Aztec Rage (64 page)

Riano's written reply stated that he was duty bound to fight as a soldier. He also gave me a private note for the padre, which I hesitated to read but did. Was I not a spy?

Riano's private note told the padre he was grateful for his offer to protect his family but that he would not need our protection, that he had already sent his wife and daughters out of the city.

Before long two couriers came out of the alhóndiga and whipped their horses frantically to race in different directions. One of the courtiers was shot out of the saddle before he reached the outskirts of town. A message was retrieved from him, and I read that, too, on my way back to the army's encampment.

The message from Riano was to General Calleja at San Luis Potosí. He wrote: “I am about to fight, for I shall be attacked immediately. I shall resist to the uttermost, because I am honorable. Fly to my succor.”

During our negotiations, I confirmed my estimate that Riano had no more than about six hundred men, of which at least two-thirds were soldiers. They were pitted against an army that now numbered in excess of fifty thousand. Only a few hundred of us were soldiers or were men like myself, armed civilians familiar with weapons.

Father Hidalgo had left Dolores with an army numbering in the hundreds, and in a twelve-day march to Guanajuato, the army had increased a hundredfold. But we'd had no time to train or discipline his turbulent sea of warriors.

“Riano will defend the barricades first,” I told the padre and Allende on my return. “He has positioned his uniformed soldiers on the roof of the alhóndiga at the barricades outside on the street, and along the way down to the river. The civilians will man the two buildings in the rear and the lower floor of the granary.”

“He'll keep a reserve,” Allende said, “a small force, perhaps ten percent, rested and ready to be rushed to trouble spots. He has a small area in which to use his mounted dragoons. He'll let them dominate the street until they're forced inside.” Allende jabbed the map of the area I had made. “Zavala is right. Our only way past their defenses is to drive them from the street and off the roof. Then we must attack the front entrance. The doors are massive, but we must breach them to win.”

“How do you wish to proceed?” Father Hidalgo asked.

Allende met his eye. “We have a hundred times more untrained peons than regular soldiers. If we're going to attract soldiers to our cause, we can't lose them in this battle. The musket men in the fortress would cut our small force of professionals to ribbons in minutes. If we had cannons and the room to employ them, it would be different. We don't. All we have is manpower. My plan is to test the mettle of our Aztecs. Let's see if they're an army that can carry the day against militia.”

Hidalgo didn't object, and I understood why. Allende, in his prideful way, was admitting that his professional soldiers could not win the battle. Our rudely armed, untrained “cannon-fodder” had to bear the brunt of the fighting.

Either the peons carried the day with their machetes and wooden lances, or the revolution would come to naught.

“We will pray,” the padre said, “and then we will fight.”

NINETY

I
TOOK A
position on the heights north of the granary with a panoramic view that enabled me to see what was to be the battlefield and to watch in other directions for any surprises Riano might have up his sleeve.

An enormous number of people arrived, not as combatants but as spectators. Thousands of Guanajuato's citizens, mostly the lower classes along with some of the poorer criollos, had gathered to watch the battle.

Do these fools think it's a bullfight?

From what I heard all around me, they were definitely on the side of the rebels. They not only had been abandoned by the Spaniards but also had spent their entire lives under the Spaniards' heels. In their minds, the difference between a criollo and gachupine meant little; a Spaniard was a tyrant who oppressed them financially, politically, and spiritually, regardless of what they were called.

Shortly before noon, the vanguard of our army came into sight, pouring into the city along the Marfil road. Carrying high banners of the Virgin, six priests came first, followed by Allende's uniformed troops making a
smart entrance to the military beat of drums. The crowds cheered at the display of military and religious strength.

Strictly for show, the priests and soldiers moved to the side almost immediately as along the causeway of Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato the Aztecs advanced. Naked to the waist—so they would not get blood on their only shirts—armed with machetes, lances, clubs, and bows and arrows, our Aztecs were a terrifying sight. Up to this point I had not thought of them as soldiers—or even as warriors—but as they moved to engage the enemy, they reminded me of the guerrilla bands I had fought with in Spain: men of the soil and mines who had the courage to face muskets in the hands of trained troops.

They crossed the bridge and came to the barricade at the cuesta de Mendizabal, where Gilberto de Riano commanded the troops.

“Halt in the name of the king!” he shouted.

He didn't wait for a reply, and none was necessary. Most of the indios couldn't have heard him, and few spoke Spanish. He shouted an order to fire. A volley of musket balls ripped into our advancing men. Many fell, but replacements kept coming. Another volley thundered, and more went down, but they kept advancing. A horn blew from Allende's command post, and the indios retreated.

The first shots had been fired; the battle had begun. The indios had faced musket shot and had advanced under fire. I felt a surge of pride at their courage.

Led by Allende's officers, the body of Aztecs formed into groups and approached the granary from different sides. In the meantime, the padre had taken possession of the city with more of our forces. I knew the plan was to throw open the jail and release prisoners if they agreed to join the cause. From my own days at the jail, I would say that there were few hombres who were incarcerated whom I would want on my side of a battle.

To my surprise, Father Hidalgo suddenly appeared, on horseback, pistol in hand, the true image of a warrior-priest. I leaped on Tempest and joined him as he rushed from point to point, giving orders for the assault and ignoring an occasional shot from a musketeer on the roof of the granary who thought he might get lucky.

