The Hare

3: The Hunt

During the hunt the next day, Clarke did not see a single hare, and could have sworn that no one else did either. He was not sure, but had nobody to ask, or even to exchange opinions with; Gauna, who had begun talking to some idle old men in the hope of drawing them out, declared he had no intention of going; and the young watercolorist did not even bother to put in an appearance all morning. Around midday, a band of tall, haughty Indians came to tell Clarke they were waiting for him. This was a select group of about a hundred adults, all of them extremely well mounted. The athletic figure of Cafulcurá towered stony-faced above another group, who must have been his personal bodyguard. He did not greet Clarke even from a distance. In fact nobody greeted him, but then he did not know anyone in the party. They set off toward the east, at a brisk trot, but without too much haste. It was a sunny day like the previous one; as they rode, a searching breeze refreshed their bodies. Clarke was riding along with the men who had come to fetch him; like all the other Indians, they were smeared with a foul-smelling grease. Repetido was the only horse with a saddle. The Indians’ mounts, all of them light-colored ponies with extravagant markings, did not seem to be any better or swifter than his. They gradually increased their speed. As he had no idea where they were going, Clarke could not calculate how long it might take them to get there. The land was flat as a billiard table; the grass muffled the sound of their hooves. Lapwings traced wide circles of alarm in the sky. Clarke was riding in the midst of the group, so that the explosive flight of any partridges would not cause him such a shock. He had learned this precaution from Gauna, who gave a start and lifted his hand to his heart whenever a bird’s whirring escape caught him off guard. But the gaucho thought too much, unlike Clarke, who was the most outgoing of men. Apart from the warriors around Cafulcurá, who carried long lances, the rest of the Indians were unarmed, out for pleasure.

They must have gone three or four leagues, drinking in the cool air, rising and falling in extended cadences on the backs of their horses, when they suddenly came to a halt in a spot that was the same as all the others — because they were all the same — but was broader, more spacious still (the planet must have been squashed flat here, there was no other explanation). A few Indians who were perhaps especially skilful hunters began to walk round in circles staring closely at the ground, and then exchanged some words with Cafulcurá. In spite of the distance, Clarke could make out that the spokesman had put his eyes into a squint. He guessed he must be saying that this was a good place to find hares. The chieftain appeared to think for an instant, then shouted out in a loud voice that contrasted with his hesitant stammerings in private: “Ñi Clarke!” Silence spread still further, like a shock wave. The Indians around Clarke looked the other way in such a childish fashion that it was comic. He supposed the cry must mean something like “In honor of Clarke!” Several riders sped off in a line, which others joined at the end. Their leader took only a couple of minutes to reach the horizon. The bulk of the hunters fanned out, also at top speed, in what appeared to be a random dispersal. Cafulcurá was among them, and Clarke urged Repetido on in a direction more or less parallel to that of the chieftain. How they galloped! There was something hare-like about these lean, tireless horses which knew nothing but how to run. It took only a short time for them to disperse all over the vast prairie. When they reached a certain point, which must have been measured more by time than by place, the Indians turned round and sped back the way they had come. Obediently, Clarke copied them, although no one had explained the procedure to him. The mass of riders made up a moving grid; this probably created, from the point of view of the cornered hares, a closing circle which terrified them. Clarke even imagined he could make out the darting movements of the hares in between the horses’ hooves. But he would never have been able to point to any one of them. They were the foreshadowings of his perception, which never came to fruition. He racked his brains to try to work out what the key to the maneuver was. Perhaps each hunter simply passed the quarry onto the person who came after him in a lateral line, and so on the whole time. If that was the case, it was like a game of checkers that was pure speed, with no result. Although the result might be to exhaust the hares. Then in the end, they would be able to catch them by the ears by simply stretching out their hands, without even bothering to dismount. That would be typical of the Indians. The faint line of the horizon, grown fainter than ever, always kept half of the participants hidden from view, while at the same time, each one was at the center of his own circle. Movement was everything; the earth slipped by in dizzying strips; the sun was first on one side, then the other. Space itself changed position with each sweep: it seemed as though they were watching it pass by upside down. Off they went! Back they came! But to Clarke they were neither coming nor going; his point of view not only accompanied them, but was transformed as he joined in.

