“We’re not going to make anyone listen to us here,” he said. “The Coletos are intent on making an example of the women who are in prison. But they won’t stop there; they’ll keep looking for ‘the responsible parties.’ They want to harm all of us.”

“Are you going to complain to the president?”

For Pedro, in his ignorance, there was no man more trustworthy or closer at hand in circumstances like these. Fernando smiled without irony. No, he would not go so high up. But he would go to Tuxtla. There were authorities there with stronger hands than the shady lawyers of Ciudad Real.

He was accompanied on the trip by César Santiago who, with growing insistence, did not stop musing on—and exaggerating— the suspicions that had fallen on Fernando and the uselessness of trying to exonerate oneself in the eyes of Coletos.

“It would be better for us to teach them a lesson. If they think you’re capable of stirring up the Chamulas. . . .”

“They’re mistaken.”

“Who knows. The Indians are very discontented and the hope of having land of their own has turned their world upside down. If the situation were used to threaten the ranchers. . . . Do you think they’re actually going to allow their property to be divided up?”

“What else can they do?”

“Exactly what they’re doing now: preparing a state of emergency that will paralyze the process of distributing ejidos. Meanwhile they gain time. They send negative reports to your superiors.”

“Even if I were sent away from here. A substitute would come.”

“Perhaps he would be more tractable.”

Fernando remained pensive. The truck they were riding in was jolting along a road of mud and rocks. To the right was a steep cliff.

Power! Was it true that the will of a people was in his hands? Was it true that with a gesture Fernando Ulloa could establish the direction of events? For an instant the prospect fascinated him. Power, yes, and without remorse, because he wasn’t going to go back on either his past or his ideals; because he wasn’t going to satisfy any shady ambition or obtain any illicit advantage. Ah, the uses he would make of it! Against the doubletalk of the rich, against the bad faith of men who occupy positions from which they should defend those who have been trampled underfoot, those who are helpless, those who are destitute.

Fernando turned to look at Pedro’s face as if seeking to confirm his hopes. But he found no more than the hardness that was always there, the secret closely guarded by the eyes, the words that were detained before reaching the fold of the lips. How could he draw closer to this race? It opened itself only in drunkenness, in danger, in cataclysm.