Bride of Thunder

by Jeanne Williams

  “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 wit
h 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.

  Besides the Secretary of the Cross, who took down its messages, there was an Interpreter of the Cross. It was probably he who hid in the pit behind the altar.

  A stone shrine, open to the west, had been built near a little cenote grotto, and special celebrations were still held there. Mercy often went to a rocky vantage point above the valley, where, hidden by flowering vines and trees, she could watch the rocky hollow with its inner waters, which people said always stayed at the same level.

  Most of the time, though, Dionisio was with her. Guard duty at the shrine, though an important way of preserving faith and binding together men from different villages, wasn’t strenuous. In the time between morning Mass and rosary, except when they were sentries, the men usually idled in the barracks and talked as soldiers always have of past battles and adventures, of their homes, and of women they’d had or hoped to have.

  Dionisio, as batab of an allied group serving without his company, was allowed to occupy one of the thatched huts located at an intersection of two of the wide streets on a block enclosed by stone walls and fruit trees. The city was laid out ladino-style in streets that crossed at right angles, and five small rocky hills within the boundaries had been fortified.

  Walls of rubble enclosed the city and sentries were always on watch. Outside were lime kilns where limestone was shattered by heat and made into mortar, as had been done from the days of great Mayan building. Some of the male slaves worked there or hauled stone for new construction around the plaza. Others cut wood or cleared the forest for new cornfields.

  Most of the captives were of the poorer class, though Dionisio said that some women of the aristocracy were among the barracks servants. “The pampered, proud ones usually die soon,” he said. “Educated men often have easy work, like giving instruction in reading, writing, Spanish, and music, and that band playing at morning Mass is ladino. It was captured seven years ago when Governor Acereto sent a huge expedition against Chan Santa Cruz. Crescendo Poot let the enemy occupy the city while he gathered troops and then attacked in overwhelming force. The army lost fifteen hundred men, all its artillery and ammunition, several thousand rifles, mules, supplies—and the entire band, along with its instruments. They’ve taught many young Cruzob how to beat drums and blow bugles.”

  “But doesn’t the government—anyone—care about the slaves?”

  Dionisio shrugged. “Mérida has more pressing worries, even when it’s not under siege, as it is right now. Sometimes a well-to-do family will hunt for and ransom a member, but most of these people will live here till they die.”

  “How terrible!”

  His face tightening, Dionisio said coldly, “Is it more terrible than Mayas being slaves?”

  “But some of these are Mayas!” Mercy argued.

  “Yes. They are hidalgos, as Mayas were called who fought for ladinos against the rebels, or Pacificos from Chichénha, who had also agreed to make peace with the ladinos. And there was slavery, wasn’t there, in your Texas? Black men like those in Belize?”

  There was no answer to that. After a moment, Dionisio relented. “You can be glad for one thing, Doña Mercy. Very young captives are brought up as Cruzob, and any child is born free. At least there’ll be no generations of slavery.”

  Then in that, the Cruzob were superior to whites, but Mercy felt sad, almost guilty, when she saw the women carrying water or cooking over the fires, hurrying to obey their masters. She could so easily have been one of them, but in a short time she’d be leaving, while they spent their weeks and months and years serving warriors who might have killed their families and burned their homes.

  Dionisio let Mercy fetch water from the cenote to support the fiction that she was his prisoner, but the fruits of her efforts at tortilla-making were so lopsided and tough that he begged her to let him bring them fresh from the barracks. He brought in game and fowl and traded an excess for honey and eggs. Their stews and pit-roasted meats were tasty, and Dionisio cooked as much as Mercy did.

  In spite of the grim circumstances, it was almost like playing house. The cool white-mortared hut had no furniture except for a couple of log stools and a cooking stone. During the day, the hammocks were slung out of the way. Mercy washed their clothes a little distance from the cenote where there was a natural rock basin, a good place to beat and rub soil from their garments.

  If Dionisio hadn’t been with her most of the time, she’d have been lonely. The wives of the officers and officials stared at her with curiosity and some jealousy, doubtless thinking her far too indulged for a slave.

