Ulysses

By Alekto

All notes, disclaimers etc, as for Chapter 1



Chapter 2



Servants had already unpacked my luggage by the time I was escorted to my room. Don Ernesto had announced that he was to hold a Ball in a few days' time to introduce me to his neighbours. There were other Haciendas within easy travel, each at the heart of a great plantation, not to mention what passed for High Society in Tarapoto.



It would have been churlish on my part to try to demur. Don Ernesto had sent immediately to Tarapoto for a tailor to fit me for a dinner jacket. That had been one of the first things I had left in storage at the hotel back in Cajamarca. I had hoped not to need it. Now, once again, I would have to do the tedious rounds of dances. As far as Society was concerned, I was a very eligible bachelor. I had wealth and title, all that a socially aware mother could want for a daughter. Love or even genuine attraction was largely an irrelevance, so long as a prospective partner was in Debretts Peerage, the 'stud book' of English Society.



I was so tired of it all. I'd had enough of the whey-faced debutantes facilely giggling at my every utterance, simpering through lowered lashes as I did my duty and escorted them round the dance floor. The sheer banality of that life repelled me. I wanted none of it. The continuance of the title was in my hands now, since William's death. I had never wanted the responsibility of providing an heir. I just wanted to find a woman I could love for her own merits, rather than because she possessed wealth or breeding, and who would in turn love me for who I was and not because of title or money. I both wanted and needed to find a woman I could respect. If…when I found such a woman, I would ask her to marry me, and London's Society could go to hell if they dared to criticise me for it. In the meantime, I was stuck here, playing the gracious guest.



The day after my arrival, Don Ernesto insisted on taking me on a tour or his estate. He had imported some fine Andalucian horses from Spain which he'd had saddled and waiting for us. They were magnificent creatures, fine and high-spirited. Their saddles and bridles were made in the traditional Spanish style of beautifully hand-tooled leather and decorated with silver. The cost of outfitting even one of these horses would have been enough to rebuild Chalhuanca Alto with money to spare. It was a detail that appeared not to worry my host.



We rode out shortly after dawn. An armed escort and servants with a packhorse laden with lunch followed a decorous way behind us. Don Ernesto brought a hunting rifle with him: a lightweight 5.6mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer bolt action that was too heavily engraved and decorated for my taste. It was apparent from the outset that it was not he who had to take care to keep all the metalwork on it clean. At his urging I had taken with me the .318 Westley Richards. Both rifles were being carried in leather boots slung from the saddles.



The weather was fine and clear with the trail ahead narrow but well maintained. It made for an enjoyable ride. Don Ernesto took pleasure in pointing out the extent of his holdings, and the places where he had added to Don Ferdinand's already extensive holdings. We settled down for lunch at a small pavilion that the servants had set up in readiness for our arrival. The meal was excellent: fine Serrano ham with fresh rolls and salad accompanied by an old Rioja. Don Ernesto seemed to require relatively little participation from me in his conversation, so I sat back and let him talk. I was still unsure enough about the background to the present situation to want to take advantage of any information that he would reveal.



"So, Lord Roxton, are you now so enamoured of Peru that I should give orders that everyone should now start calling you Don Juan?" I smiled thinly. The joke had not been funny the first time he had tried it, and repetition did not improve it. Heedlessly, he continued "Or perhaps it is the beautiful Dona Maria of whom you are enamoured, to whom your thoughts now fly…"



God, no! I would as soon pay court to a piranha as I would her, not to mention the fact that I would probably be a great deal safer with the fish.



"Ah, my dear Roxton, on Friday night your dance card will be full," Don Ernesto joked. "I know my beloved sister will wish to dance with you as well as many other ladies who have been starved of such urbane company. I shall also have to introduce you to the other members of our business cartel. I'm sure you will get on with them. We have all done very well out here, you know. Oh, the local workers can sometimes be problematic, but they are, after all, little more than ignorant peons so you can't really expect much of them. It's the Indian blood - makes them lazy. They cannot be trusted to work without close supervision."



I let him ramble on. I'd met that sort of arrogant discrimination before in Africa and it had always annoyed me then. On many safaris the white hunters' incompetence and their unthinking belief in their inherent superiority married to their refusal to listen to the advice of their local guides, had led to disaster. Usually it was the native guide who had died or been crippled, trying to protect his charges from the results of their own stupidity.



"It was tragic to hear of your brother's death, Roxton, such a very unfortunate accident." There was something mocking in his tone. Did he think I had killed William on purpose? Keeping my face blank, I met his gaze.



"Oh?" I asked non-committally. He just smiled knowingly in reply. My God, he did think I'd murdered my brother. I fought to hold back my instinctive, outraged response. This was something I would have to play very carefully, especially as it was seeming more and more likely that Don Ferdinand's accident might have been nothing of the sort.



I leaned back in my chair, sipping my wine, but behind the casual façade my mind was racing. Don Ernesto had as good as admitted the extent of his influence in Tarapoto the day before. He would almost certainly have significant influence, if not control over any legal authorities based there. Then there was this cartel he spoke about: businessmen who were allied to him. If they had held concerns over Don Ferdinand's death, surely they would have forced some sort of an investigation…unless they had complicity in it. Working it through, it seemed likely that he was sounding me out because of the way in which my brother had died. Sounding me out for what, though?



