Among those who had been able to get up were Urbano and Pascasio, Indians from the same village and friends since childhood. They tended each other’s wounds and smeared each other’s sores with the grease that the cook distributed among the hanged men.
It was still night when the drivers were called to work. Urbano and Pascasio followed the column, but they had gone only a few yards when Urbano said to his friend: “Now, little brother!”
With catlike movements they left the column and slipped away among the trees, hiding behind trunks. The foreman who led the gang did not see the men disappear in the darkness. Even if he had seen them, he would have thought that they had stopped to look for something they had forgotten.
The two Indians reached their hut, quickly gathered up all the dried meat, tortillas, and bean-meal there, quickly crossed the open space, and disappeared into the jungle.
“We’d better go around so as not to cross the camp,” Urbano advised.
“They won’t miss us until noon,” said Pascasio softly, as though afraid of being overheard. “With a little luck they won’t notice until early tomorrow.”
The next day, at midmorning when they were wading across an arroyo, they heard their names being called. It was the two foremen sent on horseback to hunt them down. A lasso reached Urbano in the middle of the arroyo. Pascasio, who was quicker, was able to reach the other bank and make off. He ran to take shelter in the thickets that surrounded a low outcropping of rock. La Mecha sped his horse after the Indian, but the animal stopped at the foot of the obstacle in spite of the rider’s efforts to make him climb.
Pascasio was on the summit of the rocks. He realized that he could not escape even if he clambered down the opposite face of the rocks and hid himself in the jungle. The foremen would find some way to make him come out—and then they’d catch him.
La Mecha shouted to him to come down and follow them back to the camp without resisting, but Pascasio did not reply. He remained standing on the rocky platform, watching the movements of his enemy and hoping in spite of everything to find some means of saving himself.
Seeing this, La Mecha got down from his horse and prepared to climb the rock.
The other foreman, El Faldón, who had just returned to the other bank of the arroyo dragging Urbano firmly tied up at the end of his rope, immediately saw the danger: La Mecha was laboriously climbing one side of the rocks while the Indian was getting ready to escape down the other. Pascasio might well succeed, reach the base quickly, take La Mecha’s horse, mount it, and escape, abandoning the animal in some distant place because the prints of its hoofs would mark his trail better than those of his own bare feet.
Having guessed the fugitive’s intentions, El Faldón acted promptly. He tied Urbano tightly to a tree trunk and then rode around the rocks to cut off Pascasio’s retreat. But the Indian understood the maneuver and quickly climbed up again, reaching the summit just as La Mecha did.
All hope of flight vanished. Pascasio picked up a heavy stone and with all his strength flung it at La Mecha’s head. The foreman collapsed backwards, followed by the enormous stone. Pascasio, beside himself, picked up the stone, leaped on him, and pounded until his victim’s head was a shapeless mass. Then he looked around for his companion. He had lost his machete during the climb, and now he needed it to cut Urbano’s bonds, as too much time would be lost trying to untie them. But El Faldón, having lost sight of Pascasio, deduced that the Indian had descended the opposite side of the rocks and was now in the hands of La Mecha. So he retraced his steps and from a distance saw Pascasio at the point of releasing Urbano. But Pascasio also saw the foreman and again made off, running to climb the rock with the intention of hiding and of attacking the foreman from behind. When he reached the rock, his eyes fell on the body of La Mecha, in whose belt was a heavy-caliber revolver. If Pascasio had not wasted time looking for his machete, but had climbed up to hide himself sooner, he would have won the game. But he realized this too late. When he moved back after tearing the gun from the dead man’s body, he faced El Faldón pointing a revolver at him.
Pascasio had never before had a revolver in his hand. He knew, and this because he had heard it said, that you had to press the trigger to make the bullet shoot out. Holding the revolver with both hands, he pulled the trigger. The gun fired before he expected it to, and the bullet was lost in the bushes.
El Faldón considered only one thing: the Indian had tried to kill him. So, without hesitating, he in turn fired; and he did not miss. Pascasio doubled up and fell to the ground.
“I ought to drill a hole in your body too,” growled El Faldón, looking at Urbano, who, tied up, had been a helpless witness to the scene.
“I ask myself why you’re waiting to do it, you stinking coyote,” the Indian replied insolently, using the same form of address the foreman used in speaking to him.
“Wait a minute, you mangy cur, and I’ll teach you not to be familiar in speaking to me.”
El Faldón’s whip snapped repeatedly across the prisoner’s face.
“So that next time, pig, you’ll speak properly to me,” said the foreman, replacing the whip in his belt.
But Urbano was determined to incite him. Again using the familiar form, he said: “Your day will come too. Have patience!”
“Shut up and see to the burying of the bodies!”
“I’ll bury my comrade’s, but the foreman’s can go to hell.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The foreman began to be uneasy, looking in all directions, scanning the horizon as if afraid he would see more fugitive Indians springing from the jungle. Finally he decided to untie Urbano, taking all sorts of precautions and leaving him just able to move but incapable of attack. Before freeing the Indian’s body and hands, he tied his legs so that Urbano could just stand up and take short steps. Then he went to Pascasio’s corpse, picked up the revolver that had fallen on the ground beside it, and put it in his belt. This done, he drew his own pistol and, aiming it with one hand, untied Urbano’s chest and arms. When the ropes fell, he jumped to one side and again pointing his weapon, gave an order to the prisoner: “Pick up that carrion and take it down there among the thickets behind the rock.”
