An Orphan’s Fate

Rosa’s fate was an orphan’s fate too: he left his mother’s house with his face streaming with blood. He didn’t want to abandon her but he realised that his stepfather would end up killing him the next time they had a run-in. So the young gaucho left home with nothing for company but his knife and Bizco, his young horse. He thinks he wandered for days: he doesn’t remember much, his face throbbed, flies were buzzing round his wound and he was blinded by the fierce Corrientes sun. He fainted. How or why he has no idea, but his horse didn’t head for home; instead it carried on slowly, perhaps aware of its fragile load, until it reached an estancia. He was found by some gauchos, who took him in, and an old woman cured his wound with herbs, poultices and words he’s since forgotten. Once he could speak, he told her all his misfortunes and the old woman took pity on him, made space for him in her hovel, gave him an animal hide to lie on, and allowed him to bed down by the fire. The old woman lived alone; her husband had died and her son had gone off with the militia. She eked out a living by growing squashes and manioc, helped by the charity of the foreman. Her luck turned with Rosa; although he was still just a boy, he was already skilled at horse-taming and he began working with the stock. They were already giving him the wildest horses to break in before he’d even got hairs on his chin. Rosa never beat the horses, he talked to them, stroking their necks. ‘I had my own tech-nique’, he said, savouring the word as though it was a delicacy; he’d had a bit of trouble learning it and he pronounced it like someone presenting a golden cigar box, or a costly precious jewel, some kind of crown. The gauchos had been amazed by his technique, they thought that Rosa was casting spells on the horses and when they got very drunk they started pestering him. They asked him to teach them; they wouldn’t believe it was just a matter of talking slowly and putting an arm round the horse’s neck. They threatened to chuck him into the corral with all the most dangerous bulls to see if he could make them sweet-tempered too, and none of his explanations would satisfy them. They couldn’t believe he’d got a tech-nique that anyone could use, Rosa told us. By then he had a girlfriend, María the little china was called, she had the longest plaits of anyone in the huts, she fried little pancakes, spoke softly to him, could tell stories, and liked going with him to the marshes. Rosa had made a raft to row among the water hyacinths, and they played around poking caimans in the mouth with sticks. Long sticks, of course, from a distance, and it wasn’t a game they played often. It was quite a sight to see a caiman swallowing an unwary heron in one gulp, and they could easily flip the raft over if they felt like it. But they didn’t. He and María went to the islands on their raft and it was all laughter and kissing. He had his love, he had the old woman who he was very fond of, he had his little horse Bizco, who only he could ride. And he planned to go home to his mother some day and free her from that bastard of a gaucho. At this point in the story, the owner returned. He was old with a long yellowing beard, he looked like the sun and he was a good man. He paid their over-due wages, gave them half a cow to roast and chocolate to drink, he struck up on his guitar, and there was dancing; everyone there – boys, girls, parrots, macaws, cows, horses, toads, lapwings and crickets – all shouted three cheers for the boss! He brought his son along, the young master, who was also fair-haired and seemed delicate; he wore glasses and although you never saw a gaucho with glasses, his father wanted to make a man of him. The cattle herders took him out with them: they taught him to swing the bolas, to use a lasso, to hunt, to cross rivers on horseback, to keep going in the rain, to endure the sun and to fight. He always won, because they let him. The old boss liked Rosa’s way of working with the horses because he didn’t hurt them; ‘you’ve got a technique’, he said and that’s how Rosa learnt to name his talent, ‘teach it to my son’. Rosa showed him, but soon realised that the blond boy couldn’t do it, however hard Rosa tried; he couldn’t learn, so Rosa spent his nights taming the wild horses and the other boy was happy in the morning, priding himself on having a technique of his own. The boy asked Rosa to take him out on the raft. Rosa warned him about the caimans but the young master said no problem, took two pistols along and they came back dragging two huge creatures behind them, roasted them on a spit, and they were great. He brought wine and they drank it, ending up arm in arm like the best of friends, and from then on they galloped together all over his father’s land. The young master always had to come first and as long as he did, peace reigned. One afternoon, having downed a fair amount of caña, he got it into his head that he wanted to ride Bizco. Rosa said no, explaining that only he could mount Bizco; Bizco was his horse, Bizco had saved his life and he loved him, Bizco was all that he had left to him from his mother. The blond boy said that if an orphan could ride Bizco, he could too. He mounted: Rosa spoke softly into the horse’s ear, persuading him not to resist. The horse walked on, and things seemed to be going smoothly until the blond boy started cracking the whip. Bizco whinnied, reared up like a demon and threw him off. Rosa went running to pick him up; the horse was still quite close by, so the young master got back on and really laid into him with the whip. Bizco threw him off again, the young master got to his feet, grabbed the reins, drew his knife and slashed the horse’s throat. Rosa could still remember the horse’s eyes, how the poor beast looked pleadingly at him when it was already too late, and Rosa flew at the young master and beat him to a pulp. The bastard cried like a girl, the other gauchos came to rescue him and set upon Rosa, who came round to find himself bound hand and foot to four stakes in the ground. The young master came along presently and stood over him, ‘so you thought you could beat me up, you fucking Indian?’ and he took out his prick and pissed on him. The other gauchos laughed half-heartedly, like when they let him win. At night they took pity on Rosa, and when it was pitch black they freed him. He took the best horse and made his escape. He hid in dense scrub, his body aching from the stakes. They came searching for him, but since the young master was the only one who really wanted to find him, he stayed hidden till they forgot all about it or gave him up for lost. Rosa lay in wait for him, and as soon as he galloped past alone, Rosa attacked him. ‘We fell to the ground. He took his pistol out and shot at me. He got me, but I could still use my knife. I stuck it in him. I caught him in the shoulder, then pulled it out and gave him a new smile across his neck. I left him where he lay, spat on him and pissed on him. Then I galloped off.’ Once again alone and wounded, with nothing but his horse and his knife, he set off on his way, only this time in the opposite direction: Rosa was headed home. His dear mother began crying the minute she set eyes on him, begging him to leave, and his brothers and sisters cried too for fear of their stepfather’s fury. Rosa ordered them to get outside and hide behind the trees. His mother pleaded with him not to do anything, said things weren’t so terrible, and who would feed them all, and that she was worried that he, her dear son, would get killed. Rosa didn’t listen. He sat himself down in the shack with his mother’s pot of stew bubbling away. His stepfather came in, asked ‘Where is everyone? What are you doing here you Guaraní piece of shit? What do you want? I’m looking for you, you Indian bastard.’ ‘Me, an Indian?’ exclaimed the older man taking his knife out, ‘draw your knife and we’ll see who’s boss.’ Rosa drew his knife, they circled around the pot, facing each other. The old man struck at Rosa’s chest: Rosa dodged the blade and pushed the old man over. Then Rosa jumped on him, hauled him over, sat on his backside as if he was riding him, grabbed his hair and shouted you bastard, you beat my mother, you cut my face, and you hurt my brothers and sisters, and he slashed the man’s throat from top to bottom. He felt the man die, felt every last shudder of life ebbing out of that hateful body, which gradually slackened as the blood soaked away into the animal hide beneath. Rosa got to his feet and dragged the body outside, took out the hide to cover it up, shouted to his mother to come inside and feed his siblings, then dragged the old man’s body about a league into the marshland and threw him close to four caimans. He saw the animals rouse themselves from their lethargy and creep slowly forwards, knowing their prey wouldn’t run away. They ate the body. Rosa went back home, bid farewell to his mother, told his next oldest brother that it was his turn to be the man of the house, and rode off like someone whose lifeblood is draining away: he left never to return.