His uncle’s tenacity surprised Istak no end, but he knew also that he would have done this for Dalin if she were still the same unfeeling creature she had been in the beginning.
Just the two of them, Blas with big, handsome words rolling out of his mouth without effort, and Istak full of questions. It was one of those early evenings when the meal was done, the animals fed and safely herded, and the women had long since extinguished the cooking fires.
“I have known how it is to snatch a field from the forest,” Blas said quietly. They had left the riverbed and were up the brow of a hill beyond which the narrow plain would unroll again. “That was what surrounded Candon when I first went there. It was hard work which drained the body of its juices and numbed the mind to dreams. Dreams that what we had carved out of the wilderness would be ours—but it would not be. Always, wherever we, the little people, will go, there will be those with more strength than us who will wrest away what we thought was our own.”
“And you are willing to go with us and suffer the same fate?”
“My son,” Blas said, spitting out the wad of tobacco he had been chewing, and turning to his nephew with melancholy in his eyes, “this is the relentless destiny of the poor.”
“And you will go with us all the way to the valley?”
“We will journey with you to the farthest corner of the earth,” Blas said, lifting his eyes to the grandeur of a full moon. “We have relatives now, people we know who will make our suffering endurable.”
It did not matter then that they were his father’s mere second cousins, capidua, as they were called, and perhaps it was just as well. For if they were first cousins, it would not have been possible to even think that in the certitude of the valley, in some future time, Blas’s elder daughter, Leonora, also known as Orang, could be the wife of An-no, and that his younger daughter, Sabel, could be Bit-tik’s.
CHAPTER
6
By the end of the second week, they were close to the mountains again, and the forest was now encroaching like a green flood upon the sliver of plain. Dalin had never traveled this far from the coastal road and all she knew was that they were now close to the land of the Bagos.
In a few more days, moving slowly as they did, they would come to where the divide would widen and become another plain. In so short a time, the three families who had joined them were no longer strangers—their faces took on names, particularly Orang and Sabel, who were often with An-no and Bit-tik. Istak was glad. Perhaps Dalin would now be banished from An-no’s attention.
Istak desired her, as he once had desired Carmencita, although he had tried to subdue that longing, denied it to himself as something beyond fulfillment. But not with Dalin, who was with him every day, speaking with him, touching him. The wound was healed now, the pain completely gone, but at times there was some numbness in his arm, which he still could not move freely.
If Dalin had an inkling of how much Istak wanted her, she did not show it. There was the day’s work, the gathering of grass for the bull, the preparation of food or the search for it—green papayas, wild bananas, and the edible leaves of trees.
They had stopped for the day, and the men had cleared the crest of a hill on which stood a giant tree. They were at the edge of the forest and to their right the land undulated in a series of low hills into the sea.
The women were cooking within the semicircle of the carts which had been unhitched around the tree and the men had returned from the shallow creek at the bottom of the hill where they had bathed the carabaos. The dogs, with their snouts encased in woven rattan so that they would not be able to bark, were leashed to the carts.
Istak had ventured down the hill, the afternoon sun warm on his face, and he had returned, worried. “There is not a single house nearby,” he told Dalin quietly, not wanting her to be more apprehensive than she already was.
He wondered how really safe they were, and if the uncles who joined them knew how well the Bagos tracked their prey. The Bagos came to Cabugaw in the dry season with their cargo of baskets and colorfully woven cloth. They exchanged these for rice and a pack of scrawny dogs, which they then tied to a leash, the rope extending to the animal’s necks through a small hollow bamboo, so that they would not get entangled. Their approach was always announced by the yammering of the dogs as they marched down the dusty streets.
Padre Jose allowed them to leave their dogs in the churchyard and to sleep under the acacia trees. He even gave them rice for their meals and galletas to cat with their coffee. They spoke Ilokano, of course, but Padre Jose chose to speak to them in their own language, which he had learned tediously through the years.
Istak had gone up to their villages for the first time when he was a boy. They had crossed over Mount Tirad, Padre Jose on a horse and he walking behind or leading the two other pack-horses. He had always regarded the Bagos as ferocious savages who chopped off the heads of their enemies and stuck them on the eaves of their houses. This was true, Padre Jose had said, but we are not their enemies—we are their friends, and we are bringing God to them.
Istak now wondered how they could defend themselves should the Bagos decide to attack.
“While you were ill, that is what they made,” Dalin said. On the cart beside her lay two coconut bowls filled with very fine sand and salt. Thrown at the eyes of an intruder, the mixture could blind him for a while. From the side of the cart she picked up a bamboo pole which he had not noticed—there were four of them there. It was sharp, the point tempered and hardened in the fire. One had a spearhead—a knife that his mother used in the kitchen, thrust into the hollow of the bamboo, then woven neatly into place with rattan as only his brothers could do so that it was secure and would not be dislodged if it was thrown.
“They have made bows and arrows, too,” Dalin said.
These were not allowed by the Guardia Civil—such weapons were confiscated, and depending on the mood of the Guardia at the time, the offenders were taken to prison or simply lashed.
