The Cocomes - Nahuatl 3

**Chapter X: Prisoners**

They soon began to walk along the beach. Guerrero found a broken wooden box. Inside, wrapped in waxed canvas, were bread rolls. The salt water had spoiled them, but the centers were still edible. He also found a piece of candle and a hemp rope.

Then he found Muerdo. The cabin boy lay on his back, his eyes open, fixed on the sky. His face was swollen, his lips purple. Guerrero stood looking at him for a long while. He said nothing. He buried him in the sand, near the place where he had found him. He covered the body with sand and placed some stones on top. He did not pray.

Aguilar, meanwhile, remained seated beside a rock, staring at the sea. He had seen nothing. He did not move his lips. He did not weep. He only stared.

As evening fell, Guerrero built a small shelter with the wood he found among the wreckage. It was nothing more than a slanted roof propped against a rock, but it served to shield them from the wind.

When he had finished the makeshift shelter for the night, he looked for materials to light a fire. They had no steel striker, but he found two stones: one of flint, black and sharp-edged, and another of quartz, white and hard. He struck them together near a handful of dry fiber torn from the inside of a rotten log. Sparks flew, brief, vanishing into the air. On the fourth or fifth attempt, one caught in the fiber. Guerrero blew carefully, feeding the tiny flame with dry leaves and small twigs, until the fire grew large enough to warm the damp air of the beach.

They ate what they could salvage from the rolls. It tasted of salt and rot, but they ate it anyway.

"Tomorrow," said Guerrero, "we'll have to find fresh water."

"Yes," replied Aguilar.

"And something to hunt. Or fish."

"Yes."

They fell silent, gazing at the fire.

They slept out in the open, beside the bonfire, covered by their tattered clothing. The night was long and full of noises. Animals in the jungle. The sea pounding the shore. The wind stirring the leaves. The fire died out at midnight. The embers lost their glow until they turned to gray ash. The cold of the early morning seeped into both men's bones, but neither woke.

At dawn, Guerrero opened his eyes. The sky was clear. The sea was calm. Beside him, the remains of the fire had been dead for hours. He sat up, rubbing his arms to warm himself. He looked toward the jungle. Something seemed different. He did not know what. Just a sensation at the back of his neck. As if someone were watching them from within the thicket.

"Fraile," he said, touching Aguilar's shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know. But I think we're not alone."

Aguilar sat up. He looked at the tree line. Everything seemed still. Too still.

"We've barely arrived," said the friar. "If there were anyone, they would have come out already."

"Or they've already seen us," Guerrero replied, "and they're waiting."

They did not have to wait long. The jungle that bordered the sand began to move. It was not the wind. It was shadows.

From the tree line, a group of Cocome warriors watched them in silence. They had seen the boat's sails from afar and had been stalking for hours, studying those pale, bearded creatures that the sea had vomited onto their shores. First two appeared, then four, then a dozen. Half-naked men, their torsos painted red and black, their long hair gathered at the nape of the neck, their lips pierced with jade discs. They carried hardwood macanas with obsidian blades set into the edges, which gleamed in the morning sun. They advanced in silence, their feet sinking into the damp sand, their eyes fixed on the two white men.

The nacom, the war chief, raised his macana and made a signal. A dozen warriors emerged from the jungle and surrounded the castaways.

Guerrero sprang to his feet. His hand went to his sword.

"Fraile!" he shouted. "Behind me!"

But Aguilar did not move. He rose slowly, his hands empty, his fingers clutching the bone rosary still hanging from his neck.

"Soldier," he said in a low voice, "do not fight. We cannot take them on."

Guerrero looked at the numbers. Fifteen. Maybe twenty. Too many. He released his sword. He did not draw it.

The Cocomes surrounded them. The one who seemed to be in command, a tall man with graying hair and a chest crossed with scars, approached them slowly. He looked them both up and down, like a man examining an unknown animal. Then he said something in his language, a guttural, rapid tongue that neither understood.

"We don't speak your language," said Aguilar, raising his hands. "We don't want to fight."

The man frowned. He pointed at the corpses scattered across the sand, the wreckage, the broken barrels. He spoke again, this time in a louder tone.

"I think he takes us for invaders," murmured Guerrero.

"We are castaways," Aguilar replied, as if that man could understand him. "Our ship sank. We did not come to conquer. We only want to survive."

The Cocome warrior did not understand the words, but he understood the tone. He gave a short order, and two of his men seized each of them by the arms. They pushed them toward the jungle. There, at the boundary between sand and trees, they bound them with vines. They were thick and flexible, strips of liana bark that the Cocomes twisted around their wrists. They did not bind too tightly, but they did not loosen either. Every movement tightened them further.

"Where are they taking us?" asked Guerrero, struggling for a moment until one of the warriors struck his back with the handle of a macana.

"Wherever it is," replied Aguilar. "It is not up to us. We are their prisoners."

Chapter XI: The Clearing in the Jungle

The sunlight filtered through the treetops like golden arrows illuminating fragments of a green hell.

