It was January 1852. In the United States, Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin’” was about to be published, a book that
would divide the North and the South in an internecine war that would pit
brother against brother. E. G. Otis had just invented the elevator with safety
appliances and Christopher Dorflinger had invented the lamp chimney. There were
spiritualists’ conventions held in Cleveland, Boston and Worcester. Five months
later, the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore was to nominate Franklin
Pierce of New Hampshire for President on the forty-ninth ballot, while some two
weeks later, and in the same city, the Whig National Convention was to nominate
old General Winfield Scott of New Jersey on the 53rd ballot. In San Francisco,
the leading citizens had organised their Vigilante Committee to deal with
lawlessness. But even they would have been helpless to cope with the marauding
and rapine, the bloodshed and the agony being unleashed in the sister nation to
the south.
It was
January, the height of summer in the Argentine pampas. The small grey ornero
(ovenbird) was busy making its own home of mud and straw with a curving
entrance to protect it from the wind and rain which would sweep the great
plains when winter came in June.
At the
village of Lujan, thirty miles west of Buenos Aires, by noon the sun was
already sweltering as the vii lagers prepared for the wedding feast of Maria
Concepcian Villartes to Pedro Rosamonte. Already the altar boys were hastening
into the adobe church of Nuertra Señora de Piedad where Fra Sierro would
perform the ceremony that would unite Sancho Rosamonte’s handsome twenty-four-year-old
only son Pedro with the most beautiful girl of the village. She was as slim as
a reed, black hair glossy as polished jet, not quite eighteen, with a sweet,
oval face radiant with that virginal glow which would soon, this very night, be
transformed into the more ardent look of womanhood.
The alcalde
himself. Manuel Villartes, vigorous and spry despite his sixty-two years, had
announced that there would be a feast all afternoon following the wedding and
that even the poorest villagers would be welcome. He had come to this tiny
village as a wanderer some forty years ago, when the savage Chacabuco Indians
had killed his father and ravished and tortured his lovely mother to death.
Indigent and possessing only his health and his determination to conquer the
pampas, he had taken a few humble acres, bought a few cows and a bull from a
dying estanciero (ranch owner) and had thus begun his fortune. His first
two wives, who had been barren, had died during the famines of 1813 and 1821.
His third wife had been a fifteen-year old criatura, a timid indentured
Corteleone Indian girl from the south. She had been sold into bondage at the
age of five and destined to be the concubine of the brutal tavern keeper Manuel
Durado who had bought her from her impoverished parents, members of a friendly
tribe who often wandered to the north and worked in the fields and on the estancias
to earn money for food, trinkets and clothing. She had been the best, the most
faithful wife of all to him, and the old alcalde sadly reflected, as he
entered the church and piously crossed himself at the sight of the altar, how
lamentable it was that she could not be here, to see Pedro Rosamonte stand
before Fra Sierro with their daughter Maria Concepcion. Alas, Triana had died
of an undulant fever six months ago, in the prime of her life and beauty. And
even though he prayed for the happiness of his son-in-law, he could not help
coveting the beauty of his beloved daughter, for his bed was empty and yet he
was still virile, still capable of carnal lust. How well he could recall the
feverish eagerness of Triana when they came together in the night, her mouth
and breasts and thighs seeking him, insatiable and fiery!
As he bowed
his head before the altar and before he took his seat in the front pew near the
rail, Manuel Villartes said a worried prayer. It was to be hoped that those
accursed federalistas would not have heard the news of this impending
marriage. If the terrible gaucho soldiers of Juan Manual de Rosas were
to hear of the chest of golden coins which he intended to give his adored son-in-law
as a wedding gift, they would swoop down and loot the village. Those coins
represented arduous years of growing cattle on the pampas, fighting not only
disease and bad crops but also the banditos from the nearby province,
occasional forays by the warring Indian tribes and almost emasculated by the
intolerable taxes levied by the tyrant.
The alcalde
himself in secret shared the views of the federalistas whose leaders came from
the pampas, even though they now ruled from Buenos Aires. But he abominated the
bloodshed and the ferocity and the hatred which the tyrant Rosas had
engendered. How long would it be before Nuestro Señor Dias would purge that
arrogant and bloodthirsty man who had governed the province of Buenos Aires
from 1832 and then, after giving up his office, turned the heads of the stupid
masses by leading a successful expedition against the Indians? Yes, they had
welcomed him back with open arms, the poor idiots, in 1835. And now he was virtual dictator over all
Argentina.
