The Barbed Wire

by

Horacio Quiroga

(translated by Mark Andrew Holmes)

For fifteen days, the sorrel had searched in vain for the path his companion used to escape the paddock. The formidable barrier—a tangle of capuera (scrubby regrowth from cleared land)—would not allow even a horse’s head to pass through. Clearly, that was not the way the malacara—the white-faced horse—was getting out.

Now he was pacing the farm again, trotting restlessly with his head held high and alert. From deep within the woods, the malacara would answer his companion’s ringing neighs with short, quick ones of his own—sounds that undoubtedly held a brotherly promise of plentiful food. What irritated the sorrel most was that the malacara would reappear two or three times a day to drink. He would vow then not to let his companion out of his sight for a moment, and for a few hours, indeed, the pair would graze in perfect harmony. But suddenly, the malacara—dragging his tether rope—would vanish into the thicket of chirca shrubs; and when the sorrel, realizing he was alone, dashed in pursuit, he would find the woods impenetrable. Yet from inside—still very close by—the mischievous malacara would answer his desperate neighs with a playful, mouth-full whinny.

Then, that morning, the old sorrel found the gap quite simply: while crossing in front of the chirca thicket—which extended fifty meters from the woods out into the open field—he spotted a faint trail that led him in a straight, diagonal line toward the forest. There was the malacara, stripping leaves from the trees.

It was a simple matter: one day, while crossing the thicket, the malacara had discovered a gap in the woods created by an uprooted incienso tree. He had repeated his trek through the thicket until he knew the entrance to the tunnel perfectly. Then, he used the old path that he and the sorrel had worn down together along the edge of the woods. And here lay the cause of the sorrel’s distress: the entrance to the trail formed a sharply oblique angle with the horse path, so the sorrel—accustomed to traveling the latter from south to north and never from north to south—would never have found the opening.

In an instant, he had rejoined his companion; together then—with no concern other than clumsily nipping at the young palm trees—the two horses decided to leave behind the ill-fated paddock they already knew by heart.

The scrubland, being quite sparse, allowed for easy movement, even on horseback. In truth, nothing remained of the forest but a strip two hundred meters wide. Beyond it lay a two-year-old clearing, tufted with wild tobacco plants. The old sorrel—who in his youth had roamed such clearings so extensively that he once spent six months lost in them—led the way; within half an hour, the nearby tobacco plants had been stripped of leaves as high as a horse’s neck could reach.

Walking, grazing, and exploring, the sorrel and the malacara crossed the clearing until a wire fence brought them to a halt.

"A wire fence," said the sorrel.

"Yes, a wire fence," agreed the malacara.

Resting their heads against the top wire, both gazed intently ahead. From there, they could see a tall patch of grass in an old, frost-whitened clearing, along with a banana grove and a new plantation. None of it looked particularly tempting, to be sure; yet the horses took note of the scene and, one after the other, followed the fence to the right.

Two minutes later, they found a way through: a tree, killed by fire but left standing, had fallen across the wires. They crossed the expanse of frost-white grass—their hoofbeats making no sound—and, skirting the reddish banana grove (scorched by the frost), they saw up close exactly what those new plants were.

"It’s yerba," the malacara noted, his lips quivering just half a centimeter from the leathery leaves. The disappointment might well have been great; yet the horses, though fond of a tasty treat, yearned above all to roam. So, cutting diagonally across the yerba mate grove, they continued on their way until a new wire fence blocked their path. They skirted it with solemn, patient composure, eventually reaching a gate—left open, to their delight—and suddenly found themselves out on the main road.

To the horses, however, what they had just accomplished seemed like a feat of daring. There was an infinite distance between the tedious paddock and their newfound freedom. Yet, vast as that distance was, the horses sought to extend it even further; after lazily surveying their surroundings and grooming the scurf from each other’s necks, they continued their adventure in quiet contentment.

The day, in truth, lent itself to such a mood. The morning mist of Misiones had fully lifted, and beneath a suddenly clear sky, the landscape glowed with brilliant radiance. From the rise where the two horses stood, the red-earth road cut through the grass before them with striking precision, dipping down into a valley white with frost-covered espartillo grass before climbing again toward the distant woods. A biting wind sharpened the clarity of the golden morning, and the horses—feeling the sun, still low on the horizon, full in their faces—narrowed their ...their eyes to that blissful dazzle.

