The Exiles and Other Stories Page 2

  Nevertheless, our traveler, despite the dark terror inherent in a stormy night in the forest, with no protection but his own courage, did not seem to be afraid. His cautious pace showed concern, yes, foresight as well, but not fear. To a knowing eye something about him revealed a person accustomed to the jungle. This something was his way of walking. He lifted his feet higher, a lot higher than apparently necessary, like someone walking on stilts, and this with a natural pliancy that identified from afar the son—either native or adoptive—of the forest.

  Bristling with trunks and branches, the jungle floor, in fact, requires raising the legs so as not to trip, and this maneuver, extremely tiring at first, ends up becoming unconscious and therefore quite easy. On that account one can spot without fail the more or less jungle-wise character of the walker.

  So our man was a person accustomed to the woods. And the bolts of lightning which, with their flashing glare, have allowed us to follow his feline progress, will permit us to learn something more.

  Thus, in the livid brilliance of a ray of lightning followed by a frightful thunderclap, one could see that the traveler was wearing a pith helmet, a torn blouse and torn blue trousers, and heavy boots. The helmet revealed at once that its wearer was not a laborer; but on the other hand his visible nonchalance with respect to the forest, rare in a boss, seemed to affirm that he was.

  What was he, then? An owner of a logging-camp? And what could he be doing on that night, in the very depths of the forest, walking along like someone watching for something, and all this without a shotgun? That’s what we’ll shortly know.

  Like backlashes from the very fire that had lasted since nightfall, the lightning bolts had diminished. But now the rain was coming down in torrents, and the whole jungle, beaten without respite by the monstrous drops, gave off a muffled rumble.

  “Damn!” the traveler muttered as he stopped. “Only paca rats are fit to go out in this weather.”

  He said this in Spanish, but with a distinct Italian accent, and raised his head with that unconscious curiosity one has to look at the sky when it’s raining furiously. At that instant a resplendent lightning bolt split the air in front of him. The traveler closed his eyes, dazzled. For a moment he kept them that way, to dispel his temporary blindness. When he opened them he already had normal vision, and he plunged it into the darkness before him.

  “And that dimwit isn’t here yet!” he muttered a second time.

  What strange appointment could that be? The traveler remained motionless, getting even wetter—if that were possible, because the water was running from his helmet in streams, as though from an umbrella.

  Despite his stillness, however, he couldn’t hear a soft rustling that arose behind him. At that moment a thunderclap erupted, and when its noise died down the rustling stopped as well.

  The slightly shaken branches were left in total silence. Nevertheless, an uncanny feeling led our traveler to think that something had just taken place. Was it a chance solicitude? The intuition of danger common in frontier people, accustomed to a constant life-on-the-alert? Whatever the case, we’ve seen that the man we’re concerned with didn’t seem to be at all affected by the gloomy spectacle of the jungle on a night like that. But this time was different. He turned his head quickly, thrust his falcon’s glance into the deep canebrake he sensed at his back, and held still a while, lending that attentive ear which subdues and contracts all the other sensations of the body, and which the bush-hunter puts to use with all his heart and soul, for hanging from it, as from a thread, is his life.

  He heard nothing, and turned around, again investigating the darkness; and hurling an emphatic curse, went on ahead. Then at the edge of the canebrake two doleful green dots glared out. They advanced with deathly slowness up to the trail and followed the traveler’s progress. After a while the green dots began to move in his direction.

  Meanwhile our strange traveler was continuing his cautious advance, when suddenly a wail of agony—long, throbbing, and afflictive—drowned out the noise of the storm. It came from deep in the distant reaches of the jungle. When he heard it the traveler stopped abruptly; but rather than one of terror, a beaming expression of joy broke out on his face.

  “At last!” he shouted, almost running. A moment later he stopped again, seized with intense anxiety.

  “It seemed to be close to the ground,” he murmured, in the grip of anguish.

