Dance of the Dwarfs (11 page)

In the doghouse. All my fault. Not even writing lessons permitted, let alone any other kind. I endeavor to meet Teresa's eyes with an expression of absolute innocence.

[
April 23, Saturday
]

Again an entry which is put down as a vital record of fact, omitting all thoughts of Mao and self-analysis. It has all turned out better than I dared hope, though if the Colombian had not come along I doubt whether I should be here now.

When I saw the jeep bouncing down from the north over the llano I loaded my rifle and the 16-bore and hid them under the fodder alongside the corral. I knew that in the house I had not a hope of defending myself but if Chucha and I were ever given a chance to run for the horses I might be able to hold off pursuit.

There were three of them—the boss, a driver and that detestable tough I called the Cuban. In fact he turns out to be a Dominican. Why is it that these fearless fellows who dare to resist a dictator cannot resist his methods? Three were quite enough to deal with us. Besides their personal weapons they had a light machine gun mounted on the jeep.

It was close on sunset when they arrived, so I had to feed them and put them up for the night. I was reasonably polite but cold. If I had been certain that they intended to liquidate me I should probably have been greasily companionable in the hope of arousing some sympathy.

This time I insisted that Chucha should receive my so-called friends. She put on the white outfit in which she had arrived—with a shirt of mine underneath—and took the head of the table. I would not even have her hanging around in the provincial manner and serving the men while they ate. If the Dominican had come alone, I should never have risked this display of my pride in her, knowing that after my death she would be raped and abandoned. But the Colombian was a man of taste—so far as his political creed allowed—and I felt sure that he would take her along to the Cordillera where at least she would belong to him or one of his more decent officers. That was better than dying of disease or starvation in or out of a brothel.

She was too embarrassed to do any talking, but I think she found a secret pleasure in the compliments of the Colombian who gallantly took his cue from me and treated her as the daughter of the house. The driver, a pure Indian, could not take his eyes off her. That also made her feel a bit of a native princess. The situation could easily have fallen into ironic comedy. That it never did was due to her simplicity and her unaffected use of my Christian name.

After our supper I kissed her hand and told her to go to bed. She was quite delightful, giving a little bow to each of the guests. Even the Dominican had to smile and bow back.

“I see that Captain Valera was indeed a friend,” the Colombian said.

“It is a pity that I have not yet been able to say thank you to him.”

He got the point. So did his Number Two about twenty seconds later.

“You must understand, Doctor, that we are always in danger of our lives,” he said. “We think they matter not only to us but to all America.”

I replied that I did understand, but that it was no reason for interrogating me as if I were a spy for the government or the Yankees and accusing me of being responsible for Pedro's death when they both knew very well that Pedro had been executed.

“He is dead?”

“When men are shot in the back of the head they usually are.”

“Will you believe me when I swear that I know nothing of this?”

“I am not accustomed to doubt a man's word when he is armed and I am not.”

“I wish you would not carry on like someone out of the last century,” he said. “It must be the influence of the llaneros. None of my friends shot Pedro. I am telling you so. Where is his body?”

“In the forest.”

“Can we go there in the morning?”

“Not in the jeep. But I can mount you both.”

“Then there is no need for more discussion at present. One other demand, and afterwards I trust we can just be guests of a generous host. May we see your generator?”

“It's about enough to keep the beer cold and your beef from going rotten,” I told him, “plus six electric bulbs.”

I showed my neat little twelve-volt generator. He seemed satisfied that it could not be used for a radio transmitter—and probably saw as well that I had no notion whether it could or not. Thereafter our relations were much less formal, but I was far from sure of the Dominican thug.

I told Mario and Chucha that I should leave at dawn for the forest with my friends. Mario did not question my description of them. He was used to the violent quarrels in Santa Eulalia, after which the participants became quite amicable. He showed none of his usual distrust of the forest. He must have reckoned that the three of us together could shoot the teeth out of any number of dwarfs.

The two guerrilleros stood by casually while I lifted fodder to give the horses a bite before starting. I observed with pleasure a tightening of their faces when I picked up my rifle with the muzzle on a level with their bellies. They hadn't a chance of drawing their pistols in time and their driver was far away under the jeep. I pretended to notice nothing and they relaxed.

As soon as we had ridden through my new passage I could see that neither of them had ever before traveled in the forests of the Amazon and Orinoco basins. They only knew the steaming slopes beneath the Cordillera where cliffs, ravines and all the rampant growth make it impossible to leave the track. You can't cut a way up and you can't fall down, and if you stand still long enough you can nearly watch the stuff growing over you.

The monotonous ride through the gloom, where only at intervals did we have to dismount and lead our horses, disturbed them. Life in the treetops was just dying down when we left the llano behind. Then came the silence, broken only by an occasional shriek. The Dominican wanted to know whether birds or monkeys were responsible. Neither, I said shortly, and shut up. It was of course a bird.

I did not draw their attention to the blazing of trees which marked the route and never rode close enough to make it obvious what tree I was looking at. They thought I was navigating by compass only and were impressed by my frequent halts to check bearings. I was far from confident that I could find Pedro's body again until I had a glimpse of ferns and knew that I was approaching the well glade.

My sharp turn to the left without any apparent reason made the Dominican suspicious.

“I should like your instructions for the return journey,” he said.

“In case anything happened to me? Just go east!”

It was the edge on his voice which first made me realize that I held all the cards. I don't suggest that they were not brave men. They were. I should never have the courage to fight as an outlaw with a merciless army looking for me. But since they lived on their nerves uncertainty affected them.

