Aztec Rage

by Gary Jennings

  Our main force arrived and engaged the royal forces shortly before midday. The vanguard of our attack consisted of soldiers, infantry, and dragoons from the provincial regiments who had come over to our side as the cities of Valladolid, Celaya, and Guanajuato fell.

  These troops, mostly mestizos, now comprised a force almost the size of Trujillo’s royal corps but with major differences: most of our “regulars” were untrained and poorly armed, and all were deserters from militia units. As a whole, they lacked the discipline and precise order of battle of the royal forces because few officers had come over to the rebel side. While we had a number of “generals,” we lacked all the lesser ranks except the foot soldiers at the bottom of the heap.

  Without good training, equipment, control, and the discipline of commanders, the uniformed troops were hardly better fighting units than the unmanageable Aztecs who made up for their deficiencies with overwhelming numbers. By the time I rejoined Allende and the padre’s command center, hordes of indios on foot—great tidal waves of them on each side—and bands of mounted troops on horses and mules were flanking the advancing royalist troops.

  I could see from the way orders were being rendered that the padre had left the plan of battle to Allende, the professional soldier. With our superior numbers, Allende encircled the royalist forces, sending units of better armed indios—men with at least machetes or steel-tipped spears—to positions on the heights, covering both flanks of the royal forces. Circumventing the opposing army, he had several thousand additional troops seize the road to Méjico City, cutting off Trujillo’s eventual retreat. Allende commanded the trained cavalry, while, on the royalists’ right flank, Aldama commanded the best-trained and -equipped troops he could find.

  As the uniformed rebel troops advanced, Trujillo’s cannons—masked behind bushes—cut them down with grapeshot. While the cannon volleys blazed alleys of death through the advancing columns, his musketeers also fired in timed volleys, pouring a lethal hail of one-ounce lead balls into the ranks.

  The synchronized firepower wreaked havoc on our lines. Men fell, screaming from ghastly wounds, while others turned and ran. By some miracle Allende and his officers kept the retreat from turning into a blind rout. Our artillery—nowhere near as effectively handled or manufactured as the royal cannons—were quickly deployed and returned fire, along with musket fire.

  Then I saw something that made me question my sanity. Courageous Aztecs, completely unaware of how cannons worked, were rushing up to the enemy’s cannons and shoving their sombreros into the mouths of the pieces, believing that they could stop the murderous fire that way. Their raw courage was unimaginable.

  Our main force pushed forward from the road to Toluca. With Allende on the right, Aldama on the left, and a fourth unit covering the road to Méjico City at Trujillo’s rear, we had completely surrounded the royalists.

  Had the insurgent forces been well-trained, armed, and disciplined, we would have finished Trujillo’s army on the spot. Instead the battle continued on. Our rebel commanders could not direct enough troops at the royal forces at one time to deliver the coup de grâce.

  We were now within shouting distance of Trujillo’s troops, so close our insurgent troops were inviting the royalists to desert and come over to the rebel cause. Asking for a parley, Trujillo attempted discussions on two different occasions only to end them. When he invited a number of our troops to come forward and discuss a peaceful resolution a third time, he suddenly ordered his men to open fire. Sixty of our men were immediately massacred and dozens more wounded.

  Infuriated, Allende ordered his troops to resume the battle with no quarter given. War to the knife!

  With a third of his command slaughtered, Trujillo sounded retreat, abandoning his cannons. With more loss of men, he fought his way out of the encirclement and broke through our forces holding the road to Méjico City. The retreat, which began as an organized maneuver, soon disintegrated into a chaotic rout. Many of Trujillo’s forces were butchered as they fled, but that treacherous, cowardly bastardo himself escaped. I led a mounted force to search for him. I found out too late that Trujillo had escaped down the road to Méjico City, disguised in a monk’s robe.

  We had won the battle but as we looked upon the dead—and my guess was that over two thousand on each side had fallen—I wondered what we had gained. Besides two thousand dead, it was inevitable that we would lose thousands more to wounds and desertion.

