Bride of Thunder (44 page)

“What gratitude!”

“I grieve at your displeasure,” he said, not sounding grieved at all. “But I prefer your anger to your death. You may consider it till it is time to sleep. Then I need an answer.”

To be tied, have her steps dogged everywhere, have no privacy! Even her captivity at the House of Quetzals hadn't been that demeaning as far as physical restraints went. “I'm a captive either way,” she said cuttingly. “But I'd rather not be trussed up or spied upon. I'll stay your month at the shrine if you'll promise to send me home earlier if a suitable person or escort turns up.”

“Why, yes, I'll agree,” he said so promptly that she thought perhaps she'd misjudged him, blamed him for being overcautious. “So, now, Ixchel, that's settled. Let's be friends. I know you're eager to get back to your people, but this time with me can be pleasant if you don't set yourself against it.” He chuckled and released her hands. “A story to tell your grandchildren! How you escaped through the jungle and were the guest of a
batab
at Chan Santa Cruz!”

Grandchildren! Would she ever have any? Would they be Zane's grandchildren, too?

“You don't like to think of growing old?” Dionisio asked.

“I just wonder if I shall!”

“Be sure of it,” he said confidently. “You're having your adventures now. Calm will follow. You will grow very bored! There's a man at this La Quinta?”

“Many of them.”

“A man for you?”

“Yes. We are to marry.”

It was a moment before the Maya spoke. “That explains your impatience. He is
ladino?
”

“His parents were from Louisiana. His father once saved the life of Crescendo Poot, which seems to be why La Quinta hasn't been raided.”

“A strange
ladino,
to save the general of the plaza, the man who ordered the massacre at Tekax and many others!”

“This was back before the war started.”

“Ah! Most fortunate, for La Quinta. But you, Doña Mercy—it is said you come from Texas, far to the north, where the Mexicans sometimes made Yucatecans fight.”

“Yes. Texas was part of Mexico, then a republic, then joined with the United States, then allied with the Confederacy—the southern states against the northern ones.”

“It is very dim to our ears. Perhaps I confuse your war with that of Juárez against the French and the emperor. But didn't your Texas lose its fight?”

“Yes,” said Mercy, and for a time they talked of that war and the one in Mexico and the present revolution in Yucatán.

“Has your man taken sides?” asked Dionisio.

“He served under Peraza in another revolution that lost,” explained Mercy. “And some of his friends had been sent to the penal colony on Cozumel. He felt he had to fight.”

“But you did not?” Dionisio sounded as if he were smiling.

“I didn't try to stop him, but, I could have wished he'd had a different sense of honor.”

“A man can only have his own. Crush it and he's nothing.”

Mercy had never thought much about honor herself. She only knew what she would and would not do. It was important to her to live. She'd been Eric's mistress rather than let him kill Jolie or beat women, but when it came to bearing his child or watching this
batab
slowly whipped to a pulp, she'd had to take any chance, however desperate.

“So,” pursued Dionisio, “your man may not be at La Quinta. Perhaps at Chan Santa Cruz they may know what's happening. The
tatich
has many spies; in fact, there's a department of them under the orders of the
tata nohoch zul,
Great Father Spy. But what will you do, Doña Mercy, if you learn at La Quinta that your man is dead?”

“Don't say that!”

“It happens.”

“I won't think about it!”

“Of course not,” he said soothingly. “Our dinner should be ready. I think you'll find it even better than
cochinita pibil
.”

It was delicious. Mercy told him so and ate with relish after almost three days of jerky and corn gruel. Dionisio gave her water in his gourd and more tortillas.

“What is the Talking Cross?” she asked. “Has it always been among the Mayas?”

“You know that each family has a cross, and each village, some more potent than others. When the tide of war turned against the Mayas in 1850 and they were being hunted down, one band settled at a forest wellspring almost hidden between rocky hills, with a mahogany tree at the entrance to the grotto. On this tree was carved a small cross, no longer than my middle finger. This was the Little Holy Cross from which Chan Santa Cruz got its name. The Mayan leader, José Maria Barrera, set up a wooden cross on a hill just east of the wellspring. When the people prayed, the Talking Cross spoke, God's voice. The cross was called by them
la santísima,
which means ‘most holy.'”

