I shook my head. Women! But despite her threat, I felt sure that she'd back down and stay here for the battle. I was wrong.
In the morning, she was gone.
Sometimes we never learn.
FOURTEEN
To Africa, I Think
When she failed to appear for breakfast, I went to her tent. No Takinaktu. Necklace, cape, Shakespeare, and all, she had disappeared. I ransacked the blankets, looking for some note from her. Nothing. She had kept her word.
I wanted to claw down the sky in my anguish. Stupidly, I had let myself get entangled in a war and thereby lost the only person on this continent who really meant anything to me. In that first moment of shock I thought of saddling my horse and riding after her to the port, before it was too late, before she sailed away out of my life forever. But that would have been a betrayal of Opothle and Topiltzin. I had promised them my help. Could I run off after a girl at such a time?
I think I might have gone, torn as I was between my loyalty to this war and my need for Takinaktu. But a sturdy figure came up behind me and seized my wrist in a gentle but firm grip. Opothle. He knew nothing of the missing girl; his mind was all filled with war.
"Are you ready, Dan?" he asked quietly.
"Is today the day?"
"Today. No point in delaying. I have spent all this night gathering my men. Today we strike."
How could I tell them that I was sick to the heart over a runaway girl? Perhaps Takinaktu was still bluffing. Perhaps she was waiting a few miles to the east, hoping that I would ride after her. But I knew that if I rode out and looked for her and found her, I would ride with her straight to the port, forgetting all about Opothle's people and their war.
I could not do that. It would be too harsh a betrayal.
Topiltzin, that sly devil, had thoroughly entangled me in the morality of this campaign. It was not like the attack on Taos, a mere power grab. No, this had become a sacred war. My heart was riding eastward to the sea, but I had to remain and fight.
I remained. I fought.
When I saw the Muskogee army, I felt certain we would win. I should have mistrusted any feeling of certainty at all, after my reversals of recent days, but these men looked invincible. Thousands of them, strong, young, a copper-skinned army, bristling with knives and war-hatchets and rifles and small arms, their faces set in grim determination. Topiltzin and Opothle rode at the head of the force, and I, a general at not-quite-nineteen, was summoned up there to join them.
We discussed strategy. The plan was simple enough, and had a certain familiarity about it. We were to ride to the garrison, throw flaming torches through its windows, and smoke the enemy out. That scheme had not worked well at Taos. But here we outnumbered the Aztecs twenty to one. How could we lose?
We rode on, through the green fields of corn, to wipe out the oppressors.
The Aztec fort was a squat, rambling brick building set in the midst of a broad clearing of red earth. A low, futile wooden palisade surrounded it. We came swarming up on all sides, having sent scouts forward to make sure we would fall into no traps.
Our corps of sappers began undermining the palisade. It gave, and suddenly there was a breach wide enough for horsemen to ride through six abreast. Rifles high, we entered and readied ourselves to meet the counterattack. Our corps of torchmen took the lead, heading for the windows.
We expected Aztec troops to pour out of the fort to meet our thrust. We were wrong.
From one of the windows poked the gray metal snout of a big cannon. Hiding a cannon indoors is an unfair way of battle, but there it was.
Boom!
A hole was carved in our ranks.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
As a veteran of two disastrously mismanaged attacks, let me tell you that it is less easy to rout an Aztec garrison than one might think. That cannon unloaded explosive shells in our midst with improbable rapidity, and each time a shell landed some fifty of our warriors went up in a cloud of black smoke.
Behind the heavy artillery came a peppering of rifleshot. Our men dropped steadily. Brave as they were, it was hard for them to stand to such slaughter. They began to melt away into the surrounding woods.
I heard Opothle shouting to them, rallying them. The palisade was on fire, now, and in a while the fort would be open to easy attack. All we had to do was fall back beyond the range of that stubby cannon and pump bullets into the building. By and by the defenders would run out of ammunition.
But the Muskogee braves, beaten down by three hundred years of oppression, could not see the clean logic of that proposition. Some were fleeing as fast as they could; others were milling about aimlessly, ignoring the attempts that Opothle, Topiltzin, and I made to rally them.
Then a bullet smashed into Topiltzin's skull and the war was over.
I can't say I had ever actually liked the ambitious Aztec very much, but I had followed him into battle twice-three times, if you count that game of tlachtli-and it pained me to see him die. Especially since this was the second time I had seen his death. From this one, though, there would be no resurrection. He lay in the dust with a bright scarlet thread of blood winding through his glossy black hair, and he did not move.