Allende's militiamen positioned themselves at the windows and rooftops of those buildings facing the gachupine's positions, but they could have little effect on the granary defense. Marksmen with better weapons on the high roof of the alhóndiga picked off anyone who raised his head to take aim. I shook my head, knowing that the only way to take the building was to storm it.

Then an amazing process began. A host of indios at the riverbed down the hill from the granary began to gather rocks and break larger rocks into smaller sizes. Others carried the supply up the hill above the granary. I watched in admiration as the indios began raining the rocks down on the
defenders on the rooftop of the granary. It wasn't possible to throw the rocks at the roof by hand; instead the ingenious devils used leather
slings
to propel the stones.

Marina rode up beside me, her face glowing with pride, as the men of her race armed only with slings took on Spanish musketeers. “It's David and Goliath!” she shouted.

Musket fire from the roof felled scores of indios, but it didn't deter the avalanche of rocks raining down. Soon the musketeers fled from the storm of stones, fleeing inside, abandoning the advantage of the high roof.

Dense masses of indios advanced on the barricades and buildings. Musket fire ripped through the ranks at point-blank range. It was impossible for the Spanish to miss; they had merely to point their weapons in the direction of the horde.

Marina's glow turned grim as we watched the slaughter grow. Aztecs were being killed by the hundreds, but they kept coming, stumbling over their dead compañeros, those without a machete gaining one from a lifeless hand.

I stared at the horrible carnage, unable to speak, unable to even gather a coherent thought in my head. I'd heard the stories of whole Spanish families armed with little more than cooking utensils fighting French invaders, but nothing I'd seen in Spain had prepared me for the slaughter of thousands of innocents before my own eyes.

They drove the defenders from the barricades and back into buildings. When the defenders of the barricades at Los Pozitos Street became hard pressed, Riano charged out of the granary with twenty men to support them. After calmly positioning the support troops, the governor made his way back to the granary and paused at the entrance to view how the battle was going. One of our own soldiers armed with a musket found his mark and put a bullet in his head.

I felt nothing as an ounce of lead ball blew off a corner of the governor's head. The plan to murder me once the Manila galleon got out of sight of land could not have been schemed without his permission. And Marina was right: He was honorable only to his own kind. He raised his sword to stop other men from enjoying just a few of the privileges he had been born with; now we killed him with that sword.

When I saw him fall, I realized something significant had happened. The governor of a large, rich province, Riano had been one of the most powerful men in New Spain. But he had been brought down by a peon with a rusty musket.

The war had truly been brought home to the gachupines.

The situation suddenly grew worse for the defenders as the Aztecs continued to press forward in the face of murderous musket fire. Riano's men at the barricades fell back, running for the doors of the alhóndiga.

All at once my heart raced.

Marina!

She had ridden into the midst of it, hacking at the defenders. Her horse went down from musket fire. I gave Tempest the spurs and slapped his rump. The stallion leaped forward. I grabbed the signal horn I had strapped to my pommel and let out long blasts as the stallion surged into the indios. They parted like the Red Sea for me, a few getting knocked aside by Tempest when they didn't move fast enough. I saw Marina look back at the sound of the horn. Her horse was down, but she was on her feet. She shot me a glare and turned around to join the melee.

Something smacked my hat. I had a vision of hot lead ripping off the top of my head, but my hat—and head—stayed on. I rode lower in the saddle, praying that the stallion wouldn't take a bullet. I came up behind Marina and grabbed her by the back of her hair. Wheeling Tempest, I headed out of the melee.

“
Akkkk!
“ I let go; she'd smacked me with the flat of her machete. “Puta-bitch.”

Musket shot smacked the ground around us. “Com'on.” I pulled her up, and Tempest took us out of range.

Back on the hill with a bird's-eye view of the battle, I said, “I know you thirst to avenge every insult suffered by your people since Cortés, but you're being unfair to the padre.”

“How?”

“He has tens of thousands of brave Aztecs willing to die for him. He needs a few good spies to stay alive long enough to help him win the war.”

My argument seemed to have the desired effect of calming her rage. We watched the Spanish retreat into the granary. Most of them made their way inside, but others, including a detachment of dragoon cavalry under the command of Castillo, didn't make it before the massive doors closed. The soldiers left outside were caught in the open. Indios attacked and killed them without mercy. I saw one uniformed defender exploit the confusion. Removing his uniform, he joined the attackers as one of them.

With their leader down, the defenders were stunned, but we still hadn't bled the fight out of them.

Gilberto Riano appeared to have taken his father's place as leader. I saw him direct men who dropped explosives that detonated on the indios massed in front of the granary. I stared at the familiar-shaped objects for a moment before I realized what they were: mercury flasks, the type used to supply mines with quicksilver by my uncle. The defenders had filled them with black powder and shrapnel and attached short fuses. When they exploded, often igniting in midflight, the effect was devastating: razor-sharp, flesh-shearing metal flying like fire and brimstone blasted out of hell as the bombs exploded in the midst of the attackers.

But even as the bombs and musket volleys violently blew openings in
the mass of indios, the breaches were closed as more took the place of their fallen comrades.

We left our position and joined the group surrounding Hidalgo and Allende. The two leaders were following the action and sending messages to officers on the front lines. The front door had to be breached.

Miners from the silver mines had joined our insurrection. The padre sent several miners, partially protected by large earthen vessels, up to the massive doors to attempt to breach them with iron bars. But they had little effect on the doors.

Suddenly a young miner, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old, stepped up to the padre. He removed his straw hat and shyly met the padre's questioning look.