The Burning Hill

by A. D. Flint

  She opened the driver door and sat down with her feet sticking out. Vilson paced around at the back of the car.

  “We could be hanging around here for hours, couldn’t we?” Jake asked Eliane.

  Eliane shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m going to make use of the time by getting a bit more sleep.”

  “I might have a wander, maybe check out the rodeo.”

  She was looking at him like he was mad. “What for?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one.” Jake had half hoped that his suggestion might have piqued her interest, but now he was going to go out of belligerence. And something else. He felt like he needed to go there. It was an odd feeling.

  “Keep your phone handy and don’t go far,” Eliane said.

  Chapter 30

  Jake

  The rodeo was on a chunk of scrubby land near the town’s football stadium. Most of it was temporary rig. Metal livestock pens, trucks and trailers with horses and cattle, stalls selling food and cowboy gear. A travelling show moving around cattle country. The arena looked a permanent fixture, with a fence of thick iron bars hung with advertising hoarding, and a simple tiered stand of bare concrete on one side. There was a marquee set up at one end of the arena with a PA. The holding pens for the bulls and the horse paddocks were at the other.

  Jake was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses as a nod to keeping a low profile. Farmers from all over would come to this thing, he guessed, including some from around Cruzeiro. He bought a ticket and pushed his way up the side of the crowded concrete stand closest to the end with the holding pens. With no safety rail along the edge and heights not on his favourites list, he ducked into a space halfway up.

  If he had imagined some sort of lame Country and Western knockoff, he was way off the mark. They had the gear, for sure, and they followed the format, but there was a thick streak of Brazil all the way through. Man and horse roping cattle, tipping them over in the dirt and hog-tying their legs in the quickest possible time. The skill and horsemanship required to rope the young and skittish cattle were off the chart. When they started the bull-riding competition, a completely different animal was wheeled in.

  The bulls were monsters, malevolent blocks of muscle, hoof and horn. Eyes rolling with incomprehension, fear and fury. Kindred spirits with Jake, Eliane would probably have said.

  The riders didn’t last more than a few seconds before they were flicked off. And it was down in the dirt where the real danger lay, trying to scrabble away from the thrashing hooves and horns. Three rodeo clowns tripped and cavorted around the arena, but they were serious professionals, distracting the bulls to allow the thrown rider to escape.

  It was only when the adult competition was over that Jake realised how much his backside was aching from the concrete bench. It was compelling stuff. The PA announced that a junior national championship was up next.

  The afternoon had wound the sun across the sky and Jake texted Eliane, asking her if there was any sign of life at the ILO office.

  No.

  He was going to hang around a bit longer then. The rodeo seemed like a better bet than the car park.

  The first few junior competitors were healthy specimens, farm boys who were near enough men. Strong and confident.

  Something caught his ear in the white noise of the crowd and the PA announcement. He looked over to the electronic scoreboard at the marquee end and saw T. TORQUATO as the rider up next. He looked to the holding pen and spotted the farmer standing up on the iron bars, looking down on the bull. It was the farmer. The bottle-wielding dickhead farmer. Jake hunched down on his concrete bench even though the farmer’s attention was anywhere but on the crowd.

  A boy of maybe thirteen or so climbed over the bars next to the farmer to mount the bull. He was smaller than the previous competitors, but he was lithe and he carried himself with the same confidence.

  T. TORQUATO was the boy’s name. He shared the same surname as the farmer. His father, most likely. Jake had a sick feeling. He hoped to fuck that he was wrong.

  A man in front of Jake nudged his wife excitedly. “Toninho Torquato. That’s the kid, the one I was talking about earlier. He’s a future champion. He’s got it all, I’m telling you. He gets this win today and he’s on the way to the big league, sponsorship deals, the big money, all the stuff.”

  Jake saw the bull raking a hoof in the soft dirt, barging at its pen, the heavy bars clanging a deep tone of alarm. Toninho lowered himself, sliding onto the huge expanse of back.

