Tryant Banderas

by Ramon del Valle-Inclan

  Coffee, grog, and meat pasties had excited the revolutionary choristers, and they all bellowed similar sentiments, did a boisterous business in rich repartee, then exchanged mellifluous apologies for going too far. They were all good friends and gleefully sang dirty limericks to prove it.

  “Hey buddy!”

  “Hey pal!”

  “See ya!”

  “See ya!”

  They bawled out final farewells, bestrode their saddles, turned their horses, and galloped pell-mell over the vast horizon of the plains.

  II

  The morning sun poured down on freshly ploughed red earth, where new crops were sprouting, and poured down on the twisted oaks and wild thickets in whose shade steaming bulls lay stretched out. Lake Ticomaipú, surrounded by Indian huts, mirrored the flaming sheaves. The boss gallops along the bank of a creek on a lively dapple gray, behind him his overseer drives his nag furiously on. Clanging bells and shooting rockets brighten the torrid morning. Canoes full of Indians festooned with bunting, branches, and garlands of flowers trail up and down the waterways. Other light boats almost turn over from all the merrymaking. In the lead boat, under a canopy, a troupe of cimarrons—with cardboard masks, spears, and bucklers—dance jubilantly. A drum and a cornet play as they posture and pirouette. The homestead looms in the distance. The green foliage of shady orange groves shimmers. Tiles, terraces, and roofs sparkle. Eager to reach the farm, the horse breaks into a fresh gallop. The overseer slides the gate open, stands in his stirrups, and looks around: under an arch the colonel, in his hammock, strums a guitar and encourages some kids to dance; two coppery maids, in low-necked nightshirts, laugh and joke behind the bars of the kitchen window and the pots of geraniums from El Sardinero. Filomeno Cuevas prances on his dapple gray and flicks its haunch with his whip. The horse bounds through the gate. “Hit it, friend! You’re better than that gaucho Santos Vega any day!”

  “Speak for yourself!...So what happened? Are you going to let them catch me? Made up your mind?”

  The boss leapt off his steed, entered the porch, clattering his silver spurs, his many-colored poncho slung across his shoulder: the embroidered brim of his sombrero threw his aquiline features and goatee in shadow. “‘Dainty’ Domiciano, I’ll supply you with fifty bolivars, a guide, and a horse so you can get going. When you were buzzing on before, I said we’d ride together. But I’ve had a change of heart. As to the fifty bolivars, you’ll get those as soon as you’re safe behind revolutionary lines. You will travel unarmed and your guide is under orders to plug you if you do anything suspicious. My friend, I’d advise you to say nothing, because the order is a secret.”

  The little colonel sat up calmly. He silenced his sorrowing guitar. “Don’t try to put one over on me, Filomeno! You know my honor won’t allow me to accept such humiliating terms. I didn’t expect such treatment from you! You’ve gone from being my friend to being my jailer!”

  With graceful forbearance, Filomeno Cuevas threw his hat and poncho on a jinocal. He pulled a fine silk handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat off his weather-beaten features and gleaming white forehead framed by dark locks of hair. “Don’t fuck up! Domiciano! Take what you can get. Don’t try to dictate terms.”

  The little colonel opened his arms. “Filomeno, your heart knows no generosity!”

  He was hopelessly hammered, and his boastful blather was full of tropical heat. The boss headed over to his hammock cracking jokes all the time, stretched out, grabbed the guitar, and started tuning. “I’ll save your life, Domiciano! But I’m playing it safe until I know it’s in danger for real: and if you’re a spy, believe me, you’re going to die. Old China will conduct you safely behind rebel lines, and they can decide what to do with you. As a matter of fact—I’ve got an urgent message to send to them. You and Old China are going to take it for me. Yeah. I meant to make you my bugle boy but somehow the dice didn’t fall that way.”

  The little colonel gave himself martial airs. “Filomeno, I am your prisoner, I know. I won’t lower myself by arguing about terms. My life is in your hands; take it if you wish. You’ll be giving these little ones a fine lesson in hospitality. Children, don’t be afraid. Come here, come learn how to welcome a friend who, with nothing to his name and a murderous tyrant on his trail, seeks shelter under your roof.”

