THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK NINE: BOOK of the JAGUAR PRIEST

CHAPTER EIGHT

Merida was a hive of carriages and motor cars, of sidewalk vendors and noisy construction; a Babel of Spanish and Mayan, Arabic, Chinese and English. Silvestro remembered little of the city save those places he had gone to in search of guns and ammunition - the back rooms of small shops by the market where anything could be had for its price. These were the first places he visited, but their proprietors were gone, their place occupied by strangers. Alvarado had found something to offend him in their merchandise and one man there was pleased to tell the two Oficiales what had happened to the arms-merchants. This was a man whose face seemed to have been split by a machete at one time, a Syrian or at least partly so, for he hissed and tittered in an unknown language before pointing to the tallest tree in the small park that adjoined the market. "Hanged!" Silvestro looked up the tree, beneath which a pyramid of watermelons was offered for sale, called Clarencio, and they left that place.

It was the siesta hour and, arriving at the plaza, they had to wait for the governmental offices to open, filling their mouths with a paper cup of flavored ice to fend off the heat of the afternoon. At the appointed time, the guard threw open the doors to the office and Silvestro presented his telegraph message. Presently a man with the boots and trousers of an officer, but the white shirt of a subordinate jefe politico, returned with the news that Alvarado would be occupied for the afternoon but would be pleased to meet with the representative of the Santa Cruz indians at nine the following morning. He repeated this last to Clarencio, for Silvestro had devised a strategy by which he would appear to understand only a little Spanish. Mexicans would say things in the presence of an indian that they might also say to trees or stones, and Clarencio lay a foundation for this by translating the Spanish into Mayan, waiting for Silvestro's mumbled reply and then translating the answer back into Spanish. Aside from the possibility that the other parties, discussing such things among themselves, might allow useful information, it gave Silvestro time to consider his words with more care than had he responded directly. Now that money was involved... conceivably great sums of money that draw even life itself into the consideration... this was not a trifling advantage.

Their place of lodging was the Gran Hotel, where Governor Alvarado himself had stayed before moving on to a house owned by one of the montes who had made the unfortunate mistake of casting his lot with Argumedo. The proprietor eyed these two indians suspiciously but, when Silvestro paid him with good silver, he ushered them to a suite with great courtesy. "Anything that you wish, I can provide for you," dropping at the last to a whisper, as though the eyes of the puritanical Alvarado peeked out of the portraits on the walls and the Governor's ears listened from beneath the beds. "Even champagne!" But they were tired from their travels and the morning's meeting was important.

General Alvarado was a busy man but he had made his door open to the sublevados for, since the ignominious defeat of his punitive expedition, Quintana Roo not only posed a danger to his political survival, it was a blot upon his honor. Chan Santa Cruz was a pair of mules, one yoked to the General's right arm, the other to his left. Having endeavored to build a reputation as both friend to the indians and champion of progress by passing agricultural laws intended to return the land to those who worked it, he was angered and bewildered when the objects of his generosity rejected the future he plotted for them with a stubbornness that would not be corrected by either gold, the gun or the rope. Even if the great effect of his reforms was to transfer much of Yucatan's wealth from the patrons of the estanciónes to their mayordomos, Alvarado waxed indignant that the people joined Leagues of Resistance... established by anarcho-syndicalists like Carrillo Puerto, who'd returned from his sojourn among the Zapatistas in Morelos. Since this failure he had read and reread Marx's critique of Bakunin and certain other Europeans for some inkling of what to do, but there was none. Determined to pry from the two Oficiales some secret of their obstinacy, he was also motivated to conceal his ignorance.

This was a recipe for fruitlessness.

