Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

  To return to the journey. All of it must be recorded for future reference. My mind is inclined to suppress and forget incidents which are disgraceful or temporarily unacceptable. If I had not been able to look up what I wrote on May 3, I should have sublimated the memory and been unable to compare my two experiences of sheer cowardice or to draw conclusions from them.

  I trotted down the long glade — making up time, not running away — and headed straight for the point of easiest access to the forest where any game in a hurry would crash through into the trees. I hoped the duende was dead or dying but, if it wasn’t, that was where it would wait for me.

  I could not tell how good its long sight was. Available evidence suggested that the round eyes were as good as a cat’s in darkness but not designed for daylight. So I dropped down, vanished into the grass again and crawled off to the southeast at right angles to my former course. I had not far to go before I could safely stand up. Then I skirted the well glade, and just in time picked up the cathedral aisle. The light was beginning to fail and the racket in the treetops was at full blast. The duende certainly could not hear my progress any more than I could hear his. I reckoned that I was quite safe, always provided that I could reach the llano before dark, for the timber was so well spaced that I had time to use the rifle and space to swing it. I did consider spending the night in a tree on the rare occasions when I saw one that was climbable, but the thought of Chucha’s anxiety was just enough to prevent it.

  I longed for a horse, especially Tesoro, who would have used his gift for dodging fast through woodland to get us out of there in ten minutes. As it was, ten minutes merely brought deeper dusk and slower progress. The just visible compass gave me direction but could not tell me where the passage was. It was really my little howling cousins, the monkeys, who led me out. They were holding a students’ demonstration at their usual playground on the edge of the llano, and ears were a quicker guide to it than eyes. I marched on straight for the excitement, when a little casting about revealed starshine and the gap.

  I thought that somewhere I heard the slow beat of horses’ hooves and supposed they had broken away through the open gate while Mario was moving them from the corral to the hall. I cursed his carelessness, for the llano in darkness so close to the forest could be thoroughly dangerous. I did not much care for it myself in spite of the stars. Then I heard Chucha’s voice calling for Ojen and I let out a yell in answer. She was up in a moment, riding Pichón and leading Tesoro — which always takes some doing. When dusk fell and still I was not home, she had forced Mario to help her to saddle up, choosing Tesoro because of her belief that he looks after me, and ridden straight across the creek and down to the gap. Courage beyond belief! I wonder if she would be proof against the Declaration of Intent. Perhaps. I know that I should be if I thought her in danger. But I have a rifle, and she has nothing much but an amateur chiripá. However, she must never do this again.

  [ May 10, Tuesday ]

  The scent of her body reminds me of that other. One would think that by association I ought to find it repulsive. Far from it! Many lovers must know what I mean. Our own females also possess a musk gland — unless the whole thing is an illusion and comparable to the sweet odors recorded by saints and mystics. It is emitted in moments of profound and passionate emotion and has nothing whatever to do with perfume or the normal excretions of the female.

  Life and death combine in that supersensual fragrance, for in the act of creation I sometimes think that we ought, like the male spider, to die. And what is death itself but coalescence with the unknown?

  So much for the intrusion into my bed of unity with my fellow animals! A more unpleasant unity was very close yesterday. This morning, now knowing what to look for, I found clear tracks in the adobe dust beneath the wall where Mario had built it up. The pair followed us home.

  [ May 11, Wednesday ]

  They have got Tesoro. Why did I ever come here? Why don’t I get out now? This is intolerable. I wish I had some man of my own kind to talk to — Valera, the two guerrilleros, anybody. I cannot make up my mind. I am neither a zoologist nor a sportsman nor any kind of blasted hero. I have been a fool not to tell Mario and Chucha the truth and I cannot do so now. At least I think I can’t. It is better that they should go on believing in dwarfs and keep everything shut at night until the rains come and cut these slender devils off from the llano for another twelve years or more. What is my duty? Have I any duty? I must not clear out till I have persuaded Mario and Teresa to settle in Santa Eulalia. They won’t, I know.

