Time Spike: The Mysterious Mesa, page 7
part #2 of Time Spike Series
"What is your name?" she asked him.
"Nathan Theseus Tucker, a son of the Republic of Texas and lately retired from the US Army." the words stumbled out by rote from lips grown slightly numb.
She laughed, and asked again, "What is the name you go by in your daily affairs?"
Nate managed a small smile and told her "My friends call me 'Nate'. You can call me that, too, if it pleases you, good lady."
More laughter. "I am glad that we are friends, Nate!" Even before Many Mouths could translate he heard her say his name, pronounced perfectly. It made him shiver. Tarnation, how could this woman muddle his head up so? He managed a slight bow, which seemed to please her as once again he was transfixed by her smile. She began talking again, Many Mouths dutifully interpreting.
"I saw you fight the Sun Warrior Captain. He is a mighty warrior, few would dare, and yet you faced him down without fear, all to protect your animal companion, putting yourself in danger for its sake. You value the creature so very highly?"
"I do. There was no way I was going to let that popinjay lay a hand on my Poppy. That horse has been a better friend to me than most men have. I'd do anything to save her life."
This made her nod thoughtfully.
"I, too, value life, and not just human life, but all life. It is good to meet a man that comes from those future worlds who feels the same way. You give me hope, Nathan Theseus Tucker." Nate's eyebrows raised as he distinctly heard her say the full name he had given her first, pronounced perfectly. She caught that look of astonishment and laughed again, a sound like melodious bells on the fresh morning breeze. Then, to his utter confoundment, she stepped in close so that her chest touched against his, then put a soft, cool palm to his hot, blushing cheek, which she stroked gently for a moment.
"It is very good to have a friend like you, Nate."
With a last, small smile that spoke of regret, the Raven Priestess broke off the contact and rejoined her waiting men. She whispered something to her always attentive captain, turned, and glided away, her feet seeming to barely bend the dew-heavy grass. Two of her warriors automatically fell into step behind her. She didn't look back, but Nate couldn't help but stare at her, drinking in her lithesome beauty like a man thirsting in the desert who stumbles upon a crystal clear spring. He watched her until she disappeared from sight into the city's warren of narrow streets.
Nate didn't notice his companions give each other wry, knowing looks, T'cumu grinning so broadly Gonzalo feared his face might split in two. The Spaniard kept his amusement to himself this time, allowing Nate his reverie. Ahh, to be young and in love, he thought to himself with a wistful smile alas, it seems those days have long since passed me by, and so I remain your faithful and penitent soldier, Oh Lord!
The Raven Warrior Captain spoke with Many Mouths at length, then managed a smile for Nate, Gonzalo, and T'cumu, a rare treat in the City of the Pyramids.
"You have shown up the Sun Warriors, and they will not bother you now, at least for a while. She suggests that you leave tomorrow morning. To do so today would make you look cowardly in the eyes of the city folk. Some of these Raven Warriors will remain here to protect your horses from any harm, and the rest will provide you with an escort during your time here, so you may rest easy. The Raven Priestess noticed that the fare served yesterday didn't please you. She has invited you to go to the market and find whatever food suits you, as much as you want. It is her gift. Later, she will send a cook to your dwelling to help you prepare your meal."
"That is very kind of her," Gonzalo said, giving the Raven Captain a polite bow.
"Please tell her we are much obliged," Nate added, smiling tentatively back at the Raven Captain. All the Raven Warriors were smiling and laughing now. They surrounded the two foreigners and the courageous young tribesman, clapping them companionably on their backs, as soldiers do to their fellow fighting men after a victory.
T'cumu stepped over to them and spoke to Many Mouths in a rapid-fire way that Gonzalo couldn't follow. The older man listened carefully, smiling. When T'cumu was finished he translated, "He wants you to know that he will also stay here to help guard your horses. He and his brother and first cousin owe you their lives. They have already decided that you should accompany them to their village when you leave the city and asked me to tell you that you may live out your days among them as brothers if it is your wish!"
The young brave eagerly watched their faces for a reaction. Nate and Gonzalo couldn't help but be moved by their new friend's generosity, there was nothing to do but smile back and take turns pumping his hand in gratitude.
