Dance of the Dwarfs Read Online Free

so familiar with trees as the Brazilians.
    So after another song or two I mounted Tesoro without warning, shouted good night and was away before anyone could follow. It was hardly polite, but eccentricity in the otherwise entertaining Misionero will be forgiven.
    I rode home without incident wondering about the relations between what one might call Church and State in Santa Eulalia. I came to the conclusion that Joaquín’s intervention was odd and exceptional—as if in England the village parson had broken up a session in the village pub—and that he must have had some other reason besides that he gave me. But all one can tell is that Joaquín, in spite of the squalor of his house and person, has an older wisdom and more authority than the traditionless, semiofficial storekeeper.
    This morning, during our desultory conversation while collecting grass seeds, I told Mario what had happened. I suspect that he distrusts Pedro, or rather would distrust him if he could bring himself to do so. It is essential to feel on good terms with the only man who buys and sells. What would you do without him?
    â€œHe has a good heart,” Mario said, “but thinks he knows everything.”
    â€œAnd Joaquín?”
    â€œThis is his country.”
    I saw what he meant. Joaquín and a few families of pure Indian blood were here or hereabouts before Santa Eulalia existed. The other inhabitants just drifted together like random particles collecting in a void to form a raindrop.
    â€œHe should not have let you ride alone.”
    â€œI gave him no time. One moment there, the next in the darkness. And everyone knows there is not a horse in the village to catch Tesoro.”
    As if to excuse Joaquín, he mumbled something about there being little danger on the way to the estancia.
    â€œAnd what danger is there here?” I asked immediately.
    He gave the vague answer that a man should never travel without arms. I replied that my rifle would have been useless, that I couldn’t have hit the house after all I had been forced to drink.
    â€œBetter the guitar!” I added to amuse him. “If the jaguars don’t like the tune, they’ll run. And if they do, they can dance.”
    This casual remark had the most surprising effect. He stared at me with his copper face turning yellow.
    â€œDo not even think of it!” he said.
    So Mario is afraid of the guitar as well as the dark! Could this be Joaquín’s other reason: that he instinctively distrusts so small a tinkle in so much empty silence? I must be more mysterious to them than I have ever guessed, if they think of me as a possible Pied Piper for jaguars.
    [ March 17, Thursday ]
    When I decided to make this place my field station I was officially warned of possible danger from bandits. There aren’t any. They joined the guerrillas in the hope of more regular hours for rations and murder. They will not appreciate Marxist discipline and the leadership of intellectuals; but once in, a man cannot easily get out.
    These partisans of the National Liberation Army normally avoid the llanos since any considerable body of men would find no cover from air reconnaissance and attack. All the same, they keep a close watch on this flank from which their strongholds in the Eastern Cordillera might be threatened. It stands to reason that all activities in this emptiness, including my own, must be of interest.
    I have at last had a visit from them. In the late afternoon of yesterday two men rode up to the estancia, dressed as forest travelers rather than llaneros and speaking cultivated Spanish. Following the custom of the country, I told them that my house was theirs for as long as they cared to honor it and I laid on drinks in the shade.
    One was much taller than the other and, I should say, a Colombian of pure Spanish descent. I did not recognize the accent of his companion. He had some Negro blood and may have been a Cuban. Neither of them had the