  We may now be left in peace. What is certain is that this present generation of mustelids is keenly aware of a new source of food. The drought brought them over the creek for the first time. They then learned that horses were harmless and that men ran as well as peccary and deer. I am now sure that at first I was to them an animal of their own kind and therefore had to be cautiously observed before it was classed irrevocably as game. Remembering the musk and the plunging of Tesoro, it is clear to me that on the occasion of our first visit to the ridge we were watched but allowed to go.

  This morning I had no intention of collecting mustelids. I wanted to give Tesoro some needed exercise and to clear up my own mind which had been forced by more than duendes into too much introspection, too many impossible designs for our future. Valera and the guerrilleros could not help in that personal problem, unless it would do me good to be laughed at. I told Chucha quite truthfully that I was not going to enter the forest and that I intended to ride fast as far south as I could go — a distance which would be beyond her and make her painfully saddlesore. We might, I said, take out Pichón and Estrellera in the evening.

  I carried the 16-bore in the saddle holster with the usual No. 5 cartridges in my belt and a few No. 2’s in my pocket. I also took a grain feed for Tesoro and a good lunch for myself since this was a sort of holiday outing in spirit. We crossed the creek and cantered along it until the tall timber began to close the horizon and the forest swung to the east to form a deep, dense belt along the Guaviare. I had not been down at the bottom of the funnel, where the creek enters the trees, since early days at the estancia. I was then considering a canoe with an outboard motor and direct communication with the Guaviare. It was out of the question. The creek was not navigable — a wild wilderness of fallen trees, swamps and floating grasses.

  There were a few stagnant pools on our route which became more frequent as we approached the Guaviare forest belt. I looked in the mud for tracks and found them. A duende had stopped to drink. Further upstream, the estancia is, I think, the extreme limit of their range; if it were not for the horses, they would never go so far from the forest. But down there to the south they could leave the trees, cross the dry creek and slink back into cover. They could then approach Santa Eulalia without ever taking to open llano at all. They may have done so in some long forgotten drought. What it was that danced (when a guitar was playing?) remained a rumor in the grass. Even in settled territory a nocturnal animal is rarely seen. Here where rivers are the only roads and the forest is neither explored nor worth exploring there is not even anyone to see it.

  The country was thickish parkland — say, three or four trees to the acre, all noticeably suffering from drought. Even a single horseman left behind eddies of powdery soil hanging in the windless air. I should say that in the unending war between trees and grassland the forest had recently advanced and was now in course of being thrown back from occupied territory. After the rains this no-man’s-land had been an Eden of astonishing beauty, part sun, part shade, with game always to be seen. Yesterday it was almost leafless, for our only winter is the winter of drought.

  Tesoro was at his most affectionate. He was determined to eat my lunch as well as his own and snorted with disgust at the smell of animal fat when he found that Teresa’s appetizing crusts hid half a pullet. He had to be content with an onion and the taste of my ear. God rest his velvet soul, if he has one!

  We turned for home at a steady wal
k through the blazing afternoon. There was little shade, only brown grass striped with black bars as clearly defined as the branches themselves under a nearly vertical sun. The patterns were so confusing to the eye that once Tesoro cat-jumped a shadow, so I made for the deeper shade to the west where the tops of the trees touched. It was dark, but more like temperate woodland than tropical.

  To the south, beyond the Guaviare, huge cumulus clouds hung over the forest. They were the first I had seen for months and showed that the rains drowning the impenetrable country between the Orinoco and the Amazon were on their way to us. There was a puff of wind which blew down dead leaves and settled into a hardly perceptible breeze from the south. It was unsteady in that angle of two forests and blew half way round the compass. When it settled in the west Tesoro took to the air and bolted in the direction of Santa Eulalia.

