THE INSURGENCE of
CHAN SANTA CRUZ
BOOK NINE:
BOOK of the JAGUAR PRIEST
CHAPTER
THIRTY SEVEN
Silvestro Kaak, his new bride and Colonel Solis arrived at the port
of Progreso on the twenty eighth of June. Despite the
newly printed papers attesting to his share of the great wealth of Colonel
Macias, the Tatoob was troubled by an overwhelming
sense of doom within moments of their disembarking. At first, Solis and Maria
perceived nothing out of the ordinary in the dusty streets, in whose shadows
crouched the black outlines of thin and panting dogs (although her senses were
accustomed to the rhythms and the nature of the capital and of the lands to its
north). Solis had forgotten the unpleasantness of Yucatecan
summers, but straightened his uniform and marched on, as if the weather was one
more rival Generals to be outmaneuvered and cut down before coming to a gradual
stop.
Even the urchins and the
baggage-porters, who inevitably swarmed over the docks at the arrival of a
boat, were not in evidence. Nor were the vendors of refreshments, even the few
taxi drivers who normally waited by the pier to transport passengers and their
bags to the railroad station.
Progreso
ridiculed its own name beneath the vapid blue skies and ferocious sun, which
had heated the port to forty-four degrees Centigrade.
Silvestro
motioned to the others that they leave their baggage on the boat. Two blocks
from the pier, an old man stretched beneath a green umbrella, crumbling tobacco
between his fingers.
"Cigarros?"
he offered, tearing at the leaves with hands brown and wrinkled as was the
tobacco. "Cubano... muy
bien..."
"Drought?" the Tatoob asked, sniffing at the dry, salty air.
"Si, sequia... gran sequia! Not since the great killing, seventy
years ago, has the sun been so large, so cruel. I was only twelve, then, when
it was hot. The sun drove men to acts of madness." And he gestured with
his old hand towards the sun as if he were an impresario... or a magician,
displaying the rabbit he'd pulled from his hat.
Silvestro
purchased a cigar and returned to the boat. "We will not leave," he
said, "until the sun is very low. My first decree as Carranza's Governor
is to declare siesta."
Solis was impatient. "It will be
hours," he said, "until the train to Merida. What will we do in the
meantime?"
"I am going below, to
sleep," he said, and he slept alone, for Maria had spent much time
preparing her clothes and hair for landing. She and the Colonel dozed in chairs
on the shaded side of the deck until the sun was lower and life began returning
to the mummified port. Boys tugged at the bags of the passengers who'd missed
the early train. They climbed over one another towards the deck and Solis waved
them off. Silvestro returned an hour before sunset,
by which time the temperature had dropped a few degrees. A taxi appeared,
sweating great clouds of steam and, into it, they bundled their belongings;
their uniforms and shoes and gifts, Maria's hats and dresses and her panting,
nipping poodle. The lean dogs of Progreso stretched
their jaws, yawning, as if measuring whether Pablito
could be swallowed in one gulp. And then the fotingo
was off... its engine rattling through dusty streets of zopilotes,
flies and screaming children... towards the station as a huge, wet three quarters
moon rose at their back.
By the time they reached Merida, it
was fully dark and only thirty-nine degrees, a hundred, more or less, as
Americans would measure. The city squirmed like an anthill as people who had
cowered all day in patios or in their dark, secluded rooms emerged to celebrate
the slaughter of the tyrant Kin by the harlotous
moon. Their gaiety seemed almost obscene, for Merida was very, very rich that
year even as the rest of the state... like the territory to the east... baked,
starved and burned. The first inklings of this came in the restaurant at the
Gran Hotel when Silvestro bought an American soft
drink, after the waiter told him that there was no fresh water to be had.
When they were finished, Solis
protested the bill.
"Look Colonel," the waiter
sneered, gesturing towards the streets. "Your Revolutionary Government has
given all these people land, and now they have to sell it for a drink. Can you
blame me for making money
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