Angelina/Parker/1 Angelina by J Michael Parker
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Angelina/Parker/1 Angelina by J Michael Parker Angelina/Parker/2 Preface Many years ago, my son's godfather and his beautiful fiancée, Angelina, were taken hostage by a crazed jilted suitor and held at gunpoint for several hours. It was a harrowing experience for them, but they came through it just fine and were married soon afterward. Some years later, I wrote a rather romanticized version of the story in a song titled “Angelina.” My son has always loved the song, and I was fond of singing it for him at family gatherings. This story is a literary version of the song, which I hope will one day entertain his son. Angelina/Parker/3 Dedication This story is dedicated to the Luna, Contreras, and Murrieta families, and to Daniel Sisto Ybarra Luna, the greatest man and only father I have ever known. Angelina/Parker/4 Angelina A silent dip of darkened skies, moonbeams shadowed vision, echoed light of billion years flash upon the canyon. A hawk soars in the desert night casting his shadow below, catching two young lovers in desperate flight crossing the border from Mexico. What have you done, Angelina? You know they'll come for his blood. His tender heart is your only freedom--you better run, girl, run. Out across the Apache Nation, Arizona sun is on the rise; the painted desert's an inspiration to life and death in disguise. Forty caballeros saddle their horses called by Diablo to ride, the sorcerer summons his evil forces, Roberto Luna must die. What have you done, Angelina? You know they'll come for his blood. His tender heart is your only freedom--you better run, girl, run. They reach the Sky Mountains aware of the danger, in a place they call Cochise Stronghold. Pray Godspeed they reach the chapel hidden in the valley below. Among the tall oaks along the river sits the Lost Mission of the Sacred Heart. It is said that two who offer the vows of surrender, not even the devil can tear them apart. What have you done, Angelina? You know they'll come for his blood. His tender heart is your only freedom--you better run, girl, run. Angelina/Parker/5 Prologue The four Aztec priests hold down the flawless young mulatto who wears the headdress of Tez-cat-li-po-ca (Smoking Mirror, god of the sun) here at the festival the Aztecs call Tox-catl. The high priest takes the Tec-patl (sacred knife) fashioned after the brother and rival of Tezcatlipoca, Quet-zal-co-atl (Feathered Serpent, god of knowledge), and viciously carves out the frightened captive's heart with it. He stands and turns, holding up the still-beating muscle triumphantly for all the royals assembled here at the Hue-yi Teo-kalli (Templo Mayor, or main temple) in the Aztec capital city of Te-no-cht-it-lan (modern-day Mexico City) to see. It is the first time the sacrifice of the Ix-ip-tla (Tezcatlipoca impersonator) has been conducted in the Patio of the Gods. The Spanish soldiers, guarding this city under siege in Governor Hernan Cortés's absence, have refused to allow any of the Aztec monarchy or priests out of their sight. Hence, the abrupt alteration of the location of the ceremony to honor Tla-loc (god of rain). The provisional governor, Pedro de Alvarado, has already seen enough of what he believes to be hedonistic debauchery and orders the guards to block all the Templo Mayor exits. As the male Aztec dancers conclude the “Dance of the Serpent” and the female dancers begin the “Dance of the Grilled Maize,” Pedro de Alvarado signals the Spanish guard to close in. In so doing, his orders initiate what will forever be known as the infamous "Toxcatl Massacre" where over eight thousand of the most revered Aztec royalty are mercilessly slaughtered and desecrated, their bodies stripped of any precious gold, turquoise, and a meriad array of ornamental jewelry. Astonishingly, in the confusion of the blood lust, the high priest is able to pass the Serpent blade unnoticed to eleven-year-old Te-cu-ich-po-tzin, the daughter of the last true Aztec King, Mo-te-cuh-zo-ma Xo-co-yo-tzin (Moctezuma II). She races down the hidden steps behind the main altar with her maidservant and directs the young slave girl to take the Tecpatl and hide with it in the grain storage until she can be summoned. Tecuichpotzin returns Angelina/Parker/6 to the temple floor and lies down among the dead, covering herself with their blood and entrails, all the while praying silently, fearfully, for To-nan-tzin (Mother Earth) to spare her life. Only the high priests know the dark mysteries behind the festival and the symbolic power of the Tecpatl, or the