They were in his hair, his armpits, everywhere. If he sat still and focused he could see them hopping on his bare leg. From time to time, crazed, he tried to catch them and squeeze them to death, but they mostly eluded him.
With the old woman there Scull could manage a little hope, but now his nerves told him all was lost. The old woman was dead; he was stuck.
He knew he should resign himself, but for hours he was fired with panic, like a motor, a dynamo.
He jumped and jumped; it was as if lightning ran through him. He could not make himself stop jumping; he saw himself soaring with one miraculous jump all the way up, out of the pit. He jumped and gibbered all day, until dusk.
Then he collapsed. When the sunlight of a new day woke him, he was too drained to move.
He still had a little water, and a few scraps of food, but he didn't drink or eat, not for several hours; then, in a rush, he choked down all the food, drank all the water. Though he knew there would be no more he didn't care to ration what there was. He wanted to put sustenance behind him. He had, he thought, fought well; he had held out against torturous circumstances longer than many a man of his acquaintance would have, excepting only his second cousin Ariosto Scull. But the fight was over. He had seen many men--generals, captains, privates, bankers, widowers--arrive at the moment of surrender. Some came to it quickly, after only a short sharp agony; others held to their lives far longer than was seemly. But finally they gave up. He had seen it, on the battlefield, in hospital, in the cold toils of marriage or the great houses of commerce; finally men gave up. He thought he would never have to learn resignation, but that was hubris.
It was time to give up, to stop fighting, to wait for death to ease in.
Now he even regretted killing all the rattlesnakes. He should have left one or two alive. He could have provoked one or two to strike him; while not as rapid as the bite of the fer-de-lance that had killed his cousin Willy in a matter of seventeen minutes, three or four rattlesnake bites would probably be effective enough. Scull even went over and examined the dead snakes, thinking there might be a way to inject himself with the venom; it would ensure a speedier end. But he had beaten the snakes until their heads were crushed and their fangs broken; anyway, the venom must have long since dried up.
After his day of hopping and jumping, raging and gibbering, clawing at the walls and spewing fragments of old orations and Greek verse, Inish Scull settled himself as comfortably as he could against the wall of the pit and did nothing. He wished he had the will to stop his breath, but he didn't. Whether he wanted it or not, his breath came. It was a bright day; to look up at all with his lidless eyes was to invite the sun into his brain. Instead, he kept his head down. His hair was long enough to make a fair shade. He wanted to let go the habit of fighting, to die in calmness. He remembered again the Buddhist, sitting calmly in his orange robes by the Charles River. He had no orange robes, he was not a Buddhist, he was a Scull, Captain Inish Scull. He thought he had fought well in every war he had been able to find, but now was the day of surrender, the day when he had to snap the sword of his will, to cease all battling and be quiet, be calm; then, finally, would come the moment when his breath would stop.
Call and Gus were moving cautiously into the canyon of the Yellow Cliffso when a great bird rose suddenly from behind a little cluster of desert mesquite. Five more rose as well, great bald vultures, so close to the two men that their horses shied.
'I hope it wasn't the Captain they're eating,' Augustus said. 'It'd be a pity to come all this way and lose him to the buzzards.' 'It wasn't the Captain,' Call said--through the thin bushes he glimpsed what was left of the body of an old woman. The vultures were reluctant to leave. Two lit on boulders nearby, while the shadows of the others flickered across the little clearing where the body lay.
'Must have been a cougar, to rip her up like that,' Gus said. 'Would a cougar do that?' 'I guess one did,' Call said. 'See the tracks? He was a big one.' They dismounted and inspected the area for a few minutes, while the vultures wheeled overhead.
'I've never seen a lion track that big,' Augustus commented.
A rawhide rope lay not far from the corpse.
'Why would an old woman be way out here alone?' Gus wondered. 'All she had was this rope. Where was she going?' 'I guess we could pile some rocks on her,' Call said. 'I hate just to leave a body laying out.' 'Woodrow, she's mostly et anyway,' Gus said. 'Why spoil the buzzards' picnic?' 'I know, but it's best to bury people,' Call said. 'I believe she was crippled--look at her hip.' While they were heaping rocks on the corpse Call got an uneasy feeling. He couldn't say what prompted it.
'Something's here, I don't know what,' he said, when they resumed their cautious ride into the canyon.
'It might be that cougar, hoping for another old woman,' Gus said.
A few moments later, Augustus saw the jaguar. He was not as convinced as Call that Ahumado and his men had left, and was scanning the rocky ledges above them, looking for any sign of life. Probably if the old bandit had gone, he would have left a rear guard. He didn't want to be ambushed, as they had been the first time they entered the Yellow Canyon, and he took particular care to scan the higher ledges, where a rifleman could hide and get off an easy shot.
On one of the higher ledges he saw something that didn't register clearly with his eye. There was something there that was hard to see--he stopped his horse to take a longer look and when he did the jaguar stepped into full view.
'Woodrow, look up there,' he said.
Call could not immediately see the jaguar, but then the animal moved and he saw him clearly.
'I think it's a jaguar,' Augustus said.
'I never expected to see one.' 'I imagine that's what got the old woman,' Call said.
For a moment, surprised, they were content to watch the jaguar, but their mounts were far from content. They put up their ears and snorted; they wanted to run but the rangers held them steady.
The jaguar stood on the rocky ledge, looking down at them.
'Do you think you can get off a shot?' Call asked. 'If we don't kill it, it might get one of these horses, when it comes nightfall.' Augustus began to lift his rifle out of the scabbard. Though both men were watching the jaguar, neither saw it leave. It was simply gone. By the time Augustus raised his rifle there was nothing to shoot.
