Government

by B. TRAVEN

  Each man represented a lot of money. The agent had paid part of his debts, had agreed to pay the balance, and had perhaps paid an advance to the peon as well—to take the sting out of the contract. In addition, there was the cost of registering the contract at Hucutsín. Altogether, as much as a hundred and fifty pesos had been paid out, in some cases, on a single man. The capture of a runaway might last weeks, and even then he might never be found. He might perish in the jungle, or perhaps reach a village or a neighborhood where he would be able to hide among friends of his tribe who would keep him out of the way if any suspicious-looking Mexican turned up.

  As for the business itself, two could run it more successfully than one. Each could go his own way in search of recruits, choosing the district he knew best. In that way more men would be got hold of in a shorter time. And it would also be easier to arrange to recruit labor for the coffee plantations. The plantations needed large numbers of laborers only at certain seasons, particularly during the harvest. These men were engaged for two or three months only; after the harvest or the weeding of the plantations they went back to their villages. They were more easily got hold of. It was often no trouble at all to find a thousand Indians for the plantations; after having worked on one the harvest before, they came forward of their own accord as soon as an agent they knew appeared in the village, as long as he had the sense not to spare the brandy and to be very insistent with his offers of wages in advance.

  11

  Don Ramón lost little time in thinking it over; but though he quickly decided to take don Gabriel into partnership, he did not forget to weigh the disadvantages.

  One drawback was that don Gabriel might make himself a dangerous competitor in the districts don Ramón regarded as his own and then one fine day set up for himself. To compensate himself in advance for the losses don Gabriel’s competition might cause him later, he made certain conditions before accepting the proposal.

  “It’s not a bad idea, don Gabriel,” he said. “We’re good friends and we could work well together. But remember, you have to learn the business and I have to show you how it is done. It has taken a lot of trouble to get it going. I have many a shotgun and machete wound on my carcass as a perpetual reminder of my apprenticeship. I can teach you many a fine trick which will save you getting the same. It has never entered my head to take a partner. I can get along very well on my own. To prove it, I have carried on the racket a good number of years now and I’ve got a nice little pile to show.”

  “I believe you, don Ramón,” said don Gabriel. He said it in a tone which carried conviction and scarcely concealed his fear that don Ramón might not be favorably disposed to partnership.

  Don Ramón had gained a considerable knowledge of men in the course of his business. He had learned how to discover the weak side of finqueros who were unwilling to give up any of their peons and how to take them by surprise on an unprotected flank. He merely spent two or three days on the finca before getting down to business and made a thorough study of the finquero and of the terms on which he lived with his peons.

  Being wide-awake and quick to notice anything that concerned his business, he detected instantly the vague fear behind don Gabriel’s tone and immediately turned it to his own advantage without scruple. He raised the terms he had thought of proposing by two and a half pesos.

  “Of course,” he said, “if you really want to come in with me, naturally I can’t say no to a good friend such as you are, don Gabriel. Muy bien—very well, we’ll join forces. That’s settled. But you will agree that if we go shares in the business I can’t do it for nothing.”

  “Of course not. Of course not,” don Gabriel broke in eagerly. “I see that. I am not such a fool as that. But between you and me, amigo mío, money is not very plentiful with me. At most I could put up a hundred fifty, or, if worse came to worse, two hundred. But that’s the limit.”

  This admission was not lost on don Ramón. He had never thought of asking don Gabriel for a flat sum, but he accepted the offer. Never leave anything lying if it’s there to be picked up and has the look of money.

  “Well then, what I propose is this: You pay me a hundred and fifty as premium for joining the business. Further, for every man you bring along, you give me seven and a half pesos. That will leave you twenty-two pesos fifty a head; or, if we deliver the men ourselves to the montería, you will have from forty-two pesos fifty up to fifty-two pesos fifty. That will hold good for the first year of the partnership. For the second year you will give me five pesos a man. And at the end of two years we’ll work together on equal terms; that is, you will take the full commission on every man you enlist on your own, and if we have to work the same district, as may happen, then we’ll go halves, never mind how many men one or the other of us may have nabbed. Is that agreed, don Gabriel?”

  “Agreed,” said don Gabriel, “my word on it.”

  “And mine too, palabra de honor—word of honor as one caballero to another,” replied don Ramón. “Then that’s a bargain. When can you start, amigo?”

  “The beginning of next month,” said don Gabriel. “I haven’t much to do at Jovel. Then I’ll go to the district capital and hand in my resignation to the jefe político. I’ll look around for someone to recommend to the jefe while I’m in Jovel, or my brother could take over until the jefe has found someone.”

