The War Of The End Of The World (67 page)

He leaves Taramela in Lagoa da Laje to bury the dead man, and goes to take up a position on the heights halfway to Aracati. He does not allow his men to advance in groups now; he orders them to stay a fair distance apart and well off to the side of the road. Shortly after reaching the crags—a good lookout point—he spies the avant-garde approaching. Pajeú can feel the scar on his face: a drawing sensation, as though the old wound were about to open again. This happens to him at crucial moments, when he is having some extraordinary experience. Soldiers armed with picks, shovels, machetes, and handsaws are clearing the trail, leveling it, felling trees, removing rocks. They must have had hard work of it in the Serra de Aracati, a steep, rugged climb; they are moving along with their torsos bared and their blouses tied around their waists, three abreast, with officers on horseback at the head of the column. There are lots and lots of dogs coming, that’s certain, if more than two hundred have been sent ahead to clear the way for them. Pajeú also spies one of Felício’s trackers following close behind these engineer corpsmen.

It is early in the afternoon when the first of the nine army corps comes by. When the last one passes, the sky is full of stars scattered about a round moon that bathes the
sertão
in a soft yellow glow. They have been passing by, grouped together at times, at times separated by kilometers, dressed in uniforms that vary in color and type—gray-green, blue with red stripes, gray, with gilt buttons, with leather bandoleers, with kepis, with cowboy hats, with boots, with shoes, with rope sandals—on foot and on horseback. In the middle of each corps, cannon drawn by oxen. Pajeú—he has not ceased for a moment to be aware of the scar on his face—tots up the train of ammunition and supplies: seven wagons drawn by bullocks, forty-three donkey carts, some two hundred bearers (many of them
jagunços
) bent double beneath their burdens. He knows that these wooden cases are full of rifle bullets, and his head whirls trying to calculate how many bullets per inhabitant of Belo Monte they add up to.

His men do not move: it is as though they’d even stopped breathing, blinking, and not a one of them opens his mouth. Dead silent, motionless, become one with the rocks, the cacti, the bushes that hide them, they listen to the bugles passing on orders from battalion to battalion, see the banners of the escorts fluttering, hear the servers of the artillery pieces shouting to urge the bullocks, the mules, the burros on. Each corps advances in three separate sections, the one in the center waiting for each of the two on the flanks to move forward and only then advancing in turn. Why are they going through this maneuver that holds them up and appears to be as much a retreat as an advance? Pajeú realizes that it is to keep from being surprised from the flank, as happened to the Throat-Slitter’s animals and men, which the
jagunços
were able to attack from the edge of the trail. As he listens to the deafening din, contemplating the multicolored spectacle slowly unfolding at his feet, he keeps asking himself the same questions: “What route are they planning to take to Canudos? And what if they fan out so as to enter Belo Monte from ten different places at once?”

After the rear guard has passed by, he eats a handful of flour and raw brown sugar and he and his men head for Jueté, two leagues away, to wait for the soldiers. On their way there, a trek that takes them about two hours, Pajeú hears his men grimly commenting on the size of the great long cannon, which they have baptized A Matadeira—the Killer. He shuts them up. They are right, though, it is enormous, doubtless capable of blowing several houses to smithereens with one shell, and perhaps of piercing the wall of the Temple under construction. He will have to warn Abbot João about A Matadeira.

As he has calculated, the soldiers bivouac in Lagoa da Laje. Pajeú and his men pass so close to the field huts that they hear the sentinels talking over the day’s happenings. They meet up with Taramela before midnight, in Jueté. They find there a messenger sent by Mané Quadrado and Macambira; the two of them are already in Rosário. On the way there, they have seen cavalry patrols. As the men get water to drink and rinse their faces by the light of the moon in the little lagoon of Jueté to which the shepherds in the region used to bring their flocks in the old days, Pajeú dispatches a tracker to Abbot João and stretches out on the ground to sleep, between Taramela and an old
jagunço
who is still talking about A Matadeira. It would be a good idea if the dogs were to capture a
jagunço
who would tell them that all the ways into Belo Monte are well defended, except for the slopes of A Favela. Pajeú turns the thought over in his mind till he falls asleep. The woman visits him in his dreams.