While Urbano was carrying out the foreman’s order, the latter stood a few paces behind him, lasso in hand, ready to tie him up at the first suspicious movement. Urbano saw that he could neither defend himself nor escape. He carried the body of his companion behind the rock. El Faldón ordered him to do the same with that of La Mecha. Urbano obeyed.
Finally El Faldón made him scoop out a grave. To make a good job of it Urbano should have had his machete, but El Faldón was wise enough to know that at the least sign of carelessness on his part the prisoner would cut his bonds and take to flight. Urbano might easily pick up a stone and smash his skull without giving him time even to shoot.
So he ordered Urbano to cut a strong branch. Using it, the Indian began to dig the ditch. The process was slow and difficult. At last the trench was opened.
El Faldón said: “Put La Mecha in the hole.”
Urbano lifted the corpse and threw it into the ditch, using his feet and hands to help.
“Tell me, you bastard, can’t you do it like a Christian? As if he were a dog!”
“God will judge better than we can,” answered Urbano.
“Come on, get out of there!” roared the foreman.
He went up to the body, took off his hat, crossed himself, and made the sign of the cross over the corpse, all without ever taking his eyes off the prisoner. Now the trench had to be filled in. He was about to order Urbano to do it when he remembered a rite that he had forgotten. He lassoed Urbano suddenly and rolled him over on the ground.
“Stay there and don’t move until I tell you to. Understand? If you’re unlucky enough to move your head, you know what’ll happen to you.”
Urbano remained perfectly still.
Then El Faldón, watching the Indian from the corner of his eyes, began to go through the dead man’s pockets. He found four pesos and twenty-three centavos. He removed the cartridge belt and examined the body carefully for anything he might find hidden among the clothes. When he did not find anything he regarded this ceremony as completed. El Faldón turned back toward Urbano.
“Get up now, you scum! And fill in the grave.”
When the work was finished El Faldón said: “On the way now! We’ve hardly got time to reach camp tonight.”
“But,” Urbano protested, “what about Pascasio? Aren’t we going to bury him?”
“We’ll leave his carrion here. The vultures will take charge of it.”
“If I had known that only that dog was going to get a grave, I wouldn’t have done anything.”
“That’s why I made you fetch the two bodies. But what there is of him will stay right here. A pig like him doesn’t need a Christian burial. He doesn’t deserve it. Now then, get a move on. Let’s go.”
El Faldón went up to La Mecha’s horse, which was tied to a tree.
“I ought to drag you by its tail, but I’ve got no time. I prefer to hurry and get back to the camp. The devil knows if we can get there tonight.”
He jerked the lasso and Urbano fell over on the ground like a bundle. Revolver in hand, El Faldón went and tied his hands.
“Stand up and turn around!”
He secured the Indian’s hands behind his back and untied his feet.
“Now mount!”
Stupidly, like anyone who has never been on a horse’s back, Urbano tried to heave himself up. El Faldón found himself obliged to put his revolver in his belt in order to help the Indian with both his hands and even his knees and teeth.
During this operation Urbano might have been able to take advantage of the occasion, as of all the other openings offered during the next ten minutes, to try to escape or even to assault the foreman. He knew perfectly well what awaited him on return to the camp. He knew that when night fell he would bitterly regret not having shared the fate of his unhappy companion, who at least no longer suffered. But his strength was beginning to ebb and his energy had left him. The rapid flight and the dash to the arroyo had exhausted him. Then the sight of Pascasio’s struggle with the foremen had excited him as if he himself had been the hunted animal. And, finally, Pascasio’s death showed him the futility of every attempt at flight. The little strength remaining to him had been expended in digging the trench with the branch. He was in such a depressed physical and moral state that if El Faldón had untied him and left him free on the back of the horse he could not have taken advantage of the occasion to flee, but would have followed El Faldón docilely. In the morning he would doubtless recover his strength and reproach himself for the mistakes he was making. Then he would wish that he had fought to win his freedom or die for it.
“We can’t go any farther.” These were the first words El Faldón uttered after they started on their way back to the camp. Night had fallen. The sky was covered with clouds. The horses advanced laboriously. El Faldón had lost the way, and it had been the horses that had brought him back to the main trail, but now they were getting lost, and every ten steps they tried to turn to the right or the left, warned by instinct that they were going to get bogged down. El Faldón felt the danger: he was running the risk of getting lost in the jungle. So he decided not to proceed, but to camp where he was. There was no need to fear that Urbano would escape, for to try it at night was impossible. Furthermore, he knew that the Indians had lost their packages of provisions when crossing the arroyo. He and La Mecha had felt so sure that they would catch the Indians and get back to the camp the same night that they had not brought any provisions with them. If Urbano tried to run away, he would die in the jungle. He would not die of hunger, because like every Indian, he would know how to find plants on which to subsist. But he would have to cover great distances without finding even a palm tree, and to cross the jungle it was not enough merely to have sufficient food.
Assisted by Urbano, El Faldón succeeded in lighting a fire for warmth. Their clothes were still went with arroyo water and the drops of rain that fell on them from the trees. El Faldón took the precaution of tying up Urbano before wrapping himself in his sarape and settling to sleep near the fire. It rained heavily during the night. When dawn began to break, both men—the guard and the guarded—felt relieved at being able to continue their journey.
Don Acacio and one of his foremen, El Pechero, had just sat down at the table when El Faldón, leading his prisoner at the end of a rope, stood at the office door.
El Faldón went into the dining room.
“And La Mecha?” asked Don Acacio. “Where’s he?”
“The son-of-a-bitch killed him.”
“And the son-of-a-bitch?”
“I killed him. He had attacked me from behind.”
