Burke in the Land of Silver

by Tom Williams

  Pedro smiled reassuringly. ‘That’s the boss. Always busy. Don’t worry – he’s left you in safe hands. Let’s get you on a horse and we’ll see how well you do.’

  Pedro led the way to the stables and picked out a bay stallion. James tacked him up and mounted.

  ‘OK, Yankee, let’s ride.’

  Pedro touched his heels to his horse and it set off from the stables at a sharp trot.

  James followed him confidently until Pedro turned and said, ‘Now we do some real riding.’

  At once, his horse was running at full gallop and he was twenty yards ahead before James discovered his own animal had been trained to move to the gallop almost from a standstill.

  Thus began an education for the supposed Yankee. Pedro set off to ride the range, checking the location of three separate herds of cattle scores of miles apart. It soon became obvious that his horsemanship was in a different class from that of any other person James had met. He kept up a relentless pace but, even at the gallop, he sat easily in the saddle, reining the horse just with his forefinger and thumb. When James, fists bunched around the reins in approved army style, remarked that his companion must have considerable faith in his mount, the man laughed.

  ‘He’s not a bad horse but I rely on my skill rather than his,’ and, so saying, he reined the horse violently to the left, bringing it down on its knees. As the horse fell, he remained upright in the saddle and, pulling again on the reins, urged it to its feet and cantered on.

  James, who had an Englishman’s sentimental affection for horses, was shocked to see an animal so casually brought down, but when he remonstrated with his companion, the gaucho looked puzzled.

  ‘Look around you, amigo. There are horses everywhere. They have no value.’

  And, indeed, as they rode, every few miles they would pass a group of wild horses which, on their approach, would gallop into the distance.

  Sharing the land with the horses were the cattle of the estancia. They did not run as a single herd, eating out all the pasturage in one place, but were split into small groups. As they approached each of these, Pedro would ride around the animals, casting an expert eye over them. There would be two or three men keeping watch and he would speak to them, perhaps suggesting that the herd be moved if the grazing seemed to him to be thinning.

  It was late in the afternoon when they approached the last herd.

  ‘The fellow watching these is Julio,’ said Pedro. ‘He’s a good sort. We’ll stay the night here.’

  Julio welcomed them and Pedro asked him about the condition of the herd before explaining that they would be joining him for their meal.

  ‘We’d better kill a bigger bull then,’ laughed Julio.

  James looked surprised and Pedro explained, in the tones of a teacher to a bright but ignorant child, that gauchos never ate dried or salted meat if their own cattle were to hand. Instead, they would slaughter a fresh beast every day, roast it over their campfire and leave any remains for the scavengers to pick over as the herd moved on the next day.

  James was about to remark that such an approach seemed wasteful when he remembered Pedro’s comment about the horses. Out here on grasslands supporting thousands of cattle, he could see that it would make no sense to the herdsmen to eat any but the freshest meat.

  As he watched, Julio uncoiled the lasso that rested against his saddle and rode slowly toward the herd. He flicked it without apparent effort toward one of the smaller bullocks and the noose fell easily around its head. At once, the animal tried to escape but, tethered by the rope, the other end of which Julio was making fast around his pommel, it ran in a circle around the horse. The horse turned on the spot, keeping pace with the stricken animal so that the lasso never wrapped around the rider who, had he been caught in the rope, would have been killed as surely as a man trapped by a boa constrictor. After running several times around the horse, the panicked steer fell to its knees and, in an instant Julio was out of the saddle and his knife was stabbing down into the beast’s neck, severing its spinal cord. The beast dropped as if struck by lightning. Then, with the blood still pouring from the wound, he started to butcher the animal, cutting off pieces of flesh with the skin still on it to make their supper.

  They ate together around the fire, roasting the slabs of beef with the hide resting on the embers of the fire. They ate the meat off the skin, which formed a natural saucer, so that none of the gravy was lost. It was the first time James had eaten the gaucho staple of carne con cuero and he decided it was the finest meat he had ever tasted.

