four days, the rain continuing unabated. In spite of this, after three days in the area of Cholula, the party was again on the move. They traveled to the village of Iscalpan where they stopped momentarily at a Franciscan monastery. The good fathers asked them to stay. With winter fast approaching, however, the Robledos thanked them for their hospitality and were again on the move. Although the members of the train knew that Popocatepetl was immediately to their south, they were unable to see it due to an extremely heavy fog. All remarked at how incredibly still and quiet it was as they left the courtyard of the mission with not a bird or creature within sight or sound. The area abounded with thickets and ravines and the caravan was ever at the ready for an attack.
At Iscalpan (Calpan), perched at 8,233 feet on the slope of an extinct volcano, the train began to climb the towering rampart which nature had provided the Valley of Mexico (ineffectually, it turned out) to protect it from invasion. Upon reaching what they had mistakenly believed was the summit, they found two wide trails, one of which had been laid out by Sebastian de Aparicio who had begun transporting freight between Vera Cruz and Mexico City in 1536. Juan told them that the right-handed path led to Chalco by way of Tlalmanalco. The left, Aparicio’s, which was more direct, led through pine forests to Amecameca. The latter track was the one they were to take, and again, this track began to climb.
At the ‘Pass of Cortes,’ more than 12,000 feet above sea level, Juan pointed out the remains of stout tree trunks placed there by Moctezuma’s allies to block Cortes’s progress. Cortes’s men had painstakingly removed them from the road. Remarkably, some of these trunks, which lay in adjacent ravines, were still intact, although, they were perhaps, only remnants of their former selves. It was cold now; the air crackled in a slight breeze, and, when they reached the top of the pass, it began to snow.
The snow began to accumulate as they trudged through the mud in the dimming light of the late afternoon. In this period before darkness, the sky to the west was magnificent, a bright salmon in color, that spread across the entire horizon. As the sun slipped behind the skyline, however, it grew very cold and the party knew it was imperative they find shelter before nightfall. They slept the night of 7 November in some huts that had been used as a sort of inn or lodging for Indian traders. The inn, or mesone, had originally been located here to provide shelter for itinerant Aztecan merchants. They made their journeys to the most remote borders of the land and to the countries beyond, carrying merchandise of rich stuffs. Now the owners of the inn, who appeared to live off the distressed condition of the traveler, provided lodging and firewood at a very high price. As night came, the members of the pack train ate well, but experienced intense cold, despite the small fires they lit within their lodgings.
Leaving early the next morning in sharp, clear air, they soon came to Amecameca which Juan said was only two days from the City of Mexico. Despite being very close to their final destination, they again decided to find lodging and to stay for a day. Food was plentiful now, and they had no difficulty finding abandoned huts within which to stay. That evening there was an additional stunning sunset. The flaming rays of the setting sun slipped beneath a bank of clouds to the west, coloring them so brilliantly they irradiated the mists below. As the sun went down, though, the sky turned a dull red in color and the temperature plunged again.
Two days later, on 10 November, the party set out for what they determined would be their final two days on the trail. The valley, for the most part, was level now and travel was easy. Covering about 15 miles on this day, they could see a magnificent lake, sky blue in color, extending before them as far as the eye could see. It glimmered in the sun and a forest of pinewoods grew down to its shores. Finally, over lava flows, they arrived at a village named Ayotzingo on the banks of Lake Texcoco where half of the houses were in the water and half on dry land. On the slopes of a low mountain that came down near the water’s edge, they found an inn where they spent the night. This would be their last night on the trail. Tomorrow, after 57 days in transit, 40 of which they had spent on the trail, they would be in the environs of the City of Mexico.
Texcoco
The day was far along when the mule train neared Texcoco. A cold rain began to fall, the rain soaking clothing, and dripping from the chins of those in the file as they plodded through the late afternoon. It was nearly dark. The sun, a reddish ball which the riders could see through the mist, taunted them with its hidden warmth as they rode into a small corral.
“We’re nearly there, Catcha,” Pedro said to Catalina. “A few minutes more and we’ll have you in a warm bed.”
Catalina, who had, on this last day, been carried between two mules on a litter made of poles and hide, did not respond. Unstable and uncomfortable, her litter, which had been constructed from saplings, and from rawhide, just barely met its urgent need. The injured mule, which had provided its lattice-like bed, had been shot and skinned, its hide sliced into strips and woven onto a rectangular frame.
The rain came down in a fine mist, a murky cloud of chilled droplets hugging the earth and concealing all about them. Juan and Pedro steadied the litter as it was being released from its bounds, taking it from helpful hands, and carrying it toward a house now revealing itself at the edge of the corral. The children followed.
Lacking a hearth, and unused in the winter, the house was poor, and cold, and damp. With only a bed in each of its two rooms, and no other furniture, it barely met its offer of shelter. Juan said that the house, one of two which he had on the shores of the lake, was the one in which he was born. If Pedro was going to stubbornly refuse to stay at Juan’s more comfortable home—with a hearth in every room—then this poor home was at Pedro’s disposal. The children, Diego and Lucia, were put in one bed, while their mother was placed in the second. After covering the beds with layer upon layer of blankets, which he had taken from among his cargo, Pedro, removed his own wet clothing and got into bed beside Catalina. He lay there quietly for a long time, listening to her coughing, to the falling rain, and to the sounds of his children who were sleeping in the next room. He stretched out at full length beneath the blankets, feeling cold and miserable. And still the rain fell.
The air was keen, the night biting. The room was spare and unbelievably cold, and Catalina’s condition worried Pedro greatly. He was in anguish at the unfeasibility of warming the room, and decided that in the morning, he would have to do something to improve their situation.
Catalina had a raw throat and was shivering almost uncontrollably. She had caught a cold and was chilled to the bone. During the night, she was feverish and her cold became severe, her condition seeming to have deteriorated into a serious malady. She now had a soaring fever, a convulsive cough, and an unbearable cramp in her side.
The next morning, Pedro stood at the door of Penol’s old home, looking at the early morning sky. The clouds were gray and dreary. Patches of pallid fog, delicate and as fine as corned gunpowder, had settled on the lake. A shorebird, unseen but still present on the waters, beat its wings noisily.
Pedro’s children stirred, but the house remained quiet, the Penol family nowhere to be seen. Mules stood in the small corral looking sad and forlorn, shaking water from their backs. Pedro looked beyond them, over the wall of the stone corral, and could see Juan, trailed by a small woman and three ragged children, leading a pack-laden mule up a footpath.
“Y la senora,” Juan asked as he unlatched the gate to the corral, “how is she?”
“Sleeping,” Pedro responded, leaving the doorway and moving into the muddy yard. “I’m worried,” Pedro said, addressing himself first to Juan and then to Maria, who stood behind her husband. “I’ve heard nothing from her.”
“And her fever?” Juan asked. “Is it still with her?”
“It was even worse last night,” Pedro responded, “but I think it’s gone down now.”
“She
