<
id="heading_id_52">The Rancher</
>
I
Filomeno Cuevas and Old China tied their horses up in front of a shack and pushed in under a flap of cloth. Other ranchers began to arrive in clusters, resplendent in their riding tackle and tall sombreros. They were the owners of neighboring farms, covert supporters of the revolutionary cause. Filomeno Cuevas had given the green light to meet. These associates had already smuggled him arms—a supply lay buried in Potrero Negrete—and there was urgent need to distribute the rifles and cartridge belts among his Indians. Gangers and overseers, Indian scouts and lariat throwers gradually rode in from their respective farms. Filomeno joked and humored everyone as he sized up the rally. He was, he said, in favor of riding into the bush right away. Secretly, he had already made the decision to hand out the rifles, which were hidden in the jungle, to the peons, but for now was careful to keep his plans to himself. The Creole ranchers argued heatedly and voiced their fears. They recognized their colleague’s determination and they would help him with horses, peons, and money, but they wanted to do it as stealthily as possible in case Tyrant Banderas should prevail. Dositeo Velasco, one of the wealthiest landowners, seemed an unlikely candidate for this kind of risky business, but he stoked up on coffee and maize beer and started cursing Tyrant. “Fuck you Banderitas, we’ll cover the republic with your flayed hide!”
Coffee, grog, and meat pasties had excited the revolutionary choristers, and they all bellowed similar sentiments, did a boisterous business in rich repartee, then exchanged mellifluous apologies for going too far. They were all good friends and gleefully sang dirty limericks to prove it.
“Hey buddy!”
“Hey pal!”
“See ya!”
“See ya!”
They bawled out final farewells, bestrode their saddles, turned their horses, and galloped pell-mell over the vast horizon of the plains.
II
The morning sun poured down on freshly ploughed red earth, where new crops were sprouting, and poured down on the twisted oaks and wild thickets in whose shade steaming bulls lay stretched out. Lake Ticomaipú, surrounded by Indian huts, mirrored the flaming sheaves. The boss gallops along the bank of a creek on a lively dapple gray, behind him his overseer drives his nag furiously on. Clanging bells and shooting rockets brighten the torrid morning. Canoes full of Indians festooned with bunting, branches, and garlands of flowers trail up and down the waterways. Other light boats almost turn over from all the merrymaking. In the lead boat, under a canopy, a troupe of cimarrons—with cardboard masks, spears, and bucklers—dance jubilantly. A drum and a cornet play as they posture and pirouette. The homestead looms in the distance. The green foliage of shady orange groves shimmers. Tiles, terraces, and roofs sparkle. Eager to reach the farm, the horse breaks into a fresh gallop. The overseer slides the gate open, stands in his stirrups, and looks around: under an arch the colonel, in his hammock, strums a guitar and encourages some kids to dance; two coppery maids, in low-necked nightshirts, laugh and joke behind the bars of the kitchen window and the pots of geraniums from El Sardinero. Filomeno Cuevas prances on his dapple gray and flicks its haunch with his whip. The horse bounds through the gate. “Hit it, friend! You’re better than that gaucho Santos Vega any day!”
“Speak for yourself!...So what happened? Are you going to let them catch me? Made up your mind?”
The boss leapt off his steed, entered the porch, clattering his silver spurs, his many-colored poncho slung across his shoulder: the embroidered brim of his sombrero threw his aquiline features and goatee in shadow. “‘Dainty’ Domiciano, I’ll supply you with fifty bolivars, a guide, and a horse so you can get going. When you were buzzing on before, I said we’d ride together. But I’ve had a change of heart. As to the fifty bolivars, you’ll get those as soon as you’re safe behind revolutionary lines. You will travel unarmed and your guide is under orders to plug you if you do anything suspicious. My friend, I’d advise you to say nothing, because the order is a secret.”
The little colonel sat up calmly. He silenced his sorrowing guitar. “Don’t try to put one over on me, Filomeno! You know my honor won’t allow me to accept such humiliating terms. I didn’t expect such treatment from you! You’ve gone from being my friend to being my jailer!”
With graceful forbearance, Filomeno Cuevas threw his hat and poncho on a jinocal. He pulled a fine silk handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat off his weather-beaten features and gleaming white forehead framed by dark locks of hair. “Don’t fuck up! Domiciano! Take what you can get. Don’t try to dictate terms.”
