In that small city of the interior, every year if they chose, among the personalities of the municipal district, the ones that more they stood out.
They were decorated with the knighthood Dr. Nauseous Souza.
That out a great farmer of the area that had brought the wealth for the municipal district, being one of the first settlers of the town that it had grown to the margins of Rio Sapo Cururu.
When beginning this colonization, they inhabited Indians of the tribe puri and Colonel Souza, with the many gunmen's help, they exterminated those first inhabitants of the area.
With the invasion of the lands and the exploration of small amounts of gold that there was, little by little went arriving other adventurers and with them the cattle and the coffee.
The deforestation of that area of Atlantic forest had been total, not remaining anything else.
Lately, the eucalyptus had begun to take the place of the pastures. Already the coffee, had been limited to small properties, where it used the hand of usual seasonal work.
We should remember that, after the district she to have turned municipal district, the growth and development was every larger day, what attracted people of everywhere.
In the middle of that people that had migrated for there, we had a small farmer, of name José, originating from of Espera Feliz, city more or less distant of there.
The wealth brings every people type, from workers to adventurers.
Among those adventurers, vein a group of very poor residents of the periphery of Rio de Janeiro.
The arrival of these, brought for the most conservative population, the fear that you/they went thieves or traffickers, in an unhappy prejudice that still inhabits the most archaic and late societies of the interior of Brazil.
Peterson was one of the most violent men of that city. He had, there is a lot, a program in a station of local radio, whose motto was “good Thief is buried thief.”
Very popular among the simplest layers of the place, this program warranty to the radio announcer, the eternal reelection to the City hall.
Not only to him, but also to her daughter, Claudia, that followed the father's steps in the politics and in the “journalism.”
With passing of the months, the cariocas began to appear died, every month appeared a next new corpse to the most distant neighborhoods of the city.
Surprisingly, all of them had a strange mark done to penknife in the backs, a skull and two crossed shinbones, to the pirates' fashion.
To each murder, Peterson, in his program of radio, praised the death of one more thief, thanking the mysterious executioner, the favor of having liberated the local society of a criminal. Increasing to the news, a lot of crimes imputed the deceased.
A group of students that will have studied in Juiz de Fora, began to notice that those things were becoming repetitive and they founded an association of defense of the citizen's rights.
Obviously, Peterson began to attack this association, calling their members of “thieves' defenders”, of “smokers' of shameless marijuana group”, etc.
In this middle term; José met his/her wife, Maria. They began to date and, in little time they got married.
Of the marriage three boys came, “José's hopes”, as he said for all the ones that knew.
In an afternoon of the month of May, there was a fire in the street where Jose lived.
Heroically, without having fear of what it could happen and, in the absence of a Fire brigade, José entered in the middle of the fire and it saved a newly born child that he slept in the cradle, close to her desperate mother's bed that attended the excited salvation.
Such fact dispersed for the area, being announced even in television, in a channel of Belo Horizonte, being transformed José, quickly, in hero.
José was very well related and he had, among their friends, the Carioca.
Carioca was very playful, good and honest subject. Bosom friend of José. Several times he/she had lent money, at that time of the thin cows. It was wood for every work.
One day, Carioca came out to work and he said goodbye to José, affectionately.
It was the last time that Jose saw him alive.
The body, found at the edge of the highway, sieved of candies and with that mark already described, done to penknife in the friend's backs.
In the radio, Peterson said what said always, that Carioca was a criminal sought by the police of Rio, involved with traffic, those things...
That news rioted our friend excessively that, angry he said himself and the wife that would never again attend that liar, since he knew his friend very well and he knew him unable of having made some wrong thing.
In the end of the year, to the time of the choice of the personalities of the municipal district, José was reminded by the alderman of the neighborhood where lived.
He celebrated a lot; a humble farmer to be honored by the City councils!
That was reason of commemoration and a lot of pride. With the whole happiness of the world, it communicated to the wife that if it arranged so that in the end of the month, in the party of the city, it went with him to receive the Knighthood Dr. Nauseous Souza.
Commander! He was able to now, to return the Espera Feliz with the erect head, showing in the chest the knighthood that so much would be proud.
But, for one of those chances of the life, when going for the work it came across a scene that got his attention.
An enormous man, with almost two hundred kilos, it was at the edge of the river, fishing.
There he swims too much, but when approaching of the citizen, he turned pale.
In the nude backs of the fisherman, it came across that mark that sees drawn to penknife in his Carioca friend's backs.
The tattooed mark didn't let to deceive. It was even that.
The fright became larger when it recognized Peterson, the radio announcer.
It was then that, that man was linked to his friend's death.
He stood back quiet and it went to the work.
They happened some days, until that it arrived him desired day of the decoration.
He got ready, it was perfumed, it dressed his more beautiful garment and it went to the City hall to receive his/her knighthood.
For his surprise, among them decorated it was Peterson, that had his suitable name for the daughter.
The surprise became hate. And that dominated all his face turning pale him.
He began to shake and, almost without hearing his name, he got up.
When seeing Peterson with the knighthood in the chest, he didn't control.
Badly he caught his knighthood, he spit on the same and he threw her/it in the radio announcer's face, screaming:
“That is in honor to the Carioca, Commander, that thief that was murdered last month, that same one, that trafficker that you announced in his program of radio. You deserve that knighthood, you all. Good thief is that that carries that homage in the chest, you deserve!”
For fright of all, he left, but before leaving, he spit in the ground of that deigns “it Marries of the People”. never again nobody had news of him.
The found body the following day in the proximities of the city, he had the deformed face for acid.
The mark of the skull and of the shinbones it was done in the backs.
But, this time, the radio announcer nothing commented on...