Chapter 19 Bottom fish

A Buenos Aires suburbanite, a roguish rogue with nothing but ruthlessness, throws himself into the rider-ridden desert of Brazil's borderlands to become a leader of smugglers, something that seems destined to be impossible Yes, I will tell those who have this opinion what happened to Benjamin Otalora: he was born in the district of Balfanara, where people may not remember him very much, and he died in the Rio Grande do Sul. , Killed by drinking a bullet, it's your own fault.I do not know the details of his adventures; if new material becomes available later, I will make corrections and supplements.This outline may be useful for now.

In 1891, Benjamin Otalora was nineteen years old.He was a stocky lad, with a narrow forehead, open pale eyes, and a violent Basque disposition; he thought himself a good man when, in a brawl, he managed to stab his opponent; None of this troubled him about the immediate escape from the Republic.The head of the district gave him a letter of introduction to a man named Acevedo Bandera in Uruguay.He boarded the boat and was exhausted all the way; the next day, he wandered the streets of Montevideo, feeling depressed, and he couldn't explain why.He could not find out the whereabouts of Acevedo Bandera; towards midnight, while he was having a drink in a grocery store in the Rue de la Workshop, a group of cattlemen began to quarrel.The glaring knife was drawn; Otalora did not know which side was right, but dangerous pleasures attracted him as card games or music attracted others.During the scuffle, a hired worker held a dagger and tried to sneak up on a man wearing a dark hat and cloak, but he blocked him.This man was Acevedo Bandera. (Otalora tore up the letter of introduction when he found out, because he wanted to use his own merits as a step forward.) Acevedo Bandera, despite his strong build, gave the false impression that he was stooped; His face was always stretched, a mixture of Jewish, Negro, and Indian; his manner was at once ape-tiger;

That quarrel was originally caused by shochu, and there was a little misunderstanding when the wine was drunk, and it came and went quickly.Otalora drank with the cattle drivers, and then accompanied them to some mischief. At the end of the day, they went back to a dilapidated big house in the old city.In the deepest courtyard, the group spread saddles on the muddy floor, and lay down to sleep.Ottalora secretly compared that night to the one before; now that he had made a group of friends, he was much more at ease.What disturbed him a little was that he didn't miss Buenos Aires.He slept until vespers, when he was woken by the drunken hired man who was about to stab Bandera with a dagger. (Otalora remembers the man being with the crowd, Bandera sitting him on his right and urging him to drink.) The man told him the boss wanted him.In what looked like an office facing the hall (Otalora had never seen a hall with a side door), Acevedo Bandera waited with a fair-skinned, red-haired, proud woman. he.Bandera praised him a few words, offered him a glass of brandy, said he was a good man, and asked him if he would like to go to the north with the group to drive a group of cattle.Otalora accepted; at daybreak they hit the road, heading straight for Tacuarombo.

So Otalora began a different life, a vast field in the morning, and the smell of horses in the day.It was a new, sometimes brutal life for him, but it was already in his blood, for just as other peoples worshiped and presupposed the sea, we (introduced this symbol too) people) longed for the endless plains that echoed under the hooves of the horses.Otalola had grown up in the area of ​​handlebars and cattlemen; in less than a year he had become a gaucho.He learned to tame horses, to keep herds together, to lasso them, to throw meteor tripwires to trip them, and to stay up late, weather storms, cold and heat, and herd herds with whistles and shouts.

During his studies, he only met Acevedo Bandera once, but he never forgot, because to be one of Bandera's men was to be respected and feared, because the gauchos said that when manhood was needed In terms of things, no one can compare with Bandera.It has been suggested that Bandera was born in Rio Grande do Sul, north of Qualem Island; this statement, which may sound disparaging for Bandera, is actually a compliment to his familiarity with dense forests, swamps, and inaccessible, almost The wild land at the end.Otalora gradually learned that Bandera's business was varied, mainly smuggling.Driving cattle is just a servant's job; Otalora plans to become a smuggler.One night, two companions were crossing the border to bring back some brandy; Otalora deliberately provoked one of them, wounded him, and took his place.What motivates him is an ambition to climb up and a dubious sense of allegiance.His idea is that I want to let the boss know that all the Uruguayans under his command are not worth as much as me.

