THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

CHAPTER NINE

Miguel Chankik turned to the northeast upon leaving Coba, stopping at villages with and without names until he reached Cabo Catouche, then returned by way of the coast, passing the old cities of Kankun, Nisucte and Meco which, it was said, were cities of the oldest inhabitants of the Yucatan, a race of dwarves called variously the Aluxob or Ppuzob. These had started the tradition of building stone temples to the gods but, being dwarves, their arches of their entrances were no more than a meter tall, such height being as substantial a ceiling as that of the cathedral in Merida to ordinary men.

After the dwarves were swept way by a flood sent upon them by Juan de la Cruz or, some still said, by an equally fearsome lord of wind and waves called Hunab Ku, the cities of the coast lay vacant many years until the coming of the Itza. These, it has been said, were able to erect the great stone buildings of Coba, Tulum and other centers by using the magic in sounds; for they had only to whistle at a certain pitch and the stones would leap from the earth and fly through the air to their proper place. Chankik had mentioned this to Padre Juliano upon hearing the story of Joshua before the gates of Jericho but, instead of expressing gladness at another instance of celestial architecture, the Padre had knocked him down with a blow to the ear, angrily shouting that, while only God had power to destroy a sinful city by magical means, any place so erected was surely done by the Devil. Such comparisons were odious to the Catholic faith and Chankik had bowed and thanked the Padre for swiftly and firmly correcting heresy but now, standing by the shore at dawn, watching the red sun emerging from its bed, Chankik remembered Juliano's choleric sputterings and wondered, again, at the dzulob incarnation of Christianity which holds that it is godly to destroy but sinful to create. Then he splashed water over his head and shoulders and dove into the sea in search of some creature whom Juan de la Cruz would send to him for his breakfast.

Most of the old cities of the north had been pulled down by this time, their stones often used to build Christian churches which, in turn, had been torn down or abandoned in the Caste War. Perhaps the old gods still resented this incursion, or perhaps it was only because the whites were poor architects, but the short space of two generations' heat and rain and wind, and the incredible fecundity of the monte, had pulled many of these structures down, covering them with trees, shrubs and lizards. Few people lived along the northeast coast... even the sublevados avoided it, despite its isolation from the Mexican army, for the soil was poor, the game scarce and the sapodilla trees infrequent. There were coconut palms, true, many of them... but what sort of man would live on coconuts and fish? Bandits, deserters maybe. No others.

Miguel Chankik turned inland south of Tuloom, the city of the old walls. A clergyman, Juan Diaz, who had sailed with Grijalva in the sixteenth century, believed these as large and fine as those guarding Seville. Corn flourished here and the sublevados had established many villages of exile. Midway between the sea and the occupied Santa Cruz, the town of Xoken nurtured its isolation. Here the white roads could still be seen, for no Mexican feet had kicked these boulders from their path, nor carried them off for construction of a Catholic church. Here, also, was an evil-smelling dzonote and a cave, which the villagers of Xoken told their infrequent travelers was the entrance to hell so as to speed them elsewhere onward to their destinations, elsewhere. Chankik, however, was known and welcomed here. The time had come for the xaman... literally, H-man... of the village and the political and military jefes to select the fields for next year's corn. Among his skills was that of the diviner... his reputation was a famous one and he was taken to a hut and given food and drink.

Upon the following morning, the diviner accompanied the officials of Xoken through the monte until the H-man said that they had reached the first place where corn could be planted. Chankik nodded and tasted the earth, which was coarse and of a reddish hue. He wrinkled his nose. The red soil, stronger than the yellow, was not so highly regarded for the corn as black earth. "How long," he asked, "has it been since milpa was made here?"

"Seven years," the jefe militar answered. Chankik nodded. Seven was a fortunate number when attached to red earth.

"If there is no black earth, this place shall serve," he determined. "However, the milpa will not be harvested without difficulties. There are aluxes here."

These dwarfish spirits, survivors of the deluge Juan de la Cruz had unleashed, could work good, if propitiated, or evil, if not. But they were beings of caprice and Chankik wondered, though he did not speak, whether they had be enlisted to serve the Mexican dzulob. Evil spirits, after all, flocked among one another as do birds. Further, the potency of water spirits flagged so far from the ocean and so near to a cave in which there certainly would be earth devils. Many unnatural things were thought to emanate from this cave and Chankik had noted innumerable clay figures hanging from trees or stationed at the approaches to Xoken, which villagers had fashioned to propitiate the cave spirits which would animate them by night rather than wander through huts, animal pens and milpas in search of mischief.

"They do not have long," the H-man said of his swollen little figures. In a few weeks the Mayan year would terminate in five unlucky days which follow the eighteen months of twenty days. At that time, all such statues would be destroyed to prevent the spirits captured within them from escaping.

Miguel Chankik turned the little idol over in his palm. It was warm to the touch, the clay moist, and he felt it throb and pulse as its captured spirits struggled to break free. If a little clay devil trap was placed at a crossroads of many spirits and not carefully examined, it could actually burst, releasing its contingent of winds, influences and demons, their powers vastly concentrated and enhanced. The fall of the city of the Talking Cross and the treacherous murder of Felipe Yama, Chankik had learned, had been accompanied by the exploding of spirit traps all over the peninsula.

"It will be one year," the xaman of Xoken remembered, "since the red death came. I recall it well, it was the first day of the Uayab that Arturo Chan received the sickness. It was not his fortune to perish, but there were others, sixteen in all, besides nine infants, whom the red death carried off. That was a plague of the aluxes."

"No," Chankik corrected, "of the dzulob..." which was true, for the red death was nothing more than measles, greatly feared among the mazehualob, whose resistance to the many and pernicious diseases carried by the whites was not strong.

The xaman nodded, understanding little, but perfectly willing to blame the plague upon the Mexican invaders.

"Now, however, I begin to bring to end the dzulob and their plagues," the curandero added. "To do this, I will have to enter the cave." The xaman shuddered.

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