As it is beginning to get light, Felício’s group arrives. He has been surprised by one of the patrols of soldiers protecting the flanks of the convoy of cattle and goats trailing along behind the column. Felício’s men scattered and did not suffer any casualties, but it took them a long time to regroup, and there are still three men missing. When they learn what happened in Lagoa da Laje, a half-breed Indian boy, who can’t be more than thirteen and whom Pajeú uses as a messenger, bursts into tears. He is the son of the
jagunço
who had been removing the tiles on the rooftop of the little house when the dogs surprised and killed him.

As they are advancing toward Rosário, split up into very small groups, Pajeú goes over to the youngster, who is trying his best to hold back his tears though every so often a sob escapes him. Without preamble, he asks him if he would like to do something for the Counselor, something that will help avenge his father. The youngster looks at him with such determination in his eyes that he needs no other reply. He explains to him what he wants him to do. A circle of
jagunços
gathers round to listen, looking by turns at him and at the boy.

“There’s more to it than just letting yourself be caught,” Pajeú says. “They have to think that that was the last thing you wanted. And there’s more to it than just starting to blab. They have to think they made you talk. In other words, you must let them beat you and even torture you with knives. They have to think you’re terrified. That’s the only way they’ll believe you. Can you do that?”

The boy is dry-eyed and the look on his face is that of an adult, as though he had grown five years older in five minutes. “I can, Pajeú.”

They meet up with Mané Quadrado and Macambira on the outskirts of Rosário, in the ruins of what were once the slave quarters and the manor house of the hacienda. Pajeú deploys the men in a ravine that lies at a right angle to the trail, with orders to fight just long enough for the dogs to see them turn tail and head in the direction of Bendengó. The boy is at his side, his hands on the shotgun that is very nearly as tall as he is. The engineer corpsmen pass by without seeing them, and a while later, the first battalion. The fusillade begins and raises a cloud of gunsmoke. Pajeú waits for it to disperse a little before shooting. He does so calmly and deliberately, aiming carefully, firing at intervals of several seconds the six Mannlicher bullets that he has had with him since Uauá. He hears the din of whistles, bugle calls, shouts, sees the troops’ disorder. Once they have overcome their confusion somewhat, the soldiers, urged on by their officers, begin to fall to their knees and return fire. There is a frantic flurry of bugle calls; reinforcements will soon be arriving. He can hear the officers ordering their men to enter the
caatinga
in pursuit of their attackers.

He then reloads his rifle, rises to his feet, and, followed by other
jagunços
, steps out into the center of the trail, facing the soldiers, fifty yards away, head on. He aims at them and shoots. His men, who have taken their stand all round him, do likewise. More
jagunços
emerge from the brush. The soldiers, finally, advance toward them. The youngster, still at his side, shoulders his shotgun, closes his eyes, and shoots. The backfire of the buckshot leaves him blood-spattered.

“Take my piece, Pajeú,” he says, handing it to him. “Take care of it for me. I’ll escape and make my way back to Belo Monte.”

He throws himself on the ground and begins to scream in pain, clutching his face in his hands. Pajeú breaks into a run—bullets are whistling by from all directions—and disappears into the
caatinga
, followed by the
jagunços
. A company of soldiers plunges into the scrub after them and they allow themselves to be pursued for quite some time; they get the company completely disoriented in the thickets of
xiquexiques
and tall
mandacarus
, till suddenly it finds itself being sniped at from behind by Macambira’s men. The soldiers decide to retreat. Pajeú also falls back. Dividing his men up into the four usual groups, he orders them to turn around, get ahead of the troops, and wait for them in Baixas, half a league from Rosário. On the way there, all of them talk of how plucky the youngster is. Have the Protestants been fooled into believing they’ve wounded him? Are they interrogating him? Or are they so furious at being ambushed that they’re hacking him to pieces with their sabers?

