Aztec Rage (81 page)

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN

Guanajuato

R
AQUEL STOOD NEAR
the outside corner of the alhóndiga de granaditas, the fortresslike granary where the first great triumph of the revolution had taken place. Doña Josefa, la Corregidora, came up beside her. They stared up at a steel cage hanging above them. The head of Miguel Hidalgo was in the cage.

“The padre has returned to the alhóndiga,” Raquel said. She wiped tears from her cheeks.

A gruesome display was at each of the other three corners of the granary: the rotting heads of Allende, Aldama, and Jiménez occupied the other places of honor.

“What of the gallant Juan de Zavala, the man you loved. Where is he resting?” Dona Josefa asked.

“I buried him with Doña Marina. She loved him, too. And in his own way, I know he loved both of us.”

The women read the sign nearby:

T
HE HEADS OF
H
IDALGO
, A
LLENDE
, A
LDAMA, AND
J
IMÉNEZ, NOTORIOUS DECEIVERS AND LEADERS OF
I
NSURRECTION, THEY WHO SACKED AND ROBBED THE PROPERTY OF
G
OD AND THE
C
ROWN, WHO LET RUN WITH GREAT ATROCITY THE INNOCENT BLOOD OF LOYAL OFFICIALS AND JUST MAGISTRATES, AND WHO WERE THE CAUSE OF ALL THE DISASTERS, DISGRACES, AND CALAMITIES THAT WERE AFFLICTED UPON AND EXPERIENCED BY THE INHABITANTS OF ALL PARTS OF THE
S
PANISH NATION
.

N
AILED HERE BY THE ORDER OF
S
R.
B
RIGADIER
D. F
ÉLIX
M
ARíA
C
ALLEJO
, I
LLUSTRIOUS
V
INDICATOR OF
A
CULCO
, G
UANAJUATO, AND
C
ALDERÓN, AND RESTORER OF PEACE IN
A
MÉRICA
.

“You have heard the stories that the padre recanted his dream of freedom and revolution? That he wrote his renunciation freely and without coercion in his own hand?”

“Of course I've read the lie. The viceroy's publishing it throughout the colony. When the document speaks of the padre's regret that people died, it speaks the truth. He had great love for all people. But the words that repudiate our right to govern ourselves are lies. They were not written by his hand.”

Doña Josefa spoke in a whisper. “My husband, the corregidor, stormed around our casa for an hour denouncing the recantation as a lie. He cannot understand why the viceroy would attempt such a transparent fraud. When the viceroy published the recantation, people asked to see the original that is supposed to bear the padre's handwriting and signature. Do you know what he said? That he doesn't have the original, that Salcedo, the governor who took possession of the document, lost it to bandidos.”

“The fraud won't help them,” Raquel said. “The force of ideas the padre unleashed have spread to all of New Spain. We are at war with the gachupines, and nothing will stop us until we have driven them from our shores.”

“Where will you go now? Back to the capital?”

“Not yet. Juan set a last task for me to complete. When I visited him in his cell, he whispered the location of the marqués's bullion. It's strange, Josefa, that the revolution will be financed by a gachupine's gold, stolen by a notorious bandido.”

Doña Josefa nodded at the bulge in Raquel's abdomen. “Let us hope the child you carry will grow up in a nation that respects the rights of people.”

“Juan never knew who his father and mother were. Our child will know that his mother and father fought to create a nation in which all people were free and equal and that his father gave his life in the struggle. If we fail, he will carry on the fight.”