The Brazilian irony of murder and murderers

I was eating lunch at the hotel in Barra do Bugres, where I had been sent by the Peace Corps. The establishment offered rooms plus meals, and was the only place to stay back in the early 1970's.

In the middle of the meal a mud-spattered Jeep roared up. In the back of the vehicle was a dying man with his intestines spread everywhere.

He had been wounded in a knife fight, and they brought him over 4...