THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK EIGHT: THE SECOND of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

"Reynoso!" the startled Garcilazo cried, recognizing the voice of his Colonel, his second-in-command. "This is treachery, mutiny! Do you want to be hanged?"

"By whom, General?" And behind the shape Garcilazo had mistaken for don del Muerte came a communal muttering, four throats, perhaps five. "Certainly not by Salvador Alvarado."

"What do you want?" the General beseeched. "Money?" His brow began to drip from the insistence of the gun. "We can make a bargain together. After all," he hinted, "if it comes to trials you're as guilty as I... all of you!" he challenged the dark shapes behind Reynoso. "Salvador Alvarado is a butcher without distinction, and if I am carried to his table, you may be sure that you're all carved up too."

"We'll take our chances," said Reynoso as one of the unseen conspirators hauled the General up and bound his hands behind his back. "Money is no object either, even if it were..." the Colonel smiled, "...your permission to dispose of it is not exactly needed. Alvarado will be satisfied when you are handed over to him and your crimes explained. He'll be grateful, I suspect. Someone will have to be left alive to run this place. Let him search all of Santa Cruz, he won't find a peso that has not been earned by honest labor and so accounted... except for that!"

And he kicked at the wooden box beneath Garcilazo's bed.

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