Aztec Fire

by Gary Jennings

  “A couple of small deeds need to be performed for the revolution in the capital before we attack the city,” Guerrero said.

  One “small deed” was for us to distribute a proclamation about the plan of government the leaders have agreed upon.

  “It’s not a perfect plan,” Guerrero told us, “but there is something for all classes of society, even the Church. We need to let the people know so they don’t continue to support the viceroy out of fear they will lose their possessions. Only the gachupines have to fear a loss.”

  He wanted us to print and pass out thousands of pamphlets in the capital—hopefully without getting caught.

  “Can we print them here and carry them into the city?” I asked Maria.

  “No. The city guards might very well find them during a search. Already word is racing to the capital that the revolt has grown and the entire colony is at stake. Goods that passed unnoticed before will now be checked.”

  “There are three presses in the capital,” Guerrero said. “You must get discreet access to one of them long enough to print the pamphlet.”

  “Printers prepare pamphlets for some writers,” Maria said, “and rent their equipment to others who can do their own typesetting and printing. But they’re careful not to let their presses be used for seditious purposes.”

  “On the other hand, maybe I do know someone who has access to a printing press,” I said, thinking of the worm Lizardi. “I think I can persuade him to support the cause.”

  The second “small deed” was to evaluate the viceroy’s preparations to defend the city.

  “Take four good men,” Guerrero said. “And strong mules for them to ride. Use them to carry your observations to me. Their lips to my ears. Put nothing in writing.”

  I set out for the capital with Maria and the four guerrillas. I had packed the mules with religious relics manufactured in the area in the hopes that if we were stopped and searched by royal forces, they would not harass those of us who work for God.

  I also packed pistolas, muskets, and extra ammunition.

  This time I packed our money and food.

  I’d learned not to entrust Maria with anything practical.

  HUNDRED EIGHTEEN

  Mexico City

  AFTER WE RENTED a small house with a stable to work out of from a rebellion sympathizer, Maria and I paid a visit to Lizardi. The Bookworm was again full of revolutionary zeal—as long as he didn’t have to do any of the fighting and shed the blood. But oddly enough, Lizardi was not unreceptive to helping us—he admired Iturbide, so much so he asked: “Why would a prince of criollos like Iturbide ally himself with indios and bandidos such as you and that blackguard Guerrero?”

  I quickly lost patience with the man. With my knife to his throat, I said, “I have not forgotten what you did, Lizardi.” I slammed him against a wall, cutting off his windpipe with one forearm, and with my other fist tickling his throat with a knife blade.

  “May God forgive me for failing you, amigo,” he asked, whining, gasping for air.

  “You set the viceroy’s constables onto Maria by telling them to follow the ink. Not very nice of you considering you had also been stealing Maria’s words.”

  I tickled his throat hard enough to draw some blood before I released the pressure and let him breathe.

  “I do sometimes set my own type at night at a printer’s,” he said. “Perhaps I could run off the copies you need. Better yet, you two could run them off while I’m at the opera and in plain sight of dozens of witnesses.”

  “You’re scared,” I said, grinning maliciously. “I like that. It means you’ll be careful. Just remember I’m the adversary you have to fear. If I come back for you a second time, I won’t be so nice. I’ll feed you your own cojones washed down with a fine Jerez brandy.”

  I told Maria after we made arrangements with the worm and left, “Not everyone will want to follow General Guerrero and Iturbide. Half the people trust Guerrero and hate Iturbide. The other half are the opposite. But almost every criollo curls into fetal positions, clutches his gold, and fears that the revolucionarios will divest him of it.”

  Still the little snake came through. Maria and I printed the pamphlets, and had our guerrilla friends distribute them surreptitiously.

  HUNDRED NINETEEN

  MEANWHILE, I SET out to gather intelligence on the viceroy’s plans for the defense of the city. I’d always found that the best places to get information were the pulquerías and inns where soldiers drank, gambled—and talked.

  Making the rounds, I ran into my old friend who had unceremoniously lost his widow-swindling savings to his Unholy Trinity—Women, Wine, and Cards. Back to hustling, his fellow cardplayers had just caught him stacking the deck and dealing them seconds.

  I spotted him just as his hotheaded cohorts were about to gut him throat to balls with a hooked skinning knife. Nearby was an open bag of rock salt. They were going to flay him whole and salt and dress his carcass like a deer.

  Dios mio, this was getting ugly fast.

  Flinging a chair against the wall—just to get their attention—I pulled both my pistolas.

  “No one gets to kill or maim that man except me!” I said emphatically.

  We were horribly outnumbered but my outburst did allow Luis to twist out of their grip and join me back to back in the cantina. I did kill one man when he stuck a gun in my face, and another for bringing a knife to this gunfight.

  Most of the time I used my pistola as a club.

  We fought our way out, however, eventually making it to the small house that Maria and I had rented.

  “Ah, amigo,” Luis enthused, “I am so glad you found me. You have again saved me from a fate worse than death, worse than getting caught shaving a deck. I was so desperate for dinero, I’d actually considered seeking a job.”

  “You’re not even capable of hauling bilge buckets.”