Aguilar walked ahead of him, stumbling over the roots that jutted out of the damp ground. The bone rosary thumped against his chest with every misstep.

"Halt!" ordered one of the warriors in his tongue.

The column stopped in a clearing. There, kneeling on the black earth, were other men. White men. Broken men.

Guerrero recognized them at once: they were his own. Those who had survived the shipwreck and had been left behind when he and Aguilar had ventured along the beach. The Cocomes had captured them while he was burying Muerdo. There were four. Perhaps five. He had not kept count. One of them had a bruised face and an open gash above his eyebrow. Another wept silently, head bowed, with no strength left even to wipe away his tears.

The Cocomes forced Guerrero and Aguilar to kneel beside them. A broad-faced warrior with a red-painted chest tied their ankles with more vines, securing them to a stake driven into the center of the clearing.

Then one of the prisoners, a young man with a sparse beard and sunken eyes, raised his head and looked at them.

"Jerónimo?" he asked in a hoarse voice. "Gonzalo?"

"We are here," replied Aguilar. "Who else is alive?"

The young man shook his head from side to side. He said nothing. He only gestured with a barely perceptible motion toward the far end of the clearing.

There, face down, the foam of blood still fresh on the churned sand, lay the body of Captain Juan de Valdivia.

Guerrero felt a cold blow in his stomach.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice firmer than he actually felt.

Chapter XII: Like a Dog

Captain Juan de Valdivia was the only one who tried to react.

He still had his sword sheathed at his waist. When he saw the warriors approaching, he managed to get to his knees and drew the steel. He shouted something in Spanish, perhaps an order, perhaps a curse, and made a gesture as if to rise and face them.

It was a futile act. The Cocomes did not understand his words and did not fear a half-dead man.

One of them, the most corpulent, lunged at Valdivia with a hardwood macana. The blow struck the side of his head. The captain fell sideways, stunned. Another warrior dealt him a second blow to the skull. The sword rolled across the sand.

Valdivia died in seconds. His body lay face down, blood staining the foam at the water's edge.

The other seven castaways, too weak to flee or fight, were bound with vines without offering resistance.

While the Cocomes tied them and forced them to their feet, one of the sailors, a pale young man of twenty, trembling, with a cut above his brow and dried blood on his cheek, turned toward Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, who were bound side by side. He spoke in a low voice, in Spanish, so that only they could hear him.

"I saw it all," he said, his voice a thread about to break. "When they came out of the jungle, Captain Valdivia tried to defend himself. He got to his feet and drew his sword. But he was too weak... he couldn't even stand fully. One of them struck him with a macana... hit him in the head. The captain fell instantly. Another dealt him a second blow... already on the ground. There was no fight. No defense. They killed him like a dog."

The young man paused. He looked at the Cocome warriors surrounding them, their painted faces and impassive stares.

"Don't try to resist," he whispered. "It's useless."

Aguilar closed his eyes and prayed in silence. Guerrero, by contrast, was already thinking about how to survive, watching the warriors closely, memorizing their weapons, their postures, their gestures.

Chapter XIII: One by One

The Cocomes made the seven prisoners walk into the jungle. They put them in a line and began to march. The march was brutal. They gave no respite: they pushed them with their macanas, struck them with open hands when they lagged.

For an exhausting hour, they led them along narrow paths between towering trees, beneath a canopy of leaves that barely let in any light. Roots snaked across the ground like sleeping serpents, and the air smelled of wet earth, of rotting flowers, of something ancient and damp that reminded Guerrero of the catacombs of Naples.

The heat pressed down like a slab. The humidity soaked their ragged clothing and filled their lungs, thick, sticky. Thirst had become a fixed thought, a hum that never ceased, an obsession that made them stupid.

During the march, one by one, their companions fell.

The Death of Diego Hernández

The first to fall was Diego Hernández. He began to lag behind. He did not do so willingly: his legs refused to obey him. He walked with his head down, staggering, bumping into trees. The Cocomes shoved him, struck him, shouted at him in their language. But Diego did not respond. He was no longer there.

"Diego!" Guerrero shouted at him. "Snap out of it, damn it! One more step, just one more!"

Diego raised his head. His eyes were glassy. He looked at Guerrero as if he did not recognize him.

"Water," he said. "Please... water."

None of the Cocomes understood the word. But they understood the gesture. The tall man with the red-painted chest approached Diego, grabbed him by the hair, and tilted his head back. Then he took out a small leather waterskin hanging from his shoulder and let a stream of water fall into Diego's open mouth.

The prisoner drank like a condemned man. The water ran down his beard, his neck, soaking his dirty shirt.

"Enough," said the Cocome, pulling the waterskin away.

Diego tried to grab it with his bound hands, but the warrior had already moved away.

"Thank you," whispered Diego. "Thank you..."

He said nothing more. Ten minutes later, his legs gave out completely. He fell to his knees on the damp earth. He stayed there, gasping, his gaze lost. A warrior approached. He said something to him. Diego did not respond.

