Francisco Jose - Dusk

He mounted again.

At noon, when he would rest, he would bring out his journal and write about his crossing and the gunfire that ripped the quiet dawn. There were still many rivers to cross but they would be narrower and he could ford them on horseback.

He rode through villages already stirring. Dogs sprang from under the houses to snarl at him. He varied the pace of his ride. No animal could run indefinitely without tiring, but it was as if Kimat anticipated his every move. He trotted, slowed down to a walk, or gathered speed in a gallop without waiting for Istak to snap the reins on his flanks.

He had ridden most of the night and all morning. His buttocks began to throb with a dull, raw pain. So this was how it was with Padre Jose when they toiled up the hillocks of the Cordilleras. The old priest had always complained of how much his buttocks had been mashed, but only on the second day did the old priest moan. He was on a horse, of course, but Istak, his favorite sacristan, always followed on foot.

He was not tired but his eyes grew heavy. Unharvested fields all around; in another week, they would be bereft of grain. He sought the shade of a low butterfly tree away from the road and dismounted, tied the length of twine to the reins and to his leg, and brought down his knapsack for a pillow and lay down. Kimat could wander as far as the length of rope would permit. Above, the noonday sky was swept clean of clouds. From the knapsack, he brought out his journal.

The Cripple had given him the journal but it was seldom that he had used it. He had made only four notations, one about the Cripple himself, how quick his wit and how he had compared the wanderlust of the Batangueños, his kinsmen, with that of the Ilokanos, and how clannish both people were. Both were also proud and steadfast in their personal honor. How quickly they defended it with their lives, the Batangueños with their folding knives, the Ilokanos with their bolos. How does the old Ilokano saying go? Inlayat, intagbat . If you raise the bolo, you must strike.

Yet, he had always detested violence; he was patient, he was industrious. These virtues were instilled in him as a boy; his two sons would be no different, although they had Pangasinan blood.

Dalin came to mind, and for a while he could imagine her — her long tresses shiny with coconut oil, her face, her radiance. How well she had raised the children and, most important, she had stood by him and supported him when he wavered.

He took the pencil out and started to write, this time in Ilokano, for he wanted Dalin to read it someday:

My Dearest Wife — I am now far away resting in an open field, but it seems you are near and I can even imagine hearing your voice. We have gone through ten years together yet it seems as if all these happened only yesterday, only because when I am with you time stops. Thank you for having shared my sorrows, the times when the harvest was niggardly, when there was little rice in the bin. Thank you for having taken care of me and grabbed me before I could fall into that black, bottomless pit. I will still have many distances to travel, but even now, I feel like I could fly, only because I want this journey to end so that I can hurry back to you. I have asked myself so many times why I am doing this and while I am not yet sure of the reason why — of one thing I am sure: Cabugawan is where I am headed, for that is where you are.

Words are never really enough to express love, and words having failed him, he closed his eyes and dreamed.

It was the sun, warm on his face, which woke him. Kimat was close by, grazing on the grass. He had not looked around closely before. To his left, he saw the village — some eight thatch-roofed houses. It must be an hour before sundown and the afternoon had become cool. He started to rise and it was then that a bolt of pain shot down his spine as if someone had lanced him — his whole being was aflame. He felt that if he so much as made one slight move, he would die. He fell back on the ground, gasping. He remembered then that he had never ridden far before. After a while, he rose again — the pain no longer throbbed. He reined Kimat in and, with some difficulty, placed the saddle and the twin sacks on the animal’s back. Leading the horse close to a low dike, he mounted the dike, then the horse, the pain coursing through him quickly again.

In the village, he looked for a calesa driver. There was always one who provided the village with its transport. He needed some grass and rice bran for Kimat. The villagers were Ilokanos; he was close to San Fabián now. The sea lay ahead to the left, the low hills of the Ilokos loomed to the right, and ahead rose the blue-green ranges of the Cordilleras.

The driver had just come in for the day; he had a new calesa , with the floral designs on the sides still bright and the tinwork on the harness still shiny. The grass and the bran would cost Istak five centavos.

“Tell me about the road from San Fabián to Rosario — the road along the coast to the north. Are Americans already there? Surely, you must have heard.”

The driver was a farmer, perhaps in his early twenties. He had not traveled far, he said, but was sure the Americans were not yet there.

“They are already in Bayambang,” Istak said.

“Maybe just a few,” the calesa driver said. The bran that Istak wanted was already mixed with molasses in a wooden trough, and Kimat had started eating.

“I am going north,” Istak said. “And I don’t want to cross their path.”

If the president had crossed the river from Bayambang, he would probably have gone on to Dagupan by train and from there onward to San Fabián. The people here would be Pangasiñenses; they would probably understand Istak if he spoke in Ilokano. He could always speak in Spanish but he did not want to appear to be an ilustrado . The people of the north had always regarded the Pangasiñenses with condescension, for they were considered self-indulgent and lazy, they waited for their coconuts to fall rather than climbing the palms to harvest them. And their women — he smiled in remembrance of the tattered concepts of his own womenfolk — they are lazy like their men, and worse, they are filthy. He had teased Dalin about this when they finally dismantled their makeshift hut and built a better dwelling with hardwood posts, but Dalin had always kept her pots clean and the yard well swept. She even bathed the two pigs she raised as if they were human beings. It was not right — attributing inborn faults and virtues to people, but if he felt comfortable anywhere, it was among his own people.

The Cripple had decried the treachery of the Macabebes. Perhaps it was money which made them join the Spaniards. With American silver they were now fighting their own kin. Why do people betray their brothers and eventually themselves? Do not trust anyone, not even your own instincts, the Cripple had warned; you are alone, you must always be on guard not only against those who will harm you but those who will take the message and stop you from doing your job.

He had talked with the boatman as he was now talking with this stranger — freely. They were little people like himself, far removed from the battlefield or the cares of high office. He knew his instructions, but he must also trust people. Still …

The driver was inquisitive. Istak was just another traveler — one of the hundreds that had crossed the river. He must now tell a longer story, with a semblance of truth to it.

“I am going to Cabugaw,” he said. “My father is dying. We have a small piece of land there — and maybe, with the share, we can go back to the Ilokos — my family and I. There is nothing like living where you were born, where you know everyone. You know what I am trying to say.”