For one, he could hardly see. Two, he was having to lead the way through the rain, for Coatlicue did not know the route.
But most difficult of all, he walked without his sheltering cloak and headdress. He had been forced to leave them by the side of the road when the black rain made them too heavy to bear.
It was fortunate that he had discarded them, because the only warning he had of the impending lightning strike was the faint ozone tang and the rising of the hairs on his bare arms.
The knowledge that an electrical connection had been made between earth and sky galvanized him. Panic took him. In his alarm he leaped between the legs of his great stone Mother.
The bolt detonated. That was the exact sound. A ripping explosion, not a crack of lightning. Awesome to hear.
Coatlicue stopped dead in her tracks, and her entire body rippled with blue-and-green sparks and splinters of light.
When his ears cleared enough that he could hear again, Rodrigo heard the creak of her metal carapace as she resumed her untiring gait.
"You live, Coatlicue! " he called out.
"I survive. I must survive."
"We will both survive," he cried, following.
Not two hundred yards farther along, the second bolt struck.
Again the hairs lifted along his arms. Again there was the bitter ozone in his nostrils, and again Lujan sought refuge under the skirts of his mighty Mother.
This time he knew enough to plug his precious eardrums with his fingers.
Still the boom threw him off his feet.
This time Coatlicue crackled and sizzled like hamburger frying, her armadillo armor alive with violent electrical activity.
When it abated, she did not move.
Lujan crawled out to take in the fearsome sight. "Coatlicue! Mother! Do you still live?"
The only answer was the driving rain pattering and spitting off Coatlicue's steel skin. It seemed to spit in the face of High Priest Rodrigo Lujan, telling him his dreams of empire had been dashed by a vengeful bolt from the angry heavens.
Then the soldiers came.
COMANDANTE Efrain Zaragoza saw the second bolt explode and heard silent aftermath of its elemental fury.
He counted a full circle of sixty seconds by his watch. Two. Three.
"Our prayers have been answered," he breathed.
In a corner of the APC, a soldier cursed under his breath and Zaragoza knew the man had prayed for the other side. No matter. The saints had preserved Mexico, if not their lives.
It left only the mopping up and the harvesting of glory.
"Faster! Faster! Victory is ours!"
THEY SURROUNDED the inert golem with their vehicles, leaving no route of escape. It would look very bold on the TV, Zaragoza knew. For the helicopters still patrolled the skies broadcasting all to a cowering nation in need of a savior. Himself, he hoped.
Zaragoza was the first out. He approached the monster with only his H ne gun.
A half-naked man cowered at the feet of the demon that was as tall as a house.
"You are who?" Zaragoza demanded.
"I am abandoned," the man sobbed.
"You are indio. "
"I am abandoned by my Mother," he repeated.
The man looked so pitiful that Zaragoza decided to ignore him. Glancing over his shoulder, he fixed the orbiting helicopter camera ships and positioned himself so they would pick up his good side. Then, elevating his H ed fire on the monstrosity of baroque segmented steel plates.
The bullets spanged and dented the armor. But they might as well have been but hard candy. Nothing happened. The monster did not fall over. Zaragoza had hoped the monster would fall over. The sight would appear spectacular on TV Azteca.
"Soldados! Come! We must fire in unison if we are to topple this behemoth," Zaragoza cried, giving up on the hope of going down in history as Zaragoza the Giant Killer.
His soldados were not eager to leave the safety of their armored vehicles, but they did so. They stood around in awe of the silent golem.
"We will spray her breast with bullets so that she topples on her back, forever defeated," Zaragoza told them.
They formed a firing squad and began firing. It was haphazard fire, but it had an effect.
A section of armor cracked and dropped away. It struck sparks when it hit the road.
" Viva Zaragoza!" Zaragoza yelled, hoping his men would pick up the cry and it would carry to the helicopter microphones.
Whether that happened or not, was not to be known by Efrain Zaragoza. Or anyone else.
As if they had fractured a weak spot, the armor began cracking and falling away in large, dangerous pieces.
The pieces fell thudding, and it was all they could do to retreat before being crushed by the clanging plates.
They backed up sufficiently that the truth of their situation at once became clear. The armor was not breaking under the stress of so many bullet strikes.
It was breaking because the monster Coatlicue was shedding her hide as a snake sheds its skin.
She was casting off the heavy confining shell as she resumed her lumbering walk toward her unknown destination.
"Disparen!" Zaragoza ordered.
And his men emptied their weapons into the newly exposed brown stone that chipped and gave off puffs of rock dust in some places and actually bled in soft spots, but otherwise showed no sign of flinching or surrender.
Men made the sign of the cross as they backed away in mute awe.