THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

 

 

  

CHAPTER TEN

 

         A brown and white terrier slipped into don Antonio's library after the brothers and Rigoberto shut the door behind him, glancing through a curtain to verify that his father was, indeed, on his way towards the stables. He bent to affectionately scratch the little beast behind an ear. "Noble Anibal, good dog! He's become every bit the retriever his father was... Roberto and I went shooting, last month, in the wetlands and no duck could escape his nose. You'd enjoy a little shooting, but then I'll wager you've done your share overseas."

         "They use uncommon quantities of shot, especially in England," José replied. "The best people there have missing or broken teeth for having bitten down on the ball in the leg or the breast of a bird... it's a measure of privilege, the way dueling scars are in Heidelberg."

         "Well, you probably know more than I on that subject," Rigoberto frowned, settling into his father's cavernous wooden chair with another glance over his shoulder. He was fair where José was dark, and... while the elder had grown fleshy about the waist and chin, José was all angles and grooves, like chiseled flint. "Father and I have done much to settle these matters that have necessitated your extensive studies abroad. Time and money cure all ills... thank Providence for the green gold and Philippine wars, may they last for another whole century!"

         "And?" José questioned.

         "Well, this dolt of a halfbreed arrested last year for your... well, for indiscretions... he contrived to get himself killed in a fight with knives in San Benito. So it's over. But this temper of yours... truly José, in our great epoch of scientific peace, the wiles of Venus are surely better than the outbursts of Mars. Correct - brother? After all, we're not like the Americans... shooting each other to bits when they are not stealing Cuba or our lands to the north... nor like the rest of Mexico! Guard yourself, my brother, against dangerous thoughts, against your impulsiveness... and keep your visions to yourself, lest you be shut away in that new asylum they're always talking of building. Before tonight, of course, you're free to change your mind." Rigoberto made what he believed a careless gesture of dismissal. "In itself, this is of no dishonor. After all, many who have measured themselves by the standards of the Caballeros have decided that the sacrifice did not merit the gain."

         "I understand," declared José, "but I am willing."

         "Good for you!" cried Rigoberto with genuine relief. "Los Caballeros de la Campaña welcome the vital energies new members bring to any brotherhood. And your decision is cause for rejoicing... I say, not only as your brother, but as a loyal Caballero. In the face of this short-lived disgrace," he added, "it is vital that we prove ourselves not unhorsed by the circumstance, and that the chase proceeds according to tradition."

         José nodded. The scandal to which Rigoberto referred to had been a severe one. In an attempt to broaden the horizons of the Men of the Bell, two young priests had been accepted into the Caballeros. Later, in October of that year, the two... with four more seminarians gratefully unconnected with the secret society had... been deported from the state for the commission of unnatural acts with each other and with the son of a prominent Deputy Minister.

         The depth of this insult may be weighed by the nature and the name of the society. The bell of Guadeloupe, a symbol of the independence of the Republic, was a patriotic veneer that differed in no way from the other societies of Salamanca. But its good Spanish name, campaña, differed only slightly from another meaning, one derived, perhaps, from the wretched Indians who had made an art of alliteration and punning that had not been entirely stamped out. This slight alteration of language changed the meaning of the letter N to the word for the campaign, or hunt. This, too, the Caballeros excelled in... and their quarry was the daughters of the city's emerging middle class who gambled on the prospect of a marriage into society. The number of instances in which fox turned on hound was small.

         To have heard the next ten minutes of Rigoberto's discourse on the obligations of chivalry and honor... drawing from sources as diverse as Greek mythology, the knights of Arthur and the exploits of Cortez and Cordoba... one would have come away agreeing with the judgement of a European visitor that the youth of Merida exemplified the virtues of a courtly tradition all but abandoned in such lands where rudeness and lewdness had seeped into public discourse... England, perhaps, to say nothing of the United States.

         Draining the last of his father's brandy, Rigoberto meditated on these things and on the words of virtuous and virile Roman and Arab philosophers, composing an explanation he would offer to don Antonio for his absence from the stables.

         "Talk pleasantly tonight José, if the bell permits," Rigoberto added, ominously, "...I see that you've brought up a box, in which must be the mask you wrote of bringing from Havana." He held one finger up. "Here's mine!"

         Rigoberto turned to the window and back, now as a tonsured monk, with the rubber mask wholly covering his fine, light brown hair. "Droll, isn't it? Yours, now. Don't protest - we'll have to recognize each other... I can point your way towards Merida's choicest game birds as surely as Anibal. Right, boy?"

         Again he scratched the door.

         "If you desire," José replied, and set a box of fine dark wood upon his father's desk. From it he drew something so sheer it seemed to sparkle like the scales of a wondrous fish; one of those creatures called the Men of War, whose sting is as poisonous as its jellied flesh is clear. There was, however, a milky opacity to the mask, and Rigoberto started as his brother drew it over his scalp.

         "That'snot funny!" he protested as José, fresh from his education... or exile, if such term be preferred... stood before him, masked as a skull whose dark, hollow eyes were set off by shiny scales of fabric which could be no larger than the grains of sugar that compose the candy skulls children in Mexico devour on the November feasting days. A mask of subtlety... to hide the features of an unrepentant killer.

         "I rather fancy it," José smirked. "There is no lover dearer to the Meridian lady than don del Muerte. Some even enter convents, brother, living whole lives of charity and chastity that they may find release in his arms. Yes, I think it rather cunning. Isn't it?"

 

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