The True Account by Howard Frank Mosher

Author:Howard Frank Mosher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

35

THE ANASAZI CHIEF and his outriders sat immobile in the twilight, watching my uncle and me ride slowly up the river valley as if in the final stages of exhaustion. We had left our weapons with Franklin and the Hidatsas, now hidden well back from the bluff behind the migrating buffalo. As we drew near, the Anasazis threw nooses around our necks, jerked us off our mounts, and hauled us stumbling into the camp. The mitered bishop watched us coming, with the alabaster dwarf on his knee and the giant at his side. As we drew near, the chief hurled his lance into the ground between us and the palanquin to indicate that we were to approach no closer. Then he spoke at length in a language unlike any I had ever heard. When he finished, the bishop turned to us.

“Good evening, sirs,” he said in English. “I am Stephanos Nacogdoches, bishop of New Spain and the territory known as Louisiana. My war chief informs me that you rode out of the bowels of the earth on two chimeras spewing fire. He says he slew the dragons, then subdued you and led you here. Perhaps you have a less fanciful explanation of your presence?”

“We do, Don Stephanos,” my uncle said. “My name is Private True Teague Kinneson. This is my nephew, Ticonderoga Kinneson. We have deserted from the party of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark, leaders of an American expedition of conquest. Your man found us half a mile north of here.”

“Bishop Stephanos. Not Don—Bishop. My ancestor was the Moorish general El Ibrahim, who conquered Madrid not once but twice and crowned himself bishop both times. A title I have inherited. Whither bound, my friend?”

“Home.”

“Home to old Spain? For I must say you much resemble another quaint old gentleman-soldier from that glorious empire.”

“No, sir, though I appreciate the compliment. We are on our way home to the Great Republic of Vermont. But,” he continued, “I’ve never yet heard that the Moors or the Spaniards either sacrificed human beings to pagan gods or practiced cannibalism.”

The bishop nodded at the dwarf and the giant. “The Whore of Babylon and my grand vizier, whom I call Polyphemus, have refined a bit on the beliefs of my ancestors.”

Meanwhile the dwarf leaned over and signaled to the giant, who drew his scimitar and whispered something to the bishop.

“Polyphemus wishes to cut off your head and feed your brains to the Whore,” Nacogdoches said in the politest tones. “What think you of this proposal, Private True Teague Kinneson from the Great Republic of Vermont?”

“Polyphemus is giving you bad advice,” my uncle said. “I think you need a new vizier.”

So saying, he picked up the Anasazi chief’s war lance and, to my utter astonishment, hurled it straight at the giant. Polyphemus dropped his scimitar, took several short steps backward with his hands clawing at the lance projecting from his throat, and toppled over backward onto the coals of the banquet fire. My uncle stepped forward and picked up the fallen scimitar.

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