by B. TRAVEN
Don Elias was alarmed. He suspected that thieves from Hucutsín were on his track to rob him of the money he had collected. He wanted to turn back, but don Mateo said there was no point in that, for if they were after his money they could attack him just as easily if he went back as if he went forward. There was nothing to do but ride on.
They rode together for the sake of company, and the two pack mules, who had often been that way and knew the trail well, went peacefully on ahead of them. Don Mateo continued talking without apparent concern, but he kept a sharp lookout on the bush on either side, hoping to catch a glimpse of the men who were dogging them.
He was sorry now that he had chosen this trader for his companion. He was convinced that the bandits were only after the trader’s money, but that as soon as they came to a suitable spot they would murder him too as a witness. There was no doubt in his mind that he would have done far better to have traveled alone. The pack mules, owing to their loads, went only at a walk, and so he could not trot quickly through the danger spots, where the path ran between banks, and be ready to break into a gallop if anyone barred his way.
“There!” he cried out suddenly, breaking off his talk. “I saw one of them. It was an Indian with a shotgun.”
Don Elias tried to take heart. “Then that’s all right,” he said cheerfully. “It’s only some Indians from a finca, out hunting. They’re on the track of a deer, probably.”
Don Mateo pulled out his revolver and, taking his reins in his left hand, held it in his right ready to shoot. When they had ridden on for another hundred paces, he looked quickly to the right.
“Stand still, you cabrón, you son of a whore!” don Mateo shouted. “Come out of there or I’ll shoot!”
The movement in the tangle of leaves and branches died instantly. Don Mateo fired three shots in quick succession into the dense foliage that had just been stirring.
“I believe I know the man,” he said half to himself. “He’s one of the Bujvilum fellows. I recognized him by his hat—I couldn’t catch sight of his face, damn him. Perhaps I got him though.”
He got off his horse and went to the spot he had fired at. He parted the branches, but there was nothing to be seen except that somebody had in fact been standing there, for there were twigs so freshly broken they were still moving.
Before mounting again he tightened his horse’s girth, and then, pushing out the three empty cartridges, put in three new ones. While he was still busy with his revolver he saw a movement in the bush, at the left of the path this time, and called out to don Elias, who was already riding on.
“I’m right, don Elias. They’re from Bujvilum. I know them both.”
He fired four shots into the bush and then plunged in to see if he had hit the man. This time he did not appear again at once, but called back, “I’m after them.”
Don Elias rode on. He was sure don Mateo was seeing things, mistaking Indians from around there for Bujvilum Indians and shooting wildly for no reason. Besides, he had to follow his pack mules in case they left the path and broke away. They might shed their packs and lose themselves. He was sure that don Mateo would soon follow, for the fellow knew the way and was used to traveling through bush.
All the same when he came to a finca at midday he stopped and waited. He waited until nightfall and then unloaded his mules and stayed the night, still hoping that don Mateo would appear.
“Don’t you worry about don Mateo, don Elias,” said the finquero. “He won’t come to any harm. I can tell you what has happened. His horse was scared by the shooting and ran away. Don Mateo has gone after it, naturally. He won’t want to lose his horse, nor his saddle and bridle. That’s as clear as daylight. He’ll stay the night in some little rancho back there. He’s not a child.”
“But then, there were those muchachos,” don Elias objected.
“Ghosts,” said the finquero, filling up their glasses with comiteco. “The muchachos harm nobody. All good boys. I’ve lived here fifty years. Never any trouble. I ride alone through the bush far and wide. Lord knows how far.”
“But don Mateo shouted out that he knew the fellows and that they were from Bujvilum,” said don Elias.
The finquero laughed louder than ever. “You can see for yourself that that’s not right, don Elias. You can’t tell me that those Indians would make a trip of three or four days from their pueblo to follow don Mateo. If they were really after him they’d have ambushed him on the road an hour away from their village. They’re not the fellows to travel farther than they need.”
Don Elias, however, was not satisfied. He spent the whole of the next day at the finca. The finquero sent three peons back along the road to see if they could come upon don Mateo’s tracks.
The boys came back in the evening. They said they could see from the horse’s hoofprints where don Mateo had dismounted, for close by the numerous hoofprints of a standing horse they had seen the prints of don Mateo’s boots as well. They had searched the bush at that spot, but had discovered nothing more than that some Indians wearing sandals had left their tracks there. Finally they had made sure that the tracks of the horse led back in the direction of Hucutsín.
“Then there is nothing to worry about,” said the finquero. “It was only some Indians hunting in the bush. And the horse, as I said, was frightened by the shots and ran away, with don Mateo after it. He may find that it has gone all the way back to Bujvilum, where it was out at grass during these last weeks. There’s only one thing for him to do if he wants his horse and saddle again, and that is to hire a horse in Hucutsín and ride back to Bujvilum. It’s a question whether he will take this road again. There are two other ways to Balún-Canán from Bujvilum besides this one. So if you mean to wait for him you may wait a long time. Let’s have another comiteco, don Elias.”