A few hours later, from the dense brush on the clayey plateau of Baixas—they have rested, eaten, counted their men, discovered that there are two missing and eleven wounded—Pajeú and Taramela see the vanguard approaching. At the head of the column, in the midst of a group of soldiers, hobbling after a cavalryman who is leading him along on a rope, is the youngster. He is walking along with his head hanging down, a bandage round it. “They’ve believed him,” Pajeú thinks. “If he’s up there in the front of the column, it’s because they’re making him act as a guide.” He feels a sudden wave of affection for the young half-breed.

Taramela nudges him and whispers that the dogs are no longer disposed in the same marching order as at Rosário. It is true: the banners of the escorts of the head of the column are red and gold instead of blue, and the cannons—A Matadeira among them—are now in the vanguard. In order to protect them, there are companies out combing the
caatinga
; if the
jagunços
stay where they are, they will soon find themselves nose to nose with one or another of them. Pajeú tells Macambira and Felício to go ahead to Rancho do Vigário, where the troops will doubtless bivouac. Crawling on all fours without a sound, without their movements so much as stirring a leaf, Felício’s band and old Macambira’s take off and disappear from sight. Shortly thereafter, shots ring out. Have they been discovered? Pajeú doesn’t move a muscle: through the bushes he has spied, just five yards away, a mounted squad of Freemasons, armed with long lances tipped with metal. On hearing the shots, the cavalrymen step up the pace; he hears horses galloping, bugles blowing. The fusillade continues, grows heavier. Pajeú does not look at Taramela, does not look at any of the
jagunços
hugging the ground, curled up in a ball amid the branches. He knows that the hundred fifty men are there all around him, like himself not breathing, not moving, thinking that Macambira and Felício are perhaps being wiped out…The sudden deafening roar of the cannon sets him shaking from head to foot. But what frightens him more than the cannon report is the little cry that it calls forth, despite himself, from a
jagunço
behind him. He does not turn round to reprimand him: what with the whinnying of the horses and the shouts of the cavalry troops, it is not likely that they have heard him. After the cannon report, the shooting stops.

In the hours that follow, Pajeú’s scar seems to become incandescent, emitting red-hot waves that reach his brain. His choice of a place to rendezvous has been a bad one; twice, patrols pass by just behind him, accompanied by men in peasant dress armed with machetes who swiftly hack the brush away. Is it a miracle that the patrols do not spy his men, even though they pass by so close they almost step on them? Or are those machete-wielders elect of the Blessed Jesus? If they are discovered, few will escape, for with all those thousands of soldiers it will be no trick at all to surround them. It is the fear of seeing his men decimated, without having fulfilled his mission, that is turning his face into a live wound. But it would be madness to change place now.

As dusk begins to fall, by his count twenty-two donkey carts have passed by; half the column is yet to come. For five hours he has seen troops, cannons, animals go past. He would never have dreamed that there were that many soldiers in the whole world. The red ball in the sky is rapidly setting; in half an hour it will be pitch-dark. He orders Taramela to take half the men with him to Rancho do Vigário and arranges to meet him in the caves where there are arms hidden. Squeezing his arm, he whispers to him: “Be careful.” The
jagunços
move off, bending over so far that their chests touch their knees, by threes, by fours.

Pajeú stays there where he is till stars appear in the sky. He counts ten carts more, and there is no doubt now: it is obvious that no battalion has taken another route. Raising his cane whistle to his mouth, he gives one short blast. He has not moved for so long a time that his body aches all over. He vigorously massages the calves of his legs before he starts walking. As he reaches up to pull his sombrero over his ears, he discovers that he is bareheaded. He remembers then that he lost it at Rosário: a bullet knocked it off, a bullet whose heat he felt as it went past.

The journey on foot to Rancho do Vigário, two leagues from Baixas, is slow, tiring: they proceed along the edge of the trail, single file, halting again and again to drop down and crawl like worms across the open stretches. It is past midnight when they arrive. Bypassing the mission that has given the place its name, Pajeú detours westward, heading for the rocky defile leading to hills dotted with caves. That is where all of them are to rendezvous. They find waiting for them not only Joaquim Macambira and Felício, who have lost only three men in the skirmish with the soldiers. Abbot João is there, too.