by B. TRAVEN
Lucio and Paciano laughed heartily. “A woman! Look at him. A woman calling him by name! Certainly you need a woman, and that’s why you’re hearing them call you even in your dreams. Go take a leak so that you can snooze in peace.”
Celso remained standing. His companions’ words could not convince him that he was mistaken. He picked up the cigarette he had dropped in his sleep and relighted it at the fire. He walked around a little and then went into the underbrush. Suddenly he took the cigarette from his mouth and cocked his ear.
“Boys!” he shouted. “This time I’m sure. Somebody’s calling over there. And I’m sure that it’s a woman.”
Paciano stood up, also cocked his ear, and said: “You’re right, Celso! Somebody’s calling, and it’s a woman’s voice.”
“Listen! She’s calling again! The voice seems to be coming from that dense thicket,” said Celso, who was scrutinizing the jungle walls with impassioned curiosity. “Come with me, Paciano. Let’s go and see what it’s all about.”
They had not moved two steps when they both began to tremble. This time there was no room for doubt. They had heard a woman’s voice.
“Celso! Celso! Where are you?”
“Here I am!” Celso shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Where?”
The men pressed forward in the direction from which the voice came, moving as rapidly as obstacles permitted. All at once among the thickets they saw Modesta’s face.
“Modesta!” Celso shouted in astonishment. “What has happened to you?”
As the girl saw the men approaching, she hid herself behind some bushes and said: “I am naked. I’ve only some branches to cover me!”
Celso took off his shirt, which he wore only during periods of rest to protect himself from mosquitoes, and threw it to Modesta. The shirt was all torn, but it covered the girl enough to allow her to show herself before masculine eyes.
“Give me your shirt, Pachi,” Celso said to his comrade, pulling it off him without waiting for a reply.
Celso led the girl to the little clearing where the men were preparing their meal.
“How long have you been wandering around in the jungle like this?” Celso asked Modesta when the girl had sat down.
“For a long time. I didn’t know where to find you, Celso. I met one of the men near a dump. He told me you were working in Fallen Log, but he couldn’t tell me exactly where it was. He could only indicate the direction. I walked a long way without meeting a soul. In the end I saw some recently cut trees and thought that perhaps you wouldn’t be far away. So then I walked on a little farther, calling you. What are we going to do now, Celso?”
“But explain what has happened to you. Has Cándido run away again?”
Celso insisted on learning what had driven the girl to run naked through the jungle. A dark presentiment of what had occurred, or of what had threatened her, began to take constantly clearer shape in Celso’s mind, but he wanted Modesta to tell him the truth, not because of useless curiosity, but in order to know whence the danger might be coming and how he could protect her.
“This morning very early Don Félix sent them to call me from the kitchen, where I’ve been helping the chief cook and his woman.” Modesta hesitated a little, not knowing where to begin her story.
“Was it the cook who threw you out?”
“No. The cook was very good to me. He gave me two straw mats to sleep on. You know I have nothing. We lost everything we had in the river.”
“Then it was his woman?”
“No, not the woman either. Let me think, so that I can explain it to you. The little chief sent for me to come and make his bed. When I got there, he grabbed me as hard as he could and threw me on the bed. I defended myself and scratched his whole face. Then I saw a bottle right there. As he had hold of me by the neck and legs, I had only one hand free. We struggled. I was able to pick up the bottle, and with all my strength I hit him with it on the forehead. Then I got free, stood up, and ran to the door. But my clothes were so old that they had been ripped off in his hands. All I had left was a little piece of blouse. I got away with just that.”
“But,” interrupted Román, “doesn’t he still have his two women?”
“They had gone out… . I ran and the chief ran after me, shouting: ‘Stop where you are or I’ll shoot.’ And he fired two or three shots without hitting me. Then he began to shriek like a crazy man, saying: ‘I’ll catch you, you dirty bitch! I’ll tie you to my bed, and then we’ll see if you’ll get away from me. And when I’ve had enough of you I’ll cut off your ears and your nose too!’ ”
“And he’d certainly do it!” Juan Méndez affirmed.
