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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