A few months after the work in the camp up at the dam had been begun,
the inhabitants of the various settlements along the _Rio Negro_ began
to talk admiringly of the Galician’s new “store” which had suddenly
become the most handsome establishment of the kind in the whole extent
of the territory; its contents were as novel and instructive as they
were interesting.
In the early years of the settlement one of the first foreigners to
arrive at the camp in search of work was an Englishman who for many
years had been wandering from one end of South America to the other. The
last place he had stopped at in his adventurous career was in the heart
of Paraguay where he had traded with the savage tribes of the region.
However, this traffic had not, it seemed, made him rich. In fact it had
left him little but a souvenir of his life in the forest, four
crocodiles from the great Paraguay River. The natives, in exchange for
the white man’s neckties and suspenders, had stuffed the hard hides of
these _yacarés_ with straw, and had performed the same operation on a
boa constrictor, several yards long, which was added to the Englishman’s
collection.
While at the capital the wanderer heard of the great engineering work
going on up at _Rio Negro_. There seemed a good chance of getting
something to do there, so with all his stuffed animals he betook
himself thither.
Within a few weeks, as a result of the sudden change from the torrid
temperature of Paraguay to the harsh winter of Patagonia, and also of
the fact that the Galician had given him far too ample credit at his
store, the Englishman died of pneumonia complicated by delirium tremens.
The worthy proprietor of the “Galician’s Retreat,” believing firmly in
the sacred right of collecting money due him, and animated moreover by a
sure instinct in decorative matters, in so far at least as his
customers’ tastes were concerned, appropriated the four _yacarés_ and
the boa, and strung them up on the ceiling of his _boliche_.
As a matter of fact Antonio Gonzales, who was an Andalusian,--although
according to well established South American custom no one thought of
referring to him as anything but “_el gallego_”--could never look up at
the enormous reptile dangling like a ship’s cable from his ceiling,
forming curves and loops as it swung from beam to beam, without feeling
a good deal of the Andalusian’s hereditary horror of reptiles.
But it pleased the more important patrons of the establishment to drink
their liquor under this extraordinary ceiling decoration, and a business
man must of course always sacrifice his own preferences and timidities
when they clash with those of the public.
The deeply furrowed hide, so thickly covered with flies that they made a
sheath over it, stretched diagonally across the ceiling, and each time
the door opened and a stream of air poured in, swayed as though coming
to life. The draught frequently shook off into the glasses of the
customers some of the dead flies whose remains had been drying since the
preceding season, or scales from the giant boa, or a fine powder that
was a mixture of dry particles from the straw with which it was stuffed
and the arsenic used to dry the skin. In the corners of the room were
suspended the four crocodiles, black and with horny squares in their
backs, revealing to the Galician’s customers nothing but the bright
yellow of their bellies and the soles of their paws.
Whoever came near the _boliche_ always stopped in to have a glass of
something, and to admire these curiosities. As to reptiles, there was
not in the whole of Patagonia anything more remarkable than a certain
deadly little viper, short, wide-headed and fat, and looking much like a
comma; so these imported monsters attained immediate and far-reaching
celebrity.
The proprietor of the store, with the air of one who has seen a great
deal of the world, would explain to the _gauchos_ the customs of the
animals balancing above their heads; he even went so far as to give his
hearers to understand that he had had something to do with the perilous
business of hunting them.
After awhile, however, he observed that these ornaments, which were the
pride of his establishment, did not attract everybody to his inn. On the
contrary, if they attracted some they kept others away; for there were
other Andalusians in the community beside the “Galician,” and they did
not have the same interest as he in conquering their aversion to
serpents. And besides these there were Italians and others who, although
they were quite ready to praise the quality of the drink to be obtained
at the store, did not dare step inside. It was all well enough to toss
off a glassful under the yellow paunch and the four extended claws of
the crocodiles--they could go that--but, to see that serpent breathing
out flies, and showing, as it moved, the hair-raising marks on its back,
whenever on lifting your glass, you looked up at the ceiling--no--that
was going too far!
The boldest of these spirits ventured to come in only after tightly
clenching their right fists; then they advanced holding out the thumb
and little finger so as to form horns to conjure away ill-luck. “Lizard!
_Lagarto!_” they muttered, turning their eyes so as not to see what was
above their heads. But there were others who, notwithstanding this
protection, did not venture to come in but stayed outside, even in
mid-winter, their hands in their belts, puffing out streams of vapor
from their mouths, and calling loudly to Friterini, the Galician’s
servant, to bring their drinks out to them.
So once more the proprietor sacrificed his convenience to that of his
patrons. The boa was unhooked and sold to a tavern in that district of
the port of Buenos Aires known as La Boca, where most of the customers
were sailors and men from ships. So the four crocodiles remained as the
sole ornaments, swaying from the ceiling like extinguished funeral
lamps.
