Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“Can’t we swim, Father?” I asked. “Old David said the river is not deep.”

Father shook his head vehemently. “We are still hunting.”

“I wish Old David were here,” I said. “He knows this place so well.”

“Don’t say that!” Father’s voice was stern. “No one really knows this land. I’ve come to it year after year long before you were born. Each time, the landmarks are lost except for the fire tree. Even the brooks change their course. The river washes everything away. Nothing remains constant here.”

Father closed his eyes and leaned on the gun barrel, his feet wide apart.

“Let me find the way, Father,” I suggested.

When he did not speak, I parted the high grass and walked ahead. After a few paces, I heard the swoosh of his boots and the crackling of dry camachile twigs behind me.

I walked briskly; to the left from the tree, straight to the left, I remembered Old David’s advice. Pushing through the tall grass, I felt my knees start to wobble. But soon the dunes that sloped before me looked familiar, and finally the clear prints of Father’s boots, the water holes where some water buffalo had wallowed — all the places we had passed that morning.

“Old David said no one can really get lost here,” I said. There was a rustle behind me but no answer.

I was heading straight to the right bank, and I broke into a run. I found the big path used by carabaos , and as I rounded the last scraggly growth of low camachile trees, at last — the river, the tamarind tree, the raft.

The rope that held the raft bit my hand as I untied it hastily. After drawing the raft nearer the landing, I turned around: Father was still not behind me. I called aloud but no answer; I called again, and after a while the grass before me rustled. Father emerged from the green, clutching his gun. He looked tired.

I wanted to brag about what I knew of the delta, all that Old David taught me, but then I heard the distinct flapping of wings.

Wings, bird wings — not the lapping of the water on the reeds or the moaning of the afternoon wind against the brambles. I glanced abruptly at the water’s edge by the raft, and there, only a few paces before the unruly growth, a big, white, long-limbed bird alighted. For an instant it seemed as if it was an illusion, but the bird tilted its head and calmly stood on one leg like one of the porcelain figurines in the house. I turned to Father going out of the grass to the landing.

“Look,” I called softly, afraid lest the thing be disturbed.

Father did not heed me. “There,” I repeated, pointing a trembling finger to where the bird stood. He paused, saw the bird at last, and slid a shell into the gun.

The roar thundered across marsh and river, but the bird did not fall; it hopped slowly to the nearest bush before Father could fire again.

I ran to where it vanished and was still cursing as I jumped upon the brambles that scratched my hands and legs, when I felt Father hold my shoulders and shake me. He looked at the scratches on my arms that had begun to redden.

“You couldn’t have missed,” I flung at him. “Old David said the buckshot spreads.” I was shouting. “And it was so close, so close!”

He did not speak. I walked to the raft and jumped into it first. Neither Old David nor any of the tenants were by the gully to pull us to the other bank, and we both strained at the line.

In midstream Father paused and asked, “What did David tell you about the delta?”

I did not answer.

Father sat on the low bamboo platform, and the eddy that breasted the floats slapped at his muddy boots. “I won’t get angry if you tell me.”

“Stories,” I said, “just stories.”

“I never saw you speaking to the old crow.”

“We talk a lot,” I said uncomfortably. “Under the balete tree, in the stable. Usually when you are away.”

Father bit his lower lip and turned away.

“I wanted to know about the delta,” I said.

“Well,” Father said gruffly, “you know it now.” He rose and gave the line a violent tug. The raft lurched forward, and I almost fell into the water. It smashed into the landing, and I jumped off and raced the incline up the river’s bank.

The sun was buried in a fluff of clouds, and the hilly rim of the world burned with the fires of sunset. Beyond the blurred turn of the dike Old David came leading the horses.

I turned and saw Father swaying up the gully, clutching at each strand of grass that sprouted on its sides. He loosened the earth with each step and brought down a small avalanche of pebbles and loam. When he neared the top, he placed his right leg over the rim and extended the gun muzzle to me. I pulled, and with a grunt, he heaved himself on level ground. He sank on the grass, panting, and did not get the gun back.

“I’ll go ahead, Father,” I said. “I’ll tell Old David to hurry with your horse.”

I hooked the water bottle on the gun barrel and swung it on my shoulder. After a few paces, Father followed. His arms were not swinging.

Old David came with the horses, whistling an old Ilokano ballad, and in the hush of afternoon the tune was clear and sad. “A fine hunt?” The old man grinned as he handed me the reins of my horse. He took the gun and gently placed it in its holster in his saddle. “I heard the shot, and I said, this time, the last bird in the delta is done for.”

I stared at him, wordless, then mounted my horse and jabbed my heels into its flanks. The spirited animal reared, and sprang. I brought the horse down with a jerk of the reins, and Old David grabbed the mouth bit, held it firmly, murmured unintelligible words, and patted the animal’s glossy coat. The horse became still.

“There will be other years. Next year, perhaps,” Old David told me gravely, then he led his mare and Father’s mount away.

I was still gazing at the delta darkening swiftly when I heard Father cursing behind me. Turning around, I saw him walk up to Old David; his hand rose, then descended on the old man’s face, but Old David, holding on to the reins of the big chestnut horse and his own bony mare, stood motionless, unappalled before the hand — the bludgeon — that shot up, then cut into his withered face once more.

The day I was to go hunting again never came that year or the next, for that December the war came and Father surrendered his shotguns to the Japanese. They also got all of the riding horses, save one — the old skinny nag that was Old David’s. The delta where our prey was safe became the sanctuary of brave and angry men.

The war changed the delta and Rosales but hardly altered us. Father and our relatives, we retained our leisurely manners, our luxuries, and the primeval quirks of our nature. Only Tio Doro, I am now sure, was profoundly affected by the war, and I am glad he had survived it. Of all my uncles, it was only he who devoted the best years of his life to politics. There has always been some distaste in our family for any activity that was political, but Tio Doro was simply made of a different fiber. He took to its swagger and blather not for personal honor, but because he found in politics an outlet for his nationalistic passions.

He had no delusions or misgivings, however, in his last days when the ideas that once propelled him to great wrath seemed finally jaded. Maybe he was consoled somewhat by the thought that in his time he had lived fully and well.

After the war, when the Philippines was granted independence, I was sure he would be the main speaker in his town during the program that marked that momentous hour. The honor would have been his by right, because he was Balungao’s first citizen and all his life independence was his one consuming obsession.