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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