The Rebellion of the Hanged

by B. TRAVEN

  “And why the ambush?” asked Celso.

  “What a thick head you have! What a question! The more soldiers that came after them, the more arms they could pick up later. Don’t you know that every policeman and every soldier has a rifle, and every officer a revolver? It’s very simple: you surprise a soldier or policeman, knock him down, and seize his carbine or pistol—and the cartridges. Now you see that it’s not complicated. That’s the way a revolt is made.”

  “And did the rebels of Morelos win?” asked Santiago.

  “They certainly did not. For the moment it was impossible. But they, along with the peasants of Tlaxcala under the command of their chief, Juan Camatzi, have started the thing and have taken the most difficult step. Because now the peons and the peasants all over the country know what they have to do and are convinced that the dictatorship and the tyranny are neither invulnerable nor invincible. Before, they believed that nobody could do anything against the tyranny because it had been established by God Himself and because all the priests predicted that it would last for at least a thousand years. Patience! Next time the men of Morelos will win. And those of Tlaxcala too. Who knows but that right now, while we talk about it, they’ve succeeded in raising the whole state of Morelos? Unfortunately, we don’t know anything about what’s happening in the rest of the country.”

  “The devil! What are you all doing here together?” asked El Doblado furiously as he rode up on horseback accompanied by El Tornillo.

  On seeing them, the men, or at least most of them, felt wild panic; but not one among them moved or showed a sign of returning to work.

  “Didn’t you understand me, you swine? Tell me—what’s the meaning of this meeting? Lounging around in the middle of the day—when next week we’ll have to begin throwing the logs in the water. Come on, now, get to work!”

  The terribly frightened young drivers’ assistants and two or three drivers with less experience than the others returned to their teams.

  “Stay here, cowards! Don’t move!” shouted Celso.

  The deserters stood still.

  “But what’s happening?” screamed El Doblado, brandishing his whip. “Is this a strike or a mutiny?”

  “That’s just what it is, coyote!” replied Santiago Rocha. “You guessed it perfectly: it’s a mutiny, a meeting of rebels. Now you know it, dog!”

  El Doblado went pale, dug his spurs into the flanks of his horse, and tried to retreat. But the horse only half obeyed and for a few seconds pranced where he stood. El Doblado felt a mortal uneasiness creeping over him. He looked at the men, who, in a threatening attitude, seemed to be waiting only for a signal.

  El Tornillo, the other foreman, was a little farther off. He could have tried to escape, but on reflection he told himself that it would be better to remain at El Doblado’s side, not so much to protect El Doblado as to save himself. In fact, to abandon his companion in order to save his own skin could have grave consequences for him if the other foremen should learn the truth later. And he saw no great difference between dying immediately and being killed later by his comrades.

  While El Doblado’s horse continued to hesitate and prance, the man on his back suddenly lost his head. He wanted to draw his revolver, but he was carrying the whip in his right hand, and its handle got stuck in the gun.

  Matías, taking advantage of the moment, struck the horse’s hind legs with a branch, at which the animal reared. Fidel jumped onto its rump and grabbled with the foreman, twisting the hand with which he was reaching for the revolver. EI Tornillo, realizing how serious the situation had become, turned his horse to make off. But Cirilo was watching him and struck the horse’s hind quarters with an iron chainhook. The animal reared and pranced in confusion, but El Tornillo remained firmly in the saddle. Then Sixto stooped to look for a stone. He did not find one, but found instead a piece of a yoke, and with this improvised weapon struck the rider a vigorous blow on the back, at which El Tornillo turned to defend himself. But at the same moment Pedro attacked him from the other side, tearing the reins from him and dragging him to the ground. A few seconds later the two foremen were dead.

  Fidel, who had his own special reasons for hating El Doblado, had finished him off furiously with blows of his club. He was like a madman and shouted as he laid on each blow: “Take this one! And this one! That’ll teach you to leave our women in peace!”