  That’s all I can write tonight. I want more whisky and Chucha.

  [ May 12, Thursday ]

  I could not sleep, so I have got up early to finish the entry before I forget.

  I gathered Tesoro up, turned and gentled him, but it was too long a dispute between us. All the while I kept as sharp a lookout to the west as he allowed. I did not want to turn my back on the thickening forest and edged away towards the bed of the creek. The wind veered again to the south. He was then sweating and unhappy but quite amenable. I hoped that the scent he had picked up was jaguar. I was pretty sure it was not.

  We were nearing the open parkland and in ten minutes more would have been a mere point in the empty semicircle of the llano when again he bolted. His skill among trees seemed to have deserted him. A low branch which his head had only just cleared nearly had me off. Just as soon as I had taken my face out of his mane he was into another. Fortunately for me it was only an overhanging mass of twigs, but it was solid enough to sweep me out of the saddle and leave me clinging and struggling to disentangle myself.

  Tesoro was still going at full gallop through the tall timber and bearing far too much to the right. I ran after him but it was hopeless. Though the trees were well spaced, visibility at best was limited to quarter of a mile.

  The mustelid passed quite close, loping along with its leisurely, high-arched canter. It must have seen me but paid no attention at all. I was not chosen. I was like the herd of peccary which had left an open space. It seemed to be picking up the scent at the end of each leap. The nose close to the ground exaggerated the looping effect. It had of course nothing like the speed of Tesoro, but kept steadily on until it too vanished among trees.

  I shouted to Tesoro aloud to run to the llano, for God’s sake straight to the llano, hardly realizing what I was doing until I became conscious of the hoarseness of my throat. Wherever he had gone, it was far away, for there was no sound anywhere except the scraping of dry leaves in the light breeze.

  I climbed a tree in the hope of seeing him, but found that I had a longer view on the ground. When I came down again I heard the drum of his hooves approaching and ran towards him, trying to keep my voice calm as well as loud. He passed across my front a hundred yards away, curving towards the gloom, the gold of his coat darkened by sweat and streaked with foam, the gun in its holster bouncing against his flank. He did not turn, never heard or saw me probably. He was near the end of his endurance. The mustelid appeared on his trail two or three minutes later, unhurried, still loping effortlessly along.

  I never expected to see Tesoro again, but I underrated the utter cruelty, the hypnosis of the Declaration of Intent. He passed out of sight and hearing but it was not long before again I glimpsed what was left of his gold dodging through the black trunks. He was going at a slow canter now. Once he pecked and was down on his knees, then off again using the last of his breath for a despairing neigh. This second circle in which he ran was so much smaller than the first that I raced frantically across the diagonal in the hope of intercepting him. It could not be done. I only got near enough to be in at the death.

  The mustelid bounded into sight ten lengths behind him, never quickening pace, trusting to the exhaustion and terror of the prey. The final attack was a short spurt and a tremendous leap which landed it on Tesoro’s back. It bit him straight through the axis, twisting its head to bring the fangs to bear on each side of the spine, and Tesoro went down head over heels, the mustelid jumping clear and then slinking to the throat which it tore open.

  Its eyes were just above the level of Tesoro’s prostrate neck and closed in ecstasy as it lapped. When it opened them it saw me. There was no handy tree, and even if there had been I do not think I would have turned my back when two long springs could reach me. It crouched down with forepaws on Tesoro. Face and whiskers were dabbled with blood which dripped from the points of the white, bared canines.

  I was not prey. I was a creature, like the jaguar, which had dared to interfere with a meal. I expected a fierce but harmless demonstration warning me to clear off or to be killed; but there was none. It meant business from the start, crawling towards me with belly nearly touching the ground. It looked more like some kind of thick, furry snake than a mammal.

  I could only stand my ground and hope that the shining machete would be taken as my own demonstration — a better proof than growls and open mouth that I too meant business. I remember thinking that I was the heavier of the two beasts and that cold steel was better than teeth. I felt anger rather than fear. Adrenalin and high blood pressure, I suppose. My life force was aware that fear could not save it.

