THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK FOUR: THE BOOK of SCIENCE

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Susana not yet having married; José passed an hour in her arms, occasionally those of others... daughters of henequeros, Ingenarios, even a University Professor. A number of Caballeros promised to attend the Macias function with a wink, and there was a less pleasant interlude where Doña Maddalena, angry and showing the influence of drink, interrogated him on Rigoberto's whereabouts. "He barely kissed me getting off that horrible train from Campeche and ran off... if you are hiding him, let him know that my father's outrage is greater than my own!" Finally she spat and went away, leaving José to wonder what had possessed Rigoberto to engage himself to her - surely there were easier ways of getting wealthy. Don Antonio had found a chair in which to fall asleep and José, observing the lines of worry on his father's face gradually relaxing, chose not to wake him even as the likelihood of the President's coming waned... to be entirely snuffed out when, shortly after midnight, half a dozen officers from the Diaz party arrived, at the head of which was Victoriano Huerta.

"Where's the brandy?" Huerta called out. The faces of the montes swiveled on their necks. The soldiers were still in uniform, dusty and reeking of horses. Susana Escobar dropped José's hand.

Raul Montez-Betancourt presented himself before Huerta, who had covered his rank with a light-colored canvas raincoat, for the skies had opened twice since sundown. "We are as patriotic as any state in the Republic, perhaps more so," Don Raul composed his challenge. "The Mexican army is our army. Nonetheless this is a private function. Do you have," he smirked, "invitations?" The hacendado doubtlessly assumed Huerta's party to be some of the Presidential guard who'd contrived to escape their quarters - in the barracks of the state militia.

"Invitations?" Huerta plucked a whiskey from a waiter's tray and smiled at Don Raul, extending the glass as if daring him to strike it from his hand. He swallowed the contents whole, including the ice, which Don Raul had included in imitation of the American custom. Though discolored, Huerta's teeth were sharp and he crunched the ice and swallowed it, licking his lips and glancing about for another drink. "Invitation, yes," he seemed to remember and tugged some wet paper out of his raincoat. "Here is the President's card and here is a short note of apology. Don Porfirio has had to return to his hotel, for he must rise early to attend to some inspection or other. He rather prefers that kind of tour to parties," He shrugged, then extended a muddy hand. "General Victoriano Huerta, at your service." Don Raul shrank back. All Merida knew of Huerta by his reputation, if not by his face.

"Do enjoy yourself," the hacendado stammered, motioning to a waiter. Huerta's officers, none familiar to José, grabbed their drinks and moved in a pack towards the remaining ladies, their boots leaving big, muddy prints on the rug. Their arrival provoked a slow but certain exodus. One by one, in couples, threes and foursomes, the indignant montes took their leave with handshakes to Don Raul that held rather more condolence than respect. At the same time, younger men were beginning to arrive; Caballeros and others like them, either in the groups known through the city as "hunting packs" or with wives or sweethearts. And, to provide fuel for the chase, a few ambitious señoritas of the middle class, in groups of five or six, usually flashing the invitations of parents and relatives who'd been unable to attend. Don Raul, witnessing the ruin of his función, retreated to that tight, shrinking circle of gentlemen beside the fire including the lawyer, Salazar and the sleeping Don Antonio.

Huerta, following them like the indian Bismarck and his hound trailing a peppered hat, hailed José, to complete the disgrace.

"We meet!" he called out, thrusting his glass forward to complete a toast. "Ah what an officer you were. This is a man!" Huerta proclaimed volubly, causing heads to turn. "In the Territory with nothing save aguardiente to drink, we'd tie the revolted Maya behind our little train and ride together, dragging them twenty, thirty kilometers, then turn round and drag them back to Santa Cruz!"

"We had some great adventures there," José allowed.

"All true, Captain, all true." Huerta sipped his scotch, smacking his lips to acknowledge its age, but seemingly offended that there was no cognac about. "Maybe you were right after all," he sighed. "There's no decent fighting to be had anywhere in Mexico anymore. Even the territory has changed, I understand. The sublevados who weren't killed are hiding in their jungle and, rather than going after them, Bravo trades anything but guns for their chicle and the British provide them with guns. Our great indigenous race is being reduced to human rubble, like the miserable Arabs. Victory is sweet, but sad, so sad," he lamented and polished off his drink.

"Take heart, Colonel. Perhaps the President will finally authorize that invasion of Belize. What was he doing tonight anyway, and how is it that he sends you as his representative?"

