Bride of Thunder

by Jeanne Williams

  Feeling turned to ice, Mercy went back to camp and groped into her hammock. He didn’t want her now! The happy dreams she’d had of their life together would never come true. Miserably, she decided that if they survived this mission, she’d ask him to let her go back to the States, where she could find work as a housekeeper or perhaps a nurse and gradually repay him her passage and whatever price he set on her bond. It would be impossible to live at La Quinta.

  She was settling into restless sleep when arms closed around her and a hard mouth closed savagely on hers, stifling her cry, which ebbed, anyway, as soon as she knew it was Zane. He carried her a distance, stumbling in the dark, laid her on the grass and took her without wooing so that it hurt, and she gnawed her lip to keep from moaning, as much from contrasting this with the ecstasy they’d had before as from the brutality.

  “Why should I lie there aching when you’re such a willing partner?” he asked cruelly. “It seems you’re cut out to be some man’s body servant. Why not mine?”

  “Zane! You … you can’t mean …”

  “To keep you for my pleasure? Why not?” His laughter was discordant, as if something was broken and jangling in his depths. “You can live in the tower till I weary of you. Then we might see if your batab would trade some stands of mahogany for you.”

  She slapped him, struggling to rise, but he gripped her between his knees. “Your body is mine,” he said. “I own you as I do my horse. And be sure that from now on I’ll ride you with a tight rein and curb bit.”

  “I won’t live that way!”

  “Why not?” he scoffed. “You’ve done it readily enough. Under all that softness, Mercy, you’re tough!”

  “I endured Eric because I had a hope of getting back to you. I hated him and that preserved my soul. But to be used by you like a whore, to be nothing but a body—no! I can’t bear it!”

  “You should have thought of that before you gave yourself to the batab.”

  She sensed that if she wept, pleaded, soothed his male pride, said she was sorry, swore eternal faithfulness, Zane would relent. But the need for truth between them that had made her confess in the first place wouldn’t let her. If Zane couldn’t love her as she was, let him not love her at all, and if he didn’t—she would never tamely submit to living in the tower.

  “In the same time and place, I’d be Dionisio’s again,” she said, “just as I’d choose to see if the river led to the sky.”

  “Are you reminding me that your warning may have saved La Quinta and the frontier?”

  “No. I’m saying that I’ve done what was according to my nature. From that I’ll never change; for that I’ll never ask your pardon.”

  “You put yourself beyond the rules that govern other people?”

  “In the months you were with Peraza, in the days after Mérida fell, was there no woman? Have you been celibate all this time?”

  “Rubbish! For men it’s different.”

  “Yes. They make the rules, roving like tomcats while gluing foul labels on women who love more than one man.”

  “By God, a man would have to gag you to get a comfortable bedmate!” Ungently, he brought her to her feet “Get to your hammock!”

  Stiff and sore from his vengeful lust, Mercy followed him and found her hammock. Oddly, now that he’d insulted and forced himself on her, she felt better, much less guilty. After the way he’d acted, she’d grant him not a shred of moral superiority. She could fight him now.

  It was small pleasure he’d have of her if he locked her in the tower. And she wouldn’t, as she despairingly thought earlier, throw herself from the window or kill herself some other way. She’d live—and get away. If Zane wasn’t able to love her in truth, she’d live husbandless! There were other ways to love; there we’re children to teach, people to heal.

  Zane could break her heart, but he couldn’t break her life. Yet she had to bury her face in her arms to smother her mourning.

  They were on their way before sunrise, Mayel, sweet and helpful, Zane as haggard as Mercy felt. Their quarrel was small beside what would be decided that day in Chan Santa Cruz, but it affected both of them at a time when they had monumental tasks before them: to discredit Xia and Eric and win over the Mayan leaders. How many disasters, Mercy asked herself, had been intensified or allowed to happen because of lovers’ arguments, someone’s headache, or indigestion?

  It was noon when Mayel called out, pointing to the towers of the balam na. At almost the same moment, four men stepped into the road, rifles over their shoulders, machetes in their hands.

  “We seek the tatich and the general of the plaza,” said Zane in Mayan. But the guards were staring past him—at Mercy.

  “The woman who was given to the spirits!” one cried.

