Backlands (59 page)

They could only walk in the early morning and late afternoon. As the sun reached its zenith it was essential to stop to rest. This rarefied atmosphere offered no protection against the sun’s intensely refracted rays. The blinding light reflected from every crease in the earth’s surface as well as from the mountaintops. It seemed as if sparks were flying in the air from spontaneous fires over the highlands. From ten in the morning on, the caravans stopped where they could. They would stop near streams where water had collected in small, stagnant pools and where the residual moisture nourished the foliage of
caraíba
plants and tall
baraúnas
. They would stop next to the still-full cisterns of abandoned farmhouses. If no place like this was available, they would seek the
ipueiras
that were scattered over the plains.

They camped there.

That same day, at nightfall, hardly recovered, they continued on their way, in no order, each one progressing as best his strength allowed. They had left Favela as a group, but the bands would slowly break up until the men were straggling all along the road, either in small groups or alone. The strongest or those who were riding could move more quickly. They took shortcuts to Monte Santo, leaving their weaker comrades behind. Among those who traveled with them were the wounded officers, who were carried in hammocks by strong soldiers. The great majority was not able to keep up and dropped off along the wayside. Some would stay where they were, after a halt, in the shade of a desiccated bush, succumbing to fatigue. Others, driven by thirst that the impure waters of the backlands pools had not been able to quench, and mad with hunger, would abruptly change direction and set out on one of the multiple byways in the
caatingas
. They sought relief from the unusual flora with its fruits and thorns. They would often lose their way as they went about digging up the
umbú
roots, sucking on the swollen tubers of the spiny thistle and hunting for the last fruits of the leafless trees.

They had completely forgotten about the enemy. The ferocity of the
jagunço
was replaced by the brutality of the land.

After a few days the tortuous Rosário road was filling up with refugees. This was the same route they had followed a month before. Then they were confident about the prospect of meeting the cunning enemy. They were fascinated with the power of the four thousand bayonets that clanked to the feverish rhythm of the battle charges. The trail seemed rougher and more impassable now—it coiled in successive curves, plunged down steep slopes to then rise up to the next ascent. It circled jagged promontories and then led directly into the heart of the mountains.

They revisited this road, astonished by the memories it held for them.

In the Umburanas area they found the ruined hut where the
sertanejos
had ambushed the big supply train of the Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães expedition. Beyond Baixas the road was still littered with white bones, deliberately arranged there in a macabre reenactment of the March massacre. At the bend in the road just before Angico was the place where Salomão da Rocha had in minutes redirected his steely artillery divisions to meet the raging torrent of humanity that swooped down on the Moreira César column. In the dry canyon ahead was the steep streambed where Colonel Tamarindo had fallen heavily off his horse and both rider and horse had plunged to their deaths. Near Aracati and Juetê were rows of huts in ruins, their beams and rafters charred by fires, their gardens choked by weeds, and their old farms abandoned. This indelibly traced the path of the expeditions that had gone before.

Near Vicar’s Farm, with a display of ghoulish humor, the
jagunços
had decorated the dwarfed deciduous shrubbery with another flora of a fantastic nature. Tatters of uniforms with their red stripes, shredded blue and white dolmans, the remnants of black and red socks, and torn rags of red military coats made the dead foliage seem as if it were blooming again with bloody flowers.

The barbaric, monotonous landscape surrounded them on all sides. Hills had been buried by erosion; mountains were now reduced to odd shapes by quick, torrential downpours. Along their sides the bones of the earth were intimately exposed by sharply protruding formations or stone heaps that recalled ancient eruptions. Naked, flat lowlands were now huge plains or flatlands
.

Everywhere in the rotting depths of the humid lowlands dying and stunted vegetation crept along through a maze of tangled branches, either close to the ground or twisting its tendrils in the air in agony.

Desperately poor huts with their doors open to the road lined various parts of the way. Their roofs were still intact but their owners were gone. They had been abandoned by cowboys who had been scared off by the war or fanatics who had migrated to Canudos.