  “Look how he handles the bull,” the man in front said. “Gentle – see, he goes with the animal, not against it like most of the others do.”

  Jake watched, fascinated now, as Toninho pushed his hand through the loop in the coarse braided rope that was tied around the bull’s body, grabbed the slack in the rope and wound it around his fist. He hauled at it and thumped his fist with the other, making sure he was set tight. Glancing up at the metallic blue of the sky, he crossed himself. Then he pulled his cowboy hat down tight on his head, hunched his shoulders and curled his legs into the enormous bulk beneath.

  The buzzer went, a low, flat sound, and the gate was unlatched with a clank. The bull knew his cues and burst through, twisting and thrashing, his massive head dipping and swinging, hindquarters kicking high in the air.

  Toninho was flicked around on the bull’s back, his hand anchored by the rope. His other arm and his legs were flailing counterweights as the bull bucked and thrashed. But it was clear, even to Jake, that he was somehow tuned into its rhythm of madness and fury and he stayed on as the seconds rolled. The man in front and people around were shouting excitedly. It was a good ride.

  And then one of the bull’s great forelegs gave way, a momentary weakness in the beast. It stumbled and lurched.

  It broke the rhythm and Toninho was off, both legs coming down on one side of the bull. He was coming down to land on both feet, with grace, carrying it off like it was the intended dismount of some circus acrobat. Amongst the gasps of horror in the crowd, those in the know were gasping in admiration. An image flashed through Jake’s mind – a bronze sculpture from ancient Greece or somewhere that he had seen on a school trip to a museum. Toninho touched down in the dirt, looking like he would saunter away from the giant wrecking machine.

  But he was torn forward with the bull, his cowboy hat fluttering away. His hand was caught fast in the rope. The three rodeo clowns were quick. Two racing in to distract the bull, one waving his arms, the other flapping his joke matador’s cape. The third tried to get to Toninho. Crazed by the human activity dancing around it, goading it, and by the rope pulled tight around its body, the bull launched its hindquarters up and around, swatting Toninho into the air. He was upside down, his cowboy boots pointing skywards for a moment, and then the bull whipped him back on his arm. Everyone heard his scream as all that force went through his shoulder and elbow. He careened off the granite of the bull’s ribcage and then the beast lurched again, threatening to trample Toninho as his legs were swept beneath him.

  The third rodeo clown managed to grab on, pulling at the rope binding Toninho’s wrist. The bull was trying to turn its head to gore him. With the bull distracted, the other two rodeo clowns were also able to dart in and grab hold. Tiring and confused, the bull’s legs buckled. The huge body tipped to one side with its untidy pile of human cargo.

  The rodeo clowns had less than a second to work on the rope before the bull came to its senses and relit the fury. It kicked out its hooves, rolled and tucked them back beneath its body, got purchase in the dirt and staggered back to its feet. It whipped around again, flinging the rodeo clowns and Toninho away. They had freed his hand and Toninho landed out in the dirt, his body limp.

  The bull twisted its head, fixing a mean, pink-rimmed eye on the slight strip of motionless human. Its horns were shaved to blunted stumps but the instinct to use them was undimmed. It came around like a great sailing ship, tossing in a storm.

  The stocky rodeo clown who had freed
Toninho’s hand was quick and he didn’t hesitate, jumping in front of him, square onto the animal as it bore down. The bull dipped its head and shoulders, bringing all its strength back up to smash into his torso. Flicking its horns as it struck.

  Jake heard the slap of flesh and the crack of breaking ribs over the gasps of the crowd. The rodeo clown somehow held on as the bull tossed him around, veering away from Toninho and plunging down the length of the arena.

  The other two rodeo clowns gave chase and Jake saw Torquato darting through the bars of the holding area to get to the boy.

  The bull finally rid itself of the rodeo clown, flinging him away. It was on him in a second. He curled up as it gored at him with its stunted weapons, flipping him this way and that in the dirt. The other two tag-teamed, one dashing in to flap his cape in the bull’s face, drawing it away. The other went to their injured comrade. The bull made a half-hearted lunge at the cape and stopped, exhausted. It shook itself, blinking its malevolent eyes, ropes of saliva hanging from its open mouth.

