“May God come to our aid, since Spain does not,” the priest grumbled.
“Do you know how many Indians will attack?”
“Not many here know how to count accurately, Captain, but according to my scouts it might be as many as five hundred.”
“That means no more than a hundred and fifty, Padre. We can defend ourselves. Who can we count on?” asked Alejandro de la Vega.
“On me, for one I was a soldier before I was a priest and on two other missionaries, who are young and brave. We have three soldiers who live here, assigned to the mission. We also have a few muskets and carbines, ammunition, two swords, and the gunpowder we use in the quarry.”
“How many converts?”
“My son, let us be realistic. Most of the Indians will not fight against their own kind,” the missionary explained. “At most, I can count on a half dozen who were brought up here, and a few women who can help us load our weapons. I do not want to risk the lives of my neophytes, Captain they’re like children. I look after them as if they were my own.”
“Very well, Padre. Shoulders to the wheel, and may God help us. From what I see, the church is the strongest building in the mission. We will defend ourselves there,” said the captain.
For the next few days, no one rested in San Gabriel; even small children were set to work. Padre Mendoza, who was expert in reading the human soul, knew he could not trust the loyalty of the neophytes once they saw themselves surrounded by free Indians. He was disquieted when he caught a glimpse of a savage gleam in a worker’s eye and witnessed the unwilling compliance with his orders: the neophytes dropped stones, burst bags of sand, got tangled in the ropes, and overturned tubs of tar. Forced by circumstances, Padre Mendoza violated his own rule of compassion and, without a twinge of doubt, as punishment sentenced two Indians to the stocks and dealt out ten lashes to a third. Then he had the door to the single women’s lodge reinforced with heavy planks; it was sound as a prison, constructed so that the most daring could not get out to wander in the moonlight with their lovers. A solid, windowless building of thick adobe, it had the additional advantage that it could be bolted from outside with an iron bar and padlocks. That was where they locked up most of the male neophytes, shackled at the ankles to prevent them from collaborating with the enemy at the hour of battle.
“The Indians are afraid of us, Padre Mendoza. They think our magic is very powerful,” said Captain de la Vega, patting the butt of his carbine.
“Believe me, Captain, these people know what firearms are, all right, though as yet they haven’t discovered how they function. What the Indians truly fear is the cross of Christ,” the missionary replied, pointing to the altar.
“Well, then, we will give them a demonstration of the power of cross and gunpowder.” The captain laughed, and laid out his plan.
The mission defenders gathered in the church, where they barricaded the doors with sacks of sand and stationed nests containing firearms at strategic points. It was Captain de la Vega’s opinion that as long as they kept the attackers at a distance, so they could reload the carbines and muskets, the scales would be tipped in their favor, but in hand-to-hand fighting they would be at a tremendous disadvantage since the Indians far surpassed them in numbers and ferocity.
Padre Mendoza had nothing but admiration for this captain’s boldness.
De la Vega was about thirty and already a veteran soldier, seasoned in the Italian wars, from which he bore proud scars. He was the third son of a family of hidalgos whose lineage could be traced back to El Cid.
His ancestors had fought the Moors beneath the Catholic standards of Isabel and Ferdinand; for all the high praise of their courage, however, and all the blood shed for Spain, they received no fortune, only honor. Upon the death of their father, Alejandro’s eldest brother inherited the family home, a hundred-year-old stone building towering over a piece of arid land in Castille. The church claimed the second brother, and so it fell to de la Vega to be a soldier; there was no other destiny for a young man of his breeding. In payment for bravery exhibited in Italy, he was given a pouchful of gold doubloons and authorization to go to the New World to better his fortunes. That was how he ended up in Alta California, to which he traveled in the company of Dona Eulalia de Callis, the wife of the governor, Pedro Fages, known as The Bear because of his bad temper and the number of those beasts brought down by his own hand. Padre Mendoza had heard the gossip about the epic voyage of Dona Eulalia, a lady with a temperament as fiery as that of her husband. Her caravan took six months to cover the distance between Mexico City, where she lived like a princess, and Monterey, the inhospitable military fortress where her husband awaited. It traveled at a turtle’s pace, dragging along a train of ox carts and an endless line of mules laden with luggage. Every place the party stopped, they organized a courtly diversion that tended to last several days. It was said that the governor’s wife was an eccentric, that she bathed her body in jenny’s milk and colored her hair which fell to her heels with the red salves of Venetian courtesans, and that from pure excess, not Christian virtue, she gave away her silk and brocade gowns to cover the naked Indians she came across along the road. And last, most scandalous of all, were tales of how she had clung to the handsome Captain Alejandro de la Vega. “But who am I, a poor Franciscan, to judge this lady?” Padre Mendoza mused, glancing out of the corner of his eye at de la Vega and wondering, with irrepressible curiosity, how much truth there was in the rumors.
