On the outskirts on the other side of Bruneville, down toward the coast, where the heat is even more unbearable and the humidity is inconceivable, where bugs and vermin cohabit with ghosts and specters, live the Lieders, poor German immigrants from Bavaria. They learned from their ancestors how to deal with cold, but this heat is crippling them. The Lieders built their house from sticks, stones, blood, sweat, and tears along the impassable road to Point Isabel, where land is still cheap because no one wants it. This is where Frau Lieder grows blackberries and makes dense rye bread (nothing like the white clouds Óscar produces in his oven), and where Herr Lieder battles the swamp to sow and sell grain — he’s built something that resembles a dock where he does business (Lieder doesn’t have a boat, he hasn’t even tried tying some logs together to make a raft, because the water scares him).
The paterfamilias dreams of building a mill.
Joe, his son, returns with the news and some of the goods he was unable to sell. When he hears it, Herr Lieder sheds tears of rage. Frau Lieder’s heart shrinks with worry, but she puts on a brave face and sets a beautiful table, calling the whole family to eat. It’s her way of resisting, her strategy. It’s like a feast day with everything she’s taken out of the larder. She wants to raise her husband’s spirits, as well as Joe’s, and her own. But part of her, like Herr Lieder, thinks they’re done for. Might as well enjoy the cheese and the preserves before the end of the world arrives any minute now, for the world is certainly coming to an end! There will be pandemonium, the river will run red with blood! No more gold-and-silver dawns. No more blackberries. No more flour or dough or ovens baking bread …
But her strategy works. The table set, her soul is more at ease. Herr Lieder forgets his sorrows. Seated at the table, he recites quotes from Bettina, “In my crib, someone sang that I would fall in love with a distant star, that would lead me to dream of my fate, I must listen to the end of my days.”
Joe stops worrying and begins to daydream; in silence he repeats to himself what he’s said a thousand times, “… And may I go and live with the Indians.”
Inland, on Indian Territory, captive Lucia — the aunt of Laura, who lives next door to Felipillo Holandés — the mother of a Chickasaw and one of Chief Buffalo Hump’s seven current wives (and former infatuation of Nepomuceno), senses danger approaching, though she doesn’t know why. Her hands are burning — it’s her job to tan hides twelve or thirteen hours a day, and if there aren’t any she must collect popinac seeds and grind them up to make something like flour. There are no days off. Being the Chief’s wife is not like being queen or having lots of servants, though there are slaves in the household (other prisoners). Life on the prairie is hard and gets harder every day. The noble buffalo is gone, horses are disappearing too, they need to eat and stock up on firearms to protect themselves (that’s what the skins are for, they trade them). Her nostrils burn too (tanning hides damages the mucous membranes as well as the skin).
She hurts all over. Especially her ears, which are like two withered flames, because the sun is pitiless and, like a good Indian wife, her hair is shorn — Chief Buffalo Hump cut it himself. She closes her eyes and dreams: Nepomuceno comes to the camp, she accepts the offer he made her years ago, and she returns home, crying because she is leaving her son, who will soon be a man. But that’s where her dream stops. It’s too terrible to continue.
She has a different fantasy that she’ll never return to her home in Bruneville, but her parents come out to meet her. Her father has long since passed away, it was a terrible tragedy (an Indian-trader, a Mexican who has family in Bruneville and Matasánchez, told her), but in her dream they are both alive. But her dream becomes a nightmare: her mother is tanning hides, her father dances and smokes like an Apache. She shakes her head to get rid of the image. She feels her short hair brushing her cheeks: it’s grown brittle like a mare’s. She fantasizes about something else: the day is over. She is leaving the store in their makeshift camp. There’s no moon. There’s not a cloud in the sky. She has become a mare, she whinnies with pleasure; she wakes up.
She has dream after dream, she awakens when each comes to an end, when they become unbearable. Her fingernails have been eaten away by the stuff she uses to tan hides; the burning is unbearable, especially on her fingertips.
(She does not dream of the idiot who brought her out to the prairie in the first place with his dreams of glory, thinking wild cattle were there for the taking, and that danger was a figment of fearful imaginations.)
Back at Mrs. Big’s, surrounded by the music of the so-called musicians, the race between Ranger Bob’s frog and Smiley’s frog is over. Smiley’s frog won. Angry, Ranger Bob leaves the agent of his defeat on the floor — if he were French he’d cut off its legs and eat them, despite the fact they’re not near as meaty as a cow’s.
He heads for the door. On his way out, he turns:
“Oh yeah, we left the fisherman for you in the icaco tree. Traitors beware, he won’t be the last!”
He leaves without explaining whom he’s talking about.
At the kitchen window Perdido, the ragamuffin, screams; he’s seen Santiago swinging from the icaco tree.
It’s easy to get what’s going through Smiley’s frog’s head. The frog has no interest whatsoever in leaping. Smiley has subjected it to torture (not intentionally, he’s not cruel), but it wants to learn to do something interesting. Not leaping, which comes naturally. Practicing that is a stupid waste of time, the frog thinks, especially considering how short life is. “Frogs’ legs invariably end up in the frying pan. But if I were able to … for instance, sew … or cough … or sing instead of croak … not even real singing, just a little ditty with some well-pronounced words, comprehensible and rhythmical …
“Or if not, I’d love to be a frog with hair, a head of long and luxurious hair …
“Or else a floating frog, not a flying one, because those exist. It would have to be something really special …”
Eight of Nepomuceno’s men are waiting at the turn-off to Rancho del Carmen, brushing their horses, chewing tobacco and killing time.
One of the groups of gringos that left Bruneville in pursuit of Nepomuceno, heading toward the Valley, approaches at a trot. They stop in front of them without dismounting and ask if they’ve seen anyone pass by.
“What’re you looking for?”
They tell them how Nepomuceno shot at Shears and fled, they’re searching for him far and wide. They’re unaware that they’re delivering news.
“Well no, we haven’t seen him.”
The gringos take off at a trot.
Nepomuceno’s men know he must have gone in a different direction.
“You think they crossed the river?”
“Definitely.”
“Or did they take the back roads?”
And they head toward Bruneville.
On paths leading to the river they look for hoof-prints to see if their horses have passed by. Nothing.
One of the vaqueros has a spyglass. They move slowly, searching the riverbank. Nothing.
They continue toward Bruneville’s dock. From a distance they can see that it’s protected by armed guards.
They see a man hanging from Mrs. Big’s icaco.
“Who do you think it is?”
“Santiago, the fisherman. An innocent bystander.”
“Those gringo bastards.”
They ride northeast. They don’t stop until their horses can’t take it anymore. They scan the horizon and consider camping; not too far off they spot the smoke from a campfire.