The little colonel opened his arms. “Filomeno, your heart knows no generosity!”
He was hopelessly hammered, and his boastful blather was full of tropical heat. The boss headed over to his hammock cracking jokes all the time, stretched out, grabbed the guitar, and started tuning. “I’ll save your life, Domiciano! But I’m playing it safe until I know it’s in danger for real: and if you’re a spy, believe me, you’re going to die. Old China will conduct you safely behind rebel lines, and they can decide what to do with you. As a matter of fact—I’ve got an urgent message to send to them. You and Old China are going to take it for me. Yeah. I meant to make you my bugle boy but somehow the dice didn’t fall that way.”
The little colonel gave himself martial airs. “Filomeno, I am your prisoner, I know. I won’t lower myself by arguing about terms. My life is in your hands; take it if you wish. You’ll be giving these little ones a fine lesson in hospitality. Children, don’t be afraid. Come here, come learn how to welcome a friend who, with nothing to his name and a murderous tyrant on his trail, seeks shelter under your roof.”
And the little ones gathered around, their innocent eyes wide with fear and suspense. Suddenly a girl standing right in the middle of the group flounced her dressy skirt and burst into sobs. The two gangling kids beside her looked on astonished. She had been overwhelmed by the colonel’s showpiece. Her grandmother rushed out, a swarthy old lady with Italian blood and a white chignon, coal-black eyes, and a beak as big as Dante’s. “Cosa c’é, amore?”
But the little colonel had already seized the girl, kissing her and rubbing his beard all over her face. He drew up his great round girth and held the weeping wonder in his arms, so that his raised gluttonous face was foreshortened into a caricature of Saturn. The girl starts struggling and crying. She wants to escape, and her grandmother standing next to the Japanese curtain with her shawl hanging crooked is on the verge of collapse. Drunkenly the little colonel goads her: “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, old girl. It’ll give you a heart attack!”
“Don’t upset la bambina!”
“Filomeno, explain the joke to your mother-in-law. Explain what you have been taught by this little angel. Don’t try to get out of it; tell her! Be your usual bold self!”
III
The five kids sway in sweet harmony. The little colonel sprawls in their midst, while his grotesque face wrinkles up into a frown. He sobs, chest pumping like a balloon. “Tender shoots, you are teaching your parents manners! Children, do not forget this lesson when you grow up and have to make difficult decisions of your own. Filomeno, these tender buds, they will hound you with remorse because of how you have treated me, Domiciano de la Gándara, a dear friend—and not a trace of pity in your heart! He expected a brother’s embrace. He was given less welcome than a prisoner of war. Refused arms. Disrespected. Filomeno, you treat me like a bastard, not a brother!”
The boss continued to tune his guitar. He nodded at his mother-in-law to get the kids out of there and the Italian crone herded her flock inside. Filomeno Cuevas clasped his hands behind his back, his eyes beady and sharp. There was a smug smile on his purple lips. “Domiciano, you’re not in parliament giving a speech. No doubt you’d bring the roof down if you were. But I’m unfortunately not clever enough to appreciate your oratory. I’ve made you my final offer.”
A long-haired Indian, wrapped in a blanket, his face hidden in shadow by his straw sombrero, came up to his boss and whispered in his ear. Filomeno turned to the little colonel. “We’re done for. Federal troops are surrounding the ranch.”
The little colonel spat. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Go on, turn me in, get in Banderas’s good books. Filomeno, you don’t have any honor left to lose!”
“No more shit! You know perfectly well I stand up for my friends. I had to be careful given your past alliance with Tyrant. We’re in a tight spot now, though, and if I don’t save you, I’ll lose my own head.”
“Give me money and a horse.”
“Listen, you’re not taking off.”
“Let me get into the open country on a good horse.”
“You’re staying here until nightfall.”
“Just give me a horse!”
“I’m not going to because I’m doing my best to save you. You’re going to stay in a pigsty where the devil himself won’t ever find you.”
He dragged the colonel off through the shadowy porch.
IV
Another Indian scuttled in, crossing himself. He tiptoed barefoot over to the boss. “The press-gang’s out and about. They almost roped me in. They’re beating the drum by the church.”
The rancher smiled and slapped his friend Domiciano on the shoulder. “I’m playing it safe, yup. Time to put you in that sty.”