It was another year before Otalora returned to Montevideo.The gang wandered on the shore and in the city (Otalora thought the city was really big); reached the boss's house; spread the saddle in the deepest yard.Several days passed, and Otalora still hadn't seen Bandera's face.His companions worried that he was ill; a mulatto would often go upstairs to his bedroom with a kettle and yerba mate.One afternoon, Otalora was given the errand.He faintly felt humiliated, but also a little happy. The bedrooms are shabby and dark.There was a west-facing balcony, a long table littered with whips, belts, shiny guns and daggers, and a mirror in the distance, the glass of which had been blurred.Bandera lay on his back; he moaned and groaned in his sleep.The disease was caused by recent overexposure to the venomous sun.The large bed with white sheets made him small and dark; Otalora noticed his gray hair, fatigue, lethargy, and the damage of age.The fact that the old guy was in charge of so many people caused him to have a rebellious mentality.He thought it only took one blow to kill the old man.At this time, he saw someone coming in from the mirror.It was the red-haired woman; she was in her underwear and barefoot, looking at him coldly.Bandera sat half lying on the bed; talking about gang activities, drinking yerba mate, and fingering the woman's braids.In the end, he told Otalora to leave.

A few days later, they were ordered to go to the north, and they arrived at a remote manor. On the endless plain, any manor is so desolate: there are no cool trees and streams around, and the sun shines straight from morning till night. with.The pitifully emaciated cattle are kept in stone pens.This poor establishment is called Morning Glory Manor. As the hired workers sat and chatted, Otalora heard that Bandera was coming from Montevideo soon.He asked why; the answer was that Gao Qiao, a foreign second-handed swordsman, was ambitious and took too much control.Otalora knew it was a joke, but the joke was likely to become a reality, and he felt very comfortable hearing it.Later, he heard that Bandera had offended a political figure who no longer supported Bandera.The news also made him happy.

Crates of long guns, silver jugs and washbasins for the women's rooms, and fine brocade curtains were brought in one after another.One morning there also came a gloomy rider from beyond the hill, with a bushy beard and a cloak.His name was Urbiano Suarez and he was Acevedo Bandera's bodyguard.He speaks very little, with a Brazilian accent.Otalora didn't know whether his reticence was motivated by hostility, contempt, or simply rudeness.But he understood that in order to realize the conspiracy he was planning, he had to win the favor of this man. A Chinese monkey later broke into Benjamin Otalora's fate.It was a steed brought by Acevedo Bandera from the south, with fiery red coat, black mane and black tail, the silver-inlaid harness was polished and shiny, and the saddle was trimmed with tiger skin.The handsome horse was a symbol of the boss's authority, so the young man wanted to keep it for himself, and he even wanted to have the woman with the shiny red hair with a resentful desire.Woman, harness and Hualiu are the attributes or adjectives of the man he wants to destroy.

This is where the story gets complicated and esoteric.Acevedo Bandera was cunning, skilled in progressive pressure threats, alternating truth and jokes, humiliating those who spoke to him; Otalora decided to use this ambiguity to realize his difficult plan.He is determined to replace Acevedo Bandera step by step.In the dangerous mission of sharing weal and woe, he won the friendship of Suarez.He revealed his plans and Suarez promised to support him.A lot has happened since then, and I've heard a little bit about it.Otalora no longer obeys Bandera's orders. He either ignores Bandera's orders, changes them, or does the opposite.The general trend seems to be in favor of his plot and hastened the development of the situation.At noon one day a shootout broke out between their men in Tacuarombo and the Rio Grande; Otalola usurped Bandera's position and gave orders to the Uruguayans.He got a bullet through the shoulder, but that afternoon Ottalora rode back to Morning Glory on the head of the bay horse, that afternoon his blood dripped on the tiger saddle, that night he slept with the red-haired woman I feel it.Other accounts vary the sequence of events and deny that it happened within a single day.

Nonetheless, Bandera has been the titular ringleader.He gave orders as usual, but they were not carried out; Benjamin Otalora left him alone out of habit and pity. The final scene of the story is the riot on New Year's Eve, 1894.That night, the people of Morning Glory Manor ate freshly slaughtered sheep and drank strong liquor.Someone was playing milonga tunes on guitar endlessly.Otalora sat at the head of the table, drunkenly, booing and laughing: that dizzying pinnacle was the symbol of his irresistible destiny.Among the yelling people, Bandera remained silent, waiting for the tumultuous night to pass.When twelve o'clock struck midnight, he stood up as if remembering something to do.He stood up and knocked lightly on the woman's door.The woman seemed to be waiting for a call, and immediately opened the door.She was barefoot and half dressed.The boss ordered her to say in a drawling tone;

"Since you and that city man are so close, kiss him now in front of everyone." He also added a crude condition.The woman tried to refuse, but two men stepped forward and grabbed her by the arms, pinning her against Otalora.She wept like tears and kissed his face and chest.Suarez has drawn his pistol.Before she dies, Otalora suddenly understands: from the first day, these people have betrayed him, condemned him to death, given him women, status and victory, because they treated him as a dead person, because in class In Della's eyes, he has long been a fish in a pot. Suarez fired with a look bordering on contempt.