In their letters to the director of missions in Mexico, the friars complained, “The Indians prefer to live unclothed, in straw huts, armed with bow and arrow, with no education, government, religion, or respect for authority, and dedicated entirely to satisfying their shameless appetites, as if the miraculous waters of baptism had never washed away their sins.” The Indians’ insistence on clinging to their customs had to be the work of Satan there was no other explanation which is why the friars went out to hunt down and lasso the deserters and then whipped their doctrine of love and forgiveness into them.
Padre Mendoza had lived a rather dissolute youth before he became a missionary. The idea of satisfying shameless appetites was not new to him, and for that reason he sympathized with the neophytes. He had, besides, a secret admiration for his rivals the Jesuits because they had progressive ideas; they were not like other religious groups, including the majority of his Franciscan brothers, who made a virtue of ignorance. Some years earlier, when he was preparing to assume responsibility for the San Gabriel mission, he had read with great interest the report of a Jean Francois de La Perouse, a traveler who described the neophytes in the California missions as sad beings bereft of personality and robbed of spirit, who reminded him of the traumatized black slaves on the plantations of the Caribbean. The Spanish authorities attributed La Perouse’s opinions to the regrettable fact that the man was French, but his writings made a profound impression on Padre Mendoza. Deep in his heart, he had almost as much faith in science as he did in God, which is why he decided to transform the mission into a model of prosperity and justice. He proposed to win followers among the Indians through persuasion, rather than lassos, and to retain them with good works rather than lashings. He achieved that goal in spectacular fashion. Under his direction, the neophytes’ existence improved to such a degree that had La Perouse passed through, he would have been astounded. Padre Mendoza could have boasted though he never did that the number of baptized at San Gabriel had tripled, and that runaway converts never stayed away long; the fugitives always returned, repentant. Despite the hard work and sexual restrictions, the Indians came back because the padre showed them mercy and because they had never before had three meals a day and a solid roof to shelter them from storms. The mission attracted travelers from the Americas and Spain who came to this remote territory to learn the secret of Padre Mendoza’s success. They were impressed with the fields of grains and vegetables; with the vineyards producing good wine; with the irrigation system, inspired by Roman aqueducts; with the stables and corrals; with the flocks grazing on hills as far as the eye could see; with the storehouses filled with tanned hides and botas of tallow. They marveled at the peaceful passing of the days and the meekness of the converts, whose fame as basket weavers and leather workers was spreading beyond the borders of the province. “Full belly, happy heart,” was the favorite saying of Padre Mendoza, who had been obsessed with good nutrition ever since he’d heard of sailors suffering from scurvy when a lemon could have prevented their agony. He believed that it is easier to save the soul if the body is healthy, and therefore the first thing he did when he came to the mission was replace the eternal corn mush that was the basic diet of the neophytes with meat stew, vegetables, and lard for tortillas. He provided milk for the children only with Herculean effort, because every pail of foaming liquid came at the cost of wrestling a wild range cow. It took three husky men to milk one of them, and often the cow won. The missionary fought the children’s distaste for milk with the same method he used to purge them once a month for intestinal worms: he tied them up, pinched their nostrils together, and thrust a funnel into their mouths. Such determination had to yield results; thanks to the funnel, the children grew up strong and with resilient characters. The population of San Gabriel was worm-free, and it was the only colony spared the deadly epidemics that decimated others, although sometimes a cold or an attack of common diarrhea dispatched a neophyte to the other world.