They continued on—alone and glorying in their freedom along the light-flooded road—until, rounding a spur of the hillside, they spotted a stretch of unusually vibrant green by the roadside. Pasture? Undoubtedly. Yet, in the dead of winter...

With nostrils flared in greedy anticipation, the horses approached the wire fence. Yes—fine, magnificent grass! And they—the free horses—would get in.

It should be noted that, since that early morning, the sorrel and the malacara held a very high opinion of themselves. Neither gate nor wire fence, neither thicket nor clearing—nothing was an obstacle to them. They had witnessed extraordinary sights and overcome incredible hurdles; they felt sleek, proud, and capable of making the most outlandish decision imaginable.

In this state of high spirits, they saw several cows standing by the roadside a hundred meters away; heading toward them, they reached the gate, which was barred by five sturdy rails. The cows stood motionless, gazing fixedly at that green, unreachable paradise.

"Why don't you go in?" the sorrel asked the cows.

"Because it can't be done," they replied.

"We go everywhere," the sorrel asserted haughtily. "For the past month, we've gone everywhere."

Caught up in the glow of their adventure, the horses had genuinely lost all sense of time. The cows did not even deign to look at the intruders.

"Horses can't," said a restless young heifer. "They say that, but they don't get through anywhere. We are the ones who go everywhere."

"They have ropes on them," added an old mother cow without turning her head.

"Not me—I don't have a rope!" the sorrel replied sharply. "I used to live in the scrublands and I got through."

"Yes, right behind us! We get through, but you can't." The restless young heifer spoke up again:

"The boss said the other day: horses can be held back by just a single strand of wire. So? ... You two aren't getting through?"

"No, we aren't," the malacara replied simply, convinced by the evidence.

"We do!"

It suddenly occurred to the honest malacara, however, that the cows—bold and cunning, those unrepentant trespassers of farms and violators of the Rural Code—didn't cross the gate either.

"This gate is a bad one," the old mother objected. "But he does it! He slides the bars aside with his horns."

"Who?" asked the sorrel.

All the cows turned their heads toward him in surprise.

"The bull, Barigüí! He’s stronger than bad fences."

"Fences? ... He gets through?"

"Everything! Barbed wire, too. We follow him through."

The two horses, having reverted to their peaceful nature as animals easily contained by a single strand of wire, felt naively awestruck by that hero capable of facing down barbed wire—the most terrifying obstacle a creature driven to move forward could encounter.

Suddenly, the cows shifted placidly: the bull was approaching at a slow pace. And facing that flat, stubborn forehead aimed in a calm, straight line at the gate, the horses humbly acknowledged their own inferiority.

The cows stepped aside, and Barigüí, sliding his forehead beneath a crossbar, tried to shove it to the side.

The horses pricked up their ears in admiration, but the bar wouldn't budge. The bull tried one bar after another, applying his intelligence in vain: the farmer—the happy owner of the oat field—had secured the bars with wedges the previous afternoon.

The bull made no further attempts. Turning sluggishly, he sniffed the air in the distance, squinting, and then skirted the wire fence, letting out stifled, wheezing bellows.

From the gate, the horses and cows watched. At a certain spot, the bull slid his horns beneath the barbed wire, thrusting it violently upward with his forehead, and the massive beast passed through, arching his back. In just a few more strides, he was among the oats, and the cows then headed that way, attempting to cross as well. But the cows evidently lacked the masculine resolve to endure bloody scratches on their hides; no sooner did they poke their necks through than they quickly pulled them back, tossing their heads dizzily.

The horses kept watching.

"They aren't getting through," observed the malacara.

"The bull got through," replied the sorrel. "He eats a lot."

The pair was also moving to skirt the fence—driven by force of habit—when a bellow, now clear and loud, reached them: inside the oat field, the bull—capering about in a mock charge—was roaring at the farmer, who was trying to reach him with a stick.

"Oh, yeah? ...I'll show you a little hop..." the man shouted. Barigüí, dancing and roaring all the while before the man, dodged the blows. They maneuvered like this for fifty meters, until the farmer managed to force the beast against the fence. But the bull, with the heavy, brute determination of his strength, thrust his head between the strands and broke through, accompanied by the shrill, violin-like whine of wires and staples flying twenty meters through the air.

The horses watched as the man hurried back to his shack and emerged again, his face pale. They also saw him vault the fence and head toward them; at that, the companions ...from that determined stride, they turned back along the path toward his farm.