“Two men lost! A foreman and a peon! The next time you’ll pay me for it. This has never happened to me, understand? To lose at the same time a workman and my best overseer. Besides, not one has ever escaped me. I’ve chased them a day, two days if necessary, but I’ve always brought them back. Have you at least brought back the other one?”
“Yes, chief.”
Urbano appeared in the doorway, his hands still tied.
“Come in, you,” shouted Don Acacio without getting up from his chair. “So you wanted to slip away, eh? So you wanted to escape and to rob me?”
Don Acacio tore off a piece of tortilla and dipped it in his soup.
“I didn’t want to rob you, little chief.”
“You still owe me more than two hundred and fifty pesos, and if you save yourself from paying your debts with your work, you’re robbing me! Now I’ll add one hundred pesos more to your account.”
“It is well, little chief.”
“As regards my good co-worker La Mecha, he owed me two hundred and thirty pesos. I ask myself how he came to owe me that much. Anyhow, as he liked to run after the old whores, and as you were the cause of his death, so that now the vultures are eating him, you’ll be the one to pay me those two hundred and thirty pesos. Now then, how much do you owe me? Well, whatever it is, I’m not going to bother adding it up, least of all while I’m having a meal. All I can say to you, Urbano—that’s your name, isn’t it?—is that before you’ll be able to pay your debts, you and I will be old men, very old. But that’s your business.”
“Yes, little chief.”
“Go to the cookhouse and get a mouthful to eat. Later, when I’ve had my siesta, we’ll get down to serious explanations, because I’m going to hang you by your thumbs and by something else I know about. We’ll see what remains of your skin then. I think that’ll make you shed all desire to run away again! Say, cook, what’s the matter with my stew?”
“Coming now, chief,” replied the cook from the hut that served as a cookhouse.
“Did you understand what I just said to you, or don’t you speak Spanish?” he asked Urbano.
“I understand very well,” Urbano said in a tone of indifference. “With your permission, little chief,” he added, bowing and going out.
“Let the cook untie you,” Don Acacio shouted. “I’ve told you you won’t save yourself from this.”
“No, little chief,” the Indian replied, moving away.
“Winds of rebellion are definitely blowing around here,” Don Acacio said to El Pechero and El Faldón, who had just sat down and was beginning to pull himself together. “It’s the fault of my brothers. They’ve been too easygoing with the men and have let them do as they please. Result—less mahogany. If things go on this way until Christmas, we’ll all be begging alms from the Indians in the streets of Villahermosa—the Indians we’ve enriched by our generosity, by filling their hands with money. When those swine arrive here, the only thing they think about is loitering around or stoning to death my best foremen, the ones I’ve trained myself. But this must change! They’ll see what happens when my patience is exhausted. Now, today, I’ll begin showing them who I am!”
This discourse, promising energetic measures, had not been delivered in one breath. Between phrases Don Acacio had taken the time necessary to chew and swallow. One after another each of the men around the table took advantage of these pauses to approve the master’s words with a servile “Yes, chief.”
They wished in this way to bear witness that they shared Don Acacio’s opinion. In reality, they were incapable of having any personal opinion, but it satisfied them to put in a word and pretend to take part in the discussion. They felt flattered to be above the peons, who did not have even the right to approve.
All that was asked of a peon was blind obedience, even when he was ordered to throw himself in the water with a rock at his neck. For the slave there is only one virtue and one right: that of considering as gospel whatever his owner says. The slave who neither practices that virtue nor exercises that right contravenes the rules, and in such circumstances to kill him or torture him is a meritorious act that never receives enough praise.
After eating a little, Urbano sat down in the cookhouse. He felt worn out and stupefied. When he had returned to his hut, he had found a few provisions that Pascasio and he had left behind so as not to load themselves too heavily. Among these had been some scraps of tobacco. Now he rolled himself a cigarette and squatted down to smoke in silence. From time to time he replied to remarks directed at him by the cook or the woman who helped him. As time went on, his agony increased. Had Don Acacio and El Faldón battered him to pieces immediately on his arrival back at camp, he would now be stretched out on the ground or perhaps washing his wounds in the arroyo—or he might even be off hauling logs. “It could be,” he said to himself, “it could be… .” He watched the smoke rising from his cigarette. “It could be… .”
He did not know exactly what this “could be” meant. He was trying not to think about Don Acacio’s threat. He thought of taking flight again, though he knew that this second time he would have far fewer chances of success. Alone, he could not bring it off, but he clung to the idea of flight as to a life preserver. This time he would defend himself, beat down the overseers with stones or sticks, not so much to avoid his fate (which was settled beforehand) as to make them kill him as Pascasio had been killed. Once he was dead, Don Acacio could not do anything more to him.
As for his body, they could do what they liked with it. Was Pascasio now greatly troubled that a jaguar was eating him, that rats were gnawing at him, or that he was serving as a depository for flies’ eggs? With the disappearance of his best comrade, life seemed senseless to Urbano. Why go on living? To stay here in the jungle suffering until his account was worked off? With the single prospect of being beaten to pulp each week or, still worse, hanged? And all because, in spite of all his efforts, he could not produce as much as they demanded. Away in his own village he had always eaten badly, but here the food was much worse. So then?
The office, the bungalows occupied by Don Acacio and the foremen, the cookhouse, and the huts of the workmen were grouped on a sort of open space on one bank of the river. From where he was sitting, Urbano could see the swift current and the opposite shore. The muddy water was carrying branches and roots of trees. Where was it taking them? Urbano did not know. None of the peons had the slightest idea of the course of the river; nobody seemed to give it a thought. He was thinking that the river must end somewhere, in a peaceful region where it passed beautiful villages peopled by men who loved their neighbors. The current rolled precipitously toward such a region—no doubt to reach more quickly that Eden in which peace and goodness reigned.
