CHAPTER XV
To Thomas Strawbridge the expedition against San Geronimo was invested with a sense of unreality. Every detail of it cast a faint doubt on the credibility of the drummer's impressions—the rabble of peon cavalry, mounted on mules, donkeys, and a few horses; a motley of women—wives, mistresses, and sweethearts of the soldiers—some in carts, some riding donkeys, some on foot. The troops hauled a single three-pound field-gun with its snout in an old canvas bag and its breech wrapped in palm-leaves. Not less unbelievable was the priest, Father Benicio, in his black cassock and priest's round black hat. He was mounted on a mule, and at his pommel hung his crucifix, a little gourd of consecrated oil, and a vial of holy water. With these instruments of grace he would administer extreme unction to the unfortunate of the expedition.
The string of adventurers was sufficiently long so that when Strawbridge looked back from his place in the van the women and soldiers at the end of the column appeared hazy from the dust and shimmered with the heat-waves.
It was a breathless and wilting heat. When Strawbridge crossed the llanos in a motor-car the hot wind had depressed him, but now, without the speed of the automobile, the heat enveloped him with a greasy, pinching sensation. The warmth of his horse's body kept his legs sudsy. He tried to squirm his flesh away from his wet underclothes. Often he would ride five minutes at a time with his eyes shut against the glare of the sun reflected from the sand.
For ten or twelve kilometers the route of the army followed the left bank of the Rio Negro. The rapids set in just below the city of Canalejos, and for upward of a mile they filled the air with a vast watery rumble. But the river was so wide that Strawbridge could see from the shore nothing but a ripple in the broad yellow waters. The thunder of the rapids appeared to arise out of a placid expanse without cause. It was as if the river were in some mysterious travail.
The passage of the army flushed white egrets from along the bank, and once six flamingos arose and winged slowly away, making a crimson line against the sky. Along the sand-bars huge caymans slept in an ecstasy of heat. Their long whitish bellies fitted over stones and the curves in the sand with a kind of disgusting flexibility.
Some time later the line of march veered away from the river and lost itself in the endless, almost imperceptible undulations of the llanos. The monotony of these llanos somehow nibbled away the last shred of reality for Thomas Strawbridge. It seemed to him that everything in the world had ceased to exist except this shimmering furnace of sand.
The drummer rode at a post of honor, at the head of the column beside Coronel Saturnino. Behind him came the fighters, in a gradually thickening dust, until the end of the column traveled in a cloud. The colonel himself moved along impassively, apparently as little affected by the heat as the saddle he sat. He kept looking about as if he recognized landmarks in the endless repetition of the llanos. Presently he pointed through the glare and said:
"There is 'El Limon,' Señor Strawbridge."
The drummer screwed up his eyes against the shimmer, and made out what looked like a grove of trees on the horizon. Nearer, the spot developed into trees and a house of some sort. There seemed to be only one house. Strawbridge stared mechanically. The heat dulled his perceptions.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A hacienda. It belongs to an English firm, and is in federal territory. We are outside of General Fombombo's scope of influence now."
Strawbridge repeated these last words mechanically; the meaning was almost baked out of them by the heat of the sun beating on his head. "Outside of General Fombombo's scope of influence...." The drummer remembered the red line on the map in the library. So that was where he was—on that red line. The whole force of peons, officers, men, and women were crossing that red line and trying to extend it.
"How far is it to San Geronimo?" he asked.
"We're about half-way."
Strawbridge rode on for ten or fifteen minutes, with his eyes resting on the deep green of the grove. It was a eucalyptus grove. He noted this vaguely; then his mind went back to the answer to his questions. They were about half the distance ... outside the scope of General Fombombo's influence.... A red line on the map of Venezuela.... They were extending that, pushing it eastward and southward.... Somewhere the señora was playing a piano in a cool room.... The pleasant señora.... God, but it was hot!
The estate of "El Limon," in the Orinoco basin, belonged to an English meat-packing concern, and it was managed by a Trinidadian and his wife, the Tollivers. These English colonials lived in a ranch-house made of stone instead of adobe. Near the dwelling-house stood a vast wooden barn. It was this barn which Strawbridge had seen from a distance. House and barn were shaded by a magnificent eucalyptus grove, and these great trees formed the only restful spot amid the leagues of burning llanos. It was an English experiment and importation, this grove, and not another like it existed in all Venezuela.
Mr. Tolliver was a tall, rangy man wearing a native palm-fiber hat and alpargatas. He was burned browner than the natives themselves, but it was the deep reddish-brown of the Anglo-Saxon, not the yellowish-brown of a Spaniard. Out of this deep-brown face two pale English eyes looked on Venezuela, in chill condemnation.
