by B. TRAVEN
As if lifted of a burden, he breathed deeply. He took out a fresh cigarette and puffed several clouds of smoke in front of him.
The muchachos showed neither by word nor gesture that they had the slightest interest in whether the general was having convulsions or whether he had been assailed by a sudden, irresistible urge to caper in the clearing like a faun in the moonlight.
As if he had entirely forgotten the muchachos, who now lay stretched out on the ground, though at no very great distance from him, the general began to speak loudly to himself and in a manner he was accustomed to use before a gathering of officers, to whom he had to make a given situation clear.
As he spoke, he puffed steadily at his cigarette.
“What in the hell can I say when I get back to headquarters? They’ll all stand around and stare at me. I come quite alone. Quite alone I return, hale and healthy, without a scratch on me. Not having lost a pound in weight. And there I come, dressed like a bedraggled, verminous Indian. I come back without my battalion. Not an officer comes back. Not a sergeant. All dead. Twenty wounded cavalrymen come back, and a few infantry clinging to saddleless mules. But I—I, general of the division, come back weaponless, in rags, without a cut on my face, as healthy and fresh as if from some peacetime maneuvers. That’s what he’s devised for me. That’s why he sent me away with these men whom he ordered to allow themselves to be bribed by me. They? Let themselves be bribed? The ones who hanged Lieutenant Bailleres, and who know that I know it and have witnessed it? They wouldn’t let themselves be bribed!”
He turned to the muchachos. “Hey you, will you tell me something if I promise you that in half an hour’s time I shall no longer be alive?”
“We might, Señor General,” said one of them, without getting up.
“I noticed that your chief talked to you for a long time, talked to you alone, before he sent you off.” “He did.”
“He told you to let me go free. Didn’t he?”
“Those were our orders. And you, Señor General, can do what you like. Whether you’re dead or not in half an hour doesn’t worry us. We’ll tell our chief that we were pleased to let you know what orders he had given us. He even told us that we could tell you before we let you go.”
The general began to brood. Automatically he lit another cigarette. Then he took a deep pull from his flask.
“The nearer a man is to his end, the better he understands the world and the people in it, and he sees the inwardness of all that happens. Who was it said that? I read it somewhere. So he wanted me to get back safe and sound to headquarters. And there I could have told a strange story of how I had escaped from their clutches. And you stand there now, gentlemen, looking at me incredulously. Do you think I’m lying, I, a divisional general? Why are you looking at me like that, Colonel Arizmendi? Because I’m standing alone before you? Because no other officer escaped. Only I? Because only a handful of bleeding, desperate, half-mad men escaped, no one else, while I, the divisional general, am standing hale and hearty before you? Of course, I had to leave behind uniform, money, watch, rings, revolver. Had to dress myself like a ragged Indian in order to get here with a whole skin and in safety. Listen to me, Major Maldonado, damn you! What are you thinking of? Attention! Why are you screwing your eyes up? Can’t you look your general in the face any more? What? What have you been swallowing to make you look at me with one eye closed and those twisted lips as if you’re trying to grin? Pay attention, gentlemen! You couldn’t possibly think—Yes, gentlemen, what is it? You really, actually believe that I gave those filthy Indian swine my money and my uniform and my revolver in order to buy myself free? I, the general of the Petronio Bringas Division? I? Gracias, caballeros. Adiós, cantaradas y amigos!”
The general started up. He stood and shouted at the black wall of the bush, shrilly and yet more shrilly: “Adiós! Adiós, caballeros! Adiós! Adiós!”
A hundred times he must have yelled this. He grew hoarse and finally was scarcely able to open his mouth. He snatched at his throat, as though to compel it to obey him. Now he fell into sobbing and soft laughter. Then he came to himself. He collapsed onto the stone and breathed deeply with wide-open mouth.
He felt for another cigarette.
The muchachos were still lying on the ground near him. One offered him his lighter.
