The Adventures of Macho Caballo

By James E. Eades

In this book, the first of the Adventures of Macho Caballo, we find how Ramon Caballo got his nickname 'Macho', and how he inadvertently set out to become an unknown legend in that land. Just remember his advice: "Don't smart off to the spirits in the Spirit Cave!"

The Aztecs were falling, taken down by impudent outsiders, upstart subject tribes and disease. A thousand years of civilization, knowledge and magic were lost. Then a sorcerer, a rogue from Mesopotamia, devised a scheme in which he would preserve all the magic of his fellows and condense that lore into a single token, which he gave to an innocent tribal girl, who would pass the token along to her first-born child, which would always be a girl. When the disaster had passed, the sorcerer would find the girl's descendant and token so he could resume his quest for power. While his compatriot sorcerers died in the fighting, the sorcerer went into deep sleep in the bottom of a cave.

Centuries passed and the disaster continued, until one year the nation overthrew its oppressors. The echoes of that revolution woke the sorcerer and his minions, and they set out to locate the girl who must have the precious treasure. What they found was something else entirely. Or was it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: James E. Eades
• Release date: Sep 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465924094

James E. Eades

Having assumed the mantle of a life-long obsession with writing by selling a short story to Grit at the age of 13, James Eades has settled down to write fantasy, scurrilous sci-fi and western novels. He currently resides somewhere in the pine thickets of Arkansas and is reportedly trying to learn how to say the word 'Nuclear' with a straight face.

Book preview

The Adventures of Macho Caballo

A Tale of Brave Deeds, Ancient Evil, and Butterflies

by James E. Eades

Copyright 2011 James E. Eades

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Table of Contents

Prolog

Chapter Uno - The Spirit of the Spring

Chapter Dos - To Market

Chapter Tres - Waiting for Papa

Chapter Quatro - Romancing the Horse

Chapter Cinco - A Shadow at the Fiesta

Chapter Seis - Gains and Losses

Chapter Siete - Strolling Through the Market

Chapter Ocho - Even Cinderella Had a Ball

Chapter Nueve - False Trails and Bad Roads

Chapter Diez - Of Secret Aims and Bargains

Chapter Once - The Shell Game

Chapter Doce - The Rescues Begin

Chapter Trece - The Thing at the Top of the Stairs

Chapter Catorce - I Would Not Leave Her Alone on the Mount

Epilog – Ride Away

Author's Afterword

Prolog

Abuelito! Abuelito!

Two small forms--a boy and a girl--burst from the screened-in front porch, competing to see who can yell the loudest. Grampa! Grampa! They surround the old man, clinging to his legs.

Ah! Mi Queridas!

The old man stoops to one knee, gingerly, to gather them into his arms.

Thomas and Raimunda. Are you ready to be a good little Machito and Machita? He smiles as they try to drown each other out with promises.

He lifts his face from the sweetness of their hair, to greet the woman who emerges from the porch. She wears a business suit, a dark gray velvet skirt and a warm rose silk blouse with subtle designs picked out in deep red.

Good morning, Patricia. God's grace to you.

Thank you for coming over, Papacito. We may be late getting back. I'm sorry. Patricia smiles and brushes his forehead with a kiss. Lerdo is so very stubborn about states rights and he argues about everything. Children, be good for your grampa.

We will! calls Thomas as he rushes to help close the coach door. Raimunda, torn between clinging to Grampa and racing Thomas to the coach, decides to cling. As soon as the coach departs with their parents and the dust from the road settles, they are back at his side.

Where is Abuelita? Raimunda wants to know.

Oh, she could not come today, says Grampa. He attempts to rise from his knee. At first he is unsuccessful. With the children's help, he finally stands. She had to go visit some friends in the hills.

Who was that? Thomas takes up the questioning.

After glancing around to be certain no one else is listening, Grampa bends down close to their ears.

He whispers, Spirits!

Why can't she see the spirits some other time? complains Raimunda. We want her to visit!

The old man is shocked. Ah! So I am nothing?

I don't mean like that! Can't she comes to see us first?

Well, as to that.... Grampa pauses, making a face as he puckers his lips in thought. You know, sometimes it is better to be polite to the spirits. You never know when they are planning something very important, and their plans might include you.

Awww, you're making stuff up again! Thomas declares. Mamá says you do that, sometimes.

Okay, Abuelito sighs, as if he yields to pressure. For today, I will speak only the truth.

Raimunda pushes between them, demanding, Tell us a story, Abuelito!