Istak was still weak; so this is how one returns from the river from which usually there is no return. He could move his hand and he prayed that soon he would be able to move his arm at will. Would he end up like his father, who sat in a corner silently cursing the powerful men who had condemned him to a life that was maimed? More than ever he understood now how it was to have but one arm, not just the physical loss, but something deeper and more disturbing.
The shade of the great narra tree was cool. The white plumes of grass around the carts waved in the breeze. It was he who first saw beyond the curtain of grass that the caravan had been surrounded. The young boys who were their lookouts did not have his eyes. He saw them moving quietly beyond the grass, the brief glint of a battle-ax in the morning sun alerting him. He shouted the warning: “Bagos—we are surrounded!”
The men stood transfixed for a moment, then rushed to their carts. The children clung to the skirts of their mothers. The men crouched behind the carts holding on to their bolos and the stakes they had shaped from bamboo.
The lookouts had seen the Bagos and they rushed to the dubious protection of the carts huddled together, their faces pale with fear.
A voice from beyond the grass boomed. Although it was in Ilokano, from the intonation Istak was now sure that the warriors waiting there were Bagos.
“O countrymen, why did you trespass into our land? Did you not see the signs? Can you not read them? We do not enter your towns without asking your honorable permission. Why do you not respect us the way we respect you?”
Ba-ac shouted back. “Brothers—we did not see your signs. Forgive us. We did not use the road below and you have been here for a long time so you know the reason why. Permit us, brothers, to stay here till dark because we travel at night. We fear not just the Guardia who still steal our rice, but also the bandits who trouble defenseless farmers like us. We left the farms we were born on, brothers, because we were driven away. No one pities the poor. We beg your pity, your forgiveness …”
“Brothers—will you forgive us? We will give you tobacco, rice, for having trespassed into your honorable country …” Baac shouted again. Still no reply.
Then Istak saw from beyond the tall grass a wisp of gray rising. Smoke! The Bagos were burning the dry grass. They would roast alive on the crest of this hill even if they had made a clearing around them.
“Fire, Father! They are burning the grass!” he shouted. His voice could carry only so far but Ba-ac and the others had already seen the smoke. The fire leaped now in crackling flames, kindling the dry grass as if it were paper. They hurriedly hitched the carts, the children screaming, the women rushing them into the carts even before they were hitched, scooping up their pots, everything, urging, shouting.
“To the sea,” Ba-ac shouted, “Keep inside. Do not show yourselves. Lie down on the floor,” he kept screaming at everyone, then they rushed down the hill through a chasm in the wall of fire, and when they passed through, it seemed the fire was eating into their lungs and they could not breathe, but the animals surged on blindly. They had just cleared the swath of fire when spears rained on them, some striking the hapless animals, some thudding on the woodwork and going through the roof. There were screams in the other carts. “God—they will kill all of us,” Istak said, as a spear dug into the side where Dalin was crouched. It quivered, then was still. A little lower and Dalin would have been hit. The carts raced onward through a narrow valley.
“Do not stop!” Ba-ac shouted. The spears no longer fell but still the carts raced, the carabaos straining. Panting, angry, and afraid, Ba-ac, who was in the lead, finally stopped. They were at the end of the narrow valley which formed a gully to the plain. The hills had dropped behind them.
They gathered the carts again. They were all there—ten of them. The men poured out with spears and their bolos. They would fight here, on level ground, where they could see the Bagos from where they might emerge. The tufts of grass were sparse and not as tall as the grass on the hill.
From one of the carts a wailing erupted. Dalin went to it. When she returned, she told Istak simply. “It is the boy—the youngest—of your aunt Simang. He is dead, a spear through his neck. She told him to lie down but he stuck his head out because he wanted to see.”
They dug a hole in the center of the circle of carts and buried the boy there. Istak led the prayers and though not empowered to bless, he recited the prayer for the dead: Tibi Domine commendamus animam famuli tui …
But the Bagos did not pursue them. The family plucked a dozen spears from the sides of the carts, and from a carabao hit in the rump and bleeding.
“Now we have more weapons,” Ba-ac said.
They did not tarry. For as long as they were on the fringes of the land of the Bagos, they would have to travel in the daytime and risk whatever attack might come rather than be ambushed at night or lulled into the kind of trap they had just escaped.
Dalin pointed to the mountain ahead that dropped into the sea. “Beyond that,” she said, “is Pangasinan. And a week beyond that mountain, we will cross another range. Then it will be the valley.”
Destiny was near, to be reached in one leap or by stretching out a hand. Dalin tried to ease Istak’s mind. There were still forests to pierce and rivers to cross, and death could still lurk behind each shrub, each tree.
An-no’s aloofness and silence bothered Istak. Dalin made it all too clear, like daylight upon the plain, that she preferred Istak. How could he tell his brother that he did not plan this, that it had happened as so many inexplicable things do, because he had stayed behind in Po-on to bear whatever punishment the Spaniards would mete out? Perhaps, since Istak had climbed out of the grave, An-no had controlled his passion and given up his claim as well. Blood, after all, should be thicker than water.
