by B. TRAVEN
“The finquero has fled, with all his brood,” said General. “Those accursed mercenaries who escaped us must have brought the news to him, telling him of how many survived from that proud gang of cavaliers, telling him that there’s none left today for the fiesta where they’d hoped to display their glittering uniforms like well-groomed apes upon a hurdy-gurdy. But I tell you it’s a good thing the finquero and his company now realize at last that we’re serious and that we know how to attack and don’t care a damn whether we die or whether we live.”
“Well spoken, General,” said Professor. “That’s what these festering sons of bitches must learn sooner or later. They’ll have to find out that in the end they’ll lose, whether we win or whether we’re thrashed like hounds. Even if we don’t win, they won’t any longer have peons or slaves that they can beat and drive around.”
One of the muchachos who had captured the Rurales’ bugle and had been appointed trumpeter of the troop and now rode at General’s side, said, “It’s good for us if the finca is deserted. We’ll have it for the night, and tomorrow we shall be able to have a day’s rest.”
“We shall have two days’ rest there,” replied General.
“But then the Federals will arrive,” said another fellow.
“Let us hope so.” General took that for granted. “It’s all the same to us whether we deal here at the finca with the battalion that’ll be sent against us—or on the way to Hucutsin or Achlumal or anywhere else before we reach Jovel or Balun Canan. The sooner we meet them, the more weapons we’ll get and the sooner we’ll get them. As long as the dictator squats on his throne and hopes he can throttle the revolution with machine guns, they will go on sending Federals against us. Whether it’s here or there is unimportant.
“Ay, caramba!” he interrupted himself suddenly. “Caray, que chinguen todas las madres, cabrones, y mulas. What in hell is happening there?” He stood up in his stirrups, then shouted to all the muchachos who were mounted: “Advance! Attack! Get at those peons!”
A large group of peons from the finca, men, women, and children, about half a hundred in number, had burst out from their miserable mud huts and, panic-stricken, were attempting to flee toward the west where the bush was closest. Their dogs barked, and several of the peons were making an effort to drive their goats, sheep, and donkeys with them. When they perceived that this livestock was holding them up, they left the animals to fend for themselves and raced after the families leading the flight.
The mounted muchachos took less than ten minutes to round up all the families and cut off their line of escape to the edge of the bush.
A despairing cry of fear rose from the peons. Men, women, and children fell to their knees, raised their hands in entreaty, and begged the muchachos to spare their miserable lives, for they were only poor—wretchedly poor—Indian peons who had done no harm to anyone and had never betrayed to the patron a word about the rebellion in the monterías.
“Stand up, you! All of you!” shouted General. “There’s no need to kneel to anyone. Get that into your heads. No one any longer is superior or inferior.”
Not comprehending this assurance, plain and forthright as it was, but simply obeying the command, all the men and women stood up. Submissively the men held their hats in their hands, bowed forward, and fixed their eyes respectfully on the ground until such time as one of the victors might be pleased to call a peon by his name and thus grant him permission to raise his eyes to his master.
The women covered their heads completely and only peeped with one eye through a fold in their cheap and tattered rebozos, without even daring to look higher than the horses’ hoofs. Several of the women sobbed and sniffled into their kerchiefs, while the children, whimpering and howling, crept behind the grownups. Several babes in arms, woken from their sleep, wailed and tried to stick their little heads out of the tightly corded bundles on their mothers’ backs, feeling they were going to suffocate. Other babies cooed happily and beat their little fists on their mothers’ necks. One mother, to avoid assuming an immodest position before the mounted men, attempted with her head to squash her baby down into the wrappings on her back, as if she hoped thereby to deny the existence of the child. The dogs began once more to snarl, and some particularly bold ones made attempts to snap at the legs of the horses. As soon as the peons perceived such impertinence in their dogs, the owners gave them such hefty kicks that the animals flew several yards through the air.
The fact that the muchachos on the horses were more ragged, filthy, and vermin-infested than the peons seemed to have escaped the notice of the overawed people from the finca. No more did they seem to perceive that the muchachos who had arrived here as conquerors were Indians like themselves, that they were of their own class and, like them, regarded all patrones as tyrants.
But the muchachos were mounted on proud horses, and they carried weapons. And whoever came riding on such fine horses, and had revolvers and rifles, and fought with Rurales and conquered Rurales must be a new master, probably a crueler, more relentless and unjust master than the former one. What happened at this finca now was exactly the same as occurred later throughout the whole Republic: the peons, accustomed for years to masters, tyrants, oppressors, and dictators, were not in truth liberated by the revolution, not even where the feudal estates were divided among the families of peons in little holdings, in ejidos. They remained slaves, with the single difference that their masters had changed, that mounted revolutionary leaders were now the wealthy, and that the politicians now used small-holding, ostensibly liberated peons to enrich themselves immeasurably, to increase their political influence, and, with the help of the now independent peons, whom murder and bestialities kept in a constant state of fear and terror, were able to commit every conceivable crime in order to become deputy or governor, and that with no other intention than to fill their chests and coffers with gold to overflowing.
