Aztec Rage

by Gary Jennings

  Our cavalry was still composed of vaqueros armed mostly with wood lances, though a number had machetes and a few rusty pistols. We didn’t have warhorses for our dragoons; their mounts were an odd assortment of undernourished hacienda nags, stolen silver-train mules, and indio donkeys, many of which bolted at the roar of guns, the crash of cannons, the sight and smell of blood.

  We marched out of Guadalajara, an endless parade of citizen-soldiers, only a handful with uniforms, few with real weapons, but all with heart and courage, the most courageous of all leading us. Dressed in a dazzling blue, red, and white uniform adorned with glittering gold braid, the padre was the conquering hero, raised to apotheosis.

  “We’re carrying enough supplies with us for a march on the capital,” he told his assembled officers before the parade. “As soon as we have routed Calleja, we shall claim all of New Spain for americanos.”

  I choked up from the passion of his words, the elegance of his manner and speech, the way he rode tall on a spirited white stallion that pranced down the street as the people of Guadalajara cheered.

  The armies faced each other near a bridge spanning the Calderón River. We were eleven leagues east of Guadalajara, a long day’s ride for a man on a horse. It was an area of arid fields and hillsides, sparse vegetation, dry grass, and stunted trees.

  The padre had our troops occupy the bridge and, on the approach to Guadalajara, take command of the high ground. He positioned the army cleverly: Calleja would find an assault from our front or our rear, which was protected by a barranca—a deep ravine—equally difficult.

  That night we sat in the darkness, tens of thousands of us, with more campfires dotting the hills than stars igniting the sky.

  Early the next day we learned that Calleja would move quickly against us.

  I said, “Calleja’s coming into this battle with two things in his favor: He has no respect for our army as a military unit, and he saw it turn tail and run once before.”

  Marina glared at me and scowled.

  I still bridled at her dismissal of me as a “defeatist.” In truth, I believed we would beat the Spaniard. We were superior to him in size, position, and we possessed the spirit to win. But I also knew Señorita Fortuna is one fickle puta.

  I wasn’t fit for real fighting, so the padre used me to reconnoiter. From a tree on a high hill, armed with a spyglass, I watched Calleja divide his army into two parts. Even at a distance, I recognized his uniform and saw that General Flon commanded the second unit. Flon, unlike the meticulous Calleja, was notoriously impulsive.

  From the way the formations lined up, I surmised that Calleja would strike our left flank while Flon hit us on the right. I sent a messenger to the padre with that information.

  Calleja attacked with fierce determination, slowly and methodically, pushing his troops against our front lines. We couldn’t stop the heavily armed, inexorably advancing troops who moved forward behind a blaze of musket fire and grapeshot. Still our army’s front lines did not retreat; they stood their ground and were slaughtered.

  Calleja made slow progress, but then the impetuous Flon did something that surprised me and no doubt Calleja, too. His unit suddenly charged our superior position with Flon himself leading the assault.

  I shook my head in amazement. Allende and the padre had expected the army would divide and attack in concert, but Flon lunged precipitously, hammering us with everything he had, while Calleja’s forces advanced doggedly, meticulously.

  “The bastardo wants the victory all to himself!” I shouted down to Marina.

  Flon, however, was attacking our strongest position. We repulsed his troops once, then again. When his artillery stopped firing, I shouted down, “His artillery is out of ammunition. His troops are pulling back.”

  I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. Calleja still pushed painfully ahead, his artillery firing up at our higher positions, but I was certain victory would be ours!

  An explosion erupted, nearly knocking me from the tree, and then another and another, enormous blasts, as if the earth itself had opened up in volcanic fury. I held on to the tree, stunned, my ears ringing, the acrid smell of black-powder smoke searing my eyes and nose.

  I looked down to see if Marina and the other runners were okay, certain that a close cannon shot had struck. She had been knocked off her feet but was already rising.

  “What happened?” she shouted.

