The War Of The End Of The World (68 page)

Sitting on the ground in a cave with the others, around a little lamp, as he drinks from a leather pouch full of brackish water that tastes wonderful to him and eats mouthfuls of beans with their still-fresh savor of oil, Pajeú tells Abbot João what he has seen, done, feared, and suspected since leaving Canudos. João listens to him without interrupting, waiting for him to drink or chew before asking questions. Sitting round him are Taramela, Mané Quadrado, and old Macambira, who joins in the conversation to put in a few words about the frightening prospects that A Matadeira represents. Outside the cave, the
jagunços
have stretched out on the ground to sleep. It is a clear night, filled with the chirping of crickets. Abbot João reports that the column mounting from Sergipe and Jeremoabo numbers only half as many troops as this one, a mere two thousand men. Pedrão and the Vilanovas are lying in wait for it at Cocorobó. “That’s the best place to fall upon it,” he says. And then he immediately returns to the subject that weighs most heavily on their minds. He agrees with them: if it has advanced as far as Rancho do Vigário, the column will cross the Serra da Angico tomorrow. Because otherwise it would have to veer ten leagues farther west before finding another way to get its cannons through.

“It’s after Angico that we’re endangered,” Pajeú grumbles.

As in the past, João makes traces on the ground with the point of his knife. “If they veer off toward O Taboleirinho, all our plans will have gone awry. Our men are waiting for them to come via A Favela.”

Pajeú pictures in his mind how the slope forks off in two directions after the rocky, thorny ascent to Angico. If they fail to take the fork leading to Pitombas, they will not go by way of A Favela. Why would they take the one to Pitombas? They might very well take the other one, the one that leads to the slopes of O Cambaio and O Taboleirinho.

“Except for the fact that if they go that way they’ll run into a hail of bullets,” Abbot João explains, holding up the lamp to light his scratches in the dirt. “If they can’t get through that way, the only thing they can do is go via Pitombas and As Umburanas.”

“We’ll wait for them then as they come down from Angico,” Pajeú agrees. “We’ll lay down gunfire all along their route, from the right. They’ll see that that route is closed to them.”

“And that’s not all,” Abbot João says. “After that, you have to allow yourselves enough time to reinforce Big João, at O Riacho. There are enough men on the other side. But not at O Riacho.”

Fatigue and tension suddenly overcome Pajeú, and Abbot João sees him slump over on Taramela’s shoulder, fast asleep. Taramela slides him gently to the floor and takes away his rifle and the half-breed youngster’s shotgun, which Pajeú has been holding on his knees. Abbot João says goodbye with a quickly murmured “Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor.”

When Pajeú wakes up, day is breaking at the top of the ravine, but it is still pitch-dark around him. He shakes Taramela, Felício, Mané Quadrado, and old Macambira, who have also slept in the cave. As a bluish light comes over the hills, they busy themselves replenishing their store of ammunition, used up at Rosário, from the cases buried by the Catholic Guard in the cave. Each
jagunço
takes three hundred bullets with him in his big leather pouch. Pajeú makes each of them repeat what it is he must do. The four groups leave separately.

As they climb the bare rock face of the Serra do Angico, Pajeú’s band—it will be the first to attack, so that the troops will pursue them through these hills to Pitombas, where the others will be posted—hears, in the distance, the bugles blowing. The column is on the march. He leaves two
jagunços
at the summit and descends with his men to the foot of the other face, directly opposite the steep slope down which the column must come, since it is the only place wide enough for the wheels of their wagons to slip through. He scatters his men about among the bushes, blocking the trail that forks off toward the west, and tells them once more that this time they are not to start running immediately. That comes later. First they must stand their ground and withstand the enemy’s fire, so that the Antichrist will be led to believe that there are hundreds of
jagunços
confronting him. Then they must let themselves be seen, be put on the run, be followed to Pitombas. One of the
jagunços
he has left at the summit comes down to tell him that a patrol is coming. It is made up of six men; they let them pass by without shooting at them. One of them falls from his horse, for the rock slope is slippery, especially in the morning, because of the dew that has collected in the night. After that patrol, two more go by, preceding the engineer corps with their picks, shovels, and handsaws. The second patrol heads off toward O Cambaio. A bad sign. Does it mean that they are going to deploy at this point? Almost immediately thereafter the vanguard appears, close on the heels of those who are clearing the way. Will all nine corps be that close together?

