So they paced down a nearby street; El Tigre with his head thrust forward, his grupo glancing at him and each other nervously; Torch, Iolande and Tamaril with light step and an air of pride and excitement. The barricade in this street consisted of a row of ox- and mule‑carts, with pieces of furniture pushed into the gaps: chairs, cupboards, a baby’s crib with the blanket still in it, tables, beds, anything which had come readily to hand. There was something pathetic about the futility of this barricade. It might have stopped a runaway tapir, but felinas …?
El Tigre sprang lightly to the top, standing on an oxcart.
A score of twisted bodies lay on the ground beyond.
They lay as they had died, hunched around terrible lacerations, in puddles of blood now turned to jelly and glistening in the new sun, surrounded by trampled entrails. They were both sexes and all ages. They hadn’t stood a chance.
Iolande jumped to the ground. «See, El Tigre?» She held up a metal knife, «You see the kind of two-faced bastards we’re dealing with?»
The others joined her, stepping carefully through the carnage.
El Tigre said nothing.
Karina gulped, and walked away. She looked at the sky, clean and bright and blue, the clouds of yesterday gone. What’s the matter with me? she wondered.
«Let’s take a look in there,” said El Tigre suddenly, pointing to a house where the door leaned open.…
They found the bodies in the bedroom; an elderly man and his wife. It seemed the old couple had locked themselves in and pushed a heavy dresser against the door; it lay on its side nearby. The man lay beside it with his throat slashed open; the door lay across his legs, torn away from its lintels. The woman had tried to get out of the window; the shutter was ajar. She lay in a huddle with her neck twisted back and her eyes open, staring at El Tigre as though in surprised recognition.
He said, «Why?»
«Well, hell, what do you expect?» Iolande answered briskly. «Have you ever tried to control a dozen grupos with the smell of blood in their nostrils? Have you ever tried to control one? All right, so a felina got a little out of hand in here. It’s a small price to pay.»
They left the house and walked on, but now El Tigre insisted they examine the whole town, house by house. He wanted to see the results of the battle personally, before anything was removed.
He saw enough to sicken him of revolution forever.
The barricades were bad enough, with their heaps of corpses and pools of blood; but at least the people there had died fighting. It was in the houses where the pathos lay; where the elderly and the children had barred the doors only to have them broken down by the powerful felinas; and where, in all too many cases, the felinas — already crazed with blood lust — had gone berserk.
El Tigre was relentless, and saw it all.
Some time in the afternoon Iolande said, «All right, all right!» and she began to cry. She collapsed on a doorstep, her head in her hands.
Tamaril, who had been silent for a long time, said, «Perhaps we shouldn’t reproach ourselves for the way we’re made. After all, the great Mordecai Whirst was a True Human.»
El Tigre said slowly, «No — the blame lies with us. We didn’t understand one another well enough, felinos and felinas. We didn’t understand what war meant, because we’ve never known one. The bachelors wouldn’t have done all this, if I’d sent them in instead. But then, the bachelors may not have won the war. Our men are clever and strong, but they are lazy and easy-going. I am such a man, although I drive myself to lead because somebody must. Our women hunt in packs and they’re cruel and violent when aroused — and I knew that — yet I sent them into Rangua. I must take the blame. I didn’t realize what I was doing, because we’ve never fought a real war before, and we didn’t know our own strength. But I should have known. I should have seen what I was committing the Canton to, once the revolution became more than just my talk.
«Iolande — stop snivelling and get up. Last night you did what you were born to do — only daylight has changed the picture. Now we must face our prisoners. This should be our moment of triumph. This is my moment of vengeance for what they did to Serena.» His bitter smile did nothing to hide his sorrow. «But instead I only feel guilt.»
Karina said quietly to Teressa, «You and Runa stay with father. I’ll go after Tonio alone.»
El Tigre, overhearing, said, «More killing?»
«This is a special case.» Confused and desperately unhappy, she hurried away. Time was getting on. She’d be lucky if she reached Palhoa by nightfall.
She went to the house where Captain Guantelete and his wife and crew were being held, obtained their release and assured the uncertain grupo guard that she could handle them.
Later, as the great square sails were spread and the car crept into the foothills on the last of the wind, she sat on deck and watched Rangua recede. The True Humans had left their temporary jails now, and were assembled before the signal tower, where her father was addressing them from half-way up the ladder. She hoped her sisters would look after him; right now, he needed their support and affection.
She felt she needed support too; and she was relieved when an ungainly figure came bounding out of the bush and swung itself aboard. It was the Pegman, who had left town in time to avoid the night’s killing.
He sat beside her. «So Rangua belongs to the felinos now.»
A bluff hid the town from view and the setting sun illuminated the wetness of the delta region. For a moment she wondered how Manoso had fared. His silence had alarmed El Tigre, who had a vision of Manoso’s entire force being wiped out by the ferocious cai‑men. Thinking unhappy thoughts, Karina was carried towards Palhoa and her historic meeting with the Dedo.
Years afterwards, they were still telling the story in Palhoa of how the cat-girl had awakened and stood, head high and nostrils flaring as she sniffed the morning air. Her beauty was unearthly, they said, but no man would have gone near her that day — except for the Pegman, a one-armed True Human freak from somewhere down the coast. The cat-girl awakened from where she’d been lying and the vicuna people edged away, tossing their heads. After sniffing she uttered a wordless sound — some said she roared — and she plunged into the jungle, followed by the freak.…
The Pegman had prevailed upon Karina to spend the night in Palhoa. «I’m beat,” he said. «And you must be tired, too. The jungle around Palhoa is dangerous. I know. I’ve been there. We’re going to need our wits about us.» So they’d slept on the deck of the car.
In the morning they were climbing, following the overgrown sailway. The scent was cold, but the Pegman assured Karina this was the route Tonio would have taken.
«He may be headed for Buique or even further. He’ll be expecting to be followed, for a while at least. He’s almost two days ahead of us, but he doesn’t know that. Maybe he’ll get careless.… There are other things besides jaguars here, so they say.…»
Karina had been casting around. «Somebody’s been this way — look!»
«Do you really want to go through with this, Karina?» asked the Pegman later, as they sat gnawing at a fungus.
«Is that why you’ve come? To try to talk me out of it?» Her voice was high. She was much affected by the happenings in Rangua.
«I wouldn’t do that.» He sat regarding her somberly. He was behaving with unusual normality, and hadn’t uttered a single insane yell since entering the jungle. He, like others, had a sense of converging events, of an inevitability in recent happenings which even his mad clowning could not disturb. «You have to make up your own mind, Karina.»
«I’ve made it up. I made it up when I found Saba dead.»
«So you will kill Tonio. Will you kill his wife and son, too?»