The Indians were enjoying the exercise. As they rode by, they shouted to each other, but unintelligibly to him; this was the nearest thing to real laughter this melancholy people could achieve. Then a few of them dismounted and settled down in the grass to drink from small bottles; Clarke thought it was water and went over to them. Unfortunately, it was some liquor or other. He lay down for a while. Repetido was bathed in sweat, his own legs were soaking from the horse, and he himself had sweated profusely. He took off his hat and covered his face with it, lying flat on his back. The Indians’ cries came from different sides and distances, seeming to follow a pattern, however mobile and changing. The Indians who had been drinking sped off again. It was as though after snatching a rest concealed from the others, they were now returning to their duty; but where had they been hidden? In sight of everyone? As Clarke continued to lie there, he began to feel that he himself was concealed, although the area the Indians were riding over had not changed. When he remounted, Repetido sprang off again, with more enthusiasm than his rider. But it is common knowledge that horses love to work up a sweat. Clarke had not completed a couple of sweeps before he heard a great tumult among the Indians. He thought they must have caught a hare, but it was not that. The cries were of alarm, of recrimination. They were all gathered together, screeching in a dreadful manner. Intrigued, Clarke went to see. Some riders headed like a streak of lightning for the encampment. When Clarke reached the other excited Indians, he gaped at them open-mouthed, unable to make out what was going on. He had never seen them so stirred up. They were making such a din he couldn’t make out a word of what they were saying. Suddenly the ones bearing lances came toward him, with threatening gestures. Seriously threatening, Clarke realized with a horrible sense of shock that paralyzed the beating of his heart. Until this moment, everything in his relation with the Indians had been provisional, abstract, tentative. Even the courtesy they had shown him was in some sense preliminary. Suddenly everything had become serious — deadly serious. “They’re going to run me through,” Clarke thought as he gulped with fear, staring at the bamboo lances. The worst thing was not to have the remotest idea of what it was all about, or what he had to do with it. Yet they did not follow through on their intention to kill him. They shouted things at him which, in the confusion of his mental state, he was unable to decipher. They were brandishing their lances a few inches from his chest. They must have understood each other though, because after a brief shouted discussion one group shot off toward the east. It was when they started shouting again that Clarke finally realized what had happened: Cafulcurá had disappeared. His jaw dropped in astonishment. He was trying to work out what few words he could say, some kind of expression of regret, when all the Indians’ heads turned in the direction of their village, from where a bedraggled procession was approaching at full tilt. His own group headed toward them, forcing Clarke to accompany them at walking pace. What lungs those savages had! They did not stop shouting for a moment. But how could the chieftain have disappeared? It seemed impossible, on this panoptic plain. Although on closer reflection, there was nothing easier, if at every moment, depending on the position of the observer, there was another person just below the horizon. It should be borne in mind, Clarke thought, that the natural habitat of these races was in the mountains, where hiding places abounded; it was no surprise therefore that they should reproduce that scenery by multiplying the only element that the flat plains offered them, namely the horizon line. At any rate, Clarke could understand why the bodyguards were so nervous, if the old man had been snatched thanks to the simple expedient of lying in wait for him below the horizon. No “hare” could have been so easily caught. But who could it have been? He realized they had been keeping the details of their political problems from him, even though it was true that he had not asked them any questions either. And why did they put the blame on him? He tried to remember what he had been doing a moment before all this: he had been stretched out in the grass, resting, feeling good. Not much of an alibi! The sun fell vertically on bodies seething with frustration. The horses snorted in disgust, deprived of their exercise.

Among those heading out toward them were the chief shamans and the entire council of ministers. Their faces bore such expressions of dismay that they looked ugly and menacing. There was some heated discussion on horseback, then the first practical decision they took was to send Clarke back to the encampment under guard. On their way, they passed several groups of warriors hurtling off at top speed to the scene of the disappearance. They shut Clarke up in a tent along with a perplexed and furious Gauna, and left two savages inside the tent and another pair outside to guard them.

“What’s got into these lunatics?” the tracker asked him.

“Don’t shout at me, I’ve had more than enough of that.”

Clarke was only just beginning to get over his bewilderment. The first thing he did was to sit down on the leather rug, take his hat off, undo the buckle of his uncomfortable belt, and ask for a glass of water. The Indians paid him no attention. Gauna went to sit by Clarke, and stared at him with his crazy paranoid look.

