I
That night the Creole rancher Filomeno Cuevas had armed his peons with rifles stashed by a jungle creek. Now Indians of the glebe advanced through Ticomaipú’s murky swamps. A bright moon and whispering horizons echoing deep into the night.
II
The boss reached Jarote Quemado with a posse of henchmen, reined in his steed, and called the roll by lantern light.
“Manuel Romero.”
“Here!”
“Step forward. My advice to you is go easy on the grog. The first stroke of twelve is the sign. Many lives are in your hands. Enough said. Shake!”
“Boss, we were born to this kind of bellyache.”
The boss studied his list. “Benito San Juan.”
“Here!”
“Old China gave you your orders?”
“Old China said gallop hosses into the fairground and turn everything upside down. Blast bullets and kill any dummies in sight. No big deal.”
“On the stroke of twelve!”
“On the dot of midnight! I’ll be there under the cathedral clock.”
“Stealthy as can be. Remember to conduct yourselves like peaceful fairgoers up to the very last minute.”
“That’ll be us to a tee.”
“Then play it like that. Shake!”
And the boss placed his piece of paper under the cone of lamplight, straining his eyes. “Atilio Palmieri.”
“Here!”
Atilio Palmieri was a cousin of the rancher’s wife—a fair-haired, stocky, cocky fellow. The rancher tugged his goatee. “Atilio, I’ve got a high-profile mission for you.”
“Heartfelt thanks, cousin.”
“Figure out a way to set fire to the nunnery, herd the nuns in their nightgowns out into the street, and cause total mayhem. That’s your mission. If a nun catches your eye, look the other way. Keep your men off the hard stuff. Be ruthless, but keep cool. Good luck, Atilio. The last stroke of midnight is your signal.”
“Count on me, Filomeno. I’ll take this avante.”
“I hope so. Zacarías San José.”
“Here!”
“For you, nothing special. I mean, it’s up to you. Say you and a few men pitch into Santa Fe tonight: Where do you think you’d hit the jackpot?”
“Give me one good man and there’ll be chaos in the fairground. I’ll bowl over the tent with the menagerie and fling open the wild animals’ cages. What do you reckon, boss? Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Give me five brave souls and I’ll set fire to all the whiteys’ stores. Give me twenty-five and I’ll take out the praetorian guard.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“That, and I’ll bleed Tyrant Banderas dry, too. Boss, I’m carrying the bits and pieces of my kid in this saddlebag. Out in the swamp the pigs chewed him up! But with him in this bag, I won big at cards, bought me a hoss, and dragged whitey through the streets behind me on a rope, before dodging the gendarmes’ bullets. They didn’t even touch me. Tonight everything’s gonna be all right.”
“Scarface, take as many men as you need and raise Cain. Shake! But tomorrow morning, bury those remains. That sort of thing doesn’t make you lucky in war. Energy and intelligence win the day. Now shake!”
“Boss, this fair will go down in history!”
“That’s what I think. Crisanto Roa.”
“Here!”
Roa was the last on the list. Now the boss blew out his lamp. Again the Indians marched in the moonlight.
III
Little Colonel de la Gándara, a deserter from the federales, jeered at the rancher’s military pretensions. “Filomeno, don’t be a fathead and try to leap over canyons when you don’t have the legs! Your big problem is not to lead your Indians straight to slaughter. You hold forth like a general but you can’t even read a battle map! Well, I can, plus I have a military school diploma. Common sense dictates that I should command, right? Is your stubbornness pride—or stupidity?”
“Dear Domiciano, war is not a textbook affair. You must be born to it.”
“So you’re predestined to be the next Napoleon?”
“Perhaps!”
“Filomeno, don’t be such a fool!”
“Domiciano, draw up a plan of attack that’s better than mine, and I’ll put you in charge. What would you do with two hundred rifles?”
“Keep adding to them until I had an army.”
“And how would do you do that?”
“By levying men from the mountain villages. The revolution has few friends down in Tierra Caliente.”
“So that’s your plan?”
