THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Captain José Fernandez was also an early riser, an abstainer from alcohol, meat and tobacco, all of which had been consumed in copious quantities in Santa Cruz del Bravo over the past two days. As such, he was held out of place there... respected, even used, but not confided in, and his knowledge of the army of the Territory over the Federal invaders at Tabi was vague. Commander of the watch over the western road, he was not alarmed when the commander of Tabi, Rodriguez, led a dozen of his men to the station, following by a Federal General and thirty wary soldiers.

This General identified himself as Manuel Rivera... Fernandez knew him not, but the last year had been so filled with promotions, deaths and resignations that it was likely he was as he represented himself. Moreover he respected Rodriguez as a man of temperance and judgment, further knowing the Colonel to be one of the few officers in Quintana Roo possessing both competence and integrity. Having been given no order to shoot Rivera, he saluted and accepted the documents provided him.

"General Rivera," explained Rodriguez, "has been appointed by our President as the new Governor and military commander of this territory. Captain Fernandez turned over the orders and noted the visible signature of Francisco Madero as well as that of the Minister of War. He saluted once more and returned them to the General.

"I am at your service," he declared, and one of the officers of Tabi winked towards another who had accompanied Manuel Rivera. They had timed their arrival to occur between the hours of six and seven in the morning, when the capital was awake but still struggling to go about its business.

Had the first encounter been with one of those who knew Bravo's intent to have the Federal General seized as a traitor, a far different result may have transpired. But, within half an hour, Fernandez brought a score of officers of the territory whose patience with Ignacio Bravo was at an end to Rivera, and a hundred soldados with them. These were largely men who, finding little to celebrate, were in no ways in the state of dissipation as most of their fellows and... when this party assembled in the plaza... they drew a crowd of blinking, yawning soldiers, many in their nightshirts or without their boots or rifles, some holding or shaking their heads as General Rivera declared that he was their new commander, that he had a paper from the President himself, that his saddlebags bulged with innumerable Decrees which he had prepared during his journey from Mexico City.

There was but one inquiry from a Corporal, who could barely hold himself erect. "Are you a Prohibitionist?" he called out. Rivera cautiously declared that he had no such intentions.

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