As the mystery now seemed to don Elias to be cleared up, he worried no more about don Mateo’s disappearance. It happens so often that a horse runs away and returns to its own pasture days later, or even joins a sympathetic drove of horses on a strange pasture, while its rider is compelled to retrace his steps without being able to warn his companions, who have ridden on believing that he is following them, that don Elias cannot be blamed for having found the finquero’s explanation perfectly satisfactory. When he finally reached Achlumal there were so many business cares awaiting him that he soon forgot whatever doubts remained in his mind about don Mateo’s fate. When he met don Gabriel four years later and heard that he did not know where his brother was all his doubts returned.
7
Don Mateo was never seen again, nor did anyone ever hear anything further of him and his fate. His horse was never found on any pasture at Bujvilum. If it had been found anywhere in the neighborhood with its saddle on its back, the finder would no doubt have made his find known.
Of course, the horse might have lost its saddle—the girth might have frayed or broken. It is possible too that the horse came to a small and isolated rancho and that the ranchero caught it and waited a few weeks for its owner. After that he would have put it out to pasture and taken charge of the saddle and bridle. As time went by without his hearing anything of a possible owner he would finally have forgotten that they were not his own. Since he was far from any town he would have had a good enough excuse for saying nothing about his find, for he was not obligated to undertake a long journey to report it. It would not have been very difficult to alter the brand. A pious Christian should not look askance at any welcome gift God sends him. It would be a sin to do so.
When don Gabriel heard what had transpired on his brother’s journey with the Syrian trader, he knew without a doubt what don Mateo’s fate had been. After four years he did not mourn him long. It had happened too long ago to shed tears over now. He did not even bother to search the bush at the place where don Mateo had last been seen, in the hope of giving him a Christian burial. He knew it would be wasted labor to look for the body so long afterward. It was certain to have been burned to prevent dogs out hunting with thei
r master from coming on the scent and to keep vultures from betraying the spot where it lay; and by this time the scrub would have grown so thick over the place that little hope remained of finding the body.
To have made the journey to Bujvilum and questioned the people in the hope of finding out which men had been absent from the village on that day would have been even more fruitless than searching for the body; for if the men had followed don Mateo for such a distance in order to avoid murdering him near their own neighborhood, it was clear enough that their plan of revenge had been well thought out. Even if a ranchero had chanced to see them on the road near the place where it was executed, they would not have needed to fear discovery. No one would have known them so far from their own village. And what good would it have done to have discovered the culprits after so long an interval? It would not have brought don Mateo to life again whether they were shot or not.
So don Gabriel consoled himself for the loss of his brother, and as a tribute to his memory he paid eighteen pesos to have a Mass said for his soul in the cathedral at Jovel. With that don Gabriel had amply discharged his duty toward him.
8
On the morning that don Mateo rode away from Bujvilum, don Gabriel went to the jail and let out the men whom don Mateo had kept under arrest. He asked them what they were there for.
Each said the same. They had all been drunk, but not badly; they had neither struck nor wounded anyone with a machete.
When don Gabriel had satisfied himself that not one of them was in a position to pay even a peso as multa, owing to the poverty of their soil and the size of their families, he employed them in the cabildo in packing up the scanty belongings he and his wife had brought with them when he first took up his post there. He then told them that instead of paying a multa as punishment for their offenses they were to carry the things they had packed to Jovel. It would have cost don Gabriel a good sum if he had had to transport his effects to Jovel on hired mules—a journey of five or six days. In this way his prisoners were of more benefit to him than if each had paid a fine of five pesos. He had reason to congratulate himself on a stroke of good business.
Then he made up his account of taxes received. He did it so well that the government’s share was only nominal; for there was a jefe político to think of, too. That gentleman’s takings were largely made up of the comfortable percentages which the secretaries and other officials, who owed their positions to him, had to deduct from the taxes and various levies they raised. That is why, when you got into office yourself, you made officials of your friends and relations.
Because don Gabriel had to feed the jefe político, he cooked up the accounts for the government inspector of taxes so cleverly that the jefe politico’s share was very much larger than the government’s He left it to the jefe político to put himself right with the revenue office. There would be no examination of the accounts, for that sort of thing only meant work and made enemies on every side.
Don Gabriel allotted a considerable sum to the jefe político on account of tours of inspection, which apparently had so frequently brought his chief to Bujvilum. In truth he had only once been to the place during don Gabriel’s tenure of office, because he was afraid of the food and the rats on the small ranchos where he had to stay. He arranged such tours as he could not avoid so that he spent the night in the large and prosperous fincas, and when he came on a particularly comfortable one he often spent several days with the finquero and made it appear from his report that he had journeyed far and wide for four long days and only returned again to the finca on the fifth. The finquero and cattle dealers with whom he talked supplied him with material for his reports on the places he was supposed to have inspected.
When the jefe político received don Gabriel’s accounts he found them so entirely to his satisfaction that don Gabriel would be able to go to considerable lengths in the recruiting of Indian labor before he need fear a lecture on the law and the constitution or any interference at all from that personage.