“It’s incredible,” began the Englishman, “the way events have started speeding up.”

At that moment the Indians outside called to their friends in the tent, and they went out. The two prisoners (Clarke holding up his trousers with one hand) crept to the entrance slit to see what had happened. It was nothing. The men were all happily chatting to some Indian women about this and that. Further off though there seemed to be lots going on. They had been put in a tent almost on the outskirts of the capital, no doubt so that they would be close at hand but not in the way: if, as seemed likely, the news had got out, the center of the camp would be swarming with people. The two of them sat down again, and Clarke went on with the story he had barely begun:

“It appears that Cafulcurá — and don’t ask me how — has gone up in smoke.”

“What? He’s exploded?”

“No, please, it was just an expression. I believe the Indians think he has been kidnapped.”

“And what have we got to do with it?”

Clarke shrugged his shoulders, in a gesture typical of Gauna. He was busy weighing the possibilities: for example, that the Indians thought they were traitors. All of a sudden, a thought occurred to him:

“Where can the boy be?”

“Which boy?” Gauna asked.

“Alzaga Prior.”

“How should I know?”

“Where did they capture you?”

“I spent the whole morning talking to some old men, and was still with them when those madmen arrived.”

Clarke had a dark foreboding about the young man’s fate.

“They were expecting something like this,” Gauna said.

“What?”

“An attack on Cafulcurá. Didn’t you see how they were guarding him?”

“That’s what Mallén said last night,” Clarke confessed, “but the truth is, I didn’t notice.”

They sat a while in silence.

“What will they do with us now?”

“Nothing, of course. Have we done anything wrong?”

“As if that would stop them!”

Clarke was not so skeptical as to the savages’ sense of justice, or at least of etiquette.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. But I’d be sorry to die as a result of the vagaries of their internal politics. Especially now, when I’m so close to. .”

“Close to what?”

There was no reply, because at that moment their two guards came in again and they thought it better to keep quiet. That was how things stayed for about an hour, when someone arrived on horseback. Thanks to the infallible intuition of people in danger, they knew at once it was for them. And indeed, they were led out of the tent. Some Indian worthies they knew only by sight dismounted in front of them, with forced smiles on their faces.

“We must offer you our most heartfelt apologies for any unnecessary inconvenience. For a short while it was feared that our chief had been the object of an attack, and it was decided — somewhat hastily perhaps, though with nothing but the best of intentions toward you — that you should be kept in preventive detention. As you were the only outsiders in our capital at that moment, we were afraid we would not be able to guarantee your safety faced with any unforeseen emotional reaction from our people. If in the initial confusion we overlooked any of the requirements for your comfort, we hope this has been remedied. Now that the matter is over and done with, you may go about your normal activities, and we beg you to forgive any lack of politeness on our part.”

“Am I to understand that Cafulcurá has reappeared?”

“What has restored the most serene tranquillity to our people is the news that our benevolent emperor had never in fact disappeared. It was one of those all-too-common misunderstandings. In the middle of the Hareathon, he had gone off in search of water, and stayed talking to an acquaintance he met by chance.”

“I must admit,” Clarke said, “that I also felt quite thirsty during the hunt. Next time I’ll take a bottle of water with me.”

While this exchange was going on, they had mounted up and were heading for the center of the camp at a walk. For once Gauna, who never directly addressed the Indians — at least not in front of Clarke — spoke straight out to them:

“How foolish,” he observed, “to spread panic like that on an unsubstantiated piece of news.”

His falsely polite tone was so charged with sarcasm that Clarke became worried. He could not understand how Gauna could be so foolhardy, after the danger they had been in. But his fears proved groundless. The Indians, who could be so subtle when they had a mind to, were impervious to anyone else’s irony. He himself felt sure of nothing. The gaucho’s words made him think that this latest denial could well be nothing more than a lie designed to restore calm. He hadn’t thought of that before. Moreover, he preferred not to ask after the young watercolor artist. If he turned up, and if it proved to be true — something he very much doubted — that they were free to come and go as they pleased, then the three of them would leave Salinas Grandes at the first opportunity.

In the wide central avenues of the camp, the situation seemed under control. They went straight to Namuncurá’s tent, where they parted company with their escort. The young nobleman’s wives were there as always. They asked them for something to eat. It was already late for them to cook, but they brought cold meat and salad, and a jug full of wine mixed with water.

