Free an Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira

horses on, for this scene had been a mere appetizer. And as they came out of the valley (beginner's luck!) they saw a hundred or so Indians veering off to the north, no doubt heading for one of the undefended ranches in the area. This provided subjects for more sketching; Rugendas filled five sheets before the group disappeared from view. As they were setting off again, they encountered a band of ranchers, whom they were able to inform of the Indians' movements. They could be useful, even while keeping out of the mêlée.
    On their own again, they headed southwards at walking pace, exchanging their first impressions. Luckily both of them had good eyesight. It seemed they would have to resign themselves to seeing the Indians in miniature, like lead soldiers. Yet the details were all there, violently impressed on their retinas, magnified on the paper. In fact, if they wanted to, they could draw isolated details. The detail that fascinated them was the brevity of it all, the way organization emerged from chance, the speed of the organization. The procedure of the combat between Indians and white men mirrored that of the painters: it was a matter of exploiting the balance between proximity and distance.
    Coming over a rise they saw more action: this time the Indians were beating a hasty retreat up a rocky slope, the horses scrambling like goats, leaving behind dozens of rustled bull calves, while the ranchers fired through the gaps in the herd. The scene was picturesque in the extreme. The stick of charcoal began to fly across the paper. The mountain, lit by perpendicular sunlight, offered the racing figures a fan of escape routes, like a peacock's open tail. The artists had to be careful not to exaggerate in their depiction, for the Indian horsemen in their ascent could easily become so many variations on Pegasus. Yet realism was guaranteed as long as they kept sketching naturally, and in that sense having to draw quickly and work out the perspective as they went was a help.
    When the Indians had disappeared, they galloped over to the ranchers to see what they were doing. The shots had taken their toll on the herd. Some of the bull calves had been killed; others were still standing, stunned. The men were arguing about brands, which were all mixed up, and non-existent on some of the recently weaned animals. The Germans were surprised to discover that brands could be objects of dispute; they had always thought of them as signs designed to be read unequivocally. They learnt that troops from the fort were engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the stockyards at El Tambo, two leagues away. Thanking the ranchers for this information, they set off.
    But halfway there they had to stop again, for the fourth time, to sketch a scrap at a stream crossing. They were starting to feel that there were Indians everywhere. As is often the case with collectors, the problem was not a lack but an excess of specimens. The devils were obviously using dispersion as an added weapon.
    It was like wandering from room to room at a party, from the living room to the dining room, from the bedroom to the library, from the laundry to the balcony, all full of noisy, happy, more or less drunk guests, looking for a place to cuddle or trying to find the host to ask him for more beer. Except that it was a house without doors or windows or walls, made of air and distance and echoes, of colors and landforms.
    This stream could have been the bathroom. The Indians wanted to charge but they were retreating; the white men wanted to retreat, but in order to do so they had to charge (in order to scare the enemy more effectively with their bangs). This ambivalence was driving the horses crazy; they plunged into the water, splashed about, or simply stopped to drink, very calmly, while their riders yelled themselves hoarse in simultaneous flight and pursuit. The skirmish had an infinite (or at least algebraic) plasticity, and since Rugendas was observing it at closer range this