Part 65 (1/2)

For a moment the two old men stood perfectly still, like two stone statues embracing each other, the Healer with the feather in his hand, the naualli with his hand on the hilt of the knife. They slowly moved apart, and as they did, the Healer went down to his knees and the naualli moved away from him.

I made it up to the top and onto my feet. I charged the naualli but stopped and watched him in amazement. Instead of crouching in a knife fighter's stance to meet my attack, he pranced away, ripping off the girl face. He grinned gaily and danced and laughed.

Holding the knife again high in the air, he plunged it into his own heart.

I now realized why the Healer had been shaking a feather in the man's face. He had yoyotli or some other dream dust from a flower weaver on the feather.

The Healer lay on the ground on his back. His s.h.i.+rt was b.l.o.o.d.y. I knelt beside him with a heavy heart. ”I will go for help,” I said, but I knew it was useless.

”No, my son, stay with me. It is too late. This morning I heard the call of the uactli, the bird of death.”

”No-”

”I will go now to the place where my ancestors have gone. I am old and tired and it is a long trip.” He slowly faded, his breath leaving him as I held him in my arms and cried.

He had once told me that he had come from the stars. I believed that. There had been an otherworldliness to him. I had no doubt that he had journeyed to earth from the stars, and it would be to the stars that he returned.

Like the fray, he had been a father to me. As his son, it was my duty to prepare him for his journey.

I had to leave him to get help to move his body to a proper place for the burial I would give him. When I returned to the camp, both Don Julio and Mateo were there.

”I received a message from an indio,” Don Julio said. ”He had been sent by the Healer a couple of days ago. The message was that the naualli had died trying to attack you. I got here and found out Mateo knew nothing of it.”

”That's because it just happened,” I said. I told them about the fight with the naualli, and the feather that had ”killed” the magician.

”How could the old man know about the fight before it ever happened?” Mateo asked.

I shrugged and smiled with sadness. ”The birds told him.”

The Healer would not go to Mictlan, the Dark Place of the underworld. He had died in battle as a warrior. He would go to the paradise of the Eastern Heaven.

With the help of the dream diviner, I prepared the Healer's body, dressing him in his finest clothes, his cape of rare feathers and his wondrous headpiece. I built a high pile of wood and laid the Healer's body atop the pile. Alongside the body, I placed a supply of maize, beans, and cocoa beans to sustain him on his journey to the Eastern Heaven.

His yellow dog had never left his side during all of the preparations. I killed the dog as gently as I could and laid him at the Healer's feet so the dog could guide him.

When the preparations were done, I lit the wood. I stood by as the pyre roared. The fire burned and the smoke raised into the night. I stayed until the last wisp of smoke, the last essence of the Healer, had risen to the stars.

Don Julio and Mateo came to the funeral place in the morning. Mateo led a horse that Don Julio indicated I was to ride.

”You are coming with us,” the don said. ”You have been a thief and a liar, a young rogue, old in the wrong ways of men. Now it is time for you to live another life, that of a gentleman. Get on your horse, Don Cristo. You are going to learn the ways of a caballero.”

PART FOUR.

While I swam in a sea of knowledge, I lived in a world of ignorance and fear.

-Cristo the b.a.s.t.a.r.do