  There must have been some transference, for the mustelid hesitated. It probably did not care for a frontal attack, which was unfamiliar; its prey always turned tail. Hesitation was very short. Like all its kin, even those which are not aggressive, its courage was without limits. The challenger might be behaving in a manner outside its experience, but the end would be that which always happened.

  A full spring must have had me down, but it came on with leisurely crawl till it was not more than two yards from me. When it exposed its throat and before it could get fairly launched I lunged forward. The point of the machete, too wide for an effective stab, got caught in the loose, tough skin, pushing a thick fold of it sideways. The force with which we met was enough to roll both of us over. Any feline could then have finished me with a stroke of the paw, but the mustelid had to get its jaws to bear. As it turned head and shoulders I struck out backhanded with the machete and slammed it full on the nose. To my amazement it toppled over as suddenly as Tesoro. I ran to the saddle holster, recovered the gun and blew the back of its head in just as it was getting up from the count.

  How long did this take from the time the beast looked over the neck and saw me? I simply do not know. Seconds, not minutes. One’s own body clock is speeded up so fast that it is impossible to tell. I am sure that the elapsed time was much less than I felt it to be because the other mustelid who must have taken part in the hunting—not chasing but moving position, I believe, to reinforce panic by a whiff of scent — had only just come to the kill.

  I saw her dancing behind a cactus to sum up the unprecedented situation. That gave me time to slip a No. 2 cartridge into the choke barrel. She charged directly from her cover and I took her on the second bound at something less than eight yards. I could see that the right ear was perforated and partly torn away from the head; but the main blast of heavy shot which must have hit her between the eyes seemed to have little effect except that she turned and ran. Evidently courage was not quite unlimited. I was right in predicting the strength of the frontal bone of the skull.

  It was the male which I had stunned with the machete. Hornets could have done it no harm except on that vulnerable nose and the corners of the mouth where there was an exposed bit of hairless lower lip — possibly an individual deformity, possibly connected with the sockets in which the long fangs fitted while at rest.

  I started to skin it, but found the tough hide defeated an amateur. I was also exhausted, impatient and had copiously shat myself. Cleaning up, sobbing over Tesoro and pulling the machete in
and out of its sheath seemed occupation enough. I am inefficient at both cleaning and skinning. Mario deals with any game which I bring home.

  The mustelid was smaller and lighter than I had thought, weighing perhaps a hundred and twenty pounds, less rather than more. Its true size was exaggerated by the length of the body when fully extended and the loose skin when relaxed. All the other dwarf legends could be as true as that of the dance. Claws were weak. Though the beast could jump to a considerable height, it could not hang on, let alone climb. That it could not swim also seemed possible; it might well have difficulty in keeping the heavy skull above water. But I am too ignorant of comparative anatomy to be sure. An alternative explanation could be that on land this mustelid has no experience of enemies. Even the jaguar, though dead certain to be the winner if not disabled, feels the “superstitious” fear and does not stop to argue. Alligators, however, could deal very easily with that slender body, and on the edge of the water ray and electric eel would be more dangerous still.

  I confirmed that my shot from the long glade had hit exactly where I thought it did; but there was no shoulder in the way, not even flesh, only the badly fitting overcoat of the crouching animal. The dumdum might as well have hit a sandbag. I found a neat point of entry. The bullet had then passed under the belly and out, leaving a ragged wound which did not appear to have bled much or to have caused the beast any inconvenience.

  The carcass was of course too heavy to carry, so I covered it with brushwood and left it. Tesoro’s saddle and tack I piled at some distance from his body to avoid damage by the vultures. He too seemed very small in death. I have noticed that before, when my first ponies in Argentina died, though never with such love and pity. How do they carry us so easily and gallantly while life is still in them?