  Torquato gathered up Toninho, the boy limp in his arms. Something drew Jake back to the bull. He could see that it was now ignoring the noisy human buzzing around it like a stinging fly, instead focusing on Torquato and the boy. It stamped and raked the dirt with its hoof, just once, and charged.

  Jake could feel the beat of the hooves in the dirt beneath the screams of the crowd. Torquato was running now, trying to get the boy to the safety of the holding area. The bull bellowed. It was almost on them.

  The heavy metal gate was swung ajar. Hands reached out to grab Toninho, dragging him and Torquato in. The gate clanked shut, shuddering with a thunderous clang as nearly a tonne of bull cannoned into it.

  The bull wobbled away, stunned. The two rodeo clowns picked up their injured comrade and got him out. The bull had the arena all to itself now. Breathing heavily, tongue lolling out, it kicked out its back hooves and cast an irritable eye around. It stood for a while, waiting, challenging. And then when nothing more came at it the fury began to subside. It trotted off down a run that was opened in the side of the arena, giving the odd cantankerous buck and flick as it went. It was done with the arena for the day. The crowd seemed unsure whether to cheer or applaud or voice dismay.

  Jake made his way down the steep concrete stand as quickly as he could.

  *

  Vilson

  He had hardly moved all afternoon. There wasn’t any point. He mostly sat, leaning against a tree in the car park, knees up, elbows resting on them, hands cupping his face. He had packed away his frustration to wait it out. It was a trick he had learned long ago. He had spent a whole chunk of his life waiting for things.

  The lawyer had slept for periods on the back seat. The rest of the time she had spent pacing around, or looking through the windows of the closed ILO office, then cursing, and trying to call people who didn’t answer. Right now she was in the driver’s seat, tapping her phone on the dashboard and doing some more cursing.

  Vilson’s backside was beginning to ache again. He got up, stretched and walked beyond the car park to the main drag for a change of scenery. Cars and trucks flew past, buffeting him with the warm air of late afternoon. Each of the lamp posts lining the road was plastered with paper flyers, the freshest of them connected with the rodeo, stallholders and showmen who followed it from town to town.

  Vilson recognised a flyer. He had seen one very similar in Rio. He couldn’t read the words but he recognised the layout and the girl pictured. She was around fourteen, dressed in white, wearing strings of beads with a long white scarf wrapped round her head like a turban. It was the traditional dress of Bahia, up in the north. The same garb that the spiritual women in the favela wore. Those women had spoken about this girl and the word had spread around the favela. Yara was her name. He remembered. She was from a family with a powerful spiritual history. The girl was a seer and a healer. Just looking at her smudgy image on the flyer gave him a superstitious shiver. They said she was the most powerful of them all.

  Vilson had tried to get to one of her shows in Rio the previous year – anyone could go as long as they had the money to get past the door. But the ticket price had been way beyond his means. He remembered how much that had hurt. She would have seen everything. She could have guided him on an easier path to his mother. In the end, though, he had found his own way to his mother. He was so close now. Just a little more waiting.

  He saw the gringo before Eliane did. He came running. Sweating and red in the face.

  “Any sign?” the gringo asked.

  “Nothing,” the lawyer said with bitterness. “Desordem e Regresso.”

  The gringo didn’t get it, but Vilson knew it as a sarcastic flip on the country’s motto, Ordem e Progresso – Order and Progress.

  “We need to go to the farm,” Jake said.

  Vilson jumped up. It was the first sensible thing he had heard all day.

  “You know we have to wait,” the lawyer said.

  “It’s nearly five,” the gringo said, looking at his phone. “These ILO people aren’t coming. And, trust me, we have to go right now.”

  Chapter 31

  Vilson

  The gringo used the map to get them to Cruzeiro, directing the lawyer to the bus station in town.

  “Okay, I can get my bearings from here,” the gringo said.