  They shrank back. “The batab of Macanche called her Ixchel,” muttered one. “It must be so! Weights were tied to her feet and she sank to the bottom of the cenote! But she lives!”

  “I bring a message,” Mercy said, hoping they wouldn’t think it strange that Zane, a white, spoke better Mayan than one of their ancient goddesses. “I must speak with the tatich before he offends the Heart of Heaven.”

  More escorts than guards now, two Cruzob led the way, trotting ahead of Kisin, and two followed. Zane cast Mercy a wondering glance edged with respect. “You think like them, though I have more command of the language.”

  Which could get you nothing but a bullet or machete if they hadn’t believed me risen from the dead!

  Mercy shrugged. “I learned in Chan Santa Cruz.”

  From Dionisio. The thought hovered between them as their escorts spoke excitedly to the sentinel on duty at the boundary crossing.

  The man gaped at her. “The batab who had this woman—this goddess—is to be executed! It may already be done!”

  “Run to the plaza!” Zane cried as Mercy sat paralyzed with dread. “The batab is protected by this lady! There will be terrible vengeance if one blade touches him!”

  “We can’t ride past the boundary,” Mercy warned Zane. “Animals are forbidden.”

  “Then let’s run!” Zane swung her down and Mayel followed.

  Their escort sprinted through the streets of the slave compound, past the church, and into the plaza. Mercy’s head spun, both at Dionisio’s peril and Zane’s response. Dionisio stood in the center of the plaza by the huge sapodilla tree, ringed about by a score of men with raised machetes. At a little distance stood Xia, the tatich, his assistants, the general of the plaza, the tata nohoch zul, and half a dozen other officers. Towering above them was an eagle-masked, brilliantly mantled giant.

  The shouting guards, the arrival of the aliens, froze the ritual. The tatich peered toward Mercy, then barked a command that sent the poised executioners melting back, leaving Dionisio unmenaced as Mercy ran toward Pacal.

  “This is no Maya!” she called in a voice that echoed against the great bulk of the balam na. “He’s a man of lusts! For power, wealth! He’ll use your lives for his ambition, just as he used your faith to get him a woman he wanted!” She stopped, gasping to catch her breath, in a fever to say it all before she could be silenced. Putting an arm around Mayel, she plunged on. “This girl is of the blood of Jacinto Canek, a true leader. She can tell you that this man who calls himself Pacal is English, that he has long desired me! I am not Ixchel, you Cruzob! I am not risen from the dead! I’ve only escaped from this false Pacal, who brought me out of the cenote into a cavern and thought to keep me there while he led you into a doomed war! Tear off his mask! He has a white face, a white heart, and can only be death to you!”

  “I am Pacal,” said Eric in a resonant voice. “This woman is mad, crazed by whatever way she escaped sacrifice. My mask is sacred. Whoever touches it dies.”

  “I’ll touch it, Kensington!” Zane asked the nearest man for a machete. “But first I must tell the tatich and the general of the plaza that I am Zane Falconer, of La Quinta Dirección, freshly home from Mérida. The war is over! Campeche and the capital are in s
ecure hands, and the frontier is being alerted of this evil schemer’s plan, made with the help of this false priestess Xia. Her son never died! I took him from the cross, then put that copal branch in its place! She knew this, but all these years she’s been revered because of the ‘miracle.’ The only wonder about her is her viciousness!”

  As Zane faced the leaders, Eric sprang forward, pulling a knife from its jeweled scabbard. Zane leaped to one side. Before Eric could swing around, Dionisio felled him with a sweep of a machete that struck the head off the magnificent shoulders. As the trunk collapsed, spouting a fountain of blood, the head struck the sapodilla and the eagle mask flew off. Eric’s eyes were open, fixed amazedly on the sky in the seconds before the tatich gave an order.

  The men who’d been ready to kill Dionisio hacked to bits the head and body of the white man who had tried to be a god, and with those bits, after another word from the tatich and one choked scream, mingled parts of what had been a beautiful woman. Mercy hid her face, sickened, shuddering. Xia’s body had lied to her; she was not destined to dance with, dissolve in, flame.

  “Come,” said the tatich. “You, señora, you, Señor Falconer; you, descendant of Canek; and you, batab of Macanche. I must hear all your words.”