When he returned it, he laughed at the muchachos. “I’m drunk, muchachos, drunk, drunk, drunk, that’s what I am. Oh, so horribly drunk.” He took his flask, set it to his lips, and let the liquid gurgle into him until only a few dregs remained.
He held the flask up against the moonlight. Staring at what was left, he unscrewed the gold stopper again and poured the last drops into his mouth and shook the flask, still holding it at his lips, back and forth, until he had licked out the very last drain.
“Over there, in that corner, muchachos, do you see that beautiful tree? It’s a wonderful tree. Seen from here, it looks like a cedar. But whether it’s cedar, mahogany, or ebony doesn’t matter. Muchacho, give me that rope you’re carrying over your shoulder.”
He tested the rope in his hands. “The stuff’s damned hard and scratchy. A miserable rope. But strong. It’s got a knot and a noose already. All the better. Anyhow, I couldn’t make a good knot like this one that slips so beautifully and smoothly backward and forward.”
He faltered, as he slid the rope back and forth through the loop. “This isn’t by any chance the same lasso that scratched my Lieutenant Bailleres’s neck this evening, muchachos?”
“The same one, General,” said one of the muchachos, without displaying any particular interest.
“Then this lasso’s had some practice?” The general gave vent to a hacking laugh.
“It’s had practice,” said the muchacho, as indifferently as before.
“Muchachos,” said the general now, abandoning his ironical tone and becoming serious, “I can’t give you anything. What clothes I’m wearing are filthy, verminous rags, so torn that even your compañeros wouldn’t have them and threw them away. I can’t give you the flask and the cigarette case because you’ll take those things anyway and won’t leave them behind. Which is right and proper. All that I can give you are my sincerely meant thanks, given in advance, for something I want you to do. I have never said ‘Please’ to an Indian. I say to you: please, muchachos, please, when I have breathed my last breath, cut my face away from my skull so that no one finding me will ever know who I am. Will you do that, muchachos?”
“We could certainly do that, Señor General. It wouldn’t be any special trouble to us. Nothing very special. In the monterías we had to hang living beasts who through some oversight of God’s had been given human faces.”
“Mil gracias, muchachos, for this small favor. Tell your chief he can come here tomorrow morning and kiss my foot, before breakfast.”
“We’ll tell him that, Señor General.”
“Good. In five minutes—or shall we say, ten minutes—come across. Over to that tree. And now once more, many thanks in advance, muchachos.”
“No hay porque, Señor General. Don’t mention it. Farewell, and a good journey. Hurry. Ten minutes, you said. We’ll wait that long.”
The general was already on his way, swinging the rope in his left hand.
He swayed somewhat as he walked, probably as a result of the hefty libations from his flask. Now and again he stumbled over the wiry grass hummocks.
When he reached the selected corner of the little clearing, the limpid light of the moon shone full on that wall of the bush.
He crossed himself. Bowed his head. Crossed himself again. Pulled at a cord hanging around his neck and drew out a black square of material embroidered with a cross. He took it in both hands and kissed it.
He crossed himself again.
Then he tested the lasso, letting it slip through his hands, looked upward into the tracery of the tree, and with a decisive swing threw the rope over a branch that extended far out from the trunk into the clearing.
The
muchachos glanced indifferently across. One of them said, “I hope he’s picked a good strong branch that won’t break off. He’s as heavy as an old, fat ox. Seems to be holding, the branch. Give us your tobacco.”
It was about a quarter of an hour later. In the meantime the three muchachos had gone over to the big tree.
One now came back into the clearing. He squatted and began to wipe his machete dry on a tuft of grass. As he did this, he looked up at the sky. Then he called out, “There’s an almighty thunderstorm over at Balun Canan. It’s coming this way.”
One of the two still over at the tree shouted across, “Say, shall we give him the rope, or what do you think?”
