“A pity, Kimat,” he whispered into the animal’s ear. “This is just the beginning. We still have many rivers to cross, mountains to climb. Patience, my friend. Patience.”
He tied to his own leg a length of saluyot twine and attached it to the reins so that if Kimat strayed too far, he would wake up. With his jute-sack saddle unrolled into a mat and his knapsack for a pillow, he lay down.
Above, the moon had disappeared into a cloud bank. How vast were the heavens and here he was, a puny man with a puny life. He had tried to give this life meaning by being a healer, by hoping that he would leave his tiny imprint at least in Cabugawan. But all men die—as anonymously as they have lived, no matter what their achievements.
While the horse grazed, he closed his eyes and imagined Dalin, her smile, her eyes.
He must have fallen asleep; he was awakened by the crunch of cartwheels on the dirt road. He rose quickly. There, on the road beyond the screen of grass was a column of men, some of them on horseback, moving toward Bayambang. In the waning moonlight, it seemed their horses were much, much bigger than his mount and the men seemed bigger, too. They marched with stolid yet easy strides; they did not seem tired. Yet they did not talk—they would have come upon him with the stealth of a cat had it not been for the creak of the carts drawn by horses and the shuffle of feet on the dirt.
They did not see him, nor did they see Kimat, who had now raised his head but did not neigh or make a sound. How fortunate that he had dismounted a distance from the road, and had a grass screen to hide him. He was sure now that they were not Filipinos—they were Americans, and the shorter men behind them were probably their Pampango scouts. They were going to close in on Bayambang, where President Aguinaldo was!
The last sound of the column had barely died when Istak mounted Kimat and cut across the fields—it was now all plain all the way to Bayambang. He must detour around Alcala, and though he did not know the way, at least he knew the general direction of Bayambang—the Ilokano farmers would show him the way through pockets of scrub and new clearings if he strayed.
Near the town of Alcala, just as light was about to break, intermittent gunfire erupted from across the expanse of ripening grain. Then silence again, the crowing of cocks. Now, a sallow light upon a land rimmed by flounces of bamboo, woods, and farmers’ homes. Close to the right was a village. The people there would no longer be Ilokanos but Pangasiñenses. He had learned a little of their language from Dalin, so he would be able to ask directions. How would they greet him, a stranger with a beautiful horse?
He rode swiftly through a line of trees to the village. He was wrong—it was still Ilokano, and at the well, a group of women were filling their earthen jars. They looked at him passively as he approached. Why had he come this early? And not through the village road but across the field?
“I was lost,” he lied, allaying their suspicions immediately. “My horse needs a drink, and so do I …”
One of the women filled a wooden tub and Istak led the horse to it. Kimat took long drafts, and shook his mane after he was full.
“I am on my way to Bayambang,” he said. “And on the way, I saw the Americans—I did not want them to take my horse, so I cut across the fields.”
“Were you the one they fired at?” one of them asked, her eyes wide with expectation. “We were wakened by the shooting.”
“No,” he said with a smile. “It seems God is very kind to me. They did not see me at all.”
A farmer and his sons appeared with sickles; they were on their way to harvest before the sun came out in full force.
“Follow the village road,” the man said, “then turn right at the fork till you reach the river. From there, just follow the river to the west. You will be in Bayambang.”
He was hungry; he wanted to cook his breakfast and roast the dried beef. But the man’s wife, who was among those by the well, said there was still enough rice, coffee, and fried fish waiting in their kitchen.
Beyond the fork of the road, as the man had said, Istak came upon the Agno and its wide delta. He was familiar with the delta in Carmay, how the waters came cascading down the mountains and every year wrought new channels upon it. But the river, giver of life, was also cruel. Again memories—how his mother was swept away and he was unable to help her. Where in its long and uneven course did she finally surface? Or had her body sunk to the bottom? Through the years, all through the length of the river that he could reach, he asked so that there would be one spot at least where he and his children could pray, where they could light the votive candles when the Day of the Dead came. He never found out; the whole river, then, was Mayang’s burial ground, each drop sacred.
Alcala was now behind him; would he be too late? But the president did not travel alone, unguarded or without arms. And the men who had passed him in the night could not have been more than a hundred.
Beyond the narrow strip of delta was the ferry, a huge raft made of three tiers of bamboo strapped together by rattan. At one end of the big raft was a hut where the ferryman stayed when it rained or when it was hot. It was the start of the dry season and the Agno was no longer wild and deep. One man with a pole could push the raft to the other side. But during the typhoon season when the river swelled and giant whirlpools sucked away in the current, four men would have difficulty guiding the raft across.
Istak dismounted at the river’s edge where the ferry was moored. The ferryman, like the drivers of the carriages and the bull carts that carried commerce between the towns, would be a rich source of information. He was small, dressed in loose, tattered clothes that seemed to hang from a frame about to collapse. He was eating a breakfast of dried fish and freshly cooked rice, and a couple of fish were still roasting over the coals in the stove by the hut. The strong aroma reached out to Istak.
“Let us eat,” the ferryman said in greeting.
