THE INSURGENCE of
CHAN SANTA CRUZ
BOOK FIVE:
THE BOOK of STONE
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
"Take
this one aside," Rosario quickly and furtively decreed. A small back room
of the hospital had been reserved for those whose maladies were specific and treatable...
not one in ten were of this nature, but the room was always full. He slipped
Solis half a loaf of bread and returned to the inspection, his afternoon
ruined. Examination of the arriving prisoners was a routine, occasionally
bringing forth something of notably loathsome origin, other times holding an
unexpected light moment. Within the past year, Rosario had begun to gamble with
his staff, placing small bets on whether this one would survive for a month or
that one last a year. When nobody would put money down... for the obviously
reason that the doctor usually won... he gambled with himself. But the arrival
of Octaviano Solis had ruined this casual pleasure
and he hurried through the line, reducing it to ten men who could benefit from
treatment, releasing the others into the custody of the corporal with the
simple, yet hapless order "Feed them!" Of the ten, four were given
quinine, two held for surgery in the evening and three others provided with
other such medicineS as Rosario's cabinet permitted.
The
last was Colonel Solis.
"Do
you want to talk about it? No?" The doctor sighed and muttered a few words
in Mayan out the window. Promptly a boy handed him a few tortillas and a tin
cup filled with beans and greasy scraps of some anonymous flesh.
"Take
it slowly," Rosario advised, for Solis had already devoured the bread and
attacked the meal with an enthusiasm that might prove a fatal shock to a
stomach that must almost have forgotten what to do with food. "I'll do
what I can while this..." he trailed off. "Anyway,
if you work outside, you'll lose that pallor, although there is always
difficulty getting enough to eat."
"I'll
try," said Solis.
"Actually,"
said Rosario, "the work is not what you'll have to worry about. It's the
rest of it, at night."
"Night?"
Solis seemed incapable of more than a few words at one time.
"Night,"
the doctor repeated. "I can find some pretext to keep you here for a few
days to build up your strength, but the new arrivals are locked up in the
church. There's a different standard of authority there..."
"I
know," the disgraced Colonel remembered. "I was in Belem," he
added.
"Well
then you understand the way that these things go," Rosario said.
"Some people didn't... don't," he corrected, rather hastily, "they don't have the sort of background for these things,
even from the other side."
"Who?"
said Solis.
"I
beg your pardon?"
The
prisoner coughed, swallowing the last of the meal and wiping his lips with his
sleeve. "Excuse my manners," he said. "I have had to adapt
myself to these circumstances. But you may wish to know that things are not so
different in prison, in Belem, from our own army. How? There is rank,
leadership... and a certain order is imposed from within. Bravo is a subscriber
to Mr. Darwin’s theory - he recognizes
the authority of certain men as leaders, just as Don Porfirio
recognizes your General Bravo." And the Colonel paused as if exhausted by
the effort of so much speaking. "There is a caudillo in the chapel. Who is
he?"
"The
man is called Lo Matochino for he has, as you may
understand, a particular hatred for the huaches.
I'm not saying that he won't kill a Mexican or any one of our indians, not at all, but he has such a loathing of all
Orientals that Bravo has consented to have ours stored in what used to be an
ammunition warehouse."
"So
the General acknowledges him."
"Well,
if that is what you call it. He'd never admit to knowing the man but, of
course, the General speaks with his Corporal, and the Corporal controls the
Captain of the Guard who must deal with Matochino."
"Is
that Boleaga? Is the rat still around?"
"The
very same. Where else in all Mexico, I ask you, does a Captain, a Major, even
Colonels tremble upon the words of an insignificant Corporal? The older Bravo
grows, the more suspicious he becomes. Even his own son Tomas is in disfavor...
a matter of the sale of some slaves of the wrong color. And Major Macias... he
could help you too, if he were here, but he has been given a little village in
the monte off the railroad for his very own to
command. So the General has nobody to trust save those who come to him for
benefits or to cause injury to their enemies. There is never an end of those!
But what of you?"
The
Colonel placed a finger to his lips. "I made certain enemies," Solis
recalled, "who represented me as a revolutionary because I was not so
quick, as they would have liked, to massacre villages of women, children and
old men that the guerrillas left behind. Were they correct, the obvious
recourse to me would be to kill this Matochino and
unleash the wild horses of anarchy across this place, leaving them to take
their course. But for the present, and despite this excellent supper, I am too
weak to be interested in anything beyond my survival."
"I
think that this is admirable," said the Doctor, "also, it has been my
experience that the General does not look favorably upon those who harm the
ones who keep order, deserving of death as they may be. However, Matochino also has the practice of killing those he
perceives as rivals whether, in truth, they are or are not."
Solis
nodded. "I've learned a few tricks of persuasion from an old sergeant who
served under the French. These may give me the time I need until it is
over."
"Until
what is over?" asked Rosario.
Solis
gestured widely to include the room, the hospital and more... the whole of
Santa Cruz, the territory, even the Republic. There was a world in his grasp.
"Things fall apart in Mexico. As this President, so goes the
Republic."
Dr.
Rosario nodded... sadly, for although such disorder would bring an end to his
exile, he was a much older man now, and a much more cautious one. He called,
perforce, for the boy to escort Solis to a hamaca, in
which... with luck... he would be able to pass a few days before entering the
church, where the other new prisoners would be gathered after their
examination. He filled a glass with cognac and returned to the main room of the
hospital.
Of
sixteen hammocks, two contained those of the newcomers whose condition
necessitated further attention and ten more were filled with those of the
territory who had suffered injury or disease. Keeping a firm grasp upon the
cognac, he dragged a chair behind him and placed it beside the hammock of a
Yaqui who... for a reason still unexplained... had acquired a sudden attack of
"lead poisoning" the previous night. There was nothing the doctor
could do; his liver and intestines were pierced, infection had swiftly followed
and his skin was now a mottled briarpatch of violet,
brown and yellow.
Still
conscious, the indian heard
Dr. Rosario approach. With the last of his strength, he turned his head in the
direction of the scraping sound. Rosario took a cigar from his pocket and lit
it up. Having taken a few healthy puffs, he handed it to the dying man and
raised the cognac in a toast. The Yaqui took one breath of smoke, shivered and,
amidst a fanfare of grunts and farts and fluttering extremities, don del Muerte made his entrance onto
that stage wherein all possibilities are closed.
RETURN to HOMEPAGE
– “THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ”
RETURN to GENERISIS HOMEPAGE