“We don’t give anything away,” the muchacho who was drying his machete called back to the other two. “It’s a fine, useful lasso. Didn’t even break with a fat lump hanging on the end of it. Can often be used again, that lasso. Besides, General will make a stinking row if we don’t bring the lasso back. You know how he can be sometimes. He’d send us back here to fetch the lasso. It looks as if that damned storm is coming in our direction, and I don’t want to have to travel this filthy way again.”
“You’re right, manito. We’d better bring the lasso back.”
“Hey!” the fellow who was in the clearing shouted to his companions under the tree. “Don’t talk so much. Let him down now and untie him. He’s long stopped gurgling. Hurry up. I’m as hungry as a lame coyote.”
16
Five weeks had passed. It might have been even seven, eight, or ten. No one bothered to count the days and weeks. But that it couldn’t possibly have been fewer than five weeks was apparent to the muchachos from the standing corn in the fields, where the harvest was already well advanced.
The camp, with its numerous huts, shanties, and lean-tos which had been built during the past few weeks, had taken on the peaceful, half-sleepy, half-dreaming air of a typical Indian village.
Everything necessary to found and maintain a community was there—forest, open country with good grazing, fruitful bush land, a broad, never-failing stream of clear, cool water. The people had corn, beans, and chilies in sufficiency, and a new harvest was already ripening. They possessed horses, mules, donkeys, cows, oxen, bullocks, goats, sheep, and even pigs. Whatever was lacking would be provided by the fincas of the region, either voluntarily or with a little persuasion from the muchachos’ rifles.
Small detachments were always out on foraging expeditions. They surprised military posts and patrols of the Rurales. Now and again there was a scuffle with armed finqueros and their underlings who had banded together in defense groups to rid the region of rebels and bandits.
The finqueros were convinced that it was only a matter of a small stray gang of mutinous Indians who had survived after battles with the Federal troops and who were now wandering about and plundering. Similar petty gangs were always roving around in the Republic, even in the years of the dictator’s most relentless rule, when no one dared even to think of rebellion.
Evidently the military authorities in the state were of the same opinion as the finqueros: that only insignificant bands, not more than three or four, were infesting the region, and that it was not necessary merely on account of these few dozen bandits to muster large numbers of Federal troops, which would add to the country’s costs. The finqueros by themselves would deal with these gangs within a few weeks, just as they had done over the last four hundred years.
That was how General, Professor, Celso, and other muchachos interpreted the situation, particularly since, for weeks, not a battalion, not even a company, had marched against them.
“Come here and see what sort of a bird I’ve caught,” said Eladio, bringing into the camp an intelligent-looking ladino who was fairly well dressed, but who plainly had not shaved for days.
The man was leading his horse by the reins. Behind him followed a half-grown Indian boy, also leading a horse, while in the other hand he held a rope attached to a mule that was laden with packs and two very shabby leather suitcases.
The new arrival looked around on all sides, but showed no signs of fear. His expression and his gestures said, “Everything will be all right here, and if not, then there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The visitor was surrounded by a swarm of yapping, barking dogs from the camp, which made it difficult for him to follow Eladio at the speed he was walking.
They came to a great open hall that had a roof partly of palm, partly of long grass, which had been erected in the middle of the camp. This spacious building served as town hall, council chamber, armory, and, temporarily, as a school for grownups and children.
“Professor, these seem to me a couple of fine birds that I’ve brought you here,” went on Eladio. “They didn’t come on the direct road, where we’ve got our guards. They rode past there. But I thought it would be a good thing for you to have a look at the pair of them. I think they’re trying to spy here.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, muchacho,” said the ladino, laughing. “Me spy here? I’ve other things to worry about. Believe me. And if you don’t believe me, I don’t care. With a wretched life like mine, one can only be heartily glad if someone takes it away. A spy? Me? Don’t be ridiculous.”
