by B. TRAVEN
Now, however, Professor came up to the peons, followed by General, Celso, Andreu, Santiago, and about twenty other muchachos who took more interest in the rebellion than the hundreds of their fellows who were content to be allowed to fight but otherwise had no responsibility and were not required to use their heads or to wrestle with those ideas about which Professor talked so much. They were always ready to have their bodies mangled and to sacrifice their lives in battle with the Rurales; but apart from that they wished to be left in peace and only to have their share in the fruits of a successful revolution. Their idea of the rebellion was limited to the simple thoughts: “Down with the dictatorship!” “Down with tyrants and oppressors!” For, so long as the dictatorship was not overthrown, there could be no Tierra y Libertad. That was clear to all. Everything else that was discussed by the more intelligent men—the rights of man, profits, capitalism, democracy, or even socialism and cooperation—made them sleepy. That is why so many rebellions and insurrections by the proletariat go awry, because the workers are literally fed up with ideas and problems for the discussion of which there will be plenty of time when the rebels have enjoyed five years of undisputed victory.
Professor jumped up onto the stone altar. Then he shouted to the peons to come closer. When he began to speak, more and more of the muchachos in the patio came to listen to him. But they did not press to the front when they realized that Professor was only addressing himself to the peons of the finca.
“Don’t be afraid to crowd around, hermanitos,” he said to the peons. He said it with a laugh. And the people gathered a little confidence and pressed closer.
“How big is the finca here?” he asked.
“Maybe a thousand caballerias,” called out one.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” interrupted a neighbor. “It’s at least three times bigger.”
“Of course it is,” shouted someone boldly from the back. “Of course it is. It’s ten times bigger.”
Then one of the older peons began reflectively to describe the boundaries of the finca. Professor and General, from the elevation of the stone altar, could estimate the extent, the more easily since the ranch house had been built on a hill situated approximately in the center of the vast feudal estate.
“It must cover between twenty and fifty thousand acres,” said Professor to General.
“Apparently.”
“How many families are you here?” asked Professor now.
“About ninety,” answered the man Professor was looking at.
“It’s not ninety. There are more than a hundred,” interposed another.
“You’re both asses, that’s what you are,” shouted a third. “How do you make out we’re ninety families? If you count in the major-domo and the carpenter and the rope-maker, even then we’re not ninety. And they’re not peons like us. They all went off with the patron. And you’ve forgotten, too, that five families were given by the patron to his son-in-law, and he sold four families to Don Claudio for his two best horses which Don Claudio gave him for them.”
“Who is this Don Claudio?” asked Professor.
“Don Claudio is the patron of the Las Delicias finca, about twenty leagues from here.”
“Then all told you’re about ninety families working here for your patron?” said Professor.
“That may be right. Quite a number of families are farther out, watching the herds. They have their own little aldea, all for themselves, with a capataz. We seldom go there. How can we know how many they are? And another watch is down there by the river.”
“Good. Let’s leave it at ninety families.” Professor saw that he would never achieve his object, however long he discussed the number of acres and peon families.
His voice took on another tone: “Do you know what we are and why we have come here? Your patron lied to you. We are not bandits. We are your amigos, your friends. From now on there are no more peons. You are now campesinos independientes, free and independent peasants. Understand? It is true that we have come here to kill your patron if he doesn’t give you freely all the land that you have been cultivating. He who tills the soil and is not honestly and properly paid for his work, to him belongs the fruits of the earth. Do you understand that?”
The peasants were unable to work their brains fast enough to comprehend this new ordinance. But they all said, “Sí, mi jefe!”
“I’m not your chief! I’m your friend and comrade. We are all comrades. There are no more bosses, no patrons, no major-domos, no capataces. You are now the masters of this finca. First thing tomorrow morning go out into the land and divide it among all your families, each family getting twenty acres. You seem to be the leader here.” Professor turned to one of the older peons.
“No, mi jefe, perdóneme, mi jefe, I mean mi amigo, and I mean to say I’m not the leader here. It’s Braulio. He is the oldest, and he is the compadre of almost all the families here.”
“All right, Braulio, come here.”
Judging from his appearance, Braulio was not the oldest of the peons. But all the peons said he was the oldest and must certainly have had good reasons for recognizing him as their leader. The causes might lie five hundred years back. Professor did not worry about it.
Braulio came up close. All the peons now crowded around in order not to lose a word from Professor. Plainly they had forgotten all their fear. The women, less interested in what their husbands were now discussing with the rebels, began to approach the wives of the rebels and to chat with them. The children had already scampered off and made friends with the children of the rebel troop. They were in haste to seal the friendships, and they set about it by taking the children into every possible hidden corner of the patio and there revealing secrets such as bring to all children, of whatever race, cruel and shocking experiences.