Two weeks earlier one of the boys had drowned while moving tree trunks with his comrades. Perched on top of a raft made of branches, he was trying to lift up a log when the raft was jerked from its cable and broken apart by the current, which swept the boy away. Because he could not swim, he was flung over three times and then disappeared in the foam. The next day they found his body about one mile down the river among some branches. Urbano had helped to disentangle it. He still remembered the serene expression on the dead man’s face. What a contrast the expression on the drowned man’s face was to that of boys who had just been flogged or hanged! He must surely have seen, though from far away, the enchanted village toward which the current rushed.
Urbano rose painfully, went to the riverbank, and began looking for a stone. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he spoke aloud to himself: “If I tie a stone to my feet I’ll soon sink to the bottom. Then it’ll all be finished and there won’t be any more Don Acacio to torture me.”
At that exact moment he heard Don Acacio calling him: “Hey, you! Where have you got to? Come here. We still have something to tell each other.”
Urbano immediately forgot everything. He was so accustomed to obey that his dreams vanished the moment the voice of his master was heard.
He hurried toward the office. “At your orders, little chief.”
Don Acacio ambled out of the office smoking a cigarette and saw Urbano hurrying toward him. In his hand he held a heavy whip that was beginning to be curved with wear. As he walked he fixed the whiphandle firmly around his wrist. He came to within two steps of Urbano.
“Good, you Indian son of a bitch. We two are going to have a little private talk, you and I. You have to learn once and forever that you’re not going to leave here before paying your debts down to the last centavo.”
From one of the huts the melody of the waltz Over the Waves reached them. Don Acacio turned and looked at his girl in the doorway of the hut, swaying her hips in time with the music and smoking a cigarette.
“Don’t go so far away to do what you’re going to do, my pet,” she shouted. “There’s so little entertainment here that I’m dying of boredom.”
“Shut your putrid mouth and go inside at once if you don’t want me to give you a hiding too,” growled Don Acacio.
“Just to think that he refuses to entertain me even when it doesn’t cost anything! I think I won’t stay very long!” the girl replied in a rage, entering the hut.
“Come,” continued Don Acacio to Urbano. “We don’t need witnesses for what we’re going to say to each other. We’ll go a little farther away, to the riverbank. Nobody will hear you there.”
From the hut to the river was only a few steps, but the distance was long enough for Urbano to make the most varied plans. He was following a few paces behind Don Acacio. As he went along the lash of the whip, suspended from the handle, was dancing constantly before his eyes. At times Don Acacio’s alcoholic breath reached his nostrils. Certainly Urbano himself took a swig of aguardiente whenever he had a chance. In other times, in his village, he had often drunk more than his share when he had money in his pocket. But he had never felt so nauseated by the smell of alcohol as he did now. This fetid odor did not arouse in him any desire for a drink. On the contrary, it disgusted him horribly. He experienced the sensation felt by a smoker who, when he has kissed a pretty girl who smokes a daily pack of cigarettes, swears that he will never smoke again.
They reached the slope and went down it. The enormous whip wavered before Urbano’s eyes and at times its tip seemed to strike the agitated water. It seemed to him to cut the current that rushed toward those places he had just been dreaming of. But at the same time there came to him the painful memory of the night when they had hanged him and a dozen of his companions by the feet and had lashed them unmercifully because they had not been able to move their quota of logs to the farthest dump. That had been exactly three days earlier, and it had been that barbarous treatment which had driven him and Pascasio to flee. They had made up their minds never again to suffer such punishment. The welts on his body were still fresh and bloody. Suddenly a terrible fear invaded Urbano. He was afraid of the new blows about to fall on him and reopen his still raw wounds. He feared the pain awaiting him, which he knew he would not survive. One second later his fear was matched by desperation, and the two feelings were transformed into courage, courage such as he had never felt: a fury unknown to him and seeming to possess someone else who was not he.
About a dozen yards from the bank of the river there rose an enormous dried-out tree that seemed to have lost all its sap and its strength either from age or from prolonged contact with water. Not one leaf adorned its branches, which pointed sadly heavenward like the arms of a grotesque scarecrow. It was the only tree to be seen in that place. Along the edge of the river only dwarf vegetation grew, sunk in the sand and so poor and miserable that it seemed certain not to survive the next flood.
“Let’s go over there, to that tree,” Don Acacio ordered. “We’ll settle our accounts there. At least there we’ll be left alone without witnesses, away from the chatter of those whores who imagine that for us there’s nothing but pleasure and amusement and that we have mountains of money.”
Urbano moved on toward the tree,
“Damn and blast it all! May the Devil take me! Why, I’ve forgotten the main thing!” shouted Don Acacio in a fury. “You won’t be able to stay on your feet if I don’t tie you tightly. Quick! Run back and fetch me a rope.”
Urbano climbed the slope swiftly, helping himself along with his hands. Two minutes later he returned with the lasso. Halfway down he hesitated a few seconds. The river water was flowing there below him, so free, so independent. Nobody flogged it; nobody tortured it. And that tree trunk looked so miserable, suggested such despair… .
