by B. TRAVEN
“Well spoken, Modesta. I will teach you to shoot with my machine gun better even than Colonel taught me. What indeed does Colonel know about machine guns? He just shoots away without seeing whether he hits, because he likes the rat-tat-tat. I don’t like the bangs, only the hits, and if I could score hits without the bangs, I’d be a hundred times more pleased.”
“When will you begin to teach me the machine gun, Celso?” asked Modesta, becoming impatient.
“Not tomorrow, Modesta, but now, right away.”
“Of course, without the bangs and without firing any bullets,” a voice interrupted. It was General, who had caught the last words.
Celso laughed loudly. “The firing is the last thing to be learned. Assembling, loading, aiming, those are the most difficult things to learn, and it’s even harder to learn to repair it when the gun suddenly jams. You’ve got endless things to learn, Modesta, before you can fire a shot. And that will be neither today, nor tomorrow, nor in the next ten days. That’s why, General, you needn’t worry that we’ll go shooting off and betraying our position.”
General squatted down, lit a raggedy, rolled cigarette at the campfire, and said to Modesta, “So you want to become a machine gunner, muchacha?”
“Yes, General, that’s what I want, and that’s what I will be.”
“Good,” replied General. “I love muchachas like you. A pity you’ve already chosen your husband.” He squinted at Celso, who grew red-brown in the face and sank his head so deeply that only the thick, black, stringy, uncombed thatch on his pate was visible.
“I’d be very contented with a wife like you, muchacha. But I have a pretty, fresh, sturdy young widow whose tears I’ve got to dry. And she’ll certainly make me a good wife. Of course, she isn’t as wild about a machine gun as you are, muchacha. She prefers to cook something good for me and to fish the lice out of my dirty hair. Sometimes a wife like that is better for a soldier than one who wants to fight, too. What do you think, Celso?”
“I’m not a general, and so I’ve got fewer worries than you,” answered Celso, now raising his head and looking at General with a smile. “And as I have only to look after my machine gun and the boys who help me with it, I’d really just as soon have a wife who’ll look after the machine gun.”
“Well, you can decide that between you: what suits each of you two best so that you can be happy and still attack the uniformados with all the more fury,” said General, drawing deeply on his newly lit cigarette and standing up at the same time.
He now went close to Modesta, who had also stood up, clapped her on the shoulder, took her by the chin, raising it a little, and said, “Oiga, muchacha, listen! When you can hit a mango at a hundred paces, I’ll make you the first female lieutenant in the revolutionary army. And you’re a soldadera from now on. Tierra y Libertad!”
Modesta, raising her head, saluted in the manner she had just seen General do and replied, “Estoy a sus órdenes, mi general. Tierra y Libertad!”
“What have you got there in your packs?” asked General, pointing at the carrying nets of the two returned scouts.
The nets were still stuffed to bursting with high grass.
“In God’s name, they’re bobbing about in all directions, what have you got in them? Pigs, calves, goats, or what?”
“Trophies of war, General,” answered Pablo.
Pablo and Mario now untied their nets, pulled out the grass from the tops and sides, and in each net there appeared a head.
“Just in passing I caught a mangy capataz and brought him along,” said Pablo, dragging out his prisoner, whom he had wound up in a rope and whose mouth he had plugged so full of grass that not a sound could come out.
“And I found a major-domo.” Mario prodded his prisoner in the ribs so that he rolled out of the net.
“Each of them had such a lovely shiny revolver,” explained Pablo, “that we could never have forgiven ourselves to all eternity if we hadn’t taken the pretty things away from them. And as it was all in the day’s work, we thought we might as well bring the boys along here so that you can question them yourself, General. They know more than the poor peons who don’t dare open their mouths for fear the finqueros will bury them up to their waists and then ride their horses over them. They wouldn’t even sell us tortillas lest the finqueros might see it and accuse them of consorting with unknown campesinos who might perhaps know something about the rebels.”
