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By Root 2223 0

soon realized that they were not moving downward but upward, that they were fleeing from Canudos. Yes, there was no doubt of it, they were emerging from the river, on the run, making for the heights, and on the far side of it she saw groups of men shooting and chasing after isolated soldiers who ran out from between the huts, trying to reach the riverbank. Yes, the soldiers were fleeing, and it was the jagunços now who were pursuing them. “They’re coming this way,” the Dwarf whined, and her blood froze as she noticed that because she had been watching the hillsides opposite, she had not realized that there was a battle going on at her feet as well, on both banks of the Vaza-Barris. That was where the uproar that she had thought she’d dreamed had been coming from.

She glimpsed—in a dizzying confusion, half blotted out by the dust and the smoke that deformed bodies, faces—horses that had fallen and been stranded on the riverbanks, some of them dying, for they were moving their long necks as though asking for help to get themselves out of that muddy water in which they were about to drown or bleed to death. A riderless horse with only three legs was wheeling about, maddened with pain, trying to bite its tail, amid soldiers who were fording the river with their rifles over their heads, as others appeared, running and screaming from amid the walls of Canudos. They burst out by twos and threes, some of them running backward like scorpions, and plunged into the water, trying to reach the slope where she and the Dwarf were. They were being shot at from somewhere, because some of them fell, howling, wailing, but others of those in uniform were beginning to clamber up the rocks.

“They’re going to kill us, Jurema,” the Dwarf whimpered.

Yes, she thought, they’re going to kill us. She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the Dwarf, and shouted: “Run, run!” She dashed up the slope, toward the densest part of the caatinga. She was soon exhausted but found the strength to go on by remembering the soldier who had flung himself upon her that morning. When she could not run another step, she slowed down to a walk. She thought with pity how worn out the Dwarf must be, with his short little legs, though she had not heard him complain even once and he had kept up with her all the way, holding tightly to her hand. By the time they halted, darkness was falling. They found themselves on the other side of the mountain. The terrain was flat in places here and the vegetation a denser tangle. The din of the war was far in the distance now. She collapsed on the ground and automatically groped about for grasses, raised them to her mouth, and slowly chewed them till she tasted their acid juice on her palate. She spat the wad out, gathered another handful, and gradually assuaged her thirst somewhat. The Dwarf, a motionless lump, did likewise. “We’ve run for hours,” he said to her, but she did not hear him and doubtless thought that he, too, did not have enough strength left to talk. He touched her arm and squeezed her hand in gratitude. They sat there, catching their breath, chewing and spitting out fibers, till the stars came out between the sparse branches of the scrub. Seeing them, Jurema remembered Rufino, Gall. All through the day the urubus, the ants, and the lizards had no doubt been devouring their remains and by now they must be beginning to rot. She would never again see their two dead bodies, perhaps lying only a few yards away, locked in each other’s arms. At that moment she heard voices, very close by, and reached out and found the Dwarf’s little trembling hand. One of the two silhouettes had just stumbled over him, and the Dwarf was screaming as though he’d been stabbed.

“Don’t shoot, don’t kill us,” a voice from very close by screamed. “I’m Father Joaquim, the parish priest of Cumbe, we’re peaceable people!”

“We’re a woman and a dwarf, Father,” Jurema said, not moving. “We’re peaceable people, too.”

This time, she had the strength to speak the words aloud.

On hearing the roar of the first cannon shell that night, Antônio Vilanova’s reaction,