by B. TRAVEN
“A heap of money for young fellows who want to marry, that I must say,” replied the chief.
“It is a mountain of money, I tell you, don Narciso. Drink another copita, and tell the people about it. You know the names of those who are in my debt and how much they owe, and you can arrange with the men at your leisure how much of the whole debt each of the young fellows will undertake. In a year, or let us say in a year and a half, they can all be back again, and then there can be two weddings a week here and no one in debt and every man in the village will be able to sell his maize and his pigs and his wool to anyone he likes and for whatever price he can get. And I will say this too: the people may sell their pigs and their wool, and whatever else they have, free of all tax as soon as the boys have actually taken the debt upon themselves and have all arrived at this new finca.”
“Good,” said the chief. “I will now go and consult with the men and tell them what you have proposed.”
“Right, don Narciso,” replied don Gabriel.
When the chief had reached the door, don Gabriel said, “One moment, don Narciso. We have always been good friends. I still have a good deal of aguardiente. There may be thirty liters or so on my hands. I am leaving in a few days and I don’t think I will sell much of it by that time—at most three or four liters. I will give what is left as a token of friendship. You can sell it here yourself. I don’t suppose a new secretary will come so very soon, and as long as there is no secretary here you can sell as much brandy as you like.”
Narciso did not show whether he was pleased or not with this gift. Neither by word nor gesture did he express what he really thought. He merely said, “Gracias,” and he said it with the same simple courtesy he would have used if offered a chair.
11
Like so many simple people who can neither read nor write and who know still less of higher mathematics or the graph of emotion in a dissected play of Shakespeare, the chief had all the same the important gift of being able to see through his opponent and to sense at once that his behavior was not as simple as it appeared to be.
Don Gabriel could not in the few days he was still to be there sell the brandy he had in his store. If he had been able to he would not have given it away. But he did not especially want to take it with him either, for he had enough things to transport already. And if he had to give it away what better use could he make of it than to bribe the chief?
The secretary was baiting a hook with which he meant to catch something. But however hard Narciso thought when the secretary made his offer, he could not figure out what the ruse was. To clear a piece of jungle and prepare the ground for coffee planting was a straightforward job with an end in sight. Besides, a new finca promised much, particularly if its owner was a good and friendly master, inclined perhaps to take on young Indian married couples as peons and to offer them a life which, even though laborious and deprived of liberty, offered all the same more security than the barren ground of their independent village. If the families in the village grew too large the land allotted to each family would of necessity become ever smaller, and as the land belonging to the community was in any case thirsty and barren ground—otherwise it would never have been left to an Indian community—the livelihood of the people in the village was bound to become more and more precarious as new families arose.
The treatment of peons on a new finca is always better than on a finca that has already been in existence for several centuries. The finquero wants to increase the number of the families which produce peons for him. He tempts them to leave their independent villages by allowing them to choose their own plots from the virgin land. So long as it does not interfere with his own enclosures, he also leaves them a free hand to choose whatever parts of the jungle they would like to cultivate for themselves. The virgin soil of the jungle is extremely fertile and gives a rich return to the families who work it.
In order to bind the new families to him the finquero gives them building material for their huts; he sells them young pigs and goats and sheep cheaply; he gladly offers them advances in cash and makes it easy for them to work these off. The news quickly spreads throughout the independent villages and the finquero soon has more families on his new finca than he had thought of accommodating. As soon as he has applications from more families than he can make use of and as soon as the earlier settlers have begun to form clans with the new ones and to intermarry, and as soon as they have all begun to feel attached to the earth they have won from the jungle and would hate to be parted from, then the finquero begins to exploit his peons just as the peons on the centuries-old fincas are exploited.
The same laws that produce the slow pauperization and enslavement of industrial workers in all civilized countries can be seen at work here too. When a new branch of industry is developed as the result of a new discovery and holds out the promise of large profits, high wages and enticing rates for piecework are offered to workers in order to draw them from every rank of labor, even from agriculture, with the object of developing this new branch of industry to the highest pitch in the shortest time. Once the development is complete this branch of industry has already absorbed all the labor it can, but workers still flock to it and press so heavily on the established work force that the favorable conditions are reversed. The workers who have fallen into the trap cannot return to their original occupations, either because they have altered in the course of time or other workers coming up from lower economic levels have taken their jobs.
It is just the same with the development of a new finca—the first five years give the peon a magnificent return in every way. It is the profit of these first five years that tempts many independent Indians to become peons on a new finca. They come in the belief that they can always leave when conditions and the treatment they receive worsen; but as soon as conditions begin to deteriorate they find they cannot go. Either they are by that time so deeply in debt that they are not free to go, or else they have become so attached to their new home that from reasons of kinship and other sentimental feelings the power of choice has left them.
