March to the Monteria

by B. TRAVEN

  Celso was leaning against one of the poles which supported the overhanging roof of the hut, whittling on a stick. The firm attention he paid the stick in his hand gave the impression that it was a highly important piece of work for the harness of the oxen. However, he really was only whittling idly without any definite idea of embellishing the piece of wood or increasing its usefulness. He did not seem to notice the girl, and her shy look through the fingers of her hand, as if gazing through a lattice window, was the only gesture she made to signify that Celso was, for her, the only man on earth.

  Not until, by his estimate, the girl’s father was at least two hundred paces away did Celso look up. But his hand continued to whittle on the stick so that, had he noticed that anyone was watching him, he had but to lower his lids to be protected against any suspicion that he wanted only that girl, and none other, to become the mother of his fifteen children.

  When still a boy, living permanently in the village, he had occasionally seen the girl rather close: once, when el cura had come to baptize the children in the half-ruined church of the village, and another time, at a wedding, when he had danced four times with her, and now and then when both families had met on the road, returning from the market at Jovel. If he took careful and exact count, all the words exchanged with the girl up to that date would not amount to more than twenty.

  Even at the dance he had merely approached her and, as was the custom, thrown his red bandanna into her lap to indicate that he asked for the honor of dancing with her. He would not have known what to say to her. That it was hot or cold, that it was going to rain or that they were thirsty, such silly little things the girl knew by herself. So why ask about it? Even to say “thank you” or “how are you?” would have sounded so ridiculous that the village might have gossiped about it for months. And much less was it necessary for him to tell her that he was fond of her. If she did not know that by herself then she was not to be considered as a possible mother of his fifteen children. Whether she wanted to marry or not was not a matter between her and him, but solely a matter between him and her father. She could say “no” to any deal concerted by the two men. That was her right. But then any other boy in the village was of the same standing. Neither she nor any female of her tribe had been educated to see or feel a particular difference between one man and another. What little distinction there might exist between one marriageable man and another was to be appraised by her father and not by her.

  These distinctions consisted in that one man was a drunkard, the other a moderate drinker and the third a youth who would not even touch aguardiente. Other differences might be that, according to the judgment of the girl’s father, one man might not know how to work well and constantly, while the other was capable, experienced and hard working. The most impor tant difference, and again in the judgment of her father, lay in the fact that one youngster might not seem capable of helping his wife to ten children, while the other gave the father the impression that he might easily produce twenty children and feed them. Sentiment does not count for much in the marriage of an Indian peasant. What counts is down-to-earth reality.

  Yet, from the day when Celso had discussed with the girl’s father the compensation for the marriage, the girl had commenced to accustom herself to the idea that Celso, and no other man under the sun, had been destined for her through all eternity. And Celso, had he been able to express it poetically, would most likely have affirmed that the girl had been destined for him by fate since the creation of the world as the one and only woman. They would marry, without the benefit of the church or of the civil judge, merely by the agreement of both parents. Whether the couple, once married for thirty years, was happy or not none would know. The happiness of marriage was something beyond the scope of their sentiments. They would have children, half of them dead, the other alive, some of them married. They would live by constant hard work, for the very moment they stopped working, even if only for two months, there would be no corn and no beans to eat.

  They would live together in peace. Beginning with the day they married the woman would obey the husband more than she would obey God, of whom she had only a very vague conception anyhow. What her husband said and ordered was an unalterable law for her and all her children, whether they still lived under his roof or had homes of their own. Just as a good Catholic would not think of criticizing a command given by the Pope or of examining his right to create new dogmas, thus the woman would never dream of criticizing a decision or an order of her man. They both discussed how, when, where and at what price they were going to sell their surplus of corn, wool, goats or skins. If they agreed, good. If they didn’t agree, he had the last word. If, after some time had passed, it turned out that her judgment had proven better than his, she would not puff up or throw it in his face any more than a pious human being would grumble when God, instead of sending rain, lets everything perish by a long drought.

  4

  Celso packed his few belongings and, one morning at three o’clock, he was again on the road to Jovel.

  Arriving in town, he bought five centavos worth of raw tobacco leaves in a store at the Zócalo. His mother had staked him to a tostón, that is, half a peso, for his trip to town. Now he was sitting on the curb outside the store, rolling himself some cigars.

  Inside the store a caballero was discussing with the storekeeper the possibilities of sending a thick envelope with documents and letters to the montería Agua Azul. For several days he had been looking for arrieros who might be going that way. The arrieros were the mule drivers who led pack trains to the faraway districts of the state where there were no roads for vehicles. As it turned out there were no arrieros right now taking a caravan to Agua Azul or a camp nearby. Perhaps in two or three months, when the Turk would take his merchandise to the monterías, there might be a chance to deliver the envelope. But most certainly it would not be today or within the next two or three weeks.

