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Adam knew enough of it. The Spanish-descended elites in Guatemala had been grabbing lands and enslaving the Maya for generations—whatever nicer terms they might use for the latter. The men and women forced to labor on the coffee plantations were paid abysmal wages and subjected to all manner of abuses, including beatings and starvation. Disease was also a problem, as workers compelled to labor in the lowland areas returned home with malaria, parasites, and other ailments that then spread through their villages.
Things had only worsened in the 1870s, when the government got in on the game as well and began drafting unwilling Mayans into massive—and massively underpaid—public works projects.
Based on what Kuyoc said about the timing of their exodus, the people of Santa Dolores had at least been spared that.
“If you folks got out forty years ago, then whoever was in charge deserves an award,” Adam commented darkly.
“Felciana’s husband.” Kuyoc took another slow drag on his cigar. “Right after the local governor sent him the first mandamiento.”
The word translated asorder, but Adam knew what it really meant—a draft for more involuntary workers. Any alcalde who didn’t offer up the right numbers could be jailed, or else fined and forced to work on one of the plantations himself.
There was an awful relief in knowing that the old alcalde of Santa Dolores had been principled and insightful enough to see the writing on the wall before things really got bad. So many of the highland villages in Guatemala had been devastated by the mandamientos, which transformed them from thriving communities to impoverished, ragged ghost towns.
But making the choice to run—to leave behind lands that might have been farmed by your ancestors for generations—wouldn’t have been easy either.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Adam said.
The words felt inadequate, but they were the best he had.
“I didn’t go through it,” the priest replied coolly as the smoke curled up from his cigar. “But the sentiment is appreciated.”
The reply surprised him.
Adam took a better look at the scar on Kuyoc’s face and the curved fang that hung beside the crucifix around the priest’s neck.
“You recognized my Yucatec back at the church,” Adam noted tentatively.
Kuyoc snorted.
“Barely.”
“And there aren’t a hell of a lot of people speaking English in Guatemala,” Adam pointed out.
Kuyoc leaned back against the wall. He gazed out over the quiet sprawl of the village, where candles were beginning to wink to light in the windows against the growing gloom.
“I am not from Guatemala,” the priest finally replied.
“Sorry,” Adam said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Kuyoc took another draw on his cigar. Adam did the same. He decided to keep whatever other questions he might have to himself.
“I came from San Pedro Siris,” Kuyoc finally offered.
Adam went still as the significance of the name—San Pedro Siris—sank in.
“The San Pedro Siris up by the Mexican border?” he pressed carefully.
“Mmm hmm,” the priest confirmed, still looking out over the sunset.
“I heard some bad things went down around there thirty or so years ago,” Adam continued cautiously.
“You could say that.”
Adam could’ve said more than that.
He’d had the story in pieces from a few different sources over his years in the colony, but as he understood it, the village of San Pedro Siris had been burned to the ground by the British Army’s West India Regiment.
Adam knew a bit of the context. In the 1860s, Mexico, the Republic of Yucatán, and British Honduras had been wrangling over where to draw the borders of their respective lands.
