Aztec Rage (56 page)

Heading back into town, I found no sign of the riders or of Isabella's coach. The wounds in my leg were bleeding, the slash the more severe of the two. The pistol ball had been a graze. I tied a bandana over the slash wound. My wound was not as serious as that of the man whose arm I chopped off. He was dying, not only because his friends had abandoned him without stopping the bleeding but also because a cut or amputation at a joint was a death sentence.

I had no sympathy for the man. He was a cowardly dog. He and his worthless amigos had attacked me five to one. My death would have been murder, plain and simple. Attacking a lone man in a pack, like coyotes, is inherently dishonorable. I had not seen their faces, but I knew who they were or what they were: paseo dandies.

That I would be attacked by a gang of cowards angered me. But what made me sick to my marrow was not their treachery or the painful wound to my leg, it was Isabella's betrayal.

¡Ay de mí!
The woman I loved had lured me to a meeting where I was to be murdered. How could she have committed this crime? The only motive I could see for Isabella cooperating with the cowardly swine was that her husband forced her. Her husband must have done terrible things to her to force her betrayal?

Even as I struggled to excuse her, however, the awful statements she had made still rang in my ears, breaking my heart. Ridiculing the boots she had given me. True, her husband's carriage driver was within earshot and would no doubt be reporting even now everything she'd said to me back to her husband. Still the cruelty of her words and the derision of her laughter tore at my soul.

But then I remembered the way she looked coming out of that copse, walking toward me in front of the cottage: the golden hair, that gorgeous smile, those utterly unforgettable eyes . . .

“Isabella!”
I shouted at the night. “What did they do to you?”

I wisely did not return to my house nor did I try to run for it. I had lost too much blood. Instead I went to the one woman in this world who had the least reason to help me but who I knew also had a true heart.

Raquel hid Tempest in a friend's stable. “Andrés Quintana Roo, a member of a literary club I belong to, is hiding your horse,” she said, when I awoke the next morning in her bed.

“I have ruined your blankets.” The bleeding had stopped but not before soiling her bed.

“Blankets can be washed.” She hesitated. “Your house has been burned. The official word is that you were crazy and attacked innocent, unarmed criollos.”

“And then burned down my own house.”

“Yes, that, too.”

“Did I murder any widows and orphans?”

“The rumors teem like lemmings.”

“You're being evasive. Tell me what's being said.”

She sighed and refused to meet my eye.

“Say it. I can take it; I'm much man.”

“For so much man, you have so few brains. The gachupines have spread a story that you tricked Isabella out into the country with a threat that you would murder her husband. That the caballeros came along and found her struggling with you—”

“As I tried to rape her.”

“Sí, as you tried to rape her. They came to her aid, unarmed, and you attacked them. You killed two of them, seriously injured another, and then fled before they could catch you.”

“Raquel, in your entire lifetime, have you ever seen a caballero go anywhere without a weapon?”

“I don't believe a word of the story nor do some others. But most people believe the worst. If you're caught . . .”

“I'll have no trial, no chance to defend myself.” Nor would there be any money to purchase “justice” with. The viceroy would seize my bank credits.

I couldn't stay with Raquel. I'd bring only misery upon her if they caught me at her house. She was willing, but I wouldn't put her at risk.

“You can't ride your horse out of the city. Tempest is too recognizable, too conspicuous. I have discussed it with friends at my literary club—”

“With Lizardi?”

“No, we're all aware of his loose lips. Tomorrow my friends will disguise Tempest, and a group of them will ride out of the city with one of them mounted on the stallion. They'll leave him at a rancho of a friend of mine.”

“Warn them to have the best rider on Tempest.”

“They already know that. His bad temper is as notorious as yours. Getting you out of the city won't be difficult. Leona Vicario will pick us up in her carriage. You can lay down inside until we are across the causeway. She and her family are known and highly regarded throughout the city.”

“Are they searching carriages and wagons?”

“No. Everyone believes you fled in one direction or the other, anywhere but back into the city. But we can't risk someone spotting you by accident.”

“These friends of yours, the book readers, why would they help me?”

She hesitated again. “A new wind blows through the colony, one we hope will blow away the old and bring in the new.”

“You mean revolution?”

“I don't know what I mean. But understand this: You have experienced personal injustice and have witnessed firsthand the social wrongs committed against other people. Still you have never taken any side but your own. I told my friends that someday you would take a stand and that when you did, all the power and anger of the toughest hombre in New Spain would be with us.”

Leona Vicario reminded me a great deal of Raquel. Like Raquel, she was courageous, highly intellectual, and outspoken. They both pelted me with questions about conditions in Spain. Leona burst out crying at my descriptions of the atrocities committed against the Spanish people and the heroics of families defending their homes against the invaders.

We didn't discuss in the coach where I'd be heading, but Raquel had made a suggestion earlier. “Go to Dolores,” she said. “The padre will be happy to see you.”

“No, I'd bring trouble to the padre's door.”

“Trouble is already at his door. I told you about the winds blowing in the colony; some of them are ill winds. He may soon need a strong sword at his side.”

As usual, she spoke in riddles and mysteries. I knew something was brewing, but she'd tell me no more.

When we got to the rancho, I gave both Leona and Raquel great hugs for their rescue of me.