  We had faced a force twenty times smaller than our own. And we had defeated them by sheer weight of numbers alone. The indios had seen the effect of musket fire in Guanajuato and knew it could be lethal. But now, in a mountain pass leading to the capital, they had seen and felt grapeshot fired at close range and knew the horror.

  “We won,” Marina said, with pride.

  “Sí señorita, we won,” I said, without enthusiasm.

  “Why are you looking like all is lost?”

  “We soaked the ground with the blood of thousands. By tomorrow, ten thousand, perhaps twenty thousand, will have grown tired of this war and return home to harvest maize or milk their cows or whatever it is they do to feed their families. This was not a battle between two armies. We pitted Aztec passion for freedom against the reality of cannons and mass slaughter. Passion won. This time.”

  “You are a defeatist,” she snapped.

  “That and worse,” I said, giving her my kindest smile. “In truth, I don’t like me much myself.”

  The morning after the battle, the padre led his forces through the Las Cruces pass and descended the mountain on the road to the capital. The padre summoned me while the army set out.

  “I need you to evaluate the situation in the capital. When we reach the Hacienda de Cuajimalpa, a day’s march from the heart of the city, I’ll call a halt and await your report. But you must move with all speed; I will not be able to control this tidal wave at my back. Sometimes I think it controls me.”

  Marina was not coming with me. She had been training a group of women who would observe troop movements and gather marketplace gossip. We agreed that she and her petticoat spies would go ahead of the army on the road to the capital, scouting for ambushes and gathering information.

  Again, I went as a gachupine on my stallion because it was less risky than being a peon. Rich criollos and gachupines were on the run from the mob; the common people were in revolt. The viceroy’s soldiers and constables would not give me a second look if I bumped into them. My main concern was not to fall afoul of guerrillas or bandidos who didn’t recognize me as one of their own.

  NINETY-FOUR

  MÉJICO CITY—THE great prize of conquerors. It was the enchanting Tenochtitlán where Montezuma once ruled a pagan royal court that rivaled the absolute power and grandeur of Kublai Khan . . . the trophy sought by Cortés and his band of bandidos disguised as conquistadors . . . a city so dazzling that Cortés’s men gaped in awe when from a distance they first glimpsed its great towers and soaring temples rising from the surrounding waters, wondering if they had not been charmed by demons in a dream. Now it was the first city of the Americas, the seat of the Viceroy of New Spain. Far removed from the mother country, the viceroy wielded the power of a king.

  My first stop in the city was to see Raquel. Then I would find Lizardi, The Worm, and squeeze as much fact and rumor as I could from him.

  Raquel was bursting with excitement. “Word of a new miracle arrives daily. Everywhere the padre goes, he reforms the government and gives rights to the common people.”

  I didn’t want to spoil her euphoria, but I knew that words wouldn’t win the war, and battles won didn’t mean victory was clenched in our fists.

  We sat on the edge of the fountain in the cool shade of her courtyard. I described the progress of the war since she left us in the Bajío. She listened with rapt attention. Then she updated me on Isabella.

  “I know we can’t have a meaningful conversation until you know what is happening with your love.”

  “I don’t
care about Isabella. I’m over that.”

  “You’re a liar. Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

  Why is it women can see through my lies?

  She said, “Things have not gone well for Isabella. I suppose one could say that she got what she deserved, but having been raised in luxury myself and finding out one day I was penniless, I feel some sympathy for Isabella.”

  “Her husband is without money?”

  “That and worse. He had a series of financial reversals, all of them compounded by his attempts to cover his wife’s excesses. But as his fortune became as flighty and unfaithful as his wife, he had to leave the capital, go to Zacatecas, and sell his interest in a silver mine.”

  “Tell me he ended up in Guanajuato and was killed during the granary attack,” I said, hoping it was true.

