XXXII
Of the final battle of the "Mixton War"—of our defeat and the end of the Mixton War—I will speak only briefly, because it happened through my own grievous fault, and I am ashamed of that. Again, as I had done with other enemies, and even with some of the women in my life, I underestimated the cunning of my opponent. And I am paying for my mistake by lying here slowly dying—or slowly healing, I know not which, and do not much care.
My army could still be here in the Miztóapan, entire and secure and healthy and strong and ready to do battle again, had I not taken them out of this valley. Just as we had earlier baited the Spanish trading post's soldiers into ambush here, so we were baited out of our safe haven. It was the doing of the Viceroy Mendoza. He, knowing that we were invincible in these mountains, almost untouchable, contrived to lure us out of them by, in a sense, offering us Aguascalientes. I do not blame my scouts who found that town—they are dead now, like so many others—but I have no doubt that the Spanish horseman they followed to that town was playing a part in Mendoza's plan.
I took my whole army, leaving in the valley only the slaves and those males too old or too young to do battle. It was a three-day march to Hot Springs, and even before we got within sight of it, I began to suspect that something was not quite right. There were army outpost shacks, but no soldiers in them. When we approached the town, no thunder-tubes boomed out at us. When I sent my forward scouts sneaking warily into the town itself, there was no rattle of arcabuces, and the scouts came out, shrugging in puzzlement, to report that there seemed to be not a single person in the town.
It was a trap. I turned in my saddle to shout "Retreat!" But it was already too late. Arcabuces now did rattle, and from all around us. We were surrounded by Mendoza's soldiers and their indio allies.
Oh, we fought back, of course. The battle went on daylong, and many hundreds died on both sides. Death, that day, was a glutton. As I have remarked, any battle is a commotion and a confusion, and some of the dyings were done in curious ways. My knights Nochéztli and Pixqui both were pierced by balls discharged by our own arcabuz men, too recklessly employing their weapons. On the other side, Pedro de Alvarado—one of the first conquistadores in The One World, and the only one still being an active conquistador—died when he fell from his horse and the horse of another Spaniard trampled him.
Since both our armies, mine and Mendoza's, were fairly equal in numbers and armament, it should have been a pitched battle, the victory going to the bravest and strongest and most clever. But what lost it for us was this. My men courageously engaged every white soldier they encountered, but too many of them (bar the Yaki) could not bring themselves to slaughter the men of their own race—the Mexíca and Texcaltéca and others—who were fighting on Mendoza's side. To the contrary, those traitors of our own race, naturally seeking to curry favor with their Spanish masters, hesitated not at all to slaughter us. I myself took an arrow in my right side, and that surely came from no Spaniard. For all I know, it came from some unknown relative of mine.
One of our battlefield tíciltin jerked the arrow out of me—painful enough, that—then daubed the open wound with the corrosive xocóyatl—so much more painful that I actually and unmanfully screeched aloud. The tícitl could do no more for me, because next instant he fell dead of an arcabuz ball.
When finally night came down, our armies disengaged—what was left of them—and the ragged remnant of ours, those who had horses, hastily withdrew to the westward. Pozonáli, one of the few survivors whom I knew by name, found Verónica on the hilltop whence she had watched the carnage, and brought her along as we made haste to get back to our mountain sanctuary. I could barely sit my saddle, so agonizing was the pain in my side, thus I was in no condition to worry about whether we were being pursued through the night.
If we were, the pursuers never caught up to us. Three days later—days of terrible pain for me, and I was not the worst wounded of us—we arrived again at the Miztóapan, and wound our way through the maze of ravines (often losing our way, since we had not the experienced Knight Pixqui to guide us) and finally, faint with thirst and hunger and fatigue and loss of blood, found our valley again.
I have not even tried to count the survivors of the Hot Springs battle, though I could probably do that without even scribbling down the little flags and trees and dots of numbers. Several who made it safely back here have since died of their wounds, because there are no tíciltin to treat them. All our tíciltin, like all our other hundreds of hundreds, are lying dead back yonder at Hot Springs. One Yaki tícitl is still alive, still with us, and he graciously offered to come and dance and chant at me, but I would be damned to Míctlan before I would submit to that kind of doctoring. So my wound has gradually festered, gone green, oozing pus. I blaze with fever, then shiver with chill and drift in and out of delirium, as once I did in an open acáli on the Western Sea.
Verónica has faithfully and tenderly attended me, as best she can, applying hot compresses to the wound, and various tree saps and cactus juices that the old folk in camp recommend as curatives, but those things are doing no discernible good.
During one of my lucid periods, you asked, Verónica, "What do we do now, my lord?"
Trying to sound staunch and optimistic, I said, "We stay here, licking our wounds. We can hardly do anything else, and we are at least safe from attack here. I cannot even plan any further action until I am healed of this accursed injury. Then we shall see. In the meantime—I have been thinking—your chronicle of what the Spaniards call the Mixton War commenced with our devastation of Tonalá. It occurs to me that future historians of The One World might benefit from my telling and your writing of earlier events, of how this all began. Would it try your patience, dear Verónica, if I recounted to you practically my entire life?"
"Of course not, my lord. Not only am I here to serve you, I should myself be... most interested... in hearing your life story."
I meditated for some while. How to begin at the beginning? Then I smiled, as well as I was able, and said, "I think, Verónica, I have already, long ago, spoken to you the opening sentence of this chronicle."
"I believe so, too, my lord. I kept it and still have it here."
You shuffled among your sheaf of papers, brought one out and read it aloud:
"I can still see him burning."
"Yes," I said, and sighed. "Clever darling girl. Let us proceed from there."
And, over I do not know how many ensuing days, though sometimes I was gabbling in delirium or mute with pain, I recounted everything that you have so far set down. Finally I said:
"I have told you everything I can remember, even insignificant conversations and occurrences. Still, I suppose it is but a bare-bones recounting."
"No, my dear lord. Without your knowing, ever since we have been together, I have been making notes of your merest passing remarks and my own observations of you, your nature, your character. Because, to tell the truth, I loved you, my lord, even before I knew you to be my father. With your permission, I should like to intermingle those observations of mine into the chronicle. It will put flesh on the bare bones."
"By all means, my dear. You are the chronicler, and you know best. Anyway, you now know all there is to know, and all that any historian will need to know."
I paused, then went on: