by B. TRAVEN
“Shut up, you idiot! Do you think I have to be told that? I only wish those swine would shout less and say clearly what it is they want. I can only get a few words of what they’re saying.
“That’s what seems so strange to me,” interrupted Don Félix. “I suppose they’re referring to two or three foremen, because they wouldn’t dare speak to us like that.”
Don Félix turned toward the foremen: “Speak up, you! What have you done now? I’ve got tired of telling you to leave the guys’ women in peace. Haven’t; you got your own?”
El Faldón looked around the group of foremen. “I don’t see El Doblado,” he said. “What’s happened to him?”
“Nothing,” replied El Chato. “It just isn’t time yet for him to come back.”
“Hell!” said Don Félix. “You must have something in your mind about El Doblado… .”
“He’s been in a mess with a girl one of the men brought here.”
“In that case he’ll deserve whatever happens to him. He knows perfectly well that he mustn’t get mixed up with the women. There are enough whores at hand to satisfy everybody.”
Don Severo raised his arm above his head, expecting the men to quiet down and let him speak. But his lordly gesture had no doubt already lost the magic it had formerly had, because the clamor increased: “Sons of bitches! Swine! Bastards!”
Don Severo realized that he was making himself ridiculous. Changing his position, he stood with arms akimbo, stuck out his chest, and tried to look as though he believed in his own authority. The response to this was a great roar, as though from one man with two thousand lungs: “Down with the Spaniards! Down with the white men!”
For the first time in his life Don Severo went pale. He watched his brother going back into the office and saw the foremen making for the door with feigned casualness. He did not move. He remained as though rooted to the porch. Several times he opened his mouth to speak and then, suddenly, he felt clumsy, not knowing what to do with his hands and arms. Finally he let them fall with a grotesque gesture, leaving them hanging in front of him as though trying to protect his lower belly, in the attitude of a schoolboy caught trying to satisfy an unhealthy desire. He did not realize how comic his position looked until the men shouted at him: “Hold the little bird tight! Don’t let it fly away!”
There was a burst of laughter from the group. Another of the men shouted: “You can’t save it, Spaniard! You won’t be able to use it tonight!”
Don Severo, taking advantage of a second’s silence, shouted: “But, men, what is it you want?”
“We want to go back to our people. We don’t want to work now! We want our freedom! We’re going to set free all the men on the fincas and in the lumber camps! Land and liberty!”
Don Severo went still paler, took a step backwards, and turned toward Don Felix. “Now I know what it’s all about. That’s the cry of the rebels: ‘Land and liberty!’ It said so in the last letters I got.”
“God Almighty! Who could have come here and brought all this? It can’t be one of our men. The few of them who can read don’t receive letters or newspapers.”
“Perhaps it was Andrés,” said El Chato in an undertone.
“No. He’s not capable of that. I think more likely it’s that one who’s got the Chamula’s sister with him, the one called Celso. He’s the most barefaced and hardened of the lot. Even beatings don’t stop him. El Gusano told me that it was Celso who sang songs about rebellion at night. And El Gusano? El Gusano’s not here either.”
The other foremen turned and Don Felix observed: “Two foremen are missing.”
“Three,” corrected El Faldón.
“Listen, men,” said Don Severo, finally finding courage to speak, “once we’ve put the logs in the water, when the work’s completed, you all can go back to your homes. On my word of honor!”
“Stick your word of honor up your ass, you bastard!” Celso replied, his powerful voice rising above the tumult.
It was like a bugle call. He recovered his breath and roared: “Shit on your damned logs! They’ll help us make a good fire in hell. Savage! Hyena! Four tons! Now cut them yourself with your own hands, you Spanish son of a bitch!”