As the seekers of liberty rode up, Mr. Tolliver stood with his back to a high barbed-wire enclosure around his barn, with his elbows and one big foot propped back against its wires. With a depth of sarcasm marking his bearded mouth and glinting out of his pale eyes, he watched the cavalcade. As the army filed into the cool glade, Mr. Tolliver remarked in the queer mouthy English of a West Indian colonial:
"Well, you bloody sons of liberty are after my stock again, I see."
Coronel Saturnino betrayed no annoyance at this reception. He bade the rancher "Buenos tardes," and asked if his men might eat in the shade. The big Trinidadian gave a sardonic consent. Saturnino sat on his horse, enjoying this relief from the sun, and glanced about over the barbed-wire enclosure.
"You have a fine Hereford bull, Señor Tolliver," he admired.
The rancher did not turn his head.
"At present I have," he remarked drily.
"And some excellent chickens," smiled the colonel, who seemed to be enjoying some private jest.
These very mild and complimentary observations seemed suddenly to enrage Tolliver. He put his foot down and burst out:
"What the bloody hell makes you drool along like that? Why don't you say what you're going to steal, and quit purring like a cat?"
Saturnino shrugged politely.
"You must pardon me, Señor Tolliver. I so seldom meet an Englishman, I am not yet an expert in discourtesy." The officer continued his observation of the estate: "And horses, Señor Tolliver, mounts for my men. If you could spare a few horses...."
The suggestion irritated the Trinidadian to a remarkable degree. His eyes filled with a pale fire, and with a concentration which surprised the drummer he called down the curses of God on the colonel. In the midst of this outburst, the rancher's eyes fell on Strawbridge. He stopped his profanity abruptly and stared.
"Look here," he demanded, "aren't you a white man?"
The tone and implication left Strawbridge rather uncomfortable in the presence of the Venezuelan.
"I'm an American," he said, avoiding the issue of color.
"Well, what the bloody hell are you following this gang of cut-throats and horse-thieves around for!"
The rancher's qualifications were edged with a righteous anger. Indeed, the fellow's oaths seemed to strip off a certain moral semblance which had hung over the expedition and leave it threadbare and shabby. The drummer hardly knew how to answer, when Coronel Saturnino relieved him of the necessity of answering at all. The officer very courteously introduced the rancher to the salesman and explained the latter's business.
The deep-brown Englishman stood appraising Strawbridge, and at last remarked:
"Well, you Americans certainly chase dollars in tighter places than any other decent man would. But, anyway, you're a white man. So come on in and have lunch. My wife and I get so bloody lonesome out here in this hell-hole, we're glad to see anything that's white."
Strawbridge was about to refuse this scathing hospitality, when Coronel Saturnino burst out laughing.
"Go!" he urged. "We shall be here for some time, rounding up some horses, and you need a rest and something to eat; you look exhausted."
The drummer agreed, and climbed stiffly off his horse. Notwithstanding the Englishman's brusquerie, Strawbridge rather liked the tall, brown, pale-eyed man. After the perpetual tepid courtesy of the Venezuelans his downrightness was as bracing as a cold shower.
Once Tolliver had decided to accept Thomas Strawbridge as a respectable white man in good standing, he did it wholeheartedly. He preceded his guest through a yard set with flowers in formal stone-bordered beds, a mode of flower arrangement dear to an Englishwoman's heart, no matter in what part of the world she is. The stone house had a wide wooden porch running completely around it. In front this was furnished with mats, a number of pieces of porch furniture, and a swing; around at one side were littered harness, garden tools, two or three boxes, and a number of large calabashes sawed off at the top. All the doors and windows were screened with copper gauze. Tolliver went to the door and spoke through the screen.
"Lizzie," he called, "Mr. Strawbridge, an American gentleman, will lunch with us," and a moment later a woman's pleasant voice called back, "Ask him whether he will have green or black tea, George."
While the two men were seated on the porch, looking over the grove, Tolliver, with an Englishman's pertinacity, returned to the topic of American dollar-chasing.
"I don't see how you run around with these scrapings," he criticized. "My eyes, man! you've got to be careful who you sell rifles to in this bloody country! Half these beggars can't be trusted with firearms—" He broke off, peering out into his barn lot. "Look—look yonder, at those women catching up my chickens! When an army of liberation sets out from Canalejos, about half of 'em stop at my ranch, load up with my live stock, and go back home—the damn, thieving...." Here Tolliver clapped his hands, and a native boy of about fourteen appeared in the doorway.
"Pedro," snapped the rancher, "go tell that bloody officer not to disturb any hens with chickens. I won't have it!"
The boy bobbed and darted away with the message.
