Говард Уолдроп - Them Bones

The causeway over the river to my right was solid spears, shields, and headdresses. The one to my left (the arm with the quickly returning pains) was sparsely defended, though the guys there were ready and waiting, too.

I headed into the river between the two bridges. The lathered horse plunged in. The water wasn’t deep; I don’t think the horse swam for more than a few seconds before it found bottom again, came up, plunged ahead. The bridge on the right emptied as the guards all ran back inside the city to cut me off.

From inside the city came the muffled sound of horns and drums.

The horse found gravel and bucked ahead. The guards on the left got ready. Arrows flew by me from the wall left and above.

We tore across the small beach. The suburbs and fields lay to the left, the city wall to my right shoulder. The guards on the causeway milled around, some heading back into the city, some running to the beach end of the bridge.

I kicked the horse and we went up, hanging in the air, shuddering, to the roadway toward the gate. Spears went by; one slid along the horse’s neck and ricocheted back into the water.

We were up then, inside the gate, riding down two bowmen who tried to stop us.

Before we got here, it had seemed like the whole city was waiting for us, but as we went farther, I realized we were only some minor administrative inconvenience to the populace at large.

The streets themselves were deserted; the horse’s hooves echoed off the empty houses. There were yells, and horns blowing behind me, other sounds from a side street. In the main plaza were the noises of muffled drumbeats and a ceremonial horn.

It was high noon.

Not even Ben-Hur made me ready for the scene in front of me. I slowed the horse to a trot. I came out of the narrow gate street into an open concourse beyond which lay the plaza.

In the center of the city, looming over it, the great white pyramid took a bite out of the blue sky. At its top, two fires in front of the temple poured smoke into the air.

Along the steps all the way up were armed guards.

At its base were other guards, and Took’s people and other mound-builders, lined up in single file. The Huastecas, thousands and thousands of them, watched from the plaza, a gaudy smudge of headdresses, red and purple, jaguar skins, black hair, gold, copper, parrots, and obsidian, row on row on row.

Some of Took’s people were strung in a line up the pyramid. At the top five priests waited. A moundbuilder reached the top step as I reined in. Four of the priests grabbed him, pulled him backwards, chest up, over a rounded stone. The fifth priest, covered with something that looked like flapping gray rags, lifted a big black knife.

He brought it down. Blood went everywhere. He hacked and pulled. Another lump of blood flew into the air. The priest pushed his hand in the chest, hacked with the knife again. Something slid across the mound-builder’s leg, onto the slab top. The priest reached down, picked it up. Blood dripped from it; it slipped through his fingers onto the victim’s body.

The priest grabbed it again, held it up, then threw it into the leftward of the two fires.

The crowd yelled as the heart went into the flames: ‘Huitzilipochtli!’

The other four priests pushed the body to the left, over the pyramid steps, where the guards rolled it down the sides.

The festivities had just started. One body had already reached the bottom, two others were partway down. Huastecas wearing nothing but breechcloths picked up the first one and took it off behind a screen, stage right.

The line of Took’s people and other strangers stretched across the plaza and back up into a building. The crowd was going to be very tired by the time the show was over. The priest and the rounded rock were already covered with blood.

There was a commotion and horns behind me as the gate guards got closer. Some of the crowd near me turned and saw:

The Woodpecker God of Took’s people astride a huge dog on the road at the edge of their plaza.

I pulled the carbine from its boot and opened the action a little to break the partial vacuum and let river water trickle out of the barrel. The crowd near me drew back, confused, yelling.

The running feet behind me got closer.

The next victim had reached the top of the pyramid. Eager hands reached for him.

The head priest lifted his knife as the moundbuilder went across the slab.

I blew the top of the priest’s head off. I saw the other priests’ reactions just as the sound reached them. Why is our boss exploding his head and flying into the temple wall?

He slid down the alabaster wall, hair sticking to its surface.

The other priests turned toward the gunshot. I shot away the two holding the left arm and right leg. The other two let go.

There was pandemonium. The whole crowd in the plaza came to its feet. Took’s people turned and saw me, then pointed and yelled.

I kicked the horse and headed for the pyramid. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, a moving wall of mouths, eyes, screams to either side.

I fired into them a few times for effect, then started on the guards on the pyramid steps.

Took’s people were the first to come loose from the crowd. Something snapped in them; they turned and jumped everybody near them who had a weapon.

The intended victims all up and down the pyramid squatted while I shot into the guards around them.

Then I was at the bottom of the steps and rode up them.

Guards leaned around from the other sides of the pyramid, threw spears or shot arrows, then ran.

Took’s people surged around me as I rode upwards. Moe came bouncing down from farther up. He picked up a spear and turned to watch the plaza.

Took yelled from the mob below. I turned the horse sideways, saw him, and waved. The city was a swirling, kicking mass. Too many warriors were standing still at the back center of the plaza around a white-poled sunscreen.

That must be where they keep their kahuna .

I fired into it.

For a few seconds the guards stood grim-faced while I shot them, then they broke to right and left, leaving richly dressed guys crawling over dead bodies for cover. I shot into the most swazee-looking bunch.

Two or three guards jumped in front of one of them. I shot them, but the magazine ran dry before I got a clear shot at the guy in the middle.

I slammed another magazine in, switched to automatic, and sprayed the emptying plaza.

We were on the pyramid, and they were behind all the buildings. The roof of the one across the way, the tallest, was covered with archers.

‘How do we get out of here?’ I asked.

‘How about the way you came in?’ asked Moe.

I looked that way. It was full of the shadows of spears and shields.

‘Pretty grim,’ I said. ‘What about over there?’

There were screams below as arrows came in. Every minute we stayed up here, someone was going to be killed.

I was still on the horse, which barely had room to stand. The men and women near the bottom were pressing up against us, trying to get away from the plaza. I didn’t blame them.

I felt a dull thud and an arrow vibrated from the Woodpecker God’s bill. I broke part of it off.

‘It all looks bad,’ said Took-His-Time, just below me. Another flock of arrows sailed in, causing a rush as everyone tried to get behind the few shields we had. Most of the people on the pyramid had only spears, clubs, or knives.

I meant to ask Took sometime what it was that had turned his people from a line of docile sacrifices into fighters who had killed a few dozen of their captors and taken their weapons.

It was getting hot on the pyramid. I was sure the Huastecas were planning to send us a cool rain of arrows.