I was riding more or less parallel to the Guaviare, never turning towards it since the only certain thing about Homo Dawnayensis was that he had never been seen on the banks. Conditions were surprisingly favorable for game, though I saw none. I passed through two glades with good grazing, the first small and entirely open, like a green well in the surrounding forest; the second fairly open, without definite boundaries and gently sloping upwards towards the west. In both I expected to find that game had fed, but there were no droppings except a pat of cow dung — almost certainly from the lost beasts which I had seen on April 3 and now knew to be stragglers from the guerrilla’s herd.
I rode at a good pace up the second glade until I was stopped by a low, overgrown cliff. That was what, sooner or later, I expected to see, for the stretch of grass and parkland could only mean that there was not enough soil for tree roots. When I had followed the outcrop of rock for half a mile to the north, it disappeared and the canopy of the forest closed overhead — big timber through which I could easily continue a westerly course.
Here and there to my left I could catch a glimpse of rising ground and thick vegetation, showing that I was traveling along the side of a low ridge where trees were confined to pockets and cracks in the rock, leaving enough light for secondary growth of shrubs. The place was uncannily silent except for Tesoro’s hooves. The only sound I heard was unfamiliar — something between a whistle and a sea gull’s call. It seemed to come from far away on the other side of the ridge; but among trees it is difficult — for me, at any rate — to tell whether a sound is weak and close or distant and strong. This, I thought, had too much power behind it for a bird. A primitive, man-made instrument?
Soon I could see a confused mass of rocks above me, with gray pinnacles rising out of the jungle which crept and climbed over the lower stuff. These crags looked high enough to give me a view across the treetops — a rare experience of ethereal beauty. The dark green flows on as solidly as a garden, and eyes insist that one could walk from every dome of blazing flowers to another.
Since Tesoro could easily have broken a leg I tethered him to a tree and left him plunging and protesting. The ridge was a tangle of fallen, rotting trees, of roots, ravines and hollows. Patches of blue sky, red and orange macaws sailing in it with the ease of hawks, tempted me on, but I did not like it at all. Anything — especially snakes — might be living in the dark holes where one could hardly distinguish plant from mineral. I unslung my rifle, which left me only one hand to climb with — and that got fiercely bitten by ants. However, they seemed to be the only inhabitants.
The top was just too low to allow me my view over the trees, but was open, desolate and no doubt a landmark which could be glimpsed from many points in the forest. Facing east was a great sloping slab of rock which I should probably have seen if I had climbed the low cliff at the upper end of the glade. I stripped off moss and cleared the cracks, leaving a whitish patch the size of a billiard table. There I laid out and firmly anchored my square of green nylon, spreading the presents on it. The patch of color could, of course, attract monkeys who would scatter the lot; but I had neither heard nor seen any monkeys since entering the forest when a band out on an egg-stealing expedition was raising hell among the birds.
The whole place was singularly lifeless, with not even a lizard. The only animal material at all was the point of an antler which I found when scraping earth from the slab. It was worn very smooth. Polished by man? Weatherworn? Or passed through the stomach of scavenger or jaguar?
I am used to desolation and normally excited by it, but there on the rocks I was not. That low plateau was somehow menacing. I felt that I was watched. Any of Joaquín’s duendes could have had it all his own way if he had stuck up his sabre-toothed head from a hole or hidden behind a pinnacle. I do not think that human beings would choose to live in such a tangle of primeval litter when there is shelter on the forest floor, less risk of basking snakes and less annoyance of ants. All the same I have to return to explore further and to see what, if anything, I have attracted. The ridge continues to the southwest, and must be the only landmark between the llano and the Guaviare.
It was now after two and time to turn back. By following the contours I found the head of the long glade without difficulty, and was able to make for the smaller, well-like glade on a compass course. There I allowed Tesoro to graze a little — though he seemed more interested in staying close to me — while I searched on foot for the gap we must have made on our outward journey. I could not find it. We had pushed through giant ferns for the last few yards and the fronds had sprung back into position.
However, it did not matter where we left the glade; so when I spotted a break on the southern side — more a marked difference of foliage than a gap — I decided to try it. A fallen tree had brought the lianas down with it, and a palisade of saplings was growing through the debris. I knew that this mess was not as formidable as it looked, that it would not continue far and that I could easily cut a passage through which to lead Tesoro back into the darkness of the trees.
Once across the fallen trunk I saw to my right the clean cut stalk of a cedar sapling and then a dozen other neat cuts which could only have been made by a machete in experienced hands. It was a thousand to one that I was on the track of Pedro. No one else could have been there so recently.
For a moment I could not believe in the coincidence, but then I saw that there wasn’t any. He had entered the forest where I had, and both of us had then taken the easiest route, always going round obstructions rather than over or through them — he, because he wanted to put distance quickly between himself and the llaneros; I, because I wanted to ride as far as possible in a day without much caring where. He had observed the change of vegetation which promised sunlight and more open country and somewhere had forced his way into the glade, no doubt hoping that he was going to find parkland as far as the Guaviare.