  And the little ones gathered around, their innocent eyes wide with fear and suspense. Suddenly a girl standing right in the middle of the group flounced her dressy skirt and burst into sobs. The two gangling kids beside her looked on astonished. She had been overwhelmed by the colonel’s showpiece. Her grandmother rushed out, a swarthy old lady with Italian blood and a white chignon, coal-black eyes, and a beak as big as Dante’s. “Cosa c’é, amore?”

  But the little colonel had already seized the girl, kissing her and rubbing his beard all over her face. He drew up his great round girth and held the weeping wonder in his arms, so that his raised gluttonous face was foreshortened into a caricature of Saturn. The girl starts struggling and crying. She wants to escape, and her grandmother standing next to the Japanese curtain with her shawl hanging crooked is on the verge of collapse. Drunkenly the little colonel goads her: “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, old girl. It’ll give you a heart attack!”

  “Don’t upset la bambina!”

  “Filomeno, explain the joke to your mother-in-law. Explain what you have been taught by this little angel. Don’t try to get out of it; tell her! Be your usual bold self!”

  III

  The five kids sway in sweet harmony. The little colonel sprawls in their midst, while his grotesque face wrinkles up into a frown. He sobs, chest pumping like a balloon. “Tender shoots, you are teaching your parents manners! Children, do not forget this lesson when you grow up and have to make difficult decisions of your own. Filomeno, these tender buds, they will hound you with remorse because of how you have treated me, Domiciano de la Gándara, a dear friend—and not a trace of pity in your heart! He expected a brother’s embrace. He was given less welcome than a prisoner of war. Refused arms. Disrespected. Filomeno, you treat me like a bastard, not a brother!”

  The boss continued to tune his guitar. He nodded at his mother-in-law to get the kids out of there and the Italian crone herded her flock inside. Filomeno Cuevas clasped his hands behind his back, his eyes beady and sharp. There was a smug smile on his purple lips. “Domiciano, you’re not in parliament giving a speech. No doubt you’d bring the roof down if you were. But I’m unfortunately not clever enough to appreciate your oratory. I’ve made you my final offer.”

  A long-haired Indian, wrapped in a blanket, his face hidden in shadow by his straw sombrero, came up to his boss and whispered in his ear. Filomeno turned to the little colonel. “We’re done for. Federal troops are surrounding the ranch.”

  The little colonel spat. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Go on, turn me in, get in Banderas’s good books. Filomeno, you don’t have any honor left to lose!”

  “No more shit! You know perfectly well I stand up for my friends. I had to be careful given your past alliance with Tyrant. We’re in a tight spot now, though, and if I don’t save you, I’ll lose my own head.”

  “Give me money and a horse.”

  “Listen, you’re not taking off.”

  “Let me get into the open country on a good horse.”

  “You’re staying here until nightfall.”

  “Just give me a horse!”

  “I’m not going to because I’m doing my best to save you. You’re going to stay in a pigsty where the devil himself won’t ever find you.”

  He dragged the colonel off through the shadowy porch.

  IV

  Another Indian scuttled in, crossing himself. He tiptoed barefoot over to the boss. “The press-gang’s out and about. They almost roped me in. They’re beating the drum by the church.”

  The rancher smiled and slapped his friend Domiciano on the shoulder. “I’m playing it safe, yup. Time to put you in that sty.”
>
  Book Six

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  id="heading_id_53">The Lasso
  >

