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By Root 2102 0

Throat-Slitter’s cannons. The old woman had been in the procession, and when she returned home, her hut was a heap of rubble beneath which were three of her daughters and all her nieces and nephews, a dozen young ones who slept one on top of the other on the floor and in a couple of hammocks. The woman had climbed up to the trenches at As Umburanas with the Catholic Guard when it went up on the heights there three days ago to wait for the soldiers. She had cooked and brought water to the jagunços from the nearby water source, along with the rest of the women, but when the shooting began, Big João and his men saw her take off amid the dust, stumble down the gravel slope, and reach the trail at the bottom where—slowly, without taking any precautions—she began wandering about among the wounded soldiers, giving them the coup de grâce with a little dagger. They had seen her poke about among the uniformed corpses, and before the hail of bullets blew her to pieces, she had managed to strip some of them naked, lop off their privates, and stuff them in their mouths. All during the fighting, as he saw infantrymen and cavalrymen pass by, saw them die, fire their rifles, fall over each other, trample their dead and wounded underfoot, flee from the rain of gunfire and run for their lives along the slopes of A Favela, the only way left open, Big João’s eyes kept constantly looking back toward the dead body of that old woman that he has just left behind.

As he approaches a bog dotted with thornbushes, cacti, and a few scattered imbuzeiros, young Macambira raises the cane whistle to his lips and blows a shrill blast that sounds like a parakeet’s screech. An identical blast comes in reply. Grabbing João by the arm, the youngster guides him through the bog, their feet sinking into it up to the ankles, and soon afterward the former slave is drinking from a leather canteen full of fresh sweet water, squatting on his heels alongside Joaquim Macambira beneath a shelter of boughs beyond which are many pairs of gleaming eyes.

The old man is consumed with anxiety, but Big João is surprised to discover that the one source of his anxiety is the big, extra-long, shining cannon drawn by forty bullocks that he has seen on the Jueté road. “If A Matadeira goes into action, the dogs will blow up the towers and the walls of the Temple of the Blessed Jesus and Belo Monte will disappear,” he mutters gloomily. Big João listens to him attentively. He reveres Joaquim Macambira; he has the air of a venerable patriarch. He is very old, his white locks fall in curls that reach down to his shoulders, his little snow-white beard sets off his dark weather-beaten face with a nose like a gnarled vine shoot. His eyes buried in deep wrinkles sparkle with uncontainable energy. He was once the owner of a large plot of land where he grew manioc and maize, between Cocorobó and Trabubu, in the region known in fact as Macambira. He worked that land with his eleven sons and had many a fight with his neighbors over boundary lines. But one day he abandoned everything and moved with his enormous family to Canudos, where they occupy half a dozen dwellings opposite the cemetery. Everyone in Belo Monte approaches the old man very warily because he has the reputation of being a fiercely proud, touchy man.

Joaquim Macambira has sent messengers to ask Abbot João whether, in view of the situation, he should continue to mount guard at As Umburanas or withdraw to Canudos. He has had no answer as yet. What does Big João think? The latter shakes his head sadly: he doesn’t know what to do. On the one hand, what seems most urgent is to hasten back to Belo Monte so as to protect the Counselor in case there is an attack from the north. But, on the other hand, hasn’t Abbot João said that it is essential that they protect his rear?

“Protect it with what?” Macambira roars. “With our hands?”

“Yes,” Big João says humbly. “If that’s all there is.”

They decide that they will stay at As Umburanas until they receive word from the Street Commander. They bid each other goodbye with a simultaneous