"It will be our honor to come with you T'cumu, you have our deepest thanks." Nate told him, translated by Many Mouths, while Gonzalo attempted to say the same in the man's own language. This made T'cumu smile so brightly it could have melted a glacier.
"At last, we have made some friends in this place," Gonzalo said happily, elated by the unexpected welcome.
"Yes, at last. Thank goodness for T'cumu and his kin, at least now we have some place to go to next!" Nate said, his voice full of relief. He paused, and then gave Gonzalo a small, wry smile. "It's just too bad we have to leave the city and its fair people so soon, and just as we were getting to know them!" This remark was in unmistakably sarcastic tones.
Gonzalo had learned to recognize Nate's penchant for irony. He rolled his eyes at the Texan looking to God for strength, then went back to shaking hands with their exuberant new friends and allies.
∞ ∞ ∞
Accompanied by three Raven Warriors and a group of youthful helpers, students of Many Mouths bearing empty baskets, they soon arrived at the marketplace. The jumble of tents and thatch shelters was a kaleidoscope of colors. Merchants called out their wares, customers haggled for a better deal, while competing groups of musicians waged tuneful warfare on each other and the ears of the bustling crowd, marching up and down the rows with shrill flutes and thumping drums. Many Mouths led them through the chaos to an area where various foodstuffs could be found. People mostly bartered goods for goods, but sometimes they could be seen using seashells as a kind of currency. Despite the press of the crowd, it was fairly cool under the shade of wide awnings erected to keep the cruel sun at bay.
Nate noticed that people were looking at them differently now. Apparently being under the protection of a Raven Warrior did much for their status; they had been promoted from alien outsider to honored guest. More smiles could be found, shy, and fleeting, but sincere. Nate began to notice that many of the women were quite comely, not the goddess-like beauty of the Raven Priestess, but sharing many of her engaging traits. Gonzalo, who saw more than Nate might have guessed, smiled at this and even allowed himself to enjoy the pleasant views, if just a little. After all, he was not a priest just yet!
They entered a row of stalls from whence a plethora of delicious aromas—and a few dreadful stinks—emerged. Nate didn't see anything he recognized amongst the butchered meats and fish. The resourceful city folk were rapidly adapting to what their new environment provided. Large, eel-like fish with heads that looked to be made of solid bone and rows of dagger teeth stared at him from a bed of leaves with tea saucer eyes. Nate figured he would probably just cut the line if he ever hooked a monster like those! Smoked ribs the length of an entire longhorn bull caught his eye. They looked like they might be tasty, but he could only imagine what kind of a giant lizard they had once belonged to, and passed them by.
Continuing on, Nate paused to peer at a mysterious-looking stack of eight-inch-long objects. They seemed to be fashioned of black lacquered wood, but were shaped very strangely. It took a moment for him to realize they were organic.
"What are those?" he asked, pointing at them.
"Those are the legs of giant spiders found in the forest. They have become quite a delicacy," Many Mouths explained.
"Spiders? They're selling bugs for food?" Nate looked around and saw there were more, dragonflies the size of crows that seemed to have been fried in oil, baked cockroaches as big as armadillos, and foot-long, multi-legged sickly white grubs pickled in clay pots. He felt the gorge rise in his throat, and looked away.
"During my travels I have seen people eat many kinds of insects; grubs, ants, grasshoppers," Gonzalo said, examining the grotesque offerings. "The locals always swear they are delicious, and very healthy to eat. Perhaps you should try one, Nate? What is that old saying, old even in my time? 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'?" Gonzalo smiled, and gestured toward the spider legs, stacked like kindling on the merchant's table.
There was an unusual gleam in Gonzalo's eyes that Nate decided he did not quite trust. Was it possible his new-found friend, the kindhearted seeker of innocence renewed, poor, repentant Gonzalo, was having a jest at his expense?
"Fine, you go first, world traveler. If you eat one, I will." Not wishing to look the coward, Nate determined that if Gonzalo did it, he would do it, too, even if it was utterly repulsive.