When he was at last in the well of grass, he had looked for a possible path to the south and had seen, just as I had, the hopeful break. He cut his way out on a more professional track, round the upturned roots of the tree, so I missed the marks of his machete altogether — visibility being down to about four feet — until I was over the tree and nearly out.
The temptation to see how truly he had headed south (“Pedro needs no compass”) was overwhelming, although there could be no trace of his passage until I came to some other barrier. I doubt if even an Indian could discover very much from the forest floor itself. However, I had time in hand and no fear of losing myself. I had only to turn east to arrive at the dividing wall of forest and llano.
There could be little doubt of Pedro’s choice of a route once he was clear of the glade. An aisle as straight as that of a cathedral ran southwest for more than three hundred yards until it dissolved into randomly placed trunks. Crossing the end of it, I found a slight suggestion of a narrow path. Since the prevailing gloom of the forest showed no light and shade I could not tell for certain where the leaves had been beaten down and where they had not.
I may have imagined it. If the path existed, it ran fairly straight between the unexplored south side of the ridge and the llano. There were no slots of deer, peccary or tapir and no hoof marks; so bare feet were an attractive possibility. Pedro would have recognized at once whether or not it was a game trail, but would not as yet have gone out of his way to hunt. He was intent on the river, or so I thought, and the going in front of him was open and easy.
I came upon his body at the foot of a tree some distance to my left. The gleam of white caught my eye and I rode towards it, believing it to be a growth of fungus or epiphytes or possibly Loranthaceae. Bits of his clothing lay about on the ground, and the bones had been stripped clean of flesh by black ants which were still at work on it. He was holding his old revolver. An eerie sight it looked when grasped in a skeleton hand. The cause of death was immediately apparent. He had been shot twice at the base of the skull.
I broke open his gun. One round had go
ne off and the next had misfired. Dwarfs and llaneros were at once eliminated. The former had presumably no firearms; the latter, if they had followed up and killed Pedro, would have boasted about it on their return to the estancia. This was plainly a deliberate execution by the guerrillas. Since they could not have found him once he was in the forest, both he and the Cuban had lied to me. When I left Pedro at the cut passage he had been not only escaping from the llaneros but bound for a definite rendezvous. I should have suspected that he was not telling all the truth. I was too innocent.
The more I think of his murder, the angrier I am. I am too familiar with Latin America to be horrified by an armed struggle for political power. If men are willing to risk their lives, the strength of discontent is shown more accurately than by the public opinion polls which corrupt and distort our democracies. But cold-blooded execution of a harmless, babbling ex-corporal is another matter. It disgusts me that any human being should be so sure that he has a right to kill.
I examined Pedro’s body as closely as I could without disarticulating the bones. No doubt it would have told some sort of story to an expert in forensic medicine; but I could deduce very little from the two bullet holes at the base of the skull, one on each side of the foramen magnum. One could guess at a small-calibre weapon. The absence of any severe shattering of the bone was proof that it had been fired at some little distance, probably when Pedro saw a chance to run and took it.
I had the impression that the body, lying in an awkward position with the head slumped against a tree root and both arms flung out, had been left exactly where it fell. In that case the actual bullets ought to be in the skull or on the ground, for there was no exit wound. I could not find them. It was not surprising. The soil around the skeleton had been disturbed by kites and lizards feeding on the flesh. None of the larger carnivores had found the body and cracked the bones, which suggested that there were few of them about.
I had nothing to bury him with, and it was of course impossible to carry back the dry bones on Tesoro. So I had to turn away and leave him under the protection of the little cross which he carried on a thin gold chain round his neck. I blazed trees at intervals on the random route I took back to the llano and made notes of compass bearings wherever obstructions compelled me to diverge from an easterly course. I could not record distances accurately, but I think I shall be able to lead an official inquirer — if there ever is one — to the body.
I hit the llano some two or three miles south of my point of entry and had no exceptional difficulty in getting myself and Tesoro out to the light. Till it was close on sunset I worked away with the machete, cutting and widening a new passage which should be easily recognizable even after a month.
At the estancia all was quiet and there was a rich smell of stew. Chucha admitted that she and Mario had been anxious until they saw me crossing the creek with no shadows following. I told them that nothing could be emptier than this last, lost tail end of the forests of the Amazon Basin — no game, no dwarfs and no duendes.
I did not mention Pedro, for fear of starting up the oppression of the blank spot. I should have had Mario building walls as fast as a Roman infantryman and Chucha putting on a face like the Mater Dolorosa every time I visited the trees. Teresa is the only matter-of-fact one of the lot. She assumes that my learning is so profound and mysterious that I must know what I am doing.
I wish I did know. I have a strong presentiment that I ought to take the three horses and Chucha and cross the llanos to the River Vichada. But I cannot leave Mario and Teresa without some protection — if only pseudo-aristocratic insolence — against these brutes of guerrilleros. They might come back and cut the throats of the family as pointlessly as they blew Pedro’s brains out.
