Anselmo Braga came to the front as if the land belonged to him.

Perhaps because, for years, that’s how it had been.

He had three men behind him.

All armed.

Everyone with that calm of someone who already feels in control of the ending.

I pressed the baby to my chest and held the girl tighter over Trovão.

She opened her eyes again, just a slit.

Her gaze was lost, but when she saw the riders, terror awakened her more than any medicine.

“No…” he murmured. “Don’t let them see me.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the road.

—Livia.

—Listen to me carefully, Livia. I’m not going to hand you over.

Her fingers trembled on my arm.

“He killed my mother,” she whispered.

I felt the blood rushing to my head.

I didn’t have time to ask any more questions.

Anselmo stopped his horse a few meters away.

He didn’t scream.

It wasn’t necessary.

He was one of those men who learned to command without raising his voice.

He first looked at the baby hidden under my shirt.

Then to Livia.

And finally, me.

“Valmir,” he said, as if we were old friends. “What an awkward scene.”

—For you, maybe.

His men spread out a little, going around the road.

Not clumsily.

In a rehearsed manner.

That told me everything I needed to know.

It wasn’t a desperate search.

It was a hunt.

Anselmo adjusted the reins with a calm hand.

“The girl is confused. She just gave birth. She’s been through a rough time. I came to get her to take her to a doctor.”

Livia let out a broken sound.

-Lie…

Anselmo didn’t even look at her.

“And the child is family,” he continued. “It’s not in your best interest to interfere where you’re not wanted.”

The word family left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I saw the broken bag.

The photo.

The rope marked on her neck.

Old bruises.

And then I understood something worse than violence.

Control.

That man wasn’t furious because he had escaped.

He was furious because something within him had decided to stop obeying.

“I’m not going to give you either her or the baby,” I said.

One of his men chuckled.

Anselmo barely smiled.

—Your wife died, Valmir. Since then you’ve been talking to cows and ghosts. Don’t make this afternoon your last stupidity.

I don’t know what hurt me more.

That he would name Maria Ines.

Or that he thought that could break me.

Livia began to slide off the horse.

I caught her before she fell.

There was blood between her legs.

Too much.

If I didn’t get out of there soon, I wouldn’t survive.

I looked toward the scrubland, toward the low ground that led to the dry stream, and then to the old part of the ranch.

He knew those roads better than anyone.

They didn’t.

I had a chance.

Just one.

I hit Trovão with my heel and the horse shot off.

Anselmo’s men took two seconds.

Two seconds were enough.

We headed downhill through thick undergrowth and low branches.

I heard shouting behind me.

Then a gunshot.

The bullet tore bark off a tree trunk to my right.

Livia let out a moan.

“Get down,” I told her, covering her as best I could.

The baby, clinging to me, finally cried.

And that small, furious, alive cry gave me back a strength I thought was buried with my wife.

He wasn’t running away alone.

He was carrying a life that had just refused to die.

And another one that was hanging by a thread.

We crossed the dry stream by hopping over loose stones.

Trovão almost slipped, but recovered.

Behind us, one of the chasing horses did fall.

I heard the bang, the curse, the brief chaos.

I kept going without looking back.

I reached the broken fence of the old pasture and crossed it through the narrow passage that we only used during the rainy season.

From there, a hidden path led directly to the salt shed.

Nobody from outside knew about that detour.

I jumped down.

I took Lívia in my arms.

It was pure heat and exhaustion.

I laid her down on some clean sacks of feed.

The baby kept crying.

Thank God I was still crying.

I lit the kerosene lamp.

The light revealed the worst.

Lívia was not only beaten.

She had a poorly treated tear from childbirth.

And a high fever.

I looked for boiled water that was still left in a work thermos, clean rags, and Maria Ines’s old first aid kit.

The box was still exactly where she had left it.

For four years I was unable to touch it.

I opened it that night.

Inside was his handwriting on a strip of tape stuck to the lid:

“In an emergency, first stay calm. Then take a firm hand.”

I had to close my eyes for a second.

Just one.

Because if I cried, they would both die.

I washed the baby.

I wrapped it better.

I placed him next to a bottle of warm water between blankets to keep him warm.

Then I went back to Livia.

When the damp cloth touched her forehead, she shuddered.

-Where am I?

—At my ranch. Safe for now.

—He’s not going to stop.

—I know.

He really looked at me for the first time.

He had enormous, dark eyes, filled with the kind of weariness that only one night can bring.

“I worked in the big house,” she said, swallowing hard. “My mother did too. I cooked, I cleaned, I kept quiet. Like everyone else.”

He ran out of air.

Wait.

—When my mother got sick, he promised to pay for her treatment… if I stayed inside to serve. It wasn’t service.

I clenched my jaw.

—I got pregnant. When he found out, he said that child couldn’t exist.

I felt a wave of rage so pure it left me cold.

—Is the baby yours?

Livia closed her eyes.

A tear was lost in her hair.

-Yeah.

There was a heavy silence.

Outside, the wind moved the roof sheets.

