Days of the Dead (20 page)

“I wouldn’t be so sure of
that,
” said Rose around a mouthful of hairpins as she fixed her coiffure. “But it’s probably best to be safe.”

“Werther is alone,” said January. “And in hiding. Therefore, I’m going to do exactly what our friend Lieutenant Shaw back in New Orleans does when he needs information about the free colored or the slaves—worlds in which he cannot move inconspicuously any more than I can move inconspicuously through the barrios here.”

“You’re going to ask your mother?”

January laughed, and took a silver reale from his pocket. “I’m going to ask someone who, I suspect, knows as much about the barrios as my mother does about the private affairs of every free-colored family in New Orleans.”

He tossed the coin once in the air, catching it in his palm, then flipped it far out into the street. And though anyone would have sworn that Cristobál was asleep, the old Yaqui’s arm seemed to lengthen out like a gecko’s tongue, snagging the little silver disk as it flashed in the dusty light.

FOURTEEN

It took Cristobál four days to locate Werther Bremer in the mazes of the capital’s back-streets and barrios. During those intervening, nerve-racking days January tried patiently to track down every other fact he could about Don Prospero’s household on the eve of Fernando de Castellón’s murder, in the hope that—if they could not find the valet—they might at least find some clue that would lead to some answer other than the staringly obvious fact of Hannibal’s guilt.

“The poison may not have been swallowed, you know,” remarked Rose the day after the bull-fight—Monday—as Consuela’s carriage inched along the tree-lined causeway that stretched from the city across the brackish western marshes. “It would be an easy matter to smear curare poison on the thorn of a maguey-leaf, palm the thorn, and give Fernando a smart slap on the shoulder with it. The puncture would never be noticed by candle-light as they were cleaning the body, and of course after this much time in the grave I doubt it could be detected at all.”

Around them, every carriage and cart in Mexico City and about half its pedestrians as well streamed sluggishly along the causeway, bound for the Bosque de Chapultepec and Santa Anna’s grand review of his Army. The pedestrians at least had the option of walking between the gray stone arches of the aqueduct that stretched from the city, across the acres of reeds and sedges and the gleaming sheets of what had been Lake Texcoco, to the freshwater springs on the granite height of Chapultepec Hill. The roadway lay along the aqueduct’s feet, less than a yard above the level of the squishy lake-bed; more than one driver glared enviously at the market-women and Indians who picked their way past the clogged traffic by leaping from grass-tuft to grass-tuft. Farther out on the lake-bed, where the water was deeper, small reed boats could be seen where Indians fished as they had fished when the pyramids of Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli towered against the sky instead of the Cathedral’s gilded towers.

January sighed. “Leaving out the thickness of the average military uniform coat,” he said, “who would have done this, and when? Curare kills almost instantly. The door from the
sala
into the study was bolted, and there wasn’t a time when someone wasn’t in the
sala,
either clearing up after dinner or playing cards. The door from the
corredor
into the study was within sight of Consuela and others from the moment Hannibal emerged until Werther went in and found his master dead . . . and cold.”

“This was much easier when we were on the
Belle Marquise.
” Rose’s light tone covered the real unhappiness in her eyes. “I think I preferred speculating about whether or not Fernando wore armor to bed. Even if Natividad does attend this review, how good are our chances of getting to speak with her?”

“Oh, we should have little trouble if we can get to her when she is not with Santa Anna,” replied Consuela. She turned—gratefully, January suspected—from listening to Don Rafael, who had urged his horse up beside the carriage to recite to her the family histories of the various bulls who had been killed in the ring the day before, and the individual details of every other
corrida
he had ever seen in his life. His mother’s carretela lumbered in the press of vehicles behind Consuela’s barouche, the dark-green curtains of its windows parting now and then for shadowy faces to peek through. January wondered if little Pilar was one of them. “Though what you expect Natividad to tell us I do not know.”

“Nor do I,” replied January grimly. “But she was there on the night of the murder, and I haven’t talked to her yet. And unless you can think of a way to elude your father’s vaqueros
and
Capitán Ylario some night to get Hannibal away from Mictlán and to the coast—and possibly evade the American chargé d’affaires as well—I think we need to at least hear what she has to say.”