There was
much to be said about the cause of the unitarios. If only the matter
could be resolved by a popular vote of the nation, the old alcalde thought.
As for himself, he had earned his livelihood and all that gold he was about to
give unto his beloved son, from the pampas so he could understand the cause of
a man like Rosas, who believed in national unity. Well, that was all very fine,
if there were no taxes, no troops to ride despotically into the tiny villages
of the south and the west and to seize prisoners without warrant, to torture
and execute them, to rape the women and to kidnap the youngest girls to be
taken back to Buenos Aires to serve as whores to these vile wretches who
themselves once had been the lowliest of gauchos and who now held
military rank and rode fine horses and lived off the fat of the land.
Let Buenos
Aires be self-ruling, self-sufficient, he said to himself, as his lips moved in
that urgent prayer. It is not a city already rich enough to subsist on its own
fat, like the camel. And yet, in the name of the federalistas and unitarios,
each new day brought terror and death and torture to the pampas.
The
villagers thronged around the little adobe church as the proud alcalde, in
frock coat and tall hat, with the silver chain of his office about his neck,
led his daughter in on his arm, nodding and smiling politely to his neighbours.
Every pew was crowded and some of the peasants had managed to squeeze into the
back of the church where they stood agog with excitement, for an event like
this was rare in this quiet little village. Then at last the hubbub of murmurs
died down as the gentle, stoop-shouldered priest approached, smiling at the
young couple who knelt beyond the rail awaiting his blessing and the start of
the ritual which would make them one. But Fra Sierro had hardly begun to invoke
the Creator’s blessing when suddenly a peasant at the back of the church
shouted, “They are coming! Los Lanceros Negros!”
Cries of
horror rose and the priest himself went ashen-pale, crossing himself and
mumbling prayers. “Quickly, my daughter, go to the quarters of the good priest
and hide yourself,” the old alcalde gasped. Maria Concepcion uttered a
sobbing cry, clasped the hands of her sturdy young husband-to-be and then fled,
clutching her bouquet and gathering up with the other hand the train of her
gown as she took shelter.
And outside
the church, thirty horsemen, dressed in the gaucho uniforms of the
tyrant Rosas, black breeches and boots, black gloves and red tunics, wearing
metal helmets to whose peaks were affixed plumes of horsehair, lifting the
heavy wooden shafts of their lances whose last three feet were made of
sharpened iron and dismounted to surround the little church. At the sight of
these dread riders, the villagers who had clustered about the door of the
church ran screaming down the street toward their homes.
The leader
of this troop, Teniente Porfirio Gonzales, carried a sabre and on his red tunic
was a silver medal cunningly shaped in the form of a sun with many rays
circling it. It was a medal which Rosas himself had had struck for this
intrepid and merciless officer, whose name alone struck terror into the hearts
of every villager between Buenos Aires and the Uruguayan border.
He was
stocky, with coarse, short black hair and a thick moustache, only thirty, but
in a military career of a decade he had won the nickname of “The Bloody
Butcher.” He had begun his days under the Rosas regime as a private and Rosas
himself had watched the recruit tied to an X-shaped wooden whipping post to
receive seventy-five strokes with a heavy leather belt for having cheated at
cards. But so bravely had the recruit taken his lashing that Rosas had been
impressed and he had had Porfirio Goniales assigned to his personal bodyguard.
A year later, when a hysterical widow had tried to stab the leader for having
her daughter abducted and brought to his quarters to satisfy his rapacious
lusts, it had been Porfirio Gonzales who had interposed his body between the
dagger and the dictator, sustaining a flesh wound in the arm. He had wrested
the dagger away from the woman and stabbed her in the heart. For this he had
been made a corporal and given a small piece of land just outside the great
city of Buenos Aires. From then on, his career was marked by splendid
accomplishments in the service of Argentina’s bloodiest dictator.
Whenever a
village resisted or revolted against the heavy taxes imposed by the dictator,
it was Porfirio Gonzales who led a punitive expedition of lancers against the
dissidents. He became a sergeant two years later and last year been given the
rank of Teniente in full command of these thirty expert fighting men.
