The Carreta

by B. TRAVEN

  Against this, don Laureano had given orders when the train left Chiapa de Corso, that the oxen were to be thoroughly rested on good grazing land during the fiesta at Balún-Canán, so that they would be in a condition to make the return journey in good time and without great fatigue. He had a lot of freight already booked and wanted the animals ready. The carreteros made use of this two weeks’ rest to give themselves a thorough washing and put their personal gear in order, and to get drunk as often as they had the chance.

  Whenever a man on the low rungs of the social and economic ladder does not have to work because it is a feast day or a day of rest, he gets drunk. And when he gets drunk he feels there is some sense in a feast day and persuades himself that now he is having a jolly time.

  He knows no better. No one has taught him to use his time profitably. No one has told him to learn to think for himself instead of letting others think for him all his life long. He has only learned one thing and he has learned it well: to obey. He had that flogged into him in his childhood. His father began it.

  It adds to the employer’s prosperity when his men get drunk—provided their work does not suffer. And as they know of nothing better to do on their days off, they drink on every day off they have. Thus they play into the patrón’s hands by remaining in his debt. As free men they have the right to get drunk and spend their money as they choose. But of course they must see to it that they get drunk at the proper time, so that when work begins again they are in a condition to get on with it.

  Time off was a rarity in the life of a carretero. It was only when the oxen were in urgent need of rest that the carretero might perhaps get a day off, as long, that is, as there were no repairs to be seen to. The oxen had their days of rest undisturbed, and they had their feed as usual. They were paid their wages in full. But, then, they were oxen. They could have their sleep out, because they did not know how to repair broken carretas. When there was a heavy load and spare oxen could be driven with the caravan, there were no days off for the carretas—not the whole year through very often. The carretero got his days off when he was down with fever, cramped and writhing on his mat, or when he had got a leg under the wheel of his carreta and could not use it.

  4

  Andrés’s caravan was camped outside the town on a wide prairie beside the road which led to El Puente. The carretas were neatly lined up and the carreteros had made a roomy camp for themselves.

  The oxen pastured far and wide over the prairie. Now and again they were rounded up and driven to the little river, where they immersed themselves for hours at a time so as to kill the thousands of ticks which had burrowed into their skin. After this they were driven to the camp. The carreteros looked them carefully over for sores, which, when necessary, they doctored. Then the animals got their feed of maize, and when they had eaten their fill they were turned loose again to graze.

  Cattle, horses, mules, and donkeys grazed in hundreds over the prairie. The cattle grazed apart from the other animals. All the native animals out at grass kept together in herds, mostly in herds belonging to the same owner; for though they were free they were used to each other’s company through having been raised in the same corral, and also because they were occasionally rounded up and driven to their ranchos to be given salt.

  But some herds came together out of sympathy; others of necessity, because they were neglected by their owners and no longer knew where they belonged. It was to these looser droves that the newly arrived animals attached themselves—the oxen, for example, of the carreteros, and the horses, mules, and donkeys of itinerant traders.

  Although thousands of animals were grazing over the prairie only a few droves were visible. The prairie was so vast that most of the animals were lost to sight and could scarcely be seen even as dots in the distance. Nevertheless, it was not very difficult for the carreteros to find their oxen. On the road and at every halt the oxen are trained to keep together and not stray far from the carretas. These animals wander off only when they find no grass near at hand or when the grass is sour or when the ground has been fouled by animals grazing there before them.

  The oxen of the carretas are so different, too, from other cattle that it is easy for experienced carreteros to distinguish their oxen even from a great distance. The carreta oxen are big powerful beasts with heavy, widespread horns, and they can hardly be compared with ordinary cattle.

  But there were four other caravans resting here whose oxen were also grazing over the prairie, and so it often happened that the carreteros who went out to look for their oxen might go six or eight kilometers after a group of carreta oxen they had sighted, only to find when they came up with it that the animals were of another caravan. But as all the carreteros knew the brands of all cartage contractors in the state, they were able to tell each other where their oxen were to be found.

  During the last three days of the fiesta a general scouring of the prairie would begin, in search of the animals out at grass. Men on foot and on horseback could then be seen going off in all directions to recover their mounts and pack animals. It often happened that a traveler who had come to the fiesta on horseback spent a whole week searching for his animal, and even then could not find it, and had to ask a ranchero in the neighborhood to let him know when the animal turned up somewhere, as he could wait no longer.

  Owners of herds which were at pasture on the prairie had now to send out their men to keep a watch over their horses and cattle, for this was the opportunity for thieves of horses and mules to go on the prowl and pick up a good animal. No one could say offhand, in the confusion of traders and others who were all leaving at once after the fiesta, whether this or that mount or pack animal belonged to the man who went off with it or whether it had been stolen.