“Then I got so frightened that I felt like going back to stop him from cutting off my ears. Then he went to the foremen’s hut and ordered El Gusano to catch me. Luckily El Gusano was very busy with the horses. Then the chief began screaming again: ‘I’ll not only cut your ears off, witch, but I’ll tie you for three days and nights to that tree down there. Maybe that’ll take away your wanting to hit me with a bottle.’ Just then the cook came out of his hut and said to me: ‘Run, girl! Run for all you’re worth and don’t let them catch you!’ I asked him quickly where I could go. ‘It doesn’t matter where,’ he said. ‘It would be better to be caught by a jaguar than by Don Félix.’ And then I came this way.”
The men remained silent.
“Celso, you’re going to help me, aren’t you?” asked Modesta, noticing the indecision of the cutters.
“We could hide her,” suggested Encarnación.
“Fool! Where could we hide her?” replied Lucio.
“Oh, Celso!” said Román in an agonized voice. “Look! There comes El Gusano on his horse!”
“He must have seen us.”
“Celso! Celso! Help me!” Modesta begged him. Then, without waiting for the help she had begged for, she sprang like a mad girl to hide in the underbrush.
El Gusano was in fact very near them and could see the girl run. Don Félix had ordered him to bring her back. His horse could progress only very slowly through the undergrowth, but he had followed her tracks. All the men stood up and anxiously watched the pursuit.
In her bewilderment Modesta suddenly fell. A second later El Gusano had seized her by her hair and tied her with his lasso. Exhausted, the girl gave up the struggle. Undoubtedly her fate was to be captured by Don Félix. She would not escape.
El Gusano dragged her after him and approached the group of cutters. He pulled up his horse, took a pouch of tobacco from his shirt, rolled a cigarette, and said to Celso, who was nearest him: “Give me a light.”
Celso held out a burning stick. El Gusano inhaled a few puffs of smoke and said: “What have you got to eat?”
“Iguana, chief,” answered Lucio.
“Pigs! How can any Christian eat iguana without vomiting from disgust! Hogs! That’s what you are.”
He blew out more clouds of smoke. Then, smiling disagreeably, he nodded his head toward the tied girl, adding: “So! On the other hand I’m taking a very tasty dish back for Don Félix. What the chief is going to eat tonight will taste much better than iguana. And when he’s tasted it thoroughly, he’ll leave it for me so that I can try it. He’s promised me the leftovers. As for me, I’ll eat it even if it’s without a nose.”
He roared with laughter menacingly, smacked the flanks of his horse to get it moving, and at the same time pulled violently on the rope to make Modesta follow along.
Modesta, surprised by the unforeseen pull on the rope, fell flat. El Gusano only went on pulling more violently.
The girl half stood up and then fell at once to her knees. She exchanged a glance with Celso. There was no reproach in her eyes. She knew that Celso, like all his companions in misery, was helpless. But the infinite sadness that he saw in her eyes hurt him more than the most bitter reproach, more than the greatest insult. He looked at her fixedly a moment and then turned to look at his companions. He saw Martín Trinidad close his lips and breathe heavily through
his nostrils as if to relieve himself of a great oppression.
All this did not last more than two or three seconds.
Celso swallowed his saliva with effort and gathered himself as if for a big jump. Then he straightened up and let out a scream of such force that the foreman’s horse reared up and tried to dash away as though in the presence of a jaguar. But in the attempt the animal stuck its hoofs into a pool of mud, from which it tried helplessly to pull them out. El Gusano lashed at the animal, pulling vigorously on the reins. The horse’s legs stretched taut in a useless effort to get out of the swampy spot. But while it was struggling and its rider was trying to find a way to force it up and out, Celso, in a prodigious leap, landed on the horse’s rump and clasped the foreman in his arms from behind, by this unexpected shock making him let go of the stirrups. El Gusano had hardly fallen to the ground before Celso jumped on him, pounding his face with clenched fists. El Gusano defended himself, trying to drive Celso off by kicking him in the stomach. But the man dodged the kicks without losing his grip. They fought desperately on the ground. El Gusano’s face was becoming purple.
