Country of the Bad Wolfes by James Carlos Blake

Author:James Carlos Blake
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Westerns, Sagas, Historical, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9781935955122
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Published: 2012-01-29T11:00:00+00:00

EL PRESIDENTE

In that November when John Roger and the Blancos discovered each other in Mexico City, Gloria had been at Patria Chica for eight years and had known Porfirio Díaz for nine years before that—while John Roger had never even seen the man in person. And Díaz, who only two months earlier been elected to his second presidential term, was celebrating the third anniversary of his marriage to Carmen Romero, daughter to Manuel Romero Rubio, a rich and politically influential man who owned the Jockey Club, the most luxurious gambling establishment in the city and the favored gathering place of the capital’s most influential figures. Díaz’s first wife, Delfina, had died in the delivery of a stillborn child, and the following year Don Porfirio married Carmen. On the day of their wedding he was fifty-one years old and she was nineteen.

The most surprising thing about their marriage—even more so than their genuine love of each other—was the change that the young Creole bride was able to effect in her much older mestizo husband. Díaz had always exuded a charismatic authority, but even by the end of his first presidency he remained a provincial in both appearance and manner. His hair was an untamed thatch, his drooping mustache a wild thing, his collars unbuttoned more often than not. His speech was shot with profanity and slang and his grammar was egregious. He was prone to broad gestures and loud laughter, to slumping in his chair with his legs outstretched and boots crossed at the ankles. He walked in a habitual haste and took the stairs three at a time. His way with knife and fork in polite company provoked furtive smirks. There was ever a toothpick in a corner of his mouth. While Carmen’s father had been proud to see her married to such a powerful man, he had nonetheless felt an inward cringe at the mating of his aristocratic daughter with a mestizo roughneck. But Díaz was neither too proud to admit his social shortcomings nor to accept instruction from his wife, and he was a swift study. Under her tutelage he learned to comport himself with the poise of a patrician. Carmen taught him how to dress for every occasion. She directed the styling of his hair and mustache in the close-cropped military fashion of European royals. She taught him dining etiquette, taught him how to sit in a chair in gentleman fashion, even how to walk with a stateliness befitting a national leader. She improved his grammar, bettered his diction, refined his speech and gestures. She elevated his entire social demeanor. She was teaching him to speak English and instructing him in world history. Those who had seen him at the inaugural ball of his first presidency could hardly believe it was the same man at his second.

His transformation was greater than they knew. To many of Díaz’s most powerful political allies, the four-year wait for his return to office had been a frustration they did not wish to go through again.

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