significance of the capital city's didactically apollyonic layout. Perplexing, since the outer walls of Tenochtitlan tell the story to anyone willing to uncover Quetzalcoatl's deception. The true story of the fallen spirits of the netherworld who masquerade among men as the sons of O-me-te-otl (Dual Cosmic Energy, creator of all things seen and unseen) is thinly veiled there in the Co-a-te-pant-li or Muro de Serpientes (serpent wall). Since before the days of the Tol-tec Empire, Quetzalcoatl has fooled the Mesoamericans into believing he is the god of knowledge, and equal to the god of creation, with surprising ease. Likewise, with little effort, he has deceived them into believing Hui-tzi-lo-pocht-li (Left-handed Hummingbird, god of war) is actually a true god himself and equal as well. In fact, Huitzilopochtli is nothing more than the spirit of war and hate which through minor manipulation the Serpent has instilled in men’s hearts in order to incite them into warfare and bloodshed. Nevertheless, the ancient deceiver had to applaud the Aztecs for turning his subtle suggestions into their own free for all of mayhem, carnal worship, and human sacrifice. Like the Mayans centuries earlier, the Aztecs had been duped by the Serpent into believing the gods demanded such anti-human acts. Moreover, just like the Mayans, the Serpent had successfully subverted yet another willing civilization into their own ultimate destruction by giving them a heart for war and not peace, by twisting the naturally good into manipulated evil, and by turning his insidious lies into falsely perceived truth. In the first few centuries after the great flood, the nomadic peoples who traveled across the Bering Straits and settled in present day Mesoamerica did not care for war or violence. They lived in relatively harmonious existence with the earth and their fellow man for many thousands of years, that is, until the Serpent emerged like a pandemic over the entire western hemisphere, bringing death and destruction in his wake. From the time of the Feathered Serpent's first recorded appearance around 1600 BC, every culture in the western hemisphere who falsely believed the Serpent was a god to be worshiped came to a most horrible end, and their once mighty civilizations left in ruin. The Serpent first appeared to the Ol-mec people in La Venta, near the present-day city of Tabasco sometime around the days of Moses, and there slowly infiltrated their consciousness. It was only a matter of time before he had established himself as a venerable deity worthy of worship. In the ancient multicultural city of Teotihuacan during the days of the Apostles, the first elaborate structure of homage called the Temple of the Feathered Serpent was constructed at the end of the Avenue of the Dead, where its ruins stand to this day. A few centuries later, The Feathered Serpent materialized for the first time as Quetzalcoatl to the Northern Mayan and Na-hu-a tribes who built the largest and most imposing temple pyramid in the city of Tu-la in his honor. About the same time, he revealed himself to the Yucatan Mayans as Ku-kul-kan, and they built the great pyramid, El Castillo, at Chichen Itza in order to worship Angelina/Parker/7 him in grand style. Soon afterward, the Q'iche Mayans erected the Temple of Q'uq'u-matz in the ancient Yucatan city of Q'u-mar-kaj as a tribute to the Featered Serpent. Very near this same time, down in South America, the Serpent made himself known first to the Ti-wan-a-ku as, Vir-a-co-cha, and then later to the Incans by the same name. In North America, the Feathered Serpent appeared to the Pueblo Indians, who called him A-wan-yu; to the Zuni, who called him Ko-low-is-i; to the Hopi Indians, who called him Pa-lu-lu-ka; and to the Al-gon-quin Indian tribes, who referred to him as Mis-hip-i-zheu. On the other hand, in stark contrast, he was perceived and depicted as a two-horned serpent by the vast majority of Northern American indigenous tribes. Unlike the tribes of Mesoamerican and South American, these tribes considered the Serpent to be an evil entity and they refused to subjugate themselves to the ancient deceiver and his destructive ideology. This was especially true among the Apache Indians, who resided in a land called los Montañas del Cielo (Sky Islands). The Chir-i- ca-hua Apache not only believed the Serpent to be an evil spirit, but they also considered all snakes to be unclean animals to be spurned, neither suitable for human consumption nor tribal ornamentation. This is the story of one of those Chiricahua Apache from the Be-don-ko-he tribe, and his most cherished love, Angelina.