Yet, he had always detested violence; he was patient, he was industrious. These virtues were instilled in him as a boy; his two sons would be no different, although they had Pangasinan blood.
Dalin came to mind, and for a while he could imagine her — her long tresses shiny with coconut oil, her face, her radiance. How well she had raised the children and, most important, she had stood by him and supported him when he wavered.
He took the pencil out and started to write, this time in Ilokano, for he wanted Dalin to read it someday:
My Dearest Wife — I am now far away resting in an open field, but it seems you are near and I can even imagine hearing your voice. We have gone through ten years together yet it seems as if all these happened only yesterday, only because when I am with you time stops. Thank you for having shared my sorrows, the times when the harvest was niggardly, when there was little rice in the bin. Thank you for having taken care of me and grabbed me before I could fall into that black, bottomless pit. I will still have many distances to travel, but even now, I feel like I could fly, only because I want this journey to end so that I can hurry back to you. I have asked myself so many times why I am doing this and while I am not yet sure of the reason why — of one thing I am sure: Cabugawan is where I am headed, for that is where you are.
Words are never really enough to express love, and words having failed him, he closed his eyes and dreamed.
It was the sun, warm on his face, which woke him. Kimat was close by, grazing on the grass. He had not looked around closely before. To his left, he saw the village — some eight thatch-roofed houses. It must be an hour before sundown and the afternoon had become cool. He started to rise and it was then that a bolt of pain shot down his spine as if someone had lanced him — his whole being was aflame. He felt that if he so much as made one slight move, he would die. He fell back on the ground, gasping. He remembered then that he had never ridden far before. After a while, he rose again — the pain no longer throbbed. He reined Kimat in and, with some difficulty, placed the saddle and the twin sacks on the animal’s back. Leading the horse close to a low dike, he mounted the dike, then the horse, the pain coursing through him quickly again.
In the village, he looked for a calesa driver. There was always one who provided the village with its transport. He needed some grass and rice bran for Kimat. The villagers were Ilokanos; he was close to San Fabián now. The sea lay ahead to the left, the low hills of the Ilokos loomed to the right, and ahead rose the blue-green ranges of the Cordilleras.
The driver had just come in for the day; he had a new calesa, with the floral designs on the sides still bright and the tinwork on the harness still shiny. The grass and the bran would cost Istak five centavos.
“Tell me about the road from San Fabián to Rosario — the road along the coast to the north. Are Americans already there? Surely, you must have heard.”
The driver was a farmer, perhaps in his early twenties. He had not traveled far, he said, but was sure the Americans were not yet there.
“They are already in Bayambang,” Istak said.
“Maybe just a few,” the calesa driver said. The bran that Istak wanted was already mixed with molasses in a wooden trough, and Kimat had started eating.
“I am going north,” Istak said. “And I don’t want to cross their path.”
If the president had crossed the river from Bayambang, he would probably have gone on to Dagupan by train and from there onward to San Fabián. The people here would be Pangasiñenses; they would probably understand Istak if he spoke in Ilokano. He could always speak in Spanish but he did not want to appear to be an ilustrado. The people of the north had always regarded the Pangasiñenses with condescension, for they were considered self-indulgent and lazy, they waited for their coconuts to fall rather than climbing the palms to harvest them. And their women — he smiled in remembrance of the tattered concepts of his own womenfolk — they are lazy like their men, and worse, they are filthy. He had teased Dalin about this when they finally dismantled their makeshift hut and built a better dwelling with hardwood posts, but Dalin had always kept her pots clean and the yard well swept. She even bathed the two pigs she raised as if they were human beings. It was not right — attributing inborn faults and virtues to people, but if he felt comfortable anywhere, it was among his own people.
The Cripple had decried the treachery of the Macabebes. Perhaps it was money which made them join the Spaniards. With American silver they were now fighting their own kin. Why do people betray their brothers and eventually themselves? Do not trust anyone, not even your own instincts, the Cripple had warned; you are alone, you must always be on guard not only against those who will harm you but those who will take the message and stop you from doing your job.
He had talked with the boatman as he was now talking with this stranger — freely. They were little people like himself, far removed from the battlefield or the cares of high office. He knew his instructions, but he must also trust people. Still …
The driver was inquisitive. Istak was just another traveler — one of the hundreds that had crossed the river. He must now tell a longer story, with a semblance of truth to it.
“I am going to Cabugaw,” he said. “My father is dying. We have a small piece of land there — and maybe, with the share, we can go back to the Ilokos — my family and I. There is nothing like living where you were born, where you know everyone. You know what I am trying to say.”
The driver turned away. He stirred the molasses and added water and bran in the trough where Kimat was feeding. In the thatch-roofed house beyond them, a stove fire had been kindled and the driver’s wife was preparing the evening meal. To her, the man said aloud: “Be sure you include an additional plate for our visitor,” to which Istak said quickly: “No, you have already been very kind. I must be on my way.”
“You cannot travel in the dark,” the driver said.
Istak did wait, though, for a plate of hot rice and a piece of roasted dried meat. While he waited, the rig driver told him about the village, how his villagers had come down, too, from the north — Paoay — and how they had claimed the forest. Large patches of jungle still covered Pangasinan, and the natives were too lazy to clear them. And there were no more tributes or excessive taxes to pay. Surely, the future was better here.
Istak mounted Kimat again. The November wind was balmy and he felt so refreshed he was sure he could travel the whole night. The pain in his buttocks and at the base of his spine was no longer as sharp as it had been earlier in the day. Now, he was familiar with the rhythm of the horse, its even pace. He rarely used his heels to prod the animal. He had learned, too, of Kimat’s signals, how his head drooped when he was tired, how he raised his head when he tensed to alien sounds. Kimat seemed almost human in his expression of gratitude — he would nudge Istak after being given a piece of sugar cake or merely patted on the neck.
Still no trace of the Americans. Soon he would reach the sea. How quickly he had traveled, unlike the time when they came down the Ilokos in a caravan. Kimat made all the difference. The mountains were closer, the wooded hills and long stretches of vacant land that were cattle ranches. In the coming dusk, the mountains were caparisoned with the soft luster of gold and blue, and high up in the ranges toward the land of the Igorots, clouds of deepening purple were impaled by peaks. He was sure he would find the trail and overtake them — they were such a big group, they would not be able to travel as fast as he. Indeed, the strongest man is the solitary man.