DEATH
IN A SAWMILL
Rony V. Diaz
1
You can cleave a rock with it. It is the iron truth. That was not an
accident. That was a murder. Yes, a murder.
That impotent bastard, Rustico, murdered Rey.
2
You have seen the chain that holds
logs on a carriage in place. Well, that chain is controlled by a lever which is
out of the way and unless that lever is released, the chain cannot whip out
like a crocodile’s and hurl a man to the wheeling circular saw.
3
I was down at our sawmill last
summer to hunt. As soon as school was
out, I took a bus for Lemery where I boarded a sailboat for Abra de Ilog. Inong met me at the pier with one of the
trucks of the sawmill and took me down.
The brazen heat of summer writhed on the yard of the sawmill which was
packed hard with the red sawdust.
4
My father met me at the door of the
canteen. He took my bags and led me in.
I shouldered my sheathed carbine and followed. The canteen was a large frame house made of
unplanned planks. My father’s room was
behind the big, barred store where the laborers of the sawmill bought their
supplies. The rough walls of the small
room looked like stiffened pelts.
5
My father deposited my bags on a cot
and then turned to me. “I’ve asked the
assistant sawyer, Rey Olbes, to guide you.”
6
The machines of the sawmill were
dead. Only the slow, ruthless grinding
of the cables of the winches could be heard.
7
“No work today?” I asked my father.
8
“A new batch of logs arrived from
the interior and the men are arranging them for sawing.
9
“They are ready to saw,” my father
explained.
10
The stream machine started and built
solid walls of sound of sound that crashed against the framehouse. Then I heard
the saw bite into one of the logs. Its locust-like trill spangled the air.
11
“You’ll get used to the noise,” my
father said,” I’ve some things to attend to.
I’ll see you at lunch time.” He
turned about and walked out of the room, shutting the door after him.
12
I lay on the cot with my clothes on
and listened to the pounding of the steam engine and the taunt trill of the
circular saw. After a while I dozed off.
13
After lunch, I walked out of the
canteen and crossed the yard to the engine house. It was nothing more than a roof over an aghast
collection of sot-blackened, mud plastered balky engines. Every inch of ground was covered with
sour-smelling sawdust. The steam engine
had stopped but two naked men were still stoking the furnace of the boilers
with kerts and cracked slabs. Their
bodies shone with sweat. I skirted the
boiler and went past the cranes, tractors, and trucks to the south end of the
sawmill. A deep lateral pit, filled with
kerts, flitches, and rejects, isolated like a moat the sawmill from the
jungle. Near the pit, I saw Rey. He was sitting on a log deck. When he saw me, he got up and walked straight
to me.
14
“Are you Rustico?” I asked.
15
“No, I’m Rey Olbes,” he answered.
16
“I’m Eddie,” I said; “my father sent
me.”
17
He was tall, a sunblackened young
man. He had an unusually long neck and
his head was pushed forward like a horse’s.
His skin was as grainy as moist whetstone. He stooped and picked up a canter and stuck
it on the ground and leaned on it. Then
he switched his head like a stallion to shake back into place a damp lock of
hair that had fallen over his left eye.
His manner was easy and deliberate.
18
“Your father told me you wanted to
go hunting,” he said slowly, his chin resting in the groove of his hands folded
on the butt end of the canter. “Tomorrow
is Sunday. Would you like to hunt
tomorrow?”
19
“Yes, we can hunt tomorrow.”
20
Inside the engine shed the heat
curled like live steam. It swathed my
body like a skirt.
21
“It’s hot here,” I said. “Do you always stay here after work?”
22
“No, not always.”
23
Then I saw a woman emerge from
behind one of the cranes. She was
wearing gray silk dress. She walked
toward us rapidly.
24
“Rey!” she bugled.
25
Rey dropped the canter and turned
swiftly about. The woman’s dress clung
damply to her body. She was fair; her
lips were feverish and she had a shock of black electric hair.
26
She faced Rey, “Have you seen
Rustico?”
27
“No,” Rey answered. There was a small fang of frenzy in his
voice.
28
“Tonight?” the woman asked.
29
Rey glanced at me and then looked at
the woman. He reverted to his slow,
deliberate manner as he said: “Dida, this is Eddie. The son of the boss.”
