"The number of suspicious deaths has risen steadily," another trader said. "I heard a similar story about a merchant who disappeared while traveling. His servants ran away with his goods. One was tracked down and tortured. To his dying breath, he claimed that his master had been attacked by a were-jaguar and dragged into the jungle. And it's not just we Spanish who are victims. My own servants are terrified unless we travel with mule trains and other merchants. They tell me that indios and mestizos who work for Spaniards are being hunted down and devoured by jaguars that have been trained to kill Spaniards and those who support them."
Mateo made a listening response that showed his sympathy. "Have your servants told you who has trained these animals?"
There was general agreement that no names were ever mentioned. Mateo did not ask specifically about the Knights of the Jaguar. I supposed he was silent because he was seeking information, not providing it.
"The viceroy should be taking care of this problem," a trader said. "If he can't handle it, we should send our complaint to the Council of the Indies."
The third trader scoffed. "I have been traveling the roads and trails of New Spain for half my lifetime. There is nothing new about these stories. There is always talk among the indios that we will be driven from their land. And it is always by some magical means. A man who turns into a jaguar is nothing more than the fanciful imagination of these simple people."
"It is not fanciful. I believe it is true."
The pronouncement came from an unexpected source. The priest who had joined them took a deep gulp of wine and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
"I have worked among these savages," the priest said. "They hate us; hate us for taking their land, their women, their pride. They come to church on Sunday and lie about their adherence to our Savior. Then they go out and sacrifice babies. Did you know that? That they sacrifice babies with curly hair?"
"Babies with curly hair?" a merchant repeated.
"They sacrifice curly haired babies because the ripples in the hair are similar to the ripples in a lake. The curly hair pleases the lake god. When a baby cries when it's being sacrificed, the tears are symbolic of rain and it pleases the rain god."
"They do it because they believe the gods will give them water for their crops," a merchant piped in. "It's been a dry year in this region. When it rains too little or too much, the crops don't grow and they starve."
"I can't stand dealing with these savages," the priest said, mopping his forehead again. "They practice the dark magic of Satan. I don't doubt they are in league with the devil and can turn themselves into were-jaguars, just as there are witches and warlocks in our own country who can take the shape of wolves. They are in the jungle when it gets dark. You never see their bodies but their eyes shine at you. It drove my companion priest mad. Three days ago he hanged himself from the bell rope. I ran into the chapel when I heard the bell tolling. There he was, dangling from the rope."
SIXTY-FOUR
The next day we had word that the naualli was seen at a nearby village.
We went there, the Healer and I to perform the snake magic, Mateo with Jose to sell guitars to Spanish living in the area.
The village turned out to be even bigger than the one where we had been staying, more of a small town than a simple village. I learned on the way to the magician's hut that the magician was a diviner of dreams. Along the way, the Healer told me the most famous dream in Aztec history. It concerned Montezuma's sister, who rose from the dead to prophesy the Spanish conquest.
Princess Papantzin was the sister of Montezuma. She was close to him as his friend and trusted advisor. When she died suddenly, Montezuma was in great shock. Because of his love and attachment for her, he had her entombed in an underground vault on the palace grounds. After the burial ceremony, the entrance to the tomb was covered by a slab of stone.
Early the next morning one of Montezuma's children saw the princess sitting by a fountain in a courtyard of the palace. She ran and told her governess, who, upon determining that it was indeed Princess Papantzin, roused the household.
Montezuma had the princess brought into his presence and she told him a strange tale. She said that she had become dizzy and passed out. When she awoke, she found herself in the black tomb. She made her way out and was able to push aside the stone slab enough to get out into the garden. She was resting when the child spotted her.
Before this event, the princess was known to have suffered a fainting malady in which she would fall to the floor and not awaken for several minutes. She had apparently suffered one of much greater duration this time and had been taken for dead.
Montezuma was overjoyed at the resurrection of his sister, but his joy was short-lived. She told him she had had a dream that she had walked with the dead in the underworld and they had taken her to the shore of the Eastern Sea. There she had seen boats bigger than a nobleman's house and strange men. The men had light eyes and pale skin and hair. They called themselves Sons of the Sun and said they had come from the House of the Sun beyond the Eastern Sea.
When they came ashore, their leader was no ordinary man, but a god dressed in a suit of gold. His shield shined with the fire of the sun.
"I am Quetzalcóatl, the Plumed Serpent," he said. "I have come to claim my kingdom."
Ayyo, poor Montezuma. Following his sister's dream, Hernando Cortes landed at Veracruz. No wonder he was frozen with fear when the news was brought to him that strange men with pale faces and shiny armor had arrived from the Eastern Sea. In dealing with Cortes, Montezuma's indecision was caused by his conviction that he was dealing with a god.
The Healer and the dream diviner talked and smoked, filling the magician's small hut so full of smoke I was forced to wait outside. Besides news that the naualli was in the area, I learned another interesting fact before I sought fresh air: a dwarf had disappeared from a neighboring village. The small person was the grown son of an old widow. He had been drinking pulque with a neighbor and had disappeared walking home.
"It is believed that Tlaloc has taken the dwarf," the dream reader said.
Eh, Tlaloc gets blamed for many things when the land is dry, I thought.
Tlaloc was that thirsty god who gives rain. His name means He Who Makes Life Grow. When he was happy, maize and beans grew tall and bellies were full. When he was angry, he let the crops die from thirst or flooded them with too much water. The traders had mentioned that little children were sacrificed to him because their tears looked like raindrops. Because statues of gods were often short, dwarfs were also especially favored by the gods as sacrifices.
The naualli had the weather working for him. The more people feared a drought and the famine that would ensue, the more they would pander to the old gods.
Meandering around a bit while I waited for the Healer, I spotted a buxom young girl about my own age. She gave me a smile that made my heart ping. I returned her smile and was sauntering toward her when two men came out of the hut she had exited. They saw that I had my eye on the girl and both of them gave me such unfriendly looks that I veered away.
They knew I was not an indio. My height and muscular frame was more that of a Spaniard or mestizo. And my beard made it obvious. Few indios had beards and the ones who grew a little facial hair tended to pluck it. The Aztecs considered body hair as a sign of low caste. Mothers rubbed hot lime water on babies faces to keep hair from growing. "Go inside," the older man told the girl. She shot me a sideways glance before she went back into the hut.
I wandered a little more aimlessly and suddenly realized coming around a house that I was behind the men I took to be the girl's father and brother. I slowed my pace to let them get ahead of me. We had not gone far when I saw a man ahead whom I believed to be the naualli. He was talking to four men. The five of them turned and went into the jungle. The two men in front of me followed.