  Later, lying beneath the stars, James reflected on the casual brutality of life here at the edge of civilisation. Against the practical reality of these men’s knives, he thought, the Spaniards did not have a chance.

  *

  The secret of successful disguise, according to Burke, lay in truly becoming the person that you were pretending to be. If you were a Prussian, you had to think like a Prussian. Burke often wondered if it would help him get into character if he could just pick a quarrel with some hapless passer-by, demand satisfaction in a duel, and kill him – but instead he studied Goethe and listened to Beethoven until he could honestly say that he understood the one and enjoyed the other. Being French was easier. Seduction came naturally to him – so much so that he had almost convinced himself that he had some French blood in his veins. Now, as a Yankee cattleman, he settled down to learn about cattle with the thoroughness that he associated with the commercial men of Britain’s one-time colony.

  He would wake with the dawn, wrapped in the poncho that Pedro had found for him. There would be coffee and then they would saddle up and check that nothing untoward had happened overnight. At first, he was nervous around the bulls, but he saw the amused glint in Pedro’s eye and realised that a bull surrounded with cows posed no danger – only a bull on its own was potentially lethal. There would be calves born in the night that had to be brought down with a lariat and examined for their health. He learned when a calf was too weak to flourish and how to kill it quickly with one of the long, straight bladed knives the gauchos all carried in their belts. He came to recognise the symptoms of liver fluke and was taught how to treat it. He asked about the prices that the cattle fetched and, under Pedro’s tutelage, he learned how to judge their quality and estimate their price at auction.

  With every day, he knew he was learning more about cattle but it was only after a few days that he realised he was also learning to love the land. He came to cherish its open plains, its prodigal fertility, and the easy fellowship of the gauchos.

  After a week living as a cattleman, Paco Iglesias again asked him to dine at the main house.

  Over dinner, they talked about his experiences on the pampas and how these compared with the way that cattle were run in North America. James bluffed gamely – for, in truth, he knew no more about cattle ranching than he had learned during his stay – but from time to time, he thought he saw a glint of sardonic amusement in his host’s dark eyes.

  After dinner, Sra Iglesias withdrew, saying that she had some sewing to attend to, leaving the men at table. Sr Iglesias opened a fresh bottle of wine and poured a generous glass. It was thick and sweet – almost like a Sauterne.

  ‘Produced here in La Plata,’ he announced with a flourish.

  James sipped it carefully and pronounced it excellent.

  Sr Iglesias laughed.

  ‘I am not sure that I altogether believe everything you say, amigo. I don’t think you like the wine.’ He paused. ‘And I don’t think you’re a cattleman.’

  Burke took another mouthful of wine and said nothing.

  ‘I live with cattle. I know cattle. And I know a man who knows cattle. And you don’t.’ Another pause. ‘But I think I trust you. And Pedro has watched you for three days and he trusts you. We don’t know why you lie about the cattle but we know how you struck at our oppressors in Buenos Aires. I think you are sincere when you wish us well in our struggle for freedom.’

  Burke raised his glas
s in salute to the sentiment.

  ‘You said that you would love to fight beside us. Do you still want such an adventure?’

  ‘I do.’

  Iglesias smiled.

  ‘Tomorrow, the Collector for Córdoba will be travelling toward Buenos Aires. There will be two mules with him, both carrying silver. The taxes for Córdoba are not high, so the amount justifies a guard of just four soldiers.’

  ‘You are well informed.’

  Another smile.

  ‘And we will use that information to our advantage.’

  Now it was Burke’s turn to smile.

  ‘When do we ride?’

  ‘Tomorrow, at dawn. We could attack their camp when they are sleeping but we are not cowards. We are men and we will fight them like men. And we will be victorious.’

  The two raised their glasses in mutual salute, drank, and left the table.

  James excused himself early and made his way to bed. Tomorrow his brief holiday (for that was what it had seemed) would be over. He would, once again, be going to war, this time to kill some Spanish tax collector. He shrugged to himself as he blew out the candle and settled to sleep. But his last thought, as consciousness faded, was that he would as soon fight beside Pedro and Sr Iglesias as in any other cause he could imagine.

