"Well, so far," he said, "I have been able to keep all the men from getting too restive, and from quarreling among themselves, by giving them orders that can be conveyed—even to the Yaki—with gestures and demonstrations instead of words, and thus keeping them all occupied with various labors. Appointing certain groups to do the hunting and fishing and gathering of food, for instance, others to do the burning of charcoal, the mixing of pólvora, the casting of lead balls and so on. Those couriers you sent to Tzebóruko and to Aztlan did return with ample supplies of the yellow azufre and the bitter salitre. So we now have as much powder and as many balls as we can carry when we leave here. I am pleased to report, too, that we have many more of the thunder-sticks than before. The Purémpe women brought many that they captured from the Spaniards in New Galicia, and so did numerous warriors of the northern tribes who stole them from Spanish army outposts as they came hither through the Disputed Lands. We now have nearly a hundred of those weapons, and about twice that many men who have become expert at using them. We have also acquired a goodly armory of steel knives and swords."
"This is all most gratifying to hear," I said. "Have you anything notso gratifying to report?"
"Only that we are better supplied with armament than with food. Given a hundred of hundreds of mouths to be fed, well, you can imagine. Our hunters and foragers have by now killed every last animal and bird and plucked every fruit, nut and edible green from all these mountains, and emptied the waters of every last fish. I had to set a limit to their foraging, you see, not let them go too far abroad, lest word of their activity reach the wrong ears. But you may wish to countermand that order, Tenamáxtzin, for we are now reduced to scant rations indeed—roots and tubers and frogs and insects. Such deprivation is of course beneficial for warriors. It makes them lean and hard and eager to reap from the fat lands we will be invading. However, besides the Purémpe women now among us, a good number of those runaway slaves who fled here are women and children. I hate to sound like a woman myself, but I do feel sorry for those weaker ones who came trusting that we would care for them. I hope, my lord, that you will give instant order for us all to march from here into more bounteous lands."
"No," I said. "That order I will not give yet, and I will not countermand any of yours, even if we all must live for a time by chewing the leather of our own sandals. And I will tell you why."
Thereupon, I repeated to Nochéztli everything the Bishop Quiroga had confided to me, and added:
"This, then, is my first order. Send sharp-eyed and fleet-footed men west from here. One is to be posted, well hidden, beside every road, every trail, every deer path that wends northward from Compostela. When Governor Coronado passes with his train, I want a count of his men, his arms, his horses, mules, bearers, packs—everything he is taking with him. We will not attack that train, because the foolish man is doing us a favor immeasurable. When I have the report that he and his fellows have passed, and when I judge they have gone far enough north, then—but not until then—will wemove. You concur, Knight Nochéztli?"
"But of course, my lord," he said, wagging his head in wonderment. "What astonishingly good fortune for us, and what astonishingly imbecilic behavior on the part of Coronado. He leaves the field wide open for us."
It was immodest of me, but I could not help saying, "I flatter myself that I had some small part, a long while ago, in arranging both the good fortune and the imbecility. I sought for years to find the one pregnable gap in the white men's seeming invulnerability. It is greed."
"That reminds me," said Nochéztli. "I almost forgot to mention another astonishing thing. Among those fugitives who came seeking sanctuary with us are two white men."
"What?" I said, incredulous. "Spaniards fleeing their own kind? Turning against their own kind?"
Nochéztli shrugged. "I do not know. They seem very peculiar Spaniards. Even those few of us Aztéca who have some words of Spanish cannot understand the Spanish they try to speak to us. But the two of them jabber between themselves with noises like geese honking and hissing." He paused, then added, "I have heard that the Spanish are forbidden by their religion to do away with any children born deficient of brain. Perhaps these are two of those defectives, grown to man-size, not knowing whatthey are doing."
"If so, wewill do away with them rather than feed them. I will have a look at them later. In the meantime, speaking of feeding, may Irequest a meal—of whatever grubs and thorns may be the fare today?"
Nochéztli grinned. "We would be as foolish as the white men if we starved and weakened our lord commander. I have some smoked deer parts put by."
"I thank you. And while I feast on those viands, send me whichever officer you have appointed leader of those Purémpe women."
"They have their own—a woman. They refused to be ordered about by any man."
I should have known. The leader was that same cóyotl-faced woman with the inappropriate name of Butterfly. To forestall her trying to bully me, I congratulated her on being still alive, and on the many successful forays she had led against the whites in New Galicia, and thanked her for having spared the Utopia communities, as I had asked. Butterfly preened at being so fulsomely praised, and looked even more appreciative when I said:
"I want to arm your gallant contingent of women warriors with a special weapon all your own. Also, it is a weapon that can best be made by women, whose fingers are more delicate and nimble and precise than any man's."
"Only command us, Tenamáxtzin."
"It is a weapon that I invented myself, though the Spaniards have something similar, and call it a granada."
I explained how to wrap clay tightly around a packing of pólvora, and insert into it a thin poquíetl for a wick, and bake the thing to hardness in the sun.
"Then, when we go into battle, my lady Butterfly, have each of your women go smoking a poquíetl herself and carrying several of those granadas. Whenever opportunity offers, ignite the wick of a granada and throw it at the enemy or—better yet—inside their houses or guard posts or fortresses. You will see some spectacular damage done."
"It sounds delightful, my lord. We will get to work on them straightaway."
When I had done gnawing on the deer meat, drinking some octli and smoking a poquíetl myself, I called for those two "peculiar" white men to be brought before me.
Well, they turned out to be neither Spanish nor defective, though it took me a confusing while to figure that out. One of the men was considerably older than myself, the other a little younger. Both were as white and hairy as Spaniards, but, like all the other slaves now in our encampment, barefooted and dressed in tatters. They had evidently, somehow, been made aware that I was chief of all the people assembled here, so they approached me respectfully. As Nochéztli had said, they spoke very imperfect Spanish, but we managed mostlyto understand each other. However, they sprinkled their converse with words that I can hope only to approximate here, for they didsound like goose talk.
I introduced myself in Spanish simple enough for even a defective to comprehend. "I am called by you Spanish folk Juan Británico. What are you—?"
But the older one interrupted, "John British?!"and both of them stared at me, wide-eyed, then quacked excitedly at one another. I could catch only repetitions of that word British.