Urbano closed his eyes sorrowfully. He remembered the horrible torture of that night, saw in his mind pieces of bleeding flesh that struck the unfortunate wretches in the face and got into their mouths when they opened them to scream or groan. Only the young workers cried out. The older hands simply shrank or collapsed under the blows. It was not their habit to show their sufferings or to ask for mercy. They were too proud for that, however enslaved they might be. They moaned silently, and the only sounds they emitted were of hatred. The more they suffered, the more they hated. The more they hated, the less they felt their pain and the more their spirits were set ablaze by the thought that one day—it might be far ahead, but it would surely come—one day they would be able to return blow for blow, and with interest, even though they might have to pay with their lives for this yearned-for revenge.
Urbano was still hesitating. He thought that ten minutes later that dry trunk would be spattered with his blood. He shut his lips tightly and half closed his eyes.
He was only ten paces from the tree. Don Acacio, leaning against it, was rolling another cigarette. On the ground, two meters from the trunk, Urbano saw a big stone, as big as a man’s head. He stared at it for a long time and remembered that his friend Pascasio had armed himself with a stone like that to smash La Mecha’s skull. But almost at the same time there came back into his mind the thoughts that had obsessed him half an hour before when he had daydreamed of peaceful places toward which the current must be flowing. His hands shut convulsively as if wanting to weaken his determination. He bent to pick up the stone, thinking to tie it to one of his feet, run toward the river, and wade in until it swallowed him.
“I must do this. Now,” he told himself, “at this very moment.” He was gasping with excitement. Slowly he approached the shore. Yes, it was necessary to act immediately, because a moment later he would not be able to act. If he decided, the sad tree trunk would not be spattered with his blood.
He let his pent-up breath escape and said: “Yes, now!”
“What are you muttering about there?” asked Don Acacio. “So you’ve returned with the rope at last. Come on! Stand there with your face to the tree and put your hands up.”
Don Acacio was trying to light the cigarette he had just finished rolling. The wind had begun to blow sharply. It blew along the river bank with growing violence. Don Acacio had burned up three matches without being able to light the cigarette. He let out an oath. He tried again. He took two steps back as if to make space for Urbano to pass. In so doing he covered part of his face with his left hand, the rest with the right, in which he held the match he had just struck. His eyes were fixed on the cigarette and on the wavering flame, which seemed to enjoy being buffeted by the wind before fulfilling its mission.
Urbano held out the lasso to Don Acacio. At that instant he saw the whip hanging from his torturer’s wrist. With an instinctive reflex movement he struck violently at his enemy’s arm and knocked him against the tree. Don Acacio’s head slammed against the trunk.
For a fraction of a second Urbano stood stupefied. But immediately he came to and realized that now he could not retreat. He had just rebelled, and he would expiate that involuntary blow with death after terrible sufferings.
He was guided more by terror than by his reflections and his dreams. Terror drove him to carry out to its end what he had begun.
Don Acacio still held his two hands before his face. At last he had been able to light his cigarette. He did not immediately realize that the Indian had struck him; his impression was that Urbano had stumbled in a hole and had caught his arm to prevent himself from falling. If he had realized the truth, perhaps he could have saved himself, but Urbano acted with the swiftness of which only an Indian is capable, his hands and arms being trained from infancy to fight against nature’s traps in the jungle and to demolish them with one sure blow.
The day before, Urbano had learned from personal experience how it is possible to secure a man to a tree without the victim’s being able to put up the slightest resistance—provided a good lasso is available.
Don Acacio had neither time nor intention to lower his hands when his head struck the tree. In a flash they were made fast to the trunk. Only then did Don Acacio have a clear notion of what was happening. He kicked out at Urbano’s legs, but Urbano had foreseen such an attempt, the only form of attack of which Don Acacio Was now capable. Rapidly, with catlike agility, Urbano ran round the tree, passing the rope around Don Acacio’s thighs, pulling hard on it to make the knots tight and passing another piece of rope around the prisoner’s neck, so as to make it impossible for him to move his head.
Then Don Acacio realized that he was lost. Even if he had promised to give Urbano all the camps in exchange for his life, the Indian would not have turned from his purpose. He had had too much experience to believe in a white man’s word. In other countries a workman could still trust a policeman’s word if the policeman promised to leave him in peace; but the Indian workers had had too bitter experiences with policemen and dictators to have faith in their words or in those of bosses and their agents.
Don Acacio knew well that the Indian would proceed right to the end. Because even in the unlikely event that a foreman were to think of coming to this place, Urbano would have bashed in his skull or strangled him before a foreman could rescue him.
Nevertheless, in spite of his desperate situation Don Acacio did not lose his head. He did not ask for mercy any more than the men did when they were flayed or hanged. Personally he had never struck this man Urbano or kicked him as he usually kicked his inferiors. He had not even noticed the existence of Urbano before this, for the Indian belonged to his brother Severo’s camp. It was the first time that Don Acacio had seen him or had anything to do with him, and this merely because the Indian had tried to escape and it was necessary to give him a salutary warning. But he knew that, of the three brothers and the foremen, it was he, Don Acacio, who was hated with most rancor. It would not have surprised Don Acacio if one of his own men, with the hatred felt for him by the Chamula Celso, the driver Santiago, or Fidel, or Andres (the most intelligent of them all), had waited for him in the jungle and traitorously struck him down. But the fact that this unhappy, scared worm of an Urbano should have him in his power and be about to kill him—that was something he could not bear. His rage was such that, forgetting the situation in which he was, and taking advantage of the circumstance that his mouth was still free, he made use of that freedom, though not to shout for help, for to ask for help against a lousy Indian would have been to lower himself. It would have ended forever his prestige in the camps. The workmen and the foremen would have had a laugh at his expense. The latter especially, and particularly when drunk, would not have hesitated to call him a fairy. In the camps there were only men. Fairies scared of punishments and blows did not exist there.