It would not have been to defend the constitutional rights of the Indians, who were citizens as he was, that the jefe político would have talked of the law and the constitution. It would have been merely with the intention of entangling the agent in the meshes of the law, so that he would have had to buy himself loose. Why shouldn’t the jefe político and other officials make a bit too if these agents made so much in a few years that they bought themselves large fincas and lived on them in the style of grands seigneurs? It was a hard and thankless task to have to cement the foundations of the State and make of it an ordered and prosperous enterprise, secure against any shock.
9
Nobody could accuse don Gabriel of letting the grass grow under his feet. He was a capable and industrious man of whom Church and State might be proud. All that he had lacked had been the right opportunity and the foundations to build on. If you have no shop and no goods it is not much help to be a good salesman. There must be something there to start from.
As soon as his reports were done and his tax accounts put in such a shape that it would have been difficult for any inspector, however zealous he might have been, to detect the errors which favored the author of them, he set about enlivening the promising market, which opened before him not only with goods but with clients. It is the sign of a good merchant to grasp a situation and to exploit it the moment it presents itself. It can be studied later when the money has been banked. It is always better to look into the wrongs and injustices and brutalities which may have arisen in the course of the deal and even, possibly, to regret them, when the paint is dry. Then the blush of shame or the pang of regret at least cost no cash. Shame and regret can be soothed and put to sleep by lighting a dozen candles before the statue of the Virgin. And since all men are by nature weak, the señor Cura, good man, who cares for the soul, soon puts the matter right. He will not forget to say at the right moment how much it costs to launder the soul. There are no sins which cannot be forgiven if you take the trouble to go to the man who, by virtue of inward grace, is on intimate terms with the heavenly powers and knows to a nicety what God thinks and does in every contingency that can arise.
10
Don Gabriel summoned the village chief to the cabildo. He poured him a glass of brandy.
“Yes, I am leaving you, don Narciso,” said don Gabriel.
“That is a great pity, don Gabriel,” said the chief. “We could have worked well together.”
“True, true,” replied don Gabriel. “Not many secretarios are such good men as I am and not many mean so well to the poor Indio as I do. Have another, don Narciso.”
“Gracias,” said the chief.
“Well, there it is,” don Gabriel went on. “But what’s to be done about the money so many of the people of the place owe me? That’s what I want to know.”
The chief looked puzzled. “It is hard to say, don Gabriel.”
“You will agree, don Narciso, that I cannot forgo so much money. A debt is a debt. I will say nothing of all the multas which are due to me; or rather, I will speak of them. I will show you, jefe, what a good heart I have and how sincerely I feel for the poor ignorant Indio. I’ll let them off their multas.”
“They will be very pleased to hear that,” said the chief. “It is a very gracious act on your part, don Gabriel. It will make the whole village your friend forever.”
Don Gabriel needed their friendship. It gave him the theme for the tune he now wished to play.
“But the other debts are hard cash from my pocket. I cannot let them off those.”
“You certainly cannot do that, don Gabriel,” the chief agreed.
“Well, you know all the fellows here who owe me money, don Narciso.” Don Gabriel took out his notebook and read the names and the amounts against each.
When he had come to the end of the list he said, “Which of them can pay me what he owes? Not one. And none of their sureties can pay either. It would take some of them four or five harvests. Now I’ll make a fair offer, don Narc
iso. Pick me out ten strong young fellows, friends or sons or nephews or relations of the debtors and their sureties. These ten young fellows will take the whole debt on themselves. The muchachos can reckon that out with their family groups. We’ll choose fellows who want to marry and don’t have the money for the marriage gift to the girl’s father and to pay for the wedding. Now there’s a friend of mine, a good and honorable man. Talk about a good heart—that caballero has a heart for the poor Indian like a shining star in heaven, and even far better. And this caballero wants some strong fellows who know how to work.”
“But it wouldn’t be for the monterías?” said the chief nervously.
“What an idea, don Narciso!” said don Gabriel, putting up his hand as though to ward off an insult. “No, no, the people are not for the monterías. My friend, this caballero whom I spoke of, needs the people for a finca. You see, don Narciso, the caballero has bought a finca from the state—cheap. But the finca is a new one. It is only jungle at present. That’s why he was able to buy it so cheap. Now he has to clear the jungle before he can start with his finca. The finquero wants to plant it with coffee or cocoa and, of course, maize.”
“Oh, a cafetal,” said don Narciso with a sigh of relief.
“Exactly. That’s exactly what it is, a coffee plantation. You have guessed rightly, don Narciso.”
“If the boys are to go to a coffee plantation,” said the chief, “that is a different thing. That makes it much easier to get hold of the boys. I can put in a good word for that with the men.”
“That is just why I wanted to discuss it with you, don Narciso,” said don Gabriel. “As jefe, you can put things before the family groups. The boys will go if you give the word. They will agree that it’s the best and only way out for the village if I am to get my money. These fellows will take over the debt, and, of course, the costs of the contract too, you understand. They will work off the debt on this new finca and they can easily make something for themselves besides. Then when they come back and want to marry they will have enough money over to buy themselves sheep and goats. They will get forty centavos a day—if they work well, even fifty. Think of that—half a peso a day. That makes in a year a hundred and eighty good round pesos.”