“Don’t tell me you believed them this time as well,” said Gauna.

“Listen, my good friend,” the Englishman replied, taking his time, “you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t ask you to explain your theory. I’ve no doubt you have one. But on this occasion, to be quite frank, I’m not interested. I already have enough things to worry about. All that concerns me at the moment is finding the boy, and then getting out of here, if they’ll let us. All right?”

The gaucho withdrew into a hurt silence. Clarke went outside to smoke a pipe in the fresh air. From his tent entrance he could see the back of Cafulcurá’s tent, where there was a regular to-ing and fro-ing of women. Further off, on the horizon, he could make out several parties of Indians. He had no idea whether this was normal or not.

Obeying a sudden impulse, and without telling even Gauna that he was leaving, Clarke climbed onto Repetido and set off for the creek, thinking that was where he was most likely to find Carlos Alzaga Prior. He patted his mount’s neck: with everything that had been going on, he had badly neglected him. He hadn’t given Repetido anything to eat or drink, had left him in the sun the whole time, and now he was making fresh demands of him. The least he could do was go at a walk, and so he did. He promised himself he would bathe Repetido in the stream.

Getting there proved no easy matter. Apart from the fact that all the emotions and riding had left him with his head spinning and feeling drowsy with exhaustion (he had got used to a siesta, and it was exactly that time of day), he had no idea where this oasis was. The previous afternoon he had simply followed Gauna. Now, on his own, every direction looked the same. Of course, in the absolute flatness of the salt pans, all he had to do was to discover which direction to take — then the shortest route was obvious. But, as happens with every line, there were tiny deviations, and these inevitably produced far-reaching effects. In reality, on this plain, any one point was always elusive. The brightness of the air, added to the horse’s painfully slow progress, also made it hard for him to calculate how long it was taking him, and in the end he felt completely disoriented. He decided to follow a broad curve, which despite being longer, was more reliable. It was not for nothing that the Indians had adopted it for their settlements.

Eventually, some children riding plump mares gave him the clue. Since his snail’s pace wanderings had taken a couple of hours, the heat was dying down by the time he saw the riverbank trees, and the bathers were already out of the water. He rode past the beach without dismounting, glancing at the lazy groups as he passed by. He was thinking that there were many things to envy in the Indians’ way of life. They confined themselves to the delicious task of being happy, doing nothing, and having a good time. They ate till they burst, slept like logs, played cards, and let the years slip by. They must know a secret.

He led his horse in among the willow osiers, dappled in the sunlight like giant green and yellow shards. The river followed its fanciful course, with quiet backwaters, deep pools where the water was darker and its bed was covered with tall waving weeds, tiny waterfalls cascading over pebbles, an entire hydraulic system whose charms kept everyone entertained. Who could tell how far this linear labyrinth extended: and it seemed that there were Indians all along it, placed there like ornaments, their skin glistening with water, their black eyes half-closed as they followed the procession of the hours with snakelike patience.

Clarke had taken the same direction as the day before, riding upstream, which seemed to be the one people preferred. But he went a long way with no sign of the young painter. The groups of Indians began to get scarcer, apart from an occasional fisherman dozing to the sound of the birds. Clarke gave up hope of finding Prior in this direction. Perhaps he hadn’t even come to the stream. If he didn’t find him now, he would have to ask their hosts for help, although they seemed to have forgotten he even existed. There was also the possibility that the opposite was true, and that they were keeping Prior shut up somewhere.

Whatever the case, Clarke gave up the search. He found himself alone on a kind of grassy beach, surrounded by overhanging trees. He dismounted, removed Repetido’s saddle and led the horse into the water, making sure beforehand to take off his boots and trousers. The cool sensation of the current immediately gave him a feeling of calm. Repetido drank his fill, then stood quietly with the water halfway up his legs. Clarke was sorry he did not have a bucket to wash the animal with. He cupped his hands and splashed water onto the horse until it was completely wet. What he did have, in one of his fine red leather saddlebags, was a brush, and he set to work energetically. Clarke had always adored horses, and this one General Rosas had lent him was a fine beast. Serenity in a living being is always an admirable quality. He wondered what it was about horses that made everyone admire their beauty. Could it be merely habit? For someone who had never seen a horse, could it seem like a repugnant monster? He could not imagine such a person.

