THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK SEVEN: THE SECOND of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER SIX

The Territory, midsummer 1913...

A Corporal from a small village in the mountains of Jalisco wondered, awaiting the arrival of the sublevados, whether it was the insects or the humidity of Vigia Chico that disturbed him more. He slipped the rifle over his shoulder and stared at its barrel with an absent frustration... one of the sergeants, wounded by Villistas in the north and removed to Santa Cruz was such a fine shot with a pistol that he could pick off a fly at six feet. The secret, he said, was that insects move in regular intervals... squares, triangles and other precise shapes. But the mosquitoes were smaller, more numerous and moved irregularly and, even if they were all vanquished, how can one shoot the sun?

"Put that down!" his Sergeant hissed and the Corporal blinked, for a mosquito had perched on nose. He rubbed at it with the rifle's stock and the Sergeant gripped him around the neck.

"Have you gone mad?" he growled. "What if the sublevados were to show up while you were in that posture, scratching at your nose. From the trail, it looks as though you were prepared to shoot at them. There was a careless General here, a few years back, he also had a meeting with the indians but one of his men at the front had inadvertently taken a hostile stance and the savages immediately assumed the worst. They wiped the Mexicans out, down to the last man, and that gave the buzzards here a taste for the flesh of Federals."

"What a liar," a soldado muttered to the recruit waiting beside him. "I know. I was posted to Santa Cruz del Bravo. And it wasn't like that at all!"

The sun had reached its zenith, and there was little shade despite the profligacy of the monte. General Rafael Egealiz removed his hat and called to his valet, who again presented him with a wet towel, reeking of perfume. Egealiz wiped the sweat sand and grime from his face and called for his mirror; his hair was disturbed and muddy brown streaks stained the gold braid that liberally bordered his uniform.

"Very well," he said, turning to Major Zarate. "It is past noon and these indians are still not here. From eight till ten I waited dutifully as an officer, on horseback. Afterwards on foot, as a soldier. No more! Bring the chairs and an umbrella!"

Zarate's orders sent a half dozen soldados scurrying and the General made one more inspection of his face in the mirror. With a grunt to indicate his dissatisfaction but, also, that there was no more that he could do, the General dismissed the valet and summoned a furtive little fellow in civilian dress soaked through and through with sweat, carrying a battered American suitcase.

"Such children, this indians," said the seedy civilian, "they have absolutely no sense of time. Ignorant people... dirty, sweet, stupid children, we can handle them, eh General?"

"I'm counting on you, ratoncito," Egealiz said as the shapes of strange beasts began to emerge from a warehouse situated near the shore, across a fuzzy border of sawgrass and sand.

The shady man waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Indians!" he scoffed, "I know 'em all! If it's bright or shiny or makes noise, if they can eat or drink or crowd their little vergas into it, they'll sell their own mothers. Veracruz, Oaxaca, Yaqui... well maybe not the Yaqui, they can be peculiar, once in a while, but..." He seemed to lose his thought and for a moment the sharp black eyes lost their lustre, and then the peddler slapped his suitcase and tittered. "Don't worry, General, I've brought special equipment. "Cannons!" he laughed, his clever, rattish laugh, and showed the General his sharp, brown teeth.

Five of the monsters began circling the General's party. They were soldados, three with chairs under each arm, a fourth bearing a table on his back and the last struggling with an enormous umbrella.

"General Bravo," said the old soldado from the territory, "paid some of this very bunch to attack an enemy of his... I can't remember the name."

"An indian?"

"Of course not. A General, another Mexican General. There were a lot of those about in the early days. That was some commotion for a few weeks, and then nothing. Things were rough, different in those days."

"What was Bravo like?" asked the recruit.

The old soldier smiled and let a bead of spit drop into the dust. "He certainly wouldn't have waited for any man, let alone an indian." And he glanced over his shoulder at Egealiz and his officers, now seated as if about to take English tea.

"One of these other Generals dug a canal to Belize, so Bravo had some of the British supply the indians with dynamite. They set it off and the ocean rushed in and swept them all away... indians and his Mexican rivals alike. That's the sort of commanders we had here in the old days."

The sublevados kept Egealiz waiting for another hour before they deigned to appear. At first there seemed only three of them, a tall fellow... the size of a Mexican... who wore the earring of a Cruzob jefe and seemed to be in charge, and a pair of scrawny rebels with wide hats carrying old, but deadly looking shotguns. The tall one stopped at the perimeter of the monte and seemed to count the number of Federals, then whispered to one of his assistants.

"Here you are," hailed Zarate, walking towards the indians with his hands raised, showing that he held no weapon. "Sit down! Sit down with us!" Suddenly he froze as if an invisible wall had obstructed his progress. He waited and he stared.

"Major!" cried General Egealiz, and Zarate took a few steps backwards. The wind had died to a whisper and the eyes of all the Mexicans were on the trail. An old man in white trousers stepped out with a guard of fifteen and continued approaching with the big man with the earring to one side and, at his left hand, a third who wore no sign of rank as an Oficiale of the Speaking Cross.

The sublevados approached Egealiz.

"Make room for these boys," the General ordered and the three indians, with what seemed a prolonged caution, took seats facing Egealiz, Zarate and the peddler, who kept his suitcase balanced on his toes beneath the table. It was this which seemed to be a matter of concern to the Maya, who exchanged a few words between them in their language which, to the ears of General Egealiz, had always sounded suspicious.

"Chief Poot welcomes you to his province, and is pleased that you have chosen this place to make your surrender. He will make every effort to assure your safety as you leave."

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