  When Fidel straightened up after striking his enemy a final blow, Martín Trinidad said to him: “His pistol and cartridges belong to you. You’ve earned them.”

  Then he turned to the other men and, pointing with his finger to the corpses of the two foremen, shouted to them with conviction in his voice: “Look! Just look at them! That’s the way we get arms, men. Every pistol you get this way has a double value, because your enemies will be without it, and you’ll have it. Attack from the front or behind, in broad daylight or in darkness. Attack any way you like, but attack, by God! If you want to make a revolution, then carry it through to the end, because otherwise it will turn against you and tear you to shreds.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” exclaimed Andrés, who at that moment arrived, goading his oxen and knowing nothing of what had happened. “Man, how well you can make speeches! Who are you?”

  “I’ve already told Celso. He knows my name and who I am. I’m a schoolmaster, a fellow who doesn’t know how to crawl or to lick anybody’s boots. I’m a schoolmaster, a simple schoolmaster. But later, when peace reigns in the country, when at last we’ve freed ourselves from the dictator, when every man has his piece of land and enjoys freedom, then I’ll teach the new generations in the university. Now you know why I’m with you—because I don’t know how to bow down or salute those who despise me. Liberty doesn’t exist when the expression of thought is forbidden. For you freedom will be the land you cultivate. I don’t want land. I want only the freedom to teach what I believe is sensible and true.”

  “But, man,” replied Andres enthusiastically, approaching Martín Trinidad with his hand held out, “that’s exactly what I want. Only until now I couldn’t put it in words. I’m very glad that you’ve made it clear.”

  “We’ll be friends, Andrés, though you’re very young. I’m exactly twice your age, but we’ll be good friends.”

  “I hope so, professor!”

  “Yes, we’ll be friends, very good friends as long as you like, son. But now we don’t have time for declarations of friendship. We’re right in the middle of a battle. We mustn’t lose the game. To go on living in our shameful state is a crime against the country. You’re a soldier now and I’m a soldier, soldiers of the revolution. We have no chiefs or officers; we’re all soldiers. Let’s embrace one another before we set out again!”

  Then Celso spoke: “We’re not here for embraces! They’ll come later. Let’s go! On to the main office! And you, Modesta, come here! You’ll always march in front at my side. You’ll be my faithful soldadera.”

  “That’s the way it will be, Celso.”

  “I’ll take the prettiest clothes we find there for you. And when we’ve made a clean sweep, we’ll go find Cándido and the boy.”

  “Let’s really clean up that office,” Martín Trinidad said, going up to Celso. “But first I ought to go ahead and dig up my pistol and cartridges. It’s the best automatic I’ve seen.”

  Whistling, singing, and shouting, the rebels advanced, making a long detour. Three men now had horses. Two of the horsemen marched at the head of the column, and the third followed at the end, to protect the rear. But they had not thought of laying plans for the attack on the office. They were relying on the force of revolutionary action, which, when not sidetracked by politicians, never loses its impulse toward self-renewal.

  The rebels were sixty resolute men. They arrived within shouting distance of the main office an hour before sunset. All the camp dogs began to bark in chorus.

  Don Félix had returned scarcely half an hour earlier from an inspection of the camp. At the office he had met Don Severo, wh
o had come to make arrangements with him and the foremen regarding final details for launching the logs on the river.

  Hearing the incessant barking, Don Félix said to himself: “Blast those devils! What’s happening? Can’t we ever have peace here? The whole camp must be drunk, the lot of useless bastards!”

  The dogs continued their concert. Don Félix went out to the portico, picked up a stick, and beat the first animals that crossed his path. The dogs yelped with pain and ran off, but did not stop their howling.

  “Probably the Turk is arriving with his caravan,” said Don Severo, seeing his brother return.

  “Impossible!” El Chapopote commented. “He’d have drowned before getting here, because everything is flooded. It’s more likely oxen that have broken loose and wandered this way to get away from the flies.”

