The Separation - Nahuatl 4

Chapter XI : The Man with the Headdress

Hun Kum watched them silently for a long time. The two castaways were kneeling in the packed-earth plaza, their arms still bound by vines. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees, and the shadows lengthened the shapes of the huts.
 

"They do not look like warriors," the old man finally said, in his language, though neither of the two could understand him. "Their hands are white and soft. Look at their clothes—strange. They come neither from the north nor the south."

One of the Cocomes who had captured them approached the old man and spoke to him in a low voice, about the corpses on the beach and the wreckage, the broken barrels.

The old man nodded. Aguilar observed his eyes, small and bright as obsidian beads, and noticed that something in his bearing suggested that this man was not merely a village chief. There was something in the way he kept his back straight, in the unhurried movement of his hands, an echo of another life, another place. Aguilar did not know it then, but that old man was named Hun Kum and had been a secondary lord of the great city of T'Hó, far to the northwest. He would discover this later, when the words of the Cocomes began to make sense. For now, he could only guess that this man was more than he appeared.

"Untie them," he ordered.

The Cocomes looked at the old man in surprise, but they obeyed. The vines fell to the ground. Aguilar rubbed his bruised wrists, feeling the sting of blood returning to his numb fingers. Guerrero did the same, though without taking his eyes off the warriors surrounding them, his muscles taut like a cornered animal.

"They do not understand our tongue," said the Cocome who seemed to be the second-in-command, the tall man with graying hair and scars across his chest. "Perhaps they are mute."

"They are not mute," Hun Kum replied. "They speak, but not as we do. I have heard them. Their language is softer, clumsier. They come from the sea. And from the sea only two things come: those who come to give and those who come to take."

He approached Aguilar and touched his face. Aguilar held his breath, feeling the roughness of the old man's fingers against his cheek, and a chill ran down the back of his neck. Then Hun Kum touched Guerrero's beard, which caused him some strangeness, since the Cocomes barely had hair on their faces. Guerrero did not move, but Aguilar saw how his fists clenched and unclenched, restraining the impulse to push that hand away.

"Let them eat tonight," said Hun Kum. "Tomorrow I will decide."

They gave them food. It was no banquet, but the hot corn tortillas tasted like glory. Aguilar bit into his eagerly, and only then, feeling the warmth of the food in his empty stomach, did he realize how long it had been since he had eaten anything. Sleeping was harder. They were put into an empty hut, unbound but guarded. In the darkness, the two Spaniards spoke in low voices.

"He wants something from us," said Guerrero. "If he only wanted to kill us, he would have done it already."

"Perhaps he only wants to know who we are before killing us," Aguilar replied.

"Always so optimistic, Jerónimo."

"And you always so practical, Gonzalo. What will we do if they separate us?"

Guerrero propped himself up on an elbow. In the half-light, his face looked like a mask of shadows.

"Survive. That is what we will do. Survive and wait. Someday a ship will pass by these coasts. When that happens, perhaps we can return to Spain."

"And if they don't pass?"

"Then we will have survived all the same."

Aguilar fell silent. He wanted to say something more, but the words would not come. In his chest, a dull tightness reminded him that hope was a luxury they perhaps could not afford.

"Pray, Jerónimo," said Guerrero. "You always pray. Ask that tomorrow the sun rises and that we are still alive. The rest will come."

And he turned over to sleep.

Aguilar did not pray. Or at least not in words. In the darkness, with his eyes open, he let his mind empty and fill at the same time with a single silent plea, so simple it was barely a thought: *let dawn come.* And then, without knowing how, sleep overcame him.

Beyond the limits of the settlement, the jungle sang with a thousand invisible voices. It was a dense murmur, made of chirps, croaks, whispers of leaves, and the creaking of branches bending under the weight of creatures they could not see. Every now and then, a sharp cry tore through the night, and then a pause, a tense silence before the murmur of the jungle resumed. More alive. More threatening.

Aguilar woke several times. Once, he thought he heard a distant roar, a deep sound that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth. Guerrero snored softly beside him. Aguilar closed his eyes and waited.

The next morning, they were taken from the hut. The plaza was full. Hun Kum awaited them, seated on a low throne of carved wood. His headdress of green and red feathers shone under the sun filtered through the trees. Aguilar noticed that the warriors had arranged themselves in formation, forming a semicircle around them. This was not merely an audience. It was a display of power.