  “He isn’t brave enough to have defended the granary. He left Zacatecas with saddlebags full of gold from the sale of his mine interest. On his way back to the capitol, a guerrilla band captured him. I understand he was smart enough to conceal his identity, giving them a false name. Had they found out he was a marqués, the viceroy wouldn’t have enough money to ransom him.”

  “What band has him?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “How did you know this story?”

  She smiled. “It came from Isabella’s mouth . . . in a manner of speaking.”

  “You’ve spoken with Isabella?”

  “Of course not. The marquesa wouldn’t discuss such matters with a mestiza who tutors the children of the rich.”

  “One of her friends is your confidante?”

  “Not likely. I’m a confidant of her maid.” She laughed at the look on my face. “Her maid’s sister works for me, helping me around the house. When she can get away, Isabella’s maid comes to visit her sister. Because Isabella once cost me a fiancée—”

  I cringed with guilt, avoiding her eyes.

  She grinned at my discomfort. “I was naturally curious—and jealous—of Isabella’s luxurious life. As everyone knows, a woman has no secrets from her maid.”

  “What are you saying? Isabella’s husband is a captive and she’s penniless?”

  “Yes and no. It appears Isabella’s husband hid the gold before he was captured. While Isabella may not grieve long if her husband is killed, without the gold, she’ll be destitute.”

  “How is she avoiding widowhood and poverty?”

  “I don’t know. Isabella has disappeared. No one knows where, not even her maid.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Charitable people say she’s taken her jewels to ransom her husband. The less charitable . . .” she shrugged.

  ¡Ay! If I had my hands on the marqués’s throat—one hand squeezing the life out of him while stealing his gold with the other—I could have . . .

  “My God! You should see the murder and lust on your face. Does she mean so much to you, even after she tried to have to you killed?”

  “You are imagining things. Tell me about the new viceroy.”

  “He is firmly in power and has the support of the Spanish population, criollos and gachupines alike.”

  “He must be spinning in circles trying to keep up with events, walking into a revolution.”

  “Don’t underestimate him,” Raquel said. “He’s resolute about defeating us. You must judge the viceroy in the context of his time in the colony. He barely set his feet on dry land at Veracruz two months ago when the padre revolted. Since that time, he has seen insurrection spread like a firestorm.”

  “He was a military man in Spain?”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Raquel said, “Venegas is not a great military strategist, but another politician who gained his military accreditation through position and influence. He is, however, a desperate man, with thousands of similarly desperate gachupines backing him, not to mention that all the major criollo families support him.”

  “We didn’t get significant support from the criollos even in the Bajío.”

  “They are frightened of the padre’s revolution. With each new conquest news of the atrocities grow.”

  “We have experienced much looting,” I admitted.

  “In the end the criollos must risk their fortunes and back the revolution as an act of courage.”

  I burst into laughter.

  “Exactly,” Raquel said. “It won’t happen. The only way the criollos will back the padre is if they know for certain he has won. Then they’ll beat down his door to protect their interests. Until then,” she shrugged, “the Aztecs and other peons must shed their blood alone in the name of liberty.”

  “What is the viceroy’s plan for defense of the city?” I asked.

  “He has armed the la Piedad causeway and the Paseo de Bucareli heavily and placed cannons on Chapultepec. But he has also kept a considerable number of troops in the heart of the city. A friend of mine, a criollo captain loyal to the viceroy, tells me that there is criticism of the viceroy’s positioning troops so deep in the capital. They believe he should have the army go out and meet the padre on a field of battle, not on city streets.”

  “I need to get a look at the troop positions myself.”

  “We can do that mañana.”

  “How many can he count upon? Allende estimates about seven or eight thousand troops.”

  “More than that,” Raquel said, “perhaps as many as ten or twelve thousand, because there’s been efforts to recruit troops. His main problem was inherited from Iturrigaray. When Iturrigaray was viceroy, he dispersed troops all over the colony, scattering them in widely separated provincial towns. Now Venegas is congregating them into larger units, ordering some here to protect the capital and others to retake the Bajío. The viceroy has ordered the governor of Puebla to reinforce Querétaro. He is taking the la Corona infantry unit, a unit of dragoons, two battalions of grenadiers, and a battery of four cannons.