When I picked up the natural avenue which led in the direction of Pedro's body I immediately turned away from it and rode through the trees along its line. From that angle it was impossible for them to notice that the avenue was there at all.

This was too daring. I went badly off course, and the avenue was irrecoverable. I was so bushed that I refused to trust the compass. Normally I ignored the slight deviation caused by my rifle and machete, since it was a constant, but I wondered if the weapons of my companions, riding as close to me as they were, could have thrown the reading out too far. So I dismounted, laid my machete on the ground and went off a few yards to take a bearing.

The Dominican picked my rifle out of Tesoro's saddle holster and said with pretended politeness that he would carry it for me. So I, equally politely, smashed our only compass against my right spur. That ensured that I should come out of the forest alive, whatever their reaction might be when faced with the remains of Pedro.

“From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs,” I said. “And I need my rifle.”

The Colombian ordered his friend to give it back and reproached me for my lack of trust. I think he was sincere, but he had shown no sign of disapproval. A commander, I suppose, hesitates to overrule his security officer.

As the compass, before I destroyed it, had proved to me that I had managed to turn myself inside out, I rode on slowly until we crossed the avenue. It was then simple to pick up and follow my former route until I caught sight of the gleam of bone.

They examined the corpse like the experts they were. It fell in a heap away from the tree. The last insects left the joints.

“How do you know this is Pedro?” the Colombian asked.

“Because I recognize his revolver and belt. Because the skeleton has only been stripped bare very recently. Because no one else has entered the forest.”

“The llaneros of Santa Eulalia?”

“They do not dare.”

“Why not?”

I was not going to tell him about the pygmies, so I elaborated one or two of Joaquín's cautionary stories. Among his better duendes were ghost jaguars. Since their roar had been left behind in this world, all they could manage was to whistle and mew. Shortly afterwards we heard the piercing wail of an agouti. It was far away, possibly as far as the edge of the well glade, but the tenuous sound cut the haunted silence at a most convenient moment.

I was interested to see that the Dominican forgot he was a Marxist and involuntarily crossed himself. Likely enough poor Pedro, looking a traditional ghost in the half light, had carried him back to childhood fears of voodoo and zombies. Atheism is all right for the white-collared technicians of an urban society, but religion tends to reappear when threatened by ghost jaguars.

“Indians?” the Colombian asked.

“There are none.”

The two wounds at the back of the skull puzzled them. They agreed that Pedro would instantly have crumpled up at the first shot, so why the second? If it was fired to finish him while he was on the ground, the shattering of the bone would be markedly greater around one hole than the other; if it was fired from the same distance as the first, Pedro must have turned his head while falling.

“Machine gun?” I suggested.

They thought that must be the answer, but who the hell could have automatic weapons except I or my unknown friends?

They still, I think, wanted to believe that I had killed Pedro; but nothing made sense. Instead of blaming it on the llaneros I had insisted that they were innocent. Besides, I had shown them the body when I could have denied any knowledge of Pedro's fate. And my firm belief that they had done the deed themselves must have appeared sincere.

“If you two didn't execute him,” I said, “you had better consider some of your friends.”

“Have any of them been seen here?”

“Never.”

That started an argument between the pair. They agreed that the air attack on the herd was probably due to some big-mouthed partisan talking in the villages and a government spy passing on the good news. As regards Pedro, they grew heated.

“Not even in Dominica would Pedro be considered worthy of death on no evidence!” the Colombian exclaimed.

The other retorted that in Dominica they were not accustomed to have time for mercy. That was how I learned what his nationality was. But neither of them ever gave me their names or nicknames.

Whatever it was all about, I was at last in the clear. So I was prepared to lead them out. If it had seemed to me that Chucha and I were in any danger, I should not have hesitated to gain valuable time by losing them in the forest, even though it meant losing Estrellera and Pichón as well. They might or might not have found out which was east. Even if they did, the chances were that they would have borne away to the right and ridden in circles or perhaps—if they had the sense to give the horses their heads—arrived at the Guaviare and water.

In spite of having no compass I found the way back to the llano in three hours with hardly a check. It was, after all, my fourth journey. I discovered that I could now navigate by the contours and appearance of the roof above me as well as by trees which I recognized.

When we had crossed the creek I asked them if they were now satisfied and would leave me in peace to get on with agricultural development.

“We have no proof one way or the other,” the Dominican answered.

I pointed out that I certainly was not a friend, but that he did have proof I was not an enemy.

“If I were a government agent I could have got rid of you twice today,” I said.

“Twice?”

“I was brought up never to point a gun at anyone—even when extracting it from a haystack.”

The Columbian laughed and remarked that the only thing he was sure of was that in any circumstances I should do exactly what I pleased.

“Well, if you know that, we can understand each other,” I said. “Sometime soon I shall be asked what happened to Pedro. Both the Intendencia and his wife have to know. I shall report precisely what happened, including your last two visits. The first visit is our own business, for you were my guests. I shall also say that I believe neither of you were responsible for Pedro's death.”

The Dominican pointed out that Bogotá would know their identities from my description.

“They will know which two we are,” the Colombian corrected him, “but not our identities—unless they have them on the file already.”

They went straight off in the jeep in order to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Santa Eulalia before nightfall. The Dominican still distrusted me. If ever he comes here without his boss I should be wise to shoot him first and think afterwards. But I know I cannot do it.

Mario and Teresa hate the pair of them. They are instinctive individualists. If they could express their politics—which they can't because they haven't any—they would be anarchists. Chucha, however, is entirely reconciled to my two so-called friends, having listened to their conversation while I thought she was deaf and dumb with self-consciousness. She said they were good men who were persecuted. How could it be wrong to risk one's life in order that everyone should be equal?