The fortress of Chapultepec, ruinous and weather-damaged, towered on a height of rock on what had once been the lake’s original shore. Woodlands of cypress surrounded it, draped in Spanish moss and watered by the springs and by rain-tanks. “They say the ghost of Montezuma, the last Emperor of the Aztecs, can be seen in the night, walking in these woods,” remarked Consuela as the carriage finally rolled into the dense shade. “He had gardens here, and a fortress of his own upon the height—you can see the whole valley from the walls up there. They say also that La Malinche—the Indian woman who was the brains behind Cortés—haunts these woods, too, but myself, I do not believe any such thing. One of them, of a certainty, but not both . . . And if the priests will have it that La Malinche did such a good thing to bring all this land under the heel of the Spanish to make good Christians of everyone, why should she walk, indeed?”

Don Rafael nodded wisely, and proceeded to recount how Doña Marina—an Indian woman enslaved by the Aztecs—had contributed to the Aztecs’ downfall by acting as Cortés’s translator, a tale with which every member of the party was familiar and to which Consuela appeared to listen with interest. Considering the amount of money she’d taken off Don Rafael at ombre Saturday night, reflected January, it was the least she could do.

Beyond the woods the Army lay encamped, straggling knots of thatched shelters, old blankets slung over stretched ropes, corrals of brush holding sheep, cattle, and some of the most miserable horses January had ever seen. By the smell of it, few of the men had any idea of the sanitation required under such crowded circumstances. Among the makeshift bivouacs, the white tents of the officers rose like New Orleans steamboats among the scrum of keelboats and pirogues on the levee: French, German, or English pavilions and markees, cook-shelters where servants prepared meals, lines of blood-horses and sleek mules to carry the officers’ baggage. On the parade-ground before the camp, January watched them pass in review through a fog of yellow dust: superbly mounted colonels, majors, generals in brilliant uniforms, the glitter of bullion almost blinding in the sun. Horses pranced and caracoled; plumed hats were swept off in unison to the man who was both President and Generalissimo
Benemerito en Grado Heroico,
who sat his white horse before them, his face solemn and thoughtful, as if he’d spent the night reading the
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
instead of working his own fighting-cocks in the Plaza de Voladores.

“If he could have been induced to remain a general instead of indulging in the illusion that he knows the first thing about politics, this whole country would have been better off,” murmured Don Anastasio, who guided his leggy black thoroughbred mare up beside the carriage to pay his respects. “He’s an excellent general, and like your President Jackson, he knows the value of a hard strike in making sure that a second strike is not needed. If he knew the meaning of the word ‘loyalty,’ he would be a true hero.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “If George Washington had known the meaning of the word ‘loyalty,’ there would not be any United States for Mr. Jackson to be president of.”

She spoke playfully, but though Don Anastasio returned a rueful acknowledgment of the truth of her irony, his smile swiftly faded. The infantry was passing before them now, thousands of feet beating dull time on the hard-packed earth. Uniformed ranks, some of them; others in the white billowing clothing of farmers, or the embroidered shirts of the Mayas from the Yucatán who spoke no Spanish. Marching in sandals and crude rawhide
zapotes
because they did not have boots, carrying pikes and spears because they did not have guns, or carrying guns that even January could see were ancient, broad-muzzled smoothbores from another era, many of them virulent with rust.

“Santa Anna’s decision to embrace the cause of liberty was what brought about Iturbide’s victory, and our freedom from Spain,” said Don Anastasio softly. “And it was his defection that left Iturbide defenseless to his foes, and opened the floodgates to all the madness that came after: this strongman and that seizing my poor country by the throat. And all because Santa Anna took offense when he was told he could not sit in the Emperor’s presence.” He shook his head. “For him that was typical—that all things are personal, having nothing to do with the good of the country. And such an outlook can lead only to disaster.”

