15

Popocatepetl

It was such a lovely ride from the coast to Mexico City. Everything went just as Steve Austin had predicted-which was not at all how Calvin expected it to go. Their ship put into the free port of True Cross, where whites could come and trade without fear of being taken for sacrifice. They took three days finding interpreters and buying supplies and pack mules, and then they went to the inland gate of the city.

"You are not safe to go outside," said the door warden.

"We're going," said Steve Austin. "Out of the way."

"I will not let you go. White people die out there, give bad name to port of True Cross."

Austin raised a pistol to shoot the man in the head.

"No, no," said Calvin impatiently. "What did you bring me for, anyway, if you're just going to go shooting people. What if we need to get back here and thanks to you they shoot us on sight?"

"When we come back we'll be the rulers of Mexico."

"Fine," said Calvin. "But let me do this."

Austin put his pistol away. Calvin studied the gates for a few moments, trying to decide whether it was worth the effort to make this a truly spectacular event or merely a practical one. He decided that something showy, like making the gates burst into flame and burn down to ash, would be wasted here. It was the reds outside this city that they'd need to impress.

So he dissolved the linchpins in the hinges and then, with a gentle nudge, made sure the gates fell outward instead of inward.

The door warden-with no more door to ward-shrugged and turned away. And out they rode, a hundred heavily armed white men, to take on the Mexica.

Almost at once they were confronted by Mexica soldiers. These were not the club-wielding warriors that Cortez had faced three centuries before. They were mounted and carried new-model muskets that had probably been bought from the United States, where Philadelphia-the city of brotherly love-had quite a munitions business going. Immediately they surrounded Austin's army, which bristled with weapons at the ready.

"Patience," said Calvin to Austin. It wasn't hard to make fire, but it was tricky to make a ring of it, and he singed quite a few of the Mexica horses when the flames didn't go quite where he'd planned. But that only made the demonstration more effective. The Mexica backed off, the horses shying and neighing, but then dismounted and prepared to fire through the flames.

Calvin was ready. He knew how Alvin handled this sort of thing, bending the end of the gunbarrels so the enemy wouldn't bother firing. But Calvin wanted them to fire. So he pinched off each gunbarrel inside, not tightly, but enough to keep the ball from coming out. It was quite a scramble to find all the muskets and close them off before the tiring started, but it helped that the Mexica commander kept shouting for them to surrender, while the panicky horses kept the Mexica in an uproar long enough for Calvin to finish the job.

"Don't shoot," said Calvin.

"But they're about to lay a volley into us," said Austin.

"They only think they are," said Calvin.

The Mexica captain gave the command, and the soldiers pulled the triggers of their muskets.

Whereupon every single one of them exploded, killing or blinding almost all of them, and blowing the heads right off more than a few.

The Mexica captain was left standing there with his ceremonial obsidian-edged sword and only a few of his men still alive enough to writhe on the ground moaning or screaming in agony.

"Shoot him!" cried Austin.

"No!" cried Calvin. "Let him go! You want somebody to tell the story of this, don't you?"

Austin didn't like being contradicted, but it was plain that Calvin was right. What good was it to put on a show like this, if there wasn't somebody left to go tell the rest of the Mexica about these white men who came with irresistible power. So if it bothered Austin that Calvin had countermanded his order, well wasn't that too bad. If he didn't want that to happen, he shouldn't give stupid orders. And besides, it wasn't a bad thing for Austin to remember who actually had the power here. Austin might plan to be the emperor of Mexico, but if he achieved it, it would be because he had Calvin Maker with him.

Calvin had thought he'd have to do several more demonstrations, but it all went better than he'd hoped. The first city they came to, the alcalde came out to them and insisted that the people of this place were not Mexica and begged the mighty priest they had with them not to harm them.

Austin gave a speech about how they had come to restore good government to these lands and free them from the rule of the bloodthirsty, murderous, savage Mexica. Whereupon the people cheered and the alcalde insisted on sending five hundred men along with them to Mexico City. Since these were not real soldiers, but only ordinary men, many of them old, and armed only with ceremonial clubs and swords, Austin agreed to let them come. But he insisted that they provide their own food and promise to obey his orders.

So when they came to the next city, they weren't just a hundred white men, they had a brightly costumed troupe of reds with them, singing and chanting. Again the alcalde came out and begged them to pass on through, giving them food and water and another five hundred men to accompany them. Calvin was getting a little frustrated, so this time he crumbled part of the stone wall of the city so there'd be more to the story. The alcalde fell to his knees and offered them anything they wanted, but Austin only glared at Calvin and told him that there would be no more city walls when he ruled in Mexico City, because all the land would be at peace.

"What did you do that for when they'd already surrendered?" said Austin afterward.

"They've got to see that we come with power," said Calvin.

"Well, what you showed them was that we come to tear stuff down."

"I'll find something better to do next time," said Calvin. "Nondestructive."

"Thank you kindly," said Austin, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

So it went all the way up to the high Mexican plateau and through villages and cities, and by the time they got within sight of the great volcanic mountains that ringed Mexico City, they had at least fifteen thousand reds with them, a mighty army indeed, marching ahead of them and behind them and singing and chanting and dancing at every opportunity.

It was a glorious entrance they made into the valley of Mexico. But Calvin was getting more and more uneasy. "Where are the Mexica soldiers?" he asked Austin.

"All run away, if they've got any brains," said Austin.

Jim Bowie was riding close by, and he seconded Calvin. "This is all too easy," he said. "I don't like it."

"We raised up the conquered people against the oppressor. The Mexica soldiers aren't going to waste their lives resisting the irresistible."

"There's a trap waiting for us here," said Bowie.

So while Austin beamed and waved now and then, as if he was in a parade, Calvin and Bowie and a handful of others kept their eyes open, looking for some lurking army in hiding. Calvin sent his doodlebug ranging ahead as far as he could, but all he found were civilians, and most of them were in plain sight, standing outside to watch this army pass along the wide avenue that led to the lake in the middle of the valley.

Not until they actually reached the long causeway that led to the ceremonial city in the middle of the lake did they finally see any kind of Mexica opposition. And while there was plenty of pomp and color, lots of flags and feathers, there weren't many that looked like soldiers. In fact, there weren't many of anything-maybe three hundred men in the whole group that came down the causeway to meet them.