Land of Black Clay

by Jose Louzeiro

  “It was over there,” Biguá gestured.

  The men got into the truck, which took off cross-country, its headlights of little use against the broken landscape.

  “What could they be up to?” wondered Zé Anta.

  Nobody responded. Jesuíno’s attention was focused on driving. From time to time they could make out the Dodge van’s tire tracks.

  “They were here!”

  The truck crashed into a pothole, a stone scraping the underbody and almost ruining the oil pan. Biguá got under the truck with a hunter’s lantern to inspect the damage.

  “It didn’t get the motor.”

  He went back to his seat and they continued. Jesuíno knew that he should slow down. The important thing was to follow the tire tracks that came and went. With daylight approaching, they got to a tree-lined stretch, mostly mango trees. The clarity of dawn tinged the sky with red stripes. It would be another day of intense heat and sunlight, as every day had been for months, not a drop of rain—all of which worried Jesuíno. If summer continued that way, soon they’d have a problem with shortages in reservoirs; they were already drying up. In addition there were the worries about personnel, production, the squabbles in the field and the maintenance offices, and above all this damn problem of a reporter he’d never seen. And why had he let Ticuca and Beto deal with that problem? He should have foreseen it. One should never leave complicated jobs to just anyone. And if they didn’t find the man, what would the colonel say?

  The truck advanced steadily; the crushed and matted underbrush now revealed the Dodge van’s progress without difficulty. Descending a slope, they spotted it. The passenger’s door was ajar. They drew near. Beto was on the floor, a bullet hole in the chest. Ticuca had disappeared.

  “Zé Anta, go that away while Azulão and Biguá go the other direction,” said Jesuíno. “I’m going straight ahead.”

  “What if I run into him?” Zé Anta wanted to know.

  “Drag the jerk back here!”

  Jesuíno started up the car, not worrying about the underbrush that broke against the front bumper. The important thing now was to get Ticuca. Beto’s death made clear that the roughneck was trying to get lost. It seldom happened, but some had made it. Why doubt Ticuca’s ability?

  At a certain point, after a stream, in a valley of macaw palms, he saw him running. He accelerated. As long as the car remained attached to the wheels, he’d catch up with Ticuca. The colonel would approve of the hunt. The truck jumped and creaked as Jesuíno gripped the wheel with firm hands. Before long he caught up with the lowlife. He tapped the car against him, brushing him with the side rather than the front. Ticuca lost his balance, fell, and began to run in the opposite direction. Jesuíno maneuvered the truck around and advanced again. No light blows this time. He hit him from behind, throwing him on top of some jurubeba vines, where he continued to writhe. Jesuíno jumped out, opened the tailgate, pulled out a rope, and tied it to Ticuca and the back bumper. He pointed his rifle in the air, firing three shots: an announcement that the others could quit their searches.

  “What was the problem, pal?”

  “Finish me off. I’ve nothing to say.”

  “What about the deal with the colonel?”

  “I’m gonna die right here.”

  Jesuíno looked at the wound in Ticuca’s left thigh. Flowing blood was mixing with dust.

  “Get up, you!”

  Ticuca continued to loll on the ground. Jesuíno tapped him with his boot, then kicked him. He pointed his pistol.

  “Let’s go!”

  Ticuca roused himself.

  “When a guy tries to flee, you know what the fix is? We string him up.”

  Jesuíno got into the car, slammed the door, and adjusted the rearview mirror. He put it in first and the truck moved forward, dealing Ticuca a sharp jolt. He tried to get his balance, grabbing the rope with both hands, his legs moving as fast as they could, his feet tripping over potholes. Jesuíno took care not to speed up too much. He continued in first so that Ticuca could maintain pace. He didn’t want to eliminate him there, in that remote part of the land. The ideal was to drag him back to the storage depot and from there bring him back to the plantation bunkhouse. Colonel Barros had to talk with the man, hear out his story, and decide what to do with him. He glanced out the rearview mirror; the ruffian was bumping along, raising dust. The sun was beginning to get hot. Ticuca howled with despair and rage:

  “Finish me off! Finish me off!”

  At that moment Jesuíno accelerated a bit more. The cord tightened and Ticuca was dragged like an effigy to the site of its burning.

