CHAPTER
9
They were up early in the morning. Two merchants from Abra with a dozen horses trailing them trotted up to where they were brewing the corn coffee. The men traveled very light; they carried their provisions in packs on two horses. They were going all the way to Manila and may they just cook their meal with them? They had dried meat and leftover rice which needed to be fried. Both were in their early thirties, dark-skinned, and obviously well traveled. While Dalin waited for the pot to boil, the younger man talked about the horses. They were for the races in Manila. After retiring from the races, the horses would be used to pull the carriages of the rich. Then, casually, he asked where they came from.
“From Ilokos Sur,” Istak said with some hesitation.
“What town?”
“Cabugaw,” Istak said.
The man shook his head and dug his bare toe into the soft earth. “Two towns away,” he said, “in Binalonan, there are Guardias with a Spanish officer.”
“What does he look like?” Istak said.
“White like all Kastilas,” the man said. “He has short hair.”
There flashed in his mind the image of Capitán Gualberto.
“The Guardia are searching all the caravans from the north. There is a one-armed man from Cabugaw they are looking for. They have been beating up people, particularly those who come from Sur, to get information from them—even if they are not from Cabugaw. But they did not bother us—he knows how to deal with them.” The man thrust a chin to the older horse merchant, obviously his employer, busy turning the dried meat roasting on the coals.
“There is no one-armed man here, as you can see,” Istak said.
“Even so,” the man said. “You are from Cabugaw, aren’t you? If I were you, I would put as much distance as I could from them immediately …”
Dalin had heard everything.
The other man spoke softly. “Yes—after you cat, you should leave. You never know what they will do. I hope all your papers are with you.”
Dalin turned to Istak. She did not speak; her eyes told him of her fear. He turned around to the morning activity, children playing in the sun, wives preparing breakfast, and men checking on the work animals, giving them their ration of hay.
Their visitors would ride all the way to Tarlak, and from there, they would put the beautiful animals on the train to Manila. Finished with their breakfast, they mounted and were on their way.
Istak did not want to distress the others. He let them brew their coffee and roast the dried python meat on the open fire.
It was best that only he and Dalin know that the Guardia were closing in on them again. They must leave now. Already the Caraballo range loomed ahead. A few more miles and they would cross the Agno, and from then on, the promise of eastern Pangasinan.
Now, they struck out onto trails even Dalin did not know. A pelting rain by midafternoon hid almost everything from view, but they moved on, the water seeping through the walls of the carts. The wheels soggy with mud, they sloshed through villages enveloped with rain and as evening finally shrouded the land, still they moved on. By now, the uncles from Candon understood only too well why they must not pause. For supper, they ate cold chunks of rice and the dried python that was roasted in the morning; the cold rice stuck to their throats and had to be washed down with water.
The men who went ahead of the caravan were wet and they shivered but they, too, marched on, stopping only once in a while to ask from an isolated farmhouse the general direction of the ferry which they would have to board to cross the Agno. Shortly before daybreak, the rain finally lifted and the east was bathed with the mellow light of a new day.
They were back on the old road, muddy and impassable in many places. They had to detour through fields and indentations that were made firm by banana trunks laid over them. An-no, who was ahead of the caravan, rushed back to them eagerly shouting: “The river, the river—it is ahead.”
It was finally before them—the life-giving artery whose delta was so fertile and wide it could swallow all the settlers with nowhere to go. They could not settle permanently in any place, however, for anytime during the year when the rains came, the waters changed course and laced the delta with rivulets, rising no higher than a woman’s ankle.
They stopped at the river’s bank. Indeed, exactly as Dalin had described it, the river was wide and swift. In the middle and close to the bank were whirlpools. The current carried trunks and branches of trees from the mountains and islands of water lilies.
They should make their crossing immediately. At the landing below, people were gathered. But there was no ferry, no raft, and there was none on the other side either.
It started to drizzle again, and in a while the drizzle turned into sheets of lashing rain. Under the canopies, almost everything inside the carts was dry. Out where he sat holding the reins, Istak was thoroughly drenched. The palm leaf helmet and cape were no protection. But just as quickly as the rain started it petered out.
Istak went down the incline to where people were gathered, farmers with goats and chickens which they wanted to transport to the other side, and women carrying baskets filled with greens.
“How do we cross?” Istak asked no one in particular. A farmer turned to him and shook his head.
“You could swim,” he said lightly.
When Istak did not speak, the farmer went on. “The ferry—it broke from its mooring in the night when the water rose. It must be far downstream now with the ferryman, who perhaps had fallen asleep.”
“Is there no other ferry?” Istak was anxious.
The other farmers who were listening shook their heads. No other ferry but this one. Maybe, if you go downriver to Alcala—but that is very far from here. And in Bayambang, there is a ferry there because they are building a bridge.
“And upriver?”
Again, a collective shaking of heads.
“There must be a shallow place where we can cross.”
“Yes, there is,” a farmer said, pointing to the line of carts up the incline of the bank. “But it will be dangerous.”
There was no time to think. As leader, he must now decide. “We are in a hurry,” he said. “God will take care.”