“Yes, more or less. The game board for the campaign must be the sierra. The plains are for big troop movements, but guerrillas and other light forces work best in mountainous terrain. That’s military science: ever since wars have been fought, the lay of the land has determined tactics. Two hundred rifles on the plain would be madness.”
“So you’d advise us to pull back to the mountains?”
“That’s what I said. Find a natural fortress that’ll compensate for your lack of men.”
“I like it! That’s military science, that’s what’s taught in the schools! I grant you that. But I’m not a scientist and I’ve never seen the inside of cadet school. Domiciano, your battle plan’s no good at all. As you must have figured out, I’m launching a coup in Santa Fe tonight. I’ve been planning it for months, and now there just happens to be a packet unloading at the wharfs that my men and I will be taking to Snake Point. We’ll come ashore on the beach there. We’ll take the prison guard by surprise, arm the prisoners, and incite the troops in the garrison to revolt. I’ve already won over the sergeants. That’s my plan, Domiciano.”
“You’re staking everything on a single card! But what about Fabius Maximus? Do you think you know better than him? What’s your plan of retreat? Have you forgotten a good general is never rash, never rushed, never attacks without a plan of retreat? That’s what Fabius Maximus says. That’s basic. I’m telling you, the general who grasps the burning brand and fights on our plains by skillfully abandoning territory, he’ll defeat all the Hannibals and Napoleons in the world. Filomeno, revolutionaries have no choice but to play the gambit the Romans used against the Carthaginians. That’s how it is!”
“Such eloquence!”
“It’s irresponsible of you to lead a bunch of men to slaughter.”
“Boldness and Lady Luck win campaigns, not algebra from the academies. How did the heroes of independence go about it?”
“On a wing and a prayer. They were popular myths, not great strategists. The leader of the pack was Simón Bolívar, and he was the worst general. War is about scientific technique, and you’re transforming it into the spin of a roulette wheel.”
“Too true.”
“You’re arguing like a fool.”
“Maybe! I’m no scientist. I just follow my hunches. I’m off to Santa Fe to collect the head of Generalito Banderas!”
“Or lose your own...”
“We’ll see. Time will tell.”
“Yours is a campaign without tactics, banditry flying in the face of military science. Listen to the general staff of the Revolutionary Army, be a tiny grain of sand on the mountain—that’s what you should do. But you ignore discipline and indulge in this fantastical foray. You’re arrogant. You’re ambitious. That’s what you are. Pay no attention to me. Do what you think best. Sacrifice your peons. They’ve sweated for you. Now take their blood. Even-steven!”
“My conscience is clear. You won’t budge me. My hunch will win the day.”
“Your hunch is just a lust for power.”
“You don’t get it, Domiciano. I’ll win this war as easily as snuffing out a candle.”
“But if you don’t, you’ll have let your friends down and left everyone in despair!”
“Or serve as an inspiration.”
“Yes, a hundred years from now, children will study you in the nation’s schools! But now isn’t History. Now we need realistic goals. All this talk is making me thirsty. Pass me your canteen.”
He took a swig, struck his flint, and lit a dead butt, flicking ash over his Tibetan-god potbelly.
IV
The boss marched a mere fifty men through the mangrove swamp until he saw the packet unloading at a sawmill wharf. Filomeno told the pilot to throw the sails to the wind and heave to at Snake Point. The luminous reel from a lighthouse whirled on the horizon. Once the men had boarded, the packet silently weighed anchor. The moon navigated over the still life to port, a sailing ship on the beautiful briny. Its prow spurted sprays of silver and a black singer standing in the shadow of the jib drew a circle of listeners, declaiming poetry in a lyrical stream of liquid lisps. Sprawled on bunks, his students dealt out cards and oil lamps picked out sharp tricks by the hatchways and orlop decks. From the shadow of the jib the black professor continued to regale them with his lyrical, lisping bouquet:
Thail on, swifth keel!
Fear thee not!
No enemy vethell,
no thempest, no lull,
shall make thee yield
or thwerve from thy path.