  12

  “Done. Then it’s all settled,” said don Ramón. “You can give me the hundred and fifty in two installments—fifty down to confirm the agreement and the rest at the beginning of next month. We’ll meet here at Cahancu and plan our campaign. I’ll induct you into the mysteries. You will make your headquarters at Chiilum and work the fincas and independent villages in all directions from there. I’ll establish myself at Oshchuc. As soon as we have a hundred or a hundred and twenty men between us, we’ll get under way—perhaps eighty would be safer. Too many’s dangerous. I’ll give you the proper dope for working it. Don’t worry about that. Just don’t let any sentimentality leak through into business. That’s the main thing. It’s a trade like any other. You were a cattle dealer long enough to know what that means. If you listened to every knock-kneed calf crying after the cow there would be no veal on the market. It’s the market you have to think of, amigo mío. If you stopped to dry your eyes for every bleating calf, what would people have to put in their stews? People must have veal, and they must hang their rags in mahogany wardrobes. If the monterías get no labor, then the women must do without their beautiful polished mahogany gramophone cabinets and dressing tables. If we don’t do the job for the monterías, others will. The world must be served and it is ready to pay for service. The world is not our responsibility. Keep that in your head and you’ll have twenty men in a week. They sleep with their women all the year through and have a child a year. What’s to be done with them all? It’s better if we take them and make a few pesos on them than let the plague take them or leave them to kill each other. There’s no more to be said. You have the government behind you. It must have taxes and the officials must have their pickings. What you make doesn’t come out of their pockets. What’s the good of these Indians? They’re only a nuisance. They are born to work. Well then, do them the favor to tell them what they’re here for. Pesos don’t fall from heaven. You’ll soon see how hard we have to work for them.”

  Don Gabriel listened attentively and let nothing escape him. Half of it he had learned already as secretary, so the rest was not difficult. Knowing this, he realized what a great and glorious future opened before him. He gladly paid don Ramón the fifty pesos down as his first contribution to the firm.

  He bought two colored candles at one of the shops on the opposite side of the plaza, took them with him into the church and stood them up on the little table in front of the picture of the Holy Virgin. After lighting them and seeing that they burned properly, he knelt down, crossed himself, and devoutly reeled off a few Ora pro nobis. Then he crossed himself again, inclined himself three times before the picture, an
d left the church.

  Gregorio meanwhile had washed down his new master’s horse and given him a good heap of dried maize leaves.

  8

  Don Gabriel left his wife behind at Jovel, where she took a house in preparation for their new life. She was overjoyed that her husband had given up his post as secretary and that she was not forced to return to that Indian village, where she had felt that an early death from sheer loneliness awaited her. In the town she was among her own kind. She praised her husband for being so quick to improve his position as soon as the opportunity of entering into an honorable and Christian business presented itself. She saw that their future was assured. On the strength of it she made large purchases of furniture, clothes, and household goods. She got unlimited credit when the shopkeepers heard what a secure and profitable line don Gabriel had gotten into.

  Don Gabriel took an introduction from don Ramón to the representatives of the monterías in Tabasco, where they had their head offices, and got all the money he wanted; for just as the agents advanced money to able-bodied Indians, so the companies and their representatives were glad to advance it to the agents. An advance was better security than a written contract, for it had to be worked off, whether by Indians or agents. The deeper an agent was in debt to the company, the more energetic he was in meeting its requirements.

  2

  Don Gabriel had been away two weeks and during this time his brother don Mateo had made the most of his time as secretary. He meant to show how authority should be exercised. In his opinion, his brother had no idea of it.

  He had six men in jail, having sold them all the brandy they wanted when they were already drunk. He had fined them each five pesos for disturbance of the peace and was now waiting until either they or their relations paid the money so that they could be set free.

  He had not let them sit it out in the clink doing nothing. He had sent them into the bush to cut wood which he intended to sell when the opportunity presented itself.

  He had had fifteen prisoners in all during the two weeks, but the others had paid their fines. That was forty-five pesos in his pocket. He understood the art of government.

  Something else had occurred in don Gabriel’s absence, for when he returned he found his brother with his arm in a sling.

  “Where did you get that?” asked don Gabriel.

  “Where do you think I’d get it, hermanito?” said don Mateo. “One of your lambs tried to kill me with a machete, but I was just in time to catch it on my arm. You see what a gang of murderers you’ve turned them into. If I’d been secretary here as long as you have I’d have brought them to heel by this time. Then this would never have happened, I can tell you that.”

  “What did the fellow want to kill you for?” asked don Gabriel.

  “Nothing. Nothing whatever. They’re a lousy pack of murderous rebels. That’s what it is.”

  Don Gabriel was quite aware that the people there killed no one for no reason, but he asked no more. He knew his brother well enough to realize he would not get a straight answer.

  3

  When the chief heard that don Gabriel was back he came to greet him, and when they were alone don Gabriel heard the story.

  A young Indian girl whose father and mother were dead and who lived with an uncle and aunt came to the cabildo to buy matches. She pleased don Mateo and he told the Indian jefe that the girl was to come to the cabildo every day to cook for him, as he could not stomach the food cooked by the woman who worked for don Gabriel and his wife.

  The girl had been in the house only two days when don Mateo assaulted her after having tried for hours to cajole her with ribbons from the shop. His violence was not much more successful. The girl ran screaming from the house with her dress torn.

  Indian girls are so modest that they would never speak to anyone of such an occurrence, unless it were to their mothers. But everyone in the place, particularly her closer connections in the family group, knew at once what must have happened.