The region was certainly not free of commercial exploitation. I had heard, of course, of the so-called "Rubber Barons" who had been busily exploiting the natural resources of the Amazon since the market for rubber made it worthwhile back in the 1880s. Like the rest of Europe I had heard the rumours and stories that had leaked out of forced labour and atrocities against the local Indian tribes. Before the war, Sir Roger Casement's investigations into outrages perpetrated on the Indians at Putumayo by the British based Peruvian Amazon Company were the subject of debate for months in London including questions in Parliament. Despite an explicit two page article in the Illustrated London News that shocked the country, and a five year long public enquiry which found that in the Putumayo region the company had employed 50,000 Indians of whom 42,000 died, no one was convicted.. It was common knowledge that the Rubber Barons were concentrated in the settlements of Iquitos and further downstream at Manaus. As Don Ernesto spoke, I could not help but wonder if he might have any connection at all with any of these 'entrepreneurs' and their ways of conducting business.



Curiosity was all very well, but I had come out here with the intent of getting away from it all. The best thing I could do, I reasoned, was to hand the problem over to the local authorities as soon as it was practicable. To have to rely on whatever law remained in Tarapoto was out of the question. With that being so, the only alternative was the authorities in Cajamarca, on the other side of the mountains. I decided I would write a note on my return to the Hacienda. No… I would need more information first, ideally with some sort of proof to back it up with. The police would not get involved with someone of Don Ernesto's rank without something considerably more compelling than a foreigner's vague suspicions. That meant waiting and biding my time until Friday and the Ball to see what I could find out there.



All that I had to do between now and then was to convince them that I, too, was not the most scrupulous of people. How difficult could it be…?



We started riding again after the inevitable siesta. The forest of rubber trees gave way to a rocky hillside that had great gouges excavated from it. Teams of labourers, some clad in little better than rags, were at work with picks and shovels. Don Ernesto gestured proudly at the site, encompassing it in an expansive gesture. "This is…a little investment project some colleagues and I have been working on. We found silver here, you see. Oh, not in the sort of concentration as in other areas, but our overheads here are so very much lower, making it quite a profitable operation overall. We use convict labour. I think it makes far better sense than letting the lazy filth rot in jail."



I looked more closely at the workers. They ranged from youths, some of whom were barely into their teens, to men who were stooped with age. There must have been close on a hundred men there, each with a heavy shackle around his left ankle. Guards rode slowly between them, lashing out with leather quirts to discourage any signs of slacking. Others, carrying shotguns, were positioned around the quarry.



The guards on duty had not yet noted our approach. Don Ernesto reined in and dismounted, indicating that I should do the same. He pulled out his rifle and aimed in the direction of the convicts. An unpleasant smile crossed his face. "Time to ginger them up a bit, don't you think." The accent he put on mocked my own.



He fired. I hadn't really believed that he would. I had thought it was all a bluff for my benefit. The shot tore the shovel out of the hands of one of the workers. The rest of them immediately dropped to the ground. Then the guards now suddenly on the alert scoped out the area for the source of the shot. After he had fired, Don Ernesto had dragged me into cover. He was crouched there with me, giggling. He gestured at the .318 I held in my hands. "Your turn!"



I couldn't look at him. There was something repellent, malignant almost, about that giggle - it was like he was a child pulling the wings off flies. I'd already made the choice to play along with this…this misanthropy. My conscience, which had taken such a battering during the war, was screaming at me again. It had been my own decision this time that put me in a position I hated, of having to do something reprehensible in the hope that greater good would come out of it all in the end.



I lifted my rifle. Don Ernesto's hand rested briefly on the barrel. "Don't kill anyone, my dear fellow. We don't want to cause a drop in production," he murmured. That was all the death of one of these labourers would mean to him, I realised. I aimed carefully. My target was no more than a hundred and fifty yards away: an easy shot with the scoped .318. I exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. The harsh report echoed against the surrounding rocks. The straw hat worn by one of the cowering workers had leapt from his head. Shooting now to clear the tension I felt, I cycled easily through the bolt action clearing the spent cartridge and fired again. The hat, which had been slowly drifted downwards was caught again and tugged away. A second and a half later, my third shot hit it again, virtually disintegrating it.



To my side I heard Don Ernesto's wild jubilation at my shooting. I felt sickened by what I had just done. Only days earlier I had been blithely showing off my marksmanship for the amusement of children, now I was doing it for the amusement of a madman.



Leaving me to my thoughts, Don Ernesto had remounted and was ready to ride in to the quarry. I took a couple of deep breaths to regain some semblance of self-control, then mounted and caught up to him. I wasn't sure what sort of reception to expect. Don Ernesto had identified the labourers as convicts. I supposed that to mean that the guards were prison warders of some sort.



The lead guard saw us as we rode in and he rode to meet us. His face carried a broad, sycophantic smile. Not warders, then - these were Don Ernesto's men for sure.



"Welcome, Jefe! That was some fine shooting to witness. Your skill is, as always, unsurpassed."



Don Ernesto grinned, indicating me like a child showing off a new-found toy. "Luis, this is Lord John Roxton, an honoured guest, who is staying with us for a while. The shovel was my shot; the hat was his. As you have said, he is indeed quite a marksman. Lord Roxton, this is Luis Ortega, one of my most trusted lieutenants."



Ortega looked at me and uttered a brief "Encantado!" I simply nodded in reply. Fortunately Ortega did not seem to require any further comments from me. While he and Don Ernesto spoke, I studied the labourers. A few of them returned my stare with fragile, timid defiance. Most simply looked away - too tired or too scared to meet my gaze. I had seldom felt so sullied by my own acts.



On the long ride back to the Hacienda, I let Don Ernesto talk, thankful that all I had to do was occasionally agree with whatever he was saying. Those workers back at the quarry were not convicts. They were forced labour, and probably amongst their number were some of the missing men from Chalhuanca Alto. Don Ernesto had shown me this quarry, but what if there were others like it hidden in these mountains, perhaps being operated in similar style by some of the other businessmen in the cartel. Friday's Ball would be a good place to start trying to find out.



That night, I had some of the worst nightmares I'd experienced since the end of the war.



To be continued…