THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK NINE: BOOK of the JAGUAR PRIEST

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

But Silvestro would not die that night, nor for some nights to come. Perhaps one of the santos had taken notice of his last prayer or, perhaps, it was only that don del Muerte was so occupied elsewhere in these mountains... for Zapatistas still struck at the Carrancistas, Obregon slaughtered Villistas and bandits with little or no political affiliation had their way with everybody else. Silvestro did not leave his compartment, for he knew the moon to be waiting for him, but the knock that finally came was not that of don del Muerte, but of Colonel Solis. The sun had risen, and Solis took the Tatoob by the arm and led him to the dining car with its windows through which the magnificent and strange panorama of the Sierra could be seen.

"It was my negligence," the Colonel said, "not to have warned you of our mountains. I should have seen that you were supplied with blankets and warned about the air... it is quite thin, for we are three thousand meters above the ground where it touches the sea at Veracruz." And he pointed with the knife he was using to butter his bread to one of the peaks. "That one is majestic Orizaba." And he nodded to emphasize this fact to the Tatoob, applying British marmalade to the same bread and taking a sip of his coffee.

Silvestro neither spoke nor ate and Solis continued as if a question had been asked. "It is a volcano," he said, "and its summit is as high above us as we are above the sea. Because of this altitude, breathing is not easy for one who has lived on such a low ground as is Yucatan. You will feel uncomfortable for a time, but that will pass. And I will find an overcoat for you in Puebla; Mexico City is almost as high as we are, and the nights can be chilly.

Indeed the mention of height only added to Silvestro's discomfort. He would not eat but drank cup after cup of the coffee brought by a waiter in a uniform, though not one of the Federal army. It brought a temporary warmth but quickly faded, and the Colonel kindly offered his own jacket, the despised blue of the Federals. At first he only permitted it to be lain across his shoulders but, after some time when he felt no pain nor the presence of a wind that may have entered upon the opportunity presented by his donning of the enemy's coat, he looked towards the Colonel.

"If the mazehualob could see me with this uniform," he said, "I would forfeit not only my position but, most probably, my life."

"Ignorance and the refusal to come to terms with the present are terrible things," Solis said, balancing a piece of a tortilla on his fork and piling eggs and a slice of preserved ham atop it. "It is not the uniform, but the nature of the man who wears it that matters. We'll help you with your problems in Quintana Roo," he added. "Everything will be arranged. Adjust yourself to the atmosphere, don't make any sudden moves that might weaken your constitution. Conserve your strength, so as to be fit to meet the President. We will take care of everything."

On the second evening, protected by an civilian overcoat that Solis had obtained from the garrison at Puebla, Silvestro managed a few hours' sleep and the dreams that had so frightened him diminished to a persistent company of phantoms, tugging at his conscience. Their threats had diminished too, to warnings against something awaiting him in Montezuma's redoubt... but what? Again the sun rose and, by this time, the train had reached the crest of the Oriental Sierras and, from their breakfast table, they could perceive the magnificent twin volcanoes Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl and, beneath, what seemed a valley of outsized, fantastical rubbish. Solis made a witty remark about the scavengers of Cuahtenotl that seemed spiteful, to Silvestro, and, soon enough, they achieved San Sebastien, then Cuernavaca... Zapatist strongholds, the Colonel frowned. Fortunately, no incident transpired at the stations save that, at San Sebastien, an enormous army of starved, seemingly wild dogs surrounded the train, howling as demons until the locomotive began to move again and one, from the vehemence of its shrieks, fell under a wheel of the Pullman directly beneath their window. Soon, however, they were in flight again and, from his seat, the Tatoob could gaze down over the Valley of Mexico.

Into this valley they began descending.

"Now be sure not to leave me," Solis said, when they had reached the suburbs of the capital. "The city is so large that, if we were to separate, it is likely that you would never find your way back again. I will write some addresses on a paper for you to show a policeman, but even those who have lived all their lives in the capital do not know more than a quarter of its streets.

"How many people live there?" asked Silvestro.

"Twice four-hundred four-hundreds, they say, but anyone who has been a resident will assure you that it cannot be so. There must be at least four four-hundred four-hundreds... even more than half a million, depending on whether you count only the city or all the Federal District.

"Half a million Mexicans," the Tatoob repeated tremulously and he stared out as farms and shacks gave way to buildings of boards and cement that grew taller and taller until they reached the railroad station, into which half of that half million seemed to have been poured.

The Colonel led him through this throng and out into the street where waited a number of horse and motorized taxis. "Today we are free," he said, "but in the morning you will meet with the President." Solis negotiated hotly with a motor taxi driver in rapid Spanish, from which Silvestro gathered that the value of Carrancista pesos had declined again, during the weeks of the Colonel's absence. At last, Solis hired the fotingo for three pieces of silver.

"One of the remaining difficulties the President must attend to is our banking system," Solis grimaced as they piled into the back of the motorcar. "The First Chief has closed all of the newspapers which print nothing but lies and slander and, because idleness is as much a sin in machines as in men, he has employed those presses towards the printing of more money."

"I do not trust paper money," Silvestro grunted.

"No honest man does," Solis observed. "Did you know that the worst of it are called 'bilimbiques'? Know this word? It derives from an American who hired many workers and paid them with useless paper money he printed up himself. William Vickers was his name, something like that, hence... 'bilimbiques'. There are self-promoted Generals who make up the stuff... it's not to be accepted save at gunpoint."

The taxi edged from its place and into a slow procession of motorcars and horse-drawn vehicles; the whine of engines and the screams of horses and their excrements, the sooty exhaust of gasoline and, behind them, the noise and smells of the station... all of these brought to mind something old Mariano Chable had said. "Hell? Why, when the wicked beyond all salvation die... they go to Mexico!" The skies were obscured by a great mass of gray clouds and it was still brutally cold. A truck rudely passing to Silvestro's left bore a phonograph with music while a man with some sort of horn to amplify his voice demanded that the passers by at once forego their business and hurry to the Street of the Immaculate Conception, on which was being held a sale of children's clothing.

Hell!

"We have the use of this taxi for the rest of the afternoon," the Colonel said. "All Mexico is at your command. Do you wish to visit the Plaza, the Castle of Chapultepec? Or perhaps the markets? Anywhere you wish to go."

A hellish mood had settled over the Tatoob, thick and dank as the clouds overhead. "I know little of the city and its splendors," he admitted. "The only place I have heard of in this city is the Cafe Colon. General Bravo promised to buy me a copita there, but it must have only been one of those promises..."

The Tatoob spread his hands as if permitting a cloud of bilimbiques to drift through his fingers.

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