Mysterious barricades

At the porch, open-air headquarters for all of my reflections since I first arrived here on that Friday the 13th. Is it a presage, as Andrés says? I'm alone at the porch. It's seven in the morning. A weird wind sweeps the slopes of the mountain facing the farm under the sun of a morning that has hardly started here. Everything is silence inside the house. Today the Conselheiros seem to have turned their alarm-clocks off and gagged the roosters away from the farm. No one's to blame, I think. Yesterday was a dog's day for everyone if it's really true that every dog has his day.

However, the cold-bloodedness with which to treat human life (be it a cattle thief, a pickpocket, whatever) in Taurinos and many other places does scare me. Every little thing is calculated, thoroughly planned and performed with perfection and refinement of details. Thieves and felons are aborted after growing up. There their cycle of life ends, their permit has expired. Duílio seems to see worse attitude in his sons when they say bad words to a guest lady who they haven't known for even a month than watching them bury (and God knows even kill, because I never asked who actually did the guys) corpses of criminals caught in the very act in Taurinos.

Aparecida surprised me with her reaction, taking my side on the discussion. All else was expected as her typical response to stimuli. The kind of woman that prays that everything is going to be okay, but seeks to not interfere in the important subjects of the place, sort of an Amelia, the real woman, submissive to her husband's and sons' grand designs. A true female island, all surrounded by men. I notice she allows herself to disagree from the rest of the clan about the approach to some issues, a lively discord in words (though it is voiced timidly, without any vehemence). Still I think it is too little for the dimension the problem has assumed.

The noise of a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle coming down the road on the way to the farm Taurinos. The vehicle parks near the porch and a carrier employee comes up to me, a clipboard in his hands.

"Please, where could I find Mr. Duílio Lima Conselheiro?", he asked me after tipping his hat to me.

"Well, I woke up some thirty minutes ago, I guess they're all still sleeping because there's no sound from inside the house."

"Could you then receive this mail order for me? Otherwise I'll have to be back later and it's completely out of my way. I'll still have to do Luminárias, São Bento Abade and Baependi, which are far to the other side… Look, all you have to do is sign, here's the pen. The order has already been paid, right?"

I sign my name on the paper, and even help the guy pile cardboard boxes and more cardboard boxes on the porch. He thanks me and disappears on the road in front of the farm Taurinos. Only then am I able to look at the boxes in more detail. There things written everywhere both in Portuguese and German, but I understand they are boxes of tranquillizer darts. Others hold a medication named Rompun®. Three more boxes are different and longer than the others. There are dart rifles inside, as it reads on the package. I now declare open season for the Sacred Ones in Taurinos.

Silence returns to this place for some more time. Birds sing eerie melodies as the weird wind comes sweeping the yard in front of the porch from the mountain slopes up there. Clouds are high, moving lazily across the blue space that is left among them. It's a beautiful morning, no doubt, but permeated of the strange feeling something has broken here. In me that was shocked beyond the threshold I would like to admit even to myself on corroborating the story of the tools.

I had no idea what kind of process I was giving cause to by turning on the lights and asking everyone to be perfectly true to facts. But that was the flashpoint for a lot of findings and corroborations, some expected (as the case of the tools' thought-shapes that confirmed my worst hunches), other unexpected as the reaction of Aparecida to the incident and the vision of Andrés of my finding the thought-shapes under the rooftop at the same time as me, but inside a car, kilometers away from here.

I feel officially threatened with death on the farm Taurinos. But I gave Andrés my word that I'd go to the end of it with him (for me it means to help solve whatever is causing problems to my client). I know well I've brought here more probably to help Andrés in the capture of that Bogeyman they call The Big One. I don't care. If this is what is going to restitute his former self, I'll go with him to the end of hell to see that so-called The Big One's all gone.

Breakfast is ready and is in silence. We greeted each other on the limits of our common decency. Everybody seems appalled and bored of each other. No surprise after a day like yesterday, but sooner or later we'll all have to talk. I can't forget I have been reassured about being able to leave the town after all this pandemonium has subsided. If this pandemonium is to truly subside one day.

"Can I consider myself threatened with death or will there be a chance of redemption for me for knowing more than I should?"

No one looked at me though the father and the sons exchanged significant looks. Silence was now something to be used to pierce your ears. Not even the strange songbirds showed up for some eerie free music. I picked the most mordant question of my list to start the works for the day.