Another embellishment of the place was the collection of flags which on
feast days fluttered from the roof, and the rest of the year adorned the
_boliche’s_ one room. All the colored rags ever chosen by men eager to
make themselves a group apart, distancing other men in their pursuit of
distinction, were to be found in this fly-infested shack in Patagonia;
flags of nations now in existence, of nations which had died and desired
to live again, of nations which had never lived at all, and were
struggling to be born.
There was not a workman in this “land of all the world” who could not
find some bit of rag with his national colors at the Galician’s. Antonio
Gonzalez had, long before they were known in the embassies of Europe,
become familiar with the flags which years later were to be consecrated
by the events of the Great War. And he had room for them all; the flag
of the Irish nation was there as well as that of the Zionist republic,
later to be established in Jerusalem. Only once had he raised any
objections in the matter, and that was when some of his compatriots from
Barcelona tried to get him to put up the Catalan emblem.
“I admit this flag to membership here,” he said with a majestic wave of
the hand towards the walls already bristling with banners. “The only
condition I make is concerning its size.” He quite firmly required that
it should not exceed a fourth part of the Spanish emblem.
On national holidays, aided by Friterini, he always adorned his roof
with the exhibits of his “flag museum,” offering explanations as he did
so to the _comisario_, the only representative of authority in the
settlement. One might have thought him the keeper of the royal seal
consulting with the prime minister.
“Don Roque, you know many things, but in this matter of banners, I know
the oxen I am plowing with better than you do. The first point to
consider is this. The Argentine flag must be placed higher than any of
the others. Then, to the right of it, the Spanish flag. No other can
have that place. In this country we come next to the Argentinians, as
you know ... Isabel, _la catolica_ ... Solis ... Don Pedro de Mendoza
... Don Juan de Garay....”
He produced these names of navigators and explorers without the
slightest consideration for chronology, while, from below, he watched
his Italian waiter placing the flags on the roof. Argentina was all
right? Spain beside her? No danger of their tumbling down with the wind?
Well then, Friterini could finish up the job to his taste.
“Aren’t we all equal in this, everybody’s land?” inquired the tavern
keeper.
In the summer time the somewhat murky interior of the _boliche_ was
invaded by unbelievable multitudes of flies frantically seeking refuge
from the consuming heat of a land forever thirsting. At night the
reddish glow of the lamps kept clouds of these pests in a state of
aggressive wakefulness. Slow, tenacious, lazily obstinate, they fell
into the food, swam about in the gravy and tumbled drunkenly into the
glasses. If one chanced to open one’s mouth, at once there were some
flies in it; they buzzed in one’s ears and plunged into one’s nostrils.
Each spoonful of food in the short trip from plate to mouth was beset by
these intruders who alighted on it with tenacious feet and cautiously
outstretched wings.
Some of them of course were slaughtered. But there were so many of them,
so discouragingly many, that finally all attempts to destroy them were
abandoned out of sheer weariness. One learned finally to blow them
patiently out of the way, or quietly spit them out when they strayed
into one’s mouth.
There were other parasites too, equally obstinate in their assaults upon
the dwellings of this little town lost in an immense solitude. As the
numbers of human beings were greater per square foot in the _boliche_,
the number of these pests was greater there too. From the roof and the
walls, blood-sucking insects descended on the rough skins of the
clients, perforating them and swelling like balloons with the blood they
drew from them. And there were others that crept up from the ground,
clinging to the heavy boots of the customers, and slyly making their way
towards the flesh that they scented. In winter time when the doors of
the _boliche_ were closed, the air grew thick with tobacco smoke, and
smelt of gin, sour wine, wet clothing, and shoe leather. The
establishment meanwhile was run with an equal disregard for the
convenience or even the comfort of its patrons, and for economy. There
were scarcely any chairs in the place. The guitar-players had, it is
true, horse-skulls to sit on; but the majority of their audience dropped
on the ground when they were tired; yet, on the shelves behind the
counter, impressive stores of champagne bottles were renewed every week.
When the day laborers received their fortnight’s pay, the Galician had
to minister to the most grotesque orgies. The workmen who had no
families and who could spend all their money for their own pleasure,
devised banquets of Babylonian extravagance, recklessly ordering
innumerable tins of Spanish sardines, and nearly as many bottles of
_Pomery Greno_, to wash these tid-bits down. There were times at La
Presa when not a mouthful of bread was to be procured, but the customers
of the Galician’s, obliged to live on hard tack though they were, knew
the taste of _pâté de foie gras_, and how much a bottle of Moët and
Chandon costs. On the evenings between pay-days, gin and whiskey soothed
the silent thirst of this or that patron, or gave another the stimulus
he needed to go on talking.
The inexhaustible theme of conversation was the question as to when the
trains would begin making regular stops at La Presa, instead of simply
stopping at the dam when there was machinery to be unloaded there for
the construction work.
