Говард Уолдроп - Them Bones

Not that everybody wasn’t awake anyway. Men had started moving around long before sunup. I know; I was one of them.

I was sharpening the point on my javelin. I had my own survival knife with me, and was depending on my club, which was about half the size and shape of a Louisville Slugger. I was hoping I wouldn’t get close enough to anybody to have to use it.

Sunlight came through a break between the clouds and the horizon. There were pines behind us, where we’d come from, and bayous past that. The land behind the Huastecas was more open. Far to left and right were sparse trees. The flood plain between us was smooth with sand and short grasses. It was about the closest thing to a playing field you could ask for.

After we stuffed our faces, the Sun Men moved around, talking with each other. Our Sun Man came back to us. Some other Sun Man had been elected battle captain.

‘Wait for the signal,’ said Sun Man.

We all filed up on the bluff. A like number of Huastecas faced us across the flat place. They started to rap their spears and clubs against their shields. I could barely make them out – feathered and furred headdresses, copper, maybe gold breastplates and armor. The racket increased, settled into a rhythm – chunk, chunk, chunk. It was my own heartbeat, my pulse. Jeez, those guys knew how to get on your nerves.

The Huastecas hit their shields harder, louder. The booming came like surf across the flood plain, wave after wave.

The Sun Man battle chief raised his arm. We were all quiet, tense. I licked my lips and regripped my club.

The Huastecas came down the bluff like a gold and copper waterfall.

‘Go get ’em, boys!’ said Sun Man.

We took off down the slope, whooping and hollering.

Our first hint that something was wrong came when a whole forest of arrows filled the sky from behind the Huastec bluff.

Those who had them stopped and put their shields over their heads. I climbed under one with three other guys. ‘Quit shoving!’ someone yelled.

The arrows whizzed half a meter into the ground around us, bounced off shields, stuck in people’s hands. There were screams.

‘Hey, you assholes!’ yelled Moe at the Huastecas. ‘You can’t use arrows!’

They were still running toward us, and another rain of arrows came up like a curtain.

Arrows also came from left and right.

‘Shit!’ yelled Curly.

This time arrows bounced off shields and ricocheted into arms and legs and chests.

‘Hell with this!’ Larry said; he dropped his spear and unlimbered his ceremonial bow from across his back, stringing it in a swift motion. He put two arrows into the wall of advancing Huastecas.

‘They mean business,’ said Took quietly.

We looked back toward the bluff. The chief Sun Man was jumping up and down pointing to both sides.

It was just like in an old Western movie. On three sides of us was a long continual line of Huastecas, with archers behind them. They seemed to have come from nowhere. Arrows sailed up again. The warriors running toward us stopped short, waiting for the arrows to fall on us.

The noise was like hail on a tin roof.

From under the shield with the other guys I saw the second wave of Huastecas start down the bluff – at least twice as many as in the first wave.

‘Every man for himself!’ yelled Sun Man. ‘This is death stuff!’

The Buzzard Cultists let out a tremendous yell and sprang out from under their shields straight toward the Huastecas.

Then the Meshicas were on us.

I saw a guy with a jaguar headdress raise a club so I pushed my javelin at him. It went right in. He was as surprised as I was, dropped his club and held his stomach around the spear shaft. He fell down, taking the short spear with him.

Then some sonofabitch hit me in the face with his shield as hard as he could. I didn’t have time to think. I was down and all I could see were his feet. So I smashed one of them with my club. He fell on top of me. I tried to get out from under him so he couldn’t kill me.

He turned dead weight. I got out from under. Somebody had stuck a javelin in his eye.

I pulled my spear out of the guy it was still sticking in. He gave me a startled look. He was still kneeling and holding his stomach. Guys were fighting all around him. He paid no attention.

I waded into six or eight guys who were fighting and started hitting all the ones with eagle feathers and jaguar skins.

Horns and bugle things were blowing. Drums rattled off in the distance. There were grunts and screams all around. Dust hung in the air. The sun glinted off metal. You couldn’t see jack shit.

A spear came at me, got larger, stayed the same, went past me a meter away. I saw the Huasteca who threw it and started for him. Five or six of his buddies came out of nowhere and started for me. Two of them sprouted arrows from the chest.

‘Sonofabitches!’ said Larry, behind me. He threw down his bow. His quiver was empty. He had time to get his obsidian-studded club out before the four Meshicas got to us.

One of them was covered with armor – breastplate, shinguards, epaulets. He wore a copper helmet with a long plume, and he had a shield. A kahuna of some kind. He came right at me. He took the point of my javelin with his shield and twisted it away. His club came down and knocked the spear from my hands.

Larry’s club came across and caved in the front of his helmet. His face looked like something from a Warner Bros. cartoon covered in ketchup.

Somebody got behind Larry and had his hands on his chin. I hit the hands, then Larry’s shoulder, then the hands, then farther up with my club. Whoever it was let go and ran off.

A spear butt got me in the head. Blue-green stars covered the tunnel in front of me. I swung. The tunnel went away. Larry was standing on a Huasteca’s chest, beating his head as hard as he could.

‘Sonofabitch!’ said Larry with each blow. ‘Sonofabitch!’ We were in a lull. Waves of men were crashing and roaring into each other with tin-can sounds. A horn blew close behind me. I jumped, looked around for my spear, found it.

Larry was through with the guy. He and I stood, heaving and panting, trying to see what was going on in the heat and dust.

Then the second wave of Huastecas ran over us.

I don’t know how much later it was when we were back on our bluff. Dust still hung over the flood plain. It was hot. I was so dry my tongue hurt. I could taste blood. I didn’t know whether it was mine or someone else’s.

Another rain of arrows came out of the dust. ‘Heads up!’ yelled Moe. They sailed into our position, pinning a few guys to the ground.

‘Sun damn them all to hell!’ said Sun Man. He had been wounded in the side and the arm during the battle. Two of our people were holding him up.

Took was watching across the plain. The dust was beginning to settle. We could see weapons, clothing, drums littering the ground. There were no bodies. We had taken our wounded and dead, and they had taken theirs. They had also taken about fifty prisoners.

We hadn’t taken any.

I was getting my breath back. I was covered with grit and dust mixed with sweat, blood, and grease. There were cuts and bruises all over me. There was a wet pain low down on my back. My javelin was a third of a meter shorter than it used to be. My club was gone. My knife was in my hand, dark red.

There were two human heads at my feet.

I didn’t remember where they had come from. I didn’t remember anything but the endless fighting and the thirst worse than any I had ever had.

The Buzzard Cult people were starting one of their chants.

‘Apocalypse stuff,’ said Took.