VIII
USUALLY, when the voice of Black White comes out of the night to me in that sudden way, I lie back in my hammock and talk until I feel that he is gone. I know his mind is not quite right, his temper is fierce, and his hands hold a rifle; also, that he comes not to talk but to listen, to hear the language of his own lost land. It is a pitiful thing, too, señores, this English-hunger of his, and, gun or no gun, I should be a dog to deny him so small a comfort.
Yet on this night felt that the talking should not be all on my side, for there were things I wished to know. And, instead of obliging him at once, as usual, I made a bargain with him.
"Good evening, White. I hope you are well," I said. "I will talk gladly, and tell you all I know. But this time you must talk too. I wish to learn a few things."
"Talk, you!" was the savage answer. His rifle-hammer clicked.
"Not unless you talk in return," I refused. "That is only fair. If you will not, and if you want to shoot me now and kill your last chance to hear English—then shoot and have it done!"
With that I lit a cigarrillo and blew smoke.
He growled something. Then he agreed.
"All right. That goes. Now talk!"
So I began.
I gave him the story of what had come about at San Fernando, and of what I had heard about Paco Peldóm. I went on to speak of my journey to the Cunucunuma, and of the end of Ramón Rodriguez, and the movement of the people of Yaracuma from their old paragua to the Iurebe. Then, as he still listened, I told of our trip to the cerro in the northeast, of finding his camp, and of the smoke which had called us back. When I stopped, he knew the whole tale of my recent travels.
He seemed to give more attention to the things I told him than to the way in which those events were told. When I described the deaths of Argel and Rodriguez he chuckled hoarsely; and when I mentioned the monkey I had left for the Butcher to swear at, he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear, but it showed he was amused. Never before had I know him to show such interest in what I said. But at length I learned that there was a reason for this.
"That all?" he asked, when I was done.
"That is all I think of now, and I have talked a long time," I said. "Now tell me—was it you who sent up that smoke today? And why?"
"Not me. But I told this man Yaracuma I wanted to see you. He got you that way."
"I see. And you waited until night at some place above here. Some man of Yaracuma came and told you I had arrived. Is it so?"
He grunted an Indian "yes."
"You have been to the mouth of the Ventuari?" I went on.
Again he grunted.
"Did you find any gang there?"
"Not the one you mean. Your 'Butcher' is gone. Saw his camp."
"That is good. Then Yaracuma is not the fool I thought him. But how come you here, so far from the high hills?"
"Had some killing to do. Had to come here to do it."
"Como? How is that?"
There was no answer for a minute. Then I heard him growl a few words. Feet moved toward me from some place a little farther back. They stopped, and again came the growl. And still I saw only Nama.
"Takes too many words," Black White grumbled then. "This man will tell you."
Another grunt, and then sounded a new voice; that of a Maquiritare man speaking Spanish.
"Loco, this was the way of this thing:
"There came into our country a bad man from the Orinoco. He came up the Caura. He went toward San Fernando. His name was Bayona."
"Oho!" I muttered. I knew this Bayona; an ugly, overbearing brute who called himself "Coronel," and who worked balata when he could get men—which was only when he could catch them. His name was so bad that it was known not only to the Maquiritares but to other Indian tribes; to the Puinabes and the Banivas, west and south of San Fernando, and even to the Yaviteros and the Barés, still farther away.
During the last wet season he had gathered a rubber crop by making slaves of some Banivas and driving them like beasts, killing half of them before the dry time ended the work. And he had taken this crop down the river to Caicara and sold it there, knowing that if he dared show his face in Bolívar he would be imprisoned for old crimes. From Caicara to the Caura is not far; and I soon learned why he had gone up the Caura.
"Bayona brought with him other bad men," the Indian went on. "They had guns and many bullets. They came suddenly and caught men and women of our nation. They did not go to big places like Uaunana. They struck small paraguas where fighters were few. They shot and killed and made slaves of men. They did vile things to women and girls. They would take the men down the Ventuari and keep them until the rains come. Then they would make them work balata.
"The men who tried to run away were tortured. At the Caño Estuca we found a dead Maquiritare tied to a tree. He had been beaten dead. Many broken sticks were around him. He was a strong man. It would take half a day of beating to kill him so.
"El Blanco was far away when Bayona came. He was at the Caroní. But the word of what Bayona was doing reached to him. We turned west and followed Bayona.