  An hour later, reaching for a guava as he swung in his hammock, the tatich said reflectively, “The Talking Cross will speak tonight. It will tell God’s Cruzob children that this was a way to snare impostors who would otherwise have worked later mischief, and that God desires us to plant and harvest our cornfields in peape.”

  General Poot growled something. The tatich smiled. “If you worry about lax discipline and need practice for your troops, there are always the Icaiches. And we will defend our frontier, too.” He gazed steadily at Zane. “You’ll tell this to your friend Peraza?”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Good.” The tatich looked next at Mayel. “So, maiden, you descend from Canek?”

  “Yes, Great Father.” She spoke shyly but with pride.

  “It’s not fitting for you to be a servant, even to friendly ladinos.”

  “She’s free,” said Mercy. “There are no slaves at La Quinta.”

  The tatich looked at Mayel. “You should marry free and raise Canek children who owe no grace or favor to the ladinos. Doña Mercy, will you give me guardianship of this girl?”

  “If she wishes it.”

  Distressed, Mayel stood mutely between Mercy and Novelo, who suddenly chuckled and reached forward to pat her hand. “My child, daughter of Cahek, do you see the batab, Dionisio?”

  Slowly, she looked at him and flushed, casting down the dark fringes of her eyelashes. “I see him, Great Father.”

  “And he pleases you,” observed the tatich with great satisfaction. He signaled to Dionisio. “Batab of Macanche, the treason charges died with those false ones. We are pleased to accept you as an ally and confirm you in your lordship over your captive, Doña Mercy. But we would also ask that you take as a wife this flower of Canek’s line.”

  Dionisio looked at Mercy, his gaze warm on her, yet sad. “Good-bye, Ixchel,” he said in Mayan, and then in Spanish, “Be happy, Doña Mercy. You have saved my life again, and much more, also. If ever you or your betrothed need my help, it is yours.” Turning to Mayel, he smiled and took her hand. “If she agrees, I will be honored to wed this maiden.”

  Mayel peered at Mercy, who took her in her arms and kissed her. “Your life will be good with him, Mayel. Bless you. Bless you both!”

  “It’s my place to do the blessing,” said the tatich gruffly. “Now, señor, señora, you’ll be our guests for a few days?”

  Zane inclined his head. “If you’ll excuse us, Great Father, we have a wedding of our own to attend to.” As Mercy caught her breath in shock; he said to Dionisio, “You saved my life. Thank you.”

  Dionisio smiled, his gaze just touching Mercy. “We have all saved each other. God guard you—and your lady.”

  “I command you to eat and drink,” rumbled the tatich. “Then you may go. And Doña Mercy, may I say that though you’ve been excellent company and told me many interesting things, I hope to never see you again? You cause too many problems!”

  After they reclaimed their horses from the sentry, who explained that the bundle tied on the back of one saddle held Mercy’s books and other things, and had ridden a little way into the forest, Mercy could restrain herself no longer. “Did … did you mean what you said to the tatich?”

  “About what?”

  “A … a wedding.”

  He turned in his saddle, and his face was that of her love’s again, young and tender, smiling. “That depends on you. Will you be my wife?”

  “But you said …” she mumbled, dazed, but slowly started to hope.

  Zane slid down from Kisin, strode back to her, and lifted her down. “Listen! For a month, for a moon, you were Ixchel for Dionisio. But you descended into hell; you came back to me, not as a goddess, but as my woman. He saved my life; he gave you to me. Even Eric was right about one thing—you are a quetzal woman, very rare. I’d have to be a bigger fool than I am not to know my luck!”

  She reached up for his kiss, joyous in his arms. She would live at the center of his life, not in the tower. And as he tied up the horses and carried her off the road, she hoped their first child would have eyes like his, but that it would also look a little like Elkanah.