  “Mother of God!”

  I stared in horror at the top of the hill. Raging fire and great clouds of smoke were rising from where our munitions wagons were gathered. A lucky round from Calleja’s artillery must have struck a munitions wagon, igniting its black-powder cargo. When it went up, it ignited another nearby wagon and then another and . . .

  “No!”

  The shout burst from me as I gaped at the chaos rapidly spreading through our ranks. How many of our men had been killed in the initial explosions, I don’t know. Hundreds for certain. Even worse, great clouds of thick, black smoke now engulfed our ranks as fire broke out in the tall brush and dry forest where our troops had dug in. Our ranks began to disintegrate, melting not from the steady advance of the Spanish troops, but from an inferno of fire and smoke.

  I scrambled down the tree, dropping the last ten feet, my wounds screaming. Smoke already engulfed us.

  With Marina and others beside me, we moved away from the advancing forces, joining the terrible retreat, confusion all around us. Even the wind was against us, blowing smoke and fire at us instead of the enemy, raining down cinders onto the dry grass and brush, starting fires everywhere.

  The tidal wave of Aztec warriors that we had hurled against other forces was now a maelstrom of humanity battering itself to pieces in the dense smoke.

  I held onto Marina, pulling her with me, choking and coughing, our eyes burning, as we fled the hail of lead put out by the advancing troops.

  What the Spanish forces could not do by force of arms—after six hours of combat and with half of the Spanish forces in full flight—Señora Fortuna had done. That unpredictable bitch had made Calleja master of the battlefield with a single lucky shot.

  ONE HUNDRED AND SIX

  WE RAN FROM the battlefield, routed not by force of arms but by smoke and fire, Nature’s army of conquest. We left behind paeans to victory and lost dreams of glory. We carried with us the bitter taste of defeat.

  Once again the leaders separated, this time escaping in different directions. Marina and I went with the padre. The only riders we took with us were four of the padre’s bodyguards. Handpicked by Marina, they never left his side. Many more would have come, but the padre didn’t want a troop of dragoons accompanying us. He hoped to be anonymous, inconspicuous.

  “He thinks God is punishing him,” Marina said, “and because of him, all those who follow him.”

  “Punishing him for what?” I asked. “For caring about people? Giving up everything and risking his life so poor people can own a piece of land and be free? God didn’t direct that cannon shot, it was El Diablo.”

  Near Zacatecas, Allende and other criollo officers, along with mounted troops, joined us at the hacienda del Pabellón . . . and brought trouble with them. Allende and the Aldama brothers demanded to speak to the padre alone. Marina drew her dagger, and I pulled my sword. The padre stepped between us. “No,” he said, “put away your weapons. I know what they want.”

  They wanted the padre to turn both the command and the revolution over to them. What command? I wondered mordantly. What revolution? Were we not on the run from the royal army?

  Still much of the north was in the hands of our compadres, and when they returned, the padre and Allende awed me with the audacity of their plan. We would go north, through Monclova, into and across the colony’s Texas region to the city called New Orleans in the Louisiana territory, newly acquired from France by the United States. Once in New Orleans, with the gold and silver we had “requisitioned” from the treasuries of Guanajuato and other cities, we could acquire
fine artillery pieces and high-quality muskets. With money and arms, we could raise and train another army.

  “When we return to the colony to challenge the gachupines, we won’t lead a horde of tens of thousands of untrained, poorly armed indios but a well-equipped, trained army, marching to drums and firing on command. All is not lost!” I told Marina.

  She laughed and clapped her hands. “They won’t be able to stop us; behind our trained army will be an endless ocean of my people. This time we americanos will take the capital, and the whole colony with it.”

  Still the criollos resented the padre. They increasingly believed they no longer needed him. In a moment of anger one of them implied that if he died en route, they would take control of the revolution’s treasure trove. With that much gold and silver in their hands, they could train a professional army for the cause of independence . . . or retire to great houses and live in luxury in New Orleans, no?