Since the horses were walking docilely just a few paces ahead of the man, they were able to reach the bull owner's farm together and overhear the conversation.

It is evident from what transpired that the man had suffered untold misery because of the Pole's bull. Crops—no matter how inaccessible they were within the brush—and fences—no matter how taut the wire or how many strands there were—were all trampled and torn down by the bull in his marauding habits. One can also gather that the neighbors were fed up with the beast and its owner due to the animal's ceaseless destruction. Yet, because local settlers rarely report livestock damage to the Justice of the Peace—however severe the loss—the bull continued to graze everywhere except on its owner's farm; the owner, for his part, seemed to find the whole situation quite amusing.

Thus, the horses saw and heard the irate farmer and the sly Pole.

"This is the last time, Don Zaninski, that I come to see you about your bull! He’s just trampled all my oats. I can't take it anymore!"

The Pole, a tall man with small blue eyes, spoke in an extraordinary, honeyed falsetto.

"Ah, bull, bad! Me no can help! Me tie him, he escape! Cow's fault! Bull follow cow!"

"I don't have any cows, and you know it!"

"No, no! Ramírez's cow! Bull drive me crazy!"

"And the worst part is, he loosens all the fence wires—you know that too!"

"Yes, yes, wire! Ah, me no know..."

"All right, look, Don Zaninski: I don't want trouble with neighbors, but for the last time, keep an eye on your bull so he doesn't get through the back fence; I'm going to put up new wire along the path."

"The bull goes along the path! Not through the back!"

"But he isn't going to use the path now."

"He goes through! No barbed wire, nothing! He goes right through!"

"He won't get through."

"What does it say?"

"Barbed wire... but he won't get through."

"The wire won't do a thing!"

"Well, do your best to keep him out, because if he gets through, he'll hurt himself."

The farmer left. It is obvious—just as before—that the mischievous Pole, laughing once more at the animal's antics, felt a touch of pity (if such a thing were possible) for his neighbor, who was about to build a fence meant to be impassable for his bull. He surely rubbed his hands together:

"They won't be able to say a thing to me this time if the bull eats all the oats!"

The horses resumed their journey away from the farm, and a short while later, they arrived at the spot where Barigüí had performed his feat. The beast was still there, motionless in the middle of the road, staring blankly—with a solemn lack of thought—at a fixed point in the distance for the past fifteen minutes. Behind him, the cows dozed in the already-warming sun, chewing their cud.

But when the poor horses passed along the road, the cows opened their eyes disdainfully:

"It's the horses. They wanted to cross the fence. And they're tethered."

"Barigüí got through!"

"A single strand holds the horses back."

"They're skinny."

This seemed to sting the sorrel horse to the quick; he turned his head:

"We aren't skinny. You are. He won't get through here anymore," he added, pointing to the fallen wires—Barigüí's handiwork.

"Barigüí always gets through! Then we go through. You don't."

"He won't get through anymore. The man said so."

"He ate the man's oats. We go through afterwards." Due to closer contact, the horse is noticeably more attached to man than the cow is. Hence, the malacara and the sorrel had faith in the wire fence the man was about to build.

The pair continued on their way, and moments later, faced with the open field stretching out before them, both horses lowered their heads to graze, forgetting about the cows.

Later on, just as the sun had set, the two horses remembered the corn and started back. On the path, they saw the farmer replacing all the posts of his fence, and a fair-haired man, who had stopped beside him on horseback, watching him work.

"I tell you, he'll get through," the traveler was saying.

"He won't get through twice," the farmer replied.

"You'll see! This is child's play for that Pole's damned bull! He'll get through!"

"He won't get through twice," the other repeated stubbornly.

The horses moved on, still hearing snatches of conversation:

"...laugh!"

"...we'll see."

Two minutes later, the fair-haired man rode past them at a posting trot. The malacara and the sorrel, somewhat surprised by a gait they did not recognize, watched the hurried man disappear into the valley.

"Curious!" the malacara remarked after a long pause. "The horse is trotting, but the man is galloping."

They continued on. At that moment, they were cresting the hill, just as they had that morning. Against the pale, cold sky, their silhouettes stood out in black—a gentle, head-lowered pair, the malacara in front, the sorrel behind. The atmosphere, which had been hazy during the day due to the intense sunlight, took on an almost funereal clarity at that twilight hour. The wind had died down completely, and in the evening calm—as the temperature began to plummet—the frozen valley ...its penetrating dampness, which condensed into a low-hanging mist in the shadowy depths of the ravines. The wintry scent of burnt grass revived in the cooling earth; and when the path skirted the hillside, the air—suddenly feeling colder and damper—grew heavy with the overpowering perfume of orange blossoms.

