THE INSURGENCE of
CHAN SANTA CRUZ
BOOK FIVE:
THE BOOK of STONE
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Three
nights after this, Solis stood in the plaza by Bravo's headquarters... a rifle
in his hands, unshaven, but with a belly full of spiced meat, beans, tortillas,
and a head still reeling from half a bottle of unusually potent liquor. It was
Friday evening; the other half had gone down the seemingly bottomless throat of
Matochino, still only partially restored to its
former pristinity. Lo Matochino
had himself instructed Solis not to shave. "The more disheveled that the
guard appears, the better the effect," he said. "They'll think twice
when ordered to calm themselves, a drunk and dirty man is far more likely to
kill an officer than a proper fellow."
"Then
we are allowed to kill them?" Solis wondered.
"Only
lieutenants," said Lo Matochino, "and even
then, only some of them. They hardly count as officers, those little men from
the Colegio, but... even so... it's better to stop
them with something in an arm, a leg or ear. Once I had to put a bullet through
a Captain's hand and it remained stuck to the wall as if a Roman nail, through
the hand of Jesucristo himself."
"What
about the performers? Can we shoot them too?" Solis had quickly adapted
himself to Santa Cruz del Bravo.
"Usually
we won't have to. They tend to behave themselves," Matochino
had said. "Most of them have cut their teeth on places like the Territory,
if there's trouble they're smart enough to snatch their money, play their parts
and run. It's neither sin nor crime to kill a bad actor."
Octaviano Solis was pleased that this new friendship had
brought such a benefit at so early a time. He had been posted as one of the six
guards of the inner plaza... with a full view of the festivities... as opposed
to the other convict-guards posted outside. These were to prevent the intrusion
of the unwanted nine tenths of Santa Cruz from disturbing the merriment of
their betters. True, any lingering soldier or soldadera,
even many of the prisoners without assignment were free to hear the music, the
poetry and the discourses and the recitations at a distance. But except for an
enterprising few who had shinnied up a roof or tree, they could not see the
performers - a considerable disadvantage for these included, as was usual at
General Bravo's functions, several shapely señoritas.
The
occasion of the celebration was a vague one. Migrating performers came to Santa
Cruz only upon the direst of financial circumstances. General Bravo paid even
the poorest troupes more than they were worth and assigned bodyguards for their
journeys to and back, but the distance of the journey from Merida or Campeche,
and the many other dangers of Quintana Roo, made the
territory a destination for only the most desperate.
Most of
these vagabond performers returned, eventually, to Mexico City, and it was
there that the stories that blackened the reputation of the Territory were
told. Fortunate indeed were those who escaped with but a few small cuts and
bruises from the bottles that the spectators were wont to throw, whether from
disgust or admiration. Incidents of rape and beatings were innumerable, and a
few of the actors had even been buried there, although the General's report in
such circumstances invariably attributed the demise to fever or an ambush by
revolted indians.
The
last visit of performers, two months previous, had almost been the occasion of
an international incident. Such functions had become difficult to hold, for
such was the reputation of the Territory that General Bravo had resorted to the
hiring of some British actors en route from Jamaica to Belize. The capers of
these musical comedians... much appreciated by the denizens of London's music
halls... were received by the Mexican garrison with some initial bewilderment.
Not a word of Spanish could they speak... a fact which probably resulted in the
saving of their lives. Bravo himself finally ordered an end to the performance,
allowing the British to flee with their torn costumes and wounds... the
General, whose devotion to high culture remained absolute, refused to pay them,
but did offer them an escort to Vigia Chico.
In the following months, three chicle encampments on
the Mexican side of the Rio Hondo were attacked and burned. Thereafter, the
matter had been allowed to fade away with the unspoken acknowledgment of Bravo
that no further British thespians were to be lured to Santa Cruz and their
potential demise.
Now,
with another Greek discourse finished, the master guitarist of the troupe, José
Morales dedicated a song to the swallows of the territory, knowing full well
that the word had not merely a double but triple meaning. Aside from the ready
comparison of the birds to ladies who flit from lover to lover, the word was
also used to describe the many military deserters who had abandoned their
duties to live a fugitive's life. It brought tears to the eyes of many hard
men, for Morales was an experienced performer of barracks-ballads, and had been
to Santa Cruz three times in ten years. In his estimation, it was not the place
it had been at its birth; there was even something of civilization here...
certainly neither justice nor equality but instead a sad coming- to-terms that
one found in poorer places that have not yet abandoned ambition. Morelos tried
to raise their spirits with some of the older songs, Spanish melodies, and a
few, even, with bawdy lyrics, but the soldiers didn't rise to dance, nor sing
along... few even kept time with their feet. They merely sat and stared and
drank and, at their head, the General seemed lost in sullen reveries.
"There are hurricanes in this corner of the world," Morales thought,
"that bring a heavy air; poised, waiting for the coming storm. A hurricane
is coming to this place."
His
fingers picked a tune without words. Octaviano Solis
dozed on his feet, leaning against the flagpole, his rifle aimed towards the
ground. Now and then he struggled into consciousness at the breath of a fly,
the passing of a cloud across the sun or a particularly sharp juxtaposition of
notes, but the Greek had reminded him of Mayan, a language that always brought
sleep. There was a smattering of applause and his chin, which had drooped low
and lower still until some innate sense of balance roused him, made him shake
his head and look about, started at the sudden intrusion of gunfire. A deadly
pause ensued... of two, perhaps three seconds' duration... and another shot
answered, then another and a swarm. Suddenly the air was thick with bullets.
Bravo sat impassively through the storm, bellowing "Cease your fire! Obey
your General!" while the soldiers to either side of him dove beneath the
table, occasionally jumping up to fire their own guns or to shake their heads,
wondering at the direction or meaning of the shots.
A
volley from the perimeter ripped the banquet table down the middle, scattering
drink and broken glass. Solis, awakened now, fired his rifle into the air. The
guard outside the plaza had entered and joined those inside in a demonstration
of preparedness. "Order!" called Matochino.
The
shooting stopped. The soldiers looked from one to another as if emerging from a
bad dream.
Octaviano Solis was called over to restrain a Corporal who
was defending his role in the violence with agitated bursts of his limbs and
frantic speech. "It was, too, Pericles!" he raged while the guard
bore him down and called out for a rope to tie him up.
"Nonsense,
Herodatus!" came another voice from the crowd
and a second soldier emerged and began to rain blows upon the first who could
not defend himself for being restrained by four men. Solis drove the butt of
his rifle into the attacker's stomach. With the combatants separated, Solis limped
towards the hospital with an angry glance down at his boot, newly opened at the
corner where, upon being interrupted at his dreams, the Colonel had shot
himself in the foot.
Miraculously
there was only one fatality... the expert guitarist, who lay in a tangle of
shredded wood and tangled strings, a small, precise hole in the center of his
forehead like a third eye. Several of the other guests had suffered flesh
wounds or cuts from the broken glass, and Dr. Rosario stubbed out his cigar,
grumpily pushing his way back to the hospital. "Too bad," he said to
an officer he knew, "that man had a delicious daughter. I wonder what's
become of her."
Another
of Bravo's functions had come to its customary end.
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