"Where did he go?" she repeated. I could hear the question in her voice. Not as to my whereabouts-I was still between her legs. But whether I should lose my head.

"He's gone," she said, "leaped from the carriage."

The soldados escorted the carriage to an inn. The alcalde's widow refused to get out of the carriage. She told an officer she wanted to stay aboard and "rest" in privacy. Eh, amigos, it was no rest for me. She kept me busy until I escaped into the dark night.

To this day I do not know whether she protected me because she did not want to be exposed herself... or because she loved my tongue.

ONE HUNDRED AND THREE.

In truth, the big robberies were very few and very far between. For the most part my life was a dangerous, ill-trod mountain path, trailing sheer cliffs and split by forks. In my second year as a bandit, I came to one of those forks.

New Spain was a big land, but like Rome, all roads eventually lead to Ciudad Mexico. If one stayed around the main roads, or in my case, committed acts of banditry along them, one would eventually encounter one's past, just as I had met the alcalde's wife. It occurred on one of those roads, which was little more than a trail through a mountain pa.s.s.

When the treasure fleet arrived from Seville and the galleon with the riches of the Orient from Manila, my amigos and I made sure we got some small piece of the riches. Ay, it was not an easy task, and by that second year of banditry those pieces were getting smaller. More soldados were patrolling the roads now due to my fame, and especially patrolling the roads when the treasure fleets were in. Everyone on the roads proceeded with extreme caution. The silver trains were heavily guarded. Travelers joined in ma.s.sive caravans, like those of the Arabian deserts. With each month the pickings had grown increasingly slim.

In those hard times we often had to content ourselves with easy targets-well-to-do travelers foolish enough to travel alone. Most often these solitary wayfarers were well-mounted and relied on their animals to outrun any bandits. But this one time the traveler journeyed by litter and was such a sitting duck I wondered if it was a trap, such as the one Yanga had sprung on me.

We saw the litter from where we had been camped the night before. It had been more than two weeks since we had stolen anything significant and even that had been only a merchant hauling cocoa beans to Acapulco. My three men were grumbling, and I was going to have to add more ears to my collection if we did not relieve some fat merchant of mucho dinero. I decided we could not pa.s.s up such an easy target.

We studied him from above and determined his s.e.x by a protruding arm. A very foolish man, was my basic impression. The litter was carried by two mules and two indios guided them, but that was all. He was unprotected.

Eh, amigos, perhaps our luck was changing.

We came down like the Four Hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse, waving our swords, our war screams terrifying. The two indios naturally fled, but rather than some plump priest or merchant climbing out of the litter, a caballero flew out of it with his sword flashing. My best bandito, who got to the litter ahead of me, lost his horse and his life. As I charged, the caballero leaped on my dead amigo's horse and wheeled to face me. When I saw his face, I was so shocked I nearly lost my life. I steered my horse just in time to avoid Mateo's sword.

"Mateo! It's b.a.s.t.a.r.do! Your b.a.s.t.a.r.do!"

"Santa Maria," he whispered. Then he roared with laughter. "Cristo! Didn't I teach you how to be a better thief?"

His hair was streaked with gray as was his beard. He was almost as gaunt as I had been after I escaped from the mines. When he told me his story that night around the campfire, I saw why.

"The trip west across the great Southern Sea, the one you called the Western Sea, is h.e.l.l afloat. Acapulco to Manila is three times farther than Veracruz to Seville. It takes several months to make the trip. Many died aboard. The return trip along the famous monk-navigator Urdaneta's route is even farther and takes over four months. Many more died. When we were told that the viceroy sent the lice of New Spain to the Filipinas to die, we were lied to. They were sent to die at sea."

"And Manila? What of it?" I asked.

"A pretty place but not a great city, a place to lie in the shade and wait to grow old and die while a native girl fans you with a palm leaf. For a man like me who loves the excitement of comedias and the romance of the Alameda, Manila was barren."

We camped high in the mountains to ensure that we would not be surprised by soldados. The two of us sat up most of the night around a fire in a cave talking about our lives and adventures.

Already weakened from months in the hands of the Inquisition, Mateo had barely survived the voyage across the great sea. In the Filipinas, he was sent to a country farm to act as an overseer; but as soon as his strength returned, he was in much demand by the viceroy in Manila as a swordsman.

"My days as a prisoner ended. I fought Malay pirates, yellow devils, tougher than the most bloodthirsty pirates terrorizing the Spanish Main. I killed a hundred of them and saved a chino princess. Her father gave her to me in marriage and my own kingdom. But the princess had a jealous suitor with a big army, and I ended up escaping with just the crown jewels to keep me warm. I went to China, the land of the chinos, and stood upon a great wall that is long enough to enclose all of Spain. I visited an island where the people call themselves j.a.pones and their warrior cla.s.s, called samurai, are the toughest fighters on earth. I came back to New Spain with enough wealth to buy the entire City of Mexico and turn it into my personal hacienda."

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 acc.u.mulated from leading a gang of notorious banditos?"

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

He groaned out loud and long. "b.a.s.t.a.r.do, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.do."

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 acc.u.mulated 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 G.o.ds. 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.