ordered others to wait. His wife and sister-in-law had left for the Health Houses and Honório’s children were in the trench in As Umburanas. He opened the storehouse that had once been a stable and was now the arsenal of Canudos, and his helpers took the boxes of explosives and projectiles to the back room of the store. He instructed them to hand ammunition over only to Abbot João or men sent by him. He left Honório in charge of the distribution of gunpowder and with three helpers ran through the meanders of Santo Elói and São Pedro to the Menino Jesus forge, where the smiths, following his instructions, had for the past week stopped making horseshoes, hoes, sickles, knives, and worked day and night turning nails, tin cans, hooks, iron tools, and every sort of metal object that could be found into bullets for blunderbusses and muskets. He found the smiths in a state of confusion, not knowing whether the order to put out all lamps and fires also applied to them. He had them relight the smithy furnace and go back to work, after helping them stop up the cracks in the walls on the side facing the hills. When he returned to the store, with a case of ammunition that smelled of sulfur, two shells crossed the sky and landed in the distance, out toward the animal pens. The thought crossed his mind that a number of kids no doubt had their bellies and legs blown off, and perhaps a few shepherds too, and that many she-goats had probably run off in panic and were doubtless breaking their legs and getting badly scratched in the brambles and cacti. At that moment he realized why he was sad. “Everything is going to be destroyed yet again, everything is going to be lost,” he thought. He felt a taste of ashes in his mouth. He thought: “Like the time of the plague in Assaré, like the time of the drought in Juazeiro, like the time of the flood in Caatinga do Moura.” But those who were shelling Belo Monte that night were worse than hostile elements, more deadly than plagues and natural catastrophes. “Thank you for having made me feel so certain of the existence of the Dog,” he prayed. “Thank you, for thus I know that you exist, Father.” He heard the bells, ringing very loudly, and their pealing did his heart good.
He found Abbot João and some twenty men carrying away the ammunition and the gunpowder: they were faceless creatures, shapes moving silently about as the rain poured down once more, making the roof shake. “Are you taking everything?” he asked him in surprise, for Abbot João himself had been adamant that the store should be the distribution center for arms and provisions. The Street Commander led him to the esplanade, by now a quagmire. “They’re deploying from here to there,” he said, pointing to A Favela and O Cambaio. “They’re going to attack from those two sides. If Joaquim Macambira’s men don’t hold out, this sector will be the first to fall. It’s better to distribute the ammunition now.” Antônio nodded. “Where are you going to be?” he asked. “All over,” the ex-cangaceiro answered.
The men were waiting with the boxes and the sacks in their arms.
“Good luck, João,” Antônio said. “I’m going to the Health Houses. Any message for Catarina?”
The ex-cangaceiro hesitated. Then he said slowly: “If I die, I’d like her to know that even though she’s forgiven what happened in Custódia, I haven’t.” He disappeared in the damp night, in which another shell had just exploded.
“Did you understand João’s message to Catarina, compadre?” Honório asked him.
“It’s a story that goes back a long way, compadre,” he answered.
By the light of a candle, in silence, listening to the dialogue between the church bells and the bugles and from time to time the roar of the cannon, they went on getting provisions, bandages, medicines ready. A little while later a little boy sent by Antônia Sardelinha came to tell them that many injured had been brought to the Santa Ana Health House. He picked up one of the boxes containing iodoform, substrate of bismuth, and calomel that Father Joaquim had procured for him and set out for the Health House with it, after telling