Yes! A story! Thomas begs as he jumps about. One with wild animals and Indians!

Some of your own relatives are Indians, Grampa points out.

You know what I mean! Wild Indians! Comanches! Apaches!

Raimunda breaks in again. I want a story about beautiful señoritas, and handsome vaqueros... and horses!

Yeah! Lots of horses! Thomas agrees.

Oh, very well, there is a story... grumps Grampa, although they can tell he is well pleased with the request. If one of you would bring my tobacco from my pack. And the other, bring me some cold water for my parched throat.

Mamá had some hot tea made.

No! The old man jerks back. No, I would much prefer cold water. I'll be out in the garden, on that bench under the arbor.

Presently, he sips the water and lights his pipe while the children scramble for a seat by his side. Finally, he speaks.

You know, it was water that started the whole thing.

Water? Where's the wild animals? Thomas pipes.

Abuelito regards him sternly. Maybe you are too young for this story. It has a lot of long words in it, and some of them are strong language. Seeing the tears begin in their eyes, he chuckles. Perhaps I could soften them for your tender ears.

Thomas suggests, You could say 'gosh' and 'darn it' for the bad words!

Now, hush, Thomas! Raimunda says. I want to hear about the señoritas!

The pipe has gone out, so the old man relights it before he says:

v^v^v^v^v^v

It begins in the still of this cave in central Mexico, deep underground, where silver water ripples and chuckles to itself, flowing from ewers of granite. At one time boiling hot, the flow has cooled until it is merely tepid, for the water has traveled far beneath the golden brown skin of this land, traveled in the arteries of a continent, seen surface barriers as mere trifles, mountains as amusement rides, deep lakes as portals to the infinite.

For now, at this moment in time, the water gurgles out of confinement, washing over precious minerals and gold, pouring upward from the piercing blackness of the depths.

The water remembers.

It recalls the first men to step across its faltering streams to the north as they followed the game, their tribes migrating south, as if it were this very instant - for time is seen differently by the water.

It recalls a time....

v^v^v^v

In the dawn of civilization, during the triumph of the Mayas, there arose a tale - of a boy kept from his true love because she had been taken to be a temple maiden. Trying to get to his love, he dressed as a girl and slipped past the temple guards. Travelers speak of a festival in that land to this day, celebrating the romance.

However, there is a dark side to the story, of the means the boy used to fool the guards, for some say he enlisted the help of a witch, but the witch presented him with a choice - accept a terrible consequence or give up his love. If one thinks about it, the boy would have had to have been very convincing. Temple maidens were sacred and their guards would have been prepared for tricks by amorous suitors. After all, anyone can wear a dress.

Thus was formed the first curse.

v^v^v^v^v^v

Boy that's a serious curse! Having to wear girl's dress? Brrrr!

Shut up, Thomas! Raimunda glares at him.

The old man fumbles with the pipe and smiles as he listens to them squabble, then he says, Now, where was I?

They are immediately attentive.

Oh, yes....

v^v^v^v^v^v

Then it was centuries later, in the 1500s, by our way of reckoning.

A schism had developed in the league of Aztec sorcerers who advised Moctezuma. Loyal sorcerers had become convinced that the newly arrived Spaniards were related to the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl and were, underneath, wise and peaceful. These sorcerers favored the ruler's interpretation and tried to explain why the newcomers were not acting as predicted.

The other side was more pragmatic and prepared for the end of their world. The horsemen of the invader's faith had arrived, with famine, plague, war and unrest loose upon the land. Facing the destruction of all that they revered, these sorcerers made preparations.

Strong preparations.

v^v^v^v

Beneath a man-made hill, illuminated only by a single shaft of light filtering down from a hole hundreds of feet above, two people struggled. One held aloft a wafer of obsidian, variegated brown and white and liquid red, while the other person served only one purpose in the ceremony, and that was to bleed. A drop of reddest blood fell away, unnoticed, to enter a darker shaft, a well cut hundreds of years before by sanctified priests of a god long since passed up by the current religion.

Through space and time it fell, this tiny drop of reddest fluid, until it found the water, and the water paused to reflect on what should be done with this humble sacrifice. Through centuries the water reflected, until the time was right, for water had its own way of reckoning time.

Wise men say, Do not joke with water, for while it may be true that water has a sense of humor, the joke will always be on you.

It begins in the still of this cave.

