March to the Monteria

by B. TRAVEN

“Not much with the ax, but I’m a good machetero,” replied Celso. “I worked in coffee fincas for several years, mostly with the machete.”

  “Four reales per day,” said the capataz, “and ten pesos for myself, because I take you on. The ten pesos will be deducted from your first pay. If you run away it’s one hundred and fifty lashes for the first time and fifty pesos fine. You probably won’t attempt it the second time, because then you’ll get your whipping and on top of it be hanged. Ask your fellow jacks what’s meant by that. You buy only at the tienda of this montería. And from an itinerant peddler you buy only with permission from the manager. So now you’ve been taken on. One year irrevocable contract. You were lucky to save yourself the tax on the contract. But with or without contract-tax, don’t think you can wander off when you feel like it. One year’s the minimum. We don’t hire for less than a year. Name?—Age?—Village?—Bueno, all right. You belong to contractor Don Gregory’s gang.”

  From the fifty centavos which Celso was getting per day, twenty centavos were deducted and paid to the cook of the gang for food. Occasionally Celso felt like smoking and so he had to buy tobacco leaves. He needed camphor to heal mosquito bites as well as the bites and stings of other insects and of reptiles. Now and then quinine was distributed in doses by the management when heavy attacks of fever became too frequent—and when there was any quinine available at all.

  Occasionally he had to buy tallow to be used as ointment for his back after a whipping. Whippings were given not only for flight, which anyway was very rare, but for many other infringements of the manifold rules in existence and of which one was the most frequent: insufficient daily production or timber carelessly trimmed. No consideration was given to the possible causes of lack of production. There were many causes of which the man was absolutely innocent, such as bad axes or half-broken pulling hooks, and natural obstacles presented by the jungle and by meteorological conditions. Neither fever nor any other sickness or disease was an excuse for the failure to deliver the prescribed daily quota of two tons of sound, properly dressed trunks, called trozas, ready to be pulled out. At certain places in the jungle only young trees of no value were found, or old, deteriorated, worm-eaten trunks; and there would be still others where the Indian had to cut his path with the machete to find adequate trees. This sometimes took hours. But it was not put down in favor of the jack. Every day he had to deliver two tons, fourteen tons a week, of first-class caoba ready to be hauled to the river. How he achieved it was his affair. He was paid for the delivery of the timber.

  When he managed, owing to specially favorable circumstances, to produce three or even four tons on a single day, he was credited the excess production occasionally, according to the whim of the contractor or the foreman of his gang, in compensation for a meager day within the same week. Yet when this meager day fell into the next week he lost his credit. In the majority of the cases, or one might say always, the contractor forgot the excess tonnage of a favorable day and only put down the deficit of the lean days and noted down the man’s name for the so-called “fiesta.”

  Celso spent less for clothes than ten per cent of what an American spinster spends on the clothing of her lap dog. He worked naked and thus did not need shirts or pants. A cheap cotton rag around his hips as a loincloth constituted his entire working outfit. Since there were no Sundays or holidays and work went on each and every day from sunrise to sundown, the men did not need anything to dress for a holiday. If, in beneficial circumstances, they had produced their daily task of two tons, they were free to celebrate the rest of the day. Sup posing that they managed to gain such a quarter rest day, which happened rarely enough, they went to bathe in the river, picked the niguas and their eggs from between their toes, healed cuts, sores and wounds in their skin, cut out thorns and splinters from their bodies or from under their fingernails or fried themselves a tasty iguana or a tepescuintle, if they had been lucky enough to catch one, thus forgetting at least once in a while the monotonous taste of the eternal sun-dried meat, rice and black beans boiled in water and condimented with green or red chile.

  As the owners of the monterías were stout patriots, or at least pretended to be, the only rest day during the year was the sixteenth of September, which was celebrated in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of the country from the Spanish Crown. The Republic had given its citizens unlimited liberty for making money, something which the monarchy of Spain had never done. In consequence, this revolutionary holiday was, for them, as sacred as the prophet’s beard is to a Mohammedan. The company even paid this day as if it were a working day, and with this generous attitude the owners meant to display their patriotic feelings. The only problem with these opulent republican shows was the fact that in the gangs, working in the depths of the jungle, and having contact with the administrative building only once in every two or three months, no calendar could be found. In the majority of the cases, even the contratista, the production chief of the gang, did not know whether it was Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. He had a very hazy idea that it must be October or December. In his little, book he only put down so many working days and so many tons every day. When, for some reason, it became absolutely necessary to establish the exact date of a given day, he counted back to the day of the departure of the gang from the front yard of the administration building. That day at least was fixed, because it was the day on which the contract had started. By counting back the days he was able to establish the date of today more or less accurately. But all this counting back and forth tired him, so finally he gave up and left it to the President of the United States and to the Prime Minister of Great Britain to find out from their calendars what day it was.

  At any rate, the contractor of a gang had no need to know the date. Although his contract ran for a certain term, two years, three or five, he was not paid by the day or by the month but according to the tonnage of caoba delivered at the main floating station of the river which served for final transportation to the seaport.