  One day at the wellspring she saw a child wheeze and strangle with asthma and told the mother that copal fumes would help. She offered to show her if some copal could be found. Since this was the child of a maestro cantor, who had a supply of the incense, Mercy was able to quickly demonstrate the treatment. After that, she was sometimes approached about one ailment or another and helped when she could.

  Often the maestros cantores were taught the skills of H-men along with their religious functions, and they knew some cures, but though Mercy talked to several of the priests, she thought Chepa knew more medicine than all of them together.

  “I’ve told them you’re Ixchel,” Dionisio teased one day when they were walking. “They’re beginning to believe it.” He sobered. “Don’t be too good a doctor or they might want to keep you here.”

  “Could they do that?” Mercy asked in quick alarm.

  “The cross can order anything.”

  “But you promised …”

  His golden eyes went over her with that strange meditativeness that made her wonder what he really thought and felt. “I’ll keep my promise. But if the cross ordered you to stay and I helped you escape, I’d be hacked to death in the plaza if I were caught. Just a warning, Ixchel—don’t be too merciful.”

  “But I can’t not help when I can!”

  Watching her, he sighed and smiled. “No. That’s how you make yourself.”

  “What?”

  “You make your real face, your real heart, from what you do, from your intent. You are for healing. It’s your nature.” His smile deepened and there was great tenderness in it, as if he knew and accepted something difficult. “But freedom is your nature. When it was known the quetzals were released from Señor Kensington’s courtyard as your wish, some called you the Quetzal Lady.”

  “The workers knew about that?”

  “Oh, much came from house servants with families in the village: the Frenchman’s stove of many ovens; the peculiar food; when Señor Kensington had women beaten to arouse himself; when he had a young boy. It was believed that after you came he dropped those amusements.”

  And amused himself with me. Mercy shrugged. “That’s over. He must be dead. I want to forget it.”

  Mostly she could. Only now and then did she dream of his weight, his inexorable hands, and his devouring mouth, just as she sometimes dreamed the terror of the crocodile coming toward her. But now she always roused to hear Dionisio’s quiet breathing from the hammock only a few feet away. Once when she must have been moaning, she awoke to find him caressing her, murmuring reassurance as one does to a child in nightmare. He was a batab, a fighter, and she had seen him whipped into unconsciousness rather than be Eric’s assassin. He was clearly respected and valued by these hard-bitten, battled-pro
ved Cruzob. Yet there was a gentleness in him, a sensitive response to the world around them that he seemed to wish to share with Mercy.

  “Forget the estate,” he told her now. “But remember the people who were helped by your medicine. Remember the flight of quetzals.” His voice changed. She knew he was reciting poetry or holy words, as he sometimes did.

  “On an emerald pyramid the quetzal bird is singing.

  Within he sings, within he cries, alone the quetzal bird.”

  “Beautiful,” she said as they turned from the cleared land into forest. “Did the poet have a name?”

  “Poets, singers—they had no names, no more than the artists who carved the temples. Poetry comes from the gods; surely the man is only a voice.” Dionisio laughed softly. “We believe that flowers and poetry are the ways gods speak to men.”

  “Gods?” Mercy frowned. “But you’re Christian, Dionisio!”

  “Yes. But when I plant corn, I still make offerings. The corn gods, called yuntzilob, take care of my cornfield and village. The great God can’t worry about such things. His concern is the soul.” Dionisio chuckled. “Most of the time, I care more about my corn than my soul. Those who plant in your country, don’t they beseech the spirits?”

  “Protestants have only one God for everything, and He’s asked to give good crops. I think that in Europe there were celebrations, especially at harvest time. But now, a ceremony called Thanksgiving, celebrated by a big meal late in the fall, is about all we have left.”

  “Maybe your God didn’t want to share offerings with the yuntzilob,” decided the Maya. “Your people should be careful. When your God is busy with wars and governments, He may forget the fields.”