Huerta counted off three functions that Porfirio Diaz had visited, all held by cronies of Molina who were disinclined to invite Don Antonio though, certainly, their cards lay among the neglected correspondence in Rigoberto's office. "As for me, I really am a General now, I wasn't just making that up to lift a few drinks... though from the way it worked it's a shame I didn't do this earlier. Yes, I've finally been given my bars, though I'm still just a Major General. But tomorrow... anyway, I've been round and around in the north. The army is bad but the civilian life is even worse. Bernardo Reyes got me my promotion, and this assignment too," he added, naming the Minister of War. "He's a fine man whom you should support for President next time around... he put a few words in don Porfirio's ear that, if there's someone in these parts who wanted to take a shot from up a roof or behind a tree over some incident more than half a century ago, there ought to be a fighting man around. And that gives me a chance to ask a question or two, and to keep my ears open."

"Do you think Yucatan and Campeche feel as you do about Reyes?" José asked, dropping his voice.

"Well they're certainly unhappy with Corral. I must admit I like the man personally... in a burdel or across a barroom table, even in the doctor's waiting room, heh!... but he'd be a disaster running Mexico. He's a politician. They all are, or they're becoming that way, even Bravo. You'll see it yourself. Has he arrived yet?"

"Before my father and I departed, the General telegraphed that he was still ten kilometers out of town. Something delayed him on the way."

"I'll wager that it did. Do you know what our own Ignacio is bringing from the territory as his offering?"

"A wagonload of gum, to seal the mouths of these intolerable people here?" José hoped.

"Even less than that," said Huerta. "Indians!"

José frowned.

"I'll let you in on the small secret," the Major General confided. José could smell the whisky on his breath, along with other spirits, for Huerta's guardianship... perhaps... was grounded in his capacity for accepting the many small toasts on behalf of the President, who took only wine, and that sparingly. "After this affair with Vega, Bravo put his head together with Molina and they got things straightened out between them. They're a couple of businessmen at heart, after all. The Governor, you probably know, has decided to revive the Mayan Empire for a night. They were still hammering away on floats and pyramids at his estate outside of town when Don Porfirio stopped by, and the whole lot will be brought in tomorrow morning. His piece de resistance, as old Maximilian would have put it, is that ball game that the indians played with their knees and hips."

"I think I understand. My father once took Rigoberto and I to some ruins that an Englishman or an American... one of those... is digging up around Valladolid. And there was what they called a ball court, with a stone ring in the wall."

"That's what they did! Molina is having a replica set up in the bullring. And, from here and there, he swept up indian farm boys, cooks and woodchoppers and formed a team, and challenged Bravo who, with the help of that sneaking old vejete Chankik, rounded up a dozen of the sublevados. Another of our General's corrupt bargains, no doubt," Huerta chuckled.

"Chankik's still alive?" And at the very naming of the sorcerer, José's shoulder began to throb, as if remembering, of its own accord. "It must be that the Devil protects those who are most useful to him... still, he was helpful when I was sick."

Huerta seemed uncharacteristically puzzled. "Well that's the ball team from Quintana Roo. The betting is heavy for Molina's crowd; they've had enough to eat out there all month. It's a damn zoo at that estate. There must be twenty floats. And the ladies!" The Colonel smacked his lips. "First class! An actress from the capital. The Contreras girls. And some politician's daughter I'd never heard of before, a real beauty. Well, I'm a married man, unfortunately, my eleventh was just born in October and when this foolishness is over, I've got leave to go back home. Maybe I'll start on a twelfth. Waiter!" he called out. "Now, have you been keeping busy, Captain? You haven't gone all white like these city people, that's apparent."

"I've had a lot to do," José said. Huerta's words about the politician's daughter at the Molina estate had roused his interest. "For over a year I have been managing my father's estanción, trying to wring an honest day's work out of indians who hate me because the rope agents and the foreigners conspired to hold prices down and I had to cut wages. I can't kill them, I can't even threaten to because of their debts. All the while my own debts to Molina's moneylenders pile up! Otherwise I'm fine, really." He took a small stack of engraved invitations to the morrow's functions from his pocket, atop which were a few of his own. "My father and I are holding a función tomorrow night," he said. "The General already has accepted our offer and, of course, I hope you will attend as well. Of course that depends upon the President, I have invited him, Molina too..."