Gonzalo laughed, and clapped Nate companionably on the shoulder.
"Are you mad? I would not let such filth touch my lips!" the Spaniard exclaimed, turning up his considerable nose in theatrical disgust. He and Many Mouths continued on through the stalls, sharing a good laugh over Nate's discomfiture.
"Very funny, Spaniard!" Nate grumbled as he hurried after them, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the grisly fare as he could. "I have a long memory, you know," he muttered under his breath, vowing to bring about a suitable comeuppance for his humorous friend one day.
Eventually they came to an area that sold food of a more palatable nature; squashes, fruits, nuts, potatoes, chili peppers, berries, beans, corn, and a plethora of other enticing and familiar fare. A fat, plucked turkey lay on a flat stone slab looking like it had fallen there from heaven. Both of the travelers felt their mouths begin to water. Nate scratched his stubbled chin, a host of delicious possibilities dancing in his head.
"Gonzalo, have you ever made stew?"
"I'm afraid I am not much of a cook, but I remember a few things my mother taught me."
"That's fine. My dear old granny made sure I grew up knowing her recipes, so I could pass them down in the unlikely event I should ever marry. Trust me, we are going to eat well tonight!"
"Excellent!" Gonzalo exclaimed, letting a hand-full of mottled beans run through his hand with visible delight. "What should we put in it?"
"Everything! Well, except for spider-legs, that is. Many Mouths, will you join us for dinner? I guarantee you will find my good old-fashioned southern cuisine a might bit tastier than what they are serving here in these parts!"
"It will be my pleasure. But for now, please excuse me as I must attend to some other matters. I shall leave you here in the capable hands of my assistants, you may trust in them. Take whatever you want, as much as you like, without hesitation. It is the Raven Priestess' wish. Today the city welcomes you, all its comforts are yours." With a small bow, he turned and melted away into the crowd.
"Nate, look! Can it be an apple? It smells like one!" Gonzalo held up a rather shriveled looking green fruit.
"Looks more like a crab apple to me. I'll bet it's tart. Get some anyway, they'll be good in the stew."
Suddenly, a thoughtful look came over him, and he once again began to rub his chin in deep thought.
"Tell you what, Gonzalo, let's get some of every edible plant we recognize, and even those we don't. Take twice more of it than we need for today."
Gonzalo raised a bushy brow. "May I ask why? It would be a shame for fresh food to go to waste."
"Oh, it won't. Haven't you ever had a garden?"
Gonzalo looked bemused for a second, then broke out into a wide grin. "Yes, a garden, indeed! The list of your talents grows day by day, Nate."
"Aww, shucks, that's just good old Texas common sense. We need a safe place to hunker down well before it's time for Poppy to birth that cussed foal your randy lad has planted in her, and most likely Bella, too. I can't rightly say where I will end up, but for now we have a welcome at T'cumu's village. That would be a fine place to start some crops growing, and it would be a nice gift for the villagers as well."
The two of them went to work. They began filling the large baskets with a plethora of vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Their guides cheerfully carried the increasingly heavy loads for them. Their Raven Warrior guards just smiled, pleased that their charges had found what they were looking for. Both the men's mouths were watering, neither had eaten such sumptuous fare in, literally, ages. Tonight they would have a meal to remember.
∞ ∞ ∞
As the late afternoon gave way to evening the great temples laid their giant shadows first here, then there, casting whole neighborhoods into deepening gloom. Gonzalo and Nate, bellies full of what had indeed been a most excellent feast, sat on the warm, mud-brick steps in front of their quarters, watching the city folk go about their ways. Some greeted them warmly as they passed by, while others paused to stare at them with open hostility. Either way, the two men from their distant future smiled and nodded greetings, feeling much more self-assured now that the Raven Priestess, definitely a rising power in the city, had spread her ebony wings over them.
"Maybe this place ain't so bad after all," Nate mused as he whittled himself a corn cob pipe.
"After the horrors we've seen in this bizarre New New World? After the stench of the swamps, and the lack of food decent enough for man or beast, and the fanged monsters the size of houses? No, it is not so bad here."
