Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

talking, not moving. They had sharp ears, good eyes, and were suspicious and fearful and started trembling as soon as they smelled strangers.
    â€œWe should wait here and be quiet,” said the boy with hard eyes. “Spread out, and no noise.”
    Pedrito Tinoco saw them stop, open out like a fan, and, keeping a good distance from each other, crouch behind the plumes of ichu grass.
    He waited for them to get settled, to hide, to stop making noise. He tiptoed toward the caves. In a little while he could see the gleam of their eyes. The ones who stayed in the entrances, keeping watch, observed him as he approached. They considered him, their ears rigid, twitching their cold noses to confirm the familiar scent, a scent that carried no threat to males or females, adults or calves. Taking great pains to keep his movements cautious and calm so as not to arouse that chronic skittishness of theirs, Pedrito Tinoco began to cluck his tongue, vibrating it very softly against his palate, imitating them, talking to them in the one language he had learned to speak. He reassured them, announced his presence, called to them. Then he saw a grayish blur streak between his legs: a vizcacha. He was carrying his slingshot and could have hit it but didn’t to avoid startling the vicuñas. He felt the weight of the strangers’ eyes on his back.
    They began to come out. Not one by one but in families, as they always did. The male and his four or five females tending to him, and the mother with her recent calf weaving between her legs. They sniffed the water in the air, examined the disturbed earth and flattened straw, smelled the plants that the sun was beginning to dry and that they would eat now. They moved their heads to the right and the left, up and down, their ears erect, their bodies vibrating with the distrust that was the dominant trait in their nature. Pedro Tinoco watched them pass by, brush against him, stretch and shake when he tugged at the warm cave of their ears or buried his fingers in their wool to pinch them.
    When the shooting began, he thought it was thunder, another storm approaching. But he saw the sheer terror in the eyes of the creatures closest to him, and he saw how they went mad, stampeding, running into each other, falling, getting in each other’s way, blinded and stupefied by panic, unable to decide whether they should flee to open country or return to the caves, and he saw the first ones whimper and fall, bleeding, their haunches opened, their bones splintered, their muzzles eyes ears torn apart by bullets. Some fell and stood up and fell again, and others were petrified, their necks craning as if they were trying to rise up and escape through the air. Some of the females bent down to lick their dying calves. He, too, was paralyzed, looking around, trying to understand, tilting his head from one side to the other, his eyes staring, his mouth hanging open, his ears tortured by the shooting and the whimpering that was worse than when the females gave birth.
    â€œBe sure not to hit him!” the boy-man bellowed from time to time. “Careful, careful!”
    They not only shot them, but some ran to cut off the ones that attempted to escape, surrounding them, cornering them, finishing them off with rifle butts and knives. At last Pedro Tinoco reacted. He began to jump, to roar with his chest and stomach, to wave his arms like propellers. He advanced, retreated, put himself between their weapons and the vicuñas, pleading with his hands and his shouts and the shock in his eyes. They did not appear to see him. They went on shooting and chasing the ones that had managed to get away and were running through the straw toward the ravine. When he reached the boy-man, he knelt and tried to kiss his hand, but the boy-man shoved him away in a rage.
    â€œDon’t do that,” he berated him. “Stop it, get out of the way.”
    â€œIt’s orders from the high command,” said another,