LA FIESTA

As the group sat around the wooden tables, with Miss Ravenwood and a young Maya woman getting everyone drinks, Rhys came in with three dark haired, half-blood Eldarion females, including the one I had met on the dock. All three of them wore a white dress covering them to the knee, with heavy embroidery on the hems.

“These fine ladies are here as representatives of the Eldarion-Maya,” Rhys said, making an expansive gesture with his arms. “Although none of them speak anything except their native language and Spanish, they’re extremely interested in learning all they can about you.”

The three of them bowed in unison as Kinubal went to greet them. “Since I do speak English, I’ll interpret. First, their names are Aztec-sun,” pointing at the shortest of the three, “Peyote-wind, who came here from the deserts to the north,” who had skin the dark color of an English oak tree, “and Cornflower,” who was the one I had met on the dock. Cornflower spoke a few words to Kinubal, who glanced over at me. “She says you’ve already met.”

I nodded, my face growing hot as Dame Kerry elbowed Rune in the ribs. “Told you he’d find a shagtail. You owe me one of those silver dollars you’re hoarding.”

Kinubal put her hands on her hips. “What did you just call us?”

Rune put his large hand over Dame Kerry’s mouth. “Apologies. She’s been hit in the head one time too many and sometimes forgets her manners.” The Koncava was making muffled noises that sounded threatening as he pulled out three coins from his pocket with his free hand. “Three silver dollars if you apologize.” Dame Kerry folded her arms across her chest, so Rune added, “If you don’t apologize, you forfeit the one I still owe you.”

She made an exasperated sound and Rune removed his hand. “Fine, sorry.” Then she snatched the coins out of his hand and placed them in a purse she kept on a stout leather cord around her neck.

“Not all of us are so lacking in the social graces,” Je’kyll said, introducing himself.

We pulled another table over and grabbed chairs as a matronly Maya woman and her daughter, as we soon learned, began bringing out platters of chicken covered with a red paste called achiote and baked in banana leaves, as well as roasted fish, with corn, peppers, and squash all chopped up in a stew. They also brought tortillas, round and thick, and Kinubal showed me how to layer chicken and sweet peppers, then roll it up like a cigar to eat it.

There were also hot peppers, and Dame Kerry bet one of her silver dollars that no one could eat more than she could. Drog took her up on the bet, but quickly gave in as the peppers burned his mouth to everyone’s amusement.

Miss Ravenwood handed him tortillas as she refilled mugs and brought out a bottle of something called mescal. However, she also made sure we drank water, the climate far more humid than we were used to, and when my grandfather forbade my drinking spirits, she poured me a mug of pulque, which was sweet and only mildly alcoholic, of which my grandfather approved.

I began to relax, my fear ebbing, yet not disappearing altogether as I listened to my grandfather tell stories he told so often I could repeat them almost word for word. After he finished a humorous one about a Koncava who had constructed automatons to replace the humans cleaning his factory, but lost his shirt when the automatons decided that all the machines, tools, and furniture inside were also trash and destroyed everything, Catherwood said, “I understand her Majesty has an Industrial Council that advises her. Have you ever thought about joining?”

My grandfather shook his head. “I steer clear of politics as much as I can. Too much convincing people to do what they know they should be doing already. Speaking of which,” he added, glancing at the table where Kinubal was translating between Peyote-wind and Rune, with Dame Kerry sitting back and watching them with a hungry smile, “Jack, how on earth did you get Naamah’s daughter to agree to this? She seemed adamantly against it.”

Jack shrugged, setting the stained wooden mug down on the table. “Kinubal’s got hoss sense when her back’s not up. Once she got over being riled at your grandson,” motioning towards me, “and realized he’s got hoss sense of his own, as well as a temper, she began warming up to the idea.”

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My grandfather transfixed me with a look. “Jonathan?”

Guilt rose up inside me. “She got under my skin and I lost my temper. But I never would have laid a hand on her.”

“Reckoned you wouldn’t, but I’m not one to take chances unless I need to.”

“Mr. Watson,” Mr. Stephens said, leaning forward in his seat, “if I might change the subject-”

“It’s Jack, not Mr. Watson.” Jack looked at my grandfather. “Mr. Watson’s always gonna be my mam’s old man.”

“Then I insist you call me Shabaka.”

