“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.