Rebellion in Patagonia. Osvaldo Bayer
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The other car had been following just two hundred meters behind Micheri. They stop, turn around and are about to drive off in the other direction when they receive a hail of gunfire. El 68 gives the order to shoot them all, without mercy. The chauffeur, Senecovich, panics and tries to move forward through the bullets.
The car lurches forward until, directionless, it turns towards the hotel and crashes into a post. Pérez Millán Temperley, despite his leg wounds, is the only passenger who manages to free himself from the wreck. Senecovich tries and fails to stand up: he has been shot in the hip. In the front seat, next to the chauffeur, Sergeant Sosa lies dead. In the back, Corporal Bozzano clings to life for a few minutes more. Two dead, and Senecovich gravely wounded. The strikers take him inside the hotel and lay him down on a cot, next to Pérez Millán.
Back at the first car, the other four policeman have been caught by their pursuers. Micheri and his men surrender. They are taken prisoner and turned over to El 68. When they get back to the hotel, Micheri is surrounded by strikers shouting, “And now? What’ll we do with him? He’s not so brave now, is he? Where’s the tough guy now?”
The Chilean Lorenzo Cárdenas wants to immediately shoot the prisoners. He says that there needs to be a purge if the strike is to succeed. But opinion is split. El Gaucho Cuello, who commands the group of Argentines, doesn’t want trouble. He asks El 68 not to kill the policemen: he argues that they should be taken hostage and their fate decided later.
El 68 isn’t in a position to argue with Florentino Cuello, nor with the other Argentine strike leader, El Paisano Bartolo Díaz. He gives in.
And then the hotel restaurant empties out, leaving only El 68. Two ranchers—a German named Helmich and the Comte de Liniers—are brought before him. They were both taken hostage after coming to the hotel to do some shopping. After witnessing the shootout, they believe that they’re in their final hour and they ask to meet with the strike leader. Both Liniers and Helmich tell the former prisoner of Ushuaia that they’re willing to sign the new labor agreement and that they will concede to all of their demands. El 68 doesn’t accept their offer. He replies that if they sign while being held hostage, the authorities in Río Gallegos will claim that they were coerced into doing so.
The other Argentine strike leader, El Paisano Bartolo Díaz—a wily gaucho who’s always watching his back—asks El 68 to release the two ranchers. He agrees, on the condition that they write a letter to the Río Gallegos Workers’ Federation stating that they voluntarily accept the new labor agreement.
The time has now come to move on. El 68 and El Toscano give the order to pack up. As they’re getting ready to go, they hear the sound of a motor. It’s Commissioner Ritchie, Correa Falcón’s acting police chief. He’s arrived from Río Gallegos to provide back up for Micheri.
Two cars pull up. Commissioner Ritchie, Sergeant Peralta and Agent Campos ride in the first, on loan from La Anónima and driven by a chauffeur named Caldelas. The second gets a flat just a few kilometers from El Cerrito. But Ritchie’s car also comes to a halt, just four hundred meters short of the hotel, when they run out of gasoline. Ritchie orders Campos to retrieve a gasoline can and refill the tank.
El 68’s men, having watched the policemen climb out of the car, charge forward on horseback to stop them. When Ritchie sees the cavalry coming, he orders his men to take cover behind some nearby rocks. When they ask him to surrender, Ritchie responds by opening fire. He’s a fine shot, a cool-headed man who knows that these Chileans are worth nothing. But the peons dismount, take positions behind the rocks and return fire. Ritchie realizes that they’ll soon be surrounded and orders Campos to keep filling the tank while the others cover him. And then a barefaced Galician worker named Zacarías Gracián approaches to hunt for policemen. Ritchie greets him with a bullet to the face. Gracián falls, and Ritchie and his men take advantage of the confusion to get into their car. But the peons and their Winchesters bathe them in bullets. Ritchie is shot in his right hand and Sergeant Pereya’s arm dances from a bullet in the wrist. The commissioner realizes that it’s now a matter of life or death and starts the car, pulls a U-turn and drives off, leaving Campos standing there with the gasoline can in his hand.3 He’s promptly cut down by El 68’s men.