He laughed again. Then he said, “I’d rather you gave me something to eat and drink. Since yesterday noon I haven’t seen a cake of fresh cow dung, much less a moldy tortilla. That’s life, amigos. Life, dear God! Give me something decent to eat and you can hang me for all I care, if that’s what you want. Only don’t hang me on an empty stomach. That would be cruel of you, and you all look so peaceful.”
Professor was sitting in the hall with Andreu, both occupied with a book that had recently arrived from a finca that had been visited. They joined in with the laughter of the ladino, enjoying his salty humor.
There were several other muchachos in the hall, for the hall was never empty, neither during the day and far less at night, when it served as a dormitory for some twenty and often thirty men.
Professor called over to the muchacho sitting nearest to him and told him to fetch from the “camp mother” a good meal for the ladino.
“That’s what I call friendship, amigos,” said the ladino. “To feed a hungry man in the wilderness is a pious enough deed to make the angels in Heaven blow their trumpets, and even St. Peter will inscribe it to your credit. I’ll see to that when I meet him and get a look at his key. I’ve always worried about that key, whether it’s big or small, of iron or silver, whether he’s got it hanging by a string or on a golden chain around his neck. And as far as you’re concerned, muchachos, I don’t care whether you’re bandits or murderers or peaceful peasants so long as you give me something to eat.”
“I’d very much like to know what this man is, talking only of hunger and eating and nothing else,” said Andreu softly to Professor.
In Professor’s eyes a sudden understanding blazed up. He laughed and said, “Oh, I know now what you are. You’re no ladino. You’re no trader.”
“Of course not,” said the man, “I never said I was, either.”
“You’re a schoolteacher. And what’s worse a village schoolteacher.”
“Only a colleague could have guessed that right. It’s true. Profesor rural ambulante. A traveling village teacher. Every two months I get sent to a different village because the salary the village pays for the school is always enough only for two months. And the last four weeks of those two months are very hard times, and I must be thankful in the second month to get even the half of what I was promised. And then I receive a letter from the Department of Education in which they write me the name of the next village I have to go to. That’s sometimes three or four days’ journey away—the next village I’m being sent to. And for traveling expenses the Department gives me six reales, quite irrespective of whether my next post is only one day’s journey or seven days or eight along these miserable, damnable tracks. Always just six reales. And from that I’m supposed to feed myself, pay for the horse that I hi
re, pay for the boy who accompanies me and brings the horse back and on top of that the hire of a horse for the boy, who obviously can’t walk all the way in this heat; and then there’s the hire for the mule that carries my miserable rags and my few books and exercise books, and after that there’s the corn for the horses. I’d like the head of the department to show me how to pay for all that out of six reales.”
“I know it all,” Professor interrupted him.
“You’re a professor, too?”
“Was, friend and colleague, was. First in our capital, at a secondary school with an adequate salary. Then down to a primary. Then to a smaller town. Then again to a smaller town, and again to a still smaller town, until finally I landed in the villages.”
“But why did that happen? If you start well in a secondary school, you can easily stick there or else move up to a preparatory and perhaps even as far as a director’s job.”
“Maybe, amigo. That’s quite possible. If one keeps one’s mouth shut. But I can’t keep my mouth shut, and I’ll never learn to. That’s why I’m here. I certainly won’t get any salary here, but I feel at home. What’s all that salary worth if you don’t feel happy? And if I daren’t open my mouth and say what I think, then a hundred pesos’ salary wouldn’t pay for what I’m losing, piecemeal, in my heart and my soul. A man’s neither a beast nor a puppet. I’m still a man. And I can be a man here. We can all be men here. And we’ll remain so. And we’ll defend it to our last drop of blood against El Caudillo and against that bloody, accursed dictatorship.”
Meantime, a plate of food had been brought to the hall. From the way the new arrival devoured and gobbled it to the last crumb and licked every fingertip, the muchachos realized, better than from all his words, that this man had spoken the truth.
His muchacho, too, filled his stomach, which seemed to be as empty as that of the ambulant rural professor.