Don Acacio gave vent to his rage, shouting: “You mangy cur, you son of a whore! What are you going to do? Do you imagine that because you have me tied up I’m going to stay here without giving you what you have coming? Wait a minute, then you’ll see how I’ll get out of this! … But, by the devil, I swear that afterwards you’ll pray to the Virgin and all your saints! Now, you idiot, untie me!”
Urbano began to tremble with fear. He knew perfectly well that Don Acacio was tied up firmly, but nevertheless Urbano wondered whether he could not free himself by means of some magic formula or with the Devil’s help. Facing him, Urbano felt like a hunter facing a jaguar fallen into a trap and chained, safe, but fearing that by some effort in a desperate rage the animal will break its bonds and spring on him.
For a second Urbano stood there perplexed, his eyes fixed on the river, which flowed a few steps from the sandy bank.
Again Don Acacio shouted: “Are you going to release me, cur? Yes or no?”
Suddenly Urbano moved toward him and took the revolver from his belt. He had never possessed a firearm, and he did not know how to use it. He held it with both his hands and pressed it against Don Acacio’s body, but he did not know with which hand or which finger to press the trigger. Finally he pressed it, but no shot resulted because the gun had a safety catch.
“And it’s an imbecile like you who’s trying to kill me!” exclaimed Don Acacio. And the smile that followed his exclamation was bitter because he was fully conscious of the vanity of his efforts to free himself.
Urbano flung the revolver from him. It described a wide arc before falling on the sand.
The two foremen and Don Acacio’s favorite girl were sitting in the office.
The sound of some of Don Acacio’s shouts reached them, but indistinctly and muffled.
El Faldón said to El Pechero: “Something must be happening. By my mother, I wouldn’t like to be in Urbano’s skin. Just listen to Cacho’s roars!”
“For the fun of it I’d go down a little closer to see something,” the girl said.
“Better not do it, señorita,” advised El Faldón, “because if Don Cacho should find out, he wouldn’t like it. We don’t like to have people looking on. Don Cacho must have told you.”
“Then there’s no way of having the least bit of fun here?”
“No, señorita, and believe me, for us it’s not fun! Damn it all! Now I remember that tomorrow we’ll have to get up at three in the morning… . I always ask myself why I came to this desert where there’s nothing but rats’ shit and sometimes a little alcohol and flesh.”
He rose and made toward the hut where the foremen slept.
At that moment a sharp cry was heard coming from the riverbank. But it attracted the attention of nobody except Martín Trinidad (one of the ragged men recruited by Don Gabriel on the road), who was just then on his way to the office to exchange his ax for a new one.
He approached the slope and, almost reaching the edge, threw himself to the ground and began to crawl forward, hunching himself together so as not to be seen, for he well knew how bad it was to let oneself be seen where a beating was going on. Hidden behind some bushes, Martín cautiously stretched his neck. From where he was he could see very well a large part of the riverbank.
Urbano picked up the stone again and moved toward Don Acacio.
“You won’t do that, you cur!” roared Don Acacio.
“No,” replied Urbano, “no. That would be too good for you, too good for a white man without a soul.”
He dropped the stone. Don Acacio breathed more freely. But Urbano now turned to look at the river and caught sight of something that Don Acacio could not see because he was facing the slope. He merely observed that Urbano suddenly opened his mouth wide and that a shadow of cruelty crossed his eyes.
Urbano, shrugging his shoulders and walking on tiptoes stepped into the water as though trying to surprise an animal, perhaps a snake.
But no, it was not a snake. It was a branch with thorns as long as a finger and as hard as steel. The branch floated forward and then back again, sometimes getting close to the bank and then moving away. Urbano sprang forward and with a swift motion caught it before the current snatched it away. Then, walking back to the tree, he held the branch before Don Acacio’s eyes.
“See these thorns, torturer?” he said, half opening his eyes in a mock smile.
“By the Virgin! When are you going to untie me?”
“In less than a minute you’ll be free, torturer,” said Urbano, pulling a long thorn from the branch. Then he held it firmly between his fingers and put it so near Don Acacio’s face that the latter felt it on his cheek.
“With this thorn I’m going to rip out your savage beast’s eyes. That way you’ll never again be able to see how they beat and hang the men. That way you’ll never see the sun shine again or your mother’s face.”
“Have you gone crazy, you fool?” Don Acacio asked, going suddenly pale.
“We, the men, have all gone crazy. You and your brothers have driven us crazy.”
“You know very well that they’ll shoot you or hang you by the neck.”
“Nobody will be able to shoot me or hang me or even beat me, because I’ll rob you even of that revenge. Because when I’ve done what I’ve got to do I’m going to jump into the river, and they can come to look for me there.”
“But, in the name of the Virgin, boy, don’t do that. Look—you’ll go to hell. In the name of all the saints, don’t do it.”
Don Acacio had changed his tone to one of great gentleness as he uttered these words.
Suddenly Urbano, as though afraid he might weaken, or perhaps thinking that they might come to the rescue of Don Acacio, flung himself at his victim.
Don Acacio uttered a sharp cry—not a cry of pain, but of horror, of mad terror. For the first time in his life he had felt fear.
Without showing any emotion, Urbano leaped on him a second time. Blood began to gush from the sockets of Don Acacio’s eyes. He bent his head back so that the blood should not run into his mouth, muttering: “Most holy Mother! Mother of our Lord!”
Urbano looked up the slope and saw the head of a motionless man who was watching him.
