Aztec Blood

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 espanols 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.

I fell asleep that night studying the road. The next morning I continued my vigil. I debated joining a cadre of mine workers, returning to other parts of New Spain after their stint in the mines was over. However, since they were hired for pay and were neither convicts nor slaves, none of these workers would wear a brand; and if they noticed mine, they might turn me in for the reward.

As I watched the road, a lone, elderly woman appeared, leading a donkey bearing reed baskets. It suddenly occurred to me that if I had her donkey and baskets, I, too, could be a native trader.

Dios mio! It was the perfect disguise. I would naturally have to find some way to repay the old woman when I had dinero. God would bless her, of course, and if nothing else, I was probably saving her from those bands of banditos, who would rob her blind and slit her throat.

I veered off cross-country and, reaching the road, hid in the bushes. She was good-sized for an india, but I was sure I could frighten her out of her wares and not hurt her. I could not see her face; but from her clothing and her grandmotherish scarf, she appeared ancient. She walked slowly, her head bent down, leading the donkey in no particular hurry.

Not wanting to scare her too badly, I threw aside my spear and club. When she reached my hiding place, I drew my obsidian knife and leaped out of the bushes.

'I'm taking your donkey!' I shouted at her.

'That's what you think!' a male voice shouted back.

I stared into the dark features of an africano.

He drew a sword. 'Drop your knife!'

I heard hooves in the distance; I had walked into a trap.

The man closed in on me with his sword extended.

'Drop your knife, mestizo, or I'll cut off your head.'

I turned and ran, heading back up the hill. In less than a minute men on mule back roped me like a steer and bound my arms and legs. When the dust settled, I was tied up and on the ground and surrounded by six africanos. I assumed they were maroons, a highwaymen gang of escaped slaves, and I was half right.

Their leader, a husky africano, who had lassoed me from the back of a mule, bent down and grabbed my face with his hand, twisting it so he could examine my mine slave brand.

He grinned with pleasure. 'Just as I thought, an escaped mine slave. But the brand is not readable. What mine did you escape from?'

I did not answer. He let me go and stood up. He gave me a kick. 'It doesn't matter. He's strong and healthy. Any of the mines will pay us a hundred pesos for him.'

I knew he was right. They would pay a hundred pesos and consider it cheap. A black slave would cost them four times that much.

?Ay de mi! I had forgotten an important lesson in life, one the fray always preached. When things are too good to be true... they are not true. Only a fool would have been duped by the little india with the donkey. I should have seen from the length of her stride and the swing of her arms that the old crone was a man.

I had blown up a mine, shattered a mountain, survived a river at full flood, escaped certain death only by the personal intervention of God, bedded down a beautiful india saint... only to stumble—no!—race into the hands of slave hunters.

The donkey 'woman' caught up with us.

'I get credit for the capture!' he shouted to the others. 'I get the bonus dinero.' He ran up to the man who had examined my face and whom I took to be the leader of the band. 'Yanga, I get the bonus dinero for making the