Thus was formed the second curse.

v^v^v^v

Always, there were the drums. A deep, sonorous sob, barely above the level of perception, heard far off across the fields and valleys and hills.

Closer, now, and let the drums sweep you in. Sweep you into the warm darkness of their deep, slow pulse.

Closer yet, and you can no longer hear them, for the sensation presses upon your vital organs, pressing and releasing in a slow, impelling rhythm, compressing and releasing and all the while pulling you closer yet, until there is nothing but the warm darkness welcoming you in and under and down, sinking like slow sand as you move down under their weight, until you have no choice but to obey their compulsion.

You step onto the next ledge, and the next, rising over the multitudes below and looking down to see nothing but the waves of a sea of humanity breaking about this man-made hill. The soul of the sky beckons you yet upward, until you reach the top and you lie back to stare at the fading stars.

Centuries passed. It was time for water to decree the third curse.

v^v^v^v^v^v

But where's the wild Indians and banditos? complains Thomas.

The old man brings his mind back from where it had been wandering, and he smiles.

You want bad guys? Okay....

^v^v^v^v^v^v

Before the Adventure Began:

A bellow of rage sounded from the deep brush along a half-hidden trail, somewhere between the civilization of La Capitol, Mexico City, and the insignificant town of Villarica del Norte.

They don’t have it!

Ramón twisted about, facing the person who had shoved him pell-mell into the stockade enclosure.

A huge, muscular man in a topknot of unfamiliar design towered over him, naked except for tattoos and a loin-cloth decorated with mystical symbols - a warrior, from a tribe he didn’t recognize. Though he rolled quickly to his feet to face his attacker, he couldn’t see the man’s face for the glare of sunlight spearing through branches overhead.

Stay with your companions or they die! the man roared, motioning him back.

The three girls who were his companions cowered at the rear of the tiny stockade. High timber walls blocked escape on three sides and they watched in dismay as the last wall rise to enclose them, lifted by hempen ropes which smoked and strained over a staunch tree limb as the warrior bent his mighty back to haul the wall into place.

The smallest of the three girls broke into terrified sobs. The other two girls, closer to Ramón's age, stared with wide-eyed despair at the barrier of log walls closing them in.

From the bushes, crows laughed - a raucous cackle without heart or mercy.

What is this thing? cried the oldest girl.

This is a cage! Ramón yelled at her, his patience gone. It's a trap, and you led us right into it! Stupid girls!

He loosed a disgusted sigh. Life had been so uncomplicated only a few hours before.

v^v^v^v^v^v

Bueno! Thomas declares and grins. That's more like it!

v^v^v^v^v^v

Years Ago - It Might Have Been This Morning:

Slowly, dawn slivers the horizon until only one bright light is left in the heavens, close to the verge - the glittering diamond that is Venus, the morning star.

Three dark figures watch the early morning sky.

One speaks, Our wisest leaders think to placate them, but they cannot be stopped. All the while, the Goddess of Death descends into her fiery home.

A second figure nods gravely. Soon there will needs be a sacrifice.

Time goes away for a measure, and then another, lost in obscurity, almost as the underground rivers flow far beneath the surface and traverse the length of the Mexican nation.

Far from their hill, rising above the Mexican peninsula, the bright spark of Venus spins in its orbit, sometimes gracing the morning, sometimes appearing as the evening star.

Far out in the solar system the other planets turn, almost like a cosmic clock. From the darkness before dawn, a voice speaks -- a voice, a burble, a murmur of water struggling over stone, This will have to suffice.

To be answered by a splash of indignation, water hissing over molten rock, This? Preposterous!

We have extended the beckoning to the True Intended, sighs the gurgling stones. Far is the distance. Long is the time required. If one answers, that one must serve.

Preposterous! Unheard of! It has never been done!

Oh, yes. Recall, Sisters, before you say this, the stones chuckle in humor. This one will serve.

A chorus of foam over cataract answers, So be it. There must needs be a sacrifice.

Yes. In a dying hiss, water over molten rocks can be heard, reluctant, This one must serve.

v^v^v^v

The concentric circles of planetary orbits shimmer as symbols fade into view - astrological glyphs from ancient days. These glyphs distort until they become Mayan writing and then the circles fade into the Aztec calendar, rolling along in the starry background. Music trills - tympanic and flauten - along with a deep, sonorous drumbeat more felt than heard.

A boy stirs and yawns in a weathered shed beside the hard-surfaced road, stretching as he rises to face the morning sun, trying to remember his dream...