During the dry season, when the river was shallow, the ferrymen had built a roadway along which carts and people could pass. Where the river was shallowest, they piled the stones; they stretched across the shallow water several coconut trunks on top of which they spread cogon grass, then a layer of gravel. They did not use the ferry anymore. With this bridge, they charged a cheaper rate.
“The bridge is there.” The man pointed it out to him. “You can cross but don’t stray from the embankment because it will be deep now on both sides. And as for the coconut bridge, you must go ahead of the carts and feel for it with your feet. It should still be there.”
The carts came down the gully. The men had dismounted and were holding the animals by their reins so that they would not go down too fast.
An-no took the lead carabao. The road to the small bridge had not been washed away by the rain, though the water had risen. The stone embankment still showed through the brown water.
The uncles from Tagudin were reluctant to cross. Blas suggested that they could very well settle in this wide and fertile plain—surely there were still forests they could clear, where they would not be hounded.
“It is a distance we need,” Istak said, “distance from those chasing us. They will ask people and so many have seen us—they will know where to find us. The farther we go, the more difficult it will be for them to follow. And after we cross the river, no one would really know where we headed.”
And because he was learned, they finally agreed.
The bridge had to be tested first, and Bit-tik, who was a good swimmer, went ahead, following the embankment. It was still secure, as the men at the riverbank had assured them. He moved slowly in the brown moving waters which never got higher than his waist, feeling with his feet the bo
ulders that had remained. The carts could go over them. Then the line of boulders ended and he was on the bridge itself. The coconut trunks had not been dislodged—they were intact all the way, but the current had become swift and Bit-tik had difficulty steadying himself.
Once across, on the embankment again, he turned to the waiting carts across the expanse of water and shouted: “The bridge is still here. You can cross.”
The carabaos were used to water; every day during the journey, they had to look for some stream or well so that the animals could be bathed. The bull might be scared, but Dalin was sure it would be all right; she led it steadily into the line. Istak went onward to the middle of the river, and realized that he was not yet all that strong and could be swept away by the current.
The carabaos were not too sure of their footing, and the carts jerked and swayed with every boulder; then the wheels tumbled across.
Istak could feel the current, at first slight and then a steady pushing against his legs. As he moved deeper toward the middle of the river, it came as a powerful force that could easily have swept away the children if they had not been in the carts, holding on to their mothers. An-no in the lead kept screaming at them to go straight for the middle and not to stray and fall into the depths and be washed away. The ten carts were now well into midstream. There was no turning back.
An-no finally hit the bridge. “I am here,” he yelled at them, his voice carrying through the rush. He was waist-deep now in the brown swirling waters.
Then Istak saw the big branches of trees, huge swatches of grass and reeds that must have been torn away upstream, and they rushed toward the carts, sometimes pushing them dangerously close to the edge of the embankment.
One of the men went toward the left to push away the branches that had gathered on the side of a cart. They moved on, swaying and jerking as they went over the coconut bridge, the water pushing steadily against the solid wooden wheels.
Within the carts, some of the children were shouting, enjoying the sight of the swirling waters, unaware of the danger they were in. The first cart was now over the bridge. An-no was going up and was shouting again, telling them to keep a straight line, that the bridge was not that long, and it was still solid underfoot. As he went up, he saw it. He shouted, fright in his voice, for in the middle of the river, hurtling toward them with the current, was a huge uprooted tree.
The men shouted and pulled at the leashes of their carabaos. The women and the children peered out of the carts, at the mountain of leaves and branches racing toward them. On its downward rush the tree had also amassed reeds and water lilies.
Istak led the last cart with Mayang and their seed rice. If he tarried, the tree might sweep away the coconut trunks underfoot. He was now in the middle of the river, directly in the path of the oncoming tree. He shouted at the animal to hurry. It was then that the cart refused to budge, its wheels stuck between the coconut trunks. No matter how he pulled at the poor beast, the cart would not move. He shouted at his mother to get out quickly, but Mayang, perhaps too tired to move, did not hear, or if she heard, she acted too late. The tree was upon them like an avenging hand.
It towered over the cart, swallowing it. Istak felt the trunks under him give way. He let go of the leash and ran to the other side, the leaves, branches, and island of reeds engulfing him. For a moment, the green mass seemed to smother him. His legs, his body, were being pushed toward the rim of the embankment. But his feet touched a boulder, solid and secure, and the mountain of branches and leaves swept by. He emerged in time to see the carabao slip into the water, the wheels of the cart bob up briefly, then disappear altogether. It was but an instant, but like a lightning flash in the darkened sky, fate passed before him. He witnessed it all and did not move, the current eddying around him, while the men who were on the shallow side of the river raced past him and, screaming at one another, dove into the river. And when they surfaced, they were already downstream. They swam back toward the shallow rim of the river, then to the embankment, and dove again and again. The carabao, which had broken free from its harness, was recovered; it was no stranger to water. Some of the men who were waiting for the ferry at the other side saw what had happened and they, too, joined in the search.