  But again Allende and the Aldama brothers refused to harm the padre. They were angry at him, blamed him for undermining the revolution by refusing to attack the capital and for not following their advice at Calderón Bridge, but they were men of honor; defeat would not drive them to murder the man they had earlier chosen as their leader. Moreover, Allende was now in command. The padre had retreated into his own thoughts. He no longer communicated with us except in gentle tones when we brought his food or when one of us made a comment about the terrain or the weather.

  We had stopped at the grand casa of the hacienda when a messenger arrived with a dispatch from General Luis de la Cruz, a high-ranking royalist officer. I later found out from Marina that the general had sent a copy of a general pardon offered by the Spanish cortes to everyone participating in the revolution. Cruz urged the padre to accept the pardon and order those under him to take it.

  Marina showed me the padre’s reply.

  In the performance of our duty we will not lay aside our arms until we have wrestled the priceless gem of liberty from the hands of the oppressor . . . A pardon, Your Excellency, is for criminals, not for defenders of their country.

  Let not Your Excellency be deluded by the fleeting glories of Brigadier Calleja; they are only lightning-flashes which blind rather than enlighten . . .

  The way north was hot under the noon-day sun but bitter-cold at night. On we rode into the forbidden zone, the vast Chihuahua desert that extended hundreds upon hundreds of miles across the Río Bravo to Santa Fe and the Texas province, a parched world of dust devils and cactus, savage Apaches and scorching heat. Our journey was further exacerbated by the interminable distances between the precariously arid waterholes.

  The Bajío ranged from fertile fields to the rocky, hilly terrain of Dolores and the Guanajuato mountains. But the journey north was rugged desert in which water could be obtained only at long intervals and in meager quantities. We continually feared that the next hole or well would be dry.

  A large group with a big thirst, our expedition now included sixty other leaders: priests and criollos who had thrown their lot in with us, most of them riding in fourteen carriages pulled by teams of mules. We had a couple hundred cavalry, still mostly vaqueros armed with lances and a few militia dragoons who had defected to the revolt when our banners flew high. Behind the elite and the horsemen came nearly two thousand foot soldiers, indios and mestizos, few armed with more than machetes and knives.

  We bore little resemblance to a military unit: we didn’t close ranks, marched to no cadence, maintained no particular order. Generalíssimo Allende did not believe any of this was necessary. No forces in the area were large enough to threaten us. The royal forces were at least a week behind us, if they had bothered to follow at all. And no indio groups, not even the savage Apaches, could threaten an army the size of ours.

  We expected no opposition from any military units in our path north. Because the north was sparsely populated, only small, scattered militia units were available to the viceroy, And even those could not be depended upon to support the royal cause. Because of their distance from the capital, the viceroys of New Spain did not maintain as firm a grip on the northern provinces as they did the rest of the colony. Northerners were hardy and had to work harder to survive than the people to the south. They were quick to join the independence movement after news of the grito reached them. The word coming from Lt. Colonel Elizondo, a northern officer recruited to the cause, was that the padre would be welcomed at Monclova as a hero.

  Despair continued to hover over us as we made our way. The panic of defeat was gone, and so was the initial jubilation over the fact that we would retreat all the way to New Orleans and buy fine weapons.

  We were a day from water at the Bajan wells when the woman who had dominated so much of my life came storming back into it like a swirling poisonous black wind from the Aztec underworld.

  I stared at the words written on a message carried to me by a peon on a donkey.

  Come to my aid, Don Juan. Renato holds me prisoner.

  “How did you come by this message?” I demanded of the messenger.

  “A priest gave it to me.”

  “Which priest?”

  “At Bajan wells, señor. He’s the priest I carry supplies to from Monclova.”

  The wells were to be our next watering hole. Monclova, a larger settlement, was further north.

  “How did the priest come by the message?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, señor.”