  I

  Scarface Zac tied the skiff to a clump of bulrushes and stood up. He looked at the shack. A flat expanse of inlets and sand dunes, crisscrossed by creeks and flapping waterfowl, spread out before him. In between, there were canebrakes and fields dotted with glistening horses and bulls. The echoes of country life rose up and vanished into the vast sonorous dome of the heavens. A chorus of pigs grunted under the turquoise sky. A dog yelped, pitifully. Startled, Zac whistled at it to come. The dog ran over: fretful, eager to be picked up, upset by something. Zac held it to his chest where it whimpered miserably. Now it tugs at his shirt, drags him out of the skiff. Pulling out his pistol, Scarface walks forward, serious, his breath bated. The shack stands open, silent, and Zac walks past it and goes on down into the swamp; the dog is leading him, its ears pricked, its snout jutting forward, a mass of pathetic shivering panting fur: Zac follows close behind. Pigs grunt in the mud. Chickens cower under the agave’s tentacles. The dog barks and buzzards sweep into the sky, their black wings flapping above the swamp slime. And Zac stands there, horrified, grim-faced, lifting up a bloody mess. It is all that is left of his child! Face and hands devoured by pigs; heart pecked out by buzzards. The Indian goes back to the hut. He puts the remains in a bag and sets it down at his feet. He thinks. He’s standing completely still. Flies settle on his body. Lizards sunbathe at his side.

  II

  Zac stood up, full of dark foreboding. He went to the grindstone, turned it over, and saw a dull glimmer of metal. The receipt from the pawnbroker, folded four times, lay underneath. The grimace on his Indian mask remained unchanged as he counted the nine coins, dropped the money in his pouch, and read the note: “Quintín Pereda. Loans. Sales and Purchases.” Zac returned to the entrance to the shack, slung the bag over his shoulder and set out for the city. With drooping tail and head, the dog nuzzled alongside. Zac passed down a street of flat-roofed squat houses garlanded in colored bunting, into the noise and lights of the fair. At a stall he bet all nine coins on lansquenet; he doubled his stake and kept winning. An absurd thought hit him—another grisly omen—that bag of bones draped over his shoulder was bringing him luck! He moved on, dog in tow, turned into a bar, and sat there drinking firewater, the bag between his feet. The girl and blind man were eating at a nearby table. Bums and beggar women, Indians from the outback, old dears in search of a tlaco’s worth of cumin for their cobs. Zac ordered a ptarmigan stew and left scraps on his plate for his dog. He continued to drink, the brim of his sombrero down low over his face. The idea that those remnants were protection against danger was chilling: he knew they’d be out after him, but he wasn’t frightened: a cruel certainty had frozen his heart. He slung the bag of bones over his shoulder and kicked his dog. “Porfirio, let’s go pay whitey a visit!”

  III

  Zac stopped and sat down again. He eavesdropped on the owlish couple’s whispers.

  “Won’t Mr. Peredita give us longer?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, dear!”

  “If he hadn’t been fighting with that Indian woman, he’d have been more sympathetic.”

  With his straw hat over his face and his bag of bones on his knees, Zac listened carefully. The blind man had taken out a folder full of scraps of paper. He was checking them over—as if those sad fingernails of his could see. “Read me the terms again. There has to be something in our favor.”

  He handed the girl a sheet that was covered with stipulations and stamps. “We sure do like living in cloud cuckoo land, don’t we, Poppa! Whitey has stitched us up.”

  “Read me the terms.”

  “I know it by heart. We’re done for, Father dear, if we can’t get up-to-date with our payments!”

  “What do we owe?”

  “Seven pesos.”

  “These are wretched times! In other years picking up seven pesos at the fiestas would have been a piece of cake! The takings from a night like last night would have been three times that!”

  “When have things been any different?”

  “You’re only a child.”

  “I’ll be old soon enough.”

  “Maybe we should go back and appeal to Mr. Peredita again. We could explain that before long you’ll be singing on stage! Isn’t that a great idea? Let’s go now!”

  “Now!”

  “You say that so hopelessly!”

  “Hopeless is how I feel.”

  “My love, you’re not much consolation! Mr. Peredita may have a heart!”

  “He’s a whitey!”

  “There are good whiteys, too.”

  “He’ll tighten the noose, mercilessly. He’s cheap!”

  “Well he’s been more considerate on other occasions...But he was really furious with that chinita, and since they took her away, well, he must have been in the right.”