An interpreter awaited them. He was not a pure Cocome, but a Chol trader who had learned something of a Caribbean language. In that tongue, with great difficulty, he managed to get Aguilar to explain that they were shipwrecked, that they came from a sunken ship, that they were not invaders.

The interpreter translated. But Aguilar noticed a hesitation, a word that did not fit, a gesture of doubt in the interpreter's hand as he searched for the correct term. He saw Hun Kum frown slightly, and a warrior beside him shifted the weight of his spear, resting it against the ground with a dry thud. The old man asked something in his language, and the interpreter responded with hesitation. Something had been lost in translation, but the central message seemed to have arrived: they had not come to fight.

Hun Kum listened. Then he fell silent. For a long moment, only the song of a bird in the crown of a nearby tree could be heard. Finally he spoke:

"Tell them that I have seen men of the sea before. Some came to trade. Others came to steal. But all of them left. These ones have nowhere to go."

The interpreter translated. Aguilar nodded.

"Tell them that the one in black clothes—" he pointed to Aguilar, who still wore the dark rags of his friar's habit, "—will be sent as a gift to the great chief Nachán Can of Chetumal. The lords of the south always appreciate curiosities. We will call him the Ch'eel, the bird of black plumage. The other will stay here."

Guerrero and Aguilar looked at each other. No translation was needed to understand Hun Kum's gesture, pointing at Aguilar and then southward. A cold tightness settled in Aguilar's chest, as if someone had squeezed his heart with an invisible fist.

"I think they are separating us, and they are sending me to a place called Chetumal," Aguilar said in a low voice. His voice sounded rougher than he expected.

"And they are leaving me here," Guerrero replied. There was no surprise in his words. Only a cold certainty, as if he had known it from the start.

Aguilar opened his mouth to protest, but Guerrero interrupted him. His hand came to rest on Aguilar's shoulder, firm, like an anchor.

"Hush, Jerónimo. Give thanks to God that we still have our lives. We are their prisoners. You are a friar. You know how to read and write. If someday a Spanish ship comes, you will be able to speak with them, you will be able to tell them what has happened. I... I do not know how to do that. I only know how to fight and survive. And here I can do that."

"Gonzalo..."

"Do not argue. It is already decided. Try to survive. Find a way to make the Spaniards know that we are here. I will make sure there is a place to return to."

Aguilar felt his throat close up. He wanted to say something, anything, but the words stuck in him like thorns. Instead, he held Guerrero's gaze for a long moment, and in that look he knew that this was a farewell neither of them would dare to speak aloud. He clenched his jaw to keep from trembling.

Hun Kum observed the exchange without understanding the words, but understanding the prisoners' gesture of assent. Pointing to Aguilar, he ordered:

"Take him away, and let the other stay."

The Cocomes took Aguilar by the arms. Aguilar felt himself pushed forward, and for an instant, the temptation to resist crossed his mind like a flash of lightning. But to what end? There was nowhere to flee. He let himself be led.

The Cocomes guided him firmly but without roughness, as one handles a fragile but valuable object, toward the path that disappeared among the trees: a barely visible trail that plunged into the thicket like a dark wound in the green. Half a dozen warriors escorted him, with obsidian spears in their hands, their points black and gleaming like nightmare mirrors. There were no chains or ropes. They were not necessary. In the middle of that jungle, there was nowhere to flee.

Aguilar looked back before the trees hid the village. He saw Guerrero's silhouette, small and still in the middle of the plaza, arms hanging at his sides, beard in the wind. He did not raise his hand. He made no gesture. He merely stood there, watching him, until the jungle swallowed him whole.

Aguilar felt a knot in his stomach, a void that was not hunger. He forced himself to turn his head and look forward.

They walked for what seemed like an hour, though Aguilar had lost all sense of time. The light filtered in oblique rays through the canopy of leaves, creating a mosaic of clearings and shadows that moved with the wind. The jungle was a living presence breathing around him, watching him from every leaf, every moss-covered trunk, every vine that hung like a sleeping arm. Aguilar felt the weight of that invisible gaze, and a cold sweat ran down his back, though the moisture in the air already had him soaked.