  “That’s possible,” Don Félix said hoarsely.

  “Did you tell all the foremen that they must come here tonight, Chapopote?”

  “Sure I did, chief.”

  Don Severo and Don Félix bent over their lists and tried to work out the approximate number of logs piled up at every launching place.

  “By the way, Severo,” said Don Félix, “tomorrow you’re going to have some pork chops.”

  “Where did you get pigs?”

  “I confiscated the Chamula’s.”

  “The one who brought the woman and some kids with him?”

  “That’s the one. I have them in the new camp now. The girl escaped from between my hands this morning, the sow! But I’ll catch her.”

  Don Severo sighed, saying: “Those women! God damn them! The messes they get one into! Those three of mine fight at least five times a day. There’s hardly a hair left on the head of one, the other two have torn out so much. I think that before long I’ll have to bury one of them. And all because I’m a good fellow and don’t dare to throw them out because of the floods.”

  “You a good fellow! Don’t make me laugh! Get off your high horse! You’ll make me die laughing.”

  “That’s what I said! Do you imagine that I’m a savage, that I don’t know how to behave? I could give you lessons! But let’s not discuss that. Pass me the bottle. You’ve been hanging onto it for a long time, and I’m dying of thirst.”

  The first huts of the village around the office appeared through the foliage. The men halted. Some of the dogs, more suspicious than the others, ran toward the workers. Although they knew nearly all the men, they felt instinctively that something out of the ordinary was happening.

  “Wait for me here,” Martín Trinidad told the men around him. “I’m going to dig up my pistol and my cartridges. We’ll have use for that little toy pretty soon.”

  He was not gone long. He returned proudly flourishing his weapon. “I could kiss this little pistol as though it were a pretty girl.”

  And in fact he kissed the pistol several times.

  “I’d like to know if all the foremen are there,” said Celso. “The cook told me this morning that Don Severo had arrived with his men to organize the launching of the logs.”

  Andres replied: “They can’t all have arrived. At least those from the new camp can’t be here.”

  “Look over there. That looks like them. From the top of the slope I saw a canoe coming upstream, and if my eyes didn’t deceive me, it was the men from the new camp arriving. There’s no mistaking them—the foremen don’t dress like us.”

  Andres said to one of the men: “Vicente, you run well. Go up there ahead and keep your eyes on the foremen as they arrive. As soon as they’ve gone into the office, tell us.”

  The man obeyed at once. Martín proposed that they discuss a plan of action.

  “You, Juan and Lucio, you’ve been soldiers, accustomed to command. You take ten of the men, each of you. When Vicente gives the signal, you’ll attack the office from the river side so that nobody can escape by jumping into a canoe. If you see anyone trying to do so, fire—and be sure not to miss. We’ll occupy the open space in front of the office. There are no more than three paths leading to the jungle. Where each one leads off we’ll hide two men, whose job it will be to finish off with their machetes any foremen who venture that way. Arrange things so that if any of them should try to get away, they can run only toward the office, where, if they hope to find refuge, they’ll get the surprise of their lives. As for the men returning from work, send them immediately to join us outside the office.”

  Vicente came back running.

  “The foremen have arrived. They’re making for the office.”

  “Then forward!” Martín Trinidad ordered the little group of men who had been given the task of cutting off the retreat of those about to be besieged.

  The dogs had ceased their barking. Some were following the rebels.

  The men spread out along the slope up to the level of the main office. Soon they crept up the slope and dispersed, concealing themselves in the thickets so that they could observe what was happening without being seen. As soon as they were in position, Secundino let out the mournful howl of the coyote, imitating the sound so well that the dogs dashed off to hunt their natural enemy.

  “They’re ready,” Celso said quietly. But his eyes and quivering nostrils betrayed his anxiety.