30
Dida stared at me with frantic
eyes. She said nothing.
31
“He’s a hunter too,” Rey continued.
32
Then I saw a man striding toward
us. He walked hunched, his arms working
like the claws of a crab. Tiny wings of
sawdust formed around his heels. He was
a small squat man, muscle-bound and graceless.
He came to us and looked around angrily.
He faced the woman and barked: “Go home, Dida.”
33
“I was looking for you, Rustico,”
Dida remonstrated.
34
“Go home!” he commanded hoarsely.
35
Dida turned around, sulking, and
walked away. She disappeared behind the
boilers and the furnace that rose in the shed like enormous black tumors. Rustico set himself squarely like a boxer
before Rey and demanded almost in a whisper: “Why don’t you keep away from
her?”
36
Rey looked at him coldly and
answered mockingly: “You have found a fertile kaingin. Why don’t you start planting?”
37
“Why you insolent son of the mother
of whores!” Rustico screamed. He reached down to the ground for the canter
and poised it before Rey like a harpoon.
I bounced forward and grabbled with Rustico. He pushed me.
I sank to the sawdust; Rustico leapt forward to hit me on the jaw. Rey
held him.
38
“Keep calm,” Rey shouted. “This is the son of Mang Pepe.”
39
Rey released him and Rustico dropped
his arms to the side. He looked suddenly
very tired. He continued to stare at me
with eyes that reflected yellow flecks of light. I got up slowly. What a bastard, I thought. Rustico wheeled about and strode to the
whistle box. He opened it and tugged at
the cord. The steam whistle screamed
like a stuck pig.
40
“All right, men,” he yelled. “It’s time. Load the skids and let us start
working.”
41
Rey picked up his canter and walked
toward the log carriage. Rustico was
supervising the loading of the log deck. He was as precise and stiff as a
derrick as he switched levers and pulled clamps. He sparked like a starter and the monstrous
conglomeration of boilers, furnaces, steam machines, cranes, and winches came
alive. I walked away.
42
When I reached the door of the
canteen, I heard the teeth of the circular saw swarm into a log like a flight
of locusts.
43
The next day Rey, carrying a light
rifle, came to the camera to the canteen.
He pushed open the door with his foot and entered the barred room. He stood near my father’s table. His eyes shifted warily. Then he looked at me and said: “Get ready.”
44
“I did not bring birdshot,” I said.
45
“I thought you wanted to go after
deer?” he asked.
46
I was surprised because I knew the
here deer was hunted only at night, with headlamps and buckshot. The shaft of the lamps always impaled a deer
on the black wall of night and the hunter could pick it off easily.
47
“Now? This morning?” I asked.
48
“Why not? We are not going after
spirits.”
49
“All right. You are the guide.” I dragged the gun bag from under the cot and
unsheathed my carbine. I rammed the
magazine full with shells, pushed it in, and got up. “Let’s go.”
50
We entered the forest from the west
end of the sawmill and followed a wide tractor path to a long station about
four kilometers from the sawmill. The
forest was alive with the palaver of monkeys, the call of the birds and the
whack of the wind. Then we struck left
uphill and climbed steadily for about and hour.
The trail clambered up the brush.
At the top of the rise, the trail turned at an angle and we moved across
the shoulder of an ipilipil ridge.
51
Rey walked rapidly and evenly, his
head pushed forward, until we reached the drop of the trail. I looked down into a valley walled in on
sides by cliffs that showed red and blue-grey gashes. Sreaks of brown and green were planted across
the valley. Islands of dark-green shrubs
rose above the level rush of yellow-green grass. On the left side of the valley, a small river
fed clay-red water to a grove of trees.
At the north end, the valley flattened and the sky dropped low, filling
the valley with white light and making it look like the open mouth of the
jungle, sucking at one of the hot, white, impalpable breats of the sun. We descended into the valley.
52
Rey’s manner changed. He became tense. He walked slowly, half- crouched, his eyes
searching the ground. He examined every mound, bush, and rock. Once he stopped; he bent and picked up a
small rock. The rock had been recently
displaced. He raised his hand to feel
the wind and then he backtracked for several yards and crept diagonally to a small clump of
brush. I follow behind him.
