The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(25)

Lupe came from behind Carlota. She knew her by her steps, which were measured and different from the slower, heavier steps of Ramona and the quick shuffle of Cachito’s feet.

“Are they gone now?” Lupe asked.

“Yes, they’ve gone. No need to trouble yourself over them.”

“What did you talk about with them when you were in the sitting room?”

“They said there was an Indian raiding party and also that someone at Yaxaktun was providing supplies to Juan Cumux. They almost accused Montgomery of helping him.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Montgomery was selling supplies to Cumux.”

“Why would you say that?” Carlota asked, turning to look at Lupe, and Lupe shrugged.

“English people sell them bullets and gunpowder, everyone knows it. And Montgomery is English and he always needs money so he can drink. He has a sickness of the soul, that’s what Ramona says, always looking for aguardiente to drown himself in it.”

That much was true, and not just aguardiente. Brandy or whiskey or anything would do. Lately he’d been firm and resolute and abandoned his imbibing. But then, that morning she’d looked into his eyes and noted the telltale signs: it was true, he’d turned to the bottle once again. He was to blame, but also her father, who allowed it, who let Montgomery and the hybrids partake in their liquor.

Her father would do nothing, and Montgomery floated in and out of inebriation, a season healthy and whole, another tumbling into the abyss. But would Montgomery really endanger them? He hurt himself, but he didn’t harm others.

“Maybe he’s trying to keep us safe by being nice to the cruzob,” Lupe said, as if guessing her thoughts. “Their god speaks to them through a cross, you know? He really speaks, not like the Christ in the chapel or the donkey’s skull.”

There was a building in the back, near the huts, where someone had once affixed a donkey skull on a wall. Ramona said it had been there before her father arrived at Yaxaktun, and in those days the workers who’d done something wrong went there and the donkey whispered the number of lashes they should get for their misdeeds. Lupe and Carlota had feared it when they were children.

“A cross can’t talk,” Carlota said. “It’s ventriloquism.”

“Ramona says it can.”

“You think you know everything, but you don’t.”

“You don’t, either.”

She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I should see if my father needs me.”

“Don’t tell him what I said about Montgomery. If he thinks Montgomery is disloyal he’ll dismiss him, and then we’d have a new mayordomo pushing his nose into our business. At least Montgomery lets us be and he doesn’t stomp and yell like that man today.”

“Which man?”

“That Mr. Eduardo.”

“Were you listening to everything? Why did you ask what we talked about if you were spying on us?” she asked, incensed.

Lupe knew better. She should have stayed far from the visitors, lest they spot her. When she covered her head and face with a rebozo, Lupe could be confused with a human. She didn’t have the strange gait of the other hybrids. But barefaced as she was, it was easy to spot the reddish-brown fur on her face and peer into her small, brown eyes, which were set together closely. Her features recalled those of the jaguarundi, and anyone would have been startled by the sight of her face. The other hybrids were no less surprising.

“I listened to some,” Lupe admitted with a shrug.

“He didn’t yell.”

“You’re deaf, Loti.”

Carlota marched out of the room and away. It seemed to her everyone was cruel and mad that day, and for no reason. She wished she were still resting by the cenote, maybe even swimming in its depths, the water cool against her skin.





Chapter 8


    Montgomery


Montgomery walked quickly, venturing behind the dividing stone wall, to the area where the huts of the hybrids were arranged together. These were all made in the traditional manner of the region, with a roof of palma de guano that could withstand the rains and which was replaced every few years. Aside from those dwellings, there were a few other buildings in the back. One of these was a wooden structure that housed the machinery that had once been used to press sugarcane. Most important, there was the noria and the donkeys going around and around, making the water flow. They alternated the beasts so that they wouldn’t exhaust themselves. A donkey must not work more than three hours in the morning and three in the evening.

The watering system at the hacienda had been one of his first projects at Yaxaktun, and he was rather proud of the improvements he’d made and the work of the hybrids, who cleaned the fields, kept the irrigation canals clean, tended the roads, so that weeds would not overtake their efforts.

Rather than produce sugarcane, they stuck to the rearing of pigs and chickens, and the cultivation of a modest assortment of vegetables. In March, they planted tigernuts; in May it was the time for chayotes and tomatoes; come June it would be the season for beans and corn. Each month of the calendar was marked with tasks, from the cutting of the wood to the careful collection of honey. The land set their rhythm, like a metronome. Such efforts would have been laughable to any hacendado, who would regard these agricultural activities as suitable for poor peasants when there was more money to be had with other ventures, but Montgomery liked their operation and the sense of self-sufficiency it brought him. He enjoyed feeding the animals and caring for the couple of horses that they kept. Besides, they needed to work. Lizalde paid for bandages, medical supplies, and Moreau’s trinkets in the lab, but his money alone would have never kept all twenty-nine hybrids fed, especially the bigger ones like Aj Kaab and áayin.