To the inhabitants of the settlement it seemed a gross injustice that
the trains should make no stop before Fuerte Sarmiento, under pretext
that the engineering work in the river was not yet completed, nor the
adjacent lands irrigated, and that consequently there could be no
question of colonizing there.
In the old world the towns came first; then railroads were built for
them. In this new land it was the reverse. First the rails had been laid
across the desert and at every fifty miles a station was built, around
which a town sprang up.
“Why shouldn’t we have a station in La Presa? Aren’t there more than a
thousand souls in this settlement?” Gonzales, the liberal patriot, was
indignantly inquiring. “Everyone knows that the train stops for mail at
lots of places where there is nothing but a horse tied to a hitching
post. What we need is someone to represent us at Buenos Aires.”
But, in the interval, the _Gallego’s_ patrons were content with making
guesses as to the date when the train would begin to stop at the dam
settlement, putting up cases of champagne bottles as bets on the event’s
taking place in one month or another.
Here and there chatted groups of those who were not interested in
dancing, or in the women who were assembled in the _boliche_ on much the
same footing as the champagne and gin bottles and equally purchasable.
The trench-diggers were giving voice to their opinion of the _alpataco_,
that hateful bush that rises but a short distance above the ground but
sends its iron roots, that defy and even shatter axes, down into the
ground for a distance of thirty feet. To dig out one of these bushes
keeps several men busy all day, with the result that whenever the
laborers come upon one the air quivers and becomes blue with
exclamations and profanity.
Friterini, a pale youth, with hair brushed boldly back from his
forehead, burning black eyes, and bare arms, rushed off, as soon as he
had served the clients, to join some Spanish workmen at a small table,
and to describe to them in the mongrel Italian soon acquired by those
sons of Italy who come to Spanish-speaking countries, the beauty of his
native city.
“ ...Brescia! Ah, Brescia was something far different from this blazing
desert, this sand heap, and well of thirst! Not that it was a big city,
no, that wasn’t the point, but it was beautiful, and all the youths took
their mandolins with them when they went out to make love, and there
were girls one could love there too.... Ah, Brescia!”
The _Gallego_, leaning over his counter, was lending an attentive ear to
his older customers, the _jinetes_ or riders of the country, those who
had covered every foot of it from the Andes to the Atlantic, from the
Colorado to the straits of Magellan, sometimes cattle accompanying
purchasers, other times exploring parties, sometimes prospecting for
water and pasture lands. Their patience defied time; for them the weeks
and months of their journeys were no more than so many days.
One of them liked to tell of his last trip, an exploration of lonely
lakes hidden between spurs of the Andes. He had gone on this expedition
as a guide or _baquiano_ for a European scholar to whom he had been
recommended by another scholar guided by him in the same fashion some
twenty years earlier. It was during the first expedition that the
remains of huge animals of pre-historic epochs had been found, gigantic
skeletons that were then and there labelled and boxed up to be put
together again later in the museums of the old world.
The second trip had been even more unusual; the scholar who undertook it
was also looking for pre-historic animals; but he expected to find them
alive; for among the scarce inhabitants of the mountain chain a
conviction was passed on from generation to generation that there still
existed in the Patagonian desert enormous creatures and fantastic forms,
the last remains of a fauna that had arisen during the first eras of
life on our planet.
There were even some who were certain that they had seen, from a great
distance, it is true, the gigantic plesiosaurus plunging into the
death-quiet waters of the Andene lakes, or feeding on the vegetation
along their banks. However it was always towards dusk, when the mountain
range spread its purple shadows over the plain, that these creatures
appeared. There were always, of course, sceptics to affirm that such
sights as these appeared only to those who, as they returned from some
distant _boliche_, carried in their bellies a good supply of liquor.
The old _baquiano_ did not commit himself as to the substantiality of
the beasts in question. There were arguments on both sides of the
question....
“In a whole year we never found one of those animals, and we scoured all
the territory from lake to lake and from Nahuel-Huapi to near Magellan.
But with my own eyes I have seen tracks in the ground, larger than
elephant hoofs ... and the people living around those places saw them
too. And once, near one of the most distant lakes, I found heaps of dry
dung so large that they could not have been those of any known animal.
My scholar gentleman didn’t answer when I asked him what he thought of
these signs ... you could see he was wondering where the beast’s lair
might be ... and who knows? We might have found the beast himself if we
had continued a little longer on that track. But perhaps, when there are
more people in those parts, some one of these solitary creatures will be
discovered at last.”
The proprietor of the _boliche_ liked best of all to ask these elderly
customers of his to talk to him about certain mysterious personages who
had passed through the region years earlier, just at the time when the
Indians had been driven out, and colonies were being established. They
were personages whose adventures sounded like the inventions of a
novelist; they had more often than not been born in palaces; and like
many of the saints, they had abandoned the house of their fathers to
endure every kind of privation, renouncing all the comforts that would
naturally have been theirs by prerogative of riches and rank, renouncing
even their very names, in order to be vagabonds, to know the harsh
pleasure of savage liberty.... Juan Ort, for instance, whose name was a
familiar one to all the old inhabitants of the territory....