The peons of whom the two scouts had spoken were certainly at this time in a state of indescribable fear. But whether their fear was greater than that of the two prisoners who now stood half-cowering before General was a matter open to doubt.
To be carried on the backs of Indians, when tied up tightly and compactly like parcels, wholly enclosed in grass, with mouths stuffed full, and then to be delivered under the tropical sun at noonday is no pleasure, even if this were done out of friendship. But to know that they had been bound helpless and dragged here by Indian rebels whose comrades had only a few hours before been savagely martyred to death was enough to bring fear to the bravest soldier’s heart.
There stood now in front of General two specimens who revealed more than any words could to what an unbelievable extent a dictatorship can destroy the characters of human beings. The miserable attitude of these two, just on this very morning when they had felt themselves so absolutely secure and had vied in being second to none in cruelty toward defenseless prisoners, would have aroused in any intelligent being the conviction that the dictatorship had reached a pitch where it could have been slapped down with a wet rag.
The two prisoners fell to their knees, begged for mercy, and even before being questioned, told all they knew about the plans and intentions of the officers and finqueros.
“This morning you helped to bury our comrades, and you beat them and spat on them,” said General.
“Por Madre Santísima, mi jefe, we didn’t even touch one of those poor muchachos.”
General summoned Colonel and some of the other muchachos. They took the two prisoners away. After half an hour they came back.
“Was that all they knew?” asked General. “Well, it’s enough. Now we can get ready to move.”
Colonel asked, “What shall we do with the two of them? Shoot them?”
“And waste our ammunition like that!” said General. “You should learn, hermanito, to be economical. Where is your machine gun?”
“You know that, General.”
“You’re one of my colonels and a commanding officer, and you let your machine gun be taken away from you.”
“So that’s how you feel, brother? All right, I let it be taken away from me. But today I’ll get it back again. And tomorrow I’ll have another as well. Besides ours, they’ve got two brand-new ones down there in Santa Cecilia.”
“Let the others do something as well. Don’t always be wanting to be doing everything by yourself. Call up a few of the muchachos and tell them to stone those two swine until they stop twitching. Waste bullets on them? Or foul a respectable machete with their stinking juice? Even stones are too good.”
A muchacho came running up. “They’re coming! They’re coming!” he shouted while he was still a little way off.
“Who’s coming, you ass?” asked General.
“The Federals!”
“I don’t believe it,” replied General and sprang toward a tree, which he clambered up.
“Five men,” he called down from the tree after a while. “They are finqueros after those frightened muchachos who, as we told them, slunk away into the bush. Colonel, take along twelve muchachos and capture those sons of whores. They’re already well into the bush. Don’t shoot. Catch them with lassos. I want the information they’ve got. Only if they start coming this way, then fire. But you’ll get them all right without a shot. And if they manage to see our army here and beat a retreat and get back to the finca, then I tell you, Colonel, good friends as we are, I’ll have your head cut off—or, rather, I’ll cut it off myself. For certain
.”
“I’ll get ’em with two fingers, and one of those sprained.”
“Your head, Colonel, or those swine. You know that now.” General laughed. “I mean that seriously, although I may laugh. I’ve appointed you colonel, and I know very well why. But just because I have made you colonel, I require of you twenty times more than from an ordinary muchacho.”
“Well, you don’t have bellyache over it, General. And I’ll get back my machine gun tonight. Entirely alone. With just a machete and one muchacho to help me carry it. And I shan’t even take my pistol with me.”
“You’ll do tonight what I order, not you. I’m General here, and you’ll do what the General orders.”
Colonel turned away and picked out his men. “Are you coming?” he asked Celso, who joined him at this moment.
“You insult me by asking. Of course I’m coming. I can catch cattle and half-wild horses, so I’ll certainly be able to round up a mere half-dozen miserable sons of whores.”
