THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK SIX: THE FIRST of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

"Bixcabaal," Bravo greeted. Consuela, heavy at the waist and apparently in the midst of some discussion with Chankik, bowed and retired.

"Ma alo," the sorcerer replied. "I received your message at Akbal. Everything is in order there."

"I trust that you enjoyed your journey," the General chuckled, bringing up a chair for Chankik who, now that he was in presence of one of the gente de razon, would sit like one, rather than squatting on the floor like an indian. The xaman was already corrupted by the ways of the whites, Bravo noted; it was no secret that he took great pleasure riding in the Decauville. Chankik would stand erect, staring out into the future like the Pope in his pulpit, or the wooden figurehead of an old ship... with the exception that his clothes flapped and his hair rose and dipped like a tangle of snakes in the wind.

"Very much so," Chankik answered, taking the seat and causing Bravo to wonder what had happened to the clumsiness of most indians, more accustomed to hammocks? Did the Maya have an underworld where bad habits and deficiencies overcome slunk off to hide their shame and wait, perhaps, for their regeneration? But this was foolishness... business was at hand.

"There is a matter brewing at Tabi; of little consequence, I think, as the commander there is capable but, still, it would be to my advantage that sublevados show their faces also. Just for a little while... Mexico needs to be reminded that the both of us still exist, no?"

Chankik waited for a few moments and when the jefe of the dzulob said no more, asked him politely for a cigarette. Bravo furnished him with the manufactured cylinder which he had come to prefer to the indian cigars... rolled from newspaper, if one was at hand, or a dried cornstalk. The General also passed him a wooden box of fosforos, the stick matches which, in this instance, came from Belgium. Chankik smoked and pondered and as he did, Bravo explained a little more.

"I do not mean that the battle must be a fierce one. In fact, I do not wish even one man to be killed, although... if this should happen... than it must. A few shots fired and, if it can be had, a burning. But, and this is of the utmost importance, there must be no damage to the telegraph."

"You wish this untouched, so that the Colonel at Tabi may wire for reinforcements who will come to kill my Christians? Is that so? Remember, General, we have the misfortune of Kuxcab between us."

"That was accidental," lied Bravo. "I received the wrong information as to the number of Mexican soldiers and their armaments. And your commander stayed to fight, instead of taking care of the Englishmen and then retreating, as was arranged."

Three years earlier, a time when interest in the Territory had reached such a low ebb that Mexico City began responded disinterestedly to Bravo's appeals for more men and material, the General and Chankik and negotiated an attack upon the village of Kuxcab, far to the south. This village was also disloyal in the timely payment of its taxes to both the sublevados and to Bravo, and British and American businessmen had been seen there. It was the appearance of one of the former that gave Bravo and Chankik the opportunity to demonstrate that the indian problem had not entirely disappeared. But the General had also resolved to show Mexico a victory, to avenge the killing of the distinguished foreign commercial agent, and had sent twice the number of Federal troops to Kuxcab as he had told Chankik would be dispatched.

Even so, the battle would have been little more than one of those shadow encounters... common in Quintana Roo, over the last ten years... but for the inclination of the sublevado commander, Tomas Kib, to stand and fight, instead of retreating as was planned. Twelve Mexicans had died and perhaps thirty sublevados, and the contradicting accounts of the battle still remained a point of ill-feeling between Bravo and Chankik, a card to be played in those negotiations where the stakes were highest.

"Tomas Kib," said Chankik, "cannot be with us to give his story. Thus, I require further proof of your sincerity. Moreover, the following week contains many days of bad aspect. When is this battle to take place?"

"On the thirteenth," said Bravo. Rivera would telegraph the incident back to Mexico as soon as he entered Tabi. And when he died there, that evening, the incident would also be blamed on the sublevados. Again, he wondered at the indians' facility to predict celestial events, and whether such could be made a part of his plan.

"I do not think that it shall come so quickly," said the brujo, "but, if there is fighting, when it comes, the Cruzob shall not continue."

Bravo coughed. "I thought we'd cured you of superstitions."

"Superstitions," Chankik said, "are those things which unbelievers attribute to our Christians. Your new President is one of the believers, no? For he... and for the Cruzob... there is no such thing as superstition. There is only what Juan de la Cruz decrees and that which he keeps hidden. For example, General, he has told me that you held the hand of death today."

"I have, and not an hour past." Bravo immediately suspected that the xaman had been spying on him; the hospital could be seen from Bravo's office, although they had been hidden by the tent. Perhaps one of those impertinent boys... who were never around when work was to be done, but otherwise lay underfoot... had whispered to the sorcerer. "Dr. Rosario is trying to see Hell and Heaven reflected in the eyes of death. As always! He is persistent."

"Then someday he will be successful. What obscures his knowledge is his witness holding one's pixan fated to Metnal or to Caan for all eternity. We do not hold in an absolute good, nor an evil. One resides in Heaven or Hell in proportion, according to the deeds which the dead have done, and all may ascend or descend the stairway between worlds on those days appointed to them."

"Our Catholic faith holds that even the wicked may be spared by the mercy of Juan de la Cruz," Bravo reminded.

"And our Catholic faith holds that Juan de la Cruz is a fair but stern Judge."