He who has the rifle and the revolver is the master of him who has no revolver. The muchachos carried revolvers and were therefore looked upon as the new masters and patrones. The fact that they were ragged Indians was pure coincidence. Tomorrow they would be smartly clothed, like ladinos.
The peons had reason enough to flee and be in mortal terror when they saw the rebels approaching. They knew their country, their poor, beautiful, pitiful country. They had been born in this country and grown up in it. Revolvers were not worn for decoration. They were worn for the purpose of shooting when the opportunity offered; and, as in war, when no opportunity offered, it was created. Here was a battle between Rurales and rebels. The victors were now the rebels, but a number of them had fallen in the fight. The fallen must be avenged, and vengeance had to be taken on those who were unable to defend themselves. There would be no inquiry as to whether they had had anything to do with the fight. Dictatorship distinguishes itself from other forms of government chiefly by its impatience toward other men and by the relentless wreaking of vengeance upon the humble and the weak. The peons belonged to the finca, where the Rurales had lain in wait, where they had been tended, and from the master of which they had received all possible support. The finquero, together with his family and house servants, had fled. No vengeance could be taken upon them. But the peons, who had not fled because they had perceived their master’s flight too late, were here, and from them the victors could just as well exact vengeance and satisfaction as from the guilty. The prisoner is always guilty.
After more than thirty years of dictatorship, the peons knew that they were always the losers, always the punished, always the whipped, and always the hanged. Rebels fell in battle. The surviving proletariat, who had not so much as lifted a finger on behalf of the revolution, were always the ones who paid for that revolution—with their few hard-earned and buried savings, with their skins, and with their lives.
“Why were you running away, hombres?” asked Professor. He dismounted from his horse and went up to the men standing nearest. He clapped them on the shoulders and backs to show them that
he regarded them as friends.
But it was not out of friendliness—for peons never relinquished their mistrust—it was only out of politeness and in order not to anger the victors that they now looked up and strove to behave as if they accepted the genuineness of this offer of friendship. Some of the women came forward and kissed Professor’s hand. The men and the majority of the women ran over to the remaining muchachos, who had gradually dismounted from their horses, and bowed deeply to them, kissing their hands, too.
Professor asked again, “Why were you running away? We don’t bite the heads off poor Indian peons.”
The men tried to form a sad smile with their lips. It was not entirely successful.
“Well, tell me why.” Professor put his arm about the shoulders of one man. “The patron told you we were bandits. Didn’t he say that, the filthy son of a whore?”
Fearfully the people shook their heads. That was exactly what the finquero had said to the peons who were working in the patio at the moment of his flight. But not even the rack would have extorted such an admission from the peons; for had they repeated what the patron had said to them, the rebels would have assumed this was what they themselves thought. That was how it had always been in questionings by the finquero and by the police. If a man admitted to something that he had heard, he was then immediately accused of having said that himself. Dictators teach one to see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing, think nothing, and only to open one’s mouth to shout Viva!
“There’s no cause for you to run away from us, amigos,” said Andreu now. “We’re your friends.”
“Con su permiso, jefe,” replied a man, “we were not running away. We knew very well that you were our friends. We all just wanted to go into the bush there.”
“Then why were you taking your pots and your goats and pigs?” asked Colonel.
“We wanted to have a very, very small fiesta there this evening. Just a very tiny feast, for a saint, a little saint, a saint of the Indians, and we didn’t want the patron to know that we still prayed, though only occasionally, to our Indian saints.”
Andreu saw Celso standing up and went over to him. “They’re not so stupid,” he said, laughing. “I’d never have thought of such a good excuse on our finca. If they want to celebrate their own old saints, they can’t do it near the finca, where the patron could see them and accuse them of being godless heathens. Therefore they go into the bush. And, of course, they do that only when the patron is not at home, having taken his whole family to the city or on a visit to another finca.”
“Donde está tu patron? Where is your master?” Professor asked one man.
“Ah, patroncito, forgive me. I don’t know. He didn’t tell us. I think he has gone off with all his family to a wedding. He said something about it last week.”
“Where is the wedding?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s in Tumbala.”
That was about six days’ journey distant.
Now that the advance troop had approached quite close, General shouted to them all to march on into the patio, the great courtyard of the finca. The buildings there were large enough for all the muchachos to sleep under a roof for the first time in nearly six weeks, protected from rain, thunder, and storms and against prowling animals and creeping snakes.
“And all of you,” Professor turned to the peons, “you’re coming with us now into the patio.”
At this the wives of the peons began wailing and screaming and threw themselves on their knees and begged for mercy. They were certain that they had been ordered into the patio only to witness their men being murdered. The men themselves showed no sign of fear. They marched, as commanded, into the patio. What was the use of whimpering? They marched ahead like obedient soldiers who know precisely that if they are fated to be murdered they can do nothing about it, either by weeping and whining or by abjectly begging for mercy. The only positive course would be to resist, not to obey, and to take their weapons and shoot down those issuing the orders, and this they will not do simply because they are obedient soldiers whose brains and powers of resistance have been numbed in the first few weeks of their military training. Besides, they have their honor; and for the sake of their honor they must accept everything. For only the dishonorable rebel, and only the godforsaken will look askance at his country’s flag, shrug his shoulders, and say, “Red, white, black, or green, flowers throughout the world are seen.” Of course the peons knew nothing about a soldier’s honor, but once given an order, they marched as willingly as other sheep.
