by B. TRAVEN
“And those kids?”
“They’re mine, my chief, and your humble servants,” Cándido replied politely.
Don Alejo looked at Don Gabriel.
Don Gabriel did not show the least embarrassment. “It would be best to lock them all up together, Don Alejo. The kids can’t return alone to the village.”
“You’re right, Don Gabriel. But on Monday? What are you going to do with the children when the father leaves for the lumber camps?”
Don Gabriel started laughing.
“Quite so! Their mother is dead. I think the only solution is to send them along with their father to the lumber camps.”
The commandant made a gesture of approval. He looked at the children distractedly, as if a thousand other preoccupations were running through his mind, and said: “In fact, Don Gabriel, I believe that’s the best, the most humane solution. It’s not right to separate children from their parents. Now that we’ve decided that, I think that we can go over to Don Ranulfo’s bar and have a little drink.”
Once in the street, Don Gabriel said to the commandant: “Now, you know, Don Alejo, that I make something out of this, but I also allow others to earn a little.”
“I know it well, Don Gabriel, and it’s precisely about that I wish to say two words to you.”
“Say them, Don Alejo. You know that I’m always at your service.”
They went into the saloon.
“Those children,” continued the commandant, “are healthy and strong. Why not make them cowherds or shepherds? They would work beside their father and help him, as is their duty and as God has prescribed.”
“I’m of the same opinion, Don Alejo, above all because to tear them away from their father’s side would be an unpardonable cruelty, a sin for which we’d find no pardon.”
“Your health, Don Gabriel.”
“Yours, Don Alejo.”
The tequila cleared their throats. Don Gabriel sucked a lemon to dilute the strong taste of the alcohol. Then he said: “Fill them up again, Don Ranulfo. You have here two gentlemen dying of thirst in the desert.”
While Don Ranulfo turned away to get the bottle, Don Gabriel whispered into the ear of Don Alejo: “Twenty-five pesos, eh? I think that should settle the matter.”
“Accepted, Don Gabriel. And always glad to be able to render a service.”
The police chief put the money in his pocket, emptied his glass at one gulp, put a pinch of salt in the hollow of his hand, and took it with one lick of his tongue.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed. “I must hurry along. Excuse me, Don Gabriel. So long, Don Ranulfo.” And with a friendly wave to the bartender he went out.
3
On the following Monday the Indians set out on the march. There were thirty-five of them, including Cándido’s two little boys. There were four women in the caravan. They had not wanted to abandon their husbands and now were bravely following them to the lumber camps, ready to face the worst fatigues in order to behave as good companions. Before reaching the jungle, the caravan was joined by small isolated groups of workers belonging to the villages or districts along the route. Some were villagers. Some were from estates where Don Gabriel had ensnared them earlier, and they had been awaiting the coming of the caravan in order to join it. The troop increased with every passing mile.
On leaving the last village before entering the empty regions, there were one hundred and twenty men, fourteen women, and nine children younger than twelve years of age. Children who were (or seemed to be) older than that counted as adults but were paid half-wages.
At the little village the ranks had been swelled by three strange-looking men who had asked Don Gabriel to take them to the lumber camps. Don Gabriel had looked at them a long time before deciding to take them on.
“So be it,” he said at last. “If you have made up your minds to work hard, I think I can give you jobs.”
To tell the truth, he would have liked to embrace them. Three husky youths like this were an unlooked-for gift, all the more because he did not have to advance them money or spend anything on them except for the small rations of black beans they would consume on the way. On the contrary, each of them would bring him a commission of fifty pesos, money that could be considered as having dropped from heaven. He noted down the names they gave him without for a moment questioning their authenticity. One does not look a gift horse in the mouth.
The three men were out of the ordinary. To judge by their appearance, they must have been like rolling stones in the region for some time. None of them possessed a scrap of luggage, whereas all the Indians in the caravan were loaded with packs, showing that they were coming from some sort of homes.
“You seem very tired and out of everything,” said Don Gabriel.
In truth he said this for the sake of having something to say in front of the foremen, and to fortify himself beforehand against the blame they might place on him for having signed up vagabonds or perhaps fugitives from justice. He knew ahead of time the explanation the men would give him, and it was with a certain pleasure that he listened to it.
“We were waiting for you to pass by, patron. We knew that you would have to pass by here, but we did not know the day. So as to live in the meantime, we had to sell all our belongings.”
“Yes, to be sure, that’s natural enough,” said Don Gabriel. “As you understand, it’s very difficult for me to be exact about my itinerary. Sometimes we have to stop at various places, and that slows up the march. I’ll take you with me. But understand well that I do it out of charity and because I’m a good Christian and couldn’t under any condition leave men to die of hunger in the jungle when they’ve made up their minds to live honorably by their work. Well, then, I’ll do everything possible to find you work in the camps. But I don’t know if I’ll succeed, because there are lots of men in the camps, an endless number of people who can’t be employed. On that understanding you can come along.”