This was too much for Don Severo, who thought he was about to burst. From white his face turned to crimson: “And you, swine of a Chamula, how dare you speak like that to your boss! On your knees, dog, get down on your knees at once!” He had drawn his revolver, and fired at Celso, underlining each of his last words with a shot. Celso fell as if hit. But as the men had foreseen how Don Severo’s speech would end, a real rain of stones had fallen on him before he could aim carefully. Struck by the stones, he had fallen on the porch floor. But he kept his head and was far from being knocked out of the fight. He fired again, but could not tell whether he had hit any of his enemies. He had fired seven times, and that was the only thing he could be sure of, because the chamber of his pistol was empty when the men burst into the office. They swarmed in a mass from the open space and the slope. Not one of those who had arms fired a shot. They attacked the foremen with sticks and rocks. When a foreman went down, they flung themselves on him, smashing his face, breaking his ribs, and battering his body until it gave no more signs of life.
When the men invaded the office, Don Félix was the only one to draw his revolver. The foremen had immediately chosen prudence. Like confused rats they had run into the office and shut the doors, trying to escape without recourse to their weapons. They tried to reach the horses, but in vain. Not one could escape. The men did not let them. Nobody had the smallest intention of helping them. All were battered to pulp, torn to pieces. Their remains were brought back into the office by the workers, who immediately started to round up the pigs and dogs to shut them in with the corpses. Thus the carrion was devoured by the animals.
Don Felix had drawn his revolver. He succeeded in firing once and wounding one of the men in the leg. But the man leaped on him, pulling him down. Don Felix fired a second time, but the bullet lost itself in the porch roof. An instant later the weapon was torn from his grasp. The conqueror stood up, brandishing the pistol above his head, and shouted: “Now I’ve got a pretty little pistol too!”
Don Felix tried to pull himself up and to hide in a corner of the porch. But the workman who had taken his revolver leaped at him, smashing him into that corner. Seizing him by the throat with one hand, the man hammered his skull, with the revolver held in the other. Don Felix warded off the first blows with an arm. The man was about to strike again when a voice suddenly held him back:
“Brother, little brother, don’t kill him!”
14
Turning, the man saw Modesta standing a few paces away. Celso arrived at the same moment. He came from locking the office doors after driving the pigs and dogs in. He drew close to Modesta. His face did not show the least astonishment, for he had understood. He knew that Modesta was of the same blood, the same race, as himself. He knew that she was obeying an ancestral instinct, the instinct for justice and harmony.
“Brother, little brother, do not kill that man!”
Modesta still stood motionless in the spot from which she had uttered her first cry, in the exact center of the porch that ran the length of the office. Between her and the corner in which Don Félix was pinned down, there was nobody except the young cutter ready to kill him. All the workmen had gathered behind her… . Less than twenty minutes had elapsed since Celso had given the signal. They still had half an hour of daylight left, but the sky was covered with clouds. And the night would bring another downpour.
Modesta was still wearing only the torn shirt that Celso had given her. She was barefooted. Her legs were exposed to the thighs, which were bloody and raw from the wounds she had received in the underbrush during her desperate flight through the jungle.
Her thick black hair hung in disorder around her shoulders and down her back. After the unlucky canoe trip she had lost her wooden comb and the ribbons from her braids. That morning she had intended t
o ask the cook’s woman to lend her a comb, but just at that moment she had fallen into the paws of Don Félix.
Modesta was very small, like most of the women of her race, but her body was well formed and harmoniously proportioned, so that she seemed to be taller than she really was. Among all those muscular men she looked a mere child, but she seemed to grow bigger when she called out for the third time to the man who was about to punish Don Félix: “Don’t kill that man! I want him alive. I must hold him alive between my hands! Only that way will I be able to go on living!”
Then the Indian who had Don Félix under his knee got up, drew away from him, and slowly went to take his place near Modesta. He looked long at her, but she did not notice his stare. Her eyes were unblinkingly fixed on Don Félix, who, apparently fearing an attack by the girl, shrank more and more, trying to hide himself in his corner, leaving visible only his head and his broad shoulders.
Modesta raised her right arm and pointed her forefinger at the face of the conquered monster, Don Félix. “Listen to me carefully, you, you who compelled my brother and the little boys to set out in the canoe with a drunken boatman, you who despite his protests made them cross the river at night, so that the child was drowned—this I forgive you.”
