Prologue
August 1840
Bad omens have followed me all my life. I was born in an unlucky month, under an unlucky moon. “August, the month of sorrow and grief.” It is a saying I know all too well, and it haunts me now as I pick my way through the soulless bodies on a deserted battlefield in the middle of the Brazilian wilderness.
A low fog flows through the field, covering the ground with a thin mist. It’s not enough to hide the carnage. These men, strewn about like broken china, were people I knew. They shared a campfire with my husband, hanging on his every word, just as I did once upon a time. So many men. I clasp my belly and say a silent prayer for my child as I wonder what will become of us. This battlefield that may have claimed my husband spreads out before me.
I look back at my captors, playing cards by the lantern light. Young men in tattered uniforms with unshaven faces. One of them slaps down a card and cheers as they continue to play. They want to leave, but I made a deal with the devil to be here. None of us can go until I am satisfied. These young soldiers underestimate me, just like so many others.
Slumping against a fallen tree, I rub my pregnant belly as I watch black vultures circle and swoop in a golden-red sky. My chest heaves with exertion as the stench sticks to the back of my throat, sweet and rancid. It threatens to overtake me, but I must continue. I have been here for hours, searching and wondering if these birds might be an omen. Is my husband dead?
I close my eyes at the childhood memory of a hunched old woman shaking her knobby fingers at me from the steps of the church as she proclaims, “This one, she will have a hard life. So very, very unlucky, this one,” before spitting off to the side, to ward off the devil.
But her proclamations made no difference. My mother already knew I was unlucky. I wasn’t born a boy. My life could have been infinitely different if I had been. Perhaps I would be one of the bodies scattered here among the mud and filth.
A branch cracks and I startle at the sight of a vulture walking in front of me. He dips his head down and pulls the flesh from a soldier, then turns to look at me as he gulps his meat. His black eyes shine in the dying light. We regard each other, this scavenger and I, and in him I recognize a creature not unlike myself. We do what we must to survive. The vulture flaps his massive wings and is gone.
My stomach churns and bile sets my throat on fire. Doubling over, I try to expel the acid, but nothing comes. I wish I had some water, anything to get the bitterness out of my mouth. Wiping my damp hair from my face, I look around me at the muddy field. My back seizes as I push myself up. Gasping against the pain, I catch an abandoned wagon before I fall face-first into another dead body. I close my eyes and try to control my breathing as I fight against the hopelessness that is setting in. This field is large and our losses enormous; there is no way that I can search through it in one evening.
My husband can’t be here. Men like him don’t die. He is too cunning. But in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder what it means for me if he is. There are so many men, it’s not impossible to think that what they told me was true.
I turn back to the tree line as I realize, I could run. I could leave this place. I could sneak away from these incompetent idiotas. I could become something greater than my husband. They would whisper the name Anita Garibaldi in reverence.
Closing my eyes, I step forward, my boots sinking ever so slightly in the mud. Memories rush past me as I make my way across the field. Only time will tell if I am making the right decision.
Part One
Santa Catarina, Brazil
One
October 1829
I was eight years old when I was sent to school in the small trading settlement of Tubarão. But conforming was never my strong suit. I tried my best to be like my two older sisters, my hair in braids, my dress freshly pressed, but I couldn’t sit still and pay attention. Our one-room schoolhouse was small and stale. I could feel the thick, hot air in my lungs making me struggle for breath.
This was once the justice of the peace’s office, but the villagers’ children needed a place to learn to read. He got a new building and we got the old one, yellowed with age and adorned with thick cracks that climbed the walls. Everyone was happy.
We sat at our desks, four rows across, every child dutifully listening to the basic lessons that would allow us to take over our parents’ roles in the village one day. The teacher droned on, reading from a book.
Sighing, I looked out the window to where a cherry guava tree grew. One of the branches, thick with bright pink berries, bounced up and down in the morning sun. I leaned out of my chair to get a better look at what was making such a ruckus. The little black nose of a wild coati poked through the lush green leaves. I watched as the little creature carefully walked out to the edge of the branch, seeking out the ripe guava.
“Anna de Jesus! Get back in your seat!” the teacher yelled, snapping my attention back to him.
“But, senhor—”
He grabbed me by the arm to pull me in front of the class and made me hold out my hands. I tried to rip them away, but it only caused his grip to tighten. He slapped them firmly with his ruler. The sting resonated up my forearms into my elbows. “Do not speak back to your teacher. You are a girl. You should obey.”
Hot tears stung my eyes. I wasn’t going to reward him; I bit the inside of my lip to keep from crying out. Blinking back the tears, I could feel the other students’ eyes on me. It wasn’t until a giggle rippled up from the back of the room that my embarrassment led to anger. I grabbed the ruler from his hand and started to hit him with it. I could see nothing but my hand gripping the ruler as it made contact with my teacher’s arms, raised in defense. It was the last time I ever went to school.
“What are we going to do with you, Anna?” my mother asked, red-faced, nostrils flaring like a bull’s. We were in the safety of our small home with its thatched roof and mud-and-straw walls, away from the prying eyes of the village. My mother was always careful with what ammunition she gave the town gossips. I sat at the table, looking up at her, fear making my stomach clench.
“She will come to work with me.” Neither my mother nor I had heard my father come in. He was standing in the doorway, wiping a damp rag under his chin and ears. Mamãe straightened her back as she eyed my father.
“You are too soft on her. This,” she said, pointing to me, “this is all your fault.”
“This is our daughter. We could use the extra hands with the horses.” He looked down at me with his arms crossed, the hint of a smile on his face. I tried not to meet his smile.
My mother threw her arms up in the air as she walked in the opposite direction from my father. “I give up!”
I grinned broadly at her back as she stormed away. My father’s face grew stern as he regarded me. “Wipe that smile off your face. This will be hard work.” I nodded in agreement as he stalked off.
Working alongside my father with the horses and cattle was wonderful. Our area of southern Brazil, known as Santa Catarina, was a true Eden. No one loved the wild, rugged country like the gauchos, and Brazil couldn’t function without us.
We spent our days taming the wild land of Santa Catarina. Every year more people settled here from Europe and northern Brazil, requiring more land, more cows, and more resources in general. When a rancher lost one of his cattle, it was my father and the other gauchos who went out to find it.