  Shortly after the macaw palms and the stream, he encountered his partners. Zé Anta had a staff in hand. Ticuca had had a bath in the stream, slid along the ground, and got up again, so he was now dirtier than ever. Zé Anta came up to him and gave him a kick.

  “Trying to put one over on us, you miserable scum!”

  The men got into the car.

  “What if the dog conks out on the road?” asked Biguá.

  “Nothing doing. I’m watching in the rearview mirror. A ways ahead I’ll pull the rope tight so he can sample the black dirt.”

  Everybody laughed except Azulão.

  Jesuíno accelerated to ten miles per hour. The men looked back to see Ticuca running as fast as he could, grimacing, his mouth agape. The only one who didn’t get a charge out of it was Azulão. Jesuíno accompanied Ticuca’s torment via the rearview mirror. The gangster bounced over the soil and the brush like a plastic doll. Suddenly he couldn’t tolerate the speed any more; he stumbled, rocking from one side to another, not wanting to fall, his eyes wild, knowing he must not fall; his will was to stay afoot, keep running, but his exhaustion was draining his body, the clarity of day fading. Inside the car Biguá and Zé Anta were enjoying themselves. Ticuca was being dragged. This area featured thin, low vegetation. Jesuíno slowed down. They were arriving back at the Dodge van, door ajar, Beto splayed out, blood on his chest beginning to dry, ants scurrying over him, the morning sun shining on his young face.

  The truck stopped. Jesuíno and his companions began to get out. Before they could approach him, Ticuca marshaled his strength to try to get up, and succeeded. On his feet, he was the very image of defeat: torn clothes, hair filled with dust, face lacerated, the blood flowing. Zé Anta grabbed the rope and began to pull it, jerking it. Ticuca responded by trying to keep his balance and not fall.

  “Why not kill the poor guy now?” asked Azulão.

  “I know when things need to be done,” Jesuíno answered evenly. “Right now he’s getting the kid-glove treatment. If he doesn’t tell us why he got rid of Beto, he’ll be in for it.”

  “What the hell business is it of yours, Azulão?” demanded Zé Anta aggressively. “As far as I’m concerned, this guy’s dead meat. I’d open him up with a couple of machete blows.”

  “I speak when I think it’s time to, Zé Anta. Nobody tells me what to do,” said Azulão boldly.

  “Calm down, guys. We didn’t come here to fight,” Jesuíno reminded them.

  At that moment the foreman grabbed Beto’s body by one arm; Zé Anta took the other. Biguá got inside the van and helped, his hands and pants cuffs becoming bloodstained. He tried to clean himself off with some rags. Zé Anta grabbed the cord to which Ticuca was still tied.

  “Let’s go, dog!”

  He pulled Ticuca toward him and tied the rope to a strut inside the van. Ticuca remained on his feet, almost hanging from the beam. Jesuíno grabbed the gangster by his dust-filled hair and pulled his head back.

  “Were you crazy or something, getting rid of Beto?”

  Ticuca had one eye open, the other almost shut; blood flowed from his wounds. He seemed disinclined to talk. Zé Anta stepped heavily on his toes.

  “Can’t you hear?”

  “He let the journalist get away.”

  “And you, son of a bitch, where were you when this was going on?”

  Ticuca decided to remain sile
nt. Zé Anta stepped on his toes again. Biguá poked at his chest wound with a stick, but the gangster didn’t move. Jesuíno understood that they would have to either kill him or bring him to the colonel. But in that state, it would be a problem. For some time now Colonel Barros had liked to say the political situation was changing; they would have to act with more authority and less perversity. Jesuíno himself couldn’t understand him. Just a year before Colonel Barros had held a meeting at which he demanded his men be aggressive. They were to act like “mad dogs”; that had been his expression. Now he was suggesting they let up. What could he possibly mean? And when he fell, ambushed by a half-dozen peasants, would he die all alone by the stick and the knife? He couldn’t follow the colonel’s reasoning. But the best thing to do now would be to get water, throw it on Ticuca, and bring him to the bunkhouse.

