They had started a large bonfire, and they roasted strips of meat on it. They took a long time eating, unsatisfied because none of them had a large enough portion nor anything to wash the meal down with. One of them took out a small violin he had hidden among his clothes and began to play a sound. The sound of a jaguar fighting a snake; the sound of the defeat of the men who were transformed into monkeys; the sound of the wise men who studied the sky and knew how many stars it held. The music made the thought of death less bitter.

In Cruz Obispo, an old man confronted them. Stories of his wealth and avarice were told throughout the region. The Indians knew him very well as an unscrupulous indenturer of workers and a severe master. With him, an arm in a sling was not a reason to work a little less; the story of a sick child would not increase the amount of a loan.

“We’re going to pull together, Chamulita,” he would say. He was up before sunrise to oversee the work. He rode to the farthest edges of his ranch on a fat she-mule, slow and solemn. Wherever he found anything the least bit out of order he immediately stopped and corrected it. He never let go of the whip that was the warning sign and the executor of his punishments.

There was no woman in his house and there were no friends he went to see outside it; he only went to Ciudad Real when he was obliged to by some litigation.

When this old man learned of the uprising, he gave strict orders to his laborers to double their workload. That would keep them from losing their heads, he thought. And when the rebelling Indians arrived at the big house, he was alone.

He seemed neither surprised nor afraid. He was used to seeing them in groups and speaking to several of them at once. The old man did not rise from his chair or lift his eyes from the accounts he was going over. The Indians were troubled by his serenity.

Finally, one of them, who had once been in the old man’s employ and had overheard rumors about treasures he had stored away, stepped forward and demanded that he hand those treasures over.

The old man raised his eyes and gave him a look of scandalized fixity. Was he crazy? In hard times like these, could anyone prosper or grow rich? At that moment especially, when he had just looked over his papers, he could tell them that if things continued on in the same way he would soon have to declare himself bankrupt. But that was his problem. As for the Indians, he advised them to leave off their foolishness and go back to their cornfields because it was the season for sowing.