“I don’t have faith in miracles. I know the history. All the Chamulas* rebellions have always been like this, hatched in drunkenness and superstition. A tribe of desperate men hurls itself against its oppressors. All the disadvantages are on their side, even justice. And again, they fail. But not from cowardice, understand. Not from stupidity either. It’s just that in order to gain a victory you need something more than a fit of rage and a stroke of luck: you need an idea to implement, an order to put in place.”

“That’s precisely what you can give them, ingeniero.”

The principal men asked for permission to withdraw. They were going to deliberate,

Winiktón went out behind them, pensive. The hallway of the Cabildo was in darkness. From time to time, bursts of sound and light reached it from the assembly in the valley.

They sat down in a circle. They coughed solemnly. The bottle of liquor circulated continually.

“The Virgen has not come out in a procession. But the Caxláns can bring her out.”

“Perhaps they are bringing her out now.”

“Who will we raise up to look into her face?”

“Our patrón is San Juan.”

“San Juan herds flocks. He has no sword.”

“Santiago is a horseman.”

“He cures horses when they step on harmful plants. He does not want to fight.”

“And the Dolorosa?”

There was no response to this suggestion. The Dolorosa wandered through the nights’ darkness lamenting her lost children. A sad, deranged mother; how could she defend them?

Pedro did not take part in this discussion. He forgot that the ones the Ladinos of Jobel wanted were Catalina and his family. He forgot that if he surrendered to them, Ulloa had promised there was a possibility of saving his people. He only wanted, in that moment, to help. He said to the Indians, “And what if we went to Tzajal-hemel?”

They looked at him suspiciously. Go to Tzajal-hemel now? What a sacrilege! What was more, the cave’s idols had still given no signs of their power. They had not measured themselves even against the saints of Chamula, much less against the god of the Caxláns.

“They nailed him to a cross and killed him and drank his blood. Ever since then, no one can beat them.”

They were still for a moment. They thought of their abandoned villages, the hiding places in the mountain.

“The police know how to track us down. They sniff out a trail and follow it.”

“My wife is with child. In the last months.”

“And my children are only just learning to walk.”

“It is a difficult life.”

“It is.”

This fatalism made Winiktón rebellious.

“It could be otherwise.”

No one listened. They felt no curiosity. It didn’t interest them to contradict him. That encouraged him to continue.

“Do you remember the ancient stories?”

“Old men’s tales. No one knows now what happened.”