Quickly he untied the cord that held up his torn pants, picked up the stone again, dropped it inside the pants, tied a rope around his thighs below his hips so that the stone could not slip out, and then—holding the top of the pants with both hands—stumbled into the water. The current swept him away. He appeared and disappeared several times in the midst of the stream. His head appeared once more. Then he was lost to view.
When Martín Trinidad was sure that Urbano had disappeared, he left his hiding place, went cautiously down to the shore, and with great wariness walked up to Don Acacio and stood looking at him for a time. He discovered the revolver lying in the sand, picked it up, and concealed it in the folds of his shirt. Then he returned to Don Acacio and, always taking the greatest precautions, relieved him of his cartridge belt. Don Acacio did not make the smallest movement or utter the least word. Possibly he was unconscious of the presence of a human being near him.
Martín Trinidad hid the cartridge belt, fastening it underneath his shirt. Then he moved off quickly, following the river’s bank until he was out of sight. When he was certain that nobody could see him, he took out the cartridge belt and buried it in the sand. He walked for fifty paces farther along, examined the place well so as to be able to recognize it later, and buried the revolver. Then he climbed the embankment, but at a good distance from the most distant hut of the group. Toward it he walked, on the way picking up the ax, which he had left leaning against a log. At the tool storehouse he asked El Faldón to give him a new ax for the used one.
“Where’s the old one?” asked El Faldón.
“Look at it. It’s all nicked.”
“Damn it! As might be expected—’Made in Germany’! It’s not worth a damn and looks like tin plate. God! A German ax. Bah! Here, take this one. It’s not new, but it’s American, and it will last better. These German tools can’t cut even a piece of cheese without the edge turning. They’re worthless. They were part of the equipment of the company that was here before we came. They were poor devils who didn’t know anything about axes or machetes. They bought any sort of junk. That’s why they went broke. Say, how much have you cut today?”
“Well, I don’t think it amounts to three tons.”
Having made the exchange, El Faldón noted it down carefully in the inventory book. He remained a few minutes longer in the storeroom to tell the caretaker to grease the axes and rub the leathers to prevent the moisture from damaging them.
“This place is a pigsty! What do you do with yourself all day long? Look around! Mushrooms are growing in every corner. The climbing-irons have pounds of rust. I’ve half a mind to put a pair on you and make you climb a tree with them. Then you’d see how you’d break your thick head, but at least you wouldn’t forget that they have to be greased.”
“But, little chief, how do you expect me to prevent the mushrooms from growing when it’s always raining? Nothing can get dry, and, besides, to grease these tools I have to have grease… .”
“Shut your mouth if you don’t want me to smash it in for you.”
El Faldón went outside, looked at the sky, and saw that another downpour was on the way. He was quite pleased to find himself on guard in the camp that day instead of out watching the cutters. He retraced his way quickly toward the hut, but stopped halfway.
“Christ!” he said aloud. “It seems to me that Cacho is prolonging this thing too much. It’s more than an hour and a half since he began.”
He turned in the direction of the river and was about to go to the edge of the slope to see what was happening. But he stopped.
“After all, it’s of no importance to me if he burns the hide of that guy a bit more or less. That’s his business. I’m happy that he didn’t give me the job of doing it. I’m worn out. I feel as if I can’t do anything more… .”
Heavy drops began to fall, and then immediately it rained fiercely. Although not more than twenty paces from the hut, El Faldón reached it wet to the bone. He stood in the doorway and shook the water from his hat.
“Serves me right for meddling in what doesn’t concern me.”
The rain fell with increasing violence. Suddenly El Faldón felt himself gripped by a sense of uneasiness. Without leaving the doorway he faced the river and listened intently, his eyes fixed on the slope, hoping to see Don Acacio at any moment.
“The devil!” he murmured. “I guess I’ll have to see what they’re doing.” He put on his rubber cape and pulled down his sopping hat. When he reached the edge of the slope he saw at once that it was not Urbano but Don Acacio who was tied to the tree. He recognized him by his clothes, which left no room for doubt. Don Acacio’s head had dropped forward. His chin rested on his chest, and his long black hair had fallen over his forehead. He was making futile attempts to free himself from the ropes but visibly lacked the strength to struggle.
El Faldón heard him calling: “Pechero! Faldón! By all the devils, where is that pair of lazy mules?”
It was evident that the distance and the noise of the rain had prevented his cries from being heard in the office.
The foreman ran down the incline.
“Christ! At last somebody comes! Gang of thieves! While I was in the claws of that savage you were scratching your bellies.”
El Faldón untied the ropes and held him by the shoulders to help him straighten up. When Don Acacio lifted his head the hair that had been covering his forehead fell back and disclosed his face.
“By our most holy Mother, chief! What happened to you?”
Crazed with terror, El Faldón crossed himself several times.
“Now it occurs to you to come and ask what has happened to me! The bandit ripped my two eyes out! And naturally he has escaped. But we’ll catch him, and then he’ll learn what it will cost him. Come on, now! Let all the foremen get their horses! He must not get away from us. He fixed me, finished me beyond repair!”
He felt uselessly for his pistol. He felt at his waist, searching for the cartridge belt.
“That bastard has taken everything, even my cartridge belt—unless it has fallen somewhere.” He felt for it in the sand with his feet.
“No, chief,” said El Faldón, “there’s no gun or belt anywhere.”
“Then that damned swine has taken them.”
“Probably, chief, that’s most likely it. Never mind. He sure will cause us trouble before we can catch him. He won’t stop to think before firing at us.”
