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By Root 2222 0

a little while he forgets about them, and after drifting along on different fuzzy images, his mind suddenly focuses on this man whose body is touching his. Two years younger than he, with light curly hair, calm, self-effacing, Honório is more than his brother twice over, by blood and by marriage: he is also his comrade, his crony, his confidant, his best friend. They have never separated, they have never had a serious disagreement. Is Honório in Belo Monte, as he is, because he believes with all his heart in the Counselor and everything he represents, religion, truth, salvation, justice? Or is he here only out of loyalty to his brother? In all the years that they have been in Canudos, the question has never entered his mind before. When the angel’s wing brushed him and he abandoned his own affairs to take those of Canudos in hand, he naturally presumed that his brother and sister-in-law, like his wife, would willingly accept this change in their lives, as they had each time that misfortune had made them set out in new directions. And that was what had happened: Honório and Assunção acceded to his will without the slightest complaint. It had been when Moreira César attacked Canudos, on that endless day that he spent fighting in the streets, that for the first time he began to have the gnawing suspicion that perhaps Honório was going to die there at his side, not because of something he believed in, but out of respect for his older brother. Whenever he ventures to discuss the subject with Honório, his brother pokes fun at him: “Do you think I’d risk my neck just to be with you? How vain you’ve become, compadre!” But instead of placating his doubts, these jibes only make him all the more troubled. He has told the Counselor: “Out of selfishness, I have done as I pleased with Honório and his family without ever finding out what it was that they wanted, as though they were pieces of furniture or goats.” The Counselor provided balm for this wound: “If that is how it has been, you have helped them accumulate merit to gain heaven.”

He feels someone shaking him, but it takes him a while to open his eyes. The sun is up, shining brightly, and Honório is standing there with his finger on his lips, motioning him to be still. “They’re here, compadre,” he says in a very soft voice. “It’s fallen to our lot to receive them.”

“What an honor, compadre,” he answers in a voice thick with sleep.

He kneels down in the dugout. From the ravines on the other side of the Vaza-Barris a sea of blue, lead-gray, red uniforms, with glints of sunlight glancing off their brass buttons and their swords and bayonets, is sweeping toward them in the bright morning light. So that is what his ears have been hearing for some time now: the roll of drums, the blare of bugles. “It looks as though they’re coming straight toward us,” he thinks. The air is clear, and though they are still a long way away, he can see the troops very distinctly; they are deployed in three corps, one of which, the one in the center, appears to be heading directly toward the trenches. Something in his mouth that feels pasty keeps him from getting a single word out. Honório tells him that he has already sent two “youngsters” to Fazenda Velha and to the Trabubu exit to bring Abbot João and Pedrão the news that the enemy troops are coming this way.

“We have to hold them off,” he hears himself say. “Hold them off as best we can till Abbot João and Pedrão can fall back to Belo Monte.”

“Provided they aren’t attacking via A Favela at the same time,” Honório growls.

Antônio doesn’t believe they are. Opposite him, coming down the ravines of the dry river, are several thousand soldiers, more than three thousand, perhaps four, which must be all the troops the dogs can field. The jagunços know, because of what the “youngsters” and spies have reported, that there are more than a thousand sick and wounded in the field hospital set up in the valley between A Favela and the Alto do Mário. Some of the troops must have stayed behind there, guarding the hospital, the artillery, and the installations.