  The girl had a boy friend to whom she had been promised for two years. The boy was working hard to make money for the wedding present to the girl’s uncle. On the day of the assault he was in the bush, catching snakes—their dried skins fetched good prices.

  That night when don Mateo stepped outside the door, a man leaped at him out of the darkness with his machete. As the door was open, don Mateo just had time to slip under cover and that saved his life. But he got a deep gash in his arm.

  The girl’s boy friend as well as her uncle were with the casique in his hut at the precise time that don Mateo was wounded. That was very wise of them. They had paid a friendly visit to the casique because they were the two who would be suspected of the attack. Meanwhile the matter was taken in hand by another member of the family group on whom no certain suspicion could fall; for though those who are related by family ties are very well known to each other, it is difficult, if not impossible, for those who do not belong to the village to make out who belongs to which family group and which boys and men are related by blood.

  4

  “I never thought,” said don Gabriel to his brother, “that you could be such a bungler. You surely know enough about these people and their ways by now not to have made such a stupid mistake as that. It’s never safe to meddle with their girls. An Indian respects them, because he knows that his life depends on it. You can count yourself lucky to have come out of it as well as you have. Even so, it’s high time you cleared out. Your life is no longer safe in this place or near it—once outside the walls of the cabildo.”

  Don Mateo seated himself on the table, his legs dangling, and made a wry face. “So it’s come to that, has it? You want to chuck me out. A nice brother you are. Never mind, I was going to leave anyway. Don Belisario, the Syrian trader, passed through the day before yesterday. He had good news for me. The chief of police, whom I had the shooting match with at Balún-Canán, has got himself transferred to Huixtla, because his compadre there is mayor. Don Belisario told me too that the chief bears me no grudge. He’s been on his feet again for a long time now. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow for Balún-Canán. There’ll be a job for me there, I’ve no doubt. Perhaps I’ll take on the chief of police spot myself now. I’ll soon have an iron in the fire. Don’t you worry.”

  “There was no question of chucking you out,” don Gabriel said quietly. “You know well enough I would not let you down. I only meant it was better for your own sake if you went. I’ve heard enough today. You’ve made the place too hot for yourself. There’s not a man here who isn’t on your track. I don’t know how you’ve managed it in two weeks and I don’t want to know. You can have the money you’ve made in my absence for your journey.”

  Don Mateo laughed loudly. “You didn’t think I was going to give it to you, did you? You must be weak in the head to think that. I earned it, I can tell you. If you followed the example I’ve set you these two weeks you could buy the best finca in the whole state in two years. But you were a born fool and a fool you will remain. You’re past redemption. I don’t mean it nastily. I’m only telling you and you may as well know it.”

  Don Gabriel had said not a word to his brother about his having become a recruiting agent for labor—a job that don Mateo would have jumped at. He had thought of telling him, but now that their talk had taken this turn he found it wiser to say nothing. Besides, it might have put ideas into don Mateo’s head and perhaps brought an awkward rival into the field.

  5

  Don Mateo was unable to start out the morning he had meant to for lack of a boy to accompany him. Everyone whom don Gabriel tried to get hold of found some good excuse: either he had to work on his milpa—his maize patch—or he had a lame foot, or his wife was sick—there was something to detain each of them. Don Gabriel saw from this that not one of the men meant to accompany his brother. He offered half a peso a day for the journey there and back, but even that did not tempt them to go with don Mateo.

  That afternoon another Syrian merchant came thr
ough on his way to Achlumal. From there to Balún-Canán it was only two days on horseback, and there were many ranches, farms, and even a few small villages on the way. The country was sparsely inhabited only as far as Achlumal. So don Mateo decided to travel with this trader, don Elias, as far as Achlumal and from there to continue alone, unless he got a boy in Achlumal.

  Don Gabriel did not hear until four years later, when he chanced to meet don Elias at Yalanchén, what occurred on the way to Achlumal. Don Gabriel had lived all those years in the belief that his brother had arrived safely at Balún-Canán. He had never expected don Mateo to write or telephone him of his safe arrival. Besides, he left the place himself shortly after don Mateo’s departure, so that a letter from his brother, if he had written, might easily have missed him.

  6

  Don Mateo set out with don Elias and the trader’s two pack mules at the break of day. The road as far as Hucutsín was very lonely, but they got there without incident, arriving early in the afternoon on the third day. Don Elias had business to attend to there and some money owed him from previous sales to collect, so they spent the night in Hucutsín.

  Next day they started out again for Achlumal. It was a lonely road. There were a few large fincas, so large that it was a four-hour ride from one finquero’s house to the next. A few small ranches belonging to Indians or mestizos lay off the road. The travelers had crossed the Jatate River and were riding along a narrow path through the bush when they heard the crackling of twigs, sometimes to their left, sometimes to their right.

  At first they thought stray cattle were in the bush in search of the leaves of trees and shrubs which they preferred to the wiry grass of the pastures. But they soon realized that the sounds came neither from cows nor deer and reached the conclusion that they were being followed.