  It was only during these fiestas, when hundreds of strangers were about the place, that animals could be stolen from the prairie. At other times travelers were so few that every inhabitant knew exactly what each one looked like, how he was clothed, and what animals he had come with. If he had even a single horse with him which gave rise to a suspicion of his having stolen it on his way there or back, he would be caught before having been two days on his way, or even two hours.

  For this reason the herds on the prairie were as safe in ordinary times as they were in their yards and stables. But when the two towns, which were separated by this wide prairie, held their great Church fiestas, the owners of the herds had to be in the saddle day and night during the last week, keeping their herds together.

  5

  Just as the seaman whose ship is in port loading or unloading a cargo cannot by any means take his ease, as the innocent landsman may think, but has rather to do more and heavier labor than when his ship is on the high seas, so it was with the carreteros.

  As soon as they had bathed, doctored, and fed the oxen, it was the turn of the carretas. If there was a breakage of any kind over the next twelve weeks they would get it hot. “You goddamn loafers had two weeks at Balún-Canán and nothing to do but sleep and get drunk. This broken wheel will cost you a month’s wages—to teach you to keep your carreta in repair,” don Laureano would say. “What do you think I pay you thirty centavos a day for? I’d do better to break a stick on your thick skull, you lousy son-of-a-bitch.”

  And you should see what a carreta looks like after half a year or a whole year on the roads without one day off.

  It was usually one of those built two hundred years before, though of all that was new in it two hundred years earlier not a plank or spar was left. First the left wheel was smashed, then the right; then the pole, then the body. The newest bit of it might be five weeks old, the oldest forty years.

  And as all the parts of a carreta are of different ages, according to the dates when they were renewed, and therefore of different degrees of durability, a practiced eye and an accurate knowledge of a carreta’s history are required before you can say which part of it is likely to break down on the next trip. It was the carreteros’ task to renew these parts when they
had any days off.

  Don Laureano knew very well that something or other was bound to have given out on every journey, even though none of the carreteros said a word about it. A carretero never betrayed a fellow worker, either to get his own back at him or to stand well with his employer. That was against his nature. It would never enter his head to behave so shabbily.

  True, they sometimes fought like devils among themselves, both on the road and when camping. They went for each other with knives, machetes, and cudgels. Blood flowed freely and there were plenty of bruises and black eyes. Everywhere on earth the common people take a peculiar delight in cracking each other’s heads. For this reason the heads of their masters escape attention. For the rage which accumulates under the influence of their wretched and aimless economic condition finds its vent in these fraternal whackings. This accounts for the lack of a proper impetus and healthy rage when the opportunity offers itself of throwing the whole economic system once and for all into a state of promising confusion. A new and healing order of things can never come into being through order, however admirable, but only through the boiling up of disorder.

  No bad blood remained after these violent fights among the carreteros; none of them would dream of revenging himself by squealing on a fellow worker. It was against their code of honor.

  All the same, don Laureano knew pretty well what went on during their journeys, and why. There were always travelers on horseback who passed a halted caravan and could naturally see what was up. Then when they arrived at Chiapa de Corso they met don Laureano in the street, or else they had to see him on business.

  “I saw a train of yours halted on the road close to Santa Catarina, don Laureano. They were held up and hard at work on it.”

  “What was up then, don César?”

  “Broken wheel—and an ox on the run. Lord knows how far the muchachos had to chase before they caught it.”

  Traders too, or their families traveling with the carretas, complained to don Laureano: “I tell you, don Laureano, your carretas are a scandal. Three times they broke down on the road, because your boys fell asleep. Your muchachos are lazy. Next time I’ll do better to arrange for transport with don Mauricio.”

  Or else a merchant in Shimojol wrote don Laureano an angry letter because his goods had arrived two days late.

  “Why were you two days behind time?” don Laureano shouted at the encargado.

  Then it had to come out which carreta had broken down and whose fault it was, and the man whose carreta it had been that held up the train forfeited a month’s or two months’ wages. This meant that however hard he might work, however sparingly he lived, however he denied himself every little pleasure, the burden of debt never decreased but only mounted higher. So long as he had this debt he had to work for the man to whom he owed the debt. He could not seek other employment where he might earn more or have lighter work or a greater hope of achieving freedom and independence and doing what suited him and offered him a better life.

  If a wheel broke or a carreta got off the road it meant not only the loss of half a day and consequent delay in the delivery of the goods, but also breakage or damage of the goods in that particular carreta. A packing case of china or medicines might easily be rendered worthless by a carretero’s negligence. And if a breakdown happened when the carreta was crossing a river, his whole load might be written off if it consisted of goods which could not stand a wetting.

  The loss was not borne by the sender who might have packed the goods badly. He took no responsibility whatever once the goods were dispatched. This was explicitly stated in the conditions of sale. The responsibility for the safe arrival of the goods was planted on the cartage contractor, who might certainly have refused to accept them if they were badly packed; but then another man would have taken the risk and don Laureano lost the deal.