  Zé Anta got into the truck and pulled Ticuca by the rope as one would lead an ox. Blood dripped on the car and the ground. Ticuca was vanquished; he did not react. He confined himself to grimacing and gritting his teeth. Zé Anta tied him up thoroughly, wrapping the rope around the exposed interior frame sections. That’s what he should have done with the journalist, he thought as he tightened more and more the knots around Ticuca’s arms and legs.

  He got into the Dodge, where Biguá was behind the wheel. Jesuíno and Azulão went in the truck with its crumpled body panels. Both vehicles got in gear, causing a miniature dust storm. Biguá strained not to lose visibility. Zé Anta looked at Azulão’s robust figure.

  “One day I’m going to peg that half-breed.”

  “What half-breed?”

  “Azulão. He looks at people like he’s some big know-it-all.”

  “He’s strong. Did you see what he did to those guys at the fair?”

  “He don’t scare me, boy. My fish knife’s already made mincemeat outta lots of tough guys.”

  Biguá decided to be quiet. He knew how much Zé Anta disliked Azulão.

  “Know when it’s gonna be?” asked Zé Anta suddenly. “Sunday, at the Sapé fair. With lots of witnesses.”

  “I wanna be in on it.”

  “Then go get your suit cleaned and have your shoes shined.”

  The car drove into the depot. Jesuíno jumped out quickly.

  “Let’s give Ticuca a shower.”

  “This Indian-face is a goner,” joked Zé Anta, tapping Ticuca’s disfigured face with the toe of his boot.

  Biguá showed up with a can of water. Blood and dirt filled Ticuca’s hair; his eyes were red slits.

  “Give me that water can, you idiot!” yelled Zé Anta. “This jerk needs to get the dust off his hide.”

  So saying, he threw the water all at once on Ticuca, who shivered. Biguá came back with another.

  Near the Dodge and the truck, the men conferred. Jesuíno said something sotto voce to Azulão, who limited himself to eyeing him and shaking his head.

  “We’ve gotta find the journalist.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “I don’t know either. But he’s gotta look different from boys around here, I’m sure. He’s got book learnin’.

  “How long do I have to find him?”

  “Whatever you need. Don’t forget, the guy can’t be dead, not even worked over. He’s from the big city; he’s in thick with some newspaper they sell everywhere. The colonel doesn’t want all sorts of trouble out of state. Got it?”

  Azulão shook his head again, affirmatively. He didn’t appear excited about his mission. He would do his duty.

  As Zé Anta was getting another can of water to throw on Ticuca, he noticed the foreman’s conversation. He didn’t like it one bit. But how to complain? The job of finding Elias belonged to him. But he’d have an opportunity to take it up with Colonel Barros. Why was Jesuíno doing what he was doing, anyway? He approached Ticuca with the can and poured its contents on him, stepping on his face with his boot. He shook himself, drops of water gleaming in the sun, his bruises becoming more evident. His swelling was getting worse; his mouth and his left eye were growing enormous. Zé Anta got out of the truck in one leap.

  “Ready, boss. This dogie’s hide is spic-’n-span!”

  “Let’s get back to the plantation. Biguá, you drive the Dodge.”

  The vehicles took off. Azulão remained behind near Beto’s young body, which lay by the side of a manacá bush whose huge leaves gleamed with as much water as Zé Anta had tossed on Ticuca. Azulão looked at the drops, considered Beto’s fate. He took off his leather hat and offered a silent prayer. He said those ecclesiastical things his mother had taught him. Then he picked up a shovel with the rawhide-topped sandal he was wearing and began to dig. He kept his shirt of rough-hewn cloth on the whole time he dug, put his hat on again, and lowered the brim. He thought about Zé Anta’s crude behavior and his hate-filled stares, and felt like laughing. But that wasn’t his style. This was a land of tears and suffering. Laughter was a privilege for children only.