“Do you believe all that?”

“Some say it was Mañuel Nahuat, a man who could make his voice come from other places. The cross doesn't often speak anymore. It usually delivers written messages through a scribe. But in those days it spoke, and the Mayas believed. At its command they attacked Kampocolche in the night and fought desperately till morning. They were defeated.”

“But they still believed in the cross?”

“Those struggling to survive as a people will believe what gives them hope.
Ladinos
attacked the shrine in 1851, killed Manuel Nahuat—the one some say was the voice—and carried off the cross. But Barrera himself had eluded the
ladinos
. He discovered another cross. Instead of a voice, he found a scribe to interpret for
la santísima
. The cross gave the scribe a message for the people, urging them to fight and promising protection. But on the Day of the Holy Cross, May 3, the
ladinos
attacked again. Barrera lacked guns and ammunition, so he took his men out of the shrine city and let the whites find it empty. There weren't enough of them to hold such a remote place and they pulled out quickly, but the Mayas they sought were in a serious plight. It was too late to burn new cornfields, so they had to plant old clearings, which wouldn't produce much. They had to exist on roots, bark, and palm nut milk. And some starved.”

Dionisio fell silent, but after a while he Went on with how Barrera, knowing it was the end of Mayan freedom unless he could encourage and inspire his beaten, hungry people, had built a thatched church with a sanctuary for the cross, which was guarded day and night. It spoke again, and its voice seemed to come from the air.

“Do you believe that?” Mercy asked.

“
You'll
certainly never get a miracle!” Dionisio growled. “If you must know, and prefer clumsy facts to mystery, there was a pit behind the altar and a wooden cask was used to make the voice of the man hidden there boom out. My father heard it and he believed while he was there, even though he knew better.”

“What happened then?”

“The Mayas were beaten, they were starving, and yet they gathered around the cross. The
ladinos
collected every man who could possibly fight and began a clean sweep from the northeast coast to the west, trying to put an end to the rebels once and for all. The
ladinos
marched on Chan Santa Cruz.

“Most of the able-bodied men had gotten away. Fresh graves were near every cluster of huts, and there were dead people in hammocks and children dying of starvation. Soldiers found the pit and barrel in the church, laughed, and mocked this ‘God-voice' of the Indians. The
ladinos
decided the best way to stop the cult was to get rid of the mahogany tree by the grotto, the ‘Mother of Crosses,' which seemed to spawn new ones when the old ones were captured. This tree was supposed to be able to resist any ax.…” Dionisio's voice trailed off in the darkness.

“Did it?” Mercy asked.

“The
ladinos
collected their two hundred famished prisoners and cut it down before them, then asked if it hadn't fallen like any tree. Maybe it had, the Mayas answered, but the cross had a power no
ladino
could touch. Clearly, the rebels were defeated, by starvation more than by arms. The
ladinos
even let their skeleton prisoners go and marched south, taking scattered prisoners, to Bacalar and Chichénha, where they met the flank commanders, who'd had similar luck. The rebels were done, finished. The reserves went home, the regular army went back to camp, and the
ladinos
fired victory salvos from the cannons of San Benito.”

“But that wasn't the end,” Mercy protested, fascinated, appalled, pitying, and awed.

Dionisio sighed and continued. Yucatán had' made peace with the Chichénha Mayas, who were then known as Pacificos del Sur and who were supposed to help keep down the rebels of Chan Santa Cruz. This treaty was signed at the government house in Belize in September, 1853, but in November Indians seemed to swarm all over the frontier.

Town after town fell, outpost after outpost. The militarist regime in Mérida had provoked a revolt by liberal federalists—this was the fight in which Zane had followed Peraza. The army was called north to put down the revolution, stripping the frontier, and cholera, the black vomit struck. Under these conditions, starved, fanatical Mayas could take the exposed settlements and harry the few troops left on the frontier.