  The caballero needed someone very urgently to take the important documents to that montería. But no messenger would go alone. Everyone was afraid of the long march through the jungle, which would take at least ten days, to which the trip back had to be added. From Jovel to the last village before entering the jungle it was six days. Counting the necessary rest days, the round trip would require some forty days of the bearer’s time. Naturally he would ask to be paid for forty days. This had to be increased by the hire of his horse and the pack mule to carry the provisions needed for the trip. Occasionally the mule was interchanged for the horse, so as not to wear out the animals. A horse or a mule that gets too tired in the jungle simply lies down, refuses to eat and may easily die of despair. Besides, being afraid to go alone, whoever went demanded a companion. Such a demand was not unreasonable. But that boy, too, had to have a horse and had to be paid for forty days.

  Simply to stick a ten-centavo stamp on the letter, throw it into the nearest letter box, and then run away would not have helped the caballero much. The letter would have been returned to him with the note “No hay correos,” that is, “No postal communications.”

  “Listen, Don Apolinar,” the storekeeper said. “Why don’t you send the letter with a Chamula Indian? They don’t need horses. They run like the devil after a soul. Once they are on the run, two horses won’t catch them.”

  “Now, there’s an idea worth considering,” said Don Apolinar.

  “Nothing to consider,” replied the storekeeper. “Just ask that Chamula over there, sitting on the curb and rolling his cigars. I can vouch for him. I know him and his father. He is from Ishtacolcot.”

  Originally Celso, like all of his tribe, had only spoken Tsotsil, his mother tongue. But even before going to work at the coffee fincas, he had begun to learn Spanish while working for some months in the sawmill of Don Prisciliano for two reales, twenty-five centavos a day. In the coffee fincas, where he met so many workers speaking four different Indian languages that Spanish was a necessity for them to understand one another, he had perfected himself in this langu
age as much as it was possible for an Indian who had never gone to school.

  He heard what the two ladinos were saying, but pretended not to understand Spanish in order to learn exactly what was being discussed, since he had been mentioned.

  An Indian who lives in his pueblo is generally slow in understanding such things and even slower in grasping an opportunity to derive some advantage for himself. Yet because of his working at the coffee fincas, where he met not only pure Indians, but also the slimy, shrewd and oily scum of the cities who frequently went to work at the faraway coffee plantations for no other reason than to hide away from the police for a while, Celso had begun to shake off the clumsiness of his thinking process. However, he had not yet succeeded in getting rid of it completely, otherwise he would not have stumbled into Don Sixto’s trap so easily, but would have tried to defend himself and waited to see whether he would really be sent to jail if he did not pay Don Sixto. Being afraid of jail was one of the complexes which he had not been able to get rid of. He had seen too often how quickly, and without any real cause, innocent Indians were picked up, dragged to jail and from there driven to road building with no pay.

  But what little he had learned at the coffee plantations in the way of seeking an advantage for himself in a given situation now came in very handy.

  Without that experience he probably would have jumped up and humbly offered Don Apolinar his services to take the letter to Agua Azul. But he remained sitting, because he had learned that a man who offers himself is worth only half as much as one who is being sought.

  Calmly he continued sitting on the curb, slowly and with great care rolling his cigars. And since he acted so innocently the two caballeros discussed the wage for the carrier without restraint.

  “Do you think that stinker would do it for two reales a day?” asked Don Apolinar.

  “He can do it in thirty days and that would be—let’s see-sixty reales, well, seven pesos and fifty centavos,” replied the merchant.

  “Hey, listen, you, Chamula!” shouted Don Apolinar.

  Celso got up. He came with the shy and fearful gesture of the simple Indian who is unexpectedly called by a ladino and who does not know what to expect, whether a kick in the behind, or jail, or a cigarette or a glass of aguardiente, or some unpaid service, or showing his vaccination marks, or giving his name or information about how many sheep he keeps at home.

  However, for the first time in his life, Celso acted with well-studied hypocrisy. Faked was the fearful and shy gesture with which he approached Don Apolinar. He was aware that neither the chief of police, nor the jefe político nor even the governor himself had anything to say in this deal. Any authority could command him to take the envelope to the montería without any payment whatsoever, even without compensation for his food. But if it was stolen from him while he was asleep, or if the envelope unwound accidentally from his woolen sash and got lost in the jungle, or if it dissolved into pulp while he was swimming through a river, not even the death penalty for him could replace the important documents and bank notes. And since the possibilities of losing the envelope or of its turning into pulp because of constant rain were so numerous, nobody could prove whether he had or had not handled it with due care or perhaps lost it intentionally to revenge himself for the unpaid labor forced upon him.

  This envelope with its very important documents was a highly confidential matter which could only be handled voluntarily and in good faith to please the man interested in the safe arrival of the letter. He, therefore, feigned a shy gesture so as not to give away the fact that, in this case, he was looking out for his own advantage.

  While sitting on the curb listening to them talk about the envelope and of the difficulties of its transportation, he had begun, without any outward sign, to muse over a plan. And a minute later he knew that taking this important letter to the montería was a stroke of luck which had fallen upon him in his present situation.