  “Where’s the señora held?”

  He looked confused. “Señora?”

  He knew nothing about Isabella. He had been handed the note, given my name, and instructed to find me among the insurrection’s army. It hadn’t been hard to find me; Marina and I had been riding point to avoid the dust kicked up by thousands of feet and hooves.

  Marina read my mind as I stared at Isabella’s handwriting.

  “You’re a fool! It’s a trap.”

  “Silence, woman. I’m not fooled. I’m not going for Isabella; I’m going to kill Renato.”

  “And if he kills you instead?”

  I grinned at her. “Then you will have to find someone else to slice with your sharp tongue.”

  I blocked a blow from her whip with my elbow. She was one tough woman.

  I followed the muleteer north toward the Bajan wells, leaving behind an angry woman and a lumbering army that was strung out for miles.

  Many thoughts flowed through my mind. I had lied when I told Marina that my only motive was to kill Renato. Perhaps I would kill Isabella, too. But before I did, I would make her get down on her knees and beg me for forgiveness. I would make her confess to all the crimes she had perpetrated against me. Then, if I was convinced of her sincerity, I would stare down at her, sneering, contemptuous, my sword ready to chop off her head, and instead of killing her, like a priest, I would absolve her of sin but not forgive her. “I no longer love you,” I would say. “You’re lower than a dog.”

  Of course, to be fair, if she was to convince me of her innocence, that Renato had forced her . . . Well, she would be a helpless victim, no?

  ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN

  AT BAJAN WELLS, a settlement had grown up around the watering hole, supplying travelers and mule trains that plied the trail to the northern territories. A small church was the centerpiece of the settlement. I followed the muleteer to the church. As we came into what passed for a town square, the gate to a courtyard next to the church opened, and Renato stepped out. He was on the other side of the square. I gave Tempest a slap on his flank and surged forward, drawing my sword.

  I hadn’t covered half the distance to the bastardo when soldiers armed with muskets poured into the square from every direction.

  I jerked Tempest’s reins to change direction and break through a line of soldiers to my right.

  “Shoot the horse!” Renato yelled.

  A volley of musket fire erupted. A ball hit my left thigh, and I felt Tempest shudder beneath me as he went down. I slipped loose from him, hitting the ground
with a force that knocked me breathless. I groped for my sword, which had fallen several feet from me, and got to my feet, swaying dizzily, sword in hand. My eyes were blurred, but I heard Renato shouting commands not to shoot me as he ran toward me with a dagger in hand. He didn’t want me dead because he wanted to torture the location of the treasure from me.

  As I staggered toward him to meet his charge, a horse and rider broke through the circle of soldiers, and I heard a familiar yell.

  Marina! The warrior-woman had followed me.

  She sped past me and drove her horse at Renato. More musket fire erupted. Her horse stumbled and went down. Like a circus trick-rider, Marina hit the ground feet first with her machete in hand. Her momentum sent her stumbling toward Renato as she tried to gain her balance. She almost ran into his arms. As she came up to him, still off-balance, she raised her machete to strike him. He stepped in, blocking her machete arm and plunged his knife into her gut.

  “No!” I screamed. “No!”

  He grinned at me as he put his free arm around her and pulled her against him, twisting the knife in her gut. She slipped to the ground at his feet as I limped and staggered toward him, blood flowing from the wound to my thigh. I was a dozen feet from him when I heard steps behind me. In the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the musket butt, and the back of my head exploded. I crashed onto the ground again, dazed.

  “Don’t kill him!” Renato screamed. “Take him to the well inside the courtyard.”

  Two men grabbed me by the arms and dragged me through the open gate and across the churchyard to a water well surrounded by a round, adobe brick wall about three feet high. A wood frame built over the well held an iron pulley with a rope draped over it.

  “You two stay,” he told the men who had dragged me. “The rest of you out, get out of here.”

  I knew why he wanted privacy. He had not spared my life out of friendship.