  Source Notes

  I drew on many sources for this book, but the most valuable printed ones were: Mayan History and Religion, by J. Eric S. Thompson, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1970; The Rise and Fall of Mayan Civilization, by J. Eric S. Thompson, University, of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, second edition, 1966; The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, translated and edited by R. L. Roys, C. I. W. Pub. 438, Washington, D.C., 1933; The Indian Background of Colonial Yucatán, by R. L. Roys, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1972; The Maya: Diego de Landa’s Account of the Affairs of Yucatán, translated and edited by A. R. Pagden, Philip O’Hara, Chicago, Illinois, 1975; A Treasury of Mexican Folkways, by Frances Toor, Crown, New York, 1947; Medicine in Mexico, by Gordon Schendel, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1968; Land and Society in Colonial Mexico, by François Chevalier, translated by Alvin Eustis, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 1972; Decorative Design in Mexican Homes, by Verna and Warren Shipway, Architectural Book Publishing Co., New York, 1970; Mexico, Land of Volcanoes, by Joseph Schlarman, Bruce, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1951; A Flower Lover’s Guide to Mexico, by Phil Clark, Minutiae Mexicana, Mexico City, Mexico, 1973; A Guide to Mexican Poetry, by Irene Nicholson, Minutiae Mexicana, Mexico City, Mexico, 1972; La Literatura de los Mayas, by Demetrio Sodi M., editorial by Joaquin Mortiz, Guaymas, Mexico, 1970; Ensayos Henequeneros, by Renan Irigoyen, Cordemex, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, 1975; Early Texas Homes, by Dorothy Bracken and Maurine Redway, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1956; The Common Soldier in the Civil War, by Bell Irvin Wiley, Grosset and Dunlap, by arrangement with Bobbs-Merrill on 1943 and 1951 copyrights; Escape from Reconstruction, by W. C. Nunn, Potishman Foundation, Fort Worth, Texas, 1956.

  The interested reader will find much information and pleasure in The Caste War of Yucatán, by Nelson Reed, Stanford University Press, California, 1973; the four travel books of John L. Stevens with engravings by Frederick Catherwood: the two-volume Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán, 1969 Dover reprint of 1841 Harper & Brothers edition; and the two-volume Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, 1963 Dover reprint of Harpers’ 1843 edition. I also found many helpful articles in my files of Mexico This Month, edited by Anita Brenner.

  Chronology

  1519–46 Conquest of Yucatán by Spaniards under the Montejos, whose ancestral house still faces the plaza in Mérida

  1520 Conquest of Mexico by Cortez

  Early 1600s English settlements along Honduras coast, part of rivalry with Spain

  1697 Conquest of the Itz�
�, last free Mayas

  1761 Jacinto Canek revolts at Quisteil, is executed in Mérida

  1810 September 16, Hidalgo declares Mexico’s independence from Spain

  1821 Mexico’s independence acknowledged by last Spanish viceroy

  1836 April 21, Santa Ana’s Mexican forces defeated at San Jacinto by Texans furious to revenge the Alamo; Texas becomes a republic

  1838 Iman’s revolt against Mexican rule of Yucatán, his fateful arming of the Mayas, hiring of Texas Navy to patrol Yucatán’s water boundaries in 1841 after adoption of extremely liberal constitution in Yucatán

  1840 Yucatecan separation from Mexico

  1843 Reunification of Yucatán with Mexico

  1845 Second separation of Yucatán from Mexico; Texas annexed by United States

  1846–48 Mexican-American War; Campeche revolts (when menaced by United States naval forces) in order to stay neutral

  1847 January, massacre at Valladolid; Mayas see their strength

  July 30, Mayas attack Tepich; start of War of the Castes

  1848 Sieges and battles; fall of Valladolid; sovereignty over Yucatán offered to Spain, Great Britain, and the United States if they would help subdue the Mayas; Tekax, Ticul, Izamal, and Bacalar fall to Mayas in June, Mérida under heavy siege, saved when Mayas go home to plant corn; ladinos counterattack and recover much lost territory; Mayas driven into forests by December and Cecilio Chi, one of three original Mayan conspirators, is murdered

  1849 Slave trade in captured Mayas begun, but stopped by Mexican government; Jacinto Pat, another of original three conspirators, the only one willing to negotiate with ladinos, is murdered at a jungle well on the way to Belize; English officials meet in Belize with Mayas

  1850 First appearance of the Talking Cross as rebels cluster at Chan Santa Cruz

  1851 Shrine of Cross raided twice and sacred tree felled but cult continues to grow

  1854 Shrine invaded twice by ladinos; last entrada struck by cholera from deliberately infected well