“No thanks,” Clarke shouted, his voice shrill with nerves. He snatched the cigarette, threw it onto the ground, and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot in a rough, vengeful way. Carlos chose to give a dismissive laugh, as if to say: “who cares, I’ve smoked enough anyway.” Clarke was on the point of slapping his face, when something else happened that prevented him doing so: a rush of air only inches from the back of his head as a stone bola crashed by. Clarke threw himself down just in time: the second bola cleaved the air where his head had been. “I would have slapped his face with my gray matter if I hadn’t ducked,” he thought. For the past few minutes, his adrenalin had been pumping. He was thirsty for blood. And more than the scandalous behavior of his young companion, it was something else, something unknown that was awakening in him. He raised his eyes and the shotgun at the same time. An Indian who, with his hair streaming out and his arms waving, looked like a woman, was bending from his horse to finish him off. Clarke fired without taking aim. The bullet struck the Indian full in the belly and lifted him into the air; they saw him do a somersault and land in a sitting position, his tongue lolling out. He was dead. Carlos had already set off running; Clarke followed him.
They came to a halt in a relatively dark spot from which they could look down on most of the battle. They decided to sit on the ground, in order to offer less of a target to any stray bullet.
“It’s incredible!”
“It’s barbaric!”
“They’re Indians from Salinas Grandes,” Carlos said. “I suppose you recognized them?”
So this was their everlasting peace as the fury that had gripped him subsided. Clarke was slowly returning to his normal self.
“I don’t know how I could have shot that poor unfortunate. .”
“But it was in self-defense!”
“You’re right. At least we escaped.”
“Don’t be too sure. . ”
“By the way. . what happened to Gauna?”
“I saw him go by on a horse a while ago. A horse he must have stolen from a dead man.”
Clarke sighed, slightly ashamed of himself and the irresponsible adolescent by his side.
“I’m sure by now he’s rounding up our horses. I hope he finds Repetido, or Rosas will give me hell. Gauna’s a sensible person.”
“He’s a pillar of strength.”
“Don’t mock. I need to have a serious talk with you.”
“Just look at that! Have they gone mad?”
Clarke looked — not very far, because the clouds of dust added to the darkness of the night and the way his pupils had contracted during his dangerous foray among the fires meant that he could see nothing beyond about twelve yards. Even so, he could make out a line of Indians riding past at walking pace, heading for the center of the camp, obviously on a mission of peace. Although at first it seemed like a hallucination, when Indians from the village came to a halt and stared at the newcomers, they realized it wasn’t. The two of them also went to see what it was all about. When the peace ambassadors reached the center of the encampment, a remarkable scene took place: another procession, just as formal and orderly as theirs, with Coliqueo at its head, came to greet them. Fighting was going on all around, but they were at the center of a zone of quiet. Even the dust settled, so that the bonfires began to throw a fantastic half-light on the meeting. The effect was the same as Clarke had noticed earlier, that of disconnected fragments of time being superimposed on each other, as though war disrupted the normal chain of events. Carlos, who was an expert at recognizing people, whispered to Clarke that some of the chief shamans from Salinas Grandes were among the new arrivals. Apparently there were to be peace talks there and then. The two of them pushed their way to the front row of onlookers, from where they could hear the speeches. A Huilliche who had crossed his eyes elaborately was the first to speak. Without dismounting, of course. With no sign of urgency, he embarked upon a complicated explanation of the state of mind of thirty-one of Cafulcurá’s thirty-two wives. Summing up a speech which lasted a good three-quarters of an hour, it boiled down to the following: these desperate wives had financed a punitive expedition, which was bitterly opposed by the ruling council, who had ordered the dispatch of a simultaneous embassy, comprising the speaker and his companions, to beg forgiveness in order to restore the peace so heedlessly put at risk, etcetera. If the two groups had not arrived at their destination at the same time, this was due to the fact that the second one was distracted by the sighting of a lone rider in the distance. . then followed a highly complicated geometric-topographical argument, incomprehensible from the outset without a diagram, but in which Clarke discovered certain similarities to ideas he himself had formulated concerning the “wanderer,” whom he had no doubt was one and the same person. Coliqueo listened to all this impassively. After the speaker fell silent, there was a short pause, in which more shots and cries could be heard in the distance, then in what seemed like a prepared speech, Coliqueo declared his acceptance of their apologies. The acceptance of this acceptance would doubtless give rise to yet another speech, but Clarke was in no mood to stay and hear it. He gestured to Carlos, and they pushed their way back through the enthralled throng.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Carlos in a stage whisper.
“Do you think that’s wise?”
Riders were still coming and going inside and beyond the razed village. A number of terrified cows had strayed into the camp. There were loose horses everywhere, some of them lying prostrate, but where could theirs be? Clarke was prepared to mount any of them, provided they made their escape. He cocked his gun and led the way to where they had slept. Fortunately, they did not stumble onto any lingering combat. When they were halfway to the river, Gauna appeared, leading two horses that were as unknown to them as the one he was riding.
“Mount up,” he said.
“Did you find Repetido?” was the Englishman’s first question.
“Don’t worry, he was the only one I looked for.”
And indeed there he was, with a faint phosphorescent glow to him, his flanks trembling. . together with ten other ponies at least as good as the ones they had lost. They were already loaded with their things, hurriedly girthed, but ready to leave nonetheless. Gauna had wasted no time, once he had spied the chance to get his own way and make off after the Widow. Clarke did not have the heart to reproach him for it. The best thing for all of them was to get away. He would make an exception, and leave without saying goodbye. They rounded up their troop without dismounting, and within a few seconds were fleeing across open country. When they looked back, the encampment was a mass of glowing smoke, crisscrossed by bullets, spears, and speeches. They said nothing, although they could all have admitted: “this time we escaped by the skin of our teeth”; but it was difficult to speak at full gallop. They soon lost sight of the scene of battle. A welcome silence greeted them. For two hours, they traveled through the night, lit only by a pale moon. Even as they fled, Clarke still felt time had no meaning, because he had witnessed a drama of simultaneity that seeped in everywhere. Might they not be fleeing before the massacre had started? If that were so, they would soon find themselves in the thick of it, killing and dying — though not necessarily in that order. However, the ride cleared the cobwebs from his mind. They changed once to fresh horses (Clarke leapt on to Repetido’s familiar back) so that they could continue for another couple of hours.
The moon traced a wide arc in the sky before disappearing behind increasingly dense mists. Above and below gradually became indistinguishable in the fog. It was only when they came to a halt that they realized how invisible everything had become. To go on would be suicide, because sooner or later one of the horses would fall into a gopher hole. And above all, they ran the risk of getting lost and heading back the way they had come. That was what decided them. They carried on a short while, more from inertia than anything else, and were surprised to find that they were on the bottom slopes of a range of hills. Some natural walls forced them to change direction, and there and then, they dismounted. They were so exhausted they scarcely had the strength to lay out their gear and wrap themselves in their ponchos. It was so damp, thought Clarke, that all his bones would he aching the next day. But there was no point in lighting a fire; because it was not cold. Nor had they eaten. So what? A leaden sleep forced his eyes shut.