Pajeú has already put his gun to his shoulder and is aiming at the elderly cavalryman who must be the leader when a shot rings out, then another, then several bursts of fire. As he observes the disorder on the slope, the Protestants piling up on top of each other, and begins shooting in his turn, he tells himself that he will have to find out who started the fusillade before he had fired the first shot. He empties his magazine slowly, taking careful aim, thinking that through the fault of the man who started shooting the dogs have had time to withdraw and take refuge at the summit.

The gunfire ceases once the slope is empty. At the summit red-and-blue caps, the gleam of bayonets can be seen. The troops, under cover behind the rocks, try to spot them. He hears the sound of arms, men, animals, occasional curses. All of a sudden a cavalry squad, headed by an officer pointing to the
caatinga
with his saber, dashes down the slope. Pajeú sees that he is digging his spurs mercilessly into the flanks of his nervous, pawing bay. None of the cavalrymen falls on the slope, all of them arrive at the foot of it despite the heavy fire. But they all fall, riddled with bullets, the moment they enter the
caatinga
. The officer with the saber, hit several times, roars: “Show your faces, you cowards!”

“Show our faces so you can kill us?” Pajeú thinks. “Is that what atheists call courage?” A strange way of looking at things; the Devil is not only evil but stupid. He reloads his overheated rifle. The slope is swarming with soldiers now, and more are pouring down onto the rock face. As he takes aim, still calm and unhurried, Pajeú calculates that there are at least a hundred, perhaps a hundred fifty, of them.

He sees, out of the corner of his eye, that one of the
jagunços
is fighting hand to hand with a soldier, and he wonders how the dog got there. He puts his knife between his teeth; that is how he has always gone into the fray, ever since the days of the
cangaço
. The scar makes itself felt and he hears, very close by, very loud and clear, shouts of “Long live the Republic!”

“Long live Marshal Floriano!”

“Death to the English!” The
jagunços
answer: “Death to the Antichrist!”

“Long live the Counselor!”

“Long live Belo Monte!”

“We can’t stay here, Pajeú,” Taramela says to him. A compact mass is descending the slope now: soldiers, bullock carts, a cannon, cavalrymen, protected by two companies of infantrymen that charge into the
caatinga
. They fling themselves into the scrub and sink their bayonets in the bushes in the hope of running their invisible enemy through. “Either we get out now or we won’t get out, Pajeú,” Taramela insists, but there is no panic in his voice. Pajeú wants to make sure that the soldiers are really heading toward Pitombas. Yes, there is no question of it, the river of uniforms is definitely flowing northward; nobody except the men who are combing the brush veers off toward the west. He keeps shooting till all his bullets are gone before taking the knife out of his mouth and blowing the cane whistle with all his might.
Jagunços
instantly appear here and there, crouching over, crawling on all fours, turning tail, leaping from one refuge to another, some of them even slipping right through a soldier’s legs, all of them decamping as fast as they can. He blows his whistle again and, followed by Taramela, beats a hasty retreat, too. Has he waited too long? He does not run in a straight line but in a ragged tracery of curves, back and forth, so as to make himself a difficult target to aim at; he glimpses, to his right and his left, soldiers shouldering their rifles or running with fixed bayonets after
jagunços
. As he heads into the
caatinga
, as fast as his legs can carry him, he thinks of the woman again, of the two men who killed each other because of her; is she one of those women who bring bad luck?