The Trinidadian watched him go, and then returned sourly to the subject under discussion:
"Revolutions are always stewing in Rio Negro—one set of thieves after another. A bunch comes through every six or eight months. They are always about to do wonderful things. I remember one time I provisioned General Dimancho. He was just about to save his country. I believed him. He won, and spoiled like an egg. Then Miedo made me a very expensive visit. He really talked me over. They can all talk you over if you listen to 'em. As long as they are not in power, they're the best of patriots. Miedo was going to stabilize Venezuela. Well, he did take Rio Negro, and he squeezed it drier than the shell of that calabash yonder." The rancher made a rough gesture. "God! the rotters who have squirmed and fought their way to power and debauchery in this damnable country!" With pale, angry eyes he stared into the grove. "The trouble is in the stock ... scrub ... scum. You can't make any decent government out of this ... manure." And Tolliver dropped the subject.
Twenty minutes later a rather faded but still pretty young woman in a gingham dress came out at the door, smiled at the two men, and told them that tiffin was ready. Strawbridge was introduced to Lizzie Tolliver. Later, during the lunch, the drummer learned that his hostess was the daughter of the Bishop of St. Kitts.
The luncheon hour was occupied by George Tolliver in relating the peculiar difficulties which beset his cattle ranch. This hacienda had been established as a feeder for an English meat-packing corporation at Valencia.
To begin with, a packing-house had been established at Valencia, and a contract made with the Venezuelan President that he should furnish the house with so many first-class steers daily. This the President had failed to do, furnishing, instead, a supply of under-grade animals. Repeated protests from the English company produced no effect. At last the company had established this ranch on the Orinoco to furnish itself with meat. The venture proved a success. By importing fine bulls the company raised the grade of the llano longhorns into a very superior beef cattle. As soon as the English syndicate had demonstrated its ability to raise good beef, the Venezuelan President instructed the Venezuelan congress to place a heavy interstate tax on all cattle transported from one state to another. This tax was so onerous that the company could not afford to move a hoof from the State of Guarico to the State of Carabobo, where Valencia was situated. The result was that the company was forced to buy the President's low-grade cattle, while the meat raised on its own hacienda had no possible market and simply went to waste.
At the conclusion of this narrative, Tolliver broke into acidulous laughter.
"Now you see why I aided General Dimancho and General Miedo to start a revolution against the Venezuelan Government. In fact, I was given the hint from the London office. Well, each of these men won in his turn, and both grew so bad that they were ousted. Fombombo was the last deliverer. But of late I hear rumors that he has turned out to be a damned rascal and they are trying to overthrow him now."
Here Lizzie Tolliver, who had been giving her husband significant glances throughout this narrative, interrupted to say:
"George, you would better not speak so unreservedly of Mr. Strawbridge's friends."
"Friends! Friends!" shouted the Trinidadian. "They are not Strawbridge's friends! We Anglo-Saxons trade with these natives; we talk with 'em, live among 'em, and occasionally marry 'em, but we never really get acquainted with any of 'em, and we never make a friend."
There was a certain verity in the rancher's appraisal, and the Tollivers themselves proved it. During this brief lunch hour the drummer and his English hosts were talking intimately and understandingly in a fashion which Strawbridge perhaps would never achieve with the colonel, Lubito, Father Benicio, or even with the señora....
The drummer wondered about the señora....
A few minutes later the little party was interrupted by the appearance of the native boy in the doorway, who said that Coronel Saturnino was waiting outside. Tolliver arose, and Strawbridge followed, saying that perhaps the troops were ready to march.
On the porch they found Coronel Saturnino standing at attention, with a very affable air, holding in his hand a sheet of paper.
He made a slight bow and tendered the paper.
"Here is a receipt, Señor Tolliver, for twenty horses, three cows, fifty chickens, and eleven ducks," he explained blandly. "As we come back by here General Fombombo would greatly appreciate one of your thoroughbred Hereford bulls, to be used on his ranch for breeding-purposes, and I have just included the bull in this receipt."
The Trinidadian burst out into another paroxysm of profane anger. The officer shrugged mildly.
"You need not take it, mi amigo, unless you want it, but it will be valuable to you some day."
"What day? How? I've heard that before!"
"This receipt is payable on the day General Fombombo extends his estate to the sea. When that day comes, present this receipt at the capital of the future state of Rio Negro, and you will be paid in full."
Tolliver broke into sardonic laughter.
"To hell with you and your receipt! General Miedo was to pay me when he marched into Caracas as a conqueror."
Coronel Saturnino bowed and tossed the paper away.
"You English folk are childish," he philosophized. "You have no sense of the inevitable. You, señor, suffer from the same evils as all other citizens of Venezuela. I, and my men out there, are risking our lives to rectify those ills. Many of them will die to-morrow, that is ineluctable. Yet while they spend their lives to benefit you, you grudge them even the beef and a few fowls which they eat and the horses upon which they ride to their death."
Tolliver drew a disgusted mouth.
"I've heard that so many times it makes me sick."
Saturnino bowed again.
"May I pay my respects to the señora, and may I wish you adios, pues." He turned to Strawbridge. "Señor, the company awaits your convenience."