Within a few minutes campfires were burning in the patio. Like ants, the muchachos swarmed through the rooms in the buildings. Everything that was found and considered useful was looted: blankets, saddles, clothes, shoes, suits, chests, and boxes. A typewriter flew in a wide arc into the patio and burst into fragments. Three sewing machines followed. Everything made of wood was hacked up. Tables, chairs, bedsteads, cupboards simultaneously fell victim. Wood for the campfires was more important to the muchachos than a piano, which was flung piecemeal into the flames. Next came the doors. For years the muchachos had been accustomed to having no tables or chairs, and no doors in their miserable sleeping huts. And they had never learned that a piano was anything more than a wooden box with wires. Why should they respect objects that had never been intended for them, that had no meaning for them other than as the property of their masters; which might not be touched, not because such things could be useful, but because they were the property of those who had learned and been taught to enjoy these objects?
“Who’s that in that picture? The man with the medals and crosses on his chest?” asked one of the muchachos, pointing to a great portrait on the wall.
“That’s the cursed swine of a Cacique, the dictator, the noble leader of the country,” shouted Colonel, and spat a huge gob of phlegm in the middle of the portrait’s face.
The slime ran down over the beautifully painted decorations on the breast. But before it reached the broad leather uniform belt, and soiled and sullied the handsome gold eagle on the buckle, one of the muchachos leaped up, tore the picture down from the wall, stamped on it, and said, “I should shit right on his nose. But I’m not so vulgar as to do it here in this fine room, where we’re going to sleep well tonight for once. I’ll do better to hang it against my behind.” He tore it from its frame, pushed the top of the canvas under the back of his belt, and let the rest dangle down like an apron over his buttocks.
In the rooms there were a number of paintings, finely executed portraits of the patron, his wife, his father, and heaven knows who else. There were pictures of scenes from operas and from Greek tragedies. Not one picture was left intact. They were all flung into the fire. The rooms soon took on a desolate aspect, but the emptier they became, the more the muchachos felt themselves at home. Not one of them, not even Andreu or Celso—Professor only excepted—had ever seen furniture in a house in which they or their parents had lived. And if they had ever known pictures, then it was those yellowed, faded reproductions surviving from out-of-date advertising calendars sent out by cigarette firms and breweries, and here and there perhaps a representation of a saint in which not a feature was anatomically correct.
In nooks and corners and on the tiled floor were spread out the mats and bundles and packs of the muchachos. Only two rooms in the whole finca had wooden floors. They were certainly the bedrooms of the master and mistress or else rooms for guests. In these rooms the women and children of the troop camped.
In the wide patio things had become lively, noisy, and gay. Dead friends and comrades were now wholly forgotten. There were more important things to think of. Who will and must live cannot worry about the dead. Let each estate take care of itself.
The muchachos were luxuriating in good drinking water. At twenty places baths were being taken and articles of clothing washed. Crackling and roaring, ten or twelve fires burned merrily in the patio. For as long as the muchachos could remember, they had never had such wonderful fire
s as these. In the past it had always been damp, green wood which they had had to burn, the smoke biting their eyes. But these pictures and beautiful furniture and the thick-gilded frames of the great mirrors were as dry as old bones and made a fire that sometimes stank of varnish and paint, but which burned joyfully and openly and not sadly with thick, blinding, stinging smoke.
There was yowling, dancing, singing, music from mouth organs and guitars, whistling, joking, and horseplay. It was as if this was no gathering of grown men, now warriors and rebels, but a happy, exuberant throng of adolescent boys and girls setting out on a short holiday.
The peons, with their women and children, stood in the middle of the patio, nervously huddled together like timid animals. They were close to the stone altar on which a huge fire used to blaze each night, kept burning till almost midnight, to make the patio and the many extensive finca buildings appear less somber and gloomy. Even in the largest and richest fincas of that far region there was no electricity. A gasoline lamp was an unheard-of luxury which the finqueros and their families from the neighboring estates would willingly undertake a hard two or three days’ journey to see. The gentry themselves used only candles, generally made on the premises. Even paraffin lamps of the simplest kind were seldom to be found in the fincas, and anyone owning one was regarded as very modern. The peons had no other light in their huts than that emanating from a cooking fire on the ground or a fire burning in a low clay hearth. When no fire was burning, pine slivers served for illumination. The peons burned candles in their huts only at a death watch or in honor of a saint. Everything today was as it had been for years. Everything, for master and peon alike, up to this very day.
It was still too early for the pile of wood to be lit on the altar, for it was yet three hours to sunset.
For a good while the finca peons who had been ordered here were left to themselves. None dared to run away, although they were well acquainted with the buildings and could easily have escaped, for the sentries at the two gates were as negligent as only sentries with rebel forces and revolutionary armies can be and are.