He had been suspended above a great round circle, with blinding light spilling down from above, while from somewhere a huge drum sobbed, like a giant, beating heart. The thumps had filled him with a nameless dread. Even now he looks about, for he can still hear them....

Lines appear across the circle of the calendar clock, the symbols fade away and the wheel rolls. The circle becomes a cart-wheel, fashioned of planks bolted together with a rusty hub, clunking along the bumpy gravel road. The drums devolve into the thump of the road, while the flute becomes the complaint of an ungreased hub, rising and falling with the wheel's tortured progress over the roadway. Seeking the sounds, the boy spies the mule and cart.

Heh, says Ramón Caballo, son of Manuel Caballo, the self-confessed greatest horse-trainer in all of Mexico. A dumb old cart-wheel. That's all. I knew it all along.

He gathers his pouch and resumes his journey.

v^v^v^v^v^v

Hey! Thomas waves his hand to break into the tale. His name is just like ours! Only they call him 'Caballo' instead of 'de Caballo.' Why?

Abuelito smiles indulgently at the boy's offense and says, Oh, that is because I'm telling this tale and not you. Do you want me to stop?

Huh? Oh! No! Thomas settles back to ponder. I'll be quiet. But, I'm confused. When is all this happening?

v^v^v^v^v^v

It was earlier in the morning before the ambush, and life was good. Ramón was doing what he did best.

He ran.

He ran with the easy grace of unhurried speed, the mile-eating pace of his ancestors relaying messages from rulers of one city to another, a courier without a purpose, a horse-master without a steed, afoot on the royal road from Tenochtitlan past Tula, the former Toltec capitol.

He ran the way his forefathers did, with the easy, rangy gait of the antelope, a flowing, springy step that conveyed him north toward home.

His pouch, fashioned like the messenger pouches of centuries before, swung close by his side in easy rhythm to the relentless motion of his legs and arms. The people he swept past - farmers trudging to their fields, families on their way to market, children playing in fruit groves along the gravel road - waved and gave him their encouraging grins, as if he were truly one of those who sped messages between the lords of the land in time before.

Three hundred years before, he would have hurried his pouch past majestic temples and shrines, monuments to honor deities of earth and sky. Now these buildings were the rubble over which his calloused feet trod. The ancient gods, once honored, now forbidden even to memory by the new order, have their faces and shapes carried in the designs woven into the fabric of his pack, chosen by craftsman only because their patterns were pleasing to the eye.

He ran where others would have ridden prancing ponies, up the dusty farm roads between fields of corn, beans, squash and melon. Past island villages and hamlets he flowed, the road a river, huts and hovels and adobe chalets floating on the stream.

On previous dawns children had been already up and about, doing their chores, feeding their animals and preparing to help with the crops. Young boys ran alongside him, laughing and shouting for a while and being left behind as he never stopped, never faltered in his step.

Girls waved from their fields and called, giggling as he passed on, whispering to themselves as they watched him ignore them.

He had spent the night in an unused shed, without supper. With this dawn came a gnawing hunger and he was happy to see a cozy village, floating like a collection of rafts on a sea of vegetables, with waves of corn, beans and squash lapping at the edges. He headed for the town center, where someone was surely cooking a late breakfast. Villagers stirred, plumes of kitchen smoke lifted from squat chimneys and tantalizing odors wafted into the roadway.

A man in dusty travel garb, leaning against the side of an adobe wall, stirred as Ramón passed. Señor! the man said, in a hoarse whisper. You journey to Villarica, no?

Um, yes, Ramón paused, wary because, although the fellow did not appear to be dangerous, you couldn't tell about those who lived on the open road.

The highway takes a dogleg to the east up ahead, going around the swamp. If you cut through, you can save a whole day. I'm going that way but I do not like traveling by myself. Perhaps we can accompany one another and I will feel safer, not being alone.

Ramón's chest swelled imperceptibly. Perhaps, he agreed. I might.... He was interrupted by a shout.

Hola! Could you be Ramón Caballo? A middle-aged woman appeared, dressed in blouse and skirt for the mid-day heat to come, with a mantilla wrapped about her shoulders to ward off the early morning chill. When Ramón turned back, the dusty man had slipped away.

We have been told to expect you on this day! the woman went on. Come! My nieces have prepared breakfast!

Nieces? Ramón said, feeling a sense of unease.

Esmeralda and Felicia. They are anxious to meet you, the woman smiled as she looked Ramón up and down, saying They will not be disappointed.