12
It was, in fact, an excellent ruse which don Gabriel had employed as a prelude to his new business. The chief had no means of knowing that don Gabriel was playing a villainous trick on him. He trusted don Gabriel’s word because it did not occur to him that an official, the secretary of the place, whom he had known for almost a year, could be so unscrupulous as to speak of the starting of a coffee plantation or a finca when he meant a montería. And yet there was something in don Gabriel’s offer that made the chief mistrust him. But, however far mistrust may go, it comes at last to its limit: there comes a point when it gives way, because every man has a heart and a soul and a feeling for his fellow men. In the case of an Indian, whose life is close to nature, who bases all his acts and his dealings among his own folk on pure trust, who has no stamped documents because none can read them, the limit at which mistrust gives out is much sooner reached than in the case of civilized people, who, unless the receipt is produced, swear without the flicker of an eyelid that money they have received was never paid. So it was impossible for the chief to suppose, even for a moment, that don Gabriel, whom he saw sitting there before his eyes and whom he regarded as an honorable official, could have betrayed him in so miserable a fashion without the faintest sign of shame or confusion.
It is true that the chief was not entirely happy about the present of brandy he was offered. But he could not see the bribery, and unless he had felt that it was a bribe he could not have concluded that a trick was being played on him.
While he walked across to the village to consult with the men, he could not get his mind off this present of the brandy. Nor could he get away from the simple explanation, which seemed to him perfectly natural, that don Gabriel gave him the brandy because he thought it wiser to leave it behind in the hands of the chief than in those of any other man. Don Gabriel might have distributed the brandy among the men of the place, but they would have got drunk and this m
ight have brought mischief on the village. Since don Gabriel had not done this but given it instead into his charge to deal with according to his discretion, the chief believed that don Gabriel was really the friend of the village and wished to prevent trouble that might have had ugly consequences.
Each man, don Gabriel and the chief, saw the gift in a different light owing to the difference in their racial characters, in their circumstances, and their environment. Don Gabriel meant it as a bribe to oil the business better, and he supposed the chief took it as a bribe. The chief supposed it was given to him as the man responsible for the people and out of friendship for the place—perhaps, too, as a parting gift of friendship. For these reasons Narciso had not simply refused the gift.
13
The chief summoned the men of the village and put forth the secretary’s proposal in the light in which it appeared to him. He was as honest with the men as a good father is with his children. He told them that it was an excellent prospect for young married couples and, for the next five or eight years at least, offered a better life for them than the village could provide—for the best land at the disposal of the village was allotted to the older families who had many mouths to feed, while newly established families, according to tradition and custom, had to be content with what was left. This never gave rise to any dispute, for it was recognized by all as not only the just but the only and natural arrangement.
The men who were consulted agreed that there was nothing improper in the secretary’s proposal. It was only natural and right that the secretary should recover the money he had lent. Therefore, it had to be produced somehow. Those who had stood security for a relation or a friend were also in agreement. They insisted that the debtors should discharge their obligations. No one had forced them to get into debt. The Indians did not consider it meanness on the part of the creditor that the originally small debts had grown to considerable sums owing to don Gabriel’s peculiar methods of reckoning interest. They knew well enough that not even a peso was lent to any man, least of all to an Indian, at a low rate of interest, when the security was so uncertain that the creditor was always in danger of losing the principal. Interest at 500 per cent was quite just and moderate in the case of such unstable financial assets as an Indian possessed.
To make your views go down with any assembly you must be thoroughly at home with the circumstances in which you find yourself. High-sounding phrases about the universal and eternal and incontestable rights of man only make you ridiculous on such occasions, because even the most beautiful commonplaces are either quite out of order or can only be brought into accord with the matter under discussion and the cold reality of daily life by acrobatic contortions and manipulations.
Even a simple Indian can see that—even better sometimes—than many a civilized worker, who believes that the whole world will be bathed in sparkling sunshine as soon as all men combine to believe in the one and only program.
The council of Indians came to the conclusion that the acceptance of don Gabriel’s proposal was the only way of meeting a difficult situation. If the secretary was leaving the place he had to collect all outstanding debts. Nobody could ask him to cancel them. Nobody expected him to. He had the right to demand payment. Everyone, debtors included, recognized that. No objection could be raised to his asking for the money. He had not forced his money or his goods on anybody. When the debtors had been in need of the money or the goods they had been very glad to receive them on credit, so they had no right now to make difficulties when the money had to be paid back, all the less as the day on which the payment was due had in every case long passed.
