The Violent Land Read Online Free PDF Page A

rigmarole Rodolfo had his commission; and he knew, further, that the table where João Magalhães sat was one where the drinks would flow and the house’s kitty would be no light matter. And so he had sent the boy for João as he prepared the decks.
    That was the way it had been that night. João had been taking his ease, Violeta’s fingers in his hair and her voice all but lulling him to sleep, when the boy had come. He had thrown on his clothes and a moment later was ensconced in the back room of the casino. From Colonel Juvencio he had taken one conto, and from the engineer all that the latter had in his pocket, even to his university ring, which the chap had tossed on the table when he found that he held four queens in his hand, on João Magalhães’s deal. He lost, for the reason that the captain’s four was a four of kings. The fourth player alone, a merchant from the Lower Town, was also lucky; he won two hundred–odd milreis.
    At the table where João played, the fourth man always won; this was a part of his technique. And inasmuch as the captain (so his intimates asserted) had an exquisite flair for such matters, he would always pick the winner by the colour of his eyes, eyes which most nearly resembled a pair that had stared him out of countenance in Rio as they studied the professional’s face with repulsion and contempt.
    It was morning when they all rose from the table; and Rodolfo had valued the ring as being worth more than a conto. The engineer had bet three hundred and twenty on his four queens. João laughed to himself, there on the ship’s deck. “Only a fool would stay on queens.”
    He had gone to Violeta’s house feeling thoroughly fit and thinking how happy she would be the next day when he brought her that blue silk dress that she had seen in a shop window. Who would have thought that the engineer, instead of keeping his mouth shut, would go to the police with a cock-and-bull story? What he had said about João had been plenty. He had wanted to know in what army the captain had held his commission; and if the police had not called João in for a little talk, was not that possibly due to the fact that they had been unable to find him?
    Rodolfo had hidden him away and had made a good job of it; Agrippino Doca had told him marvels of Ilhéos and the cacao country; and now here he was on board this ship, after eight months spent in Bahia, bound for Ilhéos, where the cacao grew, and with it swift-made fortunes, the engineer’s ring upon his finger, a deck of cards in one pocket, a hundred professional cards in the other:
    CAPT. DR. JOÃO MAGALHÃES
Military Engineer
    Little by little the sadness he felt at having to abandon the city he had so loved during those eight months was disappearing, and João began to take an interest in the view: a distant glimpse of trees and of houses growing smaller all the while. The ship’s whistle blew and water splashed his straw hat. Removing it from his head, he ran his perfumed handkerchief over the crown and stuck it under his arm.
    Then he smoothed down his tousled hair, which was left purposely uncared for and wavy. Darting an eye about the deck, he let his glance roam from the dark-skinned man whose gaze was still fixed upon the quay, no longer visible now, to the fat colonel, who was telling the travelling salesman of feats of daring in the semi-barbarous São Jorge dos Ilhéos country. As he twirled the ring on his finger, João studied the physiognomies of his fellow passengers. Would he be able to find the players for a little game? True, he had a comfortable amount of swag in his purse, but money never did anyone any harm. He whistled softly to himself.
    Aboard ship the conversation was becoming general. João Magalhães had the feeling that it would not be long before he was drawn into it, and he was thinking of how to get up his poker party. Taking out a cigarette and