  He woke an hour before dawn, dressed, tucking a knife into his belt in true gaucho fashion, and made his way to the stables. Paco Iglesias was already waiting there with Pedro and three of his men. They smiled broadly at James, welcoming him with handshakes that seemed strangely formal in the darkness of the stables.

  The horses had already been saddled and, as the sun rose across the plain, they started out. They moved without haste, seldom faster than a trot. After an hour, they came to a river, the waters shallow in the summer heat. Iglesias forced his mount to splash along the riverbed and they followed him for some miles.

  ‘It’s probably not necessary,’ said Paco. ‘But anything that makes our tracks less obvious is to be encouraged.’

  For the same reason, whenever they came across tracks left by cattle or wild horses, they would follow them for a way, even if it took them off their route. All the time, though, they headed more or less north and all at the same easy pace, keeping their horses fresh.

  It was almost noon when they first made out a small party of horsemen in the distance. Paco moved into a lazy canter and slowly they drew closer to their prey, who had yet to notice them. Only when scarcely more than a mile separated them from the other riders did their quarry realise the danger they were in.

  By now, James could easily make out five mounted figures and two baggage mules. The soldiers were striking at the mules, urging them faster, but, weighed down as they were, the beasts could not outrun the steady canter of the bandits.

  As the guard realised the futility of trying to escape, they wheeled their horses and came on towards their attackers. The midday sun glinted on their sabres.

  Paco Iglesias smiled and began untying the bolas, which he had fixed to the saddle, alongside the lasso.

  James looked on, curiously. He had heard of bolas, but had never seen them before. They were made of three small wooden balls tied to leather thongs that crossed in a running knot at the centre. Paco took the smallest ball in his hand and, whirling the others around his head, rode directly toward the troopers. As the first soldier was almost upon him, he loosed the balls, which flew toward the horse’s legs, entangling them and bringing the beast to the ground.

  The other gauchos were already riding forward, swinging their own bolas. Only now did they kick their horses to the gallop. They closed on their enemy at full speed, standing in the saddle to keep their bodies perfectly still as the horses raced below them. With one hand holding the reins, the other whirled the balls until they were released toward their targets. In seconds, the four guards were down and the gauchos were upon them.

  Although they had approached their foe at a full gallop, all six horses stopped instantly beside the fallen men and the rebels were out of their saddles with their knives busy despatching the soldiers almost before James could take in what had happened.

  One remaining horseman had stayed with the mules as the soldiers had turned to charge. This, James reasoned, would be the Collector and, as Iglesias’s men were attending to the guards, he started toward that individual. The Spaniard saw him coming and, abandoning the mules, he spurred his horse into a gallop.

  James grinned. After three days of riding with gauchos, he was confident that he could catch the Spaniard. He spurred on his own horse – still relatively fresh from the easy ride of the morning – and it surged forward. Ahead of him, the Collector turned his head and, seeing James close behind, he reached to his saddle and drew a pistol.

  James moved closer. He could tell that the Spaniard was far from an expert horseman, and with his steed running full pelt under him there was no way that he would be able to hold the gun steady enough for it to be a serious threat.

  As he closed on his foe, he heard another horse galloping behind him. Turning, he saw Paco swinging his bolas toward the Collector. Almost instantly, it seemed, the man’s horse staggered. James reined himself to a halt and, if the result was not as dramatic as when the gauchos stopped from a full gallop, it was still impressive. The Collector rose to his feet, pointing the pistol toward his assailant, but James was already on him. He swerved his body to the left as the weapon fired. He was barely fast enough and he felt the ball pluck at his collar as it passed. The Collector dropped the now useless pistol and reached for his sword but too late. Before he could draw it, James’ knife was slicing into his throat.

  Paco, still mounted, looked down on him.

  ‘Bien,’ he said. ‘Muy bien.’ Good, very good.

  James looked at the body on the ground. He was a man in early middle age, running to fat. He had a moustache and a small scar on his left cheek. He probably had friends in Buenos Aires who would be waiting for him at a tavern in a few days. They would have a long wait.

