TWENTY-EIGHT

I’M LEAVING,” lizardi told me the next day.

I was surprised but reconciled. Despite my ardor for Marina, I knew he was right. Both of us had to move on. If we were captured here, the priest would be condemned for his hospitality to us.

Moreover, if I remained in Dolores and the worm left alone for Méjico City, his flapping lips would soon lead the viceroy’s constables back to me.

The more I considered that possibility the more I considered silencing the lips permanently but decided against it. Lizardi and I had been through a lot together, and perhaps we had forged a bond, a bond I was reluctant to acknowledge. And my presence threatened Father Hidalgo and Marina either way. Even if I killed Lizardi, I would have to leave.

The old Zavala would have done him in a heartbeat. Letting him live only increased my risk.

Something was happening to me, something that I couldn’t define. I just didn’t have it in me, and I didn’t want the padre or Marina to learn who I was. Strange as it might sound, I didn’t want them to think less of me.

Lizardi left, joining a silver train of over a hundred mules passing through Dolores. The train would link up on the road south of Guanajuato with even larger mule trains. Lizardi planned to use his family and friends to plead directly to the viceroy for mercy and a pardon. Everyone knows that justice can be bought, so Lizardi simply had to raise the price. His “sins” were far less expensive than mine. Forgiveness for Zavala would cost half the Inca gold.

In truth, I’d grown attached to Marina and did not want to move on. I could not call my feelings for her love—I had sworn to love forever only sweet Isabella, and that vow I would never break. But my feelings for Marina had passed far beyond lust, and with each passing day the depth and the degree of my caring grew more profound.

Marina had also been right about the consequences of my “medical miracle.” People flocked to the church asking for my services. I dodged those entreaties each day less successfully. Once I was backed into a corner and forced to minister to a sick child. Marina heard me tell the mother to give the child hot baths and called me aside to admonish me.

“You don’t give hot baths to a child with a fever. Hot water will drive the fever up; you’ll kill the child.”

¡Ay de mí! Why did I become a medical man?

To clear my head and plan my next more, I saddled Tempest and set out on a three-day hunting trip. In the wilderness, by myself, answering to no one and fearing no one, I would find peace for the first time since Bruto died and left behind a plague of charges and problems.

I didn’t feel it sporting to drop a deer with a musket. Borrowing a good hunting bow and a quiver of arrows from a friend of Marina’s, I rode into the wilderness on Tempest.

I brought down a deer with an arrow that very morning, hung it from its hind legs, and cut its throat to drain the blood. I was so close to Dolores I decided I’d ride back and drop the carcass off with Marina so she could have it dressed out and hung in the smokehouse while I continued my hunt.

The sky was gray and overcast, the day damp and drizzly, when I arrived at the outskirts of Dolores. As I approached the padre’s vineyards, with the deer slung over Tempest’s withers, I saw soldiers and constables at the vineyards.

My first instinct was to wheel Tempest around and spur him out of Dolores. I had to leave quietly but couldn’t appear to run off.

I saw something that gave me pause. The mounted soldiers and constables began lassoing the trellised grapevines, dallying their saddle ropes around their pommels and pulling the vines out of the ground. While some of the viceroy’s men ripped out the vineyard, others were chopping down the mulberry trees. The sound of smashing pottery came from that facility. The constables hadn’t come for me; they were destroying the Aztec craft-works.

Lizardi had expressed surprise that the padre had succeeded for so long in improving the indios’ lot. Now the viceroy was ending those efforts.

Watching the viceroy’s men destroy years of hard work and seeing the sadness and despair on the workers’ faces fueled my anger. I wondered where the padre was, whether the soldados had already placed him under arrest.

Marina galloped up to the soldiers who were pulling out the grape trellises. She was too far away for me to hear what she said, but I knew the gist of it. She cursed them roundly for their stupidity.

A mounted soldier lassoed her and pulled her off her horse. She hit the ground hard, crying out in pain. The mounted soldier dragged her into the nearby building, while two of his comrades followed.

A blind man could see what they planned to do. Spurring Tempest hard, I pulled the deer off and galloped straight at their building. In the damp drizzle neither my musket nor pistol were reliable, but then neither were theirs. Taking the reins in my teeth, I nocked an arrow. One of the men, who had pulled Marina inside, came to the doorway when he heard the hooves of the stallion. I released the tri-bladed broad head. It struck his chest with a thrumming thwack!, knocking him off his feet and back into the building.

I steered Tempest into the doorway, a new arrow nocked, ducking down as I came through, horse hooves trampling the impaled, supine corpse. A man behind Marina had twisted the rope around her neck into a tourniquet, while a companion was restraining her flailing legs. Both men had their pants pulled down. The men let her go as I came through the door. My triple broadhead took him in his left eye. Slipping the strung bow on my saddle pommel, I charged his companion whom Marina was grappling with. He broke loose from her, and I caught him between the neck and shoulder with the machete blade, sinking it deep.

I wheeled Tempest and grabbed Marina, dragging her up, as she kicked the floor twice, then swung up behind me. Galloping through the doorway, we charged across the yard. I dropped her by her horse. “Ride!” I yelled.

The commotion had attracted other soldiers and constables. Four of them charged me. To draw them away from Marina I rode straight into them, machete swinging like Death’s scythe, sending them scattering. As I thundered off in the direction opposite, the one Marina had taken, a horseman tried to cut me off with his sword swinging. I slipped by the sweep of his sword and struck him across the back with the machete as I passed.

Tempest ploughed into another mount. My stallion stumbled but quickly got his footing as the other horse and rider went down. Their flintlock weapons misfired in the drizzle as I galloped through their ranks and another arrow from my bow went true. A musket ball grazed my left arm, but the flesh wound did not crimp my strong sword arm.

I rode out of town with several of the soldiers on my tail. The rain was intensifying, their muskets useless but my bow still lethal. After a hundred meters, I wheeled Tempest around, reins in my teeth, bow in my fist, and thrummed an arrow that hit a soldier’s chest.

With Tempest I could outrun them all, their small wiry mounts no match for a purebred stallion. The harder they chased me, the more quickly I turned and fired. Another soldier fell from the saddle. Halting their mounts, the disheartened survivors turned back.

I kept riding until I was sure there was no pursuit. Finally, with Tempest breathing heavily and my left sleeve soaked with blood, I worked my way into thick brush to make camp.

The arm wound was not serious. I cleaned and bandaged it. Fearful of lighting a fire, I ate the last of my tortillas and salt beef cold.

Lying down, exhausted, I still worried for Marina. But she was well mounted and knew the territory. I doubted harm would come to her. She had committed no crimes, and Spain viewed all women as incompetent except for housework and sex. She would be all right; it was the bandido Zavala they would come after and flay whole if they found him. By tomorrow, the constables might pick up my trail.

¡Ay! . . . what kind of man was I? I had handled the bow and arrow not as a Spaniard, but as an Aztec warrior. Many a night I had fallen into a deep sleep during which I had fought and killed Spaniards. This day my nightmare had come true. What was I becoming?

I put on my monk’s robe to keep warm and fell asleep, wondering which direction I should take in the morning. None seemed promising.