Juan. By Rulfo
Killed the, and the puppies...
- Folk songs
"Long live Petroniello Flores!"
The cry echoed between the cliffs, reached our ears, and then disappeared.
For a moment, the wind blowing up from the bottom of the mountain brought us a noisy human voice, which sounded like the sound of the rising tide of the river flowing through the rocky beach.
After a while, still from that place, there was another shout. The sound went around the cliffs, reverberated between them again, and was still powerful when it reached our ears:
"Long live General Petronillo Flores!"
We looked at each other.
The stood up slowly, pulled the bullet out of his carbine magazine and placed it in his shirt pocket. Then he walked up to the "four brothers" and said to them, "Children, follow me and see what kind of cow we are fighting!" The four Benavidez brothers followed him by the cat's waist; the walked straight, exposing his skinny half-cut body above the wall.
We remained there, not moving a step. We slipped out under the wall, lying on our backs, like lizards basking in the sun.
The wall made of stones crosses the mountains and stretches like a snake, and the and four brothers also snake like snakes, as if wearing shackles. We watched them disappear into view like this. Then we turned back and looked up the hill again, looking at the low branches of the tree that could only provide a little shade.
All that could be smelled in the air was the smell of shade scorched by the sun. It is the smell of rotten sansa trees.
At noon, everyone was sleepy.
From time to time, a cacophony of noises rose from the bottom of the valley, shaking our bodies so that we would not fall asleep. Although we pricked up our ears to hear clearly, all we could hear was a cacophony: it was a low, chaotic human voice, like the sound of a carriage rolling over the gravel paved road of an alley.
Suddenly a gunshot rang out, echoing through the valley, as if the mountain were about to collapse. Everything woke up: the Birds of Totochilo flew away, and we watched the red birds play among the branches of the Tree of Innocence. I had just taken a nap, and I woke up suddenly, and their cries suddenly rang out in all directions.
"What's wrong?" Pedro Zamora asked. He had just taken a nap and was still half asleep and half awake.
Chiweila stood up, dragging his carbine like a wooden stick, and moved behind those who had left.
"I'll go see what's going on." He said, and then disappeared like those people.
The cicadas were getting louder and louder, deafening our ears, and we didn't even realize when they were there. Even before we knew it, they had already arrived here, right in front of us, and everyone was unsuspecting. They seemed to be passing by, hurrying to another place, not here.
We turned around and stared at them through the firing holes.
The first group passed, then the second, and then a few more. Their bodies leaned forward, so sleepy that they all arched their waists. Their sweaty faces shone with light, as if they had soaked their entire faces in the water as they crossed the river. They are still passing in batches.
Signaled. First there was a long whistle, followed by the sound of a clicking gun in the distance, which was the direction in which the was going. Then there was also the sound of gunfire on this side.
Things are done easily. Their upper bodies covered almost the entire firing hole, so it was as if we were shooting very close to them, leaving them to die before they could understand what was going on.
But that's what happened in a moment. Two rows of guns were fired. The firing hole was soon empty, and stretching out his neck to see only the men lying in the middle of the road, twisting their bodies as if they had been deliberately thrown there. The people who didn't die all ran away. After a while, they reappeared, but it didn't take long before they disappeared again.
We had to wait for the next salvo.
One of us chanted, "Long live Pedro Zamora!" ”
Someone on the other side responded almost secretly, "God, save me!" Save me! Son of Atocha, save me! ”
Birds flew through the air. Flocks of starlings flew over our heads and headed for the mountains.
The third salvo came from behind us. They let it go, so that we jumped to the other side of the wall and ran straight past the bodies of those we had killed.
Then the chase in the bushes began. We felt bullets scurrying under our feet, as if our feet had landed on the heads of a swarm of grasshoppers. From time to time, some of us were shot, and with the sound of a cracked bone, flowers bloomed on our bodies. More and more people were shot.
We raced all the way. When we reached the edge of the cliff, we slid down and went straight down.
They were still firing guns. Until we climbed up the other side of the valley like badgers scared away by the fire, they were still firing their guns.
"You bitches, long live General Petronillo Flores!" They shouted at us again. Then the cry echoed like thunder from a rainstorm and went to the bottom of the valley.