Gonzalo might just share his talent for sarcasm Nate observed with approval.
The Spaniard pulled thoughtfully on his pointed black beard.
"Still, I feel we cannot put our whole trust in these people. I want to believe the Raven Priestess is a force for good, but somehow such simple terms as good and evil seem an ill fit here. This city is . . . complex."
"For a man of such strong faith, you can see the truth in things, Gonzalo. The real world is a good stretch more complicated than what they taught us back in Sunday school. Not as much black-and-white, and a whole lot more gray."
"Or, perhaps, indigo. Look, one of the Priestess's warriors is coming this way. And, he's running."
Nate and Gonzalo stood up, wondering if the man was on a mission that involved them. Breathing hard, the fellow stopped in front of them, his every movement full of urgency.
"Come!" he gasped in heavily accented Spanish. "Help!" he added.
Nate and Gonzalo looked each other, each shrugging. What else was there to do?
They hurriedly collected their weapons, then followed the man as he careened back down the wide, grass and hard-pan boulevard at full speed, dodging lithely through the crowd. Somehow Nate and Gonzalo managed to keep up with him while only jostling a few indignant citizens on their way. They came out into the wide fields at the center of the city, cutting across them at an angle.
"We're heading toward that Rattlesnake Temple," Gonzalo shouted to Nate, who with longer legs had outpaced him by a few yards.
"What's left of it, you mean," Nate called back.
Up ahead a very large crowd had gathered, several thousand city folk milling about in the purple evening light. The Raven Warrior slipped in amongst them effortlessly, but Nate and Gonzalo had to force their way through the press. Somewhere along the way their guide disappeared from sight. They could see the remains of the Rattlesnake Temple ahead, bathed in torchlight. The dreadful beat of drums filled the sweat-scented air.
There were those in the crowd who stared at the unfolding scene with abject terror, not wanting to watch, but drawn to. Others laughed, and pointed gleefully, enjoying the spectacle. As Nate and Gonzalo pushed their way closer, sometimes those latter types pushed back, angry at having their entertainment disrupted. Nate and Gonzalo spared no pleasantries for them, cuffing them hard in the face or sending sharp elbows into their ribs to move them aside. The sound of the drums was growing louder, they could now see a line of gruesomely-painted Rattlesnake Priests along the top tier of the earthen mound, swaying and stepping to the rhythm like some kind of hellish dance-hall show. Something was going on just below them, but the milling crowd still obscured their view. Finally, breaking through the front edge, they were afforded their first good look at the complete proceedings.
"No!" Gonzalo cried out in anguish.
There were three people bound with ropes standing on the second tier down from the top. They were T'cumu and his kin, the men they had saved from the dragon, the kindly guides who had brought them to the city— their friends! One of them was being dragged next to a wicker basket large enough to hold a man. T'cumu and his remaining kinsman both strained futilely at their bindings, weeping and screaming what could only be desperate pleas for mercy. A Rattlesnake priest in a terrible mask carved like a grinning viper, awaited. He had a live rattlesnake wrapped around his forearm, its head clutched firmly between thumb and forefinger. Nate and Gonzalo both paled at the horrid sight. It was obvious that the priest intended to inject their friend with the angry snake's dripping fangs.
Just as Nate and Gonzalo were about to surge forward a group of Rattlesnake Warriors jumped down from the first tier, axes drawn, closing the few yards between them rapidly. The priest above took notice of the commotion below and paused, but seeing his guards close with the intruders he continued the cruel ceremony. With a lightning-quick lunge, he thrust the living weapon at the helpless victim, sinking its fangs deep into his bare right shoulder.
"Gonzalo! Keep them off me, I'm going to try for a shot!" Nate shouted.
"It will be a pleasure!" Letting out a surprisingly feral growl, the former conquistador ran straight at the approaching line of enemies, his long steel blade gleaming in the torchlight. Nate drew his pistol, wincing as the Rattlesnake Priest injected their friend again and again, in the arm, in the neck, in the face. The victim's screams and the mournful cries of his watching loved ones, unable to intervene, provided an eerie melody to the ceaseless beating of the drums.