It was the empty hour of the afternoon. A bird sang above his head. The swishing of the brush and the murmur of the water round his feet dulled his senses: He could hear the cry of a lapwing in the distance. . the horse snorting, the monotonous chirrup of the crickets. .

When he had finished the grooming as well as he could without soap, Clarke sat on the bank to smoke a pipe. Repetido left the stream and began to browse on some weeds. Clarke thought how good it would have been to have a cup of coffee with his pipe. He tried for a while not to think of his problems, nor of the Indians at all. That the Indians had become part of his problem was nothing more than a stroke of bad luck. His chief concern was Nature, or should be anyway. Apart from a couple of fat Indian women who had appeared while he was washing the horse, had stared at him for a moment, then gone back to wherever they had come from, nobody passed by. Clarke wondered if he was at the far end of the Indians’ bathing area. As he thought about it, he became curious to see what lay beyond. Considered as a line of water that dissected the plain, the stream was a homogeneous whole, whose attractions were interchangeable, but moving along it, it changed without changing, in direct proportion to the distance traveled.

Clarke stood up and, just as he was, without shoes or trousers, walked on about a hundred yards. A different aspect of the stream and its banks presented itself to him, novel despite being vaguely predictable. It was a kind of reworking of the same elements: water, the riverbanks, trees, grass. Fascinated, he walked on further, in the midst of complete silence. All the charm of the place lay in its linear aspect, the way each of its segments was hidden from the previous one: the very opposite of what happened out on the open plain. As he had thought, there was no one around. Even the distant sounds of voices and noises he had heard from time to time on the little beach no longer reached him. The river was a series of secret chambers, following on from each other as in an Italian palace. As he crossed a number of “thresholds,” the mechanism of increasing distance led Clarke to feel he was entering a world of mystery, a self-contained nothingness that invoked the infinite.

All of a sudden, he heard something: a quiet, stifled moan, a kind of private crying that was directed at no one in particular, but which had something of a call for help about it. It came from beyond him: to reach it, Clarke would have to cross into another invisible zone. He did so, and was transfixed with shock. All alone on the riverbank sat Carlos Alzaga Prior. He was weeping disconsolately, his head in his hands.

The sight came as a great surprise to the Englishman. He couldn’t recall ever having seen a man cry. It was true the watercolor painter was still almost a child, but there was something adult and definitive about his sobbing that touched Clarke deeply. He was confronting pain, and this brought out a feeling of nostalgia in him — although that was hardly a strong enough word to describe the mixture of anxiety and distress it caused him.

It was as if Clarke saw the youth cut out in a vacuum, in silhouette. Despair produces this kind of vacuum around one. Robbed of all points of reference, the figure could have been either near or far away: he could be a thousand leagues off, and be a giant, or only five inches away, and be a miniature. But he was only a few yards away, and Clarke had to trust to his eyesight, to the normal correlation of size and distance. This inevitability made the scene a cruel one. He thought he saw before him an emblem of his own life, and it terrified him. The terror came from being English, educated, reserved, from being unable to cry in public (or in private), from living inside a bubble and not allowing himself to feel any emotions. His emotional life had dried up years earlier — when in the first flush of his own youth, he had lost someone he loved who might have taught him how to cry. From that day on, he had never felt the sense of dread that is a natural part of life: he could see this now, when he was least expecting it, but in someone else.

His first impulse was to turn and run, but he thought better of it. He went closer. As he had no boots on, he got all kinds of thorns and sharp stones stuck in the soles of his feet. Carlos neither looked up, nor took his hands from his face, nor stopped crying for a second. Overcome with pity, Clarke put his arm round his shoulder. When he tried to speak, words failed him. He wanted to console the boy, but did not know how to. The most natural thing seemed to him to take Prior somewhere else, to go and fetch his horse at least, to get on with his plans and forget about the Indians. He wanted to concentrate on one thing and forget the other. His mind was in such a confused state, however, that the two impulses became entangled.

All the same, the youth allowed himself to be led along a few steps without protesting, sobbing all the while. They had hardly gone a few yards when a shadow fell across them. Clarke was the only one who lifted his gaze. A horseman stood out against the setting sun, mysterious as yet, slightly threatening because of his position above them and because he had stopped and was staring at them. “What’s he going to think?” Clarke immediately wondered. The lugubrious voice that rang out clearly showed him that it wasn’t a question of thinking anything.