“My mother wanted to report him,” she continued. “Two days later she was found dead in the old well. They said she had slipped. I knew they were lying. I wanted to escape, but they locked me up. Today, when I went into labor, one of the maids helped me. She put me on a cart and took me out the back. I didn’t get far.”

—And the buffalo?

Livia opened her eyes with effort.

—I fell near the ravine. I think I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw her next to me… licking the child. After that, I don’t remember anything else.

I looked at the baby.

He was finally asleep with his hands closed as if he were ready to fight.

Then I heard the engine.

No horses.

Van.

They had reorganized.

I turned off the lamp immediately.

Everything went dark except for a sliver of moonlight that peeked through the boards.

The tires crunched outside the shed.

Voices.

Two men.

No.

Three.

And a fourth voice that I didn’t mistake.

Anselmo.

“I know you’re there, Valmir,” he said from outside. “You have no way out. Hand over the child and the girl. I’ll take my problem and you can keep breathing.”

My problem.

That’s what he called his own son.

I felt Maria Ines in my memory again.

She always said that a man is truly revealed by the way he treats the defenseless.

That one, outside, was already revealed.

And me too.

I approached the back wall.

Behind some planks there was an old shotgun and two cartridges he kept for jaguars.

I never thought of using them against men.

That night I stopped thinking about many things.

Livia held my wrist.

—Don’t go out. They’re going to kill you.

—If I get scared, they’ve already killed us all.

She began to cry silently.

—I didn’t mean to bring this to you.

“You didn’t bring me anything,” I told him. “You were brought into my life. It’s different.”

The first knock against the door made the whole shed shake.

The baby woke up and let out a sharp cry.

Outside there was a tense murmur.

Anselmo had heard it.

“Last chance,” he shouted. “That boy won’t live to embarrass me.”

I don’t remember deciding to leave.

I only remember bursting through the door and pointing the gun at his chest.

The moon fell on him.

It was still impeccable.

Clean boots.

Ironed shirt.

Sparkling ring.

As if evil also needed elegance.

His men raised their weapons.

“The first one to shoot,” I said, “is going to hell with me.”

Anselmo studied me.

Then he smiled contemptuously.

—And what are you going to do, widower? Die for a maid and a bastard?

No.

I wasn’t going to die from that.

He was going to live for that.

And then another voice was heard.

—He’s going to live to see him in prison.

We all turn.

On the side of the road there was an old rural police truck.

And next to her, coming down with a shotgun in her hand, came Joana.

The district midwife.

The same one that had helped half the municipality to be born.

The same one to whom I had sent a radio message as I passed near the warehouse, before hiding in the shed.

I didn’t know if I would arrive.

Arrive.

And she didn’t come alone.

Behind her came two officers and Father Esteban, who, in addition to being a priest, had spent twenty years noting down other people’s sins that no one dared to report.

Joana picked up a notebook.

“I have statements from three women,” he said. “And from the maid who helped Lívia escape. This time, you won’t have enough money.”

For the first time, Anselmo’s face changed.

It wasn’t my fault.

It was fear.

He took a half step back.

Halfway only.

But I saw it.

One of his men tried to start the truck.

An officer pointed a gun at him.

Everything happened quickly after that.

Too fast.

Shouting.

Orders.

Weapons on the ground.

Anselmo wanted to mount his horse and flee along the side.

He didn’t arrive.

Trovão, who had been left loose behind the shed, crossed his path like a black shadow.

Anselmo’s horse reared up.

He fell backward into the mud.

And for the first time in his life, the most powerful man in the region ended up looking up from below.

They handcuffed him right there.

With the ring sunk in mud.

With his shirt stained.

With dignity shattered.

Joana ran into the shed.

She attended to Livia with quick and expert hands.

“He’s going to live,” he told me. “They’re both going to live. But you’ve reached your limit.”

I sat on the floor, exhausted.

The baby started to fuss.

Joana placed him in my arms.

—Hold it tight, Valmir.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

And at that moment I understood something I had been denying myself for four years.

The pain wouldn’t go away.

Never completely.

But sometimes God opens it up from within so that something else can enter.

No replacement.

I don’t forget.

Life.

Months later, Lívia testified.

Other women too.

Anselmo’s estate was seized.

His men spoke.

The secrets came out one by one, like nocturnal animals finally forced to see the light.

Livia named her son Mateus.

Sometimes he stayed at the main house on the ranch.

Sometimes in the little house next to the corral.

I didn’t ask him for anything.

I didn’t want to owe my happiness to the fear of losing it.

But one afternoon, as the sun set red over Goiás, I saw her on the porch with Mateus asleep in her arms.

And the scene hit me hard in the chest.

Not because he erased María Inés.

But because she, wherever she was, would have smiled.

Livia looked up.

—What are you thinking about?

I looked at the field.

The immense sky.

Stubborn life beating again.

And I answered truthfully.

—That the buffalo wasn’t just protecting them from death.

—So what about?

I approached the child and adjusted the blanket for him.

—From the darkness that was coming behind you.

Livia barely smiled.

A tired but clean smile.

And for the first time in four years, when I walked into the house, I didn’t feel like I was returning to a grave.

I felt like I was coming home.