Istak said he had already eaten, then asked the ferryman if he had heard the gunfire early that morning. The ferryman nodded between mouthfuls. “It must be the rear guard of the president,” he said.
The president had been able to escape, then. “Three days ago,” the ferryman said. He had finished eating and was dipping the tin plate into the calm brownish water to wash it.
“Did they cross here?” Istak asked.
“No,” the man replied. “There were so many of them, I would have had to make a lot of trips. Farther up the river—in Bayambang. They crossed over the bridge. Hundreds of them, with guns, big bundles, and women and children.”
The man gazed at the broad spread of water. “Still, there were those who crossed here.” He turned to Istak. “Years ago, we had that ferry in Bayambang—but then they built the railroad and that bridge, and we earn so little.”
“Can you take me across?” Istak asked. There was no need for him to proceed to Bayambang.
“Are you a soldier?”
Istak shook his head. “Just a farmer in a hurry to see my dying father.”
The man continued: “It was three days ago that they left Bayambang—that is what my passengers told me.”
Three days—if they marched every day, they would already be far, far away, well into La Union. There was not one moment to squander.
“Will you take me across?” he said.
“You are alone,” the ferryman said. “You must wait for the others. There should be more in a short while.”
“I am in a hurry,” Istak said.
The ferryman grumbled.
“You just had a very good breakfast,” Istak said.
“If you are alone, you have to pay benting. And your horse, that is another benting. That is salapi. A man’s wage for two days. Are you sure you want to cross alone? Wait till there are at least five of you so you will pay only micol.”
Istak shook his head. “Benting it will be,” he said, and proceeded to the shallow rim of the river, Kimat in tow.
The man strained at the bamboo pole, and slowly the raft floated toward the deeper reaches. It was quite
placid, unlike the last time he had crossed, when it was a massive tide of brown. Again, an ancient grief swept over him. How many lives had this river taken?
“There are portions which are not deep,” Istak said. “At this time, it is possible to wade across.”
The ferryman laughed. “If I told you where it is shallow, what would happen to me? Everyone would wade across. I should really tell you that it is dangerous to travel alone.”
“My horse is swift,” Istak said.
The ferryman looked at Kimat; the horse was erect, undaunted by the waters eddying around the raft.
“The Americans,” the ferryman said. “I have heard so many bad things about them, how they tortured and killed. And you have a horse which they might take.”
“But I am not going to Bayambang,” Istak said.
“Yes, but they have already crossed the river, too. Yesterday, in large numbers. That was what I was told.”
“They can have my horse,” Istak said. “What can they do to me? Just a poor farmer … the horse is not even mine.”
The sun now blazed down, burnishing the delta with brilliant white. In midstream, the current was hardly discernible and the ferryman guided the raft deftly. On the other bank, a row of trees and the deep gully through which he must pass. Where the raft would be moored, a couple of women were waiting, their bamboo baskets filled with greens.
“The roads are not safe at night,” the ferryman warned.
“And the Americans? What advice can you give if I should meet them?”
“They don’t bother us little people,” the ferryman said.
Up the incline, more ripening fields shimmered in the morning sun. To his right, several women were already harvesting the grain with hand scythes. There would always be a few stalks left for gleaners and those who would glean would most probably be Ilokanos, just like the first settlers in this part of Pangasinan.
He mounted again.
At noon, when he would rest, he would bring out his journal and write about his crossing and the gunfire that ripped the quiet dawn. There were still many rivers to cross but they would be narrower and he could ford them on horseback.
He rode through villages already stirring. Dogs sprang from under the houses to snarl at him. He varied the pace of his ride. No animal could run indefinitely without tiring, but it was as if Kimat anticipated his every move. He trotted, slowed down to a walk, or gathered speed in a gallop without waiting for Istak to snap the reins on his flanks.
He had ridden most of the night and all morning. His buttocks began to throb with a dull, raw pain. So this was how it was with Padre Jose when they toiled up the hillocks of the Cordilleras. The old priest had always complained of how much his buttocks had been mashed, but only on the second day did the old priest moan. He was on a horse, of course, but Istak, his favorite sacristan, always followed on foot.
He was not tired but his eyes grew heavy. Unharvested fields all around; in another week, they would be bereft of grain. He sought the shade of a low butterfly tree away from the road and dismounted, tied the length of twine to the reins and to his leg, and brought down his knapsack for a pillow and lay down. Kimat could wander as far as the length of rope would permit. Above, the noonday sky was swept clean of clouds. From the knapsack, he brought out his journal.
The Cripple had given him the journal but it was seldom that he had used it. He had made only four notations, one about the Cripple himself, how quick his wit and how he had compared the wanderlust of the Batangueños, his kinsmen, with that of the Ilokanos, and how clannish both people were. Both were also proud and steadfast in their personal honor. How quickly they defended it with their lives, the Batangueños with their folding knives, the Ilokanos with their bolos. How does the old Ilokano saying go? Inlayat, intagbat. If you raise the bolo, you must strike.
Yet, he had always detested violence; he was patient, he was industrious. These virtues were instilled in him as a boy; his two sons would be no different, although they had Pangasinan blood.