We hid behind a few bulging boulders, gasping for air as we ran wildly. We just looked at Pedro Zamora and asked him with his eyes what had just happened. But he also looked at us and didn't say a word. It was as if all of us had nothing to say, as if everyone's tongue had been curled up like a parrot, and it was very laborious to stretch out and speak.
Pedro Zamora was still watching us, and he was counting people with his eyes. His eyes, red, seemed to have never slept well. He counted our heads one by one. He knew how many of us were here, but he still didn't seem to know, so he counted them over and over again.
Fewer people: eleven or twelve less, not counting the, Chivera, and the people who walked away with them. Chiweila was probably sitting straddling the top of a tree of innocent seeds, clutching his breech gun and waiting for the Union army to leave.
The two sons of the, both named Jose, were the first to raise their heads and then stand up. They walked around, waiting for Pedro Zamora to command them. He said:
"One more toss and turn, and we're done."
Then he swallowed his spit, as if to embolden himself, and shouted at the Jose brothers: "I know your father is gone, bear with me, bear with me for a while!" We'll go find him! ”
A bullet was fired from there, startling a group of noisy plovers on the hillside ahead. They fell among the valleys, circling until they were very close to us; then, when they saw us, they were startled, and they turned and flew toward the sun, and the trees on the hillside ahead were full of their cries.
The Jose brothers quickly ran back to their positions and crouched down without a word.
We just stayed like this for an afternoon. As night began to fall, Chiweila arrived with one of the "Four Brothers". They said that the men had come from below, from Piedra Lisha, but they were not sure whether the Union army had withdrawn. In fact, everything seemed quiet. From time to time, there was the howl of wolves.
"Hey, you, Pichon!" Pedro Zamora said to me, "I have to ask you and the Jose brothers to go to Piedra Lisa and see what happened to the 'bitch.'" If he dies, bury him. The same goes for everyone else. To see the wounded, place them where the government forces can see them; however, do not bring anyone back. ”
"Obey orders."
We left.
When we reached the stables, the howl of the wolf sounded even closer. The horse was gone, only a skinny donkey, which had dwelt there before we arrived. The Unions must have taken all the horses with them.
We found the other three of the "four brothers" behind a bush. They were stacked together as if someone had piled them up there. We picked up their heads and shook them to see if anyone still had any signs of life; but no, they were all dead. There was also one of our men in the pond, his ribs exposed, as if he had been hacked to death by a knife. We walked up and down the cliff, one on this side, one on the other, and found a lot of people, almost all of whomse faces had turned black.
"Needless to say, they must have been injured and killed." Jose said one of the two brothers.
We started looking for the, no matter who else, just found the one called the.
We didn't look for him.
He must have let them take it away, and we thought, he must have let them take it to the government. Still, we continued to search the bushes. The wolves were still howling.
They howled all night.
A few days later, on the Almeria River, we hit Petroniello Flores again while crossing the river. We stepped back, but it was too late. They acted as if they were shooting us. Pedro Zamora galloped and ran in front. His stallion, gray-haired, stocky, and chubby, was the best mount I'd ever seen. A group of us leaned over the horse's neck and followed him. Anyway, it was a massacre. But I didn't realize it at the time, because I fell into the river, and my horse was killed and crushed under me, and the river washed us far away with our horses and washed us up to a shoal.
That was the last time we encountered Petronilo Flores' centaurs. We haven't exchanged hands since. How to say it, we did not fight for a while, just in the end; the few of us who remained decided to go up the mountain and hide in the mountains to escape the pursuit. We ended up being scattered warriors, no one was afraid of us anymore, and no one ran and shouted, "The people of Zamora are coming!" ”
Calm was restored to the Great Plains.
However, this did not last long.
We've been hiding in Tosin Canyon for almost eight months. The Almeria River turns into the Tosin Gorge, where it churns for a while and then rushes into the sea. We just waited there, let the years pass, and when no one remembered us, we returned to the world. We raised grass chickens and went up the hill to hunt wild deer every three or five minutes. There were five of us, only four, because one of José's two brothers was shot in the base of his thigh when we were attacked, and then one of his legs rotted.
