THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK SEVEN: CUAHTENOTL EPACT

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kanegis led the Major on a walk of perhaps a half hour's duration... little more than a kilometer or two, but uphill... through the stunted, gnarled pines barely twice the height of a man and the many more dead, poisoned cedars and oaks, with frequent roadblocks of trash lying where they had fallen from the railroad tracks far above (until some rockslide or mudslide carried them further down into the valley of Cuahtenotl itself). A hundred meters from the odd structure which, José determined, had been fashioned by simply pushing certain of the larger pieces of debris together and covering the apertures with rotten canvas and even a few salvaged national flags, he dismissed his guide, for the Greek, still unsteady on his feet, blundered through the scrub like a buffalo... thrashing and groaning and snuffling with all of the vehemence of a whole division of oafs. Kanegis stumbled back downhill... José drew his overcoat closer on account of the chilly rain, slapped his hat against his knee to expel the water that had collected in its hollows and began carefully circumnavigating the odd shack.

He did this three times, watching... mainly... for the Jackal himself, or for any traps that the deserter might have set in the forest at approaches to his hideaway. Then he closed to fifty meters, circled twice more, and took up a position between two large boulders and the cracked remains of a red windmill which he failed to recognize... despite his holidays in the fleshpots of Paris... as a wood and plaster facsimile of the Club Moulin Rouge, sans danseuses. It certainly had been part of a procession or, perhaps, a pavilion for there were clumps of counterfeited paving stones and even the remains of tattered, racy undergarments strewn about the forest floor, or dangling from the branches of the dead trees; faded lingerie sewn for courtesans of perhaps four meters of height and two hundred kilos of weight. Nonetheless, one of the overhanging blades of the windmill afforded the Major shelter from both the rain and from the vision of those occupying the desolate, impromptu choza.

José steeled himself for the long, long waiting.

Now and again noise issued from the choza, not conversation in any human tongue known to God nor man, but the grunts, sighs and rattlings of those within, who had reverted to their bestial second selves. Like all of Santa Cruz, José had heard of Consuela's reptilian attributes... what the old man, Chankik, had said about the uay made a sort of sense (to one familiar with superstitious souls, as were most tenants of Idznacab). For a time, he even wondered whether there could be such a thing as the uay-chacol... certainly in Egypt and other corners of Asia or Africa. But there were no jackals in Mexico, save for those who inhabited the zoos... even the few, wealthy Porfirian decadents who happened to collect exotic beasts preferred leopards, apes or, in the case of one of the Senators of the capital, an elephant. Jackals were vicious, filthy beasts who attacked from behind... they were dangerous, but never elegant. But, so far, the pendejo had enjoyed more than his share of fortune.

At length, the man himself emerged through a hanging flap of canvas that filled the space between the two components of that side of the choza facing the Major. Both were pieces of carnival debris... José could still see the scars across the mud where they had been dragged from wherever they had fallen: the furthest was an opaque tonic-bottle, taller, even than El Chacol's full two meters (though, now, lying on its side), the nearest a model railroad car in miniature, such as José had seen in his brief recreation in Saint Louis. The Jackal had a machete in his belt... though no firearm José could detect... he stood in front of the hovel, scratching his beard and pondering, then turned to his left and passed perhaps ten meters from the watchful Major, eyes fixed on some indefinable point of the monte.

José hesitated, deliberating whether to follow the man. If God had determined to no longer persecute him, El Chacol's saddlebags would be in the choza, the deposit certificates would be in the saddlebags, undamaged by the weather or any rough treatment they had received. More likely there had been a cursory attempt at hiding them... initiated by Consuela, not the deserter. But, from his days as a sniper on the road from Santa Cruz to Vigia Chico, the Major had learned patience; he waited and he watched, dividing his attention between the choza and the monte from which the Jackal would return.

Consuela Kan emerged from the hovel only once, to toss a wooden bucket of befouled water into the mud next to the bleached and stained label of the bottle touting Tonic Lévignac, where it was still barely possible to make out the image of an old man, whose white hair, faintly green with mold, stood on end, giving his grin a fiendish aspect. She removed a pin from her hair and let it flow freely across her bare shoulders, and the Major caught himself thinking that she was beautiful, after all! The General's furtive, ratlike housekeeper... in her dust and drab indian dress! Bravo, of course, never tired of elucidating upon her loveliness and, therefore, José gave some credence to the possibility that the old man had been a victim of enchantment... more likely, he now considered, Consuela Kan was one of those who make themselves drab to the world at large, the better to save their charms for their beloved alone.

He also suspected that it had not been the General, himself, whom Consuela had loved, but his authority. This he did not hold against her... it is the nature of women both primitive and civilized, in Mexico and in America and most of the world, also.

