professional track, round the upturned roots of the tree, so I missed the marks of his machete altogetherâvisibility being down to about four feetâuntil I was over the tree and nearly out.
The temptation to see how truly he had headed south (âPedro needs no compassâ) was overwhelming, although there could be no trace of his passage until I came to some other barrier. I doubt if even an Indian could discover very much from the forest floor itself. However, I had time in hand and no fear of losing myself. I had only to turn east to arrive at the dividing wall of forest and llano.
There could be little doubt of Pedroâs choice of a route once he was clear of the glade. An aisle as straight as that of a cathedral ran southwest for more than three hundred yards until it dissolved into randomly placed trunks. Crossing the end of it, I found a slight suggestion of a narrow path. Since the prevailing gloom of the forest showed no light and shade I could not tell for certain where the leaves had been beaten down and where they had not.
I may have imagined it. If the path existed, it ran fairly straight between the unexplored south side of the ridge and the llano. There were no slots of deer, peccary or tapir and no hoof marks; so bare feet were an attractive possibility. Pedro would have recognized at once whether or not it was a game trail, but would not as yet have gone out of his way to hunt. He was intent on the river, or so I thought, and the going in front of him was open and easy.
I came upon his body at the foot of a tree some distance to my left. The gleam of white caught my eye and I rode towards it, believing it to be a growth of fungus or epiphytes or possibly Loranthaceae. Bits of his clothing lay about on the ground, and the bones had been stripped clean of flesh by black ants which were still at work on it. He was holding his old revolver. An eerie sight it looked when grasped in a skeleton hand. The cause of death was immediately apparent. He had been shot twice at the base of the skull.
I broke open his gun. One round had gone off and the next had misfired. Dwarfs and llaneros were at once eliminated. The former had presumably no firearms; the latter, if they had followed up and killed Pedro, would have boasted about it on their return to the estancia. This was plainly a deliberate execution by the guerrillas. Since they could not have found him once he was in the forest, both he and the Cuban had lied to me. When I left Pedro at the cut passage he had been not only escaping from the llaneros but bound for a definite rendezvous. I should have suspected that he was not telling all the truth. I was too innocent.
The more I think of his murder, the angrier I am. I am too familiar with Latin America to be horrified by an armed struggle for political power. If men are willing to risk their lives, the strength of discontent is shown more accurately than by the public opinion polls which corrupt and distort our democracies. But cold-blooded execution of a harmless, babbling ex-corporal is another matter. It disgusts me that any human being should be so sure that he has a right to kill.
I examined Pedroâs body as closely as I could without disarticulating the bones. No doubt it would have told some sort of story to an expert in forensic medicine; but I could deduce very little from the two bullet holes at the base of the skull, one on each side of the foramen magnum. One could guess at a small-calibre weapon. The absence of any severe shattering of the bone was proof that it had been fired at some little distance, probably when Pedro saw a chance to run and took it.
I had the impression that the body, lying in an awkward position with the head slumped against a tree root and both arms flung out, had been left exactly where it fell. In that case the actual bullets ought to be in the skull or on the ground, for there was no exit wound. I could not find them. It was not surprising. The soil
The temptation to see how truly he had headed south (âPedro needs no compassâ) was overwhelming, although there could be no trace of his passage until I came to some other barrier. I doubt if even an Indian could discover very much from the forest floor itself. However, I had time in hand and no fear of losing myself. I had only to turn east to arrive at the dividing wall of forest and llano.
There could be little doubt of Pedroâs choice of a route once he was clear of the glade. An aisle as straight as that of a cathedral ran southwest for more than three hundred yards until it dissolved into randomly placed trunks. Crossing the end of it, I found a slight suggestion of a narrow path. Since the prevailing gloom of the forest showed no light and shade I could not tell for certain where the leaves had been beaten down and where they had not.
I may have imagined it. If the path existed, it ran fairly straight between the unexplored south side of the ridge and the llano. There were no slots of deer, peccary or tapir and no hoof marks; so bare feet were an attractive possibility. Pedro would have recognized at once whether or not it was a game trail, but would not as yet have gone out of his way to hunt. He was intent on the river, or so I thought, and the going in front of him was open and easy.
I came upon his body at the foot of a tree some distance to my left. The gleam of white caught my eye and I rode towards it, believing it to be a growth of fungus or epiphytes or possibly Loranthaceae. Bits of his clothing lay about on the ground, and the bones had been stripped clean of flesh by black ants which were still at work on it. He was holding his old revolver. An eerie sight it looked when grasped in a skeleton hand. The cause of death was immediately apparent. He had been shot twice at the base of the skull.
I broke open his gun. One round had gone off and the next had misfired. Dwarfs and llaneros were at once eliminated. The former had presumably no firearms; the latter, if they had followed up and killed Pedro, would have boasted about it on their return to the estancia. This was plainly a deliberate execution by the guerrillas. Since they could not have found him once he was in the forest, both he and the Cuban had lied to me. When I left Pedro at the cut passage he had been not only escaping from the llaneros but bound for a definite rendezvous. I should have suspected that he was not telling all the truth. I was too innocent.
The more I think of his murder, the angrier I am. I am too familiar with Latin America to be horrified by an armed struggle for political power. If men are willing to risk their lives, the strength of discontent is shown more accurately than by the public opinion polls which corrupt and distort our democracies. But cold-blooded execution of a harmless, babbling ex-corporal is another matter. It disgusts me that any human being should be so sure that he has a right to kill.
I examined Pedroâs body as closely as I could without disarticulating the bones. No doubt it would have told some sort of story to an expert in forensic medicine; but I could deduce very little from the two bullet holes at the base of the skull, one on each side of the foramen magnum. One could guess at a small-calibre weapon. The absence of any severe shattering of the bone was proof that it had been fired at some little distance, probably when Pedro saw a chance to run and took it.
I had the impression that the body, lying in an awkward position with the head slumped against a tree root and both arms flung out, had been left exactly where it fell. In that case the actual bullets ought to be in the skull or on the ground, for there was no exit wound. I could not find them. It was not surprising. The soil
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