  His first intention had been to return to a coffee finca, although he was fed up with the work and would have liked to find something else. But when he learned that there were no recruiting agents in town and that no demand for labor at the cafetales existed, he began to think of the monterías as the only remaining solution. It was very hard work, work that could be called murderous. But he was not afraid of hard work. What he wanted was to avoid the high expenses connected with obtaining work in a montería. The agents demanded between twenty-five and fifty pesos commission for recruiting. The labor contract stipulated another twenty-five pesos tax to be paid to the mayor in Hucutsin. The march, or rather the food consumed on the march, was on his own account. All this amounted to more than three months’ wages, solely as expenses for the right to work.

  And now, while he was meditating about his desperate situation, the envelope fell right into his lap. The march would be paid for. He would get to a montería. There was a perpetual and steady demand for workers in the monterías. He would not pay any commission to an agent, nor would he have to pay twenty-five pesos tax in Hucutsin. He would work in the montería without a contract and so be free to leave when he wanted to and when he thought that he had earned the money needed for his marriage.

  5

  “What’s your name, muchacho?” asked Don Apolinar.

  “Celso, Celso Flores, a sus órdenes, patroncito.”

  Although Don Apolinar knew it, since the merchant had just told him, he still demanded: “And where do you come from?”

  “Ishtacolcot, patroncito.”

  “That’s some leguas beyond la villa de Chamula?”

  “Sí, señor, más o menos dos leguas.”

  “That means about six miles.”

  “So I think, patroncito.”

  “Do you know the way to the monterías? To any montería in the region of the Ushumahcintla River?”

  “No, patroncito.”

  Don Apolinar began to explain the road. He took a piece of wrapping paper lying on the counter and drew a line on it. Since Celso did not know how to read, Don Apolinar drew little squares wherever there was a village or a hamlet. Furthermore, for each place he drew a certain figure, consisting of a special landmark, such as church or a high, oddly formed rock or a big tree or the location of the cemetery. Thus the road became as clear to Celso’s comprehension as a railroad timetable to a traveling salesman. In this way Don Apolinar drew the exceedingly difficult road which he himself had covered several times as far as the last settlement at the edge of the great jungle. From there on it was not so easy to sketch the road on paper as the road was actually only a mere path. All he could tell Celso was to spend the night in the last settlement and there obtain from the settlers a detailed description of the way through the jungle. In the same settlement he would also have to buy all the food he needed on his march through the jungle, because once in the jungle there would be no stores, no huts, no human beings. The way through the jungle would require from nine to twelve days, depending on the speed of the runner.

  “So here you see, joven, how the road worms along and more or less how long it will take you to get to Agua Azul,” said Don Apolinar. “And now we shall discuss your pay. You can very well make the entire trip in thirty days, a fortnight to get there, and a fortnight back. I shall give you two reales for every day. That would be a total of seven pesos and fifty centavos, and if you handle the matter well I shall add another eight reales as a special bonus.”

  Celso listened without nodding his head, without arguing, without showing by a single expression on his face that he had even understood what had been said to him. Once he had seen where and how his advantage would come in, he thought he might just as well continue, otherwise his plan would be of no use. While Don Apolinar was talking, it occurred to Celso that he might perhaps get back from Don Apolinar at least some part of what Don Sixto had taken away from him. Don Apolinar and Don Sixto both were ladinos and they could straighten out their accounts between them. Without knowing the economic circumstances and interlacing of the business d
eals made by the ladinos among themselves, Celso had in his mind a faint idea that if one ladino lost something in favor of another one, he would try to recover it from a third ladino, and that from those intricate and intermingled dealings arose all the quarrels and discussions and shootings with which the ladinos seemed to fill the better part of their lives. Consequently, if he, Celso, made Don Apolinar pay him well, the latter would get it back from some other ladino until, finally, the money that now had to be paid by Don Apolinar to Celso would be extracted from the pockets of Don Sixto.

  With a shy, servile and stupid face, Celso said: “With your kind permission, patroncito, I don’t believe that I can go. It’s really too far. I’m afraid of the jungle. It’s full of Caribes, those savages who steal women and kill all Indians who are not Caribes and can’t speak their language.”

  “The Caribes are kind and peaceful people and they won’t do you any harm as long as you don’t bother them.”

  “But they use poisoned arrows when anybody crosses their paths or comes near their huts.”

  “That’s fairy tales, old women’s talk.”

  “But I’m still afraid,” repeated Celso. “There are many tigers and pumas and poisonous snakes in the jungle and I have no gun to defend myself.”

  “But you have your machete,” argued Don Apolinar.

  “True, I have one, patroncito,” said Celso miserably, as if somebody expected him to go on an elephant hunt with nothing but a dull fishhook on a piece of thread.

  “Sometimes a machete is worth two good guns,” the storekeeper said, calming Celso. “There are times a gun won’t fire just when a tiger is ready to jump, and then what?”

  “Bueno, right now I wouldn’t know what to do in that case,” said Celso. “I would have to see first how things stand and how big the tiger is.”

  Don Apolinar and the merchant both laughed and felt rich and important before the innocence and stupidity of the Chamula boy.