  “To protect the capital, the viceroy has ordered the regiments in Puebla, Tres Villas, and Toluca here. He’s also sent a communiqué to Captain Porlier, a naval commander in Veracruz. He’s instructed the captain to seize all sailors from the harbor’s Spanish vessels and deliver them to the capital by forced march.”

  She told me the Archbishop had stepped up the church’s attack on the padre.

  “Besides the excommunications, the church is having its priests denounce the rebels from their pulpits, fulminating that the rebels are not just seizing political power, that theirs is a godless attack on the church, to destroy the holy religion.”

  Excommunication was a powerful weapon of the church. In its more extreme form, vitandus, which certainly would be the decree rendered, the excommunication barred the person from the sacraments of the church as well as from a Christian burial, in other words barring you from heaven itself when you died.

  I dismissed the church’s actions. “The padre knows the Inquisition well, and he already knows about the excommunication.”

  “He can’t ignore the allegations and charges. He has to publish his rebuttal. We’re a Christian land, and regardless of how some of us feel, the people, even the indios, are bound to the church.”

  “What other bad news do you have for me?”

  “The viceroy has offered rewards for the leaders of the revolt. He’s placed a price of ten thousand pesos on the heads of the padre and Allende, also promise of a pardon for anyone who kills or captures them.”

  I shrugged it off. “A bounty on our heads was always expected.”

  “That’s not the bad news. They’re only offering a reward of one hundred pesos for the bandido Juan de Zavala.”

  NINETY-FIVE

  THAT NIGHT, I scoured the various inns in the area of the main square for Lizardi. It didn’t take me long to find him. He welcomed me like a long lost brother, not out of brotherly love but out of love for my dinero.

  “You’re safe in the city,” he said. “The viceroy and gachupines are too busy trying to battle the revolt Hidalgo has incited to deal with a pe
tty bandido like you. They’ve put a large reward on the head of its leaders.”

  Lizardi didn’t know I was part of the revolt. I told him that I’d gone north to Zacatecas after I left the capital. I also didn’t volunteer that there was only a hundred-peso reward on my own head. I was outraged when Raquel said that the viceroy considered me only a small-time bandido instead of a great revolutionary hombre. For some strange reason, she found my anger amusing. How do you explain to a mere woman that a token amount was an offense against my machismo?

  I steered the subject to the revolution. Naturally, Lizardi was contemptuous—or perhaps, more accurately, jealous—of the pamphlets put out by sympathizers of the insurrections.

  “The writers are almost always priests,” he sneered. “What does a priest know about life?”

  I smothered a grin but couldn’t help saying “Hidalgo is a priest, and so are some of his generals leading the rebellion.”

  “They’ll lose; they don’t know how to fight a war. They’re trying to win the support of the criollos with their publications. They shout long live the king, long live religion, death to the French. The dribble is put out by both sides. The war will be won by guns not words.”

  I was able to obtain additional information from The Worm concerning the situation in the capital. Raquel, in her enthusiasm for social change, had a tendency to see events in a light favorable to the padre’s cause. Lizardi, on the other hand, while he spoke of social change, really meant an increase in rights only for criollos like him. But being fundamentally against everything that everyone else was for, he gave me insights into the current situation, insights I found disturbing.

  “The padre will never take Méjico City, at least not without destroying it. The battle here will be bloody.”

  “I’m sure the padre does not expect the city to fall to its knees and surrender when he’s at the causeway.”

  “The padre is expecting a battle, but he is not expecting the destruction of the city, and that is what will happen. This city has the highest concentration of criollos and gachupines in the colony in ordinary times. Since the rebellion began, thousands more have flocked here for protection. They’re terrified for their homes, their families, their lives and property. When the padre’s army tries to take the city, for certain, the gachupines will fight; they have no other alternative. And most of the criollos will join them.”