Now these huts were abruptly invaded. At the same time, other guests that had taken up residence there were surprised: Coy, shy foxes, their eyes glinting and hair raised on their backs, jumped out of the windows or cracks in the roof, leaping by bounds into the weeds. Hundreds of bats emerged disoriented, out of dark corners, with a great whirring of wings.

The deserted farm came to life for a few hours. Hammocks were set up in the small rooms, in the little living room with its dirt floor, or outside under the trees. The mules were tied up to crossed stakes of the deserted corral. Torn overcoats, blankets, and old uniforms were laid out over the lawn. Small groups would walk around the place, curiously examining the kitchen garden, now gone to seed and invaded by bright flowers. A murmured conversation that was almost happy would imagine the contented hours a backwoodsman would spend here in the peaceful backlands. The stronger ones would head to the nearby water pit. Forgetting their slower comrades and completely putting out of their minds those who would follow in the weeks and months ahead, they bathed, washed their sweaty and dirty horses, and cleansed their wounds in brackish water that was only refreshed by passing showers from year to year. They returned with their canteens and kettles greedily filled to the brim.

Often a few cattle, the remainder of the great herds that had been let loose because of the war, would sense the activity on the farm. This peaceful place was their home and where they had first felt the branding iron. They trotted up, with loud and happy bellows, looking for their friend the cowboy, who would take them to their favorite pasturelands, the
logradouros,
or to the cool freshwater pools and streams. Once again he would sing to them the ballads or sad songs of returning home, the
aboiados.

They trotted up, stamping onto the patio.

They got a cruel reception. The famished horde of soldiers fell on them with noisy bellows. Rifles went off and there was great confusion as the men with their weakened bodies sprang to life and began a crazed chase. The stunned animals stampeded for the brush. After exhausting themselves with the pursuit, their wounds reopened by thorns and aggravating their fever, the men would finally kill one, two, or three bulls at most in a wild round of shots that sounded like a full battle. They feasted on the meat. And then, after these providential incidents, they would rest with full bellies, almost happy in contrast to their previous plight. They would wait for dawn, when they had to continue their exodus.

In that brief moment of quiet, a terrible idea came to them—what if the
jagunços
attacked?

They realized they were helpless, pauperized, ragged, and repulsive, livid with hunger, being swept across the desert like useless tumbleweeds, and they were possessed by childlike fears. Their foe, who had risked attacks on veteran brigades and had even tried to capture their cannon with their bare hands, would slaughter them in minutes. And night fell, full of terrors.

Brave men, who had endured the most brutal discipline of the battlefield, would start at the most common things. They kept watch, in spite of their fatigue, listening for the vague, distant sounds of the plains.

Meanwhile they were tortured by terrible hallucinations. The sharp crack of a bursting pod in the brush was like a clicking trigger or exploding fuse. It created the illusion of shots from a night ambush. The phosphorescent blooms of the
cumanan
shrubs radiating at a distance in the shadows were like the embers of bonfires where countless waiting enemies watched in silence.

Morning would free them from their fears. They left the haunted rest stop. Some would remain, lying stiffly in a corner. These were comrades whom death had finally released from their suffering. They did not bury them, there was no time. They would have just broken their picks on the hard sandstone earth, which had the consistency of solid rock. Some, after taking a few steps, would succumb to fatigue for good. They would fall from exhaustion at the bend of the road. No one looked back; they simply dropped out of sight forever, forgotten and left to die alone. They expired. For days, weeks, and months ahead, travelers along that road would see them in the same position, stretched out under a tree, speckled with light through the dying foliage, their right arms bent over their foreheads, as if protecting their eyes from the sun. They looked like tired soldiers at rest. The bodies did not decompose. The hot, dry air preserved them. They just withered, the skin shriveled. They would remain for a long time by the roadside, terrible mummies in ragged uniforms.