He paused.

"Nothing becomes a party more than pretty faces, Colonel," José began, riffling through the other invitations like playing cards. He put these away, keeping the final dozen of his own. "Our preparations, unfortunately, prevent me from visiting Governor Molina's lands. However, Colonel..."

The waiter appeared, this time with cognac. José passed a glass to Huerta and took one for himself.

"... if one of your men were to have a few spare hours tomorrow, there is a small task I would appreciate..."

Huerta smiled. "Only the ladies, I would understand..."

José nodded. "Of course they are free to bring family and friends. Be sure not to miss that actress. And the politician's daughter... what was his name?"

"I don't know," said Huerta. "He's not from this state."

"Well, anyway, let's show them Yucatecan hospitality. José handed the invitations to the Colonel, along with two ten peso notes.

"I think I can find a man with time to spare," the Colonel acknowledged, lifting his glass. "To... to Mexico and all its well-born ladies, however we find them."

"I am sure you can," José agreed. "To the ladies."

Don Antonio was slumbering peacefully before the fire. Raul Montez-Betancourt's voice... seasoned by years in the Legislature and at least a dozen journeys to the Continent... had been refined, over his many years, into a mellifluous instrument of persuasion. From no violin could there have been coaxed a sweeter lullaby. With the fire warming his bad leg, his belly full of barbecue, sweetmeats and champagne, Don Antonio dreamed of that vanished world of more than a half century previous, an impossible society in which all possessed the sagacity of age with none of its bitterness, all of the joyfulness of youth without a trace of arrogance. A dreamly land of chaste, yet lively señoritas and enduring wives, faithful servants and loyal friends, fat cattle, spirited horses... and not a spike of henequen in view. Such land might well be Heaven, but the Church had held that place apart as reserved for the poor, the ever-suffering as theirs to claim when death relieved them of their earthly labors. His fortune still in the balance, Don Antonio, instead, sought solace in his dreams of his boyhood, before 1847.

And then his son's hand on his shoulder lifted him bodily, and hurled him from Paradise.

Don Antonio sat up, blinking. It was nearly two in the morning. Victoriano Huerta had slithered out a half hour before, leaving his men behind – those not passed out on the rug dueling the Caballeros and their ilk in the boisterous songs of their respective homelands. "They know their way back to the barracks and if they fall over in some alley, well, it's not the territory." José brought his father's hat and cane, and helped him out of the chair. With a few apologies to don Raul for having slept through the función, he allowed José to guide him towards the door. "Some people," Montez-Betancourt averred, "seem never to have need of sleep." He glanced icily over his shoulder at the officers, tarts and dandies who had taken possession of his home.

"Good night," José waved as a pulpito stopped before them.

The night air revived Don Antonio completely. "But a moment," he said to José, ordering the driver to take them to the doors of Agustin Betancourt-Montez, the cousin and old enemy of Don Raul.

The house was dark, but the front gate had not been drawn. An old indian was sweeping red and yellow ribbons into the street, their colors muddied and already fading. "Yes, he was here," the old man said, and his voice reminded Don Antonio of his dream. "The President himself was talking with the patron. I was as near him as I now am to you. The President of Mexico!" he repeated in a dreamy voice, sweeping the tangle of ribbons across the pavement.

"We can go now," Don Antonio said to the driver.

Refreshed by his nap, Don Antonio did not feel a need for sleep. He lit the old lamps of the ballroom, already quite prepared for the festivities, which would commence with the next sunset, and poured sherry for himself and his son. The house slept deeply, exhausted by the labors of the morrow's preparations. Morpheus had spread its wings across all Merida but here, in the eye of the hurricane, Don Antonio held José bewitched by stories of a time before, of the city and its society, brave young heroes rising to seize the nation from the gallant but confused French usurper under the banner of Juarez and his protégé, young Diaz. And before that, their fathers holding the gates fast against the marauding hordes of the sublevados. In that hour before dawn, José too saw those old men gathered before Don Raul's fire as they had been, not as the fossils they now seemed... and then the sun began to rise and he retired to his bed.

Twelve more hours and it would begin. When next the moon turned its face to the old city, José would walk and talk with and hold the hand of his dream. The terrible Tomas Villareal would be gnashing his teeth in defeat as the society of Merida applauded the taking of his daughter... and Don Porfirio Diaz, President of all Mexico, would raise his hand in blessing.

Tomorrow...

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