We just stayed there, and gradually realized that we were useless. If we hadn't known they were going to hang us all, we would have gone to make peace.
But just then came a man named Armandio Alcalá, who had sent a message to Pedro Zamora.
That morning, we were busy unloading eight pieces of a cow when we suddenly heard a trumpet. The sound came from far away, from the direction of the Great Plains. After a while, the trumpet sounded again. It sounded like the cry of a bull: first it was sharp, then it became low, then it became sharp again. It reverberated with a sound, stretching longer and longer, reaching the near front, and finally disappearing into the roar of the river.
Just as the sun was about to come out, the man named Alcalá appeared before our eyes by pulling out the leaves of the larch. He carried two "44" bullet belts cross-body, and a large bundle of rifles was carried on the horse's butt, as if carrying a large box.
He got off his horse, handed us the guns, and re-bundled the extra guns.
"If you don't have anything urgent to do this day and tomorrow, pack your bags and get ready to go to San Buenaventura." Pedro Zamora is waiting for you over there. I went a little further down to find the Sanat brothers. Then I'll come back. ”
The next day, he returned, and it was already twilight. Along with him, sure enough, there were the Sanat brothers. In the twilight, you can see their black faces. There were also three people who came, none of whom we knew.
"We can get horses on the road." He said to us. We set off with him.
Long before we arrived in San Buenaventura, we saw that the manor houses were on fire. The flames coming out of the granary were going to jump higher, like a pool of turpentine burning. Mars flew and hovered in the dark sky, forming large expanses of shiny clouds.
We continued on our way in the light of the fire of San Buenaventura, as if a voice were telling us that all we had to do was to go there, to destroy everything that remained there.
However, before we could get there, we met the first people on horseback. They trotted all the way, with hemp rope wrapped around their saddles, and those dragging behind them, some of them had to walk on the ground with their hands and feet from time to time, and others had their hands hanging down and shrugging their heads.
We watched them pass by. Coming further behind were Pedro Zamora and many horsemen on horseback. There are more people than ever before. This cheers us up.
It was exhilarating to watch that long line marching on the Great Plains once again, as if it were back in our glory days. Just as we had just revolted, like a ripe ragweed being thrown by the wind, spreading terror in all directions of the Great Plains. There was a time when that was like that. Now, it seems to be back in time.
From there we walked to San Pedro. We set a fire there and headed to Petakal. It was the season when the corn was waiting to be harvested, and the dry corn stalks were bent over by the strong wind blowing across the plain. So it was a magnificent sight to watch the fire roll over the field; almost the whole great plain was burning, becoming a large piece of charcoal, and the smoke was thick in the air; the smoke had the smell of reeds and honey, because the fire had also burned into the sugar cane fields.
One by one, we came out of the thick smoke, like scarecrows, their faces covered with soot, driving away the animals scattered everywhere, gathering them together, slaughtering them and then skinning them. Now we are in business by selling livestock skins.
Because, as Pedro Zamora told us, "We're going to use the money of the rich to make this revolution." The weapons and costs we need to make a revolution will be brought out by them. Although we do not yet have a flag to fight for, we should seize the time to accumulate money, and when the government army comes, we will see how strong we are. That's what he told us.
When the government forces finally reappeared, they went on a killing spree again, as before, but not as easily as in the past. Now, as you can see from miles away, they are afraid of us.
But we are also afraid of them. When we set up an ambush on the side of the road waiting for them to come, as soon as we heard the sound of their harnesses or the sound of horses' hooves hitting the stones on the road, our throats and eyes blocked the flesh in our throats. As we watched them pass, we could almost feel that they were also looking at us with the afterglow, as if to say, "We smell you, we just pretend we don't know." ”
It seems so, for as soon as the fighting broke out they immediately lay down on the ground, hiding behind our horses under the cover of their horses; and then another group of men surrounded us little by little, and we were bound like hens forced into a corner. Since then, we have known that we will not last long if we continue to fight like this, although we are numerous. In fact, it is no longer General Urvano's men who are fighting us now. Even the people who beat us away in the first place, as long as they heard the shouts of death, or saw our hats, they would be frightened. They were forcibly pulled out of their pastures to fight us, and only when they saw that there were not many of us did they pounce on us. These people are dead. Then new people come, and these people are the most difficult to deal with. Now the leader of the troops was a man named Orachea, who was very able to endure hardships and had great courage; there were Highlanders brought from Teokatiche, mixed with the Indians of the Tepełan tribe. These Indians have messy hair, often for many days without eating, sometimes for several hours in a row, staring at people in the dark, eyelids without blinking, just waiting for people to stick their heads out, and then shoot the target. The long bullet of the "30-30" can crush a person's vertebrae like a rotten branch.