  A moment went by. Finally making up his mind, he spread his mouth open with the thumb and index finger of his left hand and let out a long cry into the sinister night, the same desolate wail that had come to him. A moment later, but much nearer, the melancholy signal sounded again, and the traveler uttered a deep sigh of relief.

  “I’ll have to tell him not to imitate so well,” he murmured smiling and moving on.

  The cry of agony that both had just sent forth was a perfect imitation of the one you can hear from the anteater on frigid winter nights, and it sounds like a-hu! a-hu! a-hu! ahu! ahu! ahhhúu!

  An instant later a shadow stood in front of the man we’ve met. The newcomer, from what could be glimpsed during the flashes of lightning, was wearing a large straw hat with a red band. Above the waist a striped workshirt, which by now couldn’t have many buttons left, judging from the wide opening it left at his chest. Around his waist, on top of his drawers and down to his knees was a burlap rag held up by a narrow cord.

  “How come you took so long?” our traveler said to him hurriedly. “I’ve been soaked to the bone for an hour already.”

  “Nothing much,” said the newcomer. “The manager called me to look over the account books. He says he’s tired of settling everything on Saturday.”

  The traveler smiled.

  “Caldeira, eh?”

  “Yes, he says that ever since you’re not the boss, everything’s been going better.”

  The traveler smiled again without saying anything. But after a while he murmured:

  “Poor Caldeira! I think she wants to see him as well.”

  When he heard she, the Indian (for the man who had arrived was an Indian) shuddered.

  “I haven’t seen her for days,” he murmured.

  “Who?”

  “Her.”

  “Oh! she’s fine.”

  The Indian gave the traveler a look of terror and respect.

  “Careful, boss!”

  The traveler smiled again.

  “Boss, I think that’s going too far . . . ,” insisted the Indian in a low voice.

  His speaking companion put his hand on his shoulder and fastened on his eyes a deep look of irony and compassion.

  “Poor Guaycurú!” he said slowly. “Poor Indian!”

  Surely those simple words evoked awful things, for the latter lowered his head as though under the weight of an oppressive memory.

  “Is it all over?” said the traveler affectionately.

  “Yes,” replied the other man softly. And he added, in a murmur:

  “When it’s hot I burn. I’ve got poison in my blood.”

  “Still, your face is better now,” said his companion. “Let’s see . . .”

  He moved his face closer to the Indian’s, and at that moment a bolt of lightning rent the sky with a phosphorescent slash.

  The traveler fell back instantaneously.

  “Damn!” he muttered, turning pale. “It’s not a human face anymore . . .”

  And in fact that presence wasn’t a face, but something deformed, swollen, out of proportion, cut up into badly healed sores. The forehead, neck, chest, all one could manage to see, offered the same monstrous appearance.

  The traveler eyed him a while, his look continually flaring up with ominous glimmers of revenge.

  “Has Alves seen you like this?” he asked.

  “Yes,” muttered the Indian.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He laughed. Yesterday morning when I went to the store to get cooking grease, he yelled at me, laughing . . .”

  His words
broke off and a howl escaped from the depths of his breast. The traveler shuddered.

  “What did he tell you?” he insisted.

  “That he was very pleased with the little lesson he’d given me and that he was going to start over again . . . ,” he concluded, lowering his voice bit by bit.

  In that trailing off of his voice alone there was a world of suffering, of horrible nightmarish memories and intolerable pain.

  “And your feet?” continued the traveler. “Can you walk all right?”

  “Yes, they didn’t bite much there . . .”

  “I once heard tell of that in Africa,” murmured the traveler, as though talking to himself, “but I never believed it was true . . . Well then,” he added after a moment of silence, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Guaycurú. I presume he’ll remember something about you tomorrow.”

  “And about you, boss.”

  “About me? . . . All I’ve got is this!” he replied, smiling and holding out his left hand. There were three fingers missing, and the stumps were still red.

  “But didn’t you get it in the chest too?” added the Indian.