  “Eh, I considered something worse than that.”

  “What could be worse?”

  “I was so broke I considered taking a job working for the viceroy at the black-powder cave.”

  “Chapultepec?” I asked.

  “The same.”

  Chapultepec—which my Aztec ancestors called the Hill of Grasshoppers—was a mound near the city. About two hundred feet high, it contained the viceroy’s “summer palace”—which was actually a fort built to retreat to in case of trouble. The viceroy also had a cave in the side of the hill enlarged and turned it into his gunpowder storeroom.

  When Iturbide’s forces reached the city, I assumed the viceroy would distribute the gunpowder to the defending forces, more of whom were arriving daily.

  “An officer of the guard offered me a job,” Luis said, “after he found out I could work with gunpowder, a job I would have taken only out of sheer desperation. It’s not only dangerous as hell, I assume Guerrero had targeted all that powder for usurpation or detonation.”

  In that moment I realized we might pull this revolt off after all …

  HUNDRED TWENTY

  LUIS AND I clandestinely observed the movement of gunpowder in and out of the cave. We also saw that cannons and balls were being stored in the open courtyard. Mule carts pulled cannons on two-wheeled carriages. Sometimes the carts were loaded with cannonballs.

  The opening to the cave had been finished in mortar with heavy wooden doors that were two feet thick. An adobe wall as thick and five feet tall surrounded the compound.

  Wagons carrying gunpowder arrived at the guard station, the only way in, and were thoroughly searched. Loads of cannonballs were also checked, but the cannons themselves were barely looked at.

  I was familiar with the transportation of gunpowder because I had done it myself. I knew that finished powder should only be stored in copper kegs and transported covered with sealed leather pouches. The wagon bed should be lined with leather and if possible wagons without metal anywhere, even axles, were used to keep sparks from occurring.

  The gunpowder was being transported
to the compound in wooden kegs similar to small wine barrels. That made them easier to blow up … but blowing up a cart wasn’t the objective.

  I wanted to blow up the entire cave.

  To do that, I considered sending a keg into the cave with a false bottom that had a burning fuse inside.

  “That can’t be done,” Luis pointed out. “If the fuse is concealed, it will burn out from a lack of air. If there are air holes, it will be seen, heard, smelled … or more likely, ignite the keg, the wagon load of gunpowder, and blow us all to hell long before it reaches the cave or the compound.”

  Luis’s negativity was fueled by his boredom with the cause. He preferred the action of the gaming table; and he was feeling increasingly lucky.

  I let him know that I had devised a surefire plan.

  “We’ll blow up the cave by hitting it with a cannonball.”

  Luis stared at me, dumbstruck. I had never seen him fail for words, not even in a typhoon, but now he stared at me with disbelief.

  He finally muttered, “You are loco in the cabeza.”

  HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE

  MARIA WASN’T IMPRESSED with my plan.

  “It’s suicidal,” she said.

  Perhaps.

  “Even if it succeeded, you’ll be blown into little pieces.”

  Probably.

  My plan depended on the fact that the one thing that wasn’t closely examined by the guards at the compound gate were the cannons … there was no reason to examine a cannon because the purpose of checking incoming wagons was to ensure that no insurrectionists were hiding in the wagon.

  “A cannon is a cannon,” I told them. “The guards won’t search one if we pulled it behind a wagon as if it’s for the arsenal.”

  “And what do we do with this cannon—assuming we can find one at the nearest pulquería.”

  “We load a cannon with ball and powder. You can’t tell a cannon’s loaded by looking at it, not unless you light a match and look in the barrel and have it blow up in your face.”

  My plan was to load the cannon and have it all ready to fire, then bring it to the compound. Once it was inside, while maneuvering it into position to be stored, we would point it at the door to the powder cave, light the cannon, and send a ball into the cave.

  “Even when powder isn’t being moved in or out, the cave door is usually left open during daylight to help keep it dry.”

  When it blew, it would be a miracle if anyone in the compound survived.

  “We can give ourselves a small chance by reinforcing the bed of the cart,” I said, “that the cannon is pulled behind. We light the fuse, jump into the cart, and pray that we’re not blown to hell.”

  “Will that work?” Maria asked.

  “Probably not,” I said.

  Maria said she was coming.

  I told her she wasn’t.

  I told Luis on the other hand he wasn’t getting out of it.

  “Never fear, amigo, I’m starting to get into the spirit of dying for a good cause instead of for my sins. By the way, I don’t suppose you have a touch of brandy around here, and a few of your rebel friends who would like to engage in a game of chance besides the dice they throw with the viceroy’s hangman?”

  HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO

  NOW ALL I had to do was to come up with a cannon. Clearly, I had to steal one, which unfortunately would not be easy. A better plan was to buy one that someone else had stolen. Fortunately, the government in the colony had become even more corrupt as taxes went to support the wars and other problems of the king in Europe. That left public officials even more reliant on squeezing out bribes so they could support their families.

  “A supply sergeant,” Luis said, letting me know who had access to cannons. “An ordnance sergeant who works with cannons is less likely to sell a cannon because he won’t be able to account for it being missing. But supply sergeants spend their entire military careers buying, selling, trading, and bartering for supplies … naturally keeping aside a bit of each transaction for their retirement.”