Needless to say, it was easier to attack a few estates than to ambush government forces. So we go around guerrilla warfare, punching here and punching there, and the damage is greater than ever. We were always quick to move, kicking and then running like a bunch of wild mules.
In this way, when our men set fire to the El Hasmin Ranch at the foot of the volcano, the rest of the people quickly rushed down the hill to pounce on the enemy outpost station. We dragged the branches of the acacia trees, one by one hidden in the flying dust and deliberate shouts of killing, making people think that we were crowded.
The soldiers preferred to wait quietly. For a while they were running east and west, one moment forward and one moment back, dizzy. From here, you can see the fires burning on the mountain, and the fire is soaring into the sky, as if it is burning the mountain. We just stood here and watched the farmland and pastures burn all day and all night, sometimes burning bigger villages, like Tusa Mirba and Zapotitlan, illuminating the night sky. Oracea's men marched hurriedly there; but when they arrived, Totorimisba, far behind them, also burned.
That scene was so beautiful. As the soldiers packed up on their way and anxious to exchange fire with us, we quickly withdrew from the dense forest on the hill and watched them cross the open plain. There are no enemies ahead, they are like sinking into the bottomless water. This bottomless deep water is the horseshoe-shaped plain embraced by the mountains.
We set fire to the Quast Komat Estate, where we played bullfighting. Pedro Zamora loves this game.
The Union army had gone in the direction of Otterland, and they were looking for a place that was said to be called Laprificasion. They thought it was the lair of the bandits, and we had already left there. They went there and left us alone in Kwast komat.
In Quast Komat, it is possible to play bullfighting. They left behind eight soldiers, plus the head of the manor and the overseer. The bullfighting game was played for two days.
We had to make a circular fence, like the one used to keep the little goats, like a bullring, and then we sat down at the gate to prevent the matadors from running out. As soon as they saw Pedro Zamora pick up the short sword that had been used as a bull's horn, they threw up their legs and ran.
The eight soldiers were all sent off in one afternoon. The other two, which took another afternoon. The most difficult thing to deal with was the thin and tall overseer who looked like a spear, and he only needed to move slightly, and his whole body flashed away. And the general manager just went up for a while and then died. He was short and fat, and he didn't use any tricks to dodge the sword. He didn't say a word, and he died barely moving, as if he had been stabbed voluntarily. And fighting that overseer really took a lot of effort.
Pedro Zamora had to give everyone a cloak beforehand each time, and because of this, the overseer cleverly dodged the attack of the short sword again and again by relying on the thick and heavy cloak in his hand. He knew that with this thing, he kept swinging his cloak at the short sword that had stabbed straight at him, causing it to swoop in again and again. Pedro Zamora was too tired to do it. He ran after the overseer for half a day, exhausted. The white knife goes out, or the white knife comes back. He lost patience and simply went out. He stopped charging straight at him like a bull, and suddenly pulled the cloak to one side with one hand, and the other hand clenched his short sword and stabbed at the man's ribs. And the overseer didn't seem to realize what was happening, and was still shaking up and down with his cloak, as if he were chasing a wasp. It wasn't until he saw his own blood flowing across his waist that he stopped. Frightened, he pressed his fingers to plug the hole in his ribs. From there, a steady stream of dark red liquid spewed out, making his face more and more pale. Then he collapsed in the middle of the fence, his eyes looking at all of us. Later we hanged him, or he would have been breathing for a long time.
Since then, Pedro Zamora has played bullfighting as soon as he has the right, and he has played more and more frequently.