Don Gabriel added to the list the following names: Martín Trinidad Castelazo, Juan Méndez, and Lucio Ortiz. Don Gabriel was as clever in business as he was a good judge of men. He took good care not to register the contracts of the recent recruits in Hucutsin, as he was supposed to. He made no contracts with them and judged it entirely unnecessary to present them to the mayor, it being difficult to register nonexistent contracts. He advised the men to go straight to the encampment situated outside the village and not to show themselves unnecessarily.
He was well acquainted with the world and knew that those three would not try to slip away. What they did after arriving at the camps was of little importance to him, since by then he would have received his commission.
At the entrance to Hucutsin, seated beside the road, an Indian girl was waiting. She was barefooted and was carrying a large package under her arm. When she saw the first men in the caravan come out from the underbrush, she climbed up a little hillock to be able to see the whole column of marchers better. With a sharp glance she examined those who were going past. The men advanced, bent under the weight of their packs, tired out, partly covering their faces with their hands, which they held up to lessen the pressure from the heavy leather tumplines that pressed against their foreheads. These long, hard leather thongs from which hung the bundles on their backs made their heads swim after so many hours of marching through mountainous country. They were like steel bands that became tighter and tighter every minute.
The girl looked closely at every Indian who went past. When almost half of the column had filed past her, her face expressed a deep disappointment. Suddenly a ray of hope shone in her eyes. She straightened up, stretched her arms toward the sky, and shouted: “Cándido, my brother!”
Cándido, almost doubled in two, limping, with his head bent toward the ground, was caught by surprise. For a moment he gave the impression of being fastened to the spot. Then he started off again hesitatingly. His sons were following all their father’s movements in the secret hope of being regarded as equals by the men in the caravan.
When the girl realized that the man she had called was going ahead without looking at her, she ran after the caravan to reach her brother. Close to him, she shouted again: “Cándido, my brother, don’t you know me?”
At that Cándido straightened up, stopped, and looked at the girl with stupefaction. The children allowed the parcels they had been entrusted with to fall to the ground and ran to the girl, yelling joyfully: “Aunt Modesta! Aunt Modesta!”
Each of them seized one of her hands and covered it with kisses. The Indians continued to move ahead. Only Cándido’s immediate neighbors took vague notice of the scene, but they were all far too weary to be interested in what did not affect them personally.
Cándido stepped out of the file. He dropped on his knees to relieve himself more easily of his cargo. As the pack touched the ground, the weak squeals of the pigs could be heard. He had been unable to get rid of them, and he had taken them with him because he had not been allowed to return to his patch of land, as he would have liked, to talk to his neighbors and friends and to place in their care the few possessions he was abandoning.
Cándido straightened up, raised his head, and at last recognized his sister, still not entirely sure that it was she, flesh and bone. The excitement and joy of the children at last convinced him, for they loved their aunt with the ardor often displayed by children toward important members of their family younger than their parents and accustomed to pampering them more.
Modesta was the youngest of his sisters. He was the oldest in the family and had a marked preference for this girl, to whom he had shown it especially when, on the death of their father, he himself had become head of the family.
Their mother had died of smallpox, leaving him the entire care of Modesta, their older sisters having married and followed their husbands to their respective villages.
Modesta had insisted that Cándido should get married. He had long hesitated on her account. When at last he decided to take a wife, obtain a piece of land, and raise a family, his first care was to place Modesta as a servant in the home of a businessman in Jalotepec. This man paid her a mere two pesos a month but gave her permission to go and see her brother every second week. It often happened that she did not have this freedom more than once a month, because her mistress, like all mistresses, always discovered something urgent to be done at the last moment, or found that she had to go visiting on that very day or was expecting friends. But their meetings, rare as they were, were enough to strengthen even more the bonds that united Modesta with her brother and her sister-in-law. When Cándido had his first son, she devoted her whole existence to her brother and his family. Life did not begin for her until she was in Cándido’s home, in the miserable hut he had built, beside which her master’s house could have passed for a palace. Everything indicated that Modesta, so that she might devote herself to Cándido and his family, would never marry.
The stragglers followed at a distance. Epitacio, the overseer, came up on horseback at the rear of the marching column and forced the laggards to catch up with the others.
“Get on there, fellow! Move on, keep going!” he shouted at Cándido. “We’re there. The camp’s nearby, and there you can curl up as much as you wish and rest. Come on, now, get ahead!”
He cracked his whip and repeated the same words to another straggler.
Cándido adjusted the leather straps across his forehead and got up. The children again took up their bundles. Modesta ran to the place where she had left her bundle, put it under her arm, and rejoined her family.
“Are you going to Hucutsin, little sister?” asked Cándido, advancing painfully.
“Yes, brother, I’m going there.”
“Have you found a good job there? They say that Hucutsin is very big, bigger than Chamo, as big as Vitztan. I believe they’ll pay you better there than in Doña Paulina’s house.”
Modesta didn’t answer. They walked as fast as they could to catch up with the column, which was now crossing the town. The inhabitants stood in front of their houses to watch the exhausted Indians pass by, feeling the pleasure they had felt earlier when a regiment marched through. For this column of Indians meant profitable business to them. Their town was the last inhabited place before the forest; that is to say, it was the last opportunity the Indians had of buying necessities, in exchange for which they would leave here the money that had been advanced to them. From here on they would not see a centavo until their contracts were worked out. In the camps there was nothing to buy, and money had no value. So at this point they all spent every last centavo they possessed. This explained the joy of the inhabitants of the town.