  “You don’t know where the farm is on the map?” the lawyer asked.

  “I’ll get us there, don’t worry.”

  It didn’t bother Vilson. He had never looked at a map in his life and he could find his way around, no problem. He assumed it was the same for everyone.

  Dusk was passing quickly into night as he peered out at the quiet streets that his mother must have walked. The town was different to the one that had grown in his imagination, but he pushed that to one side. He moved his mind to the farm, the place she had always promised for them. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t told him in her letters. Maybe it had only been a recent move. She probably had her reasons. It was all history now anyway. He was going to her.

  They drove along the dark, broken roads, the gringo pushing his face up to the windscreen to see the coming turns and then twisting round to see the turns they passed.

  “Okay, this isn’t it,” the gringo said. “It wasn’t this far out.”

  The lawyer turned the car around and drove back the way they had come. There were more stops and more wrong turns, eating up hours, the gringo getting more and more agitated, going through all his Brazilian curses and shaking his head each time. “We really need to find this place soon,” he said.

  Vilson felt for the small screwdriver in his pocket. He had found it in the passenger door pocket. With every wrong turn the gringo made, he wanted to ram the screwdriver into his neck. But he sat back and kept quiet. He needed the gringo. For now.

  “Stop, stop,” the gringo called out. “Back it up a bit.”

  The rear lights gave the empty road behind a red glow as the lawyer reversed. The gringo looked out his window at a turn onto a track. There was an old metal sign, the words rusted off.

  “This is it,” the gringo said.

  The lawyer had to take it slowly down the dirt track, the bumps and ruts casting long shadows in the headlights. It was a good twenty minutes of driving before the car clattered over the cattle grid into a grass field that overlooked the unlit farmhouse. The gringo pointed to an area of worn, sandy turf at the bottom of the field by the low cattle shed for the lawyer to park up.

  “He stays in the car,” Vilson instructed.

  The gringo kept quiet for once, as Vilson and the lawyer got out.

  They could hear the air blowing from the nostrils of the cattle in the shed. There was no wind and the sky was clear. Vilson had never looked up at the night sky outside a city. The stars were brilliant. Countless, dizzying in their depth. At ground level there were tiny green flashes everywhere as fireflies zigzagged around the field. This was a magical place. It was the place.


  “Mãe?” Vilson called out for his mother. The place was in total darkness, the windows covered with louvred wooden shutters.

  They moved around the side of the farmhouse, along the smooth tiles of the veranda. Rounding a corner, they were in a small yard, a low windowless building opposite. Vilson stepped off the veranda. There was a doorway, the overhung eave making it impenetrably dark, and there was another shuttered window. Flickering, sickly light was coming through the slats. A television, the tinny volume spilling out.

  Vilson peered through a slat. The television was the only source of light in the small room. He could make out a slight figure curled in a chair, illuminated only because it was so close to the television.

  “Mãe?” Vilson called out again, more quietly this time. The television went off and the sounds of the night insects filled in; the darkness was complete.

  Vilson heard a movement in the room. And then nothing.

  A dull, bare bulb flicked on in the recessed entrance – a kind of hallway – and Vilson’s mother appeared. She hung back, her arms hugging her body. There was shock as well as elation for Vilson. He knew she was his mother, but she was so shrivelled and tiny. She was not the mother of his memory.

  He could see the uncertainty in her face but he could also see that she knew who he was. There was no mistaking the family resemblance.

  “I’ve come to take you away, Mãe,” he said, walking to her, holding his hand out.

  She shrank back, shaking her head. “No. No, no, you will make Seu Torquato angry. This is bad.”

  “Then we must go now, before he comes back,” Vilson said, his hand still outstretched.

  “I cannot leave. My place is here.”

  “No, Mãe, you are not tied to him any more,” Vilson said. “This woman is a lawyer, she can help.”

  His mother stared at the lawyer. She didn’t seem to understand.

  “Why did you have to come?” she said to Vilson. “Why bring this unhappiness to me?”