"We visited the paraguas of the Ventuari and learned all Bayona had done. We drove our canoes to the falls of Oso. Bayona was days ahead. El Blanco said we must leave the river and march straight through the sabana to the Ventuari mouth. We walked this sabana. We walked straight. While Bayona delayed to pass raudales or to hunt we reached the delta.
"Then Bayona came in a canoe. The slaves walked, driven by men with guns. We were on both sides of the river. When the slaves came we killed the men with the guns. El Blanco killed Bayona.
"We left alive only one man of Bayona. The slaves said that man had not been so bad to them. We put him in the canoe of Bayona and let him go.
"Before he went we fed Bayona to the caribe fishes. We told that man to tell other blancos not to bother the Maquiritares. If they do they will be made food for fish. He went away very fast.
"We go back to our hills. The Maquiritares who were slaves are free. Bayona and his men are dead. It is good."
The voice was still. For a minute all was very quiet. Then from all about us rose a deep hum of the voices of men who had heard and understood.
"Es bueno!" they echoed. "It is good."
And I too, knowing what I knew of Bayona, rejoiced as I heard of his end.
"Si, it is good!" I said. "Even if the does nothing more to Bayona than to torment him as he tormented his poor victims here, it will take a long time to square the account. And the men of San Fernando now will think twice before they visit the Ventuari again. Yet there may be more trouble because you let that one man go, White. Bayona was a friend of Funes."
A harsh laugh came out of the bush.
"To with Funes!" jeered White's voice. "He can come himself if he's got the guts. We take all comers."
"You had better get some guns before you say that," I told him. "He has an army of guapos, and many guns brought from Brazil. I do not see how you even managed to kill Bayona and his men, with only your one gun. The arrows of your men are poor weapons against bullet."
Another laugh came; and this time more than one throat made that laugh. The Indians too were chuckling, as if they had a joke on me. But nobody explained what the joke might be. And, as before, I would not ask what amused them.
Feet began to move again; feet in that place where El Blanco Negro and his men had stood. They were going. Only Nama still stood there, looking at me in that patient way of hers. I knew White was leaving me, as he always did, without a farewell; and I gave him no adios. With my eyes on the girl but my thoughts on what I had heard, I spoke to her in a careless way, forgetting for the moment that she did not know Spanish.
"Where have you been, Nama?" I asked.
She only smiled, as if she would like to please me by answering if she could. But the receding footsteps of White and his men stopped.
"Got a woman now, have you, Loco?" mocked White's voice, farther out than it had been. "You fool! Oh, you fool! Ha-ha-ha!"
"No!" I snapped back. "I have no woman. This girl is not mine."
"Oh, don't lie!" he sneered. "She's yours all over. She's been talking 'Loco León' all day to my woman Juana. Loco León! Nothing but Loco León! Ashamed of her, are you, when another white man calls on you?"
"I tell you, señor, she is nothing to me," I disputed. "Believe what you like, but I speak truth."
He was still for a minute. Then he said:
"Watch yourself, then, hombre. She's after you hard. First thing you know she'll feed you some of that red yucut' 'sehi that turns you black. You'll be a nigger-white like me. A dead man, like me! Dead! Dead! Dead like El Blanco Negro! A dead man walking in the night! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
His laugh now was mad, a terrible sound that sent a chill crawling over me. The leaves began rustling again, and I said no word. Neither did any one else. Except for that slight sound of movement, everything was silent. The rustling died, and still the silence held. Then from somewhere out of the sabana sounded again that horrible laugh and a wild yell:
"Two dead men now! El Blanco Negro and Loco León! Black! Black! Ah ha, ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Nama shuddered and crept closer to me. I too shuddered, and made no move.
Black White was gone, but he had left behind him something that bothered me that night and long after. And it was not the thought that further trouble might come from the killing of Coronel Bayona.
I knew quite well—though I am sure White never thought of it—that all the blame for the Bayona matter might fall on me. The man spared by the Indians probably knew only that a band of Maquiritares, led by some man with a rifle, had done this killing on the Ventuari.
To the people of San Fernando, Black While was only a name; many believed him to be only a creature of an Indian tale, not a real man. So I, the only man with a rifle known to live on the Ventuari and likely to lead Maquiritares, might at some time have to pay Funes for Bayona's blood with my own.
But, as I say, it was not this that kept me thinking long after the people of Yaracuma slept, or that made me cautious regarding my drink and food for some time afterward.
For the first time in my life, I was afraid of a woman.