The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [262]
His men do not move: it is as though they’d even stopped breathing, blinking, and not a one of them opens his mouth. Dead silent, motionless, become one with the rocks, the cacti, the bushes that hide them, they listen to the bugles passing on orders from battalion to battalion, see the banners of the escorts fluttering, hear the servers of the artillery pieces shouting to urge the bullocks, the mules, the burros on. Each corps advances in three separate sections, the one in the center waiting for each of the two on the flanks to move forward and only then advancing in turn. Why are they going through this maneuver that holds them up and appears to be as much a retreat as an advance? Pajeú realizes that it is to keep from being surprised from the flank, as happened to the Throat-Slitter’s animals and men, which the jagunços were able to attack from the edge of the trail. As he listens to the deafening din, contemplating the multicolored spectacle slowly unfolding at his feet, he keeps asking himself the same questions: “What route are they planning to take to Canudos? And what if they fan out so as to enter Belo Monte from ten different places at once?”
After the rear guard has passed by, he eats a handful of flour and raw brown sugar and he and his men head for Jueté, two leagues away, to wait for the soldiers. On their way there, a trek that takes them about two hours, Pajeú hears his men grimly commenting on the size of the great long cannon, which they have baptized A Matadeira—the Killer. He shuts them up. They are right, though, it is enormous, doubtless capable of blowing several houses to smithereens with one shell, and perhaps of piercing the wall of the Temple under construction. He will have to warn Abbot João about A Matadeira.
As he has calculated, the soldiers bivouac in Lagoa da Laje. Pajeú and his men pass so close to the field huts that they hear the sentinels talking over the day’s happenings. They meet up with Taramela before midnight, in Jueté. They find there a messenger sent by Mané Quadrado and Macambira; the two of them are already in Rosário. On the way there, they have seen cavalry patrols. As the men get water to drink and rinse their faces by the light of the moon in the little lagoon of Jueté to which the shepherds in the region used to bring their flocks in the old days, Pajeú dispatches a tracker to Abbot João and stretches out on the ground to sleep, between Taramela and an old jagunço who is still talking about A Matadeira. It would be a good idea if the dogs were to capture a jagunço who would tell them that all the ways into Belo Monte are well defended, except for the slopes of A Favela. Pajeú turns the thought over in his mind till he falls asleep. The woman visits him in his dreams.
As it is beginning to get light, Felício’s group arrives. He has been surprised by one of the patrols of soldiers protecting the flanks of the convoy of cattle and goats trailing along behind the column. Felício’s men scattered and did not suffer any casualties, but it took them a long time to regroup, and there are still three men missing. When they learn what happened in Lagoa da Laje, a half-breed Indian boy, who can’t be more than thirteen and whom Pajeú uses as a messenger, bursts into tears. He is the son of the jagunço who had been removing the tiles on the rooftop of the little house when the dogs surprised and killed him.
As they are advancing toward Rosário, split up into very small groups, Pajeú goes over to the youngster, who is trying his best to hold back his tears though every so often a sob escapes him. Without preamble, he asks him if he would like to do something for the Counselor, something that will help avenge his father. The youngster looks at him with such determination in his eyes that he needs no other reply. He explains to him what he wants him to do. A circle of jagunços gathers round to listen, looking by turns at him and at the boy.
“There’s more to it than just letting yourself be caught,” Pajeú says. “They have to think that that was the last thing