There were holes, the depths of which no one could guess, but which, the children asserted, were the breathing holes of a subterranean passage which led from a vault of the finca to Hucutsin and came out again in the crypt of a cathedral. In there were crabs, as big as a boy’s head, and the children of the finca said they were not real crabs at all but the old wives of long dead peons, and some of them were the grandmothers of the last finquero, whom the brujo, the magician of the Indians, had transformed into crabs and who turned back again into women for three hours during the night of San Juan. Four of the children had seen, on the last San Juan’s night, these women creep out of that old stone altar, and then they had watched how the women had gone to the river, but what they did there they didn’t know, because they had been too frightened to go after them.
Thus the friendship of the children was sealed, and the women of the rebels lamented with the women of the peons about the trouble they had with their children, and how the mothers of the husbands always had to interfere in things that had nothing to do with them, leaving behind them nothing but trouble and discontent.
Meanwhile, also, the peons in front of the stone altar had begun to talk to the muchachos from the monterías who were standing nearby, exchanging tobacco and inviting them to come to their huts for the evening, where they had a half bottle well buried so it shouldn’t be found by the old people.
Thus it was that, long before Professor had reached the high point of the evening with the distribution of the land, the peons had lost the last spark of fear and mistrust. Indeed, the peons assured each other that the rebels were thoroughly friendly and respectable muchachos; while the men from the monterías for their part asserted that the peons were in no way such stupid mules as had been thought. They could open their mouths and talk quite sensibly, when for ages one had imagined they were simply idiots, and since they were idiots, that was why they were peons and stupider than their goats.
Now came Braulio’s turn to speak. He did not climb onto the stone altar, but spoke from where he stood, close to the feet of Professor, who was perched aloft and to whom he had to stare up obliquely in order to see his face. “This is a wonderful happening, a
migo, that you’ve now given us the finca.”
“Yes, it’s your property, from now to all eternity. You tilled it, and everything that it contains belongs to you,” confirmed Professor.
“The cattle as well?” called one of the peons.
“The cattle as well, and all the buildings here.”
With both hands Braulio scratched his thick black hair, which showed a few gray streaks. It was the uncertain gesture of a peasant who of necessity must buy young piglets, but finds the price too high and can discover no other piglets on the market at a lower price.
“That’s fine, that we now have the finca, amigo. But what shall we do when the patron comes back?”
“We’ll take care that he never comes back.”
“But if the Federals catch you, what then?”
“They won’t catch us. Don’t worry.”
“You’re not going to stay here on our finca?”
“Of course not. We’re marching away, to give other peons their land.”
“Then who’ll protect us against the patron when you’ve marched away?”
“You’ll have to protect yourselves. You’re now the patrones and everything belongs to you.”
“But if the patron comes back again and brings Rurales with him, what can we do then?”
“What we do with the Rurales. Kill them like mangy hounds.”
“Bueno, muy bueno, camarada,” said Braulio. Pensively he turned away and vanished among the peons.
“Tierra y Libertad!” shouted Professor from the stone altar.
“Tierra y Libertad!” answered the muchachos. This time some of the peons also joined in the cry.
“Viva la revolución!” called General.
“Viva la revolución de los indios y de los peones!” came echoing from the patio.
On the second day, at a very early hour, when thick mists were still hanging heavily over the finca and morning was creeping up sleepily and slow, the troop had already left.
And it was toward eight o’clock that General called a halt on a hilltop and turned around to see how the troop was coming along. A hundred yards ahead there was a river crossing in their way. On the opposite bank two canoes lay in the sand. These were the property of the finca. The river was deep and its waters fast and turbulent, swollen by the rains that had filled the upper reaches of the river. Some of the muchachos would have to swim the roaring stream in order to bring the boats back. They were the very canoes the finquero and his family had used in their flight.
While General was still surveying the situation, he said suddenly to Professor, “They’re having fun back there.”
Professor raised his field glasses. “You’re right, General. They’re certainly having fun. The whole muck heap’s on fire. There are only a few buildings still standing. Dios mío, that’s what I’d call a bonfire. Now the chapel’s burning, too. The dictatorship takes its farewell; the country begins to fill with ruins. With blazing martyrdoms it began; with burnings and ruins it will end. A perfectly natural cycle.”
General was no longer listening. He was looking down at the wide river. “A perfectly natural cycle. And for God’s sake how shall we get our army across there? That’s what I’d like to know. It’ll cost us at least two, possibly even three damned hot days. But cross we must!”
5
The rebel army was on its way toward Achlumal. The staff had long debated which important center should first be visited, Achlumal or Hucutsin. Both places were small towns, and in both a chief of police had his seat, since these towns were the centers of their districts. Also, in both places were a company of Rurales as well as an important garrison of Federal troops.
Once again General anticipated the thinking of his opponents’ officers when he suggested marching toward Achlumal instead of Hucutsin. He said rightly that the Rurales and Federals who were stationed in Hucutsin must be convinced that the rebels would advance against Hucutsin in order to reach Jovel via Teultepec, Oshchuc, and Vitztan. In Hucutsin were assembled the majority of the finqueros of the region, all armed and all accompanied by their armed major-domos and sons and cousins and such of their employees as were devoted to them.