They did not make much of an impression on passersby. Anyone who dares to cross the northern backlands in midsummer is used to strange scenes. This is particularly true in times of drought. With its alterations of extreme temperatures, the burning days and frigid nights, the earth seems to lose all humanity. Life is latent, it paralyzes without decomposing those who live on it. The backlands demonstrate the possibility of a dormant existence where life seems to be extinguished, asleep, but ready to break out suddenly again when conditions are more favorable, thus making possible the most surprising and unexpected resurrections. The dry, bare trees begin to drip sap and flower with the first rains, without waiting for their leaves, quickly transforming the desert into a flowering meadow. The birds that die in flight in the hot air, the resistant animal life of the
caatinga
that finally succumbs and dies, man who cannot survive the sun’s lethal rays—all seem to lie still for a long time. The worms do not attack their tissues, waiting for a better season. Once in a while one sees animals that look alive. Pumas that could not escape the drought in time lie with their claws spread out into the ground, as if in midleap. Next to dried-up waterholes, emaciated oxen, their throats stretched out in search of water that is not there, lie clustered in still herds.

The first rains would quickly clean away these morbid remains. Decomposition would occur quickly. The earth would devour all it needed to assure the renewal of life.

The fugitives just gave a side glance at these scenes of death. They were absorbed with the single thought of leaving the brutal backlands desert behind them as quickly as possible. Terror and the awareness of their misery overcame the overexertion of the journey. It gave them strength, spurring them on, in desperation, down that endless road.

There was no longer the slightest semblance of military formation among their ranks. Through a process of adaptation, they had mimicked the ways of the
sertanejo
. They could no longer be identified by their ragged, unbuttoned uniforms. They now wore leather sandals, cotton shirts, and leather hats instead of caps or military bonnets. This made them look like the drought refugees and their families, thronging to the coast, under the lash of the drought.

A few women, mistresses of the soldiers, haggard camp followers with ravaged, wrinkled faces, completed this impression.

Decorated officers, like General Savaget, Colonels Telles and Nery, and others, who were returning sick or wounded from the front, were painfully ignored as they passed by these bands. The men did not salute them. These men were now nothing more than wounded comrades in arms. They passed by and quickly disappeared in a cloud of dust. But they were followed by the angry looks from those who could barely contain their envy of the officers’ fast horses.

After four days, the more fortunate ones finally reached the junction of the Rosário, Monte Santo, and Calumbi roads at the Juá farmhouse. This was another mud hut in the shadow of a hillside under tall
juazeiro
trees. Ahead of them stretched the endless tablelands. Here they felt safe. One more day’s journey would take them to Caldeirão Grande, the best farm in the region, a manorlike structure standing on a large hill. It had a well-stocked reservoir below, fed by a creek. Within a radius of a few miles the landscape was completely different. Around them were small hills fringed with more-vivid foliage. For a few hours, the travelers were given relief from the oppressive vision of sterile plains and crumbling mountains.

They were very close to the base of operations of the campaign.

The next day they would proceed to Monte Santo. After two hours on the road, their spirits were lifted by the sight of the small town, just two and a half miles away. It was a happy sight in the rolling tablelands—little houses lined up a gentle terrace to the foot of the steep mountain. Perched on the top was a white chapel, shining against the blue sky. It appeared to be waving them a friendly and caring welcome.

When they reached Monte Santo, their hopes were dashed. They found that they were still in the desert. The dead city, completely uninhabited and without food or water, could only give them a place to stay for a day. The population had fled, falling into the
caatinga
, in the backlander’s colorful expression. They had been frightened away by the soldiers and the
jagunços
alike. A small garrison was billeted in the squalid square. There they passed their days doing nothing, just marking time. It was harder than active combat and forced marches. What passed for a military hospital was set up in a large dark, low building. This was a place to which the sick and wounded dreaded going. It only added to their suffering. The village’s narrow, winding lanes had lofty names: Moreira César Street, Captain Salomão Street. It was a stain on this thankless region where all of nature was hostile. The desert here had been contained in the walls, submerged in a labyrinth of filthy passages, and filled with the waste and offal of battalions that had camped there. It was more deplorable than the desert itself, which was cleansed by the sun and swept by the winds.