Jack inclined his head as Mr. Stephens said, “Since we are being informal, John is fine. I am curious to know more about the Apache, and their ways.”

“It would help me to trust you,” my grandfather added, “if I knew more about you.”

Jack picked up his mug from the table and had a long drink, before setting it back down again. “Reckon that’s fair. But I gotta warn you,” the icy blue glint returning to his eyes for a moment, “there’s things I ain’t gonna talk about until I get to know you folks a mite better as well.”

“Trust has to be a two way street,” Catherwood said, staring at Mr. Stephens, and then at my grandfather, until he got affirming nods from both. “So, tell us more about your father. It is rumored that when a male Eldarion fathers a son on a human woman, he becomes infertile. Is that true?”

“Reckon that’s not the kind of question I would’ve ever asked the old bastard, but from what I heard from other Eldarion-Apache, he lost interest in any kind of carnal act.”

Catherwood sucked in his breath. “That means slow suicide. We need carnality the way humans need sleep.”

Jack shrugged again. “Least he left mam alone, and although I was too young to understand it, he killed a human that tried to rape her. The old bastard was hard but he was fair.”

“Hard how?” I asked.

His eyes met mine. “The Apache set a great store in how much torture a man can take before he breaks, and the bastard made sure the tribe respected me.” My eyes widened and he gave me a hard smile in return. “He also taught me how to hunt and track, both animals and men, and how to kill.”

He looked at my grandfather. “Mam made us both promise to never harm either a woman or a human child, and he honored that. He never went after another wagon train again. Instead, we hunted down bandits and soldiers, attacking them at night with the old bastard casting illusions to trick them into shooting at things that weren’t there while the war party slaughtered them down to the last man.”

“When we were in New York,” my grandfather said, “I read several one-sided accounts of the Union sending soldiers to push the native tribes back so the immigrating Europeans could have their lands. Did your father’s tactics help the tribe’s cause?”

“Some, I reckon. But in the end it won’t matter.” Jack looked past us as his voice grew soft. “My Apache name translates to ‘Ghost-in-the-Shadows’, which was how the tribe treated me and mam. She taught me how to think for myself, to not get caught up in false hope but to see what’s standing right in front of my nose. Thing is, the Apache don’t get that. No matter what they do, no matter what the ritual that killed my old man and my mam the next day does for them, it ain’t gonna be enough. In time, the Apache are gonna go the way of all the eastern tribes before them.”

Jack picked up his mug and drained it before setting it back down. “There was a fella in the Republic of Texas that had a saying: ‘This ain’t my circus and I don’t control the monkeys’. After my folks died and the tribe kicked me out, I found some good humans to join up with. Rode herd on cattle in Texas, scouted for the Republic’s army a time, then drifted down Mexico way where Naamah found me.”

His gaze met my grandfather’s. “In all that time I kept to my mam’s promise to never hurt a woman or child. Can’t say I wasn’t rough with a few gals who wanted that, but if a female told me to stop, I did. Only time I ever lose control is on a critter that’s tough as old shoe leather, one that needs killing. Like some of those here in the Yucatan. Then I don’t stop until one of us is dead.” A smile quirked at his lips. “So far, that ain’t been me.”

My grandfather regarded Jack for a long moment. “I was not sure before, yet I am now. You are John Watson’s grandson.”

Mr. Stephens said, “Shabaka, are you certain?”

Grandfather smiled. “The saying, ‘I do not control the monkeys’, is exactly the kind of thing Sergeant Watson would have said. Jack,” he said, leaning across the table with his hand outstretched, “welcome to the expedition.”

Jack leaned forward to shake it as Kinubal called out from the other side of the cantina, “This is supposed to be a fiesta.” She stamped her bare foot. “I want to do the Andalusian tango.”

“Rainbow,” Miss Ravenwood gasped, “that’s scandalous. I’ll go get the castanets.”

Half-blood Eldarion females still act as representatives for the Eldarion-Maya, serving on advisory boards for Human-Eldarion relationships here in Mexico, and have even begun entering the political arena, something unheard of in the rest of the world.

Some parts of the Eldarion homeland will always remain off-limits to anyone not Maya. However, a few places which border Mexican states, such as Edzna in the state of Campeche, have begun a new concept called ‘Mayan Tourism’, and are letting in limited numbers of non-Mayans into areas once forbidden to outsiders.