Pepe is a creole baqueano (guide) from a ruined landowning family, famed for knowing the land, with a price of some three hundred pounds on his head and hunted by the Mazorca. The English sought him out for that fame.
| Type | Character |
| Spanish entry | Pepe |
Background
His family were well-placed creole landowners. His brothers “began to get into politics”; dissent and large debts followed, and the family lost everything. Left with a horse, gear and knowledge of the roads, “Pepe became just another baqueano.” He “had to hire on in the army or something like that,” and perhaps used part of his earnings to pay his family’s debts. His fame as “a very good baqueano” led the English to call on him; he then landed on a blacklist. One who wants to collect calls him “that damned baquiano.”
Description
“A good gaucho, a farmhand, perhaps with a good horse, good gear, a traveler.” He carries “a powerful mate” with which he healed a boy.
Trade
He guided armies and squadrons through the territory, and at one time “did some smuggling or helped smugglers.” In the city he once “heard it said in the street that there were streets beneath the city”; “he has no map, but he knows something is there.” Without him there is no safe route through the territory nor entry to the underground.
The red caps
In a defensive fight against the mazorqueros, he and his companions left “6 or 7 red caps smashed on the ground.”
Open questions
- Who pays the bounty: the Mazorca, the government or a private party.
- What the blacklist is, who keeps it and what being on it entails.
- In which city the streets below lie, and how they relate to his smuggling routes.
- Which squadron or army he guided, and for which side.
- How the mate heals; who his companions were.
- Whether his tie to the English survives.