Wednesday at noon the Indians attacked. In spite of their silent approach, when they reached the environs of the mission the defenders were waiting. The first impression the fiery warriors had was that the mission was deserted: there was nothing in the courtyard but a pair of bone-thin dogs and a distraught hen. They did not see a soul anywhere and they heard no voices and saw no smoke coming from the huts. Some of the attacking Indians were on horseback and clad in animal hides, but most were naked and on foot. All were armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and spears. In the lead galloped the mysterious chief, wearing red and black war paint; a wolf’s pelt served as a kind of tunic, and a complete wolf’s head topped a flowing mane of black hair. The rider’s face was barely visible through its maws.
Within a few minutes’ time the raiders had raced through the mission, setting fire to the straw huts and destroying clay vessels, casks, tools, looms… anything within reach, all without encountering the least resistance. Their chilling war yells and the speed at which they moved drowned out the calls of the male neophytes locked in the women’s lodge. Heady with success, they charged the church, loosing a rain of arrows that bounced uselessly off the strong adobe walls. At the order of Chief Gray Wolf they attempted to ram the heavy wood doors, which trembled with the impact but did not yield. The noise and war whoops rose in volume with each thwarted attempt to breach the door, while some of the more athletic and emboldened warriors looked for a way to climb up to the narrow window slits and bell tower.
Inside the church the tension became more unbearable with each echoing crash upon the door. The defenders four missionaries, five soldiers, and eight neophytes were in place along the sides of the nave, protected behind sacks of sand and backed up by Indian girls ready to reload their weapons. De la Vega had trained them the best he could, but not too much could be expected of a few terrified girls who had never seen a musket at close range. Their task consisted of a series of actions that any soldier performed without thinking but which had taken the captain hours to explain to them. Once the weapon was ready, the girl handed it to the man responsible for firing it, and prepared another. When the trigger was pulled, a spark lit the powder in the pan, which in turn ignited the main charge in the barrel. Damp powder, flint residue, and blocked touch holes often caused misfires; it was not unusual, in addition, to forget to remove the rammer from the barrel before firing.
“Don’t be discouraged, that’s how it goes in war. Noise and commotion. If one weapon fails to work, the next one should soon be ready, so you can keep right on killing,” Alejandro de la Vega instructed.
The remaining females and all the children of the mission were secured in a room behind the altar. Padre Mendoza had sworn to protect them with his life. The valiant defenders, with fingers on the trigger and half their faces protected by kerchiefs soaked in vinegar and water, silently awaited the order from the captain, the one person unfazed by the Indians’ yelling and the slamming of bodies against the door.
Coldly, de la Vega calculated how long the wood door would resist; the success of his plan depended on acting at the precise moment and in perfect coordination. He had not had occasion to fight since the campaigns in Italy several years before, but he was lucid and calm. The only sign that betrayed apprehension was the tickling in his hands that he always felt before firing.
Eventually the Indians tired of crashing against the door and fell back to catch their breath and receive instructions from their chief. A terrifying silence replaced the former hullabaloo. That was the moment de la Vega chose to give the signal. The church bell began to ring furiously as four neophytes lighted rags dipped in tar, producing a thick, stinking cloud. Two others lifted the heavy crossbar bolting the door. The peals aroused the Indians, who regrouped to attack again. This time the door unexpectedly yielded at the first contact; they tumbled into the church, fell over each other, and collided with the barrier of sacks of sand and rocks. Coming from the brilliant light outdoors, they were blind in the darkness and smoke of the interior. From the sides of the nave, ten muskets fired in unison, wounding several Indians who fell in their tracks, screaming. The captain lighted a fuse and within a few seconds the flame had reached the sacks filled with a mixture of gunpowder, tallow, and lead that had been set up in front of the barricade. The explosion rocked the foundations of the church, set off a hail of metal particles and pebbles, and shook the large wood cross over the altar right off the wall. Protected behind their parapets, the defenders were able to reload their weapons and get off a second round before the first arrows flew through the air. Several Indians lay sprawled on the floor, and those who were still on their feet were coughing and tearing from the smoke, making an easy target for the defenders’ musket balls.