  “Yes, a little; a broken rib. But are they talking about me?”

  “The other day Juan heard the blasts from your shotgun, but Boss Alves doesn’t think it was yours. He says some jaguar must have eaten you. Last week a dog brought in a bloody rag from the bush. The manager thinks it’s your shirt.”

  “That’s all they know?”

  “That’s all.”

  “And about her?”

  The Indian shuddered again.

  “No,” he murmured softly.

  The traveler was about to answer, and something would surely have come out about her, that creature terrible enough that just evoking her would cause a lowering of voices—he was getting ready to answer, we say, when Guaycurú, lunging forward, caught him quickly by the arm. His companion took a step back.

  “Listen, boss!” said the Indian hurriedly.

  “What’s up?” replied the traveler, as he spun around as nimbly as a cat.

  “Listen to that, boss!” answered the Indian.

  They both held still. Then, above the noise of the leaves whipped by the rain, a distant murmur reached their ears, as deep as if it were coming up from underground. The men looked at each other briefly, eye to eye.

  “It’s a jaguar,” said the traveler simply. He didn’t have the slightest tremor in his voice, since anxiety over the unknown was succeeded by a real danger, formidable no doubt, but the effect of which, in men of true mettle, is to calm the spirit, preparing all its forces for the struggle.

  The Indian still had his ear tuned to that awful warning sound.

  “Listen, boss! It’s not a jaguar,” he said.

  Once more they held still, and the grim roar came at them again.

  “Right, it’s a mountain lion. It’s coming on the run,” said the traveler.

  A moment later he added:

  “It must be a man-eater.”

  “It’s picked up our scent. It’s coming down the trail,” muttered Guaycurú.

  And indeed, this time the roar had been heard much nearer.

  An instant later it sounded again, then again, and our men, with the quick judgment of those accustomed to knowing the exact limit of their powers, realized, without faltering, that they were no match for that animal, and were doomed.

  “And what’s worse, not even a revolver,” muttered the traveler, in a tone of annoyance, but not fear. “Have you got your machete?”

  “Yes, no use . . . It’s a man-eater. Quick, boss!” he yelled suddenly, grabbing him by the arm.

  “It’s coming running. Let’s climb this lapacho.”

  The jungle had just trembled with a deep roar, this time nearby. The beast, prodded by hunger and delight in human flesh, came rushing toward its prey, letting out a growl of anxiousness.

  In a moment our men were astride the first branches of the leaf-laden tree—which was not much of a refuge, because the puma climbs with even greater impetus than the jaguar.

  But at least that way a defense was possible, while on the ground they would have been torn apart at once between the formidable jaws of the beast.

  One after another the roars came ever more clearly, and the animal now was upon them.

  “It’s coming running,” muttered the Indian, clenching the grip of his machete in his practiced hand. In fact, they could now hear a muffled rustle of branches shaken violently; and—so near this time as to provoke tumultuous heartbeats in those two apparently predestined to a horrible death—a roar announced the immediate presence of the beast, And our men had already made a last appeal to all their self-possession, when the traveler, who for a minute now had been listening to the roars with astonishment, murmured as he grew pale:

  “I know that . . . Guaycurú! That way of . . .” And before the Indian had time to answer, the traveler let out a cry of joy, beating his forehead: “We’re a couple of idiots. Guaycurú! We didn’t recognize her!”

  And they bounded to the ground.

  II

  The Indian, who was more agile, jumped from his perch into empty space. They were five meters up, and this is a risky leap anywhere. But he was saved by his incredible native adroitness, coming out with no more than a twisted ankle.

  No sooner was he on the ground than the traveler, with amazing speed, brought his hands to his mouth in the form of a horn, and let go in the night a hoarse and protracted yell that resounded gloomily in the jungle, thus sending forth, in the very depths of the wild beasts’ domain, the challenge of a powerful human voice. The yell was answered immediately by a terrific roar, so near that the men shuddered, despite their bravery.

