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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