EIGHTEEN

SEVEN MORE DAYS passed, each one an agony of hard labor. My mysterious benefactor, whom I knew in my heart was Isabella, financed my private cell and sustenance. Lizardi still had not heard from his family, and I shared the bounty with him, telling him that I considered him the brother I never had, that I was repaying him for having shared his with me. These statements were not exactly true; he had only shared with me out of fear that I would harm him, and had the worm been my brother, I would have arranged a mortal accident for him. I shared with him because I knew in time he would be up again and I would be down. Eh, Don Juan the Caballero was learning to scheme like prison scum.

I could not truly love Lizardi as a brother because he carried a sense of racial superiority about him: He was a Spaniard and I was a peon. I still did not think of myself as of the lower classes—I was certain that I was indeed the real Juan de Zavala and that my uncle, in his final illness, had contrived the changeling story in revenge for the poisoning. As he lay dying, no doubt he assumed I had deliberately poisoned him.

Lizardi’s attitude rankled me. He was especially contemptuous of my intelligence, conveying at every turn that I was intellectually inferior. Sometimes he treated me as if I were a naughty child, too immature for serious thought. It wasn’t lost on me that I had treated my servants in the same way.

As the days went by, my hands, feet, and muscles hardened from the work. Thick shoulder and thigh muscles, and hard hands that evinced hard labor were unfashionable among caballeros. A slim silhouette on horseback was the fashion.

We had returned from a day’s work and were finishing off my food and wine basket, when the trustee called Lizardi out. The trustee spoke to him privately. As Lizardi returned to our cell, I could see in the distance he was grinning, but when he approached the cell, he wiped the grin off his face and frowned.

“What news did you get?” I asked the worm.

“My family has forsaken me. We are doomed to the Manila galleon.”

I patted his arm. “As long as we go together, it is all right with me. I have come to think of you as the brother I never had. To share death with my brother would be fitting.”

He was a rotten liar. His news had been good, but he didn’t want to share it with me. The only good news I could think of was that he had arranged some way to avoid the Manila death sentence, perhaps by betraying me in some manner. He was a puzzlement to me: a man with the courage to offend the viceroy and church with fiery words but a physical coward.

I waited until late at night, when the only sounds were the snores and mutterings of other prisoners, before I made my move. I held him down and gagged him to keep him from shouting. I pinched his nose shut so he couldn’t breathe. When he started turning purple, I released his nose.

“If you make a noise, I’ll smother you. ¡Comprénde?”

Still holding him pressed down, I whispered, “Mi amigo, you hurt my feelings when you lie to me. You received good news and yet you deceived me. Now I must hurt you.” Holding him down with an elbow, I took an insect out of a jar that a fruit spread had come in. I dropped it in his ear. He began to wiggle and squirm. I let him turn over and slapped the side of his head to dislodge the insect. It fell out and scrambled away.

“Do you know what that was, worm? The kind of vermin that burrows into your ear and into your brain. I have a jar full of them. Now tell me what the trustee said, or I will pour them into your ears and let them eat your brains.”

I was certain I saw the whites of his eyes even in the darkness. I almost broke out laughing. I loosened the gag and let him catch his breath.

“What good news do you have? Your father has agreed to help you?”

“Sí, but—”

“Shhh, not too loudly. What’s being done?”

“Another will take my place.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. One of these disgusting creatures will be José Lizardi for a day. He will be paid, I will replace him.”

I nodded. “Ah, you will exchange places. He will be put on a wagon for Acapulco and the Manila galleon, you will be sent to work in the streets. At the end of the day, you will be released as an ordinary drunk who has fulfilled three days of work. That is it, no?”

“Sí.”

I released him.

“You are a disgusting animal,” he groaned, digging at his ear. “You are violent and dangerous. I truly believe you murdered the man who thought he was your uncle.”

“Believe this, señor—I will murder you if you betray me again.”

“How have I betrayed you?”

“Have I not protected you? Shared my bounty with you? Thought of you as my own blood and brother?”

“I’m not your brother. I’m a criollo, not a peon.”

“Keep slandering my blood and you’ll be a dead criollo. We’ll see what color your blood is as it gushes out your throat.”

“I can bring the trustee down on you with one shout.”

“That’s all you would be able to do. And it would be your last shout because I’ll rip out your tongue.” I leaned closer. “And gouge out your eyes with my thumbs.”

“Animal,” he muttered.

“Have you thought about what you will do on the street? You can bribe your way out of a jail, but where will you go once you have your freedom? Fool that you are, you wouldn’t make it out of the city.”

“I’ll make it.”

