Excerpt
“He’ll have a few more if he keeps talking to me that way.”
Benjamin pointed a finger at him. “I’ll shove your snout to the back
of your head if you’re not careful.”
Gregorio brought a brazing twig from the fire, but Pánfilo was
having none of it. He put his woollen socks and coarse leather shoes
back on and pressed his heel gingerly into his toenail.
“Give me the twig,” I said to Gregorio. Three heads turned
toward me as I sat down. I shrugged. “It won’t get any better with
waiting.”
Gregorio grimaced sympathetically. I shook off my sandals, took
the twig and sat cross-legged. I brought the twig to the wounds,
close enough to burn a couple of times, but withdrew with an
exclamation at the last moment.
“I’ll do it,” Benjamin said, grabbing the twig out of my hand.
“Quicker than a Hail Mary. Promise.”
“Facta non verba, my friend.”
Facts not words. I nodded, squaring my shoulders and looking
away.
As the setting sun bathed everything in a soft orange glow, hellish
gnats seemed to take this as a wake-up bell, for as soon as the
temperature cooled a little, they began torturing us. The ground was
a mass of trampled plants, and the air smelled of sap and mud near
the creek where hoofs and feet had turned the creek-edge to mush;
of smoke; and of cattle and humans—and their waste. Like fiends
from hell, hundreds of flies swarmed the piles of dung, landing on
everything.
The Indians had fashioned a rectangular rack out of green
branches to hold the hog meat above the fire. As I swatted flies off
my burnt toes, I could only imagine how hard it was for the only
Spanish woman in the party. As befits a priest, I had purposely kept
my distance. I did not even know her name. But as our encampment
became more unpleasant, I began to think of her more.
Not a grown woman but old enough to be married, she looked quite
at odds with her present circumstances, as though she had just been
whisked away from the kitchen and found herself with nothing to do.
Libros Libertad 