On one of the nights of one of those days in the hinterlands, I again ventured to extend a caress to Tiptoe, in her blankets beside me, and again she fended me away, saying:
"No, Tenamáxtli. I feel unclean. You must have seen—I have grown a stubble of hair on my head and... and elsewhere. I feel that I am no longer a properly immaculate Purémpe. Until I am..." and she rolled over and went to sleep.
Exasperated and frustrated, I made sure, during the next day's ride, to seek out an amóli plant and dig up its root. That night, when I roasted a boar haunch over our fire, I also set my metal flask of water to boil. After we had eaten, I said:
"Pakápeti, here is hot water and here is a soap-root and here is a good steel knife, which I have whetted to utmost keenness. You can easily make yourself a properly immaculate Purémpe once more."
She said airily, "I think I will decline, Tenamáxtli. You have dressed me in man's clothing, so I have decided to let my hair grow out and make myself look like a man."
I naturally remonstrated with her, pointing out that the gods had put beautiful women on this earth for other and better purposes than to impersonate men. But she was adamant, and I had to conclude that her defilement back there at the outpost had simply made the copulative act hateful to her—that she never again would couple with me or any other man. There was no objection that I could, in conscience, make to that. I could only respect her decision and, meanwhile, entertain two hopes. One was my hope that since Tiptoe now knew how to use an arcabuz, she would not take the whim to use it on the nearest male, that being myself. And I hoped that we would soon, in our journeying, come upon a town or village where the women had not, for whatever reason, decided to repel the advances of every man of mankind.
Instead, what we came upon, late one afternoon, was something totally unexpected—a troop of mounted Spaniards, most of them armed and armored, riding through this Tierra de Guerra—and we encountered them so suddenly that we had no chance of evasion. They were not, as I might have anticipated, a body of soldiers pursuing us to wreak revenge for what we had done at the border outpost. I had never ceased keeping a wary lookout to our rear. If I had seen any sign of a patrol approaching from behind us, I could have taken care to avoid capture. But this troop rode up upon us from the farther side of a hill that we were ascending, and obviously they were as surprised as we were when we met at the top.
There was nothing I could do except tell Tiptoe in Poré, "Keep silent!" then raise a comradely hand to the lead soldier—who was groping for the arcabuz slung across his saddle horn—and greet him cordially, as if he and we were accustomed to meeting thus every day, "Buenas tardes, amigo. ¿Qué tal?"
He stammered, "B-buenas tardes," and, with the hand that had been reaching for the weapon, returned my salute. He said nothing more, but deferred to two other riders—men in officers' uniform—who shouldered their horses up beside him.
One of them growled a vile blasphemy, "¡Me cago en la puta Virgen!" then, eyeing my partial uniform and the army brands on our horses, demanded impolitely, "¿Quién eres, Don Mierda?"
Disquieted though I was, I had wit enough to tell him the same thing I had told Padre Vasco, that I was Juan Británico, interpreter and assistant to the notarius who served the Bishop of Mexíco.
The officer sneered and exclaimed, "¡Y un cojón!" a vulgar expression of disbelief. "An indio on horseback? That is a thing forbidden!"
I was glad that our far-more-strictly-forbidden arcabuces were out of his sight, and said humbly, "You are riding in the direction of the City of Mexíco, Señor Capitán. If you like, I will accompany you thither, where Bishop Zumárraga and Notarius de Molina will assuredly vouch for me. It was they who provided these horses for this journey of mine."
I do not know if the officer had ever heard those two names before, but my speaking them seemed to mitigate his disbelief slightly. He was less gruff when he demanded, "And who is the other man?"
"My slave and attendant," I lied, grateful now for her having chosen to pose as a man, and gave her name in Spanish, "Se llama de Puntas."
The other officer laughed. "A man named Tiptoe! How stupid these indios!"
The first one laughed, too, then, derisively misspeaking my name, said, "And you, Don Zonzón, what are you doing here?"
More composed by now, I was able to say glibly, "A special mission, Señor Capitán. The bishop wishes to ascertain the temper of the savages here in the Tierra de Guerra. I was sent because I am of their race, and speak several of their languages, but also am manifestly vested with Spanish and Christian authority."
"¡Joder!" he rasped. "Everyone already knows the temper of these savages. Their temper is ugly. Murderous. Bloodthirsty. Why do you think we travel only in unassailable numbers?"
"Just so," I said blandly. "I intend to report to the bishop that he might palliate the savages' temper by sending Christian missionaries to do humanitarian works among them, in the manner of Padre Vasco de Quiroga."
Again, I do not know if the officer had ever heard of that priest, but my apparent familiarity with so many churchmen seemed finally to dispel his suspicions.
He said, "We too are on a humanitarian mission. Our Governor of New Galicia, Nuño de Guzmán, assembled this numerous company to escort four men to the City of Mexíco. They are three brave Christian Spaniards and a loyal Moro slave, long believed lost in the far-off colony called Florida. But, most miraculously, they fought their way hither—this close to civilization. Now they wish to tell the story of their wanderings to the Marqués Cortés himself."
"And I am sure you will safely deliver them, Señor Capitán," I said. "But this day latens. My own slave and I had intended to proceed farther, but we passed a good water hole not a league back, sufficient for your whole troop's camping. If you will allow, we will return there to lead you and, by your leave, camp there with you."
"By all means, Don Juan Británico," he said, companionably now. "Lead on."
Tiptoe and I turned our horses about, and as the company came clanking and shuffling and clattering behind us, I translated to her what had passed between me and the officer. She asked, her voice again trembly because she was speaking of white men:
"Why in the name of the war god Curicáuri do you wish to spend the night with them?"
"Because the officer mentioned that butcher Guzmán," I said. "The man who laid waste your land of Michihuácan and claimed it for his own. I had believed there were no Spaniards in these northern parts. I want to find out what Guzmán is doing, so distant from his New Galicia."
"If you must," she said resignedly.
"And you, Tiptoe, please just remain inconspicuous. Let the white men hunt their own game for their night's meal. Please do not take out a thunder-stick to show them your mastery of it."
The officer—his name was Tallabuena, and his rank was only teniente, but I kept on ingratiatingly addressing him as Capitán—sat beside me at the campfire. While the two of us gnawed on juicy roast deer meat, he confided quite freely what I wished to know about that Governor Guzmán:
"No, no, he has not come this far north. He is still safely resident in New Galicia. The canny Guzmán knows better than to risk his fat culón up here in the Tierra de Guerra. But he has established his capital right on the northern border of New Galicia, and hopes to make a fair city of it."