The sounds enveloped him completely: the buzz of invisible insects, the crack of branches breaking under feet that were not human, the distant cry of some bird that seemed to be laughing at him. The air was dense, humid, and smelled of wet earth, rotting flowers, something sweet and sour at the same time. Aguilar felt a slight nausea, a dizziness he did not know whether it came from exhaustion, fear, or the smell.

Sometimes the path widened enough for the warriors to walk beside him; other times it narrowed so much that they had to go in single file, and then Aguilar could see the back of the warrior ahead of him, the dark skin glistening with sweat, the feathered headdress swaying with each step, the spear held in one hand while the other pushed aside branches. Aguilar observed the scars on the warrior's shoulders, thick white marks like ropes, and wondered what kind of life that man had lived.

At one point, Aguilar stopped to look at a tree covered in white orchids. They were so perfect, so immaculate in the middle of that green hell, that for an instant he forgot where he was. The warrior behind him gave him a gentle shove. It was not violent, but neither was it kind. It was a reminder: do not stop, do not think, just walk.

Aguilar obeyed. But something about that image—the white orchids, the light that bathed them—remained etched in his memory, like a small talisman to cling to.

He tried to memorize the path. He counted the steps between the largest trees: thirty-two from the split trunk to the ceiba with exposed roots. He fixed the position of the sun in the sky, calculating the hours. He engraved in his memory the sharpest curves of the trail: one to the right next to a moss-covered rock, another to the left where the smell of flowers grew sweeter. He did not know if it would serve him, but it was the only way not to feel completely helpless.

He thought of Gonzalo. Of the last image he had seen of him, standing in the plaza, arms still marked by the vines, beard grown and tangled, gaze fixed on him. He remembered the weight of his hand on his shoulder, the firmness of his fingers. He had said nothing. He had not raised his hand. He had only looked. And that look, Aguilar thought, was worse than any shout. Because in it there was a farewell neither of them had spoken, and a charge that weighed like a slab: survive. And make them know we are here.

He closed his eyes for an instant and let Gonzalo's face fade. When he opened them, the jungle was still there, green, dense, endless.

At one point, one of the warriors ahead stopped dead. The others froze instantly. Aguilar held his breath. The warrior raised a hand and all stood still, listening. From somewhere not far away, a deep sound came, a low growl that seemed to vibrate in the ground. Aguilar felt his heart hammering against his ribs. The warrior behind him placed a hand on his shoulder, not to push him, but to keep him still. Several seconds passed, perhaps a minute, in which no one moved. Then the sound ceased. The warrior in front lowered his hand and resumed the march, as if nothing had happened.

Aguilar did not ask what that had been. He could not have, even if he had known the words.

The warriors barely spoke during the journey. Sometimes they exchanged brief words, gestures with their heads toward some tree or toward the sky, and then resumed their silence. Aguilar tried to remember the few Mayan words he had heard in the village—maize, water, sun—but they were of no use to him. He did not know how to say *where are you taking me?* or *will I see my companion again?* He felt like a child, mute and ignorant, dragged by forces he did not understand.

The path became steeper. They climbed a hill covered in giant ferns, and from the top, Aguilar could see the sea for an instant. A strip of intense blue, almost unreal, gleaming between the tree trunks. The wind brought a salty smell that cut through the density of the jungle like a knife.

Aguilar held his breath. That vision, so beautiful and so unreachable, reminded him of all he had lost: the ship, his companions, his former life. But it also reminded him that the sea was there, waiting. And that perhaps, someday, a ship would sail it again. In his chest, the tightness loosened for just an instant, enough for a small ember of hope to ignite in the pit of his stomach.

"Lord, have mercy," he murmured in a low voice, so low that the warriors could not hear him or did not care.

Then the path descended again into the thicket, and the sea disappeared behind the trees. Aguilar forced himself to keep walking. He counted the steps. He counted the trees. He counted the curves. He clung to those numbers like a castaway to a plank.

"Thirty-two," he whispered to himself. "Then the ceiba. Then the mossy rock."

And he continued forward, eyes ahead, with the certainty that he was still alive, and with the silent promise he had made to Gonzalo burning in his throat.

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                                 — End of Book One —

 

 

mvf.