There were times when he envied his younger brother, taller and stronger of build. He wanted An-no to be happy. He could give up Dalin; she was not his property, he had no claim on her. In fact, it was he who must now serve her the rest of his life; he owed her a debt which could never be repaid.
When the caravan had paused for the night and the dogs had quieted down and the children had been put to bed, he would lie awake, listening to her breathing. The silence was always thick—a steady ringing silence as if his ears were hollow and he could clearly hear the whirr of insects, the distant sounds of night. He would turn onto his side and touch her breast, worrying lest he disturb her, for she needed sleep. Sometimes she turned to him, her breath smelling of life and sun warm upon his face. She did not smoke or chew betel nut like the other women. Always she was scrubbing her teeth with twigs crushed into a brush. She was clean and not at all what the men had expected of the girls from Pangasinan. He suspected that she wanted to be touched, but she always said, “Not yet, not yet. You are not ready yet.”
And once, when he was very insistent, she said, “I don’t want you to strain yourself. If you persist, I will sleep outside.”
She was right; there was enough time in the coming days. He could wait. He prayed that the way to the new land would not be difficult. It should not be, not only because Dalin knew the way, but also because she was beside him. In the late afternoon, the clouds boiled in the horizon, then pushed up and hid the sun. The land smelled of heat and dead leaves. April was ending. Soon it would be May, and with it, the rains.
Istak was finally almost completely well; he could climb out of the cart and walk about. But his pallor was the continuing object of curiosity and pity. His hair had thinned and it seemed as if he had been ravaged by those dreaded diseases—typhoid and tuberculosis—which had afflicted so many in Cabugaw, their spittle scattered in the churchyard to be avoided and swept over with dirt.
Again, they traveled by night. To use the road, they would have to circle around the towns where the Guardia would be.
“We must change our names now, Father,” Istak said. “If they ask where we come from, we must be truthful and say we come from Cabugaw. And our names will begin with S just the same. They can’t know all the barrios there, so we won’t say we came from Po-on …”
Ba-ac was seated on the side of the cart, his crumpled face somber in thought. His striped shirt, which Mayang had woven, had not been washed for days and was lined with dirt and sweat. They must stop by a stream soon, to wash and bathe.
“What should we call ourselves now?” Ba-ac asked sadly. “Salvador has always been our name. Yes, the Spaniards gave it to us, but we grew up with it.”
“To survive, Father, we have to change,” Istak said solemnly. He turned to his brothers, Bit-tik and An-no; they were talking with the daughters of Blas, who had joined them in Tagudin. Like his, their hair was long now and they needed a haircut. He remembered the stories of the Bible. “Samson, Father—it begins with S, too, but there is not a single Samson in the registry in Cabugaw—I know, because I wrote in it for the last five years every time there was a birth or a death.”
“And how about our cédulas?”
“We will throw them away—and we will say that they were burned in our house when we left. We will have new ones when we reach the valley, and we will have our new name on them …”
New land, new name. They had always been Ilokano, with all the faults, the vices, that had shaped them, the habits which the narrow and infertile plain had etched in them. This is the way you are, Padre Jose had told him, but you are also a loyal people who know how to return a trust, to stake your life for a friendship that had withstood storm, earthquake, and fire.
He had wanted to ask the old priest what precisely he had meant. Was this the hell he had been talking about? Why was it impossible for the three priests who were executed in Cavite to serve God as they saw fit? Was this the Guardia Civil marauding the countryside and forcing tribute from people who did not even have enough to eat? He was not going to live with the people in their wretched village
s—he was going to be a priest, and he would have a new name, just as the high and the mighty had new names, the Don, the gobernadorcillo, the Apo. He would not be just Eustaquio Salvador, the peasant from Po-on. He had suffered through Latin, gotten up every morning at five to clean the sacristy, to toll the bells. He was going to be near God, said Padre Jose, and to be so, he must have a good name. It is what one really owns in the end, a name. If it were silver, you would have to polish it every so often with deeds. Even in isolation, silver tarnishes. Look at the candelabra, the crucifix, the chalice—aren’t they streaked with tarnish if we don’t polish them? But someday an earthquake or some heavenly fire will destroy everything and ashes will be blown in the wind. What then? There are names which will live forever, and he had read them, in Latin, in Spanish. And would Eustaquio Salvador—or Samson—endure? Would he engrave his name on the land that he would clear, in the children he would sire?
As these thoughts came, the image of Dalin—her quiet face, her long tresses—swooped into his mind. He dreamed of that day in another country when he would finally be strong and able to clear and plant, and after the first harvest, he would ask her. His name would then be written down in the registry—Registro de Casamientos—as he himself had written so many times in Cabugaw. Now they flitted across his mind, the pages with carefully written names, among them, Salvador. His father knew his grandfather—but that was as far as Ba-ac could go. It was now too late, but he should have looked it up in the ledgers when he was still in Cabugaw—found out who they were, for there had been Salvadors in Po-on before them, and in that dim past, they must have suffered, too, as all Ilokanos had done. Why did they take punishment without question? Did they really believe that man was made to suffer so that he could receive the final reward that only God could bestow? Be patient, his mother had dinned into his cars. And be industrious. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. And the meek are many and nameless.
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