THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK FIVE: THE BOOK of STONE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Colonel Octaviano Solis unwrapped the strangling vines from Matochino's neck. The big man groaned and rubbed the dark red bruises, coughing deeply. He turned towards Solis, resting his head upon an elbow.

"Well at least your methods are direct," he croaked, wrenching syllables from his tortured throat. "So long as you are not lying and don't expect me to turn on Bravo, here's what I'll do. I'll give you Aruña's place, and his woman too. That sneaking dog is overdue for an accident in the monte! He doesn't have a job worth taking but I'll see that you get one. For a start, you can help keep order at the General's reception on Friday night. You can handle that, can't you?"

Matochino paused to rub his throat and reached over one of the sleeping girls to draw a bottle up, the better to lubricate his tongue. "The General," he muttered, "thinks it amusing to post half a dozen armed prisoners as guards about his functions. It has a… certain… effect upon his officers."

"I understand. Continue."

"You will do me, and yourself, the service of making it clear to all who foolishly inquire that your former rank was that of an officer in the Rurales. Whatever your true motive for being in this place, the army of Mexico is not in favor here and there are scores, no, hundreds here who would kill you as I would. I do not desire accidents, but I cannot always prevent them. Even if your plan was to kill me, you would not have survived the week. I am an evil man, Colonel, but I bring order to this place. Those who would destroy it will also, in the end, destroy themselves. So it is well that you have chosen to settle matters in this fashion."

"We need each other, Matochino," Solis promised. "You shall keep order among your men and I shall curb my secret confederates. Perhaps... some day," he added, "...we shall consider whether you are qualified for initiation into the fraternity of the Assassins."

He coiled the empty vine about his wrist and stalked towards an empty spot he had seen upon the altar. Sitting, he pushed a ragged fellow to one side to make a comfortable place to lie down. The man came awake with a growl but noticed murder still in the face of Solis and his fist, still trailing vines... also, that Matochino had made no move against the intruder... and edged aside. To his other side dozed an indian whose head reclined upon the sharpened bone of some large animal as though it were a pillow.

Solis turned upon his back, staring through the stained glass of the great window of the church which daubed the moonlight, passing through it, with many weak, dreaming hues. Disease and murder, he remembered, the only perils of Santa Cruz? Time would tell. And then a weary curiosity about Aruña's woman... Aruña, whom he had never met, but already counted with the dead...

Just before a dim, restless sleep finally settled over him, he felt the vines around his wrist and wondered which of these prisoners, if any, would be worthy of learning the noble French art of the garrote.

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