Juan moved on together with a gold-digger named Evaristo who owned a little plane. They arrived in the city of Santarem on the big Madeira river. Then he joined with some fortune-hunters and fisherman over te rivers until the city of Itaituba. There he starded hitch-hiking, on trucks, old automobiles and strange colored motorcycles on his way to Bahia, the country of dusty roads, the Brazilian wasteland. This is the barbaric landscape, homeland of the Sertanejo, the occupier who could deal with the harsh climate of sun and dust.
 The land where the Icó-brushes decorate scarves on face and leather outfit of the 'vaquero' the Brazilian northeast cowboy. And in this wild land still strayed the ghost of man like Antonio Conselheiro, the advisor, the messiah who died for the poor of this wasteland, and the ghost of a man named 'Lampiâo', Lampoon, for his gun-barrel coloured fire-red in the shootings. It's no secret that the spririts of these man still wander in the wilderness, and folks say that they are able to find liquefied cactuses, filled up with blood.
 This were the place where Juan arrived, and where he was noticed by a old Sertanejo, which brought him to a lodge-bar, one of the thousands in this neighbourhood, dark and decorated with old tables, jars, sugarcane-gin and even older hookers, with sparkling faces, red gleaming eyes of hunger and spicy voices, which seem to come from the deepest holes of famelness and sexual fury. What was this gringo doing in this by God forgotten place Pinhua, not far from Cicero Dantas? Was he only here to screw one of  the whores? Because here in this by God and the devil forgotten deadland, was nothing to get, or it must be dust and love? No! Thumbs down. Juan Rojo was on his way to Sete Coraçôes! Why? Well, he had no answer yet, he just wanted to get to Seven Hearts, and it was a force which entered his brains, and  in some way even repressed his music.
 Shovin' aside his music? Goddamned! Fuckin'! Where are the God's who once were angry on him? Where was his guardian-angel? The black man with three fingers who sang the blues for him, that night in a old cabin in Mississippi... and told him to be his protector! His music... No! They may take everything, but not his music! Not his soul! Damned!
Suddenly the night fell over the village and a old recordplayer started playing, the music of the Sertanejo, named Modinha. Songs of homesickness, tears of drunken paupers in ragged shirts and jeans, of drunken man hanging against the counter and withered women who'll never be reasonable again, the faded roses of the wilderness. But they were kind and tenderly, like babies in a craddle, and soft like drifting breeze. The people asked Juan to pick up his guitar and play for them. He stared at his black Gibson, painted with red roses. He kissed her and called her Gladys. His Spanisch was just perfect and he had translated old country songs in to Spanish. But the Brazilians understood the mainline of the songs when he sang "Love Tender". The people were listing like they could hear a soft wind blowing from the dessert. Than he sang his favorite song 'I'm so lonesome I could cry', but in English, and even they could not understand the words, they felt the strenght of the melody. The old Sertanejo came unsteadely up to Juan and with quivering hands he served him a 'feijoado', a plate of black beans and pork. They wanted Juan to drink and eat, he was a guest, a special. The Sertanejo, which was a descendent of a slave and Indian mother, told Juan that he knew a man close to Sete Coraçôes, which played the same music as he did, with the same strange words: 'Sim Senhor... a mesmo que vocé!' Yes mister... just like you!
'Com o mesmo gringo lingua!' With the same gringo language! And ain't that strange?

to be continued....