They are marching to their deaths,
January realized, watching the grim brown faces of the marching men, the heads held defiantly high. They had the stoic courage of men who work patiently to wring a living from unpromising land, but all of Friday night and Saturday night, while listening for word of Werther Bremer at Consuela’s, January had heard the brags of the men who’d sold powder and balls to the Army and made a fortune doing it, adulterating the powder with coal dust, and buying up the balls in job-lots wherever they could without the slightest effort to check that they would even fit down the muzzles of the guns.

Courage would do those men little good if they had weapons that wouldn’t fire, or if they were trying to march the eight hundred miles to Texas—in the dead of winter—on rations of cornmeal that were three parts sawdust.

“They deserve better,” he said.

“Better?” Don Anastasio’s laugh was a puff of bitterness. “They deserve
something
instead of the nothing they’re getting. Look at them! Not those poor Yucatecs from the jungles, who haven’t even seen snow in their lives—not that Santa Anna has given a thought as to what the Sonoran Desert is going to be like in February. Look at the others among them. Santa Anna’s recruiters have emptied the jails: pimps, pickpockets, beggars, and thieves—at least those thieves who haven’t the family or influence to buy themselves out of the Army.”

Genuine distress twisted Anastasio’s face. Following the direction of his gaze, January saw the slouching forms and wary eyes that watched, not the officers, but the other men, calculating their chance to make a break for it and take with them whatever they could in the way of other men’s pay, and whatever weapons could be sold for the price of a few glasses of pulque.

“In a way I suppose it’s efficient,” sighed Anastasio. “If men must die, it’s far better that they be scum like that—thieves and idlers and drunkards who are of no use to the state or to themselves—than men with families, men who can raise healthy children or healthy crops. But to give comrades like that to true soldiers is as criminal as giving them defective guns.”

At his own carriage his wife was gesturing him back. He shook his head and bent down again over Rose’s hand. “One day maybe both of our countries will come to their senses.” He rode away through the crowd, his mare picking her way with the delicacy of a lady crossing muddy ground in satin slippers. January saw him bend from the saddle to kiss Doña Isabella’s hand, and those of Doña Gertrudis and Consuela, who sat in the carriage beside her. Turning his gaze, January scanned the other carriages for some sight of Natividad or her mother but could see no glimpse of either. Anastasio would certainly know where he could write to Señora Lorcha to arrange a meeting, he supposed, but to do so would be almost an announcement of intentions, always supposing the lady would deign to write back to—or receive—a visitor of color.

Much better to encounter her by chance at a place such as this.

“Good Lord,” said Rose, shocked. “Is that their artillery?”

January turned. “Are those pieces you’d show off if you had others available?”

Rose made a face. “I can almost find it in my heart to be sorry for Santa Anna.”

“Save your pity for his men,” January said. “And for the Texians should Santa Anna defeat them—or should any fall alive into his hands. He has a reputation for massacre, and he doesn’t particularly care how many of his own men perish in achieving his victories.” He sprang down from the carriage, and as the last dust settled behind the few cannon and limbers, followed them to the park beyond the trees, where they were being drawn up.

No one stopped him. A few guards loitered in the trees, mostly occupied with smoking cigarettos and flirting with the
poblana
girls. Gentlemen of Don Rafael’s type strolled among the guns with lady-friends, but January’s eye was drawn to a solitary figure in gray corduroy, half-hidden in the shadows of the cypresses.

January dropped back into the trees himself, and circled so as to come behind the man, who was in any case so deeply involved in making notes in a pocket memorandum-book that he didn’t turn until January was nearly in touching-distance. Then he spun, his hand going to the pistol he wore at his waist. . . .

“January,” said John Dillard, and relaxed. “Come to see the parade?”

“Such as it is,” said January. “I’ve seen better artillery turn-outs at Fourth of July militia parades down Canal Street.”

Dillard pocketed book and pencil and held out his hand to shake. “They’re bringing in cannon from Vera Cruz next week, I hear.”

“I hear that, too,” agreed January, clasping the American’s hand in his own and wondering how he could unobtrusively bring up the subject of fugitive German valets and Anthony Butler’s slaves. “Those’ll be the cannon they took from the Spanish fifteen years ago: they haven’t been fired or cleaned since then.”