Two hours later the five finqueros lay bound hand and foot in the camp. Three major-domos had also been captured with them. These three men had not previously been seen by the outposts because they had separated from the finqueros and had headed into the bush in order to search for traces of the allegedly escaped muchachos.
At the interrogation dozens of the Indians crowded around the place. As soon as one of the finqueros attempted to lie, and one of the muchachos who knew the region well heard the lie, he would immediately yell out, “Mentira! Stinking liar!”
Then the finquero got one on the mouth from the muchacho standing nearest to him. The finquero, feeling humiliated at being struck by a verminous Indian, then refused, despite encouragement from machete and fists, to say any more, or uttered only a few unimportant sentences.
The major-domos were much more willing to tell everything they knew. And during the last hours of their lives the finqueros learned what sort of men they had honored with their trust. Without even being asked, the major-domos betrayed where their masters had buried their money and other treasures, or in which corner of the buildings they had been hidden or buried.
At last General was weary of the questioning and the lying. He summoned half a dozen muchachos to him and said, “This morning these caballeros and their hangman’s assistants martyred our comrades to death. What shall we do with them? You may decide.”
“Just the same. Lo mismo.” Every mouth shouted in unison.
“No. Not the same,” retorted General. “Hang them over there on that tree. All on the same tree. And let them hang there until they rot or until the vultures have eaten them away. And when I say hang, I don’t mean in the way we were hanged in the monterías. Short and quick, with their own lassos that they’ve got on their saddles.”
One of the muchachos called out, “And who gets their revolvers and rifles?”
“The muchachos who captured them.”
“And if any of them has a pistol or carbine, who gets that then?”
“The one who hangs the swine quickest.”
The finqueros did not utter a word. They crossed themselves and murmured Ave Marias.
The three major-domos, however, wasted no time with that. They fell to their knees, embraced the leather leggings which General had won in battle with the Rurales, and wailed, “Mercy, spare us, mi general, mi jefe. Have pity on us and our wives and children. Have mercy, not on us, but on our children.”
General dragged his legs out of their clutches and kicked these whining lumps of misery so hard in their faces that they tumbled together in a heap. “Which of you goddamned sons of whores ever showed any mercy toward the muchachos? Well, which of you? Come on, come on. Which of you? Whoever of you had any pity will not be hanged—only shot. This morning you were fine and fat, glistening in the sunshine of those accursed executioners and torturers. Now you’re groveling here.”
“We’ve only always done what our patronatos ordered us,” whimpered one, half-raising himself.
“That’s why. That’s why it is right that you three shall not be hanged, but first flayed and then hanged.”
He walked a few paces over to the finqueros, who stood upright and crossed themselves again as he approached. “You, caballeros, I ought also to have flayed before I have you hanged. Scoundrels, pitiful, stinking scoundrels in your hearts and souls, that’s what you are, although you put on such haughty expressions here because you have to be shamed before Chamulas and Bachajones. I’ve thought of something better for you, to keep you company on your march to Hell. It will cause you more pain than a threefold skinning. It wouldn’t mean anything to your filthy henchmen. Flaying is the only thing that worries them. But you’ll worry when I tell you what, today and tomorrow and in the days to come, we’ll do to your wives and daughters and nieces and granddaughters and mothers. We, the lousy, filthy, beaten Chamulas—yes, we, the stinking swine and mangy hounds—we shall amuse ourselves with your women. Not for pleasure, but for justice. And in order that justice may for once reign in this state, that is why I am General and this one here is Colonel and that one there Major, even though he can’t read and write. But one thing we can all do. Slaughter you all, and pull down the dictator from his throne in the Palacio Nacional, so that at last we may be permitted to open our mouths and say what we please and not merely rattle off like parrots just what is rattled off to us every day. And now, caballeros, adiós y buen viaje al infierno, farewell to Hell. Come on, muchachos. Take them away,” he shouted to the men he had appointed for the last execution.