The _Gallego_ knew this story, however, from having read it in books and
newspapers. Juan Ort was that archduke of Austria who, a victim of the
poetic melancholy hereditary in his family, gave up his rank in the
navy, and his position at court, to sail the seas in a luxurious yacht
on which was everything to delight the sense, rare and delicate foods,
exquisite music, beautiful women.
One day the news came that this yacht with its entire crew had been lost
off Cape Horn. But Juan Ort had not perished. This shipwreck, real or
feigned, was going to serve his purposes, allowing him to descend lower
in the social scale, to live with those who were struggling in life’s
lowest depths.
“I knew him,” muttered one of the other old inhabitants of La Presa.
“And he was nothing more, and nothing less than either you or I. He was
a man just like any other who comes along with his pack on his back
looking for work. But this _gringo_ was a tall, red-bearded man,
glum-like, and fond of drinking alone. He didn’t say he was Juan Ort. He
didn’t have to. We knew it. Besides, he carried in his bag a little
silver cup with the shield of the royal family on it, and he liked to
drink from it when he was on his bit of a ranch. It was the cup he drank
from when he was going to school, he said....”
But one day this romantic vagabond disappeared. Some supposed him in
hiding in the dives of Buenos Aires, others asserted that they had met
him playing the part of a strolling photographer in Paysandu. No one
knew where he had died.
“Macanás!” exclaimed the sceptics when such tales were told, “all the
_gringos_ who come around here and who don’t want to work make out that
they’re Juan Orts so that fools will gape at them.”
But Gonzalez, insatiable reader of many-volumed novels that he was,
believed in Juan Ort, and in other equally interesting characters who
came to end their days in a land where no one was ever asked to tell
what his past had been. Just so long as his customers didn’t try to
sneak out without paying their bills, the _bolichero_ was inclined to
attribute an interesting past to all of them, and look upon them all as
possible sons or nephews of an emperor, restless noblemen dissatisfied
with their origin and eager to change their manner of life.
Others of the members of the _tertulia_, those of more prosperous
aspect, were preoccupied with the future of this incipient city. Its
destiny was closely bound up with that of Gonzalez, who went about with
his hairy chest bared to the sky, his hair uncombed, his face streaked
with dust and sweat, and elastic bands supporting his shirt sleeves, so
that his hands might be free. Unquestionably the servant presented a
better appearance than the master. But the “_Gallego_” had several
thousand _pesos_ saved up in the Banco Español of Bahía Blanca; moreover
he owned a thousand acres of land near the town. The only thing in the
world that troubled him was the wretched ignorance and lack of manners
of his patrons who persisted in calling his place “_boliche_,” as in the
first days of its existence, without seeming to appreciate the important
improvements accomplished by its proprietor, nor to understand the sign
saying “_Almacén_” which occupied such an important position above the
door.
But what was his prosperity actually worth compared with the millions of
_pesos_ that were going to fall into La Presa some day, when, from a
mere workmen’s camp, it would change into an important town and its
“_almacén_” would become a handsome establishment like those in Buenos
Aires, and the dusty lands that he had bought in small lots scattered
through all the fields that were to be irrigated, would be purchased
from him for substantial sums by Spanish and Italian colonists? Then he
would return to his native land to set himself up in Madrid, going about
in its streets and drives in the most luxurious and largest automobile
to be found; and the people at home, pleased by the presents he would
bring them, would perhaps make him deputy or senator, and then one of
the cabinet ministers would present him to the king of Spain, whose
portrait, in colors, was nailed to the wooden part of one of the
partitions of his _boliche_, directly under one of the crocodiles. Why,
who knows? They might even make him a viscount, or a marqués, like so
many other _bolicheros_ who had grown rich in America! But he cut these
ambitious dreams short to return to the reality in which he was still
living. With the patrons who were interested in the irrigation of this
region, he was describing its present aspect in order to provide a more
startling contrast for its future prosperity.
“What is there here now besides the folks living at the dam? Ostriches
maybe, and a puma ... not a single thing else.”
His hearers laughed at the memory of the bands of ostriches who made
excursions now and then from the plateau to the river basin, astonished
no doubt by the novelty of the works that were being constructed along
the water’s edge. The _señorita_ from the Rojas ranch for instance
always had a good time pursuing these flocks that moved about on stilts,
and that always managed to escape by opening wide their compass-like
legs; though now and then one of them was overtaken by the young lady’s
swift lassoo.
And, when he was gripped by hunger, the puma too came down from the
uplands to prowl about the houses and ranches of La Presa.