53
“Urine,” he said. The ground near his feet was wet. “Work in a
cartridge,” he told me, “and follow as noiselessly as possible.” I pulled back the bolt of my rifle.
54
We crept on half-bent knees towards
a grove of trees. Rey, carrying his
rifle in the crock of his arm, was swaying gently like a weather vane. I looked around. I saw nothing save the trees
that rose to the sky like smoke and the tall grass that swirled with the
breeze. Rey was intent.
55
Then he stopped and stiffened.
56
“Remove the safety,” he said in a
low voice. We were still crouched. “Near
the base of that tree with a dead branch.
Only its head its visible but it should be somewhere near that dry patch
of leaves. Shoot through that. Do not move until I tell you to do so.”
57
I did not see the deer until it
moved. It turned its head toward
us. Its antlers were as brown as the
dead branch of the tree. The deer
regarded us for a long time. Then it
dropped its head and quickly raised it again.
We did not move. The deer,
reassured, stepped, indifferently out of the shadows.
58
“Now!” Rey said, falling on his
knees. The deer stopped, looked at us,
its antlers scuffling against the leaves.
I raised my rifle and fired. The
deer went high in the air. Then,
dropping its head, it crashed through the trees and vanished.
59
“Your aim was too high,” he told me
quietly. He was still on his knees. “Too
high,” he said softly. “But you got
him.”
60
He stood up slowly, pushed down the
safety of his rifle and walked toward the grove of low trees.
61
We found the deer. It was stretched out on the ground. Its neck was arched upward as though it had
tried to raise its body with its head after the bullet had ripped a hump of
flesh off its back. Blood had spread
like a fan around its head. Rey sat down
on the ground and dug out of his pocket a small knife. He cut an incision at the base of the deer’s
neck. He stood and picked the deer up by
its hind legs. Blood spurted out of the
cut vein.
62
“You got your deer,” he said. “Let’s
turn back.”
63
Rey hauled the deer up and carried
it around his neck like a yoke.
64
I felt my nerves tingle with
triumph. The earth was soaking up the
blood slowly. I had a crazy urge to wash
my body with the blood. I felt that it
would seep into my body and temper my spirit now forging hot with victory. I looked at Rey. He was smiling at me. In a strained voice I said: I’ll try to do
this alone.”
65
“You’ll learn,” he said. “The forest
will surely outlive you.”
66
We walked out the valley.
67
After about an hour’s walk, we came
to a kaingin. Rey was sweating. We crossed the charred ground. At the edge of the kaingin, Rey stopped. He turned around. The deer had stiffened on his shoulders.
68
“This used to be deer country,” he
said. We surveyed the black stumps and
half-burned branches that lay strewn on the ground. The bare soil looked rusty.
69
“You know these parts very well,
don’t you?” I asked.
70
“I grew up here. I was a logger for your father before I
became a sawyer.”
71
His rifle slipped from his arm. I picked it up and carried it for him.
72
“It is the sawmill,” Rey
continued. “It is the sawmill that
opened the forest. The sawmill had
thinned the jungle miles around.” I
stared at him. He continued
meditatively, veins showing on his long powerful neck. “But I do not think they can tame the
forest. Unless they can discover the
seed of the wilderness and destroy it, this place is not yet done for.”
73
“Don’t you like your job in the
sawmill?” I asked.
74
He shot a glance at me and
grimaced. “I do not complain. You do not have to tell this to your father
but Rustico is making my stay very trying.
You saw what happened yesterday.”
75
“Yes,” I said. “What made him so mad?”
76
Rey did not answer. We crossed a gully and worked our way to the
end of a dry river bed before he answered. The shale crumbled under our
feet. The trees that grew along the bank
of the river were caught by a net of vines.
Rey, yoked by the deer, was now panting.
Under a kalumpit tree he threw
his burden down and sank to the ground.
77
“You know why?” he asked. “Because his wife is pregnant.”
78
“Dida? So?”
79
“He’s impotent.”
80
The revelation struck me like a
slap.
81
“And he suspects you,” I asked
tentatively, unsure of my footing.
82
“He knows. Dida told him.”
83
“Why doesn’t he leave her
then?” I said, trying to direct the talk
away from Rey.
