Aztec Blood - Jennings Gary (книги онлайн бесплатно серия .txt) 📗

My compadre had not changed, had he? Still the liar and braggart. Samurai warriors and winning a kingdom! But there were always a few beans of truth in his pot of frijoles. His last adventure was the most truthful.

"I arrived in Acapulco with my pocket full of priceless gems. There was a card—"

"—game and a woman and some wine. How much do you have left?"

"I used my last peso to hire that litter. I didn't have the dinero to buy a horse. And you, amigo? How much treasure have you accumulated from leading a gang of notorious banditos?"

I cleared my throat. "I, uh, have some cocoa beans."

He groaned out loud and long. "Bastardo, you learned nothing from all of my teachings."

"No, that's not true. I did learn much from you. All of the wrong things."

The next day we set out on the trail toward the Valley of Mexico. The Manila galleon road had not been profitable, and we headed for the other side of the valley. On the Jalapa-Veracruz road we looked for our fortunes to change with the arrival of the treasure fleet.

"If I had significant funds, I could return to the City of Mexico by paying a 'fine' to one or two of. the viceroy's underlings," Mateo said.

"I have a handful of cocoa beans," I said.

"It would take a handful of gold. I heard of the black legend of Don Julio even in Manila."

We had not talked much about the don. The subject was too painful. It was unspoken between us that we would kill Ramon de Alva.

"But you," Mateo said, "you could not show your face in the city even if you had a mountain of gold. The first thing I heard when arriving at Acapulco was to beware of Cristo the Bandito. There are many Cristos, but still I hoped against hope that this Cristo would turn out to be my old friend the Bastardo."

Mateo's plan for us was to continue robbing until we had enough dinero to leave New Spain for Seville. To him, Seville was the queen of cities.

"We need to get out of New Spain for a couple of years. We dare not confront Alva until we can walk down the Alameda and the main plaza without fear of being arrested."

We did not discuss these plans in the hearing of my three men.

While I joined Mateo's enthusiasm for a trip to Seville, his concept was that we would take our New World fortune back to Spain and live like kings. So far we had accumulated only a handful of cocoa beans. The more I had robbed, the more my fame spread, the more precautions the rich merchants took.

"One advantage to robbing arrivals from the treasure fleet," I told Mateo, "is that for most of them it is their first time in New Spain, and they do not always follow the advice of more experienced travelers. We should be able to pick up a fat purse or two in a week's time."

"Bah! What would we do with a couple of purses? A few hands of cards? A couple of putas for a night? For this we risk the gallows everyday?"

"No," I expounded, "for this you keep a little food in your belly, and you sleep with one arm out of your blanket and your sword in your hand. The life on the road is not for a gachupin, I know that. Whatever we get, you can have my share, too. Maybe it will be enough to buy your way back to the capital."

Mateo slapped me so hard on the back, I was nearly knocked off my horse. "Eh, compadre, I have hurt your feelings. It is for both of us that I want to acquire wealth. Instead of many small attacks, we must make one big theft that gives us enough dinero to fulfill our needs. Being a gentleman and caballero is expensive."

"The only way we could get enough money in one robbery would be to attack a silver train. But they are heavily guarded," I said. "In the past when troops were needed for war with the Chichimecas, the viceroy did not have enough soldados to protect all of the silver trains, and he used trickery to deceive robbers. Now the silver trains are so well-armed that even with black powder bombs, it would be suicide for a small group like ours to attack one. We would have a better chance of walking into the mint in Mexico City and carrying out an armful of silver bars."

"You would have a better chance of stealing gold from heaven than the mint's silver," Mateo observed. "The place has no windows on the ground floor, the upper windows are barred, and the place is encased with thick walls. It's said to be guarded more dearly than a sultan's harem."

The pickings on the Jalapa road continued to dwindle, which did nothing to improve anyone's temperament. Mateo, who was the most averse to our hit-and-run robberies and to the life of the bandito in general, was unrelentingly sarcastic about a change in strategy.

"I will find a rich widow who will provide me with the lifestyle of a gentleman in return for my services in bed. I would get you employed in the household, of course. You can be my servant, empty my bedpan, and shine my boots."

What an amigo!

The first attack Mateo and I made together was clearly a bad joke from the gods. Our victims turned out to be a troupe of actors from Madrid. Mateo refused to rob them, telling me it would be sacrilegious for us to plunder fellow thespians. Our three fellow brigands balked at Mateo's refusal to rob the actors and would not concur until Mateo turned his sword on them.

The acting troupe incident only increased Mateo's dissatisfaction with the highwayman's life. In truth, it stirred in both of us the urge to return to the stage. Mateo agreed to only one more robbery, after which he would seek other ways of filling his purse.

Our luck changed when we spotted stragglers making the journey from the treasure fleet along the Jalapa road. We roared down on them, a Spaniard in a mule litter, his Spanish servant on a donkey, and a host of indios to serve as guards and servants on foot.

We discovered that rather than a rich merchant, the man was an official from the Council of the Indies in Spain.

"A mint inspector!" Mateo exclaimed with disgust "Instead of mint money, we capture an inspector who oversees that the mint is operating correctly."

We kept the mint inspector and his espanol servant tied up while we pondered whether we might be able to obtain ransom for the man. The inspector was to present his papers at the mint in the capital, do a complete inspection of all aspects from its security to the quality of its coin-stamping, and then proceed to Lima, Peru, for an inspection mere, after sending a report back to the council.

"The possibilities of getting ransom are slim," Mateo said. "From the papers outlining his authority, he is making a surprise inspection of the mint. No one, not even the mint director or the viceroy, knows he is coming. Worse, if we ask the viceroy to ransom him, he'd probably refuse and hope we kill the inspector. With communications only through the treasure fleet, it would be a year or two before the council found out its inspector was dead and another year or two before another one arrived. The viceroy would benefit because no inspector would come all the way to New Spain to make an inspection and not make sure he found deficiencies that needed to be corrected."

"We need to sleep on the matter," I told him.

Wrapped in our mantas, we lay down with our alternatives in mind. Cut the throats of the two captives and leave the bodies where they would advertise the futility of resisting us. Attempt to obtain a ransom. Or let them go.

I awoke in the middle of the night with a way to use the mint inspector in an entirely different way. I awoke Mateo.

"When we questioned the inspector, he claimed that he has no relatives or friends in New Spain who could ransom him."