  And since nobody in the gang knew with certainty whether the sixteenth of September, the birthday of the Republic, was today or tomorrow or sometime within the next two weeks, work went on that day just as on any other working day. As the men were working anyway, they were paid for this day. Thus the owners loyally completed their legal duty of compensating the workers for the Independence Day. In the administration building the day was of course duly and highly celebrated. Because there, to the wall, was nailed a calendar. And everyone from the general manager down to the lowest paid office worker got blind drunk to prove how solemnly he regarded celebration of that national holiday.

  9

  Celso thought only of his marriage and of his fifteen children whom he intended to bring into this world with the help of his girl. This constant thought made him support all the misery of his present life. With every new evening when he dropped on his mat dead tired, the amount which he had set out to obtain grew. Since he did not think of anything but earning that sum, to prove to the girl’s father that he was willing and capable of being a good and faithful provider and spouse to the girl, he bought very little at the montería tienda, except absolutely unavoidable necessities. After a certain time he needed a new mat. He bought himself a good pocket knife, because his old one was worn out and the blade had finally broken. He needed a heavy blanket for the cold nights during the rainy season. His mosquito net began to rot and presently fell to pieces. He had to buy a new one, because out there even an Indian cannot sleep without a mosquito bar. Some time ago he had paid off the ten pesos to the capataz for hiring him.

  After he had passed a full year in the montería and had counted the cash to his credit at the administration, adding what he had earned for the delivery of the letter and for his help to Don Policarpo, he found that all his earthly possessions amounted to exactly fifty-three pesos and forty-six centavos.

  However, this money was not enough to make the impression that he had in mind on the girl’s father. He wanted to own no le
ss than eighty pesos in heavy silver when he left the montería.

  To earn that amount of money he had to hire himself out for a second year. Since he remained in the same gang and had astutely managed to be offered the job for an additional year by the same contratista, he saved the ten pesos commission which some leech would have collected.

  The second year seemed to pass quicker for him than the first. He had developed into one of the best ax-men and trimmers. He also had learned to select his trees with great skill and to choose carefully the best side of the tree to cut and how high to build the platform on which he stood to fell the tree. On many days he would finish his daily quota early in the afternoon. Frequently he helped some poor beggar of a newcomer, who was unable to discharge his task and who therefore ran the risk of being put down in the book for the “fiesta.” After the first half of the second year, the contratista paid him five reales per day, instead of the four agreed upon. Of course the contratista did not do this out of the kindness of his noble Christian heart, but to win Celso perhaps for a third year. Celso had been wise enough not to tell anyone that he was working only to earn a certain amount and that he would leave once he had enough money. Even on the final day he did not admit that he was leaving for good, but said that he was going to see his father and mother and would be back after a few weeks. From his fellow workers’ experience he had learned to watch out for himself and take care not to walk into one of the many traps set to get retiring workers back on the hook.

  To hook workers again who had finished their contract was the business of human parasites, the so-called coyotes, who infested the monterías and their recruiting districts. They were scavengers, feeding on carrion left over by the big labor agents who hooked their men in the far interior of the state.

  It was comparatively easy work to catch men again who had finished their contracts, to catch them through fraud, tricks, alcohol or with the aid of harlots from the lowest strata, whores so low that the only place where they could hope to do business was a montería. Very few men, and only those of very strong character and will power, escaped these coyotes.

  When contracts expired the coyotes went hunting. They gathered in groups and searched villages, hamlets, settlements and fincas near the jungle for escaped criminals who occasionally hid there. The authorities offered no reward for catching criminals. But the coyotes paid from five to ten pesos to those who revealed the hiding places of convicts or fugitives from justice. Small rancheros living in constant fear of escaped criminals who assaulted them and threatened their lives did their best to rid themselves of this plague.

  The coyotes were not a bit concerned about the moral past of their catches; they were only interested in a pair of strong arms. When on the hunt they assumed an air of authority and frequently, when the fugitives were armed, had to fight serious battles to catch them. The captives were tied up so well and guarded so closely that it would have been easier for them to escape from a well-built prison than from these manhunters. Manacled, in file, they were dragged through the jungle. The least infringement on any order during the march got them such a lashing that they barely had a shred of skin left whole when they arrived at the monterías.

  Any idea of escape was given up after the failure of the first attempt, because the penalty for attempted escape was hanging. These hangings were all the more terrifying and destructive of any resistance because they were not deadly. Had they caused death they would have been less impressive. The coyotes never hanged anyone with the intention of killing them. A dead man would not have brought them any money. Only the live brought returns.

  The enganchadores, that is, the regular labor agents, bought Indians from prisons in the villages by paying the fine for the Indian to the mayor of the village or to the secretary of the Government who acted in the village on behalf of the State Government as registrar, statistician, postmaster and telegraph operator. The fines imposed upon the Indian population were considered one of the main sources of a secretary’s income. Against the fine paid the prisoner was delivered to the concessioned agents, and the agents sold the prisoners to the monterías. At the montería, before he was credited any wages, the Indian thus sold had to work off the fine paid for him by the agent, in addition to the high recruiting commission for the agent and the state tax on the contract.

