by B. TRAVEN
“If I had not wanted more tons of mahogany, do you think that I’d have sent two foremen here? For what? The boys would have done the work by themselves and probably would have produced more than under you two lazy pigs. But tell me, how have you managed to get only half the work that I expected from you? You must surely have slept more than you worked.”
“But, chief, what more could I do? I’ve whipped them like dogs, to the point of tearing the hide from their backs. But they soon got used to it, and the more you whip them, the less they work.”
“I’ve already told you that if you abuse the whip, it’s no use for any God-damned thing. They get obstinate, they lie down and don’t do any work. Why didn’t you hang them more often? That’s what we do in our camp. There’s nothing like it. It really scares them.”
“But we’re only two, El Gusano and me. And to hang half a dozen isn’t so easy. They resist and fight back. To pull it off there would have to be three men for each boy.”
“What use then is that gun hanging on your rump? Do you wear it to look pretty or for hunting pheasants?”
“Actually, it’s no good for anything.”
“You have only to flash it in the face of anybody who gets insolent and you’ll see how they’ll cool down.”
“That used to be true, chief. But now they just laugh at me when I stick the gun in their ribs. ‘Shoot, you bastard,’ they say. ‘Why don’t you shoot? Your day is sure to come somehow. Just wait a bit and we’ll get even with you and El Gusano.’ What’s more, they sing all sorts of songs against us, especially at night.”
“Then you’ve only to plug one or two. That way they’ll see that you’re not joking.”
“All right, chief, if you say so, that’s what I’ll do. After all, it’s not my funeral. Do you know what they say when I put the mouth of a gun against their hides? ‘Go on, shoot, Pícaro, you big fool—and then you’ll find yourself with one less cutter and you can stick the contract up your ass.’ That’s just what’s terrible about it: they would really like me to shoot so that they wouldn’t have to work any more.”
Don Severo remained silent. He put his head out of the door, looked in the direction of the workers’ hovels, then came back into the room, picked up the bottle of aguardiente, took another good round of swigs, and lighted a cigarette.
“Tomorrow,” he said after a moment, “Don Acacio will be here with his men and his overseers. Then we’ll take energetic measures. You’ll see how to deal with these guys and how to make every one of them turn in four tons a day. Maybe we’ll get it up to five.”
“Sure, chief,” replied El Pícaro.
“Damned right! What are you thinking of? All this you’ve been telling me is just child’s play compared with what my brothers and I have seen in other camps.”
He raised the bottle again, as if it contained nothing but water. Then he put it down and again looked at El Gusano.
“Bring me a bucket,” he ordered.
El Pícaro fetched him a full pail of water. Don Severo seized it and threw the water on the drunken man.
“Bring another,” he said to El Pícaro, handing him the pail. “One’s not enough. At least six are needed to put him on his feet. And when he stands up, you’ll flay the skin off his ass with this horsewhip. Then maybe he’ll be of some use. But do it later. I have no interest in being here during the punishment. Take him a little way off so that I don’t hear him yelling.”
“Very well, chief,” said El Pícaro, who, to save himself the trouble of fetching more buckets of water, lifted El Gusano onto his back, carried him to the arroyo, and doused him in it until he began to recover his senses.
“But listen, pal,” muttered El Gusano, “you’re not going to beat me up? Aren’t we friends?”
“Of course we are, you pig. But why must you get drunk just when the old man arrives? There’s nothing I can do about it. I have to give it to you whether you like it or not. It’s better for me to do it in a friendly way than to call one of the boys, Gregorio or Santiago, for example. For then, my friend, it wouldn’t be any fun, I assure you.”
“You’re right. Get it over in a hurry, while I’m drunk and won’t feel it so much. Can’t you fetch me a swig befor—to make it easier for me to bear?”
“Not a bad idea. I’ll have a little myself.”
El Pícaro ran to the office, slipped through the door, took the bottle, and made El Gusano drink a lot before he began to lash him.
On the following day a little before sunset Don Acacio and his column arrived at the south camp. Don Severo received him with these sweet words: “Everything’s going as badly as possible here, Cacho. They’ve done no more than two tons per cutter.”
“In that case there’s nothing for us to do but eat shit,” replied Don Acacio. But he was not a man to waste time idly. Even when he had made a hard journey, he did not seem disposed to rest. Still less was he likely to sit and listen to useless speeches. He called his overseers.
“Get going, you pack of mules! Hurry—get the huts up. We haven’t any time to lose. If you don’t want to spend all your nights under the stars, start now, because tomorrow we won’t be able to bother with that.”
The foremen, followed by their men, made their way into the underbrush to fell some trees and cut palm leaves for building the huts. But night surprised them before one hut was finished.
The men took shelter in the huts occupied by the camp workers, but there was not room for them all. It was hard spending the night stretched out on the ground. It rained torrentially and the ones who slept on the ground awoke in a bath of mud. They were called to their work, as usual, before the first rays of daylight.