When Ritchie passes by the second car, he tells its occupants to follow him. They take refuge at Pablo Lenzer’s ranch and wait there for reinforcements.
The strikers at El Cerrito hastily finish their preparations for departure. They know that the weight of the entire Río Gallegos police force will soon fall on them.
Arguments can be heard in the midst of their preparations. Pérez Millán says that he won’t be able to ride with his injuries. And the chauffeur, Senecovich, loudly demands care. Lorenzo Cárdenas wants to finish both of them off himself. Pérez Millán is saved by Armando Camporro, a striker who takes him by the arm and helps him into the saddle.4 But Senecovich remains on his cot, accused by Cárdenas of being a police agent who reported on the strikers at Stipicich’s ranch to Micheri.5 And what should be done with this man who not only can’t ride, but can’t even stand up? Lorenzo Cárdenas quickly solves the problem: he shoots him, avenging the death of his friend Zacarías Gracián.
This enrages many of the farmworkers. They reproach Cárdenas for his decision. But Cárdenas is a man of action and he pays their threats no heed. He’s one of those who feel that the movement is no place for introspection. Subsequent developments may prove him right. Those on the other side, those defending order and private property, will act just like the murderer Lorenzo Cárdenas.
The strikers depart, all two hundred of them. They ride off and set up camp in a canyon nine leagues away. There they sleep under the stars, covering themselves with quillangos.6 They are accompanied by their two wounded hostages: Commissioner Micheri, with his two bullet wounds, and Pérez Millán Temperley.
When news of the El Cerrito incident reaches Río Gallegos, it’s truly explosive. Especially after the arrival of Commissioner Ritchie, with his wounded hand, Sergeant Peralta—whose right arm will have to be amputated—and the chauffeur, Caldelas, whose face is badly scarred by the glass from the shattered windshield. People are terrified. Ritchie, a strong man who is accustomed to treating the poor like sheep, returns wounded and defeated, his men routed, bearing the news that Micheri has been taken prisoner. These mounted anarchists have even dared to attack Micheri!7
This news confirms the sense of unease in Río Gallegos, which had already witnessed a Danteesque spectacle on Monday, January 3rd. The town’s residents were awoken by gunfire at one in the morning. The shots were fired to draw people’s attention to a fire. The La Amberense warehouse, owned by a Belgian named Kreglinger, was burning down. And it was filled with gasoline and oil tanks. The strikers had chosen well. There would be explosions all throughout the night. Those who believed in private property were chilled to the bone. But for the poor, this crackle of fireworks provided splendid entertainment. More than a few think that the time has come to pack up and leave, that Santa Cruz has come to resemble the Russia of 1917.
There is a strong backlash in Río Gallegos. “Unity in the face of danger,” exhorts the conservative newspaper. And at the Social Club, a group of Argentines resolve to throw their weight behind Correa Falcón and his defense plans. This meeting brings together thirty-seven citizens, all of them ready to defend Argentina and, in passing, their property. But the Argentines aren’t the only ones making preparations. The British community holds their own meeting, also offering their services to the governor.
The situation is chaotic. Steamships no longer arrive. It’s announced that once the Asturiano unmoors, Santa Cruz will be cut off from the outside world. Not that it matters much: everyone’s getting ready to defend what’s theirs.
Though he only has a few days left in office, Correa Falcón prepares to defeat the strikers once and for all. He issues a manifesto to the “citizens,” posting it on every street corner in Río Gallegos:
The situation created by the outrageous acts of subversive groups makes it necessary for those men who respect the law and the liberties granted by the Constitution to band together. This isn’t a labor dispute, but instead something much more serious: the subversion of