Consuela stepped back into the choza before she could get wet, leaving José with these new, disturbing possibilities. That he might not come to misfortune himself, through a lack of attention to his surroundings, he doubled the time spent in surveying the monte... and when he glanced back, he focused on the composition of the choza rather than the woman within.

His place of concealment was slightly elevated, so he could see that the hovel of Consuela and the Jackal was roofed by shreds of canvas, crudely sewn together with half a dozen of the national flags left over from Centennial. He recognized the Danish cross, the tricolor of Italy and two others that seemed to represent South American countries whose leaders, without doubt, would have taken offense at this ultimate desecration of their banners. The southern wall was a simple wooden billboard for a Futurist Pavilion, three meters high and at least six... again, some souvenir most likely dumped following the Centennial. It hailed the coming of the escalator and elevator (and José had observed fragments of metal junk seeming to have come off the former). The fierce radiance of its colors had faded with time and rain, but its Futurist charge still shrieked out, promoting: "Inquietude! Rapidez! Precisión!"

Opposite the entrance was a length of bare, splintered wood... some sort of pageantry or stage scenery turned so that only those within could see what it depicted. Next to this was the entire plaster model... three meters square, much cracked and chipped but still recognizable... of the San Geronimo Asylum for Lunatics, dedicated in Mexico City (along with the Prisión Atlixo) during the Centennial. A clever miniature... had one wall been removed to expose the treatment rooms, the cells and offices, some ghoulish Cientifico would surely have claimed it as a dollhouse for his elvin daughter to play with and enact childish dramas within. The remaining northern exposure was secured with more canvas, more flags and a square of what appeared logs... the bottle of tonic extended well beyond this and José had not approached near enough to accurately appraise this final constituent of the choza . Most likely, a good kick or stiff breeze would cause the whole house of rubbish to collapse.

José waited.

Perhaps an hour later, El Chacol returned from the monte, from the same southerly direction whence he'd vanished into, dragging something small, hairy and bloody through the mud. As he approached the entrance to the choza, he brayed and lifted his kill before flinging it inside... José discerned that it was not a human child, but a small monkey and, as the dull thwack of machete blows began to resonate, his disgust nearly boiled over. In the Territory, of course, he'd eaten monkey flesh when no other game was to be had... but such were held in contempt, as were those who consumed them for, as had been explained to him at Chapultepec... "it is only the smallest step from the man who will eat the flesh of apes to the atavist who savors the flesh of other men." And there were undeniably those, even a few of Akbal, who relished a haunch of spider, howler or marmoset... these were also such men as the Major would send out on the most detestable tasks of butchery and slaughter, and few failed to disappoint their commander.

José was tired, wet... and he had reached a crossroads. El Chacol being what he was, there would be aguardiente in the choza, and when the two deserters had swilled their fill of monkey broth and gnawed their fill of monkey bones, he... at least... would drink himself into a stupor. Perhaps they would spill their juices into or over one another... with the breath of simian flesh already rotting on their lips... and then they would sleep.

If José's intent was simply to kill them, he would wait until moonrise... then a few hours more... brush aside the flimsy canvas of the choza, enter and slice the jackal's head from his trunk with his own machete before dispatching Consuela, also, to whatever domain of ill-spirits she had emerged from. But what if the securities were hidden?

It would be better to return at dawn, or a little before. The wits of some drunkards are agile, but clarity grows scarce when one has been awakened by the barrel of an automatic pistol pressed against one's head... and that head is pounding from the indulgences of the night before. Why... the Jackal's mind might even be clouded to the point that he would believe that José would spare his life for possession of the saddlebags! The deserter was a brutal and dangerous man, but the cheap cane liquor José had seen and sniffed on the breath of Kanegis was a potent equalizer.

José waited for dusk, which... with the fog and rain... was not so different from daylight, stretched his limbs and crept cautiously away from his concealment. Brutal roars and occasional bestial laughter exited the choza where, by a single candle's gleam, the shadows of the General's woman and his trusted henchman crouched and leaped like those of vermin in lust or combat. The Major hurried away. Akbal may have been an earthly uprising of Hell, but he had imposed his will on the place, brought order to the politics of atrocity. Cuahtenotl, purely and simply, was that abyss into which all Mexico would fall without order... a place of mud and excrement and despair, where even the flesh could not bother itself to remain attached to its bones.

He consoled himself, on the journey back, with a picture, in his mind, of the whole valley set ablaze but acknowledged, as he reached the sparse, weedstrewn Plaza, that Cuahtenotl was too damp to burn, like certain logs left out where mildew has so permeated the wood that it will answer to no fire.

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