As the meeting began, the General grew even more indignant at the sublevados' emphatic rejection of his schools... to the extent that most of his faculties were diverted into maintaining an outward appearance of calm. His great speech, larded with quotations from friends of progress across the world in time and space, was stalled for having to be translated for Silvestro Kaak, who was the superior of the two in rank, despite his patent imbecility. Still resolving not to lose his temper, Alvarado suffered through the questions the Tatoob raised on the most trivial points, questions only an idiot would ask, and continued to address the other as "General" although Quintana Roo... in no way... lagged behind the rest of Mexico in the production of inferior military officials of the top rank. His eyes appealed to Clarencio Pec; he did not know the youth, but had been told that Pec's father had been one of those humble and submissive indians whose eccentric devotion to "Christianity" could certainly be transferred to the institutions of progress... the schools and courts and syndicates, which are those institutions that educated men will naturally gravitate towards. Silvestro, however, continued to press for what Alvarado could only interpret as his authority as the principle tax-collector of all the territory.

Salvador Alvarado had marched from Sonora, in the far northwest, all the way through Mexico to this most humid and benighted place to save and uplift the indians and all that this chief of the savages wanted was money... the money whom only men of reason had the qualifications and the intelligence to collect, on behalf of Carranza, the self-designated First Chief of the regime.

So they continued to spar for more than an hour; Silvestro hinting that he might accept some of the progressive institutions that the Governor desired and Alvarado insinuating that he could use his influence to help secure the chicle concessions for certain "responsible parties" that neither included nor excluded the Tatoob. At length, as the futility of the meeting became obvious, a plan occurred to Alvarado, as he also had gained time to meditate during the translation process.

The opportunity presented itself when the Cruzob repeated stories they had heard, both in the territory and on the way to Merida: that the Mexicans had turned on Carranza, that Villa and Zapata held Mexico City. "Untrue!" Alvarado said. "Venustiano Carranza secured the capital two months ago, he divides his time between Mexico City, Veracruz and the old town of Queretaro, where he takes strength walking the streets of that place where the French invaders had been defeated."

"Well I am told that Pancho Villa is the true master of Mexico," Silvestro said through Clarencio Pec, "and that all of the southern approaches to the capital are controlled by Zapata."

"Who tells such lies?" Alvarado reached for his mineral water, so that the indians might not see his rage. "I know who tells you this... those foreigners!"

And without naming the British or American chicle agents, Silvestro did acknowledge this was so.

The Governor's sigh was a menacing wind. "Villa and Zapata are in decline," he asserted, "they have signed papers supporting the First Chief, although some of their Generals are bandits and prosecute the fighting to conceal their thievery. The American President Wilson is a fool, a man deluded by the appearance of the bandits' strength in Villa's strongholds in Chihuahua and Durango and that of Zapata in Morelos. As for the British, they and the rest of the Europeans are preoccupied with warring upon one another, a thing of no interest to Mexicans save that it advances the cause of international, sci... Socialism." Remembering the odium of the Maya for Diaz and his agents, he bit off mention of the Cientificos!

Alvarado had continued to appeal to the Tatoob as a Mexican, did not and never would understand the uselessness of this, but he now saw a way to blunt the suspicions of the pox-pitted Cruzob General.

However sporadic the battles between the Carrancistas, Zapatistas, Villistas and other contending armies had been over the past months, their public relations efforts had intensified; Carranza and Villa, especially, seeking recognition from the Americans. Obscure provincial leaders were hauled to the capital to be feted and photographed (or, sometimes, hanged), as were the chiefs of tribes that had not yet emerged out of the Stone Age... whose photographs with the bluff Villa or falsely cheerful Carranza were dutifully forwarded to their Washington agents and to partisans of the press such as Lincoln Steffans (a Carrancista) or John Reed (more partial to Villa).

Each of these meetings... ending in a treaty of some sort which granted the influence seekers a promise of money which, the treasury did not have... brought don Venus closer to his goal of an accommodation with the truculent Americans. Well, if Carranza would have these indians, he was welcome to them.

Alvarado ceased his meditations and now posed a question directly to Clarencio Pec. "Ask the Chief that, if he doubts Carranza's authority, would he like to go to Mexico to see for himself?"

