Aztec Autumn - Jennings Gary - Страница 38

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Then, though I had anticipated it, or at least fervently hoped for it, there erupted such a roar of noise that I jumped in spite of myself. The tree that shielded me seemed to rock, too. Countless birds burst from the greenery all about, screeching and cawing, and the underbrush rustled violently to the scampering of unseen animals. I heard the whizzing sound of the pottery shards flying in all directions, and a few of them going thunk against the limbs of my sheltering tree, while leaves and twigs cut loose by them came fluttering down, and the blue smoke spread its pungent miasma far and wide in the windless air.

From somewhere in the distance, I heard human shouts, too. So, as soon as there was no more patter of things falling roundabout, I left my tree and went to where the ball had been. A patch of the earth as big as a petatl mat was scorched black, and the nearby bushes were charred to shriveling. At the edge of the clearing, a rabbit lay dead; it had been pierced right through by one of the shards.

The shouts were getting nearer and more excited. I only then remembered that the Spaniards had built, on the heights of Grasshopper Hill, a fort-and-stockade structure they called the Castillo, and that it was always full of soldiers, because that was where new army recruits were trained. Even the rawest recruit would, of course, have recognized the sound of a polvora explosion and—it having come from the depths of a usually uninhabited forest—would dash out with his comrades to find out where and how it had happened, and by whose doing. I did not want to leave any evidence for those soldiers. I had no time to try to erase the burn mark, but I did pick up the rabbit before I scurried off toward the lakeside.

That night, Pochotl visited the house, with an oily rolled-up mantle under his arm and a many-creased grin on his face. With the sly, secretive mien of a conjuror, he laid the bundle on the floor and very slowly unrolled it, while Citlali and I watched bright-eyed. There it was: the replica arcabuz, and very authentic it looked.

"Ouiyo ayyo," I murmured, genuinely pleased and genuinely admiring of Pochotl's artistry. Citlali smiled from one to the other of us, pleased for us both.

Pochotl handed me the key for winding the spring inside. I inserted it in its place, turned it and heard the ratcheting noise I had heard once before. Then, with my thumb, I pulled back the cat's-paw holding its flake of false-gold, and it clicked and stayed back. Then, with my forefinger, I tugged the gatillo. The cat's-paw snapped down, the false-gold struck the grooved wheel just as the wheel was spun by its wound-up spring—and the resultant sparks sprayed right across the little cazoleta pan as they were supposed to do.

"Of course," said Pochotl, "the crucial test will be to try it fully charged with polvora and one of these." He handed me a pouch of the heavy lead balls. "But I advise you to go far away from here, Tenamaxtli, to do that. The word is already abroad. An unaccountable blast was heard today by the Chapultepec garrison." He winked at me. "The white men fear—as well they might—that someone besides themselves possesses some quantity of the polvora. The street patrols are stopping and searching every indio carrying pots or baskets or any other possibly suspicious container."

"I expected that," I said. "I will be more circumspect henceforth."

"One other thing," said Pochotl. "I still regard your idea of revolution as foolish in the extreme. Consider, Tenamaxtli. You know how long it has taken me to make this one arcabuz. I believe it will work as warranted. But do you expect me or anyone to construct the thousands you would need to equal the weaponry of the white men?"

"No," I said. "No more need be made. If this one works as warranted, I shall use it to—well—acquire another from some Spanish soldier. Then use those two for the acquisition of two more. And so on." Pochotl and Citlali stared at me, either aghast or struck with admiration, I could not tell. "But now," I cried, jubilant, "let us celebrate this auspicious occasion!"

I went out and bought a jar of the best octli, and we all drank happily of it—even little Ehecatl was given some—and we adults got sufficiently inebriated that, come midnight, Pochotl bedded down in the front room rather than risk encountering a patrol. And Citlali and I reeled and giggled as we went to our pallet in the other room, there to continue the celebration in an even more enthusiastic fashion.

For my next series of experiments I made only clay balls no bigger than quails' eggs, each containing a mere thumbnail's measure of polvora. These all burst asunder with little more noise than a castor pod makes when it explodes its seeds, so the local children soon lost interest in those, too. But they enjoyed a different amusement I gave them—asking them to be lookouts for me, prowling all the streets around, to run and warn me if they espied a patrolling soldier anywhere. Since I already knew I had made a satisfactory polvora and had observed its nicely destructive behavior when ignited in tight confinement, what I was trying now was to find a way to set off a polvora-packed ball, small or large, from a distance—some means more reliable than laying a trail of loose powder.

I have mentioned the manner in which our people generally smoked our picietl: rolled inside what we called a poquietl, a tube of reed or paper that slowly burned along with the herb—not in a non-burning clay pipe, as the Spaniards do.

Occasionally we, and the white men, too, liked to mix with the picietl some other ingredient—powdered cacao, certain seeds, dried blossoms—to change its taste or fragrance. What I did now was to roll numbers of very thin paper poquieltin that contained the herb mixed with varying traces of polvora. An ordinary poquietl burns slowly as a smoker puffs on it, but is likely to extinguish itself when laid down for a while. I thought the addition of polvora would keep an unattended tube alight but still let it burn only slowly.

And I was right. Trying these tiny paper poquieltin in varying circumferences and lengths and content of picietl plus polvora, I eventually hit on the right combination. Inserted into the quill-hole of one of my miniature pottery balls, such a poquietl could be lighted and would burn for a time—brief or prolonged, depending on its length—before reaching the hole and demolishing the ball with that clap of noise. There was no way I could accurately time such things—for instance, to make a number of balls burst simultaneously. But I could make and trim a poquietl to a length that, when lighted, would give me ample time to be far away from the scene when it burned down to the ignition hole. I could also be sure that no vagrant breeze or the footstep of some passerby would disrupt its burning, as could so easily happen with a loose powder trail.

To verify that, I next did something so daring, hazardous and downright wicked that I did not even tell Citlali about it beforehand. I made another fist-size, polvora-packed clay ball and inserted into its quill-hole a lengthy poquietl. On the next sunny day, I put it into my waist pouch and walked from the house to the Traza, to the building I had long ago identified as the barracks of the lesser-ranking Spanish soldiers. There was, as always, a sentry on duty at the entrance, armed and armored. Looking as stupid and inoffensive as I could manage, I sauntered past him to the corner of the building, and there stopped and knelt as if to dislodge a pebble from my sandal.

I was able, both quickly and silently, to light the protruding end of the poquietl, then to wedge the hard ball into the space between the corner stone and the street's cobblestones. I glanced at the guard; he was paying me no attention; nor was anyone else on the crowded street; so I stood up and sauntered on my way. I had gone at least a hundred paces before I heard the bellow of the blast. Even at that distance, I also heard the whizzing of the flying shards, and one of them actually tapped me lightly on my back. I turned and looked, and was gratified to see the commotion I had caused.

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