  The only vulnerable artillery pieces I could see were defective—cannons waiting to be reconditioned. The last thing I needed was for our cannon to blow us up rather than fire properly.

  The defective cannons were being shipped back to Spain for repair because the colony lacked skilled workers and the equipment to rehabilitate them. I had the skill to repair a cannon but not the equipment or the time.

  Still, I was nothing if not resourceful.

  Luis and I finally procured a cannon from a willing supply officer he met at a card game, the man becoming more willing to sell his soul after he lost regimental dinero that he brought with him to the capital to pay for boots. He could easily divert a cannon that was waiting to be sent out for repairs.

  Our story to him was that we needed the metal to forge plows … and then, of course, the application of mordida to him personally closed the deal.

  The age-old bite was incorrigibly convincing.

  At the shop of a blacksmith—one friendly to the revolt—I made quick repairs. The work wasn’t that onerous. I didn’t need a battle-ready piece that could hurtle a ball a mile or more, just one that could fire a quick shot at very close range.

  At that range, it didn’t even have to be that accurate.

  Also, since I had been pondering the arcane art of powder detonation, I forged a few other things.

  HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE

  I PARTED WITH Maria on the morning that the plan was to be implemented, warning her again to stay away from the compound. Her tears surprised me. They were the result of love and passion—for me and the revolt. She not only feared for my life, she wanted to help strike a blow against the viceroy.

  Luis and I drove the mule-drawn cart with the cannon carriage hitched behind it. When we reached the compound gate, we were subjected to only a brief inspection, though a careful one, of the wagon to make sure no rebels or explosives were hidden anywhere in or under the wagon.

  At first, the guard seemed hesitant, so I told him the cannon came not from the field but from the viceroy’s palace. The moment he heard the word “viceroy” he snapped to attention and waved us through to the compound.

  Inside the compound, however, a crisis erupted. We were directed to a spot where the cave’s opening was not within our line of fire.

  We disobeyed the command and instead turned the cannon so its muzzle was pointed toward the open cave door.

  An officer stepped forward, shouting: “Put the cannon where you’re told.”

  I smiled and nodded and pretended to be unable to handle the mules. The officer pulled his pistol and pointed it at my head. “Put the cannon where I told you or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “That’s not friendly,” Luis said, grinning at him.

  “Change of plan,” I informed the martinet.

  Luis pulled a pistol from under his coat and shot the officer in the head.

  Now I had to fire the cannon … which was easier said than done. Not only was the cannon unreliable, and possibly defective, I had loaded it with an exploding, incendiary cannonball filled with gunpowder and pitch-soaked flammable packing.

  Igniting the powder close-up could be fatal if the breech flew apart, so I’d forged a couple of iron bullets at the blacksmith’s shop. When this hit the cannon’s flint-firing mechanism, sparks would fly.

  I drew the pistola from my shoulder holster and fired an iron bullet into the cannon’s powder hole.

  The bullet’s sparks and searing heat detonated the cannon, sending the ball toward the cave.

  We both dove for the ground as the cave blew. The concussion battered me, knocking the breath out of me as the world turned more black, violent, and chaotic than when we were being tossed into the sea by a typhoon.

  The entire cart went flying as well as the kicking and braying mules; the cannon flipped over and smashed to the ground next to my head.

  I was half under the cart, scared out of my wits, my senses stunned, when I hea
rd hooves by my head and a familiar voice in my ears.

  Charging into the compound was a two-wheeled carriage pulled by a single horse with Maria at the reins. Maria jumped off and helped both Luis and me aboard.

  She hustled us out of the compound, leaving behind the cries of the wounded, the silence of the dead, and numbed soldiers staggering around trying to figure out why their world suddenly exploded.

  We were both so battered and smoke-begrimed that no one tried to stop or detain us.

  We looked like everyone else, stunned and numbed, covered with dust and bleeding from a thousand small cuts.

  HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR

  MARIA TOOK US to the house, where she patched our wounds.

  Later, when she told me she was going to the print shop to compose a pamphlet about the rebel triumph at the munitions site, I begged her not to go.

  “The viceroy will be in a killer mood,” I told her. “A major blow has been struck, and he will have every soldier and constable in the city looking for rebels to hang.”

  Giving Maria orders was like telling the wind which way to blow. She had a mind of her own, and it obeyed only her passions.

  She was gone two hours when one of Guerrero’s men came to the house and told us that the print shop had been seized by constables. Maria was taken, along with the printing press.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out how Madero knew where to find her—Lizardi had sold her out.

  With the sudden appearance of inflammatory pamphlets in the capital, Madero had no doubt rounded up all the pamphleteers that had been troublesome in the past, my friend Lizardi among them.

  It would not have taken much to squeeze information from the whining little rat.

  Luis offered good advice when I told him I would hunt down the pamphleteer and slice him into little pieces.

  “If he has any sense, he will already be gone from the city, if he’s not being held in the viceroy’s jail for aiding rebels. And we have something more important to do. We must find and rescue her.”