“I was looking for you.”

It was the voice of Mallén the shaman. A voice from beyond the grave, filled with concern: the voice of a man with a serious problem. Clarke let go of the youth and stepped to one side so that Mallén would not be against the light. He was taken aback by his face: he seemed to have aged twenty years in a single day.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to talk to you.”

He used none of the usual circumlocutions. The Englishman realized the seriousness of the situation, and did not keep him waiting.

“All right, I’ll get properly dressed.” Then to Carlos: “I’ll be back right away.” He walked on a few steps, but then felt the need to add something more, so said: “Try to calm down.”

Clarke returned to the grassy beach as quickly as he could, with the shaman behind him. He put his trousers on, rubbed his feet briskly to get rid of the gravel and bits of grass, and wriggled into his boots.

“I’m all ears,” he said, facing the Indian.

“Come with me, please. Let’s find somewhere quieter.”

It was difficult to imagine anywhere quieter than the spot they were already in, but Clarke mounted up anyway and followed the shaman, who headed off at a walk in a direction perpendicular to the stream. They were soon in open ground. To Clarke’s surprise, a hill appeared in the distance. It was a gentle one, but well-defined, perhaps in contrast to the flat plain all around. They rode up it. When they reached the top Mallén, who so far had not opened his mouth again, dismounted and invited Clarke to do the same. It seemed strange that by climbing such a little way, they could see so far, but that was a natural property of the prairie: each yard climbed represented a hundred leagues. They sat down in the grass, their faces turned toward the sun. As the Indian still said nothing, Clarke decided to take the initiative with something neutral:

“It’s a fine evening.”

“Would you believe I’m so worried I hadn’t even noticed?”

“You must have your reasons.”

“I’ll say I do.” A fresh, prolonged silence. But the Indian had got started, so Clarke contented himself with waiting. Sure enough, with the lines on his face deepening and his eyes turning even blacker, Mallén began to explain. “What I most feared has happened.”

His words had a special resonance for the Englishman.

It was the kind of expression which, when examined logically, did not make sense. Yet it was the second time in the space of half an hour that he had heard it, in one way or another.

“As you well know,” the Indian went on, “in spite of all the precautions taken, Cafulcurá has disappeared.”

“But hasn’t he appeared again?”

“Don’t tell me you believed that official denial! If you did, you were the only one to do so.”

Yet again, this scorn for his naivety. Obviously then, it wasn’t just Gauna. Clarke decided not to let it upset him.

“The fact is, I didn’t stop to think about it. I accepted what I was told, as a matter of course.”

Emerging from his pessimistic daydream, Mallén stared at him as if he were seeing him for the first time that evening:

“Of course. I’d forgotten they suspected you at first. How absurd.” He waved his hand, as if dismissing a triviality. “Well, yes, our chieftain has been kidnapped. And everything appears to indicate there is little chance of getting him back alive. All we can hope is that for some reason or other they postpone his execution. There’s also the fact that his son Reymacurá, who went off in pursuit of his kidnappers, has not returned. As you can see, we only have a slender thread to hang on to.”

“Couldn’t he have disappeared of his own accord?”

“Don’t talk rubbish.”

“So who could it have been?”

“Everything suggests it was our most bitter enemies, the

Voroga.”

“Why shouldn’t they kill him immediately?”

“Mister Clarke, I have decided to confide in you. You’ll soon see why. To my mind, there’s a black-hearted, ferocious woman behind all this. Have you ever heard of Rondeau’s widow?”

“No.”

“A few years ago, Cafulcurá defeated a Voroga chief by the name of Rondeau, and quite logically, put him to death. Among the reparations that were then paid to the defeated tribe (because we have the generous custom that it is the victor who pays) was an offer of marriage to the chieftain’s widow. That woman, who is not even a Voroga by birth but a complete stranger, had the audacity to reject the proposal, and fled with a group of her followers. Over the years, a lot more have joined them, so that today she has a fearsome power.”

“What does she have against Cafulcurá?”

“Nothing, and that’s what is most disturbing. It’s not because he killed her husband, because she herself tried to do that on more than one occasion — she hated him. In fact, she doesn’t seem to have anything against Cafulcurá or anyone else in particular; she’s happy just to be bloodthirsty and to survive.”