“Good morning!” said Don Acacio. “It seems to me that building huts won’t be necessary. In fact, we’re not going to stay here—we’re going to settle in the forest. We’re leaving right away. You can boil your coffee and cook your beans later when we have time. Now you can eat on the way. Let’s go.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said Don Severo to El Pícaro, who stood beside him at the office door. “If you had been able to function like him, you and your drunken assistant, we’d have had our four tons a man right now.”
“Certainly, chief. But if I’d done that, I’d have lost my life before night, or I’d have had to leave two or three of the boys laid out somewhere with bullets in their ribs,” El Pícaro said, laughing derisively.
“That’s just what makes the difference. There are overseers who know how to make their people work and others who don’t know their job. You’re one of those who don’t understand and never will learn. And, by the way, where’s El Gusano?”
“Hi! Gusano!” shouted El Pícaro into the darkness. “The chief wants to see you.”
El Gusano came running, and without stopping to get his breath said: “At your orders, chief!”
“You and El Pícaro are going to break camp with all your loafers. You’ll leave with Don Acacio. Get your things together. On your way!”
The two overseers called their men and followed Don Acacio’s column.
A week later Don Gabriel, arriving at La Armonía with the caravan of men he had recruited, stopped on the wide embankment in front of the bungalow that housed the administration.
Don Gabriel had demands for labor for four different camps. He was considering the project of staying at La Armonía, of establishing his center of operations there and dividing up his men. On the very day of his arrival Don Severo was there, and Don Gabriel took advantage of the opportunity to have a talk with him. As a result of their conversation all of Don Gabriel’s Indians were taken on by La Armonía. The other camps would have to wait until other men were recruited or Don Gabriel should take pity on them.
Don Severo and Don Felix had a look at the newcomers and seemed to be satisfied.
The caravan of Indians was dead with fatigue. They fell on the ground, forming little groups. When Don Severo and Don Felix went up to a group, those who formed it immediately stood up.
Don Severo felt their arms, the muscles of their legs, and the napes of their necks, as he would have done before buying a yoke of oxen.
“What’s your job, Chamula?” he asked Cándido, whose place of origin he recognized by his hat.
“Farmer, sir, and your humble servant,” replied Cándido modestly.
“In that case you’ll be a good cutter.”
“At your orders, sir.”
“Who is that woman with you? Is she your wife?”
“She’s my sister, chief. My wife died.”
“And the two little boys? Are they yours?”
“At your service, chief. They’re here to serve you.”
Don Severo felt their arms. “I believe they’d be good herd-boys.”
“I beg pardon if I contradict you, chief, but they’re still very little and won’t be able to work in the jungle. One of them is only six years old and the other only seven years and three months.”
“If they want to eat, they have to work. You’ll eat all your ration yourself, and if you want a double ration you’ll never finish paying your debts.”
“We can work. We’re strong, chief,” said the older boy, realizing that he and his brother might be the cause of their father’s finding himself in one more difficulty.
The younger boy took a step forward, planting himself in front of Don Severo and doubling up his arm to show how the biceps stood out. “Feel that, my chief, and see how strong I am. I’ll be able to work more than my brother, who’s bigger than me. And the job of looking after cattle pleases me. With your permission, papa.”
Cándido said nothing.
“That’s fine,” said Don Severo, laughing. “Those are the kind of kids I like. It has never done anybody any harm to begin work early and earn his bread. I’ll send you two boys to the pasture and your father will go on with the cutters.”
The two boys were taken aback. “But aren’t we going with our father?”
“Your father isn’t a cowboy. He’s a cutter. So he can’t be in the same camp as you. If it’s possible, we’ll arrange things so that you can be together at night.”
Cándido drew the little ones toward him as if intending to protect them with his own body. He caressed their thick mops of hair and said in a muffled voice: “There’s nothing we can do, my sons. He’s the master and we must obey him.”
Don Severo went on to another group.
Don Felix, who had remained behind, made a sign to Modesta, who had withdrawn a little while Don Severo was talking with Cándido and the boys. She obeyed the sign, coming up to him with her head bent forward, her eyes downcast, and her arms crossed.
Don Felix tapped her cheeks lightly and put his hand under her chin to make her raise her head. But Modesta resisted, half closing her eyes and clenching her teeth a little.
“There’s no need for you to be afraid, little hen. I don’t eat girls, especially when they have pretty legs. I satisfy myself with separating those when I want to. What’s your name?”
“Modesta, your humble servant.”
“Good, I’ll call you Mocha. What did you come here to do?”
“I came with my brother so as not to leave him alone with the children, chief.” She spoke without raising her head.
“And where do you expect to eat, little hen?”
“In the camp, with my brother.”
“That’s impossible. He’ll receive only one ration, and if he wants another he’ll have to pay for it. Then there will be absolutely nothing left of his wage and only God knows how much he’ll be owing us then. We’ll pay him fifty centavos a day, and that on condition that he fells three tons of mahogany.”
“Two tons, chief, that’s the way it’s written in my contract. The mayor told us that in Hucutsin,” Cándido interposed, stepping up.