The men agreed among themselves which of the boys should share the responsibility for the debts. There was no necessity to bring the influence of the family groups to bear upon them before they would enter into the contracts don Gabriel offered. Several boys on whom no part of the debt fell, because there was no older man in debt either in their own families or in the families of the girls they wanted to marry, came forward of their own free will as soon as they heard that the work was for a finca which was just being started. They saw the chance of earning money more quickly and so of having a home of their own sooner than if they stayed in the village.
At one blow don Gabriel got twenty strong and healthy young men from the village—twice as many as he had bargained for. He had made a good start in his business. He could scarcely wait to see the expression on don Ramón’s face when he reported such a catch to him at their next meeting.
14
When, a few months later, the boys found they were being taken to a montería, they protested against the contracts.
They had put their signatures to what don Gabriel gave his word was in the contracts, but was not there at all. Not one of them could read; the only man they knew who could read was their secretario, don Gabriel. They might have asked a licenciado to read the contract to them, but they would have had to pay the lawyer; and as the contract was in don Gabriel’s possession, don Gabriel would have had to be appealed to. The licenciado, before he began to read, would first have asked don Gabriel what he was to read and whether don Gabriel would pay more to have it read than these lousy Indians, who squatted in their usual fashion in his outer office instead of sitting on chairs.
The boys might also, of course, have gone to a public authority and asked an official to read the contract to them; but then again, don Gabriel had the contract. He would have gone to the official with it and said, “Cómo estás, compadre? I have ten good round duros here for you. What’s that you say? The muchachos want to know what’s in the contract? I told them that when I paid them their advances. Now that they’ve drunk up the money, naturally they want to get out of the contract.”
“Naturally, no wonder,” the official would have said. “What do you want me to read out to them, then? Just tell me and I’ll read what you like, and if the fellows make any noise about it, I’ll put them where you’ll find them when you want them.”
Six of the boys attempted to escape. They were the ones who had come forward of their own accord. The rest, who had taken on the debts of their relations and future fathers-in-law, made no attempt at escape, because once they had undertaken the responsibility it would have been a betrayal of the trust their families reposed in them.
Of the six who escaped, one was shot. Two were captured and mercilessly flogged, two perished in their flight through the jungle. They were never heard of again.
One got back to his native village. He was like a wild man, covered with blood, reduced to skin and bone and with lips parched and split with fever. He told them in the village where the boys had been taken.
15
Narciso was no longer chief when that happened. Another jefe had been elected by the family groups.
One day late in the afternoon a number of men went to Narciso’s hut to talk to him. Narciso knew why the men had come and what they wanted to talk to him about.
It was known to every man in the place that Narciso, while he was still jefe, had received a cask of brandy from don Gabriel, the secretary. But not one of the men who had come to talk to Narciso made any suggestion whatever that the brandy had been a bribe. He was only asked whether he remembered don Gabriel’s ever having given a single man of the village a glass of brandy without some particular motive.
Narciso said quietly, “I cannot remember a single case.”
One of the men then asked Narciso to accompany them outside. Narciso stood up and, looking around his house, which was dimly lighted by a few pine splinters, went over to his youngest child, who was asleep on a petate on the ground. He touched its head, and after looking around the room once more, he followed the men out into the night.
Two hours later the men carried Narciso’s body back to his house. He had been killed with a machete. It had happened out in the bush owing to a regrettable error when the men were clearing away the undergrowth in their search for a young mule which had apparently run away. Everyone in the place repeate
d this story. And everyone in the place knew what was behind it.
Narciso’s wife and daughters began to wail. Immediately the hut was filled with all the women of their family group and of others who were friendly with them.
The body was put on a bier made of thin branches. Narciso’s wife washed the blood from the face; and she washed the clotted blood from the hair and combed it.
Pine torches were brought and lighted. Then all the women squatted on the ground around the body, covered their heads with their rebozos or their jorongos, and began to bewail the dead.
16
The boy who had succeeded in reaching the village from the montería died four days later. He had been utterly exhausted and could not withstand his raging fever.
Two mounted guards in the service of the company who had been sent in pursuit of him found him on his bier in his father’s hut. They insisted that the father or brother of the dead boy had to take over his debt because he had run away. When this was refused the guards informed them that the matter would be reported to the mayor of Hucutsín, who was responsible for the contract, and also to the jefe político of the district. The family would then find out what had to be done.