He feels exhausted, his heart about to burst. Taramela is panting, too. It is good to have this loyal comrade here with him, his friend for so many years now, with whom he has never had the slightest argument. And at that moment four uniforms, four rifles suddenly confront him. “Hit the dirt, hit the dirt,” he shouts to Taramela. He throws himself to the ground and rolls, hearing at least two of them shoot. By the time he manages to get himself in a squatting position he has his rifle already aimed at the infantryman coming toward him. The Mannlicher has jammed: the pin hits the head of the cartridge but does not fire. He hears a shot and one of the Protestants falls to the ground, clutching his belly. “Yes, Taramela, you’re my good luck,” he thinks as he flings himself upon the three soldiers who have been thrown into confusion for a moment on seeing their comrade wounded, using his rifle as a bludgeon. He strikes one of them and sends him staggering, but the others leap on top of him. He feels a burning, shooting pain. Suddenly blood spurts all over the face of one of the soldiers and he hears him howl with pain. Taramela is there, landing in their midst like a meteor. The enemy that it falls to Pajeú’s lot to deal with is not a real adversary to Pajeú’s way of thinking: very young, he is dripping with sweat, and the uniform he is bundled up in barely allows him to move. He struggles till Pajeú gets his rifle away from him and then takes to his heels. Taramela and the other soldier are fighting it out on the ground, panting. Pajeú goes over to them and with a single thrust buries his knife in the soldier’s neck up to the handle; he gurgles, trembles, and stops moving. Taramela has a few bruises and Pajeú’s shoulder is bleeding. Taramela rubs egg poultice on it and bandages it with the shirt of one of the dead soldiers. “You’re my good luck, Taramela,” Pajeú says. “That I am,” Taramela agrees. They are unable to run now, for each of them is now carrying not only his own knapsack and rifle but also those of one of the soldiers.

Shortly thereafter they hear gunfire. It is scattered at first, but soon grows heavier. The vanguard is already in Pitombas, being fired on by Felício and his men. He imagines the rage the soldiers must feel on finding, hanging from the trees, the uniforms, the boots, the caps, the leather chest belts of the Throat-Slitter’s troops, the skeletons picked clean by the vultures. During nearly all of their trek to Pitombas, the fusillade continues and Taramela comments: “Anybody who’s got all the bullets in the world, the way those soldiers do, can shoot just to be shooting.” The fusillade suddenly ceases. Felício must have started falling back, so as to lure the column into following them along the road to As Umburanas, where old Macambira and Mané Quadrado will greet them with another hail of bullets.

When Pajeú and Taramela—they must rest awhile, for the weight of the soldiers’ rifles and knapsacks plus their own is twice as tiring—finally reach the scrubland of Pitombas, there are still scattered
jagunços
there. They are firing sporadically at the column, which pays no attention to them and continues to advance, amid a cloud of yellow dust, toward the deep depression, once a riverbed, that the
sertanejos
call the road to As Umburanas.

“It must not hurt you very much when you laugh, Pajeú,” Taramela says.

Pajeú is blowing his cane whistle to let the
jagunços
know he’s arrived, and thinks to himself that he has the right to smile. Aren’t the dogs taking off down the ravine, battalion after battalion of them, on the road to As Umburanas? Won’t that road take them, inevitably, to A Favela?

He and Taramela are on a wooded promontory overlooking the bare ravines; there is no need to hide themselves, for they are not only standing at a dead angle but are shielded by the sun’s rays, which blind the soldiers if they look in this direction. They can see the column below them turn the gray earth red, blue. They can still hear occasional shots. The
jagunços
appear, climbing on all fours, emerging from caves, letting themselves down from lookout platforms hidden in the trees. They crowd around Pajeú, to whom someone hands a leather flask full of milk, which he drinks in little sips and which leaves a little white trickle at the corners of his mouth. No one questions him about his wound, and in fact they avert their eyes from it, as though it were something indecent. Pajeú then eats a handful of fruit they give him:
quixabas
, quarters of
umbu, pinhas
. At the same time, he listens to the report of two men whom Felício left there when he went off to reinforce Joaquim Macambira and Mané Quadrado in As Umburanas. Constantly breaking in on each other, they tell how the dogs did not react immediately to being fired upon from the promontory, because it seemed risky to climb up the slope and present a target to the
jagunço
sharpshooters or because they guessed that the latter were such small groups as to be insignificant. Nonetheless, when Felício and his men advanced to the edge of the ravine and the atheists saw that they were beginning to suffer casualties, they sent several companies to hunt them down. That’s how it had gone for some time, with the companies trying to climb the slope and the
jagunços
withstanding their fire, until finally the soldiers slipped away through one opening or another in the brush and disappeared. Felício had left shortly thereafter.