The pistoleiros of Mato Grosso

I had been in Barra do Bugres, Mato Grosso for six months when they had to kill Pedrão. He was one of the four professional assassins, or pistoleiros I got to know during my six years in Brazil.

I was never formally introduced to Pedrão, but saw him often in our small town. Over the years, I got to know three other shooters. They were all soft-spoken gentlemen, but Pedrão was different. He drank and could be a bully. He was always armed, as were a lot of people during those times.

Pedrão had come back from a job, and had a lot of money on him. For some obscure reason, he had an issue with a small, timid man who owned a palm-roofed bar near my house.

One evening, Pedrão went into the tiny mud shack and ordered a bottle of beer, paying for it with a hundred cruzeiro note. The bill would be comparable to a hundred-dollar bill in the U.S.

The owner had to run to a neighboring bar to get change for the bill, as a bottle of beer cost only three cruzeiros in those days. Pedrão kept drinking, paying for every bottle with another hundred cruzeiro bill, and the bar owner knew that when there was no more change to be found in the town, he was a dead man. He couldn't flee due to some macho code in Brazil, so he stood behind his tiny, plank bar and hoped Pedrão would drink himself to sleep.

It went on for hours, until some people I knew had enough. In the darkness, four of them sneaked up to a window and shot Pedrão dead.

There was a lot of excitement the next day, but the investigation was a cursory one, as the killing was considered a limpeza, or a "cleansing." During those frontier days, the rule of thumb was that if the slain person was of worse character than the shooter, the incident was quickly forgotten. It seemed to work.

Bigode was different. He was a small, sharp-featured man – quiet and unobtrusive. I knew him enough to chat on the street, and found him very intelligent. Like the other shooters, Bigode would hang around town, doing small jobs on ranches, but then would disappear for a few weeks, leaving his family to fend for themselves.

When he returned, he always had money, and new things would appear at his house. But once Bigode didn't come back to Barra do Bugres. We didn't know if he had been killed doing his job, or had decided to take up residence somewhere else.

His family stayed for a few months, his wife washing clothes for others in order to feed the children. His disappearance didn't cause much comment in Barra. It wasn't a rare occurrence for those men to vanish.

One morning his family was gone, along with all their belongings. Most people thought that Bigode had taken up residence somewhere up north and sent for them. He was a good family man.

Osvaldo was my favorite. He was a big, jovial fellow who enjoyed drinking and visiting in the little bar across the street from my house. When he stopped by my place, I'd order some beer and we'd spend the afternoon or evening drinking and shelling corn for my chickens while we talked about cattle and ranching.

He was reticent, of course, about his profession, but once, when someone jokingly mentioned a particularly famous assassination, Osvaldo replied, "I didn't kill that man. I just put a hole in his hide and God did the rest." I never saw him in a bad mood, but he was never unarmed, either.

Senhor Aristides, an older, black man with snow-white hair, was one of the most gentile, refined gentlemen I ever met. He was our sheriff in Barra for a number of years, but the job didn't pay much, so he acted as a pistoleiro occasionally, and was one of the best, I was told.

I was in his house, once, and watched him bounce his grandchildren on his knee while he philosophized in his mild, sonorous voice. I'm sure he died a peaceful death, surrounded by his family who adored him.

The pistoleiros were on the fringe of society, but they weren't pariahs. We accepted them without judgment, and they never did any of their jobs close to home. That was one of the rules of their profession, I think.

With the exception of Pedrão, they were mild-mannered men, kind to dogs and children. Their pistols were always stuck in their pants at the small of their back, discretely covered by their shirts. They knew how to dress properly as well as shoot straight.