What a curious thing presentiment is! I felt no fear whatever, only pity and anger, when I found Pedro’s body, although in the gloom of the trees it should have had the crude effect of some dangling oddment in a ghost train. Yet on the rocky plateau, where there was sunlight and not a damn thing to be afraid of, it was an effort to control imagination. In both cases Tesoro’s reaction was the same as my own.
[ April 20, Wednesday ]
Today I rode to Santa Eulalia to buy beef. It is not always easy to find unless some llanero has driven home a beast on the previous night for local consumption. The only refrigerator for many hundreds of miles is mine, and meat will not keep in this climate. It is well hung — to say the least — by the time I unload it at the estancia.
I was lucky and got the sirloin and ribs of a heifer. But what a waste! I shall have to throw half of it away, for my refrigerator is small. Those pygmies could have meat for the asking if only there were some way of communicating with them.
I did nothing about Pedro’s wife. God knows if I am right! I have two reasons for allowing her to go on hoping. I feel that the body should not be disturbed until someone in an official position turns up to view it. And if I say that I found him murdered I shall start a flaming argument among the llaneros, very likely to make another widow.
Perhaps my real objection is cowardly and selfish. Since nothing would induce the valiants of Santa Eulalia to fetch that body out of the forest — they dread touching the defunct anyway — I should have to do it myself. I don’t mind tumbling poor Pedro into a sack, but my life and work could then become complicated if the National Liberation Army suspected that I had killed him and all the llaneros were convinced that the duendes did.
I called on Joaquín and showed him the antler point which I had picked up, asking him if it was any sort of Indian artifact. He was certain that it was not. He thought it might have worked its way out through the skin of boa or anaconda and been smoothed by the digestive juices.
“Do you think Pedro has reached the Guaviare?” I asked.
“No.”
“What could have stopped him?”
“You know very well.”
“What sort of weapons do they have?”
“None. What meets them dies of fright.”
“Animals, too?”
“Yes.”
I maintained the long silence demanded by Indian manners. I suppose it is not polite to make anyone think. Therefore speech should be confined to essentials. The European believes the opposite. He babbles to conceal the absence of thought.
“Neither you nor I have ever picked up an animal which died of fright,” I said.
“If it is eaten, how do we know whether it dies of fright or arrow or bullet or claws or teeth?”
He almost chanted this as if it were the beginning of an epic.
“Did Pedro die of fright?”
“No. He was a brave man. But it is no use to shoot.”
Since Joaquín was inexplicably sure of Pedro’s death, I tested him a bit further.
“How many times did he shoot?”
“Once,” he replied with utter, calm certainty. “Once only.”
I didn’t go into that. His explanations, when he can be persuaded to give any, are not intelligible.
“If I were killed,” I asked, “would you see who did it?”
“No. But it could be I should hear you.”
Some kind of rapport between Joaquín and any of his close friends in their moment of agony seems to me conceivable. It is odd that I should accept this more readily than the obvious solution: that the guerrilleros told, say, some woman who in turn told Joaquín.
I just don’t believe it. The news would be all over Santa Eulalia. Pedro’s wife would have received a formal visit of condolence and somebody, hand on heart, would have loosed off some antique oratory. Joaquín’s character must also be considered. Though his mind is a ragbag of superstitions and absurdities — some of them not to be dismissed out of hand — he never makes mystery where there is none.
Certainly Pedro was the most unlikely person to die of fright. It is possible among animals. I have seen a rabbit chased by a stoat until it cowered in terror, incapable of movement. That or something like it is as near as a living cre
ature can get to dying of fright from a natural cause.
I leave out the supernatural. I think one must admit that men have died of fright (shock? hypothermia?) because of something they saw. But that begs the question: what is seeing? The eye is only a camera; the picture has to be interpreted by the brain. When the brain has no experience of the object photographed, it interprets the message of the eye as it pleases. So what you think you are recording has far more relation to your beliefs than to the facts. That goes for politicians and policemen on one plane, and for Joaquíns on the other. It rarely goes for Pedros.
So home to find Chucha menstruating, damn it! She is far more sensitive on the point than civilized women. One would think that the closer a girl is to nature, the more she would understand that this is the period when she most urgently requires the male. But Chucha’s propriety is positively Victorian. Gentlemen do not ask questions. Gentlemen do not kiss whatever may be available. And above all gentlemen do not cuddle and comfort in case the unspeakable should happen. What a lot of nonsense — the most universal and powerful taboo without a single fact to support it!
What astonishes me is that she isn’t pregnant. I know that I myself am not sterile, for there is a bitter memory of a doctor’s bill which had to be paid in cash when I could least afford it. The sudden change of environment and diet might have affected Chucha’s ovulation like that of an animal which cannot breed in captivity.
But how day by day I begin to admire the child! She is not in the least the submissive little person of three weeks ago. She is a proud person. Has love done that for her or have I? The first, of course. I never set out to make a companion of her or suspected that her adolescent, eager intelligence could become as irresistible as her body. I wonder if a gentleman would be permitted to say good night provided he made it sufficiently fatherly.
Dance of the Dwarfs Page 8