In 1854 the army hadn't marched on Chan Santa Cruz until after the spring harvest, and it had been sniped at and ambushed all the way. When the
ladinos
finally fought their way to the shrine city, they found a new well in the center of the village and several log troughs. They drank, and before long began the horrible vomiting that led to death while Mayas taunted from the jungle, inviting the attackers to drink deeply of the sweet, healthy waters of Chan Santa Cruz. The new well had been treated with the clothing of cholera victims.

At the end of the week fewer than a hundred soldiers had been able to fight. The commander got the sick and wounded on litters, but he lacked enough men to carry them, let alone fight off the Mayas, who killed everyone except a few who managed to escape into the bush.

Fighting had gone on all summer and fall, with the army pursuing as the Mayas faded into the jungle to harass and attack.
Ladino
political warring had given the Mayas a chance to capture crucial weapons and supplies. In 1855 the army lost about half its men in action while hundreds more died of cholera.

“So the Mérida government decided the War of the Castes was over,” finished Dionisio. “Since they couldn't defeat these mad followers of the cross, it was decided to ignore them and concentrate on protecting the frontier. After eight years of war, starving because they couldn't plant and harvest properly, the Mayas planted and rain swelled the corn ears, and no
ladino
master of official claimed any part of it. No, and not the
ladino
church. Wouldn't you say, Doña Mercy, that the Indians had earned their land and their harvest?”

“Yes. And I thank you for telling me. I don't like staying in the shrine city for a month, but I'll never doubt now that it's holy.”

Through the faith and courage of the people, not through the cross.

Dionisio guided her to the hammocks. “Sleep well,” he told her. “Don't be afraid. I must serve my time, but my life is wrapped around yours—a shield, till you're where you wish to go.”

Once she swallowed her disappointment, she knew it was best to wait the month and journey under his escort. Thanking him, she said good night and got into the hammock.

As she shifted into a comfortable position, she felt more peaceful than she had since Eric had abducted her.

Dionisio was close. He knew the jungle; he could protect her. How good to know that, and to sleep.

19

Each corner of the shrine city was marked by a cross housed in a thatched shelter, and no mule, horse, or other animal was allowed within the boundaries. The
balam na,
or church, ruled the east side of the plaza, buttressed with walkways designed for defense running the length of the structure on either side. There was an unfinished tower at each end, and bells stolen from Bacalar hung in the southwestern one. Arcaded wings fanned out on both sides; these were barracks and schools. Behind these was a compound for slaves, primarily women, who did most of the work in the barracks.

The life of Chan Santa Cruz began in the church before dawn when the
maestro cantor
said the little Mass, with the commander of the guard and some of his men kneeling in the chapel. There was a second Mass at eight, and rosary in the evening. Sometimes the
tatich
celebrated Mass, but he often held private worship in his own chapel before a cross gleaming with gold and jewels.

The
tatich,
or
tata nohoch,
Great Father, lived in a palace across the plaza from the church, a building one hundred feet long with arcades on both sides. To the left of this was the residence of the general of the plaza. More barracks, a council house, a jail, and other flat-roofed stone buildings surrounded the flat, rocky plaza, with its sapodilla, or chicle, tree.

“Most wrongdoing is taken care of at the village's whipping post or stocks,” Dionisio told Mercy. “But serious crimes—witchcraft, murder, having dealings with
ladinos
—are punished near that tree. The criminal is hacked to death by a number of men with machetes so that he's killed by the whole society.”

After that she never looked at the tree without an inward shrinking.

As many villages had grown up around Chan Santa Cruz as the water supply allowed, but the city itself remained primarily a ceremonial center. Every Cruzob male over sixteen was obligated to spend a month each year on guard duty there, causing a steady turnover in population, while even the general of the plaza often preferred to live in his home village and to come to Chan Santa Cruz only when needed. The
tatich
and his three officials who served the cross were the only year-round residents.