  A moment later the branches were shaking, two eyes were shining in the dark, and an enormous shadow was flinging itself upon them in a single leap—but it was a leap of joy.

  “Down, Divina, down!” shouted the traveler, restraining the advances of his lioness with his commanding voice. The animal went on emitting raucous howls of delight, trying to rub up against her owner however she could.

  It’s no secret that a puma’s caresses are as much to be feared as its rages, and that the paw it holds out toward its master with the solicitous intent of caressing him has five claws, five perfect Arabian daggers that cut deep into the flesh, no matter how slight the affection which incites them. So the traveler, content as he was with the devotion his lioness was showing him, was very careful to avoid her getting near.

  “Why this, boss?” asked the surprised Indian, coming near. But the animal turned her head toward him and let out an intense and ill-tempered growl.

  “Careful!” the traveler yelled at him. “Don’t get close! When she sees me again after several hours, she gets terribly jealous. Down, Divina!”

  In the vague light he had seen the tail of the lioness take a rigid, horizontal position. Since this is an unmistakable sign of attack, he barely found the means to control her with his voice. At once he had to pet her lavishly, since the animal, with her initial excitement now past, was voluptuously rubbing herself between her master’s legs. She even allowed Guaycurú to gently scratch her head. Once they’d managed that, and since the pleasure she was feeling was far greater than her passing jealousy, she renewed her forthright friendship with the Indian. Five minutes later the three of them were walking down the trail in brotherly comradeship.

  Rain, wind, and thunderclaps had ceased. The silence of the jungle seemed even deeper, as though under water. Only the lightning-flashes went on noiselessly illuminating the sky.

  “What about this?” asked Guaycurú again. “How did she escape?”

  At that moment the traveler was examining the sturdy collar of the beast walking beside him, and he rose up after a fruitless investigation.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “The collar is in perfect shape. The chain’s come off, but I can’t figure out how she managed to detach the hook. If we were dealing with a dog I’d be re
ady to believe that somebody removed the chain; but I don’t think there’s anyone so totally down on life that he’d get the idea of going to release this cat,” he concluded, landing a powerful slap on the flank of the lioness, who purred at the caress. That slap, a product of the traveler’s nervous energy, was very far from being a caress. But the lioness surely understood it that way, because she lifted her head toward her master with indolent affection, in quest of another sweet token of love.

  “You think she was hungry?” asked Guaycurú.

  “No; this morning she ate half the deer she caught yesterday, and today at nightfall, since I didn’t know how long I was going to be gone, I let her loose to go into the woods, but in a little while she came back bored. All the better,” murmured the traveler in conclusion.

  The lioness, as if she understood that they were talking about her, looked at one and then the other with phosphorescent eyes, as she walked on with the long and predatory pace of wild beasts.

  The two strange travelers and their even stranger companion had been moving along for an hour, and it looked as if that troubled night was going to end with no further disturbances, when suddenly the lioness stopped dead in her tracks.

  The warning of an animal who comes to a stop facing straight ahead in the woods is well worth bearing in mind. And especially so in the case before us, since along with her animal nature the lioness enjoyed the advantage of having been born in that very jungle which had just given her notice of something out of the ordinary.

  The men stopped.

  “What’s up?” asked the traveler in a low voice.

  “I don’t know,” replied the Indian in the same tone. “She’s heard something.”

  They listened carefully, holding their breath, but heard nothing.

  The lioness kept standing still, however, with her ears pricked up. She looked to one and then the other side of the trail, with that profound attention of eyes and ears peculiar to animals lying in wait, for whom the faint rustle of a leaf can be a decisive sign of life or death.

  This went on for a while. All of a sudden the animal’s gaze came to rest on a point at the edge of the woods. She extended her head still farther, as if to look better at what she saw, and then, lowering it slowly to ground level, with her snout against the earth she let out a muffled, sad, and deathly roar, which sent a chill of anguish into the hearts of the men.