Dalin came to mind, and for a while he could imagine her—her long tresses shiny with coconut oil, her face, her radiance. How well she had raised the children and, most important, she had stood by him and supported him when he wavered.
He took the pencil out and started to write, this time in Ilokano, for he wanted Dalin to read it someday:
My Dearest Wife—I am now far away resting in an open field, but it seems you are near and I can even imagine hearing your voice. We have gone through ten years together yet it seems as if all these happened only yesterday, only because when I am with you time stops. Thank you for having shared my sorrows, the times when the harvest was niggardly, when there was little rice in the bin. Thank you for having taken care of me and grabbed me before I could fall into that black, bottomless pit. I will still have many distances to travel, but even now, I feel like I could fly, only because I want this journey to end so that I can hurry back to you. I have asked myself so many times why I am doing this and while I am not yet sure of the reason why—of one thing I am sure: Cabugawan is where I am headed, for that is where you are.
Words are never really enough to express love, and words having failed him, he closed his eyes and dreamed.
It was the sun, warm on his face, which woke him. Kimat was close by, grazing on the grass. He had not looked around closely before. To his left, he saw the village—some eight thatch-roofed houses. It must be an hour before sundown and the afternoon had become cool. He started to rise and it was then that a bolt of pain shot down his spine as if someone had lanced him—his whole being was aflame. He felt that if he so much as made one slight move, he would die. He fell back on the ground, gasping. He remembered then that he had never ridden far before. After a while, he rose again—the pain no longer throbbed. He reined Kimat in and, with some difficulty, placed the saddle and the twin sacks on the animal’s back. Leading the horse close to a low dike, he mounted the dike, then the horse, the pain coursing through him quickly again.
In the village, he looked for a calesa driver. There was always one who provided the village with its transport. He needed some grass and rice bran for Kimat. The villagers were Ilokanos; he was close to San Fabián now. The sea lay ahead to the left, the low hills of the Ilokos loomed to the right, and ahead rose the blue-green ranges of the Cordilleras.
The driver had just come in for the day; he had a new calesa, with the floral designs on the sides still bright and the tinwork on the harness still shiny. The grass and the bran would cost Istak five centavos.
“Tell me about the road from San Fabián to Rosario—the road along the coast to the north. Are Americans already there? Surely, you must have heard.”
The driver was a farmer, perhaps in his early twenties. He had not traveled far, he said, but was sure the Americans were not yet there.
“They are already in Bayambang,” Istak said.
“Maybe just a few,” the calesa driver said. The bran that Istak wanted was already mixed with molasses in a wooden trough, and Kimat had started eating.
“I am going north,” Istak said. “And I don’t want to cross their path.”
If the president had crossed the river from Bayambang, he would probably have gone on to Dagupan by train and from there onward to San Fabián. The people here would be Pangasiñenses; they would probably understand Istak if he spoke in Ilokano. He could always speak in Spanish but he did not want to appear to be an ilustrado. The people of the north had always regarded the Pangasiñenses with condescension, for they were considered self-indulgent and lazy, they waited for their coconuts to fall rather than climbing the palms to harvest them. And their women—he smiled in remembrance of the tattered concepts of his own womenfolk—they are lazy like their men, and worse, they are filthy. He had teased Dalin about this when they finally dismantled their makeshift hut and built a better dwelling with hardwood posts, but Dalin had always kept her pots clean and the yard well swept. She even bathed the two pigs she raised as if they
were human beings. It was not right—attributing inborn faults and virtues to people, but if he felt comfortable anywhere, it was among his own people.
The Cripple had decried the treachery of the Macabebes. Perhaps it was money which made them join the Spaniards. With American silver they were now fighting their own kin. Why do people betray their brothers and eventually themselves? Do not trust anyone, not even your own instincts, the Cripple had warned; you are alone, you must always be on guard not only against those who will harm you but those who will take the message and stop you from doing your job.
He had talked with the boatman as he was now talking with this stranger—freely. They were little people like himself, far removed from the battlefield or the cares of high office. He knew his instructions, but he must also trust people. Still …
The driver was inquisitive. Istak was just another traveler—one of the hundreds that had crossed the river. He must now tell a longer story, with a semblance of truth to it.
“I am going to Cabugaw,” he said. “My father is dying. We have a small piece of land there—and maybe, with the share, we can go back to the Ilokos—my family and I. There is nothing like living where you were born, where you know everyone. You know what I am trying to say.”
The driver turned away. He stirred the molasses and added water and bran in the trough where Kimat was feeding. In the thatch-roofed house beyond them, a stove fire had been kindled and the driver’s wife was preparing the evening meal. To her, the man said aloud: “Be sure you include an additional plate for our visitor,” to which Istak said quickly: “No, you have already been very kind. I must be on my way.”
“You cannot travel in the dark,” the driver said.
Istak did wait, though, for a plate of hot rice and a piece of roasted dried meat. While he waited, the rig driver told him about the village, how his villagers had come down, too, from the north—Paoay—and how they had claimed the forest. Large patches of jungle still covered Pangasinan, and the natives were too lazy to clear them. And there were no more tributes or excessive taxes to pay. Surely, the future was better here.
Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) Page 25