The only natural way for the muchachos was through Hucutsin, for it led to those regions where most of the muchachos came from and where they had been recruited. It was the way they knew best, and one where they would always be sure of meeting friends and relations of their own race who in some form or other would assist them, either by espionage or by offering good concealment and showing them the best ways by which the rebels could fall on the uniformed troops from the rear.
The council of war was influenced by the capture of numerous peons who were making their way home from Hucutsin to their various fincas. These individuals, returning from market, confirmed General’s conclusions as to what course the soldiers intended to take against the rebels. According to the reports of these captured peons, there was in fact a large concentration of State police and Federals in Hucutsin, as well as a considerable number of finqueros, who were so plentifully present that the peons thought some sort of fiesta or holiday must be taking place. Several peons, once having regained confidence, declared that everyone there knew that the rebels were on the march toward Hucutsin in order to encircle the city and to slaughter every living creature found therein.
When this report became known to the rebel staff, the captains of the individual companies were scarcely to be restrained. They would have rushed immediately upon Hucutsin. It was the quantity of weapons there that attracted them. Ordinary booty took second place, so far as booty was thought of at all.
General had a difficult stand to take against this blood lust. It was possible that the muchachos might accuse him of over-great caution and even of cowardice.
But he, like Professor, Colonel, Celso, Santiago, Andreu, and Pedro, was clever enough to see that under these conditions the encirclement of the city could only be carried through with the loss of half their army.
General said, “Don’t be fools. The Rurales and finqueros aren’t such asses as to wait for us in Hucutsin. There, we’d be superior to them, with our adaptability, our knives, and our machetes. They know that. They’ll wait well away from the town—three or four miles outside the place. I can even tell you where they’ll wait for us. It will be at a fast-flowing river some distance out. We can’t get around that river. We will have to cross it. Immediately after the crossing is a ravine, thickly surrounded with bush. That’s where they’ll sit and wait for us. And that’s where we’ll outwit them now.”
Some peons were coming along the road on their way to market in Hucutsin. General called several of the muchachos to him, who, as a result of what he said to them, rapidly made friends with the traveling peons. These muchachos, knowing no better and in case of hesitation particularly urged on by Fidel, told the peons, with excited gestures, that in three days the troop would be in Hucutsin and would light such a blaze there that not even the walls of the patios would remain standing and not a soul would be left alive after they had finished with Hucutsin, for all the muchachos had a mighty reckoning to settle with the mayor and the chief of police there.
Scarcely had the peons arrived in Hucutsin than they hastened to repeat throughout the town what they had learned; and because they feared that they, too, might be slaughtered in error, they made haste to leave Huctusin again that same evening, which naturally confirmed in the minds of all the people, soldiers, and finqueros the belief that the rebels were in fact on the march toward that city.
“If we advance to attack Hucutsin,” explained General further, “then we shall certainly have the garrison of Achlumal at our backs, and they have probably already received the information that we are marching against Hucutsin and have been ordered to attack us in the rear. Apart from that, the Rurales and Federals will attack us from the places that lie on the way from Hucutsin to Jovel. And they’d have overwhelmingly superior forces. They would wait for us on the plain or in some ambush and fal
l upon us unawares.”
“What you say is right, General,” interrupted Colonel.
“And that is why, since the people in Hucutsin are so damned certain we shall march against them, we shall now head toward Achlumal and attack the posts of the Rurales and Federals there. In that way we shall probably get another fifty to a hundred rifles more, perhaps even another machine gun, and so much ammunition that we couldn’t shoot it off in a month. At the same time our rear will be free. Now for the purpose of this change in plans. Once we’ve taken Achlumal, we won’t take the direct road to Hucutsin, but instead we’ll march by San Miguel and San Jeronimo on Teultepec. There we won’t encounter many Rurales. In Teultepec, as you will remember well from your march to the monterías, we shall be more than eighteen hundred feet above Hucutsin. There we shall be sitting as in a rocky fort, and from those heights we can swoop down upon Hucutsin like eagles on their prey. We shall then have the heights, the bush, and the passes—and let them then try to get at us! Not even the lice they have on their bolsitas will remain alive. In good time we shall occupy the road to Sibacya. When we then attack, only one way will lie open to them—the way back, along which we came, back to the jungle. And then the fun will start, then we shall have them where we want them. That’s the way we’ll do it, and not otherwise. Those in favor, raise their hands; those against will get a crack in the chops from me, and if you can tell me a better plan, and if it’s really better, I’ll accept it. But you’ll find it damned hard to make a better plan.”
So they marched toward Achlumal, while in Hucutsin Rurales, Federals, and heavily armed finqueros assembled in ever-increasing numbers to celebrate the impending victory.
The finqueros, in fact, had been celebrating this victory every day since they had been there. Flags waved over the Town Hall, proclaiming in advance the great day of victory.