Celso packed his few belongings and, one morning at three o’clock, he was again on the road to Jovel.
Arriving in town, he bought five centavos worth of raw tobacco leaves in a store at the Zócalo. His mother had staked him to a tostón, that is, half a peso, for his trip to town. Now he was sitting on the curb outside the store, rolling himself some cigars.
Inside the store a caballero was discussing with the storekeeper the possibilities of sending a thick envelope with documents and letters to the montería Agua Azul. For several days he had been looking for arrieros who might be going that way. The arrieros were the mule drivers who led pack trains to the faraway districts of the state where there were no roads for vehicles. As it turned out there were no arrieros right now taking a caravan to Agua Azul or a camp nearby. Perhaps in two or three months, when the Turk would take his merchandise to the monterías, there might be a chance to deliver the envelope. But most certainly it would not be today or within the next two or three weeks.
The caballero needed someone very urgently to take the important documents to that montería. But no messenger would go alone. Everyone was afraid of the long march through the jungle, which would take at least ten days, to which the trip back had to be added. From Jovel to the last village before entering the jungle it was six days. Counting the necessary rest days, the round trip would require some forty days of the bearer’s time. Naturally he would ask to be paid for forty days. This had to be increased by the hire of his horse and the pack mule to carry the provisions needed for the trip. Occasionally the mule was interchanged for the horse, so as not to wear out the animals. A horse or a mule that gets too tired in the jungle simply lies down, refuses to eat and may easily die of despair. Besides, being afraid to go alone, whoever went demanded a companion. Such a demand was not unreasonable. But that boy, too, had to have a horse and had to be paid for forty days.
Simply to stick a ten-centavo stamp on the letter, throw it into the nearest letter box, and then run away would not have helped the caballero much. The letter would have been returned to him with the note “No hay correos,” that is, “No postal communications.”
“Listen, Don Apolinar,” the storekeeper said. “Why don’t you send the letter with a Chamula Indian? They don’t need horses. They run like the devil after a soul. Once they are on the run, two horses won’t catch them.”
“Now, there’s an idea worth considering,” said Don Apolinar.
“Nothing to consider,” replied the storekeeper. “Just ask that Chamula over there, sitting on the curb and rolling his cigars. I can vouch for him. I know him and his father. He is from Ishtacolcot.”
Originally Celso, like all of his tribe, had only spoken Tsotsil, his mother tongue. But even before going to work at the coffee fincas, he had begun to learn Spanish while working for some months in the sawmill of Don Prisciliano for two reales, twenty-five centavos a day. In the coffee fincas, where he met so many workers speaking four different Indian languages that Spanish was a necessity for them to understand one another, he had perfected himself in this language as much as it was possible for an Indian who had never gone to school.
He heard what the two ladinos were saying, but pretended not to understand Spanish in order to learn exactly what was being discussed, since he had been mentioned.
An Indian who lives in his pueblo is generally slow in understanding such things and even slower in grasping an opportunity to derive some advantage for himself. Yet because of his working at the coffee fincas, where he met not only pure Indians, but also the slimy, shrewd and oily scum of the cities who frequently went to work at the faraway coffee plantations for no other reason than to hide away from the police for a while, Celso had begun to shake off the clumsiness of his thinking process. However, he had not yet succeeded in getting rid of it completely, otherwise he would not have stumbled into Don Sixto’s trap so easily, but would have tried to defend himself and waited to see whether he would really be sent to jail if he did not pay Don Sixto. Being afraid of jail was one of the complexes which he had not been able to get rid of. He had seen too often how quickly, and without any real cause, innocent Indians were picked up, dragged to jail and from there driven to road building with no pay.
But what little he had learned at the coffee plantations in the way of seeking an advantage for himself in a given situation now came in very handy.
Without that experience he probably would have jumped up and humbly offered Don Apolinar his services to take the letter to Agua Azul. But he remained sitting, because he had learned that a man who offers himself is worth only half as much as one who is being sought.
Calmly he continued sitting on the curb, slowly and with great care rolling his cigars. And since he acted so innocently the two caballeros discussed the wage for the carrier without restraint.
“Do you think that stinker would do it for two reales a day?” asked Don Apolinar.
“He can do it in thirty days and that would be—let’s see-sixty reales, well, seven pesos and fifty centavos,” replied the merchant.
“Hey, listen, you, Chamula!” shouted Don Apolinar.
Celso got up. He came with the shy and fearful gesture of the simple Indian who is unexpectedly called by a ladino and who does not know what to expect, whether a kick in the behind, or jail, or a cigarette or a glass of aguardiente, or some unpaid service, or showing his vaccination marks, or giving his name or information about how many sheep he keeps at home.
However, for the first time in his life, Celso acted with well-studied hypocrisy. Faked was the fearful and shy gesture with which he approached Don Apolinar. He was aware that neither the chief of police, nor the jefe político nor even the governor himself had anything to say in this deal. Any authority could command him to take the envelope to the montería without any payment whatsoever, even without compensation for his food. But if it was stolen from him while he was asleep, or if the envelope unwound accidentally from his woolen sash and got lost in the jungle, or if it dissolved into pulp while he was swimming through a river, not even the death penalty for him could replace the important documents and bank notes. And since the possibilities of losing the envelope or of its turning into pulp because of constant rain were so numerous, nobody could prove whether he had or had not handled it with due care or perhaps lost it intentionally to revenge himself for the unpaid labor forced upon him.
This envelope with its very important documents was a highly confidential matter which could only be handled voluntarily and in good faith to please the man interested in the safe arrival of the letter. He, therefore, feigned a shy gesture so as not to give away the fact that, in this case, he was looking out for his own advantage.
While sitting on the curb listening to them talk about the envelope and of the difficulties of its transportation, he had begun, without any outward sign, to muse over a plan. And a minute later he knew that taking this important letter to the montería was a stroke of luck which had fallen upon him in his present situation.
His first intention had been to return to a coffee finca, although he was fed up with the work and would have liked to find something else. But when he learned that there were no recruiting agents in town and that no demand for labor at the cafetales existed, he began to think of the monterías as the only remaining solution. It was very hard work, work that could be called murderous. But he was not afraid of hard work. What he wanted was to avoid the high expenses connected with obtaining work in a montería. The agents demanded between twenty-five and fifty pesos commission for recruiting. The labor contract stipulated another twenty-five pesos tax to be paid to the mayor in Hucutsin. The march, or rather the food consumed on the march, was on his own account. All this amounted to more than three months’ wages, solely as expenses for the right to work.
And now, while he was meditating about his desperate situation, the envelope fell right into his lap. The march would be paid for. He would get to a montería. There was a perpetual and steady demand for workers in the monterías. He would not pay any commission to an agent, nor would he have to pay twenty-five pesos tax in Hucutsin. He would work in the montería without a contract and so be free to leave when he wanted to and when he thought that he had earned the money needed for his marriage.