  Neither he nor any one of those men had ever rebelled before. They had not even ventured to cover their faces when they were lashed with a whip. The masters, whether Spaniards, white Mexicans, or the Germans of the coffee plantations (whom they called “white Chinamen”), were gods against whom an Indian peon had never dared to rebel. It was not because of cowardice or any hope of obtaining mercy that they behaved so. They knew that there are gods and slaves, and that whoever is not a god can only be a humble and submissive slave. Between these two classes there was no other except, perhaps, that of a fine horse. But when the slave begins to be conscious that his life has become like that of animals, that it is in no way better than theirs, it is because the limits have been reached. Then man loses all sense of reason and acts like an animal, like a brute, trying to recover his human dignity.

  What was happening in the lumber camps, like what was happening on all sides, could not be considered a crime of the men, but only of those who had created the conditions in which things had developed.

  Every blow given to a human being is a bell-stroke announcing the decline of the punisher’s power. Unhappy he who forgets a blow received! Thrice unhappy those who, shrinking from the struggle, fail to return blow for blow!

  13

  All the men felt their legs grow heavy when they realized that the moment for the assault had come. But they knew that it was impossible to retreat. They had burned their boats. The death of three foremen left them no alternative but to advance. Nobody asked whether they were marching to victory or to defeat. They had to march, that was all, and the rest did not matter. For that reason the strange feeling of apprehension did not last more than a moment.

  When Celso shouted: “Forward, men! Land and liberty!” they did not march—they leaped forward like wild horses galloping toward a water hole.

  Without knowing it, scarcely even wishing for it, they had already won half the battle.

  Had they advanced slowly, Don Félix and Don Severo would have imagined that the men were coming because of some happening out of the ordinary—perhaps a landslide causing the death of some men, or the shifting of a pile of logs with the same result, or the appearance of jaguars. The Montellanos would have begun by speaking to them, by asking questions, and the men, unable to express themselves, and especially to discuss anything with the bosses, would have become confused and would not have been able to make their grievances known or to make demands.

  Don Severo was standing in the office doorway talking with his brother, his back to the open space. When he heard the tumultuous noise made by the onrushing men, he turned toward them, but he could not understand what they were shouting because most of them were shouting in their own Indian dialects.

  “The devil! What’s
the matter with them?”

  It was not to the men that he addressed this question but to his brother and the foremen, who had just begun to wolf down their supper and who had glasses in their hands.

  Don Félix and the foremen jumped up and rushed to join him on the porch.

  Don Severo went a few steps forward and shouted to the men: “What’s wrong? Why have you all come? You could have worked another hour. There’s enough light yet.”

  “Dog!” was the reply.

  “Bastard! Son of a bitch!” cried another.

  The insults poured out. All the men were yelling, but it was impossible to determine what they were talking about. All that could be clearly distinguished were oaths and obscene phrases.

  Don Severo half turned toward the foremen and asked again: “But what do they want?”

  A new rain of insults and oaths came from the group of rebels standing a few steps from the office.

  “God only knows what new stupidity you have committed!” said Don Severo to his brother.

  “Me? But what do you think I’ve done? Lately I haven’t beaten or hanged a single man. Since we buried Cacho, since you said we should hold the reins loosely, we haven’t touched anybody.”

  “Pardon me, chief,” El Faldón said. “Don’t forget the Chamula and his son. Cándido—isn’t that his name?”

  “Yes. But he ran away, and despite that we didn’t hang him or beat him. He was simply sent to the new camp.”

  “Yes, but his sister was kept here,” insisted El Faldón.

  “And what do I care about his sow of a sister? I didn’t do anything to her, and anyway she ran away this morning.”

  “Then by all the saints Ï don’t know what’s the matter with the men,” said Don Severo.

  He stopped for an instant and looked around. “God help us! We’ve got a whole army on our backs.”

  He had just seen the men who had come out of the forest and now threatened to cut off all retreat.

  “It seems to me, chief, there’s something very nasty about all this,” El Chato said.