  “Somebody else paying for Domiciano’s sins!”

  IV

  Zac edged closer to the listless pair. The blind man realized the girl wasn’t going to read the papers and put them back in a black oilskin folder. The owl’s face was wan and resigned. The girl pushed her plate over to Zac’s dog. Bright-Eyes insisted: “Domiciano screwed us! If it weren’t for him, Taracena would be sitting pretty. She could have lent us something or at least been a guarantor.”

  “Unless he turned her down.”

  “Please, darling, just an ounce of hope! I’m going to go order a bottle of beer. Don’t say no! We’ll take it home and I’ll finish that waltz I’m going to dedicate to Generalito Banderas.”

  “Daddy, you just want to get sloshed!”

  “Darling, I just need some consolation.”

  Zac picked up his bottle and filled the glasses of the blind man and the girl. “Get pissed as newts. It’s the only way to endure this lousy life. What happened to the chinita? Did someone rat her out?”

  “Her bad luck!”

  “And was it that fucking whitey?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t want to be implicated himself.”

  “So that’s how it was. Leave Peredita to me.”

  He slung the bag over his shoulder and left, dog in tow, the brim of his sombrero pulled low over his face.

  V

  Scarface threaded his way through the circle of ox drivers and cowpunchers drinking on horseback outside the bar. His face was set in a green mask of prickly gloom and grief pounded his temples as he entered the horse fair. Everybody was wrangling and haggling. Stalls sold tackle, knives, and brightly colored ponchos under branches of cedar and palm. Zac crossed over to a broad, dusty sidewalk crowded with food carts. Cowboys from Veracruz showed off their mounts in spirited races. They placed bets and bragged loudly about their horses, hoping they’d be able to pull a fast one. Zac stood under a cedar tree, his feet covered in dust, and took a good look at a roan that a cowpoke was putting through its paces. He felt his winnings under his belt. “You selling that bronco?”

  “Yep, he’s for sale.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Cut the crap, how about fifty bolivianos?”

  “Per horseshoe.”

  Zac kept to his tune. “Fifty bolivianos! You want to sell or what?”

  “I’m not giving him away!”

  “And I’m not going up.”

  Zac’s expression and tone of voice never changed; he repeated his offer in a monotone like dripping water. The cowpoke put the horse through a series of neat jumps. “Look what he does with barely a nudge—look at his head. Not a trace of strain!”

  Zac sang the same tune. “What I’m looking at are fifty bolivianos. Sixty with the tackle.”

  The cowboy bent down over the saddle horn and patted the horse on the neck soothingly. He half conceded: “Seventy and the drinks are on me.”

  “Sixty with the saddle, and you can leave me the rope and spurs.”

  The countryman answered excitedly, keen to strike
a deal: “Sixty-five! This horse is a real jewel, pal!”

  Zac put his bag down, undid his belt, and, sitting in the shadow of the cedar, counted the money out on a corner of his poncho. Clouds of flies blackened his sticky, bloodstained bag. His bleary-eyed dog sniffed around the horse. The cowpoke dismounted. Zac knotted the money in the corner of his poncho, and got up to check the bronco’s hocks and mouth. He jumped into the saddle and rode him up and down, pulling sharply on the reins and bridle, as if he were lassoing a bull. Shading his eyes, the cowpoke stood aside and watched. Zac reined the horse in and rode back. “He’ll do fine.”

  “A jewel!”

  Zac undid the corner of his poncho and counted the coins into the cowpoke’s palm. “Be seeing you!”

  “Buddy, you want to have a quick one to seal the deal?”

  “No time, pal. I’m in a rush.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Got to get back to my place. Let’s have a drink some other time. Be seeing you!”

  “Yes, see you! And take care of my roan.”

  Luminous harmonies of shimmering color vibrated across the fairground. Flocks of llamas, herds of cows, and bands of horsemen undulated along twilight paths of red earth as the sun set over sombreros stitched with silver. Zac spurred his mount out of the madding crowd and headed down the Portuguese Mothers Arcade.