THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

CHAPTER FIVE

Mariano Chable motioned towards these Christians, beckoning them enter the circle. "At your service, don Miguel." One of his nephews began passing portions of roasted fowl among the crowd, taking care that the choicest parts were offered to the visitors. This was prudence, not blasphemy. The hunters' gods consumed only the spirit of offerings; the flesh itself was nothing to them, and what other course could have been taken except that it be eaten by the faithful. For did not even the Lord Jesucristo decree his own flesh and blood must be consumed?

But, while the customary nature of the hunters' feast was joyful, with more delicacies and perhaps a few bowls of aguardiente added, this meal of the people and the Christians was concluded in a somber silence. "The gods of the hunt are ours, as well," declared Lorenzo Umil, a thin, limping man who knew reading and writing and thus served as scribe of the Christians, "even if the beasts that we seek are large, and sometimes dangerous." His lips and fingers glistened with grease. "But heed, now, the words of Miguel Chankik the Tatoob." This was the dark man who, alone, had refused the meat, standing furthest from the altar at the junction of the cavern passages.

Unlike the people and the other Christians, no shadow rose up behind him. Gold eyes hooded, he spoke almost in a whisper that all strained to perceive.

"Hear now, my Christians, that the time of our deliverance from the dzulob grows near. Seven nights and seven days I walked in Calotmul; seven angels came to me with petitions of deliverance and prophecy, words I repeat to you in the name of the True Cross and Most Precious Blood, of the balaams and loas and of Juan de la Cruz.

"Hear, Christians, that the day draws near when slavery of debt becomes a memory, when the officials who kill and persecute Christians meet our vengeance. In the cities of dzulob, on the coca and chicle plantations, on the ranches and in villages where the poorest of men take arms against the dzulob, all shall rise against the general appointed by the devil whose name is known to those dwelling at the center of the fire. Comes the devil... soon, my children, to wage war against this land, to raise the sickness of the air, the very bones of the earth.

"Who will stand against the devil and his General? The Christian soldiers who, with the assistance of Juan de la Cruz and of Queen Victoria will regain our freedom."

Chankik's eyes glowed from the shadows with ferocity that made Esteban's blood chill. "You, my Christians, you hunters of deer, workers of soil. What a choice I bring, what tribulation! But what are the people without land, without even a name? The Indians? as some foolish devils believe, although the land of India stands at the bottom of the earth. Is this the landless man? The Christian soldier? Or do we forget that only in the last cycle of fifty two years did we hold the dzulob in our grasp, releasing him only because the time was not propitious. Dzulob who make no food of their own but live off of the labors of the people?

"God and God alone," said Chankik, "speaks to each in the core of night and may command a man to leave his soil. This is the charge I may not... and will not... make.

"But," he continued, "who are these dzulob who so torment us. Where is the soil they spring from, and what is the reason that they walk the earth, uprooting all whom they encounter from the land?

"The answer, my beloved Christians, is that they are ghosts, the dead from Mitnal... hell... who come to this fifth world attempting to effect the Last Destruction before the coming of Saint John and Michael and the institution of the Kingdom of Heaven in Yucatan. Such has been told to me by Juan de la Cruz and this is the teaching of the Cross."

A chorus of low muttering has risen among the people at this mention but Chankik waved, as if to wave the curses aside. "Now may the counsel of the saints be with you and instruct your hearts upon the nature of the path you walk in this, the reckoning of years. May you walk with the Lord Juan de la Cruz and with the Lady, may the road be long and white."

"How is the road?" Mariano Chable asked the people assembled and the Christians as Chankik disappeared into the depths of the cavern. He used the old tongue... "Bix cabaal?"

"Ma alo," they replied in one voice, "... long and white."

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