'Ramon!' Luis shouted.
'Bueno dias, Don Ramon,' said the grandmother.
My blood raced. I almost shot out from under the seat, screaming. The murderer of Fray Antonio was here. Of all the thousands of Ramons on this earth, this one had to haunt me like a shadow wherever I went.
'How goes your hunt?' the old matron asked.
Ay, I did not have to stick my head out from under the seat to discover the color of the woman's dress. It would be solid ebony without even a hint of white lace at the cuffs. A crone who wore widows weeds as a badge of honor—and authority.
Now I remembered where I had seen the coat of arms on Luis's boots—on the woman-in-black's coach door. I had escaped into the hands of my pursuers.
'He will not get out of the city,' Ramon said. 'I have offered a hundred pesos for his capture. We will have him dead by sunset.'
'Dead? But what of a trial?' Elena asked.
I heard a slap. Again, Elena refused to cry out.
'I ordered you to be silent, girl. Do not speak unless spoken to. But if you must know, mestizos have no rights under the law. Ramon, send word to the hacienda the minute you know something. We will be there a few days before we leave for the capital. Come yourself when you have good news.'
'Yes, Your Grace.'
'Good news' would be news of my death.
The coach moved on. Behind me a killer was leading a city-wide search to find and kill me. Ahead of me was a hacienda where the killer would come when he couldn't find me in the city.
THIRTY-SIX
The coach rumbled on for two hours. From their talk I realized we were still on the Jalapa road. They had closed the wooden windows and put nosegays on to ward off the miasma swamp that causes the dread fever.
The grandmother gratefully slept.
Juanita tried to sleep but was continually awakened by her consumptive death rattle.
Elena and Luis barely spoke. He was openly contemptuous of books, even the 'religious' ones that he thought she read. From his sarcastic remarks, I inferred she had taken out a small book of poems and was reading. To him, horses, hunting, and dueling were all that mattered. Hombria was everything.
'Books teach us nothing that we need to know,' he said condescendingly. 'They are composed by quill pushers, by ink-stained wretches who would fold at the first sight of a spirited horse or an advancing swordsman.'
'Your father writes beautifully,' Elena said.
'Which is why I have modeled my life on that of Don Ramon and your uncle.'
'Do not belittle your father,' his mother scolded gently.
'I will respect him when he trades that sharpened goose quill for a well-honed sword.'
At midday the coach stopped at an inn. I understood from their comments that this was the coach's last stop. From here the women would mount mule litters, Luis a horse.
After they left the coach, I slipped out from under the seat. Peering out the window, I saw Elena with the others standing in the shade of the inn porch, lined up to enter the inn. I exited the far door and raced for bushes a hundred steps away. I didn't look back until I reached them. When I did, I turned and saw Elena. She had stayed outside on the patio while the others went in. I lifted my hand to wave to her as Luis stepped out and saw me.
Not looking back again, I ran deep into the bushes.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I had to get off of the Jalapa road. With the treasure fleet and the excitement of the archbishop's arrival, it was no doubt the busiest road in New Spain. As was said about Rome, all roads ultimately led to the great City of Mexico in the heart of the valley of the same name. Despite the wondrous tales I had heard of the island city the Aztecs called Tenochtitlan, I would not dare venture there. Many times the size of Veracruz, the City of Mexico held not just the viceroy and his administrative offices, but most of the notables in the country owned a home—or more likely a palace—in the city. My chances of encountering the murderous dona and her henchmen there would be great.
If the black-hearted boy Luis suspected that I was the notorious killer lepero, or Elena foolishly shared a moment of candor with him, searchers could already be on my trail. I hurried along, walking swiftly. I would not be able to leave the road until I came to one of the trails off of it that meandered through the scattered villages in the foothills and mountains. I was unfamiliar with the area and could not simply head off into the forest-jungle in search of a village. I was frightened, afraid of being captured, tortured, killed. But even at fifteen years old, I was also worried that I would die and leave wrongs unpunished.
I understood life is hard. That there is no justice for the poor, the indios, and the half-bloods. Injustices were a part of life, and wrongs created more wrongs like a rock dropped in a pond created ripples. But the memory of Ramon twisting the dagger in the fray infuriated me then and haunts me now. In my young mind, if I died with the fray's death unavenged, my grave would not be a resting place but a place where I thrashed in eternal discontent.
There was no one I could turn to. The alcalde would never believe a mestizo over a Spaniard. Even if someone listened to my woes, there would be no justice for me. Justice in New Spain was not administered by Themis, the Greek goddess of justice, who weighed the will of the gods on her scales. Mordida was the Mother of Justice in the colonies. Alcaldes, judges, constables, and jailers all purchased their offices from the king and were expected to collect the bribes called mordida, 'the bite,' to turn a profit on the public office. I could not even offer a nibble.
I heard the pound of horses and moved off the road quickly, hiding in the bushes. Four horsemen went by. I recognized none of them. They may have been vaqueros returning to a hacienda from the Veracruz festival—or hunters looking for a beggar boy with a hundred pesos on his head. Ay, that much money was a fortune. Vaqueros earned less for a year's work.
When silence returned to the road, I went back onto it and hurried along.
My only knowledge of New Spain was the Veracruz-Jalapa area. The village of my birth was in the northern part of the Valley of Mexico, and other than my memory of the group of huts themselves, I knew nothing of the region. Fray Antonio had told me that most of New Spain from Guadalajara to the end of the Yucatan region was either jungle, mountain, or deep valley. There were few cities of any note, and most communities were indio villages, many of which were on haciendas. He had once shown me a map of New Spain, pointing out that there were only a few cities dominated by the Spanish and that there were many villages, hundreds, that had little contact with the Spanish other than a priest somewhere in the area. The terrain in every direction, until one reached the dreaded northern deserts, lent itself much more toward donkey and mule trains over paths cut out by the tread of human and animal feet than for the use of carts with wheels.
Which was one reason, the fray said, the Aztecs never developed the wheeled cart, which is in such great use in Europe and other places in the world. They understood the function of a wheel and built wheeled toys for their children. But they had no use for carts because they had no beasts of burden to pull them—the horse, donkey, mule, and oxen are all brought to the New World by the Spanish. Without carts, there was no use for wide roads. The Aztec beast of burden was himself and slaves; and other than in cities, they needed only foot trails.
After an hour's walk I saw indios leaving the main road to take a small trail. A wooden sign at the head of the trail said Huatusco. I had heard the name before, but did not know whether it was a village or town. Nor did I know how far it was, or what I would do when I got there. When I saw the sign on the way to the fair I had asked the fray whether Huatusco was a place of importance. He was not familiar with the place, but told me that it was probably an indio village. 'There are dozens of trails off the road between Veracruz and the Valley of Mexico,' he had said, 'and most lead from one indio village to another.'
Plodding down the trail, no more than a foot-and-mule path, worries began to crowd out fear of pursuit. I had no money. How would I eat? One cannot beg for food from people who are so poor that a handful of maize and beans was a meal. How long could I steal before I got a spear in my back? Going into indio country was more frightening to me that hiding out in a city. As I had told the fray, in a jungle I would be food. But there were no cities for me to crawl into, and I had to get off the main road.