An anguished silence gripped the men, because they did not approve of what the girl was suggesting. Some were restless and muttered: “No! Why forgive him? We must kill him!” But those nearest Modesta imposed silence on them. From the girl’s tone they had sensed that her words were no more than the beginning of what she had to say.
Still pointing at Don Félix with her extended arm, Modesta took a deep breath and continued: “That the boy was drowned through your fault I forgive you because you are the master. You command, we obey… .”
“Finish off the masters!” some of the more excited men shouted, but others silenced them.
Modesta did not hear anything of what was happening behind her. She stared fixedly at Don Félix as if trying to hypnotize him. One could see clearly how terror little by little was contorting the man’s face. Perhaps he remembered having heard it said that the most terrible thing that could happen to a prisoner was to fall into the hands of the women of the tribe. For men usually work quickly, whereas women perform their duties without haste, with the deliberateness of work in their kitchens.
Modesta raised her voice: “That you wanted to rape me, to take me by force against my will, that you forced me to flee naked before the eyes of the men, this also I forgive you, for you are a man, and I am a woman …”
Celso, who knew more about Modesta’s misfortune than anybody else, began to understand. Something like a smile lighted his face, and within himself he felt proud that the girl had chosen him as her protector. He made a quick sign to the other men and said: “Let her speak. She knows what she’s about.”
Still rigid in her attitude, Modesta continued: “That you cut off the ears of Cándido, my beloved brother, that you mutilated him because he was lacking in respect toward you, this also I forgive you, because when he fled he broke his contract, and you, his master, had the right to punish him cruelly, horribly… .”
The men realized that Modesta’s charge had reached its culminating point.
Putting all the strength she possessed into her final words, the girl continued: “But for the boy, the little boy, the baby who could do you no harm with his tiny hands, with his innocent thoughts, for whom I implored you, kneeling on the earth, for whom I begged you in the name of the holy Mother of God with all the agony of my heart … You, Satan, savage beast, before whom the little one clasped his hands and fell on his knees, beseeching you as he might God Himself, you, Spaniard, white man, to take revenge for a mistake committed by the boy’s unfortunate father, you, lacking even a dog’s heart, cut off his little ears, leaving him mutilated for the rest of his days. And that—that I do not forgive you! If in heaven there is a just God, and if He condescends to spread a little of His grace over His forgotten children, if He hears the words that rise to Him from the bottom of my soul, I entreat Him never to forgive you, that among all sinners you be condemned for all eternity. For that I ask help of the most holy Virgin, who knows my sufferings, because she saw her own son suffer as I saw the little boy suffer who regards me as his mother. For him, to give him my protection and my love, I followed his father here. I do not spit my contempt in your face, for you have fallen too low to deserve a woman’s contempt. I do not touch you because I don’t want to make my hands filthy. I do not curse you because my curse could not bring you lower than you are. I leave you to hell, to the condemnation and just punishment of God. Because to you, such as you are, our Mother in heaven, however great her loving kindness may be, will refuse her pity.”
Modesta fell silent. She felt herself standing on the solid earth again as she came out of the ecstasy in which she had lived as she spoke. She looked around her and for the first time seemed to realize where she was. She dropped her arm and felt her strength ebbing. She shuddered. Up to that moment she had spoken in a strong, vibrant voice, agreeable to hear. But now, as she came to herself again, her words became harsh, and her mouth was distorted in an ominous grimace: “Now, men, you can do what you like with the tiger of the camps. The beast belongs to you! Take him. He has no soul, no heart. He is not a human being, he’s a wild animal. Make him pay for the little ears of my poor little boy. Make him pay for the little ears he stole! He must pay, pay, pay!”
Modesta ran around the circle formed by the men, shouting her last words as if trying to incite them to action, as if calling them to arms.
