Ulloa was irritated by the bad faith of Cifuentes’ complicity. He said, in a tone so smooth it could have seemed insulting: “What we are going to do is give them back what belongs to them. . . .”

Leonardo waited for the end of the sentence, almost without breathing.

“. . . the land.”

Then he smiled, relieved.

“So they’ve come to you, too, with their tale about how these lands are theirs and I don’t know who took them away from them! It seems you believed them.”

“They showed me their property titles.”

“Signed by who? The King of Spain, or some other gentlemen who may have had some authority way back when but nobody remembers now.”

“Antiquity doesn’t lessen the validity of a concession of land.”

“But common sense does. When we came to this region, there was nothing but uncultivated land, forests that had been cut down and burned-off clearings. The Indians couldn’t do anything else with the land during all the centuries they were its owners. We were the ones, with our sweat, our effort, who made this place into fertile and productive property. Tell me, in all fairness, who has property rights here, us or them? And it’s not just a question of justice, but of the best use of the land; thanks to us even the Indians have work and earn money. But look at the Indian on the loose who doesn’t live on a finca or acknowledge a patrón’s protection: he eats his own fleas because he hasn’t got anything else to eat. There’s not another loafer to compare with him.”

Cifuentes had stood up and was pacing the room with long steps. From time to time, he stopped to underscore a passage of his peroration with a gesture or an exclamation of “Carajo!”

“No one is much interested in working for someone else’s profit. But when the Indian is his own patrón the sense of responsibility he cannot have now will be strengthened.”

“And according to you, all it takes is a tiny patch of land to be a patrón.”