The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [161]
Rufino uses the boards over the window to prepare the deceased for burial, tying them around with the bright-colored bits of cloth. He hoists the dubious coffin onto his shoulder and goes outside, followed by the woman. Some villagers show him the way to the cemetery and lend him a shovel. He digs a grave, places the coffin in it and fills it up again, and remains there while the Bearded Lady prays. On returning to the little settlement, she thanks him effusively. Rufino, who has been standing staring into the distance, asks her: Did they also take the woman with them? The Bearded Lady blinks. You’re Rufino, she says. He nods. She tells him that Jurema knew he’d be coming. Did they take her away with them, too? No, she went off with the Dwarf, heading for Canudos. A group of sick people and healthy townspeople overhear the conversation and are amused. Rufino is so exhausted he begins to stagger. He is offered hospitality and agrees to go rest in the house that the Bearded Lady is occupying. He sleeps till nightfall. When he wakes up, a man and wife bring him a bowl with a thick substance in it. He has a conversation with them about the war and the upheavals all over the world. When the man and woman leave, he asks the Bearded Lady about Galileo and Jurema. She tells him what she knows and informs him that she, too, is going to Canudos. Isn’t she afraid she’s entering the lion’s den? She is more afraid of being all by herself; up there she’ll perhaps meet up with the Dwarf again and they can go on keeping each other company.
The following morning, they bid each other goodbye. The tracker takes off toward the west, since the villagers assure him that that was the way the capangas were headed. He makes his way amid bushes, thorns, and thickets and in the middle of the morning he dodges a patrol of scouts who are combing the scrub. He halts often to examine the animal tracks on the ground. He captures no game that day and is obliged to chew on bits of greenery. He spends the night in Riacho de Varginha. Shortly after resuming his journey the next morning, he spies the army of Throat-Slitter, the name that is on everyone’s lips. He sees the troops’ bayonets gleaming in the dust, hears the creaking of gun carriages rolling along the trail. He breaks into his little trot again but does not enter Zélia till after dark. The villagers tell him that not only have the soldiers passed that way but Pajeú’s jagunços as well. Nobody, however, remembers having seen a party of capangas who have anybody who looks like Gall with them. Rufino hears the cane whistles keening in the distance; they hoot intermittently all night long.
Between Zélia and Monte Santo the terrain is flat, dry, strewn with sharp stones, and without trails. Rufino makes his way cautiously, fearing that he may meet up with a patrol at any moment. He finds water and food at mid-morning. Shortly thereafter, he has the feeling that he is not alone. He looks about, inspects the scrub, walks back and forth: nothing. A while later, however, there is no doubting the fact: he is being watched, by several men. He tries to shake them, changes direction, hides, runs. Useless: they are trackers who know their business and they are still there, invisible and very close by. He walks on resignedly, taking no precautions now, hoping that they’ll kill him. A few minutes later, he hears a herd of goats bleating. He finally comes upon a clearing. Before he spies the armed men, he sees the young girl: an albino, deformed, with a mad look in her eyes. Dark bruises show through her ripped garments. She is playing with a handful of animal bells and a cane whistle of the sort that shepherds use to guide their flocks. The men, some twenty of them, allow him to approach them, not saying a word to him. They look more like peasants than cangaceiros, but they have machetes, carbines, bandoleers, knives, powder horns. When Rufino reaches