84
“He wouldn’t! He’d chain Dida to
keep her!” Rey flared.
85
I shut my mouth. It was noon when we reached the sawmill.
86
Late that afternoon we left to shoot
fruit bats. Rey knew a place where we
could shoot them as they flew off their roost.
He had several tubes of birdshot and a shotgun.
87
It was almost eight o’clock when we
returned. We followed the road to the
sawmill. The shacks of the laborers were
built along the road. Near the motor
pool, a low grass hut stood. We passed
very close to the hut and we heard suppressed angry voices. “That is Rustico’s hut,” Rey said.
88
I heard Rustico’s voice. He sounded strangled. “I want you to drop that baby!” The words
were spewed out like sand. “Let me go!”
Dida screamed. I heard a table or a chair go. It crashed to the floor. “I’ll kill you,” Rustico threatened. “Do it then!” the yellow wings of light that
had spouted from a kerosene lamp shook violently.
89
Rey quickened his steps. He was
carrying a bunch of dead bats. One of
the bats had dropped, its wings spread.
It looked like a black ghoul on Rey’s side.
90
The next morning, I heard from the
men who were huddled near the door of the canteen that Dida ran away. She had hitched a ride to town on one of the
trucks.
91
I was eating breakfast in the store
with my father when Rustico entered. He
approached my father carefully as though his feet hurt. Then he stood before as and looked meekly at
my father. He was gray.
92
“Mang Pepe,” he began very slowly,
“I want to go to the town. I will be
back this afternoon or early tomorrow morning.”
93
“Sure,” my father said. “Inong is
driving a load of lumber to the pier. You go with him.”
94
“Thank you,” he said and left at
once.
95
After breakfast my father called in
Lino, the foreman. “Tell Rey to take
charge of the sawing today. Rustico is
going to town. We’ve to finish this
batch. A new load is arriving this
afternoon.”
96
“Rey left early this morning,” Lino
said. “He said he will be back tomorrow
morning.”
97
“Devil’s lightning!” my father fumes. “Why didn’t he tell me! Why is everybody so
anxious to go to town?”
98
“You were still asleep when he left,
Mang Pepe,” Lino said.
99
“These beggars are going to hold up
our shipment this week!” my father
flared. “Eddie,” my father whirled to
face me, “look for Rustico and tell him that he cannot leave until Rey
returns. We’ve to finish all the devil’s
logs before all these lighting struck beggars pack up and leave!”
100
I walked out of the canteen to look
for Rustico. I searched all the trucks
first and then the engine house. I found
him sitting on the log carriage. He was
shredding an unlighted cigarette.
101
“My father said he is sorry but you
cannot leave until Rey comes back from the town. We have a lot of work to do here. A new load of logs is expecting this
afternoon.” I spoke rapidly.
102
He got up on the carriage and leaned
on the chain that held the log clamps.
He acted tired.
103
“It is all right.” He said. “I’ve plenty of time.” He spat out a ragged stalk of spittle. “Plenty of time.” I turned about to go but he called me back.
104
He looked at me for a long time and
then asked: “You are Rey’s friend. What
has he been saying about?”
105
“Nothing much!” I lied.
106
“Why?”
107
“Nothing much!” he screamed, jumping
of the carriage. His dun face had
become very red. “He told you about my wife, didn’t he? He delights in telling that story to
everybody.” He seized a lever near the
brake of the carriage and yanked it down.
The chain lashed out and fell rattling to the floor.
108
Rustico tensed. He stared at the
chain as though it were a dead snake.
“Now look at that chain,” he said very slowly.
109
He mounted the carriage again,
kicked the clamps into place and pulled at the chain. The chain tightened. He cracked the lever up and locked it.
110
He was trembling as he unlocked the
lever and pulled it down with both hands. The chain lashed out again like a
crocodile tail.
111
“Just look at that chain,” he mused.
(1954)
Meet the Writer
RONY
V. DIAZ is an award-winning Filipino short story
writer. He has won several Palanca Awards. He is now the publisher of Manila
Times. He has taught English at U.P. Diliman and has worked for the Philippine
government as a foreign service corp.
Born in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija but moved to Mindoro
after the bombing of Clark Field. (http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Rony_V._Diaz)
0 comments