I could tell from his voice that he had doubts. “You will be freed at dusk. Do you think you can stay in an inn for the night and leave the city the next day? You’re a stranger in town, you’ll be easily spotted by the constables. You can’t escape without a horse. And you don’t know the city well enough to escape even if you had a horse. I have horses here in the city, ready and waiting.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then he asked, “What do you want?”

“Fund both of our escapes. I will see you well mounted and put you on the road to Méjico.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I kill you.”

My tone surprised me and chilled Lizardi. It left no doubt I would go through with the threat.

In the shadow of the gallows, life seemed less sacred.

“José de Lizardi! Juan de Zavala!”

Two léperos stood in front of me, and I jabbed them each in the back, whispering “That’s you two.”

They had been lifted out of the gutter three days ago. We chose them because the guards would release them today, and even sober, their wits were dim, their vision blurred, their brains befuddled by decades of drink.

In exchange for a few pesos and the promise of much more, including a trip to Méjico City and a tour of its pulquerías they agreed to our take our places. The capital was a fabled place to these two, léperos who had never ventured far from Guanajuato’s gutters.

That I was a changeling again did not escape my notice.

I grinned at Lizardi as the men were led out, chained in a tumbrel for the trip to Méjico and from there on to Acapulco and the Manila-bound galleon.

“I hope they like fresh ocean breezes,” I said, “and can swim well.”

“The jailers at the capital will know they’ve been duped.”

“We’ll be on our horses and on our way by then.”

A few minutes later, we lined up with the nearly hundred other prisoners. Since we were assumed to be common drunks, no one slapped leg irons on us.

This time we were dispatched to a pasture outside of town, where the mule trains transporting goods encamped. Mules transported almost all goods, whether imported or exported, throughout the colony. The only other transport system was the backs of indios.

At the pasture, we were to shovel manure into the back of wagons. The manure was hauled to local farmers and rancheros to use as fertilizers. In times past, the stench would have bowled both of us over, but in truth we smelled worse than manure and the fact that this was our last day in hell compensated for the stink.

An hour before darkness, the guards lined us up for the trek back to the city.

“We should return here tonight and steal the mules for our escape,” Lizardi whispered to me as we walked.

“I told you, we’ll leave on my horses.”

“I don’t understand how you could still have horses if you—”

“Horses are my specialty. You just think about the next pamphlet you’ll write when you return to the capital.”

Dusk had fallen by the time we reached the heart of the city. When the guards stopped for a smoke break, Lizardi and I were released with the other drunks.

“Where are we going?” Lizardi asked.

“To a pulquería with this trash. You have pesos the trustee passed you from your family?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to buy that poisonous Aztec drink.”

“If an alarm is sounded, a pulquería will be the last place they would look for two Spaniards.”

He glanced at me for including myself as a Spaniard but wisely did not correct me. “What about our horses? When do we—”

“After dark, so we won’t be spotted on the streets.” I slapped him on the back. “Stop asking questions, worm. We are free. Enjoy it. Tomorrow they may catch us and hang us.”

We left the pulquería well after nightfall and walked down the deserted streets of the city. Lizardi had been antsy, but I insisted we not leave sooner. The streets where the rich lived were guarded at night by watchmen who walked along carrying a candle in a lantern. While the lantern offered little light, it identified the watchmen as the homeowners who could call for help in case of trouble. The watchmen did not come on duty until ten o’clock. We still had an hour to get to my horses before that time.

“Where are we going?” he whispered. “I still don’t understand how you could have horses if everything was taken away from you.”

“We’re taking them back.”

Lizardi stopped cold. “What are you saying?”

“We’re going to steal two of my horses.”

“Steal? I thought perhaps your woman had arranged horses. I’m not going to steal a horse, that’s against the law.”

That was a laugh. “I see you would rather be hanged for being a bookworm than a thief.”

“I’m not stealing a horse.”

“Then adiós, amigo, go your own way.”

“You can’t abandon me; you said you thought of me as your brother.”

“I lied.”

“We have pesos. Why not buy two mules?”

“We need good horses, ones that will outrun constables if we’re chased. Have you thought about the roads out of town? Unless you travel in a large group, you’re easy prey for bandidos. Our horses must outrun them, too. Before I was jailed, I had the finest horses in the city. We are going to my house to get them.”

“But they won’t let us just walk in and take them. You said your cousins had taken over your house and they hate you.”

“They’re at the table supping now, attended by servants. Only one man tends to the stable. When night falls, he leaves the house and goes to a pulquería where more of his kind congregate. The horses will be ours to saddle and lead out.”

He mumbled a prayer as we continued down the street.

“Have courage, worm. Don Juan de Zavala, gentleman and caballero, will protect and defend you.”