"Well that may be..." and Bravo cleared his throat. "What would the doctor see if he were... well, let's say, successful?"

"Many things," Chankik said. "He would recognize the idol which the dead man's soul flees towards to await the coming of the hanal pixan. Was the man a white or a Ladino, or one of the mazehualob from another part of Mexico?"

"From the look of him, a little of everything," said Bravo, remembering Juan Munoz.

"Then it may be that his soul leaped into an object that was nearest when his body expired," and the General had a vision... only of a fraction of a second... of the champagne bottle overturned and licked by swine. "Of course if he was strong in life, his pixan could enter into the body of a dog or tree, even another man whose own spirit is weak. Even a Christian image, General... your crucifix, for example, or a statue of a saint of the Holy Mother."

Bravo turned almost involuntarily to glance at the cheap wooden depiction of Juan de la Cruz he kept on his wall. A prisoner had given it to him in return for a bowl of beans. That simple carving... entered by a Mayan demon? A Mexican corporal?

"Do you think it better that one gather his wealth into his tomb the way your ancianos did... and also those in Egypt, and in other lands... or offer it to the saints through the church of Juan de la Cruz? And how far can this soul travel when it is... bah..." Bravo reconsidered. I don't believe one word of what you say. Any God may be bribed, for does not his Word say that we are of His image, and so He must be in ours?"

"Good," replied the xaman. "Neither the believer in Juan de la Cruz nor the true nonbeliever can be injured by the pixan. It is only those between, those who try to use the dead for their own gain, who have cause to fear. This has happened here."

And Miguel Chankik pointed down at the earth.

"Hundreds of years ago, there appeared a brujo who had the power of looking upon corpses, placing his hand over one and causing the corpse to rise and to move. These beings heard but could not speak and were compelled to do that which their keeper bid. The old walls... not those which are called Uxmal and Chichen Itza, but others to the south, older places, still hidden by the monte... were those built primarily by the dead. A corpse has no need of either rest nor food and, so, may work from dawn to dusk and until dawn again laying the stones atop one another.

"Those who did not build the walls were taken into the homes of the living as their servants, at the decree of this brujo, and the wealthy families had many of these dead. No man need make his own milpa, nor his wife grind the corn, or even fill the bath. And this led to a time when women became judges and musicians, as men were, for they were released from their obligations to their home and to their children by the working dead."

Ignacio Bravo, ever suspicious, nonetheless responded to this with a gesture of indignation. "Imagine - allowing women into their society! It is no wonder that they fell into decline."

"Those Maya ate corn which the dead had prepared for them, their infants were suckled at the breasts of corpses," Chankik averred. "And they fell... for all vengeance is appropriated to those who would deny the dead their rest. Lord Ah Puc awakened from his dreaming and found, in his heart, resentment of those of the ahauob who denied his harvest of their souls. No house was sacred from the entry of merchants who crowded round the hammocks of the sick and dying, haggling with their families so those who were to die would see their loved ones accepting money... they used fine shells and jewels and cocoa beans, but not gold, which was a thing of Mexicans. Even those few who would not sell their mothers and fathers into slavery could not prevail for the merchants would set other dead to dig them from their graves and put them to work. A katun passed, and the number of the dead grew greater than that of the living while Ah Puc waited and planned his vengeance.

"Then the stars proclaimed 'Go!', the planets, too, and Ah Puc, in the silent hour of the night, caused the dead to take up knives and clubs and staffs and massacre the living who'd enslaved them. They first turned on their keepers, who were few at this hour and who could have no hope of victory, for the dead were not to be turned by even mortal blows and cuts that were inflicted upon them. Those who lost one arm still struck out with the other, those without legs pulled themselves along by their elbows to stab at the living; even those whose heads had been chopped off kept on fighting for it was not their devoured eyes but the hand of Ah Puc which directed them towards their enemies. They killed their keepers, last of all the foolish brujo who had caused their unrest in the first place, then went into the city and slew the living in their hammocks. Finally they turned their superhuman strength upon that city they had built and tore it down in the hour before dawn, leaving only hills of rubble for the monte to reclaim. And then they marched east to the sea and, one by one, they disappeared beneath the waves... although it is also said, sometimes, that, after many days of walking across the bottom of the sea, they reached an island that was given to them. But this latter is said by the boxuinicob, the black people, and I do not know that it is true."

"Zombies!" cried the General abruptly, following this with a guttural laugh. "You old fool, that island east of this place is Hayti. Some African obeah-man has deluded you with nonsense."

Bravo stood and took the crucifix off of his wall. "Get out!" he commanded. "I have more important things to do than hear such tales of ghosts and zombies as you tell. Be sure that your men are at Tabi, and that they do what is expected of them!"

Chankik rose, but did not leave immediately. "Out!" the General cried once again, hurling the crucifix. It struck the old indian on his thigh.

"You will regret this, General," the brujo said, limping towards the door.

"Really?" Bravo laughed. "I am the one who has the power to make war, real war or not. I'm the one whose hand causes events to happen in this territory. I am your true master, and master of the living and the dead of my Territory!"

"But for how long?" the sorcerer smiled, but to himself only, closing the door behind him. Then he offered up a very special prayer to Juan de la Cruz, on behalf of the pregnant Consuela.

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