The column had to cross the town to reach the camping grounds, installed in a poor meadow, the grass of which disappeared among stones. Later the laborers would be summoned to the Municipal Palace, where the mayor had to stamp the contracts. Not until this formality was completed were they free to walk around and make their purchases.
Cándido rejoined the file, with Modesta and the children near him. When they had passed the last houses and the cemetery and had finally reached the encampment, Cándido asked: “Where, then, is the house where you’re going to work? I thought it would be one of the big ones in the plaza.”
Modesta replied in a soft, somewhat mournful voice: “Good heavens, this pack is heavy! It’s lucky that we’ve arrived.”
Cándido set about making a fire.
“Let me help you, brother. I’ve rested a long time and I’m less tired than you.”
She unpacked a brazier and an earthenware bowl and got ready to make coffee and heat the tortillas.
“You children, go look for some wood and bring water.”
Cándido, seated on the ground, set himself to rolling a cigarette. He looked at his sister for a moment and then stood up and said: “I’m going to town to buy corn for the little pigs. They’re hungry.”
He found a stake lying near by, drove it into the earth, and tethered the pigs to it. The little animals, having been squeezed in the sack on Cándido’s shoulder during the whole march, squealed with pleasure on feeling the ground under their feet. They rooted in the soil, scratched about with their feet, and bickered fiercely over roots they found.
Cándido returned in a few minutes with a handful of corn that he threw to the pigs. He was amused to watch them push one another aside. He puffed vigorously at his cigarette and said: “They’re gluttons, those little pigs of mine. Soon they’ll be fine and fat.”
Then he raised his head and seemed to come out of a dream. He watched his sister fanning the fire, saying to himself that even now he still did not understand how she happened to be there or how she had come.
“Now it’s ready. Boys! Come here!” she called to her nephews, who had gone over to another hearthfire to watch an Indian skin and cook a rabbit he had caught on the way.
The four of them sat down around the brazier and ate their meager supper. When they had drunk the last drop of coffee, Cándido lighted the cigarette he had rolled before eating and puffed at it.
Modesta cleaned the utensils, put them in order, and took some tobacco from a pouch, making a cigarette by rolling it in a small corn leaf. Overwhelmed by fatigue, the children lay down near the fire. Modesta covered them with an embroidered sarape that she took from her bundle.
“It’s getting late, little sister. You’d do better to go to your new masters’ house to sleep.”
“Tomorrow will be time enough. I can even go there after you have left. I don’t think that will be before a couple of days.”
“That’s right. Don Gabriel told me so.”
“I’ll go look up my masters when I like. They don’t know whether I’m arriving today or next week.”
Cándido made a movement with his head which indicated: “Just as you wish.”
They remained silent a long time. Night was near. It fell heavily, brutally, like a hammer striking. They sat still near the fire, smoking, their eyes fixed on the burning wood, lost in their thoughts. Aro
und them on all sides fires shone. Of the men huddled near them, some were talking, laughing, arguing; others, the majority, were quiet, as close together as possible, like dogs in search of warmth.
The thickets that bounded the camp became blurred in a slight mist. Clouds riding in the sky allowed a few stars to be glimpsed at intervals. The rainy season was not far away. From the little town human voices reached them, confused and apparently happy voices. From one corner of the camp the nostalgic melody of a harmonica arose, and farther away, perhaps in the cathedral plaza, a marimba sounded. Among the thickets a frightened or pursued bird drowned with its cries the amorous buzzing of the cicadas and the song of the crickets.
The hearth beside which Cándido and his sister were sitting was nothing but a heap of dark-red coals gradually dying out. Cándido went to cut some branches, broke them in pieces, and threw an armful on the embers. The fire became still darker. Cándido bent down and blew on it. A flame suddenly reached a dry branch, blazed, and—surprised to find itself alone—sank back into the dark green, shifting smoke.
“I went to see you on Sunday, you and the children,” Modesta said suddenly.
She was but a few inches away from Cándido, separated from him only by the fire. The smoke prevented him from seeing her expression. He puffed his cigarette without replying.
“Your neighbor Lauro,” continued Modesta, “told me that you and the children were in the jail in Jovel. He didn’t know anything more, and I set out. I met Manuel, who had returned from Jovel the day before.”
“Yes, Manuel knew what had happened to me. He was outside El Globo when Don Gabriel pounced on me and ordered me to be ready on Monday,” replied Cándido, as though evoking a far-off memory.
“Manuel told me everything and I understood that you would not be coming back. I went at once to find Uncle Diego and told him the whole story. Later he came over. He has promised me to look after your land and your house. He and our aunt will live there until you return. And so you will be able to go back to your house, your goats, and your sheep. In the meantime Cousin Emiliano and his wife will live in Uncle Diego’s house. He will easily be able to look after his own land as well as theirs.”