During that time, from Pedro Zamora down, almost all of us were "Lowlanders"; later people from other places joined us. There were Indians from Saco Alco, who looked like white people, with slender legs and faces as if they were made of fresh cheese. Others came from cold regions, claiming to be from Masamitra, always draped in blankets, as if it were raining and snowing all the time. As soon as they warmed up, the men forgot about hunger, so Pedro Zamora sent them to the "volcanic zone" above to guard the pass, where there was nothing but sand and wind-washed rocks. And the White-Looking Indians soon fell in love with Pedro Zamora and didn't want to part with him. They always followed, becoming his shadow, and they did whatever he told them to do. From time to time, they would even snatch the prettiest girl in the village for him to enjoy.
I remember everything very well. I remember the nights we spent in the mountains, and we walked silently, sleepily, but the pursuing soldiers followed us closely behind. I still seem to be able to see Pedro Zamora, with a purple blanket wrapped around his shoulders, staring at everyone to keep them from falling behind:
"Hey, say you, Pitasio, kick your horse!" Resendis, don't put me to sleep, I'm going to talk to you!" ”
Yes, he has always cared for us. We marched through the darkness of the night, our eyes blurred by sleepiness, our minds empty, and he knew each of us, and he kept talking to us along the way so that we would not lower our heads. We could feel his wide open eyes, which never drowsiness, were accustomed to night vision, and could recognize each of us in the dark. He counted us one by one, as if he were counting money. Then he turned to our side. We listened to the tapping of his horse, and we knew that his eyes were always on guard; so all of us, without complaint about the cold and tiredness, followed him all the way in silence, as if all blind.
However, since the train derailed on the slopes of Sayura, everything was finished. Without this, perhaps Pedro Zamora, Chinese Arias, and Chiweila, and many others might still be alive and the rebellion would have gone smoothly. However, because of The derailment of Sayura's train, Pedro Zamorak annoyed the government.
I seemed to be able to see the flames rising where the bodies were piled up. They gathered the bodies together with shovels or had them roll like logs to the bottom of the slope, and when the pile of corpses was high, they poured gasoline and set them on fire. The wind carried the stench far away, and many days later, the smell of the dead body burning could still be heard.
We didn't know what to expect. We first sprinkled horns and bones on a long stretch of rail, and not to mention, we pried open the tracks in the bends. When we were done, we started waiting.
The morning light began to illuminate everything. The piles of people sitting on the roof of the car are already vivid. You can hear some people singing. It was the voices of men and women. They passed in front of us, still half-covered in the night, but we could see that they were soldiers with number plates. We continue to wait. The train did not stop.
If we had wanted to, we could have let out a barrage of bullets, because the train was moving very slowly, gasping for air, and humming and crawling the slope. We could have even chatted with them for a few days. But the truth is a different story.
When they felt the carriage jolt and the whole train was shaking, as if someone was shaking it, they realized that something was wrong. Then the locomotive was dragged off the track by heavy carriages full of people and retreated backwards. It let out several low, long wailings. But no one saved it. It dragged the long, headless column backwards until it lost its weight-bearing ground, its body crooked, and its head planted at the bottom of the valley. The carriages also fell rapidly one by one, lying on the ground. After that, the whole world fell silent, as if everyone, even us, had died. That's how it went.
As the survivors emerged from the wreckage of the train one by one, we trembled with fright and withdrew from there.
We went into hiding for a few days, and then the Union army drove us out of hiding. We couldn't settle down, not even quietly chewing on a slice of bacon. They forced us to have no time to sleep, no time to eat, and it didn't matter whether it was day or night. We wanted to go to Tossin Gorge, but the government forces got there one step ahead of us. So we walked down the slopes of the volcano, climbed the highest ones, and at the place called "God's Way," we hit the muzzle of government forces again. We experience first-hand the feeling of a bullet flying overhead. They whirred in, scorching the air around us, and even the boulders that blocked our bullets were scattered with one shot after another, like earthwork. Later we learned that they were strafing at us with machine guns, which could make people full of holes, and at that time we only thought we had encountered a lot of enemy soldiers, thousands of them, and at that time we just wanted to slip away quickly.