The warrior looked at him for a moment. Then, without changing his expression, he raised his macana and brought it down on the back of his neck.

The blow was dry, deep. A sound unlike anything they had ever heard. Like a gourd smashing against a stone.

Diego Hernández fell sideways, face down. Blood began to pour from his shattered head and mix with the jungle mud. The Cocomes did not stop. They kept walking. The prisoners, bound in a line, had to pass beside the body that still twitched with the final spasms of death. No one said anything. No one dared to look.

The Death of Pedro

The second to fall was Pedro, the freckled sailor. He had been the first to recount the captain's death, and since then he had not stopped repeating the story over and over, like a broken record. He began to laugh. A faint, almost inaudible laugh that escaped his mouth, broken by sobs.

"Like dogs," he said. "Like dogs... I told you."

"Shut up," Guerrero snapped. "Shut up or they'll kill you too."

"So what?" Pedro replied with a crooked smile. "What difference does it make? You're going to die too, Gonzalo. We're all going to die. You just don't know it yet."

Aguilar, who was walking ahead of Guerrero, turned his head.

"Don't say that," he said. "God will provide."

"God?" Pedro laughed again. "The same God who sent us the storm? The same God who sank the ship? The same God who let them kill the captain like a dog? Look around you, friar! This is not the hand of God! This is hell and we're already inside it!"

One of the Cocomes turned around. He did not understand the words, but he understood the tone. He grabbed Pedro by the arm and dragged him forward, separating him from the group. Pedro stopped laughing. He began to cry.

"No!" he shouted. "Don't take me! I don't want to die! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

The Cocome paid him no heed. He took him down a path that branched off from the main trail. The other warriors kept pushing the prisoners forward. No one ever saw Pedro again.

The Death of Juan Romero

The third was Juan Romero, the oarsman. He could not get up when the Cocomes ordered the march to resume. He had had a broken leg since the shipwreck, swollen and bruised, and the pain had climbed up to his hip. He tried to stand using Guerrero's shoulder for support, but his legs would not respond.

"I can't," he said. "I can't, brothers. Leave me here."

The Cocomes looked at him. The tallest one, the one with the red-painted chest, approached. He examined the swollen leg with a grimace of contempt. Then he said something in his language to the others.

"He's going to kill him," someone whispered.

Guerrero tensed his bound arms. He stepped forward, his fists clenched. He could not fight, but something in him refused to let another companion die before his eyes without doing anything.

"No," he said, his voice hoarse. "Not that one. They're not killing him."

Aguilar grabbed his arm. The friar's hand trembled, but his grip was firm.

"Let it go, Gonzalo."

"How can I let it go?" Guerrero snapped, not taking his eyes off the warrior. "He's my comrade!"

"Look at his leg," said Aguilar, in a low voice. "Look at his face. That man won't last another day. With his leg like that, with the fever rising in his blood... whatever they do now, if they do it, only spares him suffering."

Guerrero turned toward Aguilar. For an instant, his eyes sparked. Then he looked at Juan Romero. The oarsman was pale, sweaty, with cracked lips and sunken eyes. His gaze was lost, as if he were no longer fully there. The swollen leg looked ready to burst the skin.

"Gonzalo," said Juan Romero, in a voice that was barely a whisper. "Let it go. The friar is right."

Guerrero clenched his jaw. He did not reply. He lowered his arms.

The red-chested warrior signaled to two of his men. The two Cocomes grabbed Juan Romero by the arms and dragged him off the path, toward a trail that led deeper into the jungle.

"Where are they taking him?" asked Aguilar, though he already knew the answer.

No one replied.

Half an hour later, the two warriors returned alone. Their macanas were clean, but their hands were not. They bore traces of red earth between their fingers.

None of the prisoners asked what had happened to Juan Romero.

"That one," said the young man with the sparse beard, "may God have him in His glory. Because we will not see him again."

The Death of the Silent Man

The fourth was the silent man, whose name none of them remembered. A man with a dull gaze, who walked like an automaton, moving his legs by pure inertia. He did not fall from thirst or exhaustion. He fell because he stopped wanting to walk. He sat down on the ground, crossed his arms over his knees, and rested his head. The Cocomes beat him, insulted him, hauled him to his feet. He sat down again. He did not say a word.

In the end, the red-chested warrior shrugged. He pointed at the seated man. Two Cocomes took him by the feet and dragged him off the path, into the thicket.

The young man with the sparse beard turned to Aguilar.

"Do you think God sees us, friar?" he asked.

"God sees everything," replied Aguilar.

"Then... why does He do nothing?"

Aguilar did not know what to answer.

The End of the March

When the Cocome party finally reached the vicinity of their village, only two of the crew of the Santa María de la Barca remained alive: Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. The others, Captain Valdivia, the sailor Pedro, Diego Hernández, Juan Romero, and all the rest, had died on the beach or along the way. And the sea had swallowed the rest of the crew.