  Burke bent to the body and cleaned his knife on the man’s coat. He was careful about details like that. If you had to spend your life killing people, he felt, you could at least be tidy about it.

  He raised the knife and sketched a salute to the corpse. The Collector was a victim of the turmoil of his age just as much as the Haitian slaves or the French Royalists or his comrades in the Regiment of Dillon now, for all he knew, fighting and dying somewhere on the other side of the world. The dead man was a Spaniard. If Spain weren’t already at war with Britain (and with Europe three months away, they could already have been at war for weeks), then it soon would be. And the men he rode with were at war with Spain as surely as the Yankees had been at war with England. In aiding them, he served his king, like the soldier he was – and as the Collector had served his.

  He mounted and rode to where the others had gathered around the mules. They were forcing open the packs that the animals carried and, as James arrived, he heard them cry out as they saw the silver within.

  Paco saw him approaching and shouted, ‘We’ve done well. There must be ten thousand pesos in there, more than we were expecting.’

  ‘And jewels.’ Pedro scooped out a handful of necklaces and a great ruby set in a silver brooch. ‘Someone couldn’t pay and the bastards took his wife’s jewellery.’

  There was a pause while the gauchos considered the enormity of such an unchivalrous act. A moment later, though, they were scooping their plunder into saddlebags.

  ‘Why not leave it on the mules?’

  ‘If the Spanish trouble themselves to follow the Collector’s route, they will find that the attack took place here. The mules are heavy and leave clear tracks. I don’t want those pointing toward my estancia.’

  As he spoke, Pedro was scooping earth into the empty packs on the mules, while the others were unwrapping the bolas from the horses they had brought down. As each horse was freed, it was driven off and, frightened after their experience, they galloped away, l
eaving their tracks through the pampas grass – tracks that did not lead to Paco’s home.

  ‘If the Spaniards had proper trackers with them, this wouldn’t fool anyone. But, if they send anyone, they will send regular troops. They will find a mass of different tracks in different directions and they will give up.’

  To be on the safe side, Paco’s men started away from home, driving the mules (now weighed down with earth) before them. They carried on, leaving a clear path for an hour, before peeling away one by one, leaving the mules to fend for themselves.

  They rode in a great arc, heading toward home only as the sun marked the middle of the afternoon. It wasn’t until after nightfall that they met up, arriving back at the estancia by moonlight.

  Sra Iglesias was waiting for them. That night, none of the group ate in the canteen. They feasted together in the main house, their plunder piled carelessly in a corner of the dining room.

  ‘What will you do with the money?’

  Paco Iglesias looked sharply at James.

  ‘Do you want some of it?’

  ‘Lord, no! It just seemed a lot. What will you spend it on out here?’

  Paco laughed.

  ‘You’re right, Yankee! What could I spend it on out here? No, this money will make its way to Buenos Aires, where it will be put to good use.’

  The intelligence that had guided their attack suggested that Iglesias was himself getting instructions from elsewhere. Now it looked as if the next layer of this secretive organisation might well be concealed, not in the pampas, but back in Buenos Aires. James would have given much to know where exactly in Buenos Aires the plunder was headed. It was clear from Paco’s manner, though, that any more questions would be unanswered and might lead to suspicion as to what the counterfeit cattleman was really after.

  The next morning, the money was nowhere in sight. Nothing was said about the robbery and life on the estancia resumed its normal rhythm. Paco suggested that James stay on for a week or two: ‘There might be something happening that will interest you,’ was all he would say. James passed the time helping Pedro with his regular tasks and trying to improve his own skills as a cowman, often to the amusement of the gauchos. His efforts at throwing the bolas caused especial hilarity. As he whirled the balls around his head, one struck a bush and fell to the ground, catching the hind leg of his horse. The sudden tug pulled the whole thing out of his hand and it promptly wrapped itself around his horse’s legs, bringing it to a dramatic stop. Luckily, the horse was an old, practised animal and simply stood without kicking, allowing James to retain some dignity as he dismounted and untangled the cords while the gauchos roared with laughter. Later, Pedro said that he had seen every sort of animal caught, but had never before seen a man caught by himself.