All those of us who could escape fled, but Chiweila remained in the "way of God." He curled up behind a bush of wild strawberries, wrapped in a blanket around his neck as if he were kept warm. As we scattered and walked our way to escape death, he was there looking at us. He showed his blood-stained teeth and seemed to be laughing at us.
We scattered and fled, and many of us survived, while others suffered. Wherever we go, we can see people hanging upside down on a certain road with piles hanging upside down. Their bodies hung there, slowly decaying until they curled up like unmatched leather. The vultures ate from the inside of the corpse, pulled out the internal organs, and finally left only an empty shell there. The bodies were hung high, so they swayed from side to side as soon as the wind blew, for many days, sometimes for months, and sometimes only the trouser straps were left dangling in the wind, as if someone had hung them up to dry. Whoever wants to see such a scene will feel that we are really finished.
Some of us, including me, fled all the way to Mount Goland, where we crawled like snakes on the ground, looking all day at the plain, at the land under the mountain in the distance. We were born there, we grew up there, and now there are people there waiting for us to die. Sometimes even the shadow of the clouds can startle us.
We would love to tell people that we are no longer troublemakers, let's live a peaceful life, but we have caused trouble everywhere, and people have become distrustful of us. The only thing we achieved was to create many enemies for ourselves, and even the Indians on the hills here did not welcome us. They said we had killed all their livestock. Now they have weapons provided by the government, and they have sent people to say that if they see us, shoot and kill.
"We don't want to see you; if we do, we'll kill you all." They sent someone to say that.
Little by little, our turf disappeared, and even the plot of land we needed to be buried was almost gone. So the last of us decided to disband, and each of us fled in a different direction.
I followed Pedro Zamora for five years. There have been good days and bad days, and together for five years. After that, I never saw him again. Some say he went to Mexico City with a woman, where he was killed. Some, including me, have been waiting for him to return, for the day when he will reappear and lead us in another armed uprising; but we are tired of waiting. He hasn't come back until now. He killed people there. This is what a cellmate told me that he had been killed.
I was released from prison three years ago. I was punished there for a number of crimes, but following Pedro Zamora was not counted. They don't know about it. I was arrested for something else, I had a penchant for robbing young women, and nothing else. Now I live with one of the girls I've kidnapped, and perhaps of all the women in the world, she's the prettiest and kindest one. At that time, she was waiting outside the prison for my release, and no one knew how long she had been waiting.
"Pichon, I've been waiting for you!" She said to me, "I've been waiting for you for a long time!" ”
At that time I thought to myself, she was waiting for me to kill me. There, in a daze, I finally remembered who she really was. I seemed to feel the cold rain under the village of Ter Campana again, and that night we entered the village and leveled the whole village. I'm almost certain that her father was the old man we killed when we left. I was dragging his daughter into the saddle and knocking her on the head a few times to silence her and tell her not to bite me again; at the same time one of us fired a shot at the old man in the head. It was a girl of about fourteen years old, with beautiful eyes, which made me toss and turn, and it took a lot of effort to make her obey.
"I bore you a son," she told me later, "right there." ”
Then she pointed to a tall, thin boy with a confused look:
"Take your hat off and let your dad see you!"
The boy obediently took off his hat. He really looked exactly like me, and there was a little bit of bad in his eyes. He was always going to pass on something from his father.
"He's also called 'Pizzon.'" The woman said. Now she's my woman.
"But he's not a bandit, he's not a murderer. He's a good guy. ”
I lowered my head.
Juan. Rulfo
Juan Rulfo (1917-1986), taiwanese translator Juan Rover, full name Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez-Rulfo Vizcaíno, Mexican writer. His major works include The Burning Field, Pedro Paramo, and Nooktawio Paz and Carlos Fuentes, which he calls the "troika" of Mexican literature in the second half of the 20th century.
Juan Rulfo was born on 16 May 1917 in the Mexican state of Jalisco. In 1953, he published the short story collection Burning Plains. In 1955, the novella Pedro Paramo was published. He has won many awards such as the National Prize for Literature of Mexico and the Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain. Juan Rulfo died in Mexico City on 7 January 1986 at the age of 68.