Silvestro blinked. This offer was so surprising that it almost caused him to betray his pretended ignorance of Spanish, but the General's eyes were, fortunately, with Clarencio.

"Mexico?" he asked at the translation, forcing Alvarado to again explain himself.

"I give counsel to the President but it is ultimately he who will make the decision whether to recognize any of the Maya governments of the territory, or to appoint someone himself. This latter is undesirable, but I must point out that the reputation given the chicleros, while an unfair one, is the sort of thing that only a personal meeting may dispel. If I can arrange such meeting, will you consent to travel to the capital to meet the President?"

Thankfully, the translation process gave Silvestro time to pause and form his reply, remembering, also, how he had nearly been fatally tricked at Vigia Chico. He knew quite well who the President was, he had heard nothing but names, names, names from Peter Austin and other commercial agents. For all that the Governor knew, however, he was just another ignorant indian who might still think that the President was Porfirio Diaz.

"I shall not meet with Huerta," he said, setting his jaw in a hostile glare while Clarencio translated this for Alvarado.

The Governor sighed and no doubt muttered a few words under his breath on the intelligence of the Maya. Then he took some paper money from the top drawer of his desk and some differently colored notes from his billfold and lay them before Silvestro. "This is the Constitutionalist currency, issued by President Carranza," he pointed. "And this other, the money of Victoriano Huerta, is worthless. Huerta is gone... if he were not, I would not do this, would I?" And he struck a match and held it to the edge of the Huertista currency, setting it in an ashtray to be consumed.

Silvestro and Clarencio watched the flame devour the money as Alvarado cleared his throat. "Whatever our differences in origin, señores, we share a common virtue of thrift. Money is precious and we do not destroy it, howsoever we may despise the man whose profile decorates the peso. That I do so proves that it has lost its value, and that is because the President who issued it, Victoriano Huerta, is no longer in office. He is not even in Mexico," the Governor added with a theatrical disgust, "he's sailed away to Spain, oozed back into Texas and rots in some jail, up there."

Nothing but ash remained of Huerta's money and Alvarado could tell, by Silvestro's rapt attention, that the demonstration had been successful.

"It may be this man Carranza is the President," Silvestro acknowledged and Clarencio translated these words into Spanish for the Governor. "If he is, ask him what we do."

Salvador Alvarado rose, for he had other business to attend to and the matter of the Territory was something he wished another, such as Carranza, to decide. "I shall telegraph the President with the suggestion that you be allowed to present your claim in person. You will allow me three days for his reply."

"Three days is not so long," Silvestro agreed. "What will occur then?"

Alvarado kept his eyes upon Clarencio. "I expect the both of you to be called to the capital. I cannot say this thing without some envy... the new Republic is in the process of being born as we speak, an occasion comparable to the founding of the United States in Philadelphia, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain or the signing of the Magna Carta on the British Isles precisely seven centuries ago."

"What if there is no reply?" Silvestro asked.

Alvarado's energetic smile faltered. "The one man who has incited revolutionary action is Venustiano Carranza, the First Chief. It was his determination that I be made Governor of Yucatan, though there are men born here who claimed this position for their own. He will do what he deems in the best interests of Mexico, and if he should find for another..."

The Governor allowed the rest to linger, unspoken, and spread his hands. Then, he held three fingers of the right hand up and wiggled them. "Three days," he said. "You, Clarencio Pec, are a young man with a future. Obviously it would not be in your interest to translate this next, you may tell your jefe I was asking after your father. A terrible thing, this plague. The future will rest with those who accept education and speak Spanish; I will have a man contact you so that we may talk more on this, but at a private time and without this imbecile present. Agreed?"

Silvestro gave no indication of comprehension but sat placidly with a dreamy expression, given to convince Alvarado that he was already planning his excursion to Mexico City.

"Of course," said Clarencio. A lieutenant entered, saluted and bent towards Alvarado. It was their summons to depart.

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