“Are you going to get off me, you dog?” he said, gasping and choking on the words.
With one hand Celso felt around on the ground for something to use as a weapon. Juan realized what Celso wanted. He picked up a thick piece of branch and smashed it down on El Gusano’s skull. The foreman’s hands relaxed, releasing his enemy.
Juan went on beating El Gusano’s head. The blows fell with such violence that in an instant Celso was able to step away from his victim. El Gusano’s skull was nothing but a bloody mass.
“I warned you some time ago, Gusano,” he said, getting up. “I sang you the same song more than a hundred times. Now you see how I keep my promises and do what I sing.”
With the back of one huge hand he wiped away the sweat and blood running down his face. Then he went over to Modesta, cut her bonds, and asked her tenderly: “Are you hurt, Modesta?”
“No,” she replied in a scarcely audible voice. “No, the thorns in the forest made these bloody spots on my arms and legs. But I was so frightened, Celso!”
“Don’t be afraid, Modesta. We can’t turn back now. We’ve got to go ahead from now on. We’ll all run away together. What do you say, boys?”
“Yes, all of us,” Román interposed.
“The ones from the fincas? And the peon’s too?” asked Paciano, who himself came from a finca whose owners had sold it to the Montellano brothers.
“Yes. All the peons on the fincas too!” Martín Trinidad affirmed. And to underline what he had said, he shouted what had become his war cry: “Land and liberty!”
Like a single voice all the men answered: “Land and liberty!”
Celso turned over the foreman’s body, taking hold of it by one of its bare feet, leaned over the corpse, and removed the cartridge belt and the revolver.
“Martín,” he shouted, “you already have a pistol and cartridges. This one is for me. Come and tell me how to load it and fire it.”
“In five minutes you’ll know as well as I do.”
“We ought to bury the body of this dog before going back to the camp,” Román suggested.
“Nothing of the sort! Let the wild hogs take care of it if they like that dead meat!”
Celso said to Martín Trinidad: “Are you taking the horse or do you want me to ride it?”
“You’ll be the leader. Well, then, get up! When we have other animals, then we’ll ride.”
“Hey!” Celso shouted. “Come on, everybody. We have to think. We must make plans.”
“Yes, that’s right,” the men replied.
“But not here,” Celso answered. “Because that filth will begin stinking before long. Let us go on a little way. And you, Modesta, come with us. We need to have you around.”
Modesta made a gesture of assent, held together as well as she could the rags that covered her, and followed the cutters.
The men sat in a circle, as Indians do, and Celso spoke: “This is just the beginning, but now we can’t turn back. We’ve done for that sickening worm, who’s had it coming to him for a long time. But if we don’t keep on now, we all know the risk we’d be running. That Félix will hang the lot of us after cutting off our ears. Since Cacho got his from Urbano, they’ve all gone crazy. The truth is, men, that they all go around pissing from fright. And out of pure fear they’re capable of striking out blindly without seeing whom they’re hitting. Would you like them to cut all our ears off? Or would you prefer to lose our noses or our fingers?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Lucio interrupted, laughing. “Why are you asking us such questions?”
All the men laughed with Lucio. Celso himself laughed with them.
“Good! But you must tell me if you want to return to your homes, to your women, your parents, to cultivate your land.”
“Sure we do!”