When the puma was mentioned there were several smiles and glances in
Friterini’s direction. It was not yet forgotten that one dawn as the
waiter was on his way to the corral from the _boliche_ he had seen a
kind of tiger jump from the bottom of an empty barrel; yes, there were
spots on its skin, and it was about the size of a dog. The puma, which
had evidently selected this place as a safe lodging for the night and
had curled himself up to sleep, had given the homesick young Brescian,
whose mind was full of serenades, a fearful scare.
“When we have water, and the land is irrigated,” Gonzalez continued,
“there will be thousands and thousands of families here.”
Both he and his customers spoke, in a tone that was almost lyric, of the
marvels of irrigation. Beyond La Presa was Fuerte Sarmiento, the nearest
railway station. The town there had grown up around a fort at the time
when the Indians were driven out. The troops of the occupation had
without much difficulty opened up a small canal, taking advantage of the
grade of the river, and this water course had made the place a veritable
oasis in the midst of the dry adjacent lands. Great poplars formed walls
of defence around the orchards; vines, all kinds of garden products, and
fruit trees grew with the prodigality due to a vigorous soil that after
resting thousands of years begins once more to give birth to the
multitudes of living things that it is able to conceive and nourish. And
all the more striking were these rich harvests because of the contrast
they offered to the desert that began at once beyond the reach of the
tentacles of the canal.
But the majority of the drinkers were even more enthusiastic about
another oasis in that arid region. This one was a good many miles below
the dam at a point where there was a natural declivity in the river bed;
it had been very easy to run irrigation ditches out from the lower level
of the stream.
It was a Basque colonist who had opened up some canals, and irrigated
the several hundred acres on which he had sown alfalfa. What a fine
fodder that was! The patrons of the _boliche_ always began to talk
excitedly whenever the subject of this crop came up. No, really,
irrigated alfalfa was nothing short of miraculous. In the whole
territory of Rio Negro this plant, of Asiatic origin, needed to be sown
but once. If the alfalfa fields had water, they would sow themselves.
Why, in Fuerte Sarmiento there were alfalfa lands that dated as far back
as the expulsion of the Indians, and now after thirty odd years of
productivity they were more fertile than the day when they were first
sown. The greater the number of crops taken off, the stronger and more
luxuriant were the alfalfa plants that sprang up in their place.
“If only we could eat alfalfa,” the _Gallego_ remarked gravely, “the
social problem would be solved for there would then be food enough in
the world for everybody.”
But, unfortunately, only cattle could assimilate this remarkable fodder.
The sheep that the Basque kept in his alfalfa fields were like animals
from another planet, where miraculous fodder might give the creatures
feeding on it proportions that to our terrestrial eyes would seem
fantastically exaggerated.
“They look like creatures seen through a magnifying glass,” said the
proprietor of the _boliche_.
The Basque fellow, proud of his endless pasture lands and his huge
sheep, liked to say when some poor tramp passed through his ranch.
“I’ll give you that sheep if you can carry it!”
And then the poor devil would nearly split his sides trying to carry
the heavy beast.... When the rich alfalfa grower had guests he would
order a turkey, to be put on the spit. And the guests would be overcome
with amazement when they saw the enormous alfalfa-fattened bird brought
on the table. They always thought it must be a sheep roasted whole.
The Basque’s prosperity made it possible for him to be generous toward
the poverty of others, and even indulgent to theft; but he could not
tolerate Manos Duras and other cattle thieves because they took live
animals from him.
“Let them take all the meat they want,” he used to say. “I know what it
is to be poor, and I know what it is to be hungry. But at least,
_pucha!_ Let them leave me the skins....”
More than once as he rode around through his enormous estate he broke
into curses at sight of the entrails and other remains of a sheep left
near the ditches. But if, a few paces from the scene of the slaughter,
he came upon the hide still quite fresh spread out on the wire fence, he
would smile and mutter,
“That’s all right. Just so long as they’re decent and only take what
they need to satisfy their hunger....”
Meanwhile the _boliche_ owner was dreaming of some day being as rich as
his compatriot. He too would own immense alfalfa fields.... And, talking
interminably of this fodder with the other men there who also owned
barren tracts of hard-baked soil, and were also awaiting the
transformation to be wrought by irrigation, he never noticed the length
of the night hours; for, like children listening to a marvelous tale, he
went through the same emotions at the same words without ever tiring.
“If the day would only come when we shall see our fields all red and
covered with water as though we were going to make bricks of the watered
clay....”
The thought of it was sheer ecstasy.... Then they would look at the
clock. It was late! They had to go to bed, for they must be up at dawn.
Instinctively, as they left the _boliche_, they all turned their eyes
toward the dark river that silently, for thousands of miles, slipped
through the arid lands without once bestowing on them the gentle caress
of its touch, a caress that would have brought forth so many wonders.
