We watched their fires, and we knew they were watching ours. There was an old flood plain between two small bluffs about half a kilometer apart. We were on one, and the Huastecas were on the other. The battle would take place on the flat place between us tomorrow.
‘Better get some sleep,’ said Took, who had spread his skins out beside mine. We were eating a supper of jerky and ground cornmeal with a few walnuts mixed in. Took passed the waterskin over.
‘It could take all day, what with breaks for lunch and stuff,’ he said.
‘Pretty civilized.’
‘You won’t think so if you get caught, or off by yourself, which is the same thing,’ he said. ‘Stick close to a mob. If you get caught, they’ll probably come get you. Don’t let them cover your mouth, whatever you do. Keep yelling.’
‘Thanks. What really happens?’
‘Well, we sort of run together in a big bunch and hit each other, and drag off captives, then eat, then do it some more, and about two hours from sunset we all go home, and three days later we ransom, but that’s only chief man business. Our part will be over. If this were a real battle, we’d take heads instead of captives.’
I watched the bright stars overhead through the glow of the fires. It was early spring, and still cool.
I know it was just me, but I had trouble sleeping. Took called out in a dream. He woke up and looked at me.
‘My spirit is troubled,’ he said. He closed his eyes and was asleep again immediately.
‘Yee! Yee! Yee!’ yelled Sun Man, facing east. Up and down our bluff, other Sun Men were doing the same thing.
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.