Then Martín Trinidad rose and, waving his arms vigorously, said: “No, you drove of oxen! Animals! We won’t do that. There’ll be a time for you to sleep with your women and to cultivate your land—which will always stay in the same place. While I’m able to stand on my feet none of you will run off home! We must raise all the men suffering in the camps, we must go to the fincas and do away with the finqueros and the majordomos and then with the rural police and the federal soldiers. The peons must be free—all of them, absolutely all. Do you understand? All of them must have their patches of land that they can cultivate in peace, and the harvests must be for them only and for nobody else. That is land and liberty! The land must belong to them. Because without land there is no liberty, neither for you nor for anyone else. And if we don’t start by ridding ourselves of finqueros, majordomos, overseers, rural police, federals, political chiefs, and municipal bosses, we’ll never have liberty. Now you’ll see them, when they see us coming, throw themselves down before us in supplication. But for them, war without quarter! If we don’t exterminate them they’ll soon put us in chains again. And this time they’ll have forged them heavier than those we carry now. The enemy must be killed, and we must kill all who can become our enemies. If you have pity on them, you’ll be betraying yourselves, your women, your sisters, your parents, your children, and even those not yet born.”
“Bravo, Martín! That’s the way to talk,” cried Celso and Paciano.
“Bravo!” the rest called out in chorus. “That’s what we all think!”
“In that case, forward! Don’t let the flame go out. Long live the rebellion! Long live the rebels!”
All the men repeated: “Long live the rebellion! Long live all the rebels!”
They collected their tools, their axes and machetes, and proposed to march immediately and attack the camp headquarters.
“Not so fast, men,” said Celso. “First we’re going to think what we must do and how to do it. If we rush in crazily it won’t cost us anything to take over the office. But then? You know very well that there are overseers in every corner of the jungle and that the other men don’t yet know anything about our plans. The overseers can all get together and finish us off easily. They’re all well mounted and armed. They can gallop to outside camps for reinforcements, and we can’t win against them. Listen to what Martín Trinidad told you—he speaks the language of reason. Let’s stay here and talk it over. If we make useful decisions now, we won’t have to regret them later.”
“Celso, tell us, what do you think?”
Celso proposed that some men should go to alert the ox-drivers who were hauling logs to the Mono arroyo.
“I know them well,” he said, “and I know they’re real men. Among them are Andrés and Fidel, the one who some time back broke El Gusano’s jaw; and Santiago, who doesn’t fear the Devil himself; and Matías, who’s only waiting for the right opportunity to wring the neck of El Doblado for stealing his woman. Also there are Cirilo, Sixto, and Prócoro. With those guys we don’t need to be afraid. With them we can conquer the whole jungle and clean up the fincas. If a
ll the cutters were like the drivers, nobody could stand up against us, and we’d get a long, long way!”
“Good, go first and find the drivers!” Martín Trinidad ordered. “You, Juan, get on the horse and go ahead. Talk to the first driver you meet and send him to the Mono arroyo.”
“But,” said Juan, “supposing I run into a foreman on the way and he sees me riding a horse—what shall I tell him?”
“Tell him that the chief sent you urgently to fetch Andrés and Santiago. But why give excuses? Take the revolver. Carry it on the saddle, and if a foreman tries to stop you, just shoot him quietly. You know how to shoot. If the first bullet doesn’t kill him, fire a second. Take the cartridge belt too—and don’t be afraid. We’re going to carry this through. The comedy has lasted long enough! It’s either them or us! If we want to live, we must destroy them. Get going, Juan! In half an hour we’ll all be with you at the arroyo.”
12
When the men reached the arroyo they found the ox-drivers already alerted by Juan Méndez. Their young assistants seemed to be in a state of terror. They bustled around the beasts, trying to give the impression, if a foreman should appear, that they had no part in the blow being prepared. They knew what awaited them if the affair turned out badly.
Not counting these youngsters, more than twenty men had gathered together, and every quarter of an hour another ox-team arrived with its driver, who was immediately informed of what was happening.
The men decided to march first on the main office, but by a roundabout route to recruit as many drivers and cutters as possible.
The cutters carried their axes. Others had machetes as well. They all took hooks from the hauling chains and whatever other iron utensils could be used as weapons.
“Besides,” said Juan Méndez, “everyone must understand that for the first assault stones and clubs will be enough for us. When the thing has really broken loose we’ll do like the peons of Morelos, the first who dared to attack the sugar refineries. The rural police and federals sent to put them down were welcomed by a wonderful ambush.”