The Vorogas got up very late, and Coliqueo did not appear until one o’clock. Clarke and his companions were given some sticky cakes for breakfast, washed down with a bitter boiled maté. Clarke and Carlos spent a long while staring at Indian men and women, who were busy doing nothing. There was no one for them to exchange a word with. The white men in whose company Gauna had spent the night did not seem much more promising. Gauna introduced them to his former friend, a half-caste by the name of Aristídes Ordóñez.
“What do you know about Cafulcurá?” Clarke asked him point-blank.
“Who?”
Clarke turned to Gauna: “Can he really not know who Cafulcurá is?”
“Don’t you know who Cafulcurá is?”
“No,” said Ordóñez.
“Have you never heard of him?”
“I don’t get involved in Indian matters, boss.”
“What do you do, then?”
“I write.”
This was enough to awaken Clarke’s dormant interest.
“You’re the chieftain’s scribe?”
“That’s right, by your leave.”
“And who on earth does that madman have to write to?”
“He dictates endless memorandums, all of them addressed to Rosas.”
“Since when could you write?” Gauna asked him, with his habitual suspiciousness.
“A priest taught me.”
“Which one?”
“The one who used to stay in the houses. . the one with the pigs, you remember?”
“Ah, that one,” said Gauna.
“What happened to the pigs?” Clarke asked. Gauna did not even deign to reply, but stared into the distance. Ordóñez answered on his behalf: “He bought four pigs, and they all died of the evil eye.”
“That priest,” Gauna condescended to comment, “was the dumbest person who ever drew breath.”
“By the way,” Clarke said to Ordóñez, “what’s the matter with Coliqueo? Is he smoking too much?”
“No more than normal.”
“How about drink?”
“Yes, of course. He likes a bit of everything.”
“He says things that are hard to interpret.”
“You’re right, he is a bit odd. But he’s not a bad sort.”
Clarke kept his thoughts to himself. Aristídes Ordóñez did not appear to him to be a particularly good sort. Who could say what he was escaping from among the savages? And if Gauna succeeded in getting any useful information out of him, he would not tell Clarke — the two of them appeared to have come from the same mold, but at least Clarke was used to Gauna by now.
Soon afterward, Coliqueo sent for Clarke to come to his tent, and so the unbearable interview began. Clarke went alone, sending Carlos off to have a dip in the river.
“I gather,” the chieftain started by saying, focusing his eyes normally after the briefest of squints, “that your honor has come from Salinas Grandes.”
“That’s right. Last night I didn’t have the chance to mention it, because in fact it seemed rather a mouthful.”
“Because your mouth was full of half a cow at least!”
Clarke sighed: his intended joke had fallen flat in Voroga. The Indian went on:
“So my distant cousin Cafulcurá — the more distant the better — has vanished into thin air?”
“You knew about that?”
“I heard about it the other day, by chance.”
“And what did you make of it?”
“I split my sides laughing.”
“Don’t you think he might be in danger?”
“What kind of danger?” Up to this point, Coliqueo had tried to be reasonable, but this was too much for him. Before the Englishman could reply, he raised his arms in protest: “I had nothing to do with it! I knew they’d try to pin it on me! I’m sick to death of those charlatans!”
“If it’s any reassurance, I can promise you that nobody in Salinas Grandes suspected you of having anything to do with it.”
“I should think not! To get me mixed up in their fantasies!”
“But this isn’t a fantasy. The man has vanished.”
“And what do I care?”
“Aren’t the Vorogas enemies of the Huilliches?”
“We have signed a treaty of everlasting peace. It’s a dead letter, but I’m happy enough with it. My concern is my people: production, development, foreign affairs. Within my modest domain, I aim to be a model statesman. They on the other hand live from stealing, from lazing about, from extortion. They’re empty-headed and envious. That madman Cafulcurá has raised the new generation in such an atmosphere of fantastic beliefs, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he ended up dead thanks to some prophecy or spell or other. Serve him right.”