The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [265]
Sitting on the ground in a cave with the others, around a little lamp, as he drinks from a leather pouch full of brackish water that tastes wonderful to him and eats mouthfuls of beans with their still-fresh savor of oil, Pajeú tells Abbot João what he has seen, done, feared, and suspected since leaving Canudos. João listens to him without interrupting, waiting for him to drink or chew before asking questions. Sitting round him are Taramela, Mané Quadrado, and old Macambira, who joins in the conversation to put in a few words about the frightening prospects that A Matadeira represents. Outside the cave, the jagunços have stretched out on the ground to sleep. It is a clear night, filled with the chirping of crickets. Abbot João reports that the column mounting from Sergipe and Jeremoabo numbers only half as many troops as this one, a mere two thousand men. Pedrão and the Vilanovas are lying in wait for it at Cocorobó. “That’s the best place to fall upon it,” he says. And then he immediately returns to the subject that weighs most heavily on their minds. He agrees with them: if it has advanced as far as Rancho do Vigário, the column will cross the Serra da Angico tomorrow. Because otherwise it would have to veer ten leagues farther west before finding another way to get its cannons through.
“It’s after Angico that we’re endangered,” Pajeú grumbles.
As in the past, João makes traces on the ground with the point of his knife. “If they veer off toward O Taboleirinho, all our plans will have gone awry. Our men are waiting for them to come via A Favela.”
Pajeú pictures in his mind how the slope forks off in two directions after the rocky, thorny ascent to Angico. If they fail to take the fork leading to Pitombas, they will not go by way of A Favela. Why would they take the one to Pitombas? They might very well take the other one, the one that leads to the slopes of O Cambaio and O Taboleirinho.
“Except for the fact that if they go that way they’ll run into a hail of bullets,” Abbot João explains, holding up the lamp to light his scratches in the dirt. “If they can’t get through that way, the only thing they can do is go via Pitombas and As Umburanas.”
“We’ll wait for them then as they come down from Angico,” Pajeú agrees. “We’ll lay down gunfire all along their route, from the right. They’ll see that that route is closed to them.”
“And that’s not all,” Abbot João says. “After that, you have to allow yourselves enough time to reinforce Big João, at O Riacho. There are enough men on the other side. But not at O Riacho.”
Fatigue and tension suddenly overcome Pajeú, and Abbot João sees him slump over on Taramela’s shoulder, fast asleep. Taramela slides him gently to the floor and takes away his rifle and the half-breed youngster’s shotgun, which Pajeú has been holding on his knees. Abbot João says goodbye with a quickly murmured “Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor.”
When Pajeú wakes up, day is breaking at the top of the ravine, but it is still pitch-dark around him. He shakes Taramela, Felício, Mané Quadrado, and old Macambira, who have also slept in the cave. As a bluish light comes over the hills, they busy themselves replenishing their store of ammunition, used up at Rosário, from the cases buried by the Catholic Guard in the cave. Each jagunço takes three hundred bullets with him in his big leather pouch. Pajeú makes each of them repeat what it is he must do. The four groups leave separately.
As they climb the bare rock face of the Serra do Angico, Pajeú’s band—it will be the first to attack, so that the troops will pursue them through these hills to Pitombas, where the others will be posted—hears, in the distance, the bugles blowing. The column is on the march. He leaves two jagunços at the summit and descends with his men to the foot of the other face, directly opposite the steep slope down which the column must come, since it is the only place wide enough for the wheels of their wagons to slip through. He scatters his men about among the bushes, blocking the trail that forks off toward