  He dragged Beto’s body onto a plank, tied it at both ends with some old pieces of rope, and grabbed the ends in his large, strong hands. He lowered the corpse bit by bit. When it reached bottom, Azulão picked a manacá flower and tossed it onto the dead man. He cleaned his face with a towel he’d brought in his knapsack, and shoveled dirt into the grave. The work was done in minutes. He had lost track of how many sepulchers he’d dug and filled in. The first was of his oldest son; next, his youngest brother; thereafter his wife and his son a few months old. The yard of the hovel in which he lived was filled with tombs. When he’d open the window, he’d see the crosses, overgrown with vines and tall grass. At first he’d trim it; later he let it go. Why not imagine his family turning into shrubbery that would yield flowers? The same would happen to Beto. The bad acts he’d committed would end with his death; Beto would be transformed. He, Azulão, was not finished. He had a lot to do yet. A lot of bitterness to reap. He would look for the journalist; one day he would confront Zé Anta. He took off his shirt, hung it on a branch, and washed himself off. He filled his cupped hands with water, which ran down his torso and into his pants. This did not bother him; he knew how to take advantage of the good moments nature offered. This was one of them: the silence, the chirping of a nearby vem-vem bird, the sun highlighting the leaves, and he with a mission to accomplish in those remote parts, in search of a young man he’d never seen. An opportunity to keep himself in Colonel Barros’s employ and away from types like Zé Anta. He put his shirt on again and felt rested. Putting on his knapsack, he adjusted the strap on his leather hat. In the valley of the macaw palms there were a few small cottages, in which lived three or four peasant families who insisted on staying put. He would begin there. After all, what direction would a Christian man take in such rugged country, except toward a house? The youngster was a city boy; he knew about reading, practiced the profession of journalism, and had influential friends who could prejudice Colonel Barros. Azulão continued along under the hot late-morning sun, in no hurry to get where he was going. He didn’t get excited. Sometimes his own indifference when faced with facts worried him. Was it a sickness? Since his brother’s illness and the death of his youngest son, he had become a wooden trunk that would neither rot nor grow branches. From a distance, he turned to the old shed where Beto now lay buried, waving his hand in a meaningless goodbye—the goodbye of one used to passing forlorn way stations along the road of solitude.

  Chapter 8

  Crowing roosters heralded the approaching dawn. Near a barbed-wire fence, festooned with light green cane leaves, lay some plastic fertilizer bags. I tore open one of the bags on the barbed wire and wrapped it around me. The little wounds on my feet and legs weren’t a problem. More important was the need to cover up and get to the shack I saw among some mango trees, doors and windows closed, where I could hear a woman’s controlled crying amid anguished, soft-spoken murmurings.

  The door opened and a thin young man emerged, knelt on the landing, and rested his head on his arms. The woman’s wailing grew loud
er. I drew near.

  “What happened?”

  “My daughter’s dying.”

  I went into the shack, whose interior was lit with lanterns. On a bed made of wooden rods and a thatched mattress lay a flushed girl at most three years old. Her mother, at her side, seemed to be in despair, watching the girl wrestle herself in a series of spasms.

  “Bring cold water, quickly!”

  The woman reappeared with a small aluminum basin, in which I put the girl, slapping her and opening her mouth. She began to howl and shake. The woman accompanied my movements as if I were a magician.

  “Take her outside. She needs fresh air.”

  Clutching her daughter, the woman ran out to the porch. The girl continued to cry but, bit by bit, was regaining her normal color, the reddishness of her hands and feet fading. The father was overjoyed.

  “Jeruza! Jeruza!”

  Later, when the little girl had begun to walk about, I remained seated on a crude bench alongside a small, rickety table. Facing me were the peasant and his wife, who were serving couscous and coffee.

  “Where are you from, sir? Why are you injured?” asked the peasant, who said his name was Luís.

  “I was attacked by some guys in a van.”

  “You’re not from around here, eh?”

  “I’m from Rio de Janeiro. I came to Sapé because of my work.”

  The woman reappeared with a clean, ironed pair of pants, and a folded shirt.

  “I think they’ll fit you, sir.”

  “Make yourself at home,” said the peasant.

  I took the clothing into the tiny bedroom and reemerged fully dressed. Luís found a pair of slippers he’d kept for a rainy day and gave them to me.

  I sat down again at the table and had coffee with couscous.

  “You could come back some day and be Jeruza’s godfather,” suggested the mother.

  “She’d’ve died if it hadn’t been for you,” said Luís. “She turned ill about 4:30 this morning.”