Not once did Istak dive. He prayed that his mother might finally be granted the peace she never had in life.
Far into the afternoon, they ranged along the river, but found no trace of the cart.
At sundown, they stopped and set up camp for the night. Beyond the river were newly opened fields and Carmay—a solitary village on the fringes of a forest being cleared. The great trees that had not yet been felled were burned; they stood around like huge black skeletons. The caravan found refuge from the rain in the houses, and the women, who had no dry firewood, cooked the evening meal in the stoves of kindly villagers.
Early in the evening, the three brothers sat down together for the first time in weeks to a meal prepared by Dalin. They had barely spoken to one another the whole day, and though words were not uttered, Istak knew that his brothers resented him; perhaps they even blamed him for their mother’s death. Why did he not dive at all—he, the eldest son—when even men who were strangers helped? Why did he give up too soon?
The vegetable broth warmed their insides, and the salted fish with crushed tamarind tasted good. Istak had no appetite; he put into words the thoughts that rankled An-no. “Do not blame mc, my brother, for our mother’s fate. Do you think I wanted her dead? Who is the son who would wish this on his mother? I would not have been able to save her. The hands of fate are stronger than mine. I prayed.”
“You did not even try.” An-no’s words were like prongs that dug into his flesh.
Istak bowed, then stood up and walked away, down the muddy path toward the river, the dusk thickening around him, the insects noisy in the grass. Dalin, who was serving them, followed, but Istak waved her back: “Let me be alone,” he mumbled.
What was it, really, that had happened to him on that submerged bridge? Why did he not dive after the cart? It all came back—how it was when Ba-ac was nowhere to be found. In his mind, it had quickly formed—this knowledge, this certainty that the old man was dead. And again, at the river, it had flashed through his mind clearly, that there was nothing he could do, as if something stronger than the current had held him back, telling him he could do nothing, nothing. He was not a coward, he reassured himself; when he decided to stay behind in Po-on, he was fully aware of the risk. What was this in him that seemed to guide him in his deepest thoughts? Was it some supreme intelligence that he had gleaned from the kumbento in Cabugaw? If only he could explain this to his brothers, if only he could put into words these fears and feelings, inchoate and yet so real.
It was not just Mayang they had lost. Lost, too, were the sacks of seed rice which must have pinned her down when the cart overturned. Now they would have nothing to plant and little to eat. But at least they were alive; they could subsist on weeds and insects. Ilokanos can eat what other people cannot. And most of all, with the bridge gone, for the moment, at least, they were farther away from Capitán Gualberto and his Guardia.
The rain resumed the following morning and the fields around them were flooded. The road to the valley, Dalin said, would be a quagmire. Istak and his brothers left Carmay early and paced the riverbank, asking the few settlers who lived nearby if they had seen the cart or Mayang, but no one had. The water was higher, with more islands of water lilies and reeds, occasional logs and small uprooted trees that drifted with the current.
All through the journey, Istak was amazed at the kindness of villagers, how readily they were invited to sleep in kitchens, in sheds, or under the houses if there was no space upstairs. He understood then how Dalin and her family could go so far with a cart loaded with more goods to sell than what the family needed to live.
He asked them to please bury his mother if her body ever surfaced; he would surely come back to find out and to express his gratitude to whomever had done the Ch
ristian thing.
At noon, Istak asked his brothers and everyone in the caravan to join him at the riverbank to pray. Dalin had gathered a basket of white rosal flowers in the village, and these she made into a wreath which she then tied onto a small raft made of banana trunks.
Rest in peace, Istak intoned as An-no and Bit-tik lowered the wreath into the water. Bit-tik pushed it toward the middle, where the current was strong, and silently they watched it drift down the river. It was caught in a whirlpool briefly, then bobbed up and swiftly floated down the vast brown expanse. They watched it grow smaller, till it was no longer visible, hidden as it was by the flotsam from the mountains.
“We are orphans now,” Istak said, turning to his brothers. “Whatever may rile us, whatever differences we may have, we must be closer together. We have no one else.”
The farmers who gave them shelter in Carmay told Istak that in the town of Rosales they could get some help.
“You must go to Don Jacinto. Everyone knows him, for his big house is by the big balete tree. He is good—he will help you …”
They left Carmay at midday; the rain had eased somewhat. The sky was scabbed with gray clouds that scudded away and the sun came out in short shifts, full and bright upon a land now laved in green.
To their right, a straggle of trees and beyond the trees, farther in the distance, was the heavily forested mountain called Balungaw. Dalin told Istak of a village with the same name near the mountain, of a hot spring there where the sick often went. To their left was another creek which emptied into the Agno, and like the Agno, it was also swollen.
Shortly before nightfall, thatch-roofed houses with buri palm walls appeared on both sides of the narrow road. Pigs wallowed in side ditches. From under the houses, mangy dogs appeared and trailed and barked at the slow-moving carabaos. People went to the windows to look at the caravan, the palm-leaf canopies of the carts dark with rain, the solid wooden wheels caked with mud, and the new settlers walking beside their carts while inside were their women and children. They were in Rosales at last.
Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) Page 15