“So! Now you’re all of a tremble because of a lousy Indian! Only bring him to me, and you’ll see how I’ll strangle him with my own hands.”
“He can’t be far off, chief. In this rain he can’t make headway, and he’s very likely to get bogged down in the jungle.”
During this conversation El Faldón had led Don Acacio toward the office and had helped him sit down. The girl, seeing her lover in such a state, rushed toward him, shouting: “Ay! My poor man! Savages! They’re not Christians, they’re wild animals. But I’ll never leave you!”
Don Acacio flung the girl from him violently.
“You shut your whore’s face! Leave me in peace from your goodness. I’ve many other things to think of!”
“But, my love, I only want to console you,” the girl sighed tearfully.
“I don’t need your consolation, you sow! What I want is for you to get out of here and not be bothering me.”
The girl threw herself on the bed and began to howl and lament in a voice loud enough for Don Acacio to hear.
“Faldón!” shouted Don Acacio.
“Coming, chief. I’m preparing a dressing.”
“Throw that bitch out of here! I don’t want to hear her howls. Throw her in the river or do whatever you like, but get rid of her quickly.”
He got up and gropingly took some steps with his hands stretched out in search of a bottle. When he did not find one, he thought they had maliciously moved everything in the place.
“The devil! Where have you put the bottle of mezcal?”
“Here it is, chief.”
El Faldón held out the bottle, which Don Acacio took and emptied in one long swallow. Then he threw it with all his force, not heeding those around him.
“What I can’t stomach, what I’ll never be able to stomach, is that a lousy pig of that sort caught me, Acacio! No! That, no! Never!”
He beat his head against the wall, stumbled a little, tripped on a chair, and fell full length on the floor. In rising he struck the corner of the table. His rage passed all limits. Beside himself, he shouted: “I’m no good for anything now, not for anything!”
“Take it easy, chief,” said El Faldón, going up to him with the makeshift bandages he had cut from a white shirt and dipped in a washbasin full of hot water in which he had put a few drops of alcohol.
“Sit down here on that chair, chief, the one just behind you, and let me treat you.”
Don Acacio turned, seized the chair, and beat it so violently on the floor that it smashed.
“What good to me are your treatments? It would have been better if you had arrived in time. I don’t need anything now. You can stick your treatments up your ass!”
He went up to the bed where the Indian girl was lying. He heard her weeping softly.
“So it’s you, still there, you sow! I gave them orders to throw you in the river. Go on! Get up!” he added, moving toward her with his fist raised. But the girl dodged. When he realized that she had escaped him he had a clear idea of his helplessness.
“To think that I can’t even break the skull of this whore who so well deserves it. To think that from now on I’ll have to go on living like this, letting even the dogs piss on me! And all because of that God-damned son of a bitch!”
He tried to find the door.
“What are you whispering about?” he asked El Faldón and the girl, who were in a corner discussing the best means to calm him and get him to lie down.
The Indian girl understood his state and had decided not to abandon him.
“God damn it! Something between you so soon? Now I’m in a fine position! You no sooner learn that I’m no good for anything than two steps away from me, right in my face, you’re acting like rutting swine!”
“But, Cacho, my little love,” protested the girl in a tone of tenderness, “I love you and I’ll always stay with you, if you’ll let me.”
“You’ll stay out of pity, bitch! I don’t want your pity! Understand? Where’s that bottle?”
“My life, you’ve drunk enough already. Be reasonable. Come and lie down. I’m going to help you.”
“Don’t come near me or I’ll strangle you, you wretch.”
“Good. Here I am. Strangle me if you like!”
Don Acacio heard her get up. He struck her in the face. Then, violently shutting the door that separated the two tiny rooms of the bungalow, he let down the crossbar to lock it and remain alone in the bedroom.
El Faldón and the girl pressed their ears against the door and heard him lie down.
“Thanks, most holy Mother! At last he has settled down. When he gets up he’ll be calmer and will see things differently.”
El Faldón laughed sarcastically.
The girl commented: “He’ll be quieter and will realize that he can go on living blind and even be happy.”
The two turned to bringing a little order into the room.
“It would be good to saddle a horse, Faldón, and go and tell Don Félix. Unless it would be better to tell Don Severo.”
“Don Severo is in the main camp, which is nearer—but it’s already very late. I’ll go the first thing tomorrow morning.”
At that moment they heard a shot. They both rushed forward, bursting open the door that Don Acacio had closed. They found him with a bullet in his head.
“Holy God!” the girl shouted, horrified. “But where did he find the pistol? I took care not to leave one within his reach in the office.”
El Faldón went up to an iron-bound wooden trunk that stood open near the body. It contained letters, documents, some books, a number of little sacks full of coins, two loaded revolvers, and six boxes of cartridges.
“Now I know why he wanted to lie down,” said the girl. “Just for that! Unfortunately, I didn’t know that he had a pistol there. I never stuck my nose into his affairs during the two years that I’ve been with him. Believe me, Faldón, I loved him a lot.”
She knelt down, caressed the dead man’s face, and with the foreman’s help straightened the body out decently on the bed.
“Yes, I loved him very much,” she repeated. “I loved him from the first day.”
She wept disconsolately and remained kneeling, holding one of Don Acacio’s hands between hers.
El Faldón left. Then she went to look for a jar of water and a towel and began to lay out the corpse. She crossed the hands on the chest. She took the crucifix that was suspended from his neck and put it on the body. Finally she pulled the bed toward the middle of the room and put candles around it on chairs and boxes. She covered the face with a black shawl and sat down, weeping and mechanically passing through her fingers the beads of her rosary.