THIRTY-SIX

FOR THE NEXT two days, I followed Carlos around, carrying his drawing and writing materials. He recorded everything he saw, though some of his observations were solely a product of his imagination. The ruins were heavily overgrown with vegetation, concealing not only their secrets but often their shape.

“Do you realize, Juan, what a wonder this place is?” Carlos said to me, as we ate tortillas filled with peppers and beans. To my dismay, he had packed tortillas and beans rather then steak and trail-baked bread. He found the “peon food” tasty.

“Very nice place,” I said, uninterested in the glories of a time and place long dead.

“Ah, Don Juan, I can see from your expression that you disdain the forgotten achievements of this ancient city. But perhaps you would care if you knew one of its secrets.” He looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “Can I trust you to keep your lips sealed? I put great trust in you because you saved my life and appear to be a man who keeps secrets.”

I wondered if he had found hidden treasure in the old ruins. Eh, a little indio treasure would buy me a grand house in Havana. “Of course, señor, you can trust me.”

“Have you heard of Atlantis?”

“Atlantis?”

He grinned like a small boy who knew the answer to a teacher’s question at school. “An island in the Atlantic Ocean, it lay west of Gibraltar between Europe and the Americas. Plato—who mentioned it in two of his dialogues—is our sole source of information on this lost civilization. He says the island was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which was what the Straits of Gibraltar were called in his time. Larger than the lands of Asia Minor and Libya combined, it had the landmass of a small continent.

“A rich and powerful empire, its rulers had conquered much of the Mediterranean world before the Greek army stopped their expansion. But Atlantis’s most dreadful nemesis was not the Greeks, or even war, but a cataclysmic earthquake that destroyed the great land and caused it to sink in the ocean.”

“What does that have to do with Teotihuacán?” I asked. A more important question in my mind was what it had to do with treasure.

“Some scholars believe that before Atlantis was destroyed, it had sent expeditions to America to colonize the continent and that the indios are the descendants of those people.

“Some argue that indios are descendants of Mongols who came across the Bering Strait in the far north during a time when it was frozen. But the Mongol theory does not account for the differences between the indios of the Americas and the Mongols of Asia. Nor does it account for the fact that ruins here at Teotihuacán, Cholula, and Cuicuilco prove that the indios were very advanced at an early stage.

“The writing of the ancient indios and ancient Egyptians is comparable. They both used picture-writing to communicate. Just as the Egyptians decorated their pyramids and temples with drawings that told stories about their gods and rulers, so did the ancient indios. The Egyptians made books out of paper, and our priests who came here following the Conquest found thousands of books the indios made from paper. Sadly, in a rush of religious fervor, almost all of the books were destroyed.”

“So did the indios swim here from Atlantis or across the northern strait?”

He shrugged. “Some of my scholar friends have another theory, one that takes into account the resemblance between the indios and the Egyptians. They believe that the pyramids were built by a lost tribe of Israel that—driven by war and the desire for a homeland—crossed Asia and the Bering Strait. These people would have known the shape of the Egyptian pyramids and could have duplicated them in the New World.”

Suddenly still, he glanced at the inquisitor-priest who stood nearby.

“Do you know that Teotihuacán played a famous role in the conquest of the Aztecs? Of the connection between the Pyramid of the Sun and Cortés?” Carlos asked me, changing subjects.

I shook my head. “No, señor. I apologize for my ignorance.”

We climbed partway up the Pyramid of the Sun. Covered with cactus and other thick vegetation, the ascent was rough-going. When we were halfway up, over a hundred feet from the ground, we paused, and Carlos told me the story of Cortés and his connection to the pyramid.

“The Aztecs feared this city of ancient, inscrutable peoples, long dead would one day help the Great Conqueror.

“The connection between Cortés and the pyramid began soon after he arrived in what is now New Spain, landing on the coast with his small army. He won battles and recruited indio leaders who hated the dominance of the Aztecs. After he made his way to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, Montezuma received him with great pomp. Even with indio allies, however, Montezuma’s men vastly outnumbered Cortés’s small force. In the end, the Great Conqueror subdued the indio empires by force of personality as much as he did by force of arms.

“While in Tenochtitlán, he received word that another Spaniard, Pánfilo Narváez, had arrived with an armed force to relieve Cortés of his command. Cortés set out with most of his men, leaving behind in the Aztec capital about eighty of his soldiers and several hundred indio allies under the command of Pedro de Alvarado. Cortés then proceeded to the coast, defeated Narváez’s force, and brought the survivors under his own command.

“He returned to the capital to discover it seething and Alvarado’s force under siege. Alvarado was the most rash and brutal of Cortes’s lieutenants. Suspecting a plot, Alvarado attacked the indios during a religious festival, massacring them with cannon fire.

“Cortés saw that the entire city was rallying against the Spaniards. That night, he and his army fought their way out of the city, absconding with priceless treasures, retreating to the plains near what is now the town of Otumba. As he peered out over the plains from a great eminence, Cortés saw thousands of indio warriors, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“Do you see what I’m getting at?” Carlos asked me. “The only elevated mounds from which Cortés could have surveyed the plains were either the Pyramid of the Sun or that of the Moon. Were they as overgrown with vegetation as they are today, he might not have even known he was climbing a pyramid. But the indios, who revered this place, would have known.

“As the vast indio army closed in, Cortés knew he could not prevail through military power alone. From his towering pyramid, he spotted the captain-general of the Aztec forces marching with banner unfurled. Díaz, who fought alongside Cortés in the battle, described the Aztec commander as garishly garbed in golden armor, gold and silver plumes rising high above his headpiece. Ordering his men to attack the Aztec commander, Cortés led the charge, sweeping through the Aztec ranks on his magnificent warhorse, plowing through them until he reached the commander.

“Cortés struck the commander with his horse, knocking his banner to the ground while Cortés’s lieutenants crashed through the lines behind him. Juan de Salamanca, who rode beside Cortés on a fine piebald mare, killed the Aztec commander with a lance thrust and took from him his rich plumes.

“When the indios saw their commander fall, his banner trampled, his plumes of regal power usurped, they broke ranks, fleeing in panic and confusion. Several years later, our king gave the symbol of the plume to Salamanca as his coat of arms, and his descendants bear it on their tabards.

“This battle marked the beginning of the Aztec empire’s end. Following the battle, Cortés and his indio allies returned to Tenochtitlán. After months of fierce fighting, they retook the city, battling Aztec warriors street by street. Think of it, amigo, we may be on the very same spot where Cortés stood when he saw the Aztec army approaching.”

Carlos was a very knowledgeable scholar, even more learned than Rachel. Like her and Padre Hidalgo, his head was full of the people, places, and events of history. Unfortunately, all his information didn’t bring any treasure to assist in my escape. But he was also full of both mystery and surprises. One of those mysteries would surface before we left this great city of the dead.