"You have been initiated. There no such risk for you. Even if we wanted to, we would never do it, because you're now a member of the Society." Duílio spoke as if the reason was sufficient to prevent my summary execution. But I pretended to be calmer in what concerned that subject. Time to move on. I even asked if the boys were not late for school.

"There's no school today and there won't be any classes for the rest of the week. School's closed", explained Adriano, "because of the barricades they are putting up downtown on account of bulls that have fled their farms and are now playing havoc in the city."

Out on the porch, Duílio was pleased to see the boxes with the material. He and the kids thanked me for receiving the material, unpacked the rifles, examined them as if they had handled them most of their lives. Three rifles for one eager man and two eager young men.

"Dad, Rompun® came in these boxes here." Adriano glanced at Duílio.

"Rompun®?", I remembered the name and asked about it even if I knew what the medication was about.

"Yes, he's speaking a about a tranquillizer and anesthetic for cattle", Duílio explained to me, "darts are filled with Rompun®, rifles are then filled with darts and there you go."

"You're coming with us to town, Ms. Grisam. The Mayor has asked to see us." Andrés spoke while looking at nothing else but the rifle and the darts he had in his hands.

"And what do I have to do with the Mayor?"

"We told him you can "see" and can help find The Big One in one of the bulls", clarified Andrés.

"There is a detail I can't understand really", I stated, "if The Big One is in town in one of the bulls or calves, whatever, is this all about chasing him out of town now that he's in?"

"True", it was Adriano who answered instead, "it's the first time in history he's made it to town, it seems. His might is here in town, not around any longer as it used to be for the ancient ones. This is why this week is going to be especially insane."

"Now Souza is keeping his grocery store open today. Says he he's going to keep it open to defy the law of the bulls. Famous last words…"

Master Danilo

Downtown, mysterious barricades everywhere you cast your look at. Lending an air of desolation to the tiny town that seemed like it had been bombed. Old dismantled stoves, car wrecks, barbwire, wood and barrels, rubble, a lot of rubble, all the junk available for putting up temporary walls. I realize it's my first time downtown since I arrived here in Taurinos. I am now fully aware of the leadership the Conselheiros over the town's population; they absolutely seem to do their surname justice. On the street, driving slowly past cows and bulls (having no way of knowing where the first attack was coming from) we could see the downcast expression of the people waving and wishing the two handlers good luck, "see what you can do for us poor citizens of Taurinos" people who had already forgotten how it is to smile spontaneously. All is weariness and a warm, stuffy sensation permeating the air around us in days of Big One. A heavy air that not even the constant wind of the mountains seems able to renew. This way we covered the whole of the town greeting the saddened community of Taurinos, lost in a chaos of cows and bulls jamming the streets everywhere, paralyzing the weak local traffic, commerce is all oddly closed on a Monday.

"May the King Star be there for you all on the seventh!", shouted an older man whose voice I recognized. It was no one else than master Danilo. Andrés saw him and called him up to the car. He came close with typically timid Mineiro steps and bent over the window on Andrés' side.

"How's things, Duílio? Andrés… So… You're bound for some hunting today?"

"Hell, yes! Look and see", and Andrés showed the ancient Taurino his loaded dart gun. Master Danilo did approve of it; he had a dog-tired expression on his face as everybody else in town. Greeted Adriano and me. Politely, but as though he had never known me from Adam. Didn't show in his greeting we two had been talking in his house. Perhaps he didn't want the farm's men to know we had been exchanging information. Perhaps it is just better this way.

"Things are growing uglier this time", master Danilo informed, "two bulls entered Souza's house - the guy from the grocery store - and he had to drive them away using some strong firecrackers he had in stock. But they broke glasses, can you picture these beasts breaking into the children's room where the young are sleeping? Now Souza is keeping his grocery store open today. Says he he's going to keep it open to defy the law of the bulls. Famous last words…"

"Six more days and it'll be our law back in effect again", Andrés said it like a promise.

"May the King Star hear you, young handler", master Danilo smiled.

"Yep, even the mayor wants to see us today", added Adriano.

"Oh does he? Take bedsheets for his tears that will flood the Town Hall worse than the river of Piracicaba", master Danilo mocked, "that man is a complete asshole in there, behind that table with the right to special barricades for authorities when he should be on the streets instead, encouraging people to resist the tide."

