THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

CHAPTER NINE

Such intrigues as would soon bring great change to the campaign were still unknown to José when, a few days following the meeting and petition to Diaz, he was given orders to accompany a party of the vanguard, under the command of Antonio Villanueva, who had recognized potential in this young lieutenant despite his accident of birth, and who had offered him counsel that might advance his career or, at least, save his life.

"I don't like this at all," said the Major, who was not averse to offering criticisms of his superiors as long as he was sure that none of the ears about belonged to spies who would carry his dissatisfaction back to Bravo or Huerta. "There's another of their damn villages close by, a big one, you can bet from the size of the trails around it. They hear us and see us, but we don't have the faintest notion of where they are." The monte, in fact, had closed in around them like a green wall the moment they departed the wide gash of the safe zone that had been carved out so painstakingly. And perhaps the weeks of hard, physical labor that dulled their senses as they halted at a log fallen across the thin trail, with the sun, through the trees, making a mosaic of living green above and the dead brown below.

Villanueva, confused, paced his horse the length of the log and back, suddenly wheeling the skittish mount, shouting "Back! Fall back!" As he did, Cruzob rifles roared from the monte and two Mexicans dropped without even having raised their weapons.

José's first impression of the sublevados in their white shirts was of moths flitting through the monte, firing their weapons, disappearing, reloading, firing again. The Federal forces had their rifles out, shooting wildly at the directions of the return fire but more were down as José turned left, then right at a loud crack that sent his hat sailing from his head. An indian, not less than fifteen meters distance was already reloading his rifle, raising it up.

With no time to reach for his own rifle he whipped his pistol from its pocket and fired, locking eyes with the insurgent's in the moment of firing. "The man isn't afraid of me at all!" José wondered, and then he was slammed back in his saddle by the Cruzob's ball, which had struck him in the upper right arm, exploding his collar bone. The monte shimmered before his eyes, but he felt only shock, no pain, and gripped the reins in his left hand to maintain his balance. He could see the fingers of his wounded arm writhing of their own accord, but the pistol had fallen from his hand and the fingers' unconscious groping for it raised a thought that burst through the shimmering numbness that had enveloped him.

The indian! He was still there, standing in the monte, looking down upon a small dark stain on his white trousers above the right knee. The muzzle of the Cruzob's rifle was embedded in the earth, he was using it as a sort of crutch, but he looked up at José, hopped backwards a step and raised it once more – an insolent salute. José thrust the reins in his mouth, aiming to control the panicked horse with his teeth, and reached across the saddle for his rifle. He could not keep the horse still, but its movement from side to side confounded the indian too for he glared murderously at José, lowered his rifle and limped off into the bush.

The expedition had become a total rout. Four of the Mexicans were down and twice that number wounded in their saddles. Now the pain came washing over José as had waves when he and Rigoberto had played in Progreso's surf; he stuffed the rifle back into its holder and gripped the reins for dear life, knowing that a fall now would mean certain and probably unpleasant death. Major Villanueva was gesturing for a retreat but his wrist moved weakly in circles, and José saw that the major's jaw had been shattered by a Cruzob bullet; a mass of blood and bone splinters dribbling from his throat like a turkey's crimson wattle.

"Back!" José called, "back to the road!" He shook his head furiously to wave the remains of the company on for his arm hung mutinously beside him. More sublevado rifles spoke and another Mexican dropped. The rest, needing no further urging, spurred their mounts toward camp, a scant three kilometers distant. José brought his horse by that of Villanueva, who drooped perilously, opening his eyes and mouth to speak but bringing up only blood and spittle. Focusing upon the pain as a physical object to prevent him from losing his own consciousness, the Lieutenant thrust the reins between his teeth again and hoisted the Major out of his saddle and onto José's own horse, straddled before him like a dead goat. He grasped his right hand with the left and drew it bodily across the major's back, burying the fingers in the mane of the now terrified horse; to his amazement they hung there, clenching the rough hair more out of instinct than by design. As the bullets swarmed like wasps he regripped the reins, turned the beast and raked it with his spurs... in this manner was the engagement finished.

Of the return, José remembered little. Fragments of memories, daguerreotypes unreeled before his eyes as he lurched in the saddle, shaking sharp-clawed demons from his back only to clear the way for more. The spectre of the bottomless cup of the Fin del Siglo crowded out his vision as he felt himself sliding out of the saddle; ghostly figures moved to intercept him and the last thing he could think of was his failure, capture, and the hope that God would take him before he awoke as a prisoner of the Talking Cross.

He had, however, reached the trail, and nearly reached the camp; Mexicans, alarmed by the spectacle of their defeated, bloody colleagues and riderless horses surging out of the monte had reinforced them and taken them to the encampment while the Cruzob, as was their custom, retreated again before the greater force. It would be a sad and busy night for Dr. Rosario, who dug the shell from José's shoulder using aguardiente both for its anaesthetic properties and as a disinfectant; the potency of the liquor saved his arm, if not his life, for the feared infection failed to manifest. After three days in the camp, during which he slipped in and out of fretful sleep speckled with dreams of a disturbing nature, it was determined that the danger was past, and that José could be removed to Peto, where were kept the convalescing soldiers of both the Federal forces and the Guardia. Dr. Rosario's scalpel had left a long, red scar from his shoulder to the base of his neck, but he would recover the use of the arm, although with some pain that would come and go on a schedule not to be predicted.

Not so fortunate was Major Villanueva. Though he, too, lived, half of his lower jaw and all his lower left side teeth and, moreover, most of his tongue had been left behind as an offering for the balaams at the place where the Cruzob had placed their tree across the trail. And the return of the defeated company so threw the encampment into dismay that Bravo's will was sealed... the use of convict labor was essential to release the soldiers to do the job they were trained for, to permit larger patrols, less vulnerable to ambush. Watching as the gallant Villanueva was packed into a carretera that would take him away from the encampment and out of the army forever, Ignacio Bravo vowed that it would be the cursed of the Republic, not his good soldiers, who henceforth would bear the brunt of both the labors of and resistance to the campaign.

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