“I spit on what your contract says, and you shut your mouth if you don’t want me to call one of the foremen, who’ll give you a welcome to the camps. When he’s tanned your hide enough, you’ll know that here nobody opens his face except when he’s asked to. You’ll cut down your three tons daily, understand? If you don’t, we won’t pay you—and give thanks that you don’t have to cut four. That will come later.”
“Pardon, chief, with your permission, the man who signed me up, Don Gabriel, told me that it would be two tons, and the mayor of Hucutsin, who stamped my contract, told me that, too.”
“For you it’ll be four tons, you lousy coyote. And watch out for your skin and bones if you don’t cut them.”
Don Félix took a notebook from his shirt pocket, wrote down Cándido’s name, and added the following note: “Four tons, obligatory.”
“But, my chief—” Cándido never finished the phrase because Don Félix gave him so violent a blow in the face that blood began to spout from the Indian’s nostrils.
“Now I’ve told you, you sickening worm, that the only right you have here is to shut your trap.”
Cándido sat down on the ground and tried to stop the bleeding by applying a handful of grass to his nostrils. Modesta remained standing in front of Don Félix, her head lowered. The incident was more painful to her than to Cándido, but, like the rest of her race, she was accustomed from infancy to bear silently the worst treatment from white men. Not a gesture, not the slightest contraction of her face, betrayed what she felt. The children embraced their father tenderly, trying to console him. The younger began to sob, crying: “Papa, papa, it’s not my fault.”
Cándido caressed him and answered him with a smile. The older boy had picked a gourd and run to the arroyo to fetch a little water for his father to use on his face.
Don Félix continued his conversation with Modesta. The fact of striking an Indian in the face was to him something so unimportant that he did not give it a moment’s attention. That of killing an Indian by blows or by a shot was an incident forgotten an hour later. He remembered the hunting of a deer or a well-aimed shot at a jaguar more easily than the death of a peon.
“Do you know that you’re not entirely ugly, Mocha? But you must eat and for that your brother won’t be able to help you.”
“I’ll put up a little house here in the camp, I’ll fatten some pigs, and I’ll do the cooking for the workmen.” This idea had come to her suddenly. She knew that it would not be easy to put it into operation, but she felt happy to have hit upon it because she had fears about the sort of work Don Felix had in mind for her. She had signed no contract and she could do as she wished, but she had to eat, and here everything was the property of the Montellano brothers.
“Don’t think that’s so easy, little hen. You can’t build a hut unless I give you permission, and as for fattening pigs, you require my authorization for that too. As for cooking for the laborers, if that pleases you—But look, if you want to work, why not do it for me? It’s less hard to work for one person than for twenty. Next week I may be going to another camp to skin those loafers. I’ll take you with me, little hen, so that you can do everything for me.”
He caught her by the point of the chin and lifted her head to force her to look him in the face, but Modesta closed her eyes.
“If you behave well and are amiable with me, it will go well with you. But if you’re obstinate, then I’ll tan your hide and you’ll go back home carrying your lousy rags. You’ll have to cross the jungle and who knows when you’ll get out of it? At the best you’ll meet a jaguar that will eat your legs and all the rest.”
“I don’t wish to be your servant, chief,” replied Modesta in a low voice.
“That’ll be decided by me, not you, little fool.”
Don Felix turned his back and went to join Don Severo and continue the inspection.
5
The new gang reached the south camp in the middle of the night. The men were dead on their feet with fatigue from the march through the underbrush and a two-hour struggle to get out of the heavy, sticky mud of the swamps. They let themselves fall to the ground with whatever they were carrying, and it was not until almost half an hour
later that they began to have the strength to ask for something to eat. The cook told them he had nothing to give them and that unless they had brought their own provisions they would have to wait until morning. He added that he also was tired, that he had not the least desire to work at such an hour, that they should wait for the arrival of the woman he had been promised as an assistant. The foreman, known as La Tumba, who had been in charge of the column, told him that the woman would be at his disposition next morning because for the time being she was with her brother.
Some cutters who had been working for some time in the camp and were loitering in the neighborhood of the cookhouse came to look at the newcomers in the hope of finding some faces they might know. They sat near the fire, lighted their cigarettes, and watched the others prepare their frugal food.
“They won’t get fat on that,” said one of them.
“Everyone eats what he can,” was the reply.
“Did Don Félix come with you?”
“No, he stayed in the big camp to check equipment and get the provisions ready.”
“Any of you ever been in a camp before?” another asked.
“Not me,” replied one of the men in a voice exhausted by fatigue. “And I don’t believe that any of us knows the camps.”
Santiago, one of the ox-drivers, broke in, saying: “Well, you’ll get to know them. You’ll get to know hell and all its devils.”
Nobody took up his words. The old hands smoked; the new ones waited for their beans and coffee to get warm. The fire crackled, throwing out sparks, and at last decided to burn brightly.
The Indians lying around the fire suddenly raised their heads as if they had heard the roar of a jaguar in the underbrush.
“What’s that noise coming from the jungle?” asked Antonio, an Indian from Sactan, listening intently.
“Do you mean those groans and moans in the underbrush?” asked Santiago, raising his eyebrows.
