Rekabaren was lying in his bed. He rubbed and opened his eyes and saw the low, slanting reed ceiling.
There were guitar strums, like a poor labyrinth, endlessly twisting and turning…
Little by little, he returned to reality, his everyday life, which he would never trade for another. He looked unashamedly at his giant, useless body, the rough woolen poncho wrapped around his legs. Outside, beyond the window bars, in the field, the day had already fallen asleep, but the sky was still bright. He rang the bronze bell hanging aside the bed with his left hand. It wavered once or twice. From the other side of the door, the modest chords continued to reach his ears. The guitar player was a black man who had appeared that night claiming to be a singer and that he had thrown a Payada challenge to another strange musician (a poetic-musical competition in which players take turns improvising on the guitar to play the same theme in an attempt to outdo the other with originality and poetic skill). Having won, he continued to stay in the pub as if waiting for someone. He would sit for hours with the guitar in his hand, playing but not singing. Perhaps the loss had saddened him. Everyone already knew that man, harmless and alone.
Rekabaren, the owner of the pub, would not forget the conflict of that day. When he had already collected a third of the grass, he suddenly became paralyzed, lost the ability to speak. Pitying the unfortunate heroes of the novels, we take a harder look at our own misfortunes. Not having seen much suffering, Recabaren accepted his fate. He lived in the present like the animals do. He looks at the sky and thinks that the reddish color of the moon is a sign of rain.
A boy with Indian features (perhaps, his son) opened the door. Rekabaren asked him with his eyes, “Are there any customers?” The boy silently said no. The black man was not singing. Lying alone, he was playing with the bell with his left hand.
The field, under the last rays of the sun, seemed abstract, like the scenes of a dream. A dot moved on the horizon and grew into a horseman who was coming, or seemed to be coming, home. Seemed like he sped by over two hundred miles.
Rekabaren saw the man’s hat, the long dark poncho, and the Moorish horse but not the face. He finally got off his horse and approached with quick steps. Rekabaren could no longer see him, but he heard the whistle, saw him tie the horse tightly to the fence and walk towards the pub.
The man, not taking his eyes off the guitar, seemed to be looking for something. The black man said quietly.
– I knew it, sir. I trusted you.
The man answered in a harsh voice.
– I had the trust in you, too, black man. I made you wait for a long time, but here I am now.
There was silence. Finally, the black man answered.
– I am used to waiting. I have been waiting for seven years.
– I haven’t seen my children for more than seven years. I didn’t want them to think I was a murderer.
“I have already taken care of it,” said the black man, “I hope everything is alright with them”.
The stranger who was sitting at the counter laughed heartily. He asked for a beer and drank it in one gulp.
“I gave them a good advice,” he said, “that they should never be useless and unworthy, a man should not shed another man’s blood.”
After playing a slow chord, the black man answered.
– You said it right. They don’t have to be like us.
“At least like me,” said the stranger and added, as if thinking out loud, “my fate wanted me to kill, and now it’s putting the knife in my hand again.”
The black man, as if not hearing him, said.
– The days are getting shorter in Fall.
“There’s enough light for me,” he answered, standing up.
He stood in front of the black man and said:
– Leave the guitar alone. We have another thing to do today.
The two of them walked to the door. The black man muttered.
– This time will probably end as badly as the first time for me.
– The first time did not end badly for you. After what has been done, you are now walking triumphantly toward the second.
They walked out of the pub together. The moonshine was brightening up all parts of the field equally. Suddenly they looked at each other. They stopped, and the stranger took out his knife. The ponchos were already in their hands, and then the black man said:
– I want to ask you something before we start. Put as much courage and skill into this encounter as you did seven years ago when you killed my brother.
Perhaps for the first time during their dialogue, Martin Fierro heard hatred in the black man’s voice. His blood was boiling.
They started. The sharp steel knife scratched and left a mark on the black man’s face.
There is an hour in the afternoon when the field seems to be about to say something. It never speaks, or perhaps it speaks endlessly, and we do not understand, or we understand, but what it says is untranslatable, like music…
From his bed, Rekabaren saw the end. The black man backed off and fell, hitting Fiero in the face with his ax. He made a deep stab with the knife, and it penetrated the stomach. Then another blow, which the pubkeeper could not see well. Fiero did not stand up. Standing motionless, the black man seemed to be watching his severe torture. He wiped the bloody knife on the grass and walked slowly towards the pub without looking back. When his work of justice was done, he was now a nobody. He also had no business left on earth: he had killed a man.
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