“Diego,
Jose, Manuelito and Hernando, follow me!” he barked as he strode into the
church with drawn sabre. The spectators were rooted in their seats, their
mouths agape with horror at this sacrilege. The kindly old priest, in a
quavering voice, sought to placate the federalista officer.
“My son, you
are in the house of God. So, sheathe your sword. We celebrate a wedding this
day and there is no need for soldiers on so joyous an occasion.”
“That is
where you are wrong, viejo,” Porfirio Gonzales sarcastically chuckled as
he strode down the aisle toward the altar rail. “There is no sanctuary for
traitors, no refuge for the accursed unitarios!”
“But you are
mistaken, my son,” the old priest persisted. “It is well known that the village
of Lujon thrives under the rule of Rosas.”
In this, his
gentle way, he sought to retaliate for the officer’s sarcasm as well as to tell
the truth. Indeed, the village had angrily paid its tribute levied by the
tyrant and been left in peace.
“Go mumble
your prayers, you old fool and do not interfere in what does not concern you,
or you will taste the fine edge of my sabre,” Porfirio Gonzales sneered. “Who
is the Alcalde? This dog who calls himself Manuel Villartes?”
“I am he,”
the white-haired father of the bride rose from one of the front pews.
“Then it is
you I seek. There is word that you have hoarded much gold, Señor Alcalde.
When a man conceals a treasure, it can only be because he has not paid his just
taxes. You will give this gold to my men at once.”
“But that’s
not so, Teniente!” the old man protested. “All these years I have saved what
money I could after I met the levies of your master. Today, on this blessed day
when my daughter is to be wed to the son of our largest estanciero, I
mean to give the young people’s gift for the future.”
“Give it
rather to the state, that it may grow strong in crushing the traitorous unitarios!”
Porfiri Gonzales sneered. “Where is this moneybox of
yours hidden, old man?”
“But even
the priest will tell you that ... what are you going to do?” For even as he
spoke, the alcalde saw two of the lancers hurry
towards the back of the church and through the door which led to the priest’s
quarters where his daughter had taken refuge. A moment later, the two grinning
soldiers dragged out the screaming and weeping Maria Concepcion, her veil
ripped away, her gown wrenched from her shoulders to expose the olive-sheened
satin of her naked flesh, almost to the valley of her high perched, pear-firm
breasts.
“Then, old
man, we will take your daughter as hostage until you decide to give us the
gold!” Porfirio Gonzales chuckled.
“No! Wait!
In the name of human mercy -I will tell you where the gold is - it’s in my
house - at the bottom of a sewing basket.”
“Jose,
Hernando,” Porfirio Gonzales turned to his other two subalterns, “ride to this
old fool’s house and take him with you to show you the way, so he will be
pricked with the lance if he tries to trick you. You two -” gesturing with his
sabre at the weeping girl held between them, “take her out to the public
square, bind her wrists behind her back and keep her prisoner until your
comrades return with the gold!”
So saying, he turned his
back on the altar and strode out of the church, while two of the lancers shoved
him forward, their two companions dragging the weeping and pleading Maria
Concepcion along with them. She saw them drag her father over to one of the
horses, force him to mount up behind one of the lancers and then the two rode
off. Her captors, standing on either side other, caressed her bare neck and
shoulders, as she groaned and wept in her shame as she heard their lascivious
appraisals other young body.
“Captain,
hola, amigo, what a lucky hombre will be the man
who has this pretty wench to bed this night! -Si verdad,
but what if the bridegroom is not there to take his right? Then, what would you
do? Perhaps one of us, humble though we are, may be privileged to aid this muchachita to become a woman!”
The two
lancers rode back with the alcalde, one of them lifting up the treasure
box to show that he had achieved his mission. Porfirio Gonzales stepped forward
and took possession of the box. Breaking it open forcibly, he stared avidly at
the rows of shining golden coins. “By frugality and hard work, eh, you traitorous dog?” he jeered. Then, drawing his sabre, he
thrust it to the heart of the alcalde.
Maria
Concepcion uttered a shriek of incredulous horror and tried to run to her
father, who had stumbled back, clutched at his bleeding chest, then crumpled to
the ground. But one of the lancers beside her thrust out his booted foot to
trip her and sent her sprawling in the dust amid the jeers and the salacious
comments of the other soldiers.
“Take that
bitch along, too,” Porfirio Gonzales commanded. “And find me ten of the least
ugly girls of this insurrectionist hamlet as tribute to El Supremo!”