Francisco Jose - Dusk

As he neared Po-on, Ba-ac consoled himself. They had a little time, as the Guardia and their Spanish officers did not like pursuing their quarry at night. They were afraid of the bandidos who hid in the villages and ambushed them on the trails to get their Mausers and their revolvers. This had become increasingly common, particularly because there had grown to be so much uneasiness and discontent all over the Ilokos. The bells had proclaimed to the whole town what he had done; he was marked, convicted, but they did not have him yet.

Ba-ac fled down the fields, over the rough, uneven earth the plows had gone through, the soft, ash-brown scars where the torches had seared. He was thirsty but amazed at his own strength, that he could reach Po-on so fast, not on a spirited mount but on his feet.

Even as he hurried, walking fast when running squeezed his lungs, there came lucidly to mind as if it had happened only days ago, how the same young priest had ordered him confined in Vigan and there, in the fortresslike kumbento , his inquisition had started, the memory ever present now like a branding iron scorching the flesh. He was an ever-loyal and obedient Christian. Did he not know that there were roads to be built, to lace the country so that progress would come to each town and village? These were, after all, what the ilustrados , the filibusteros , were asking for in Europe, where, like frightened dogs with their tails between their legs, they had fled? Ba-ac had tried to explain that he was with fever during those two weeks when his contribution to the well-being of the patria was demanded. He had sent word through his youngest son, Bit-tik. He did not mean to refuse service. Why should he when he knew what the punishment was? Had he not given up his eldest son to work for the church in Cabugaw and this dearly beloved son had seldom visited his parents in the last ten years? True, he had not given work for two weeks, but let him pay for that with four weeks’ labor if it had to be paid double, for that is how long the rice which he brought with him would last.

The young priest was unmoved. Ba-ac, past sixty, was taken to a cell of the municipio , a dank and perpetually dark enclosure smelling of urine, and was hanged there by the right hand.

Now the hand was gone, but not the anger that blazed in his mind and the venom that had inflamed his being. He could still see the young priest as he saw him then — the ivory face, the sensuous smile — even as he pronounced Ba-ac’s fate. Maybe he had not really been killed. Maybe everything was an aberration. But the image in his mind was clear, and in the muffled night, the bells which tolled confirmed only too well what he had done.

The camachile trees at last, the edge of the village, the growling of dogs. He stumbled once more at the margin of the field which they had planted to mongo beans, and bits of hard earth dug into his palm. As he rose, he glanced up to a sky sprinkled with stars.

An-no was in the yard, talking with Dalin, whose bull cart had already been unhitched. To him, Ba-ac shouted: “Hurry, hitch all the bull carts. We are leaving — all of us, we are leaving!”

An-no followed him as he rushed up the stairs to the kitchen where Mayang, her eyes red from blowing at the earthen stove, was letting a pot of rice simmer.

He drew a full pitcher from the water jar and drank, his throat making gurgling sounds, then he faced his wife, waving his left hand. “Old Woman, we must flee Po-on! Do you know what I have done? You have no time to serve that meal. Listen — all of us, your children, we have to flee …”

“You are drunk again,” Mayang said, not minding him.

“I am not!” Ba-ac shouted at her. He brandished his left arm as if it were a precious ornament he wanted her to sec. “With this hand, I smashed his face till it could not be recognized. I killed him!” Triumph, pride! “The young priest who sent your son away, who made me what I am. I killed him!”

His wife looked at him, disbelieving; then she saw his trousers grazed by dust, the white shirt speeked with red. She peered at them, touched them, then withdrew her hand in horror, for the blood had clung to her fingers.

“Yes, it is blood, Old Woman,” Ba-ac said. “I could not stop. I struck again and again.”

Mayang crumpled on her knees, wrung her hands, and animal sounds escaped her. Her wailing brought Bit-tik to the house. “Old Man, you have decreed death for yourself and shame and punishment on all of us!”

“Shame? Punishment? Disgrace?” It had filled him quickly, this courage which lifted him as well. Mayang had grown old. He looked evenly at her as she struggled to hold back her tears. “It is not disgrace I bring you, my beloved half”—he rarely used the words—“it is honor. Don’t you know what this means? I am not a servant anymore. So we must run away and hurry. Else they will find us here in the morning.”

Mayang stood up sobbing and went to their wooden trunk in a corner. Their few clothes were inside, most of which she had woven herself, her skirts, her starched pañuelo . An-no and Bit-tik were now in the house, silent and tense, and Ba-ac told them what to do. They listened, understood, and in an instant they were down the yard herding the animals. The neighbors — they had committed no crime other than to live in Po-on and be related to him — they must be told, then they could elect to stay and suffer, or to flee.

“It is not your sons who should tell your brothers and cousins,” Mayang told Ba-ac with derision in her voice. “Go tell them yourself. Are you not proud of what you have done? When the Guardia come, will they make distinctions?”

He needed Istak now. He would know the right words to bring the truth to them not as a bludgeon but as light. Where could that son be at this time? At the edge of the village again, thinking, dreaming? He went out and at the wall of blackness he shouted: “Istaaakkk — Istaaakk!”

Istak came running from the direction of the dalipawen tree, his white shirt distinct in the dark.

“My son, we have no time …”Then quietly, solemnly, Ba-ac told him. Istak listened, the words cutting deeply; when it was over, he embraced the old man and wept; his father’s breath told him the deed was not the handiwork of basi . His father smelled of tobacco, the earth, and harsh living.

“It is my fault, Father,” Istak said bitterly. “This happened because of me. So leave then — all of you. I will stay.”

Istak knew the Guardia Civil. They were Indios like himself and yet they were different — the uniform and the gun had transformed them. What would he tell them when they came? Padre Jose had said that a father’s success could be measured only by how well he had made his children able to stand on their own. The old priest was thinking, of course, of that time when Istak would be a priest, cast adrift by the ways of the world, but strengthened by faith. To the real father who would be hunted like a mad dog, how would Istak be to him?

“Help me tell our relatives,” Ba-ac said. “I have brought disaster to them—”

He had not spoken too soon. From the houses across the mud-packed yard, his cousins, their wives, and their children came running, An-no and Bit-tik behind them, then Kardo, Ba-ac’s youngest brother, Simang — Mayang’s sister — and still others, the neighbors in the six-house village: they gathered in knots, their inquiries and anxieties a continuous murmur punctuated by exclamations—“Ay, fate!”

Ba-ac was the eldest, he was the leader, and they knew of the agony he had gone through. He did not speak of the young priest; he told the older people equably, without justification, and they listened intently, knowing that now they would share his punishment.