  Naturally the coyotes attempted to hook workers as cheaply as possible to increase their profits. They never bought Indians from prisons. Such an expenditure would have been money thrown out the window. They made night raids into small villages, broke open the jails and kidnaped the prisoners. In the morning, when the secretary saw the doors broken open he believed, like the rest of the village, that the prisoners themselves had broken jail or that they had been liberated by their friends. Nobody, not even their own families, expected the escaped prisoners to return voluntarily, because upon their return they were subject to increased sentences or fines. So they simply disappeared. The coyotes, to put the fear of God into the prisoners, told them that, unless they came along voluntarily to the monterías, they would be denounced to the judge for breaking jail and for asking the coyotes to take them to the monterías. The coyotes convinced the Indians that a jail break and the destruction of the doors or the walls, even though they were built only of adobe, would be considered destruction of a public building and be punished by death. The Indians knew perfectly well that the judge would believe the coyote who was a ladino, and that everything had happened exactly as told by the ladino. A ladino always spoke the truth whereas an Indian always lied.

  Every jack in the monterías whose contract was about to expire lived in constant fear of the coyotes. Workers knew from tales and evidence that there was no misdeed, no crime, that a coyote would hesitate to commit if he could land a man again on his hook. No worker was safe from the guiles of these racketeers except the one who was dead and buried.

  For all these reasons Celso did not tell anybody that he intended to leave the monterías for good. The changed behavior of the boss of his gang was another reason for his discretion in the matter. He had noticed that his boss, the contratista, never mistreated him and assigned him to good locations and fine trees. He saw in Celso an extra good worker of whom he wanted to be sure for another two years.

  Almost from the beginning of his second hitch Celso started to mention in conversations that he would have to go home for some four weeks to see his parents and bring them the money earned to buy some cattle. Astutely he wove into the conversation the fact that he had to work another two years at the montería to accumulate sufficient money so that his father could purchase a certain piece of land on which he, Celso, would settle when he returned after another two years, and marry and live peacefully in his village.

  10

  The day when Celso had terminated his second year at the montería finally arrived. But if he left at once he would have to march through the jungle all by himself. Therefore he waited a few days until a large group of released men would leave for La Feria de la Candelaria in Hucutsin.

  The Candelaria fair in Hucutsin represented for the caoba workers something like the rewards of a large port of call in South America for sailors after a long, hard trip across a storm-beaten ocean.

  The vast majority of the montería workers’ contracts began with the Candelaria fair in Hucutsin. Here they came to know and, if willing to spend the money, to enjoy all those earthly delights which, in the small world from which these men hailed, were considered the greatest and the most sinful pleasures imaginable. If considered soberly by anyone who happened to arrive during the height of the festivities and who had seen similar saints’ feasts in other towns of the Republic, this fair really appeared rather meager, emaciated, dull and dry. But hundreds of Indian peasants and farm workers saw such a carnival for the first time in their lives. From the limits of their small villages and their monotonous existence this festivity assumed in their eyes the aspect of the biggest, most beautiful, gayest, most voluptuous and luxurious celebratio
n that could be imagined.

  Consequently, the deeper the contract workers penetrated the jungle the more brilliant and intoxicating the Candelaria fair became in their memory. Whatever fancies they might entertain during the days or nights in the jungle, whatever extravagant thoughts and earthly desires might arise within them, were always linked to the Candelaria fair: to buy a bright-colored serape or blanket, to get thoroughly drunk or to gamble, or to watch the dances and performers in the carpas, the tents put by itinerant comedians, or to hold a passionate girl in their arms, even if she was a professional, or to inhale the smoke of the candles and the incense in the church, or to have a fight with another boy, or to see the women and girls bartering at the counters, to listen to the brass music of barefooted Indian musicians in the streets and to stand there for hours doing nothing but enjoying the enchanting melancholic ballads of the corrido singers or, well—there were a hundred other wonderful things to behold and to do. Throughout the long months of merciless hard work in the jungle so many various wishes arose in their minds that eternity would not suffice to satisfy them all.

  The nearer the days of the Candelaria fair approached, the more excited the lumberjacks became. And just as seamen in port, after long weeks on the high seas, behave in bars, brothels and on dance floors, so the caoba workers acted when they arrived at the Candelaria fair after long years imprisoned in the jungle. And exactly as sailors, who during their voyage were firmly resolved to marry, settle down and raise chickens, spend their entire earnings in three days and three nights in taverns, dance halls and bordellos and then have to sign on again for a new long trip because they have not even enough money left to buy a bus ticket from New York to Harrisburg, so dozens of workers homeward bound from the monterías, after half a week’s celebration are seen running after an enganchador, asking him to be kind enough to hire them again. The enganchador, hunting the taverns during the festivities like a hungry-lizard after a sugar-fattened fly, willingly gives the man a fifty-peso advance on the new labor contract.