THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK EIGHT: THE SECOND of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Salvador Alvarado entered Santa Cruz del Bravo at four upon the afternoon of June second. News of Garcilazo's overthrow had been greeted with general relief, and the soldiers and tradesmen of Santa Cruz del Bravo turned out to cede the Yucatecan Governor a hero's welcome. Carlos Plank was lifted from his bed and cleansed, given a chair of honor beneath a tree; the military band played music pleasing to the ears of Carrancistas and Obregonistas alike, and such outpourings of flattery and welcome were imposed upon the General that it would not seem absurd to him to have believed that the unsavory reputation of Quintana Roo was a fiction, a creature that rested entirely on the shoulders of one man... Arturo Garcilazo.

By sundown, however, the welcome had lost much of its ardor. Alvarado's baggage included a lengthy list of prohibitions and decrees; what henceforth would be forbidden were most of what the Territory took as its natural, God-granted indulgences... by which at least some of the unpleasantness of the monte could be set off. The aguardiente which Santa Cruz had brought forth to toast its liberator was, instead, confiscated... every bottle smashed, every barrel ordered under the axe. Cockfights, bullfights and games of chance were summarily proscribed and also, in the interests of equality, the practice of Catholicism... which more dismayed the free indians and the refugees from other parts of Mexico than Garcilazo's soldiers. Also dismayed were prostitutes, whose emancipation was declared as a consequence of Socialist reconstruction. Nor would these be able to live upon their savings, for Alvarado's officers were busily traversing the capital, stopping and searching man and woman alike... military and civilian... confiscating all those currencies Alvarado disapproved of. Not only were Villista bilimbiques (of as little value, by now, as Constitutionalist paper) taken, but American and British and other foreign denominations, all of which were to be turned over to Alvarado and redeemed in scrip. Perhaps one in four actually were.

All these things were ordered in one evening. Next, with the dawning of the third of June, the General now turned to Arturo Garcilazo, personally.

The natural apprehension one feels when his chair is taken by another, when one who has been used to giving orders is reduced to the physical position of a supplicant... this had been the fate of the Governor of Quintana Roo. The presence, at the side of Alvarado, of a number of officers including the still-pale Carlos Plank and the smirking Reynoso was more disturbing... but the presence of a kilogram of chicle on the desk between the Generals puzzled Garcilazo and disturbed him, for he had not yet discerned the Sonoran's motive.

"General Garcilazo," Alvarado said, "you were appointed to your position by the Constitutionalist Army, you were offered the opportunity to pledge your allegiance to our Socialist revolution and you refused. Out of devotion to another faction, I ask, to Villa... perhaps Zapata? I suspect not! Not even the Junta Pacifista, which is smashed... its workings exposed by agents of the Constitution," he added to Garcilazo's great discomfiture. "Your only allegiance has been to your own advancement. You hold loyalty to no man."

"The Revolution has not been fought for the benefit of one man, but for all," Garcilazo answered. "The covetousness is entirely your own... you need Quintana Roo's wealth to bury the desert that your regime has made of Yucatan..."

"Spare me your charges," Alvarado scoffed. "We grant your eloquence, but you are not dealing with impressionable students. Do we look like students?" Alvarado and Reynoso were the youngest present facing Garcilazo; besides Plank were two of Alvarado's Colonels, each well past his seventieth year.

"Let us, instead, deal with the issue at hand." Alvarado gestured towards the block of chicle. "Do you believe it ethical to purchase this from those who labor to collect it for two pesos and offer it for sale at twenty?"

"What of it?" Garcilazo said. "At that, my expenses are barely covered. I assure you that your figures are out of line."

"Perhaps," conceded Alvarado, "as it is so difficult to account for bribery. Even so, we are clearly dealing with an instance of exploitation, of a theft from the working chiclero by yourself and your agents. But then, we are still not even through. No!" Alvarado whispered something to Colonel Plank, who brought up a machete for the General and Garcilazo trembled, biting back his tongue in horror. The Governor was mad, he would stretch his prisoner's neck out across the chicle and lop off his head as though he were a chicken... but Garcilazo swore that he would not degrade himself before this madman.

"Is this the way that you do your business?" Alvarado asked. He raised the machete in both hands over Garcilazo's head and the General, despite his vow, shut both eyes firmly.

Down came the machete... not on the prisoner's skull but upon the chicle. Garcilazo opened his eyes at the sound of this... two halves of the block clattering to the floor. The malicious Reynoso retrieved one of these half-blocks and offered it General; beneath an inch-thick coat of chicle was a block of wood.

Alvarado bounced the object from hand to hand. The fear in Garcilazo's eyes was replaced by a crafty smile, then a theatrical outrage.

"These indians!" he said, shaking his head sorrowfully. Were he too demonstrative in anger, Alvarado might misinterpret his objectives and have him killed out of self-defense. "When they are not trying to shoot you in the monte, they are cheating you in trade."

Reynoso began pulling tufts of sticky gum from the half of the block he'd kept. "Judge for yourself, General, note the grain of this wood. It was cut with a saw. An indian would have used a machete."

"I'll pay you back for this," blurted out Garcilazo.

Reynoso nodded. Had Alvarado not been present he would have pulled out a cigar, but tobacco was another of those things the General disapproved of and, consequently, forbade to others. "You'll have your opportunity for that," he said, with an unintentional irony directed at the Governor, who disbelieved, yet despised all mention of Juan de la Cruz, "in Hell."

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