• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2260 0

that the sound of their voices is drowned out by the crunching of little stones and the rhythmic shuffle of sandals and espadrilles. Among these eighty are some who were with him in his cangaço, along with others who were marauders in Abbot João’s band or Pedrão’s, old pals who once served in the police flying brigades, and even onetime rural guards and infantrymen who deserted. That men who were once irreconcilable enemies are now marching together is the work of the Father, up there in heaven, and of the Counselor, here below. They’ve worked the miracle of reconciling Cains, turning the hatred that reigned in the backlands into brotherhood.

Pajeú steps up the pace and keeps it brisk all night long. When, at dawn, they reach the Serra de Caxamango and halt to eat, with a palisade of xiquexiques and mandacarus for cover, all of them are stiff and sore.

Taramela awakens Pajeú some four hours later. Two trackers have arrived, both of them very young. Their voices choke as they speak and one of them massages his swollen feet as they explain to Pajeú that they have followed the troops all the way from Monte Santo. It’s true: there are thousands of soldiers. Divided into nine corps, they are advancing very slowly because of the difficulty they are having dragging along their arms, their carts, their portable field huts, and because of the enormous hindrance represented by a very long cannon they are bringing, which keeps getting stuck in the sand and obliges them to widen the trail as they go along. It is being drawn by no less than forty oxen. They are making, at most, five leagues a day. Pajeú interrupts them: what interests him is not how many of them there are but where they are. The youngster rubbing his feet reports that they made a halt at Rio Pequeno and bivouacked at Caldeirão Grande. Then they headed for Gitirana, where they halted, and finally, after many hitches, they arrived at Juá, where they encamped for the night.

The route the dogs have taken surprises Pajeú. It is not that of any of the previous expeditions. Do they intend to come via Rosário, instead of via Bendengó, O Cambaio, or the Serra de Canabrava? If that is their plan, everything will be easier, for with a few skirmishes and ruses on the part of the jagunços, this route will take them to A Favela.

He sends a tracker to Belo Monte, to repeat what he has just been told to Abbot João, and they begin marching again. They go on without stopping till dusk, through stretches of scrub that are a tangle of mangabeiras, cipós, and thickets of macambiras. The groups led by Mané Quadrado, Macambira, and Felício are already at Lagoa da Laje. Mané Quadrado’s has run into a mounted patrol that was scouting the trail from Aracati to Jueté. Squatting down behind a hedge of cacti, they saw them go by, and then come back that way a couple of hours later. There is no question, then: if they are sending patrols out toward Jueté it means that they’ve chosen to take the Rosário road. Old Macambira scratches his head: why choose the longest way round? Why take this indirect route that will mean a march fourteen or fifteen leagues longer?

“Because it’s flatter,” Taramela says. “There are almost no uphill or downhill stretches if they go that way. It’ll be easier for them to get their cannons and wagons through.”

They agree that that is the most likely reason. As the others rest, Pajeú, Taramela, Mané Quadrado, Macambira, and Felício exchange opinions. As it is almost certain that the troop will be coming via Rosário, they decide that Mané Quadrado and Joaquim Macambira will go post themselves there. Pajeú and Felício will track them from Serra de Aracati on.

At dawn, Macambira and Mané Quadrado take off with half the men. Pajeú asks Felício to go ahead of him with his seventy jagunços to Aracati, posting them along the half-league stretch of road so as to scout the movements of the battalions in detail. He will remain where they are now.

Lagoa da Laje is not a lagoon—though it may have been one in the very distant past—but a damp ravine where maize, cassava, and beans