"How's situation in your area?" Duílio wanted to know.

"Ah, Mr. Conselheiro, my region has fewer heads of cattle but it seems some are wandering across the whole of the town. I even saw some bulls with your brand near my home and it's some five kilometers away from your farm. They are spreading across town and if they are to deliver the final blow it's going to be when there's no spot left in the city they don't occupy."

After some more talk, we headed for the Town Hall. The same barricades everywhere, blocking the cars' way, forcing Andrés and Adriano to get off, pull all the rubble aside and pull it back in place as we went past them in dull and tiresome work. The Mayor ran with us to his room, told people to bring on coffee, water, tea and what may have you.

"Thanks to Mithra you're here, Duílio… Is this our clairvoyant?"

"I'm no clairvoyant; I just have some episodes of…"

"The one and only", Andrés interrupted my justification looking serious at me (another attempt and my shin would pay the price), "we have covered some of the farms in Taurinos together looking for the newborn calves."

"I pray every day that you manage to find him as soon as possible and put an end to all this. I just don't know what to do, can't seem to find an answer however much I think about it. It seems all my ideas bring me back to the same point. No wonder it's feeling like hell downtown as there were no records of him entering the city at any point of our history."

"Yes, our times are indeed special", uttered Duílio as he playfully changed the position of some paperweights on the Mayor's desk, "by the way, we've brought the Rompun® for the other farmers, it was a joint purchase we made some twenty days ago."

"Leave the medication here. I'll call them and ask them to fetch it. Do they have dart guns of their own?"

"Yes, it seems the Conselheiros were the last to order theirs", informed Adriano, laughing.

Outside, the noise of broken glass and the moos of the bulls at very close range. Are they about to break into the Town Hall? The kids looked out on the window and there was one out there, infuriated. Andrés looked at us, grinning.

"Lo and behold! He's from [the farm] Taurinos, our A is on his rear leg", and what he did next, before anyone could foresee, was to shatter the Mayor's window pane with the rifle's forearm and fire a perfect shot onto the animal's neck. It still took the bull some time, but he eventually grew more obedient to that medication's drowsiness.

"We'll need a cattle truck to take him", Andrés commented with the Mayor. But it was no comment, it was an order. In less than ten minutes they had the beast chained to the truck. Andrés didn't even need to apologize for the broken window (also because there was nothing completely intact around anyway), like in the action movies, motion I found funny yet far from original. Still, the movement proved to be effective.

On the streets the dull and slow movement in stark contrast with the restlessness of cattle seen everywhere, taking over squares, streets, alleys, people reinforcing barricades, the dull and tiresome job of removing the rubble to put it all back in place again every time we had to cross them, and on top of it all, the huge beast coming right behind us on the truck.

And it was when they had come off the car for some rubble removal that he appeared. This time Adriano saw him in the distance and from a distance Adriano realized he was coming right to the car. He asked his father to stop the car. Duílio did but inquired him about him smashing the windscreen like his brother did to the Mayor's window. He laughed, got off the car and waited. The bull stopped some 50 meters away and calmed down.

"Not a biggie", and he turned his back on the bull and was coming back to the car when we all shouted his name. But it was all too late.

The "not-a-biggie" collided with the car's open door and eventually with Adriano at some fifty kilometers an hour, tossing Adriano about like he was a coin. He crawled like a planaria back to his dart gun, reaching out for it as Duílio and Andrés ran outside the car with their rifles. They didn't have time for a reaction; a dart gun had been fired already. The bull's march went dull and dead after some minutes. A desperate shot from Adriano had managed to beat him. He still had to roll a lot on the earth to escape the animal's reach before the tranquillizer kicked in. He couldn't believe he had been able to make it back to the car all but smeared in red earth.

People soon started to gather around. Andrés and his father made use of the curious workforce to set another bull chained to the truck while I scanned Duílio's elder for wounds or injures. He was barked and bruised here and there but nothing of note considering the might of the bull's charge over him. And what an operation it was altogether. To think Duílio and I did almost nothing, he just drove all the way and I just smiled all the way at people I just met. At Taurinos main square, the church bell started tolling its lazy beats, that were twelve. Yes, and all of this before lunch.

The ruminant hour | Mystery religion

Radio Universal: A Love Like Blood