But, while waiting for the moment when he would wake up to find himself
a millionaire, Antonio Gonzalez decided that one of the best ways of
turning an honest penny was to arrange Sunday horse races. For this
enterprise he needed don Roque’s permission; and it was not so easy to
get it.
The _comisario_ was afraid of his superiors in office; and the federal
government had forbidden horse racing in the territories where the
conditions of life were too primitive to allow orderly management of
this diversion. It always resulted in drunken orgies and innumerable
fist-fights, or worse. But this former city-dweller needed greater
resources than his government pay in order to bear his sojourn in
Patagonia with resignation; for which reason Antonio Gonzalez could
always persuade him, after a little private conversation, to overcome
his scruples in the matter.
“But, for Heaven’s sake, _Gallego_, don’t advertise your horse race too
widely!” the _comisario_ implored. “Don’t make such a noise about it
that they’ll hear up in Buenos Aires about what’s going on ... because
we’ll get into trouble. Have it up at the dam if you like ... but for
the people who are here only ... no one from outside!”
But to be a success the undertaking must be given wide publicity! As
early as the Saturday before the great event, riders began coming in
from all parts of the territory.
After all there were none too many days of general merry-making in the
region and the races at La Presa were something that should be taken
advantage of. The population at the settlement suddenly tripled, and
within twenty-four hours a whole month’s supply of liquor had been
consumed at the _boliche_.
Manos Duras greeted the numerous riders who had come in from distant
ranches; many of them had from time to time been of use to him in his
business transactions. On this occasion they all rode their best mounts,
those they called “_fletes_”; these were the horses they were going to
ride in the races.
The prizes put up by the _Gallego_ did not amount to very much--a twenty
_peso_ note, brightly colored handkerchiefs, a jar of gin; but the
_gauchos_, proud of their spurs, of their belts adorned with pierced
silver coins, of their silver-handled knives, had come to win for the
honor and glory of winning. They would go home satisfied with having
shown their skill and grace as horsemen before the hordes of _gringo_
workmen who were quite incapable of riding a broncho.
They did not often start for home when the races were over, but stayed
to celebrate their triumph. This brought it about that in the early
hours of Sunday the _Gallego_ took in money by the fistful. It was these
hours that were most dreaded by Don Roque, and that made him vacillate
about granting new permissions to Gonzalez, even though such refusals
cost him the handsome sums that the tavern keeper was only too willing
to pay him.
The crowds overflowed from the _boliche_ and formed in groups around it.
Friterini aided by the women went in and out among them with bottles and
glasses. Guitars were twanging, accompanied by shouts and the clapping
that meant there was dancing going on in the centre of the dense
clusters of _gauchos_ and workmen. The _comisario_ with his long sabered
soldiers stood at a considerable distance for he knew that his presence,
or theirs at least, served more often than not to excite instead of
pacify the crowd.
It was the Chilians who worried him most. In ordinary celebrations when
they were with their compatriots, they grew drunk methodically without
any violent changes of mood. Accustomed to a certain decorum in their
social relations, they sang and danced the “_cueca_” without in any way
disturbing the peace. Nevertheless their aggressive patriotism increased
in proportion to the quantity of liquor they absorbed.
“_Viva_ Chile!” they shouted in chorus, in the intervals between cuecas
their dances.
Some more enthusiastic member of the crowd would complete the
exclamation in due form, hurling it out in all its classical purity, in
the fashion of the _rotos_ when they are celebrating a national
holiday, or leading a bayonet charge.
“_Viva_ Chile--”
But on the days of the horse races, the presence of strangers,
especially those haughty desert riders, who were so proud of the horses
they bestrode, of their saddles ornamented with silver work, and of
their weapons, and the jingling metal ornaments of their attire, seemed
to spread an aggressive uneasiness through the crowd, a mixture of
hatred and envy, especially among those _chilenos_ who were unmounted.
Suddenly the purring of the guitars would stop, and a noise of
quarreling arise in the silence. Then came women’s shrieks, and above
this sound, the animal yelp of a man mortally wounded. Silence--depths
of silence. Then the crowd would scatter, leaving a man with frantic
eyes and a blood soaked hand alone in the centre of the open space.
“Make way, comrades! Luck was against me....”
Silently they would stand out of his way. No one attempted to stop him,
not even the _comisario_ who was trying to get as far away from the
scene of action as possible.
The crime might have been an attack against the laws established by
older, and wiser generations. The brother of the stricken man or of the
dead, thought of nothing for the time being than of getting the victim
under ground. This was not the moment to attack the aggressor. There was
time enough to go in search of the “unlucky” man, and find him, wherever
he might be; then he, the avenger, would take his turn of “bad luck”
and kill his man. Murder called for vengeance in due form.
When one of these incidents occurred, don Roque, in a state of great
indignation, completely forgot the tavern-keeper’s generosity.