“Understand this, beautiful ladies: I have little left in this world of material value, but thanks to you, I still have a sword and a strong arm to use it. If you ever need me, send me a message. I will come to you. Your enemies will be my enemies. I will fight for you, and, if need be, I will die for you.”

“You may find, Juan de Zavala, that someday your offer will be accepted,” Leona said. “But hopefully not the dying part.”

Raquel walked me to the corral and stood by as I saddled Tempest.

“I don't know how to thank you,” I said.

“You already did. You said that you would fight and even die for me. Other than giving his love, a man can pay a woman no higher honor.”

I looked away, embarrassed. She knew why I couldn't profess my love for her.

I mounted the stallion. He walked slowly out of the yard. When I turned to wave for the last time, she was rounding the corner where her coach was, a lovely figure in a black dress turning a corner.

It struck me like a thunderbolt from hell. I froze, breathless, then galloped Tempest up to her. She turned at the door of the coach.

“What is it, Juan?”

“Thank you for my boots.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “You can thank my father. He would have wanted you to have them. Did you know he really admired you?”

“Raquel—”

“No, it's the truth. He had no respect for the caballeros, who did nothing but dress like fops and parade up and down the paseo. He said you were different, that you could ride better than a vaquero and shoot better than a soldier.”

I left her with tears on her cheeks. Tears welled in my eyes too, but I assure you, only because the wind had blown dust into them. I am hombrón, and men like me don't cry.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

Dolores

T
WO YEARS HAD
passed since I had last ridden into the Bajío town of Dolores. Back then the church curate had still believed he could free the Aztecs from their bondage by teaching them Spanish crafts. In truth, I missed the old man.

As I approached the town, I realized that I also missed Marina. My head had been so fogged by thoughts of the beautiful but shallow Isabella for so long, I hadn't looked closely at the two strong, courageous women—Raquel and Marina—who had helped me at my lowest ebb and in my greatest peril.

I was over my infatuation with Isabella, yet every time I thought of her, a fist squeezed my heart. I couldn't accept that I had misjudged her so dreadfully . . . or that I'd been that great a fool. I still couldn't believe that she had willingly betrayed me. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced her husband had coerced her. Why else would she do it? It wasn't possible that she hated me enough to want me dead. It was that gachupine bastardo husband of hers.

So while I had left the capital with my tail between my legs, I was not finished with the marqués. Someday I would return and settle the matter.

According to Lizardi, the viceroy's men not only had destroyed Padre Hidalgo's indio enterprises, they also had forbidden the padre to reopen them under pain of imprisonment. As I drew closer, I could see that the padre's vineyards and mulberry trees were gone; weeds thrived where grapes once grew. Nor were the stacks of pottery and raw materials in front of the building that once produced ceramics.

An indio taking his siesta jerked awake at Tempest's approach and hurried into the building that had once been the winery. His body language intrigued me. He had shot me a startled glance, like a watchman looking out for intruders.

Why would the padre need a watchman? Was he back in the business of indio industries? I shook my head. I didn't know what was going on, but I did know that the priest had all the cojones the gods ever made. He had defied the gachupines once, and he might be defying them again. Raquel had even hinted he was up to something unusual, something that could bring the padre into a conflict with the viceroy again.

As I came up to the abandoned winery, Padre Hidalgo came out of the building. At the sight of me, his anxious frown broke into a joyous grin.

“What did you think, padre, that the viceroy's constables had returned?”

He laughed and gave me a big hug. “I'm surprised that you didn't come back the same way you arrived, with constables hounding your trail.”

“That may not be far from the truth.”

As we walked slowly along the road that had once been lined with grape vines, I described how I had left Méjico City. He didn't appear surprised that I had fled the city with blood on my sword and warrants in my wake.

“I know about your adventures already,” he said. “Raquel keeps me well informed. Of late, you've been the main subject. She sent me a communiqué two days ago telling me to expect you.”

I threw my hands up in mock frustration. “Everybody knows what I'll do next except myself. Have no fear, padre, I won't burden you. I stop only to say hello to you and Marina and will move on before first light, unless of course, my miracle medical abilities are needed.”

He laughed. “We shall see, we shall see.” He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze to the ground. “Since your return from Spain—no, pardon, señor, since your birth—the gachupines have treated you abominably. When they abuse those they deem beneath them, the gachupines offend that great lady, Señora Justicia herself. One cannot fault the gachupines for the acts of the man who claimed to be your uncle, but the abuse they have heaped on you because you're not pure-blood Spanish is injustice in its purest form. And you stand in the same shoes as most people in the colony: our Aztecs, mestizos, mulattoes, africanos. And even criollos like myself must in their own way pay tribute to the gachupines.”

My indifference to the plight of New Spain's masses must have registered on my face.

“Satisfy an old priest's curiosity,” he asked, shaking his head. “Look into your heart and tell me what you believe.”

“Unlike you, padre, I don't believe that men are intrinsically good. I don't believe in bringing justice and freedom to people who don't even
know the meaning of the words.
Liberty, equality, fraternity
—these are words that the French gave the world but then guillotined people by the thousands. I saw with my own eyes how the French raped and plundered another country. And I see the valiant Spanish peasants—poor fools that they are—fight to return to the throne a notorious tyrant and a craven traitor. I won't fight for a cause because I don't believe the people I fight for deserve it or give a damn about me.”

“Then you believe in nothing?”