“Viva General! Tierra y Libertad!” screamed more than a hundred muchachos, who, while General had been speaking, had gathered around in greater and greater numbers to hear what he had to say. “Tierra y Libertad! Que muera la dictadura! Abajo los caciques! Abajo los patrones y capataces! Viva la revolución! Libertad para los indios!”
In the course of the afternoon four more finqueros were brought into the camp by the outposts. They were landed gentry who were riding home, with their major-domos and capataces, back to their fincas after having celebrated in Santa Cecilia their victory over the rebels and after having received an assurance from the officers that the region was free from any scattered gangs of the defeated rebels.
When the finqueros came into the camp and found that the rebels had such a mighty army at their disposal, they were so astonished, shocked, and bewildered that for a full quarter of an hour they seemed to be totally oblivious of their own predicament. They realized what was in store for the garrison at Santa Cecilia, and they would have willingly scarificed ten years of salvation for a chance to warn Santa Cecilia of the approach of this army.
Two the caballeros, Don Fernando and Don Anselmo, still possessed enough caustic humor and brotherly love for one of them to say to the other as the lasso nooses were drawn around their necks, “It is neither pleasant nor Christian to dangle so humiliatingly from a branch without benefit of clergy, but what’s ahead for our good neighbors now carousing so heartily in Santa Cecilia is not much better. Eh, Don Anselmo?”
Don Anselmo, twisting his neck in the noose, replied, “As always, Don Fernando, you have once again spoken to the point. I, too, prefer to depart thus quietly and unobtrusively from this—when one comes to think of it—very sad world, rather than to share in the confusion and distress that those in Santa Cecilia will suffer before, like us here, they peacefully—”
But Don Anselmo was unable to conclude his philosophical discourse. The world will never know what words of wisdom he would have dispensed at his last moment. The word “peacefully” turned to a choking gurgle as two muchachos hoisted him into the air at that moment. In the face of such decisive and unambiguous behavior, there is an end to all human wisdom. Even that of the greatest philosophers.
7
There still remained three hours to sunset.
General had ordered every man to hold himself in readiness to march off at twenty minutes’ notice, should the command be given.
The staff was squatt
ing together, but not one of them spoke a word of the coming attack. The muchachos chatted about everyday matters. General squatted and scratched grass roots out of the earth with a little stick. As soon as he had dug out two or three, he scratched with the same stick another hole not far from the first place and planted the rootlets again. It was easy to see that he was doing this because his thoughts were far away.
Suddenly, however, he became active. Hurriedly he scraped the earth carefully over the last planted roots, sprang to his feet, went almost at a run around the circle of his squatting staff, and shouted out, repeating it again and again, “I’d give half my left arm to know whether at night or at first light of dawn. I’d give half my left arm to know …”
“Hell and damnation, General!” called out Matias. “Be thankful you’ve got your left arm and stop complaining. Even an old wife couldn’t listen to any more of this eternal moan about your left arm. Muy bien, if it’s in your way, come here and I’ll chop it off at one stroke, just as we hacked off that muchacho’s leg when it was bitten by a cascabel.” *
“Come on, General. What’s gone wrong again now? Out with it. Left arms are precious. Matias is right. We need every arm we have, and yours is no worse than ours.” Celso spoke in a calm, soothing tone.
“All right, if not my left arm, then I’d give my left little toe to know which plan, which of the two that I’ve thought of, I should choose.” He stood still and scratched his thick hair.
“If they’re both good, it doesn’t matter which you choose,” said Andreu.
“It’s not as simple as that. Each has its advantages, and each a disadvantage.”
“Then pick the one that has the least disadvantage,” advised Andreu.
“The difficulty is to know, or rather to guess, which of the two disadvantages is the lesser.”
Colonel plucked at his tattered shirtsleeve as he stopped near him for a second. “Sit down here quietly for a change and cease hopping around like a green spring chicken. You can’t even think with all that running about.”