“Didn’t I tell you that all this would come to a bad end? Now we’ll hear
from Buenos Aires ... and before you know it I’ll lose my job!”
But Buenos Aires spoke no word, and don Roque continued in the service.
As he was the only representative of authority and as he and his
colleague at Fuerte Sarmiento were in perfect agreement about certain
points of policy, the dead man was properly buried, when there was a
dead man; if he was no more than wounded, his gashes were allowed to
heal; and of course he always swore that he had never seen the man who
attacked him, and that he couldn’t recognize him if he were to meet him
face to face.
Several months went by however and don Roque was still not mollified.
“That’s all very well, _Gallego_; but I don’t want to have any more such
doings....” Whereupon the _bolichero_ redoubled in generosity and a
horse race was announced for the following Sunday.
When this celebration came to a peaceful end, Gonzalez triumphed over
the _comisario_.
“You see! This town is getting civilized. You can trust it to be decent
now. What happened before was just an accident.”
Nevertheless the tavern-keeper, by way of avoiding trouble, extended his
generosity in the direction of Manos Duras, in the belief that he would
be invaluable as a means of maintaining the peace, inasmuch as he
inspired a wholesome fear in all those who were not his particular
friends and subject for that reason to his bidding.
One Saturday, at nightfall, Robledo came down the main street on his way
back from the irrigation works. As he rode by Pirovani’s house he looked
away and hurried his horse along, fearful lest Elena should open a
window and call to him to stop. Several days had passed since he had
last called on her. On that afternoon he felt the vague uneasiness that
foretells the presence of danger without giving any clue at to what
quarter to expect it from.
The settlement at the dam seemed to him entirely changed from what it
had been two months earlier. It looked the same; but the life of the
community had been transformed in a disquieting, and alarming way. The
gentle monotony, the rather coarse-grained self-confidence that had once
distinguished it, the mutual trust felt by most of its inhabitants in
one another, were fast disappearing.
The demon of the pampas, the terrible _Gualicho_, he who had been driven
out with the native Indians from the lands which had once been theirs,
seemed to have returned, and to be claiming his own, to be fighting for
it tooth and nail. Half-amused, half-fearful, Robledo recalled the
method employed by the Indians to uproot the spirit of evil when they
noted his presence among them. When their cattle-thieving expeditions or
their attempts to ambush neighboring tribes failed, when sickness
increased among their tents, when famine threatened, all the horsemen
would arm themselves as for a pitched battle and gallop out into the
fields to put the accursed _Gualicho_ to flight. With their lances and
_macanas_ or battle axes they fought with him, they hurled against him
their _boleadoras_, formed of pieces of leather tied at the ends around
two smooth stones, so as to wind tightly around the victim; and they
accompanied their shots and gashes and blows with shrill howls while the
women and children, in procession, took part in this united offensive,
adding their blows and imprecations to the general onslaught. Surely
some one of these countless strokes of knife and dart must reach the
evil spirit and make him flee for his life; and when at last the whole
tribe fell to the ground exhausted, peace and quiet returned to them
once more, for they were convinced that the enemy had betaken himself
out of their camp.
And now Robledo the Spaniard thought he noticed the presence of
Gualicho, the pampas demon, the malign one, the poisonous busybody. It
was he who was stirring up these men, setting one against the other. How
frequent hostile glances were among them now, as though when they looked
they saw someone different from the friend they had known so long! Would
it perhaps become necessary for the whole community to join hands and
put the enemy to flight with a combined offensive?
He was debating this problem when suddenly his horse started and stopped
so abruptly that Robledo almost took a header. At the same moment he
heard shots and saw the glass from one of the tavern windows, and then
from the door, splinter and fly through the air.
Through these openings came all manner of projectiles; bottles,
glasses, and even a horse skull. Then came some _gauchos_, friends of
Manos Duras, who backed away from the tavern firing revolvers at it.
Several men from the camp plunged through the doorway; they too were
shooting; and those of them who had no more cartridges advanced knife in
hand.
A man fell and began to drag himself along through the dust. Then
Robledo saw another man tumble over. Gonzalez appeared, in shirt sleeves
as usual, with elastic bands showing his biceps. With arms up-raised he
proffered entreaties, commands, and imprecations, in one breath. The
half-breeds who served in the _boliche_ also rushed out and added their
shrieks to the confusion, while they fled up and down the street.
Robledo took out his revolver and spurring his horse, got between both
groups of contestants, pointing first to one group, then to the other,
and at the same time commanding the crowd to come to order. With the
help of the neighbors, who began coming out of their houses, some of
them carrying rifles, he succeeded in bringing about a momentary
semblance of order. Followed by the workmen from the dam the gauchos
fled, while the women, both the dancers from the _boliche_ and the
respectable wives and mothers of the neighborhood, ran to the assistance
of the wounded.