  And what did he have experienced carreteros for? And pay them good wages? Why had he taken over the debts they owed their previous masters when they came to him to better themselves? Why did he treat them as free men and not flog them and put them in the stocks as was done with enslaved peons? Why all this consideration on the part of a civilized employer for his men if they took not the slightest trouble to protect him from loss?

  It was only just that any breakdown on the road should be set down against them in his books as a debt. If they looked after their carretas properly, if they knew the roads well and did not go to sleep but kept their eyes open, these losses and damages and accidents would never happen. It was only negligence on the part of the carreteros if they got behind on a day’s journey or if wheels broke or goods were spoiled.

  Negligence should never be tolerated; and it would simply be condoning negligence and carelessness if he did not make his carreteros responsible for all losses which arose through their fault. He did not pay his carreteros to sleep and drink, but to work—and work for his advantage. Every worker has been given a head to think with. He did not expect oxen to make good any losses they occasioned. That would be foolish, for a reasonable man knows that an ox cannot think. That is why oxen are paid no wages. A carretero is paid wages precisely because he can think. And as he did pay his carreteros wages he had the right to expect them to use their heads for his advantage.

  6

  Taking into account the actual condition of the carretas, there was only one way of avoiding breakdowns, and this was to replace them by new ones. But as some parts of each carreta were as good as new, because it was only a month or two since these parts had been patched up, to replace the old carretas would have been a senseless waste of capital which no businessman could tolerate.

  If don Laureano had to add to the number of his carretas owing to the increase of freight to be carried, he always tried first to pick up old ones. It was only when he could nowhere find an old one that he ordered a new one to be made.

  There was nothing left, then, for the carreteros to do but to patch up the carretas whenever they had an hour’s spare time. This would have been simple enough if don Laureano had supplied them with material or given them money to buy it with when it was required.

  It was true that when the carretas stood in their own yard a supply of good timber was there to freshen them up with. Besides this, each train of carretas was supplied with a few spare wheels, yokes, and poles for the journey. But it often happened that the carretas never saw their home for two or three months, but were continually on the road between Arriaga and Tuxtla or between Jovel and Balún-Canán, or wherever else the traffic in freight kept them occupied.

  The carreteros were not given money to buy material with.

  “I am not such a fool as that,” said don Laureano. “The muchachos would drink up the lot at the first tienda they came to, or gamble it away at dice or spinning pesos. I know them.”

  Perhaps he had had experiences of the kind, but the fact remained that carreteros were never given money. He gave them only vouchers with which to buy maize for their beasts on the road. These vouchers, signed and stamped by himself, were accepted throughout the state. They were as good as hard cash.

  The oxen had to be fed well. He could not hold a carretero responsible if an ox gave out on a journey, for it might have eaten the leaves of a poisonous plant or tree, or a snake might have bitten it. Oxen that refused to get up could not be patched up by putting in new bits, and so there was nothing a carretero could do in that case. Whatever happened to an ox was the will of God, Who watches over every sparrow to see that no feather falls from its tail without His express command.

  As the carreteros had to keep the carretas in going order and had neither money nor vouchers they had to pick up material wherever they could find it. Not even the belief in a terrible retribution in the other world, which they had had thrashed into them, was enough to deter them from getting hold of it in ways that were irreconcilable with the laws of heaven and earth, not to mention the laws of the State. They had to think first and foremost of avoiding a breakdown at any cost; for the first duty of a
good and loyal and obedient servant is to serve his master, to further his interests, and to protect him from loss of any kind. All other duties may wait.

  7

  Just as the several parts of a carreta did not come together at any one time, so too they were not all of one kind of wood. Some parts were mahogany, others ebony, still others cedar, oak, or pine. Every kind of timber to be met with on the roads the caravans traveled was to be found in a carreta.

  A few kilometers from Balún-Canán on the way to El Puente there was a magnificent forest of pines with the finest trees it is possible to imagine. It was probably the beauty of this forest that moved the Indians of ancient times to offer the forest as a home to their gods. In the midst of it they built a group of pyramids and erected altars for the delectation of these gods. It is not to be supposed that the Indian gods live there still, but the pyramids are all there.

  The carreteros had no time to go and look at the pyramids; they did not interest them. Their interest was focused on the state of their carretas. It does no good when the worker has any interests outside his work. He has his work to occupy him and he can leave pyramids and history to those whom the State selects for the task of arranging the history of the world to suit its own immediate requirements. The well-being of every State is furthered and its peace and good order assured when the shoemaker sticks to his last, when the workman is an obedient servant, and when it is left to experts to smooth over the problems of economic life.

  Also, the pyramids were too far away for the carreteros, who only went far enough into the forest to find the trees they required for hacking out their poles, their yokes, and spokes. Then they brought oxen along and dragged their handiwork to their camp.