The workers were carried away. They shouted: “Bravo, girl! Long live Modesta! Long live the little Chamula! Long live the brave little Chamula! Long live the rebellion! Land and liberty!”
The wild clamor shook the girl out of her state. She tottered and had to reach for support. Hands were held out to help her. She covered her face with her hands, fell to the floor, and began to weep.
The men suddenly felt a shock. They talked and squirmed about, but stayed where they were.
15
The fact that the men remained where they were did not surprise Don Félix. Moving suddenly and supporting himself against the porch railing, he reached the best stretch of it and then, leaning on it, raised himself up. He had acted with such speed that the man who had been on his right felt himself brutally pushed back by the tremendous force of Don Félix’s head striking his chest. But at the moment when Don Félix was about to drop over the railing to the ground, Celso, in a great leap, fell on him, spilling him on his back. The two men rolled about on the floor, never for a moment letting go. Celso had hold of his adversary by the collar of his shirt, and with his iron fist was punching his face, which seemed about to burst under the blows. Don Félix succeeded in freeing himself and backing against the wall again. Celso grabbed him and, punching him again and again, in a few instants turned his face into a bloody mass. Never interrupting the blows, Celso uttered cries of pleasure. When he had had enough, he said, wiping one hand with the other: “I’ll have to wash them with holy water so that none of your carrion sticks to them. Look! They look as if I had just felled four tons of mahogany. That’s the way hands look after cutting four tons. That’s what I wanted to show you just once, you pig!”
Don Félix had been thrown into the corner. With a hopeless gesture he was wiping away the blood that was flooding his face.
“Well, men, you heard what Modesta told us. Let’s cut off his ears! Then we’ll hang him for a little while. A short hanging won’t be bad for him. We’ve had lots of experience in the matter… .”
He turned toward Modesta, who was still lying on the floor and weeping. “Don’t cry any more, my dear. This very night we’ll go to look for Cándido and the boy. If the canoemen don’t want to, we’ll know how to make them.”
While Celso and some of the young cutters went off toward the huts of the workers and canoemen, the others drove and shoved Don Félix to a tree, one with strong branche
s. No one had to give instructions to the men. They knew what had to be done. Every man had been strung up at least once and had had enough experience. They disentangled some strands from a rope and tied one end of them around Don Félix’s right ear, the other end to a branch. Then three of the men, after trussing Don Félix’s body, pulled it up until his head hung a few inches from the branch. They held him there while the others adjusted the rope. At a cry of “Ready, now,” they let the body drop in such a way that it remained suspended mostly from the right ear. The cheek, the whole face of Don Félix was pulled entirely out of shape.
“No, no, not this!” he cried while he could speak. “Kill me! Finish with me!”
Very soon, in spite of his wish not to betray his agony, he began to scream piercingly. The more the hanging was prolonged, the more his throat was squeezed, because his skin was stretched more and more tightly, pulling taut that on his neck and shoulders.
“Now, mad dog, you know what it is to be hanged!” shouted one of the men.
“We know how to do it as well as your brother pigs, whom we’ve already sent to hell,” another said. “And we won’t ask you to be ready to cut your four tons tomorrow. We’ll be satisfied with just hanging you. But because you’ve beaten and hanged hundreds of us, you must pay for at least one hundred… .”
“Let me down, men! I’ll give you all the mahogany, everything in the storehouse!”
Although he had often sworn that he would never ask for pity from the workmen, even if they put a knife at his throat, Don Félix began to beg.
“The storehouse? The shop? We don’t need your permission to take them. And the mahogany? We don’t need it. You can do what you like with that. You can let it rot!”
“Release me!” he implored again. “Do what you like with me, but take me down.”
One of the peons replied: “Listen, Spaniard! We haven’t the least desire to stay here listening to you scream. We’re hungry. We’ve worked all day for you without a bite. Now we’re going to the shop and open a few cans. Sardines, preserves, soups, ham, bacon, butter, chocolate, coffee—that will let us forget a little the moldly tortillas that you seemed to think good enough for us.”