Gonzalez, who was making a great deal of noise without anyone’s paying
attention to him, gave a gesture of delight when he recognized Robledo,
as though certain that the engineer would know just how to save the
situation.
“These are the friends of Manos Duras,” he explained. “They came to
raise a row because down at the dam they won’t let this dirty fellow
sell them any more meat, or do any business with them. As there’s a race
coming off tomorrow Manos Duras blew into town to make trouble for me
and that’s how all this happened.... It’s as though the devil was let
loose in the town now, don Manuel! And there was a time when it was so
quiet here....”
Still hot and excited from the recent battle, the _gallego_ went on
sputtering explanations. He admitted that the Chilians sometimes
provoked disturbances, but only occasionally, and always as a
consequence of too much liquor. No one could hold them responsible for
this affair! Poor _rotos_! It was the natives who had behaved
outrageously, as if carrying out secret orders, and provoking the
workmen with a definite intention of stirring up a riot.
“And this kind of thing isn’t going to stop here, don Manuel. I know
Manos Duras. If he had wanted money he would have come to me for it, and
it wouldn’t be the first time.... But there’s something else in all this
that I don’t quite get. He has some reason for making mischief, there’s
something in all this that we don’t know....”
The wounded had been picked up and put in the _boliche_ by this time. A
man on horseback started off for Fuerte Sarmiento to get the doctor, who
came to La Presa only once every two weeks. Some of the women went off
to find a Sicilian peon who was reputed to know the secret of curing
wounds; and in the middle of the street the old grannies of the
settlement were shrilling out their opinion of Manos Duras and his
friends.
Robledo, deep in thought about all that had been going on, started off
once more towards his house. Yes; Gonzalez was right. The devil has been
let loose in La Presa. Life there was completely changed from what it
had been before....
And on the following day he noticed a great transformation in the
workmen at the dam. Those who belonged to Pirovani’s gang sprawled on
the ground smoking and dozing. Some of them, those of Spanish blood,
were humming to themselves, clapping their hands and looking dreamily
away, as though they saw in the distance the homeland they had left.
The Chilian foreman known as “the friar” was going from one group to
another, protesting against this laziness; but all he got for his pains
was laughter at his expense. One of the older workmen went so far as to
answer insolently:
“What’s the matter with you? Do you expect to get something from the wop
feller when he dies? What is it to you whether we work or not? Say, cut
that stuff! He hasn’t been around here for days!”
Another laborer, with a suggestive laugh, broke out,
“He’s following that pretty _gringa_ around like a dog, you know, the
one that’s always perfumed to the king’s taste, and that they call the
_marquesa_. Well, I don’t blame him.... I would too if there was any
chance....”
And he added something that made his hearers burst out into savage and
bestial laughter. Suddenly a boy, one of the apprentices, who was
keeping a look-out from a slight rise of ground, gave the alarm.
“Engineer coming!”
With a jump they picked up their tools and went to work, bending to the
task as though they were all models of diligence, while Robledo walked
his horse slowly through the groups.
But all the while they were pretending to work they kept an eye on the
engineer, and no sooner was his back turned than they let their tools
fall once more to the ground. Robledo turned several times to look back.
And each time he did so he felt more and more convinced of Gualicho’s
presence in the colony. The demon was busying himself there, every one
was feeling the touch of his evil hand; work itself was crumbling away
in his presence....
Leaving Pirovani’s peons to their own devices he came to that part of
the works where his own men were digging canals.
Here something was being accomplished. Torre Bianca was directing the
men and keeping close watch of every move, letting no effort go to
waste, and lending an example by his own activity. As soon as he caught
sight of Robledo he led him away to a spot where they could talk
unheard. From his manner Robledo guessed that he had unpleasant news to
impart.
“The bad example set by those fellows at the dam is beginning to affect
these men up here. They won’t work any longer than the other laborers,
they say. I can’t make out what’s got into poor old Pirovani. He seems
to have given up his work entirely.”
Robledo looked at him fixedly, but he kept silence while Torre Bianca
went on with his news.
“Last night Moreno told me that Pirovani and Canterac are not getting on
together.... Each one of them in his capacity, as engineer, refuses to
approve of what the other does as contractor. They seem to want to give
each other a black eye with the government so as to hold up the pay.
Pirovani says that he’ll stop the whole works and go to Buenos Aires,
where he has a lot of friends, and make complaints at headquarters there
about the Frenchman....”
This was more than Robledo could listen to in silence.
“And while they are squabbling,” he raged, “they’re losing precious
time. Winter is coming; that means that the river will rise, and if the
dam isn’t finished, it will be swept away and the work of years
destroyed. The whole thing will have to be done over again....”
The _marqués_, who was plunged in thought, suddenly exclaimed:
“But those men used to be friends! Something must have come between
them....”
Robledo made a determined effort to keep his eyes from betraying pity
and amazement as he looked at his friend. He merely nodded.