The horses entered through the gate of their farm, for the boy, who was rattling a small box of corn, heard their eager, trembling whinny. The old sorrel was credited with having initiated the adventure and was rewarded with a lead rope, just in case.

But the next morning—quite late, owing to the dense fog—the horses escaped again, crossing the wild tobacco patch once more, treading silently over the frost-covered pasture, and passing through the still-open gate.

The sun-drenched morning, with the sun already high, shimmered with light, and the excessive heat promised an imminent change in the weather. After cresting the rise, the horses suddenly saw the cows stopped on the path; the memory of the previous afternoon quickened their ears and their pace—they wanted to see what the new fence looked like.

Yet, upon arrival, they were sorely disappointed. On the new posts—dark and crooked—there were merely two strands of barbed wire; thick ones, perhaps, but only two.

Despite their modest daring, a life spent on farms had given the horses some experience with fences. They examined the setup closely, paying particular attention to the posts.

"They're made of hardwood," the malacara observed.

"Yes, charred heartwood."

And after another long, scrutinizing look, he noted:

"The wire runs through the middle; there are no staples."

"They're very close together."

Close—the posts, yes, undoubtedly: three meters apart. But those two modest wires, replacing the five strands of the previous fence, were a disappointment to the horses. How could the man believe that a fence meant for calves would hold back that fearsome bull?

"The man said he wouldn't get through," ventured the malacara—the horse with the white blaze on his face. Being his master's favorite, he ate more corn and thus felt more inclined to believe.

But the cows had heard him.

"It’s the horses. They’re both tethered. They can't get through. Barigüí already made it across."

"He made it? Right here?" asked the malacara despondently.

"At the far end. He comes through here, too. He ate the oats."

Meanwhile, the talkative heifer had tried to slip her horns between the wires; a sharp vibration, followed by a dry *clack* against her horns, left the horses frozen in suspense.

"The wires are pulled very tight," the sorrel observed after a long inspection.

"Yes. They couldn't be any tighter..."

And both of them, never taking their eyes off the wires, wondered vaguely how one might manage to pass between the two strands.

The cows, meanwhile, were encouraging one another.

"He got through yesterday. He crosses the barbed wire. We go after him."

"They didn't cross yesterday. Cows say they will, but they don't," they heard the sorrel say.

"There’s barbed wire here, and Barigüí gets through! Here he comes!"

Skirting the edge of the woods at the far end of the field—still two hundred meters away—the bull was advancing toward the oat patch. The cows all turned to face the fence, their eyes fixed intently on the invading beast. The horses stood motionless, their ears pricked up.

"He’s eating all the oats! Then he’ll come through!" "The wires are stretched tight..." the malacara observed, still trying to gauge what would happen if...

"He ate the oats! The man is coming! Here comes the man!" the talkative heifer cried out.

Indeed, the man had just stepped out of the shack and was advancing toward the bull. He held a stick in his hand but did not appear angry; he was, however, very serious, his brow furrowed.

The animal waited for the man to reach him, then began to bellow, making aggressive feints with his horns. The man advanced further, and the bull began to back away, bellowing incessantly and trampling the oats with his wild, beastly capering. Finally, when he was ten meters from the road, he wheeled around with a last, mocking, defiant bellow and charged the wire fence.

"Here comes Barigüí! He gets through anything! He goes right through barbed wire!" the cows managed to cry out.

Carried by the momentum of his heavy trot, the enormous bull lowered his head and drove his horns between the two strands of wire. A sharp groan of wire rang out—a shrill screech that traveled from post to post all the way down the line—and the bull passed through.

But from his back and belly—deeply gashed, with wounds running like channels from chest to rump—rivers of blood poured down. Stunned, the beast stood motionless for a moment, trembling. Then he walked slowly away, drenching the grass in blood, until, twenty meters on, he lay down with a hoarse sigh.

At midday, the Pole went to look for his bull and wept in a high-pitched wail before the impassive farmer. The animal had managed to get up and was able to walk. But its owner, realizing it would take a great deal of effort to cure it—if that were even possible—slaughtered it that afternoon; and the next day, it fell to Malacara to carry two kilos of meat home in his saddlebag.

...Of the dead bull.

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