“Why do you suspect her?”

“Because she is the only person daring enough to carry out a raid like this, and the only one with so little to lose (she doesn’t even possess any territory) that she doesn’t fear any reprisals. Even so, she must have realized she was going too far, and that is why I suspect she has reached an understanding with the current leader of the Vorogas, that hypocrite Coliqueo, who is the one who stands to gain most from Cafulcurá’s death. My whole line of thinking is based on that hypothesis: if Cafulcurá was taken alive, it must have been her, with the intention of keeping him and threatening her associate with returning him to us if he does not fulfill his promises, whatever they might have been. In that way, she secures her position.”

“I see.”

“I wanted to ask a great favor of you, Mister Clarke.”

“At your service.”

“Will you go to Coliqueo’s camp and try to discover his intentions? I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“But I’ve no idea how to do that!”

“Oh come now, don’t be so modest. If anyone knows, it’s you.”

“How would I get there, with all the tension there is in the air?”

“But you are precisely the one who would have the least problem doing so. How did you get this far?”

“Well. .” said Clarke, who in reality had never seriously asked himself that question, “I suppose it was due to the skill of my tracker, and good will on your part. . ”

The shaman looked at him again, this time in genuine astonishment: “You mean you don’t know about the horse?”

“Repetido? What has he got to do with it? Rosas lent him to me, that’s all I know.”

“And where did Rosas get him? Haven’t you seen Cafulcurá’s horse?”

“Yes, it’s similar. . ”

“No; it’s identical.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. . ”

“Yes, it is! But this is incredible! You mean to say you came here blindly, trusting to your good fortune?”

“Mister Mallén, do me the favor of enlightening me.”

Choosing to ignore the Englishman’s irritated tone, the shaman collected his thoughts.

“In our humble way, we like to breed our horses to produce the piebald effect we admire. Why do we like it so much? Because we can read the language of the different patches of color, and this is very practical for us. Repetido is a horse which exactly reproduces the same patches as Cafulcurá’s favorite, or what might be called his ‘official’ mount, and it is for that and no other reason that you succeeded in reaching Salinas Grandes unscathed. The two horses are twins, foals born at the same time from the same mare, and that mare was the granddaughter of the famous Fantasma, the horse in whose kidneys was found the blue stone which is Cafulcurá’s talisman. Apart from the stone, the legend, and the resulting play on words, Fantasma was the source of a line of twin horses. Your Repetido was a gift from our chieftain to Rosas on the occasion of an eternal peace treaty they signed a few years ago.”

“I had no idea.”

“I’m not surprised. There’s so much we do not know. . Well, not to waste time, will you help?”

Clarke only needed a moment’s thought: “Agreed.”

Their conversation was at an end. From their slight elevation, they could see the encroaching night gradually veiling the splendor of the evening sky. Flocks of pigeons rose into the heavens. Everything seemed to invite them to stay a while longer. Then a question occurred to Clarke:

“But, according to what you said, you were expecting something like this to happen, or am I mistaken?”

“Yes and no. It would take a lot of explaining.”

“Then please do so. We have the time. And I wouldn’t want to leave without knowing, it might be useful to me.”

“No, it won’t be useful in the slightest. If experience has taught me anything, it is that the less one knows, the more effectively one can act. But I’ll tell you anyway, because we do have the time. You should start out tomorrow morning.”

He lapsed into silence for a while, organizing his thoughts. “Let’s think where I can start. I should say at the outset that there is a lot of absurdity in the whole thing.”

“That’s the least of my concerns.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. Well, it’s true we had taken all kinds of precautions to guard Cafulcurá, but not for any real reason. There’s a paradox for you, seeing that in the end what happened was something real, all too real. Years ago, some hired shamans carried out who knows what oracular maneuvers, as a result of which there emerged the prophecy that on the day our chieftain celebrated his seventieth birthday, he would suffer an accident similar to the one that had happened thirty-five years earlier, when he reached that age. On that occasion, the birthday celebrations were complicated because they coincided with Cafulcurá’s wedding, since he was finally to be married to the great love of his life, the marvelous Juana Pitiley, whom he had yearned after for more than a decade. The celebrations were extraordinary: a week-long feast, with the inevitable over-indulgence in drink — you can imagine the state we were in by the end. At midnight on the final day, a small band of Vorogas had not the slightest difficulty in penetrating right to the heart of our encampment, picking up Cafulcurá like a bundle of dirty linen, and making off with him. In those days, the Vorogas were nothing like what they are today, except in their evil ways. They were nomadic groups, who could not get used to the plains: anarchists, in a word. Nor were we exactly what we are nowadays. Cafulcurá was young, somewhat dissipated, and our organization in times of peace left a lot to be desired. All this is to explain why the kidnapping caused such disarray in our ranks. It took all Juana Pitiley’s ardor to achieve the miracle of rounding up a party to set off after the Vorogas, and to pursue them for weeks without losing their trail. It was an entire small tribe which had carried out the kidnapping. They went at a good pace, and by pure instinct headed for the southern mountains. We never found out what they intended to do with Cafulcurá, but the fact is they kept him alive, drugged with herbal drinks. Since they knew they were being followed, as they believed by a large force, they spread out and holed up in the mountains, keeping their captive well hidden. When our warriors arrived, there was a series of skirmishes, in which all the ten or more brave Huilliches were killed off one by one, until only the heroic Juana Pitiley was left alive. She was determined to recover her husband or die in the attempt. From this point on, her feat enters the realms of legend. Nobody will ever know what she actually did, but I’ll tell you what has become the accepted version. A different kind of intelligence (now proverbial) came to life in her, a sort of animal instinct, which guided her like a sleepwalker who has the use of reason. Alone, naked, without weapons, she succeeded in getting into the sancta sanctorum of the Vorogas, which in fact was not a cavern but a circle of steep peaks about a league in circumference, at the center of which was a pierced rock, known as the Cerro de la Ventana. One evening she managed to climb up it without being seen, and then, as the sun set, the last ray threaded through the ‘window,’ and on the far side she saw the flight of a hare, later known as the Legibrerian Hare. By now we’re in the realm of pure fiction, for which I apologize. The path the hare followed showed her the way to Cafulcurá. You probably realize that all this could have a perfectly reasonable explanation: how often has the innocence of a tiny wild animal led to the discovery of a secret place? That same night, Juana rescued Cafulcurá all by herself, and the two of them climbed back up the Cerro de la Ventana, where she was sure the Vorogas would not search for them (their natural strategic response would be to disperse, once they discovered that their prisoner had been seized). At dawn, when Cafulcurá came round, they consummated their marriage at the summit of the pierced rock. The next day their escape and the pursuit began. It lasted a whole year. There have been many conjectures about their prolonged flight, but all we really know is that at a certain moment, when Juana Pitiley was about to give birth to the son she had conceived on the night of the rescue, the two lovers separated. As for the duped Vorogas, legend has it that they went to live beneath the earth like armadillos. Cafulcurá returned alone to our tents, and then two months later Juana Pitiley appeared, safe and sound, with a child in her arms: Namuncurá. Since that day she has been the foremost of the chieftain’s thirty-two wives, and a powerful political force in our court. By the way, tomorrow a deputation is to go to Carhué to inform her of the unfortunate occurrence. Her reaction could be fearsome.”

Clarke was no longer listening to him. The mention of the Hare in the Indian’s story had left him on tenterhooks. It was exactly what he wanted to find out about, but he judged this was not the right moment to press Mallén with questions, especially since it was unlikely he had anything important to say on the subject. He also had to give himself some time to reflect on what he had heard. It was bitterly disappointing that this information was coming out just when events were gathering pace around him. Following a very English (but mistaken) line of reasoning, he considered he would be able to think more clearly in peace, away from everything.

“What about Namuncurá?” he asked. “I heard he was on a trip. Has he been told as well?”

All of a sudden Mallén seemed much less self-assured.

“I don’t think it would be easy to find him. . Anyway, we’ll see.”

He stood up and went to mount his horse. Clarke did the same. By now it was almost night. They headed for the encampment at a walk.

“Tomorrow,” the shaman said, “you can leave with the riders going to Carhué to see Juana Pitiley. You could accompany them for that part of your journey, it’s on your way. I suggest you go to sleep soon, because they’re thinking of leaving very early.”

“At what time?”

The shaman gave a typically Indian reply.

“At three.”