belt for safe keeping. When Dobbs the following night disarmed Curtin, he had shot him with Curtin’s gun. Then he had taken his own gun back, but in the excitement in which he had lived during the last few days, he had forgotten to reload his gun, and he had thrown Curtin’s gun, after he had shot him for the second time, upon the body to let the discoverer of the body figure out what had happened and how.
Still before this same second came to an end, Dobbs’s mind worked intensely to think of another means of defense. His glance fell upon a machete tied to the saddle of the nearest burro. This weaponlike tool was for use in cutting a new trail when fallen trees blocked the way or the underbrush had grown too dense for the burros to pass. He grasped the haft of this machete, but before he could pull it out of its sheath, the stone one of the thieves had taken up crashed against his forehead. He fell. Before he could rise to his feet, Miguel, who had noted Dobbs’s move toward the machete, jumped close up. With the sure grip of an expert he had the machete out in an instant. Tigerlike he sprang at the fallen Dobbs, and with a short powerful stroke he cut off Dobbs’s head. A mighty gush of blood rushed forth from the body.
More startled than frightened, the three men looked at the body, which was still quivering. The head lay only an inch from the neck. The eyelids blinked two or three times rapidly and then became fixed, but only partly closed. Several times the hands spread wide open and then cramped into fists, finally closing more gently as life fled away and the nerves stiffened.
“You did that, Miguel,” Pablo said in a low voice, coming nearer.
“Aw, shut up, you damned yellow dog! Why didn’t you do it? Afraid of that funking son of a bitch by a stinking gringo, hey? I know who did it and bumped him. And I tell ye, get away from me, both of you chingando cabrones and que chinguen los cabrones a las matriculas. Do I need your stinking advice, you puppies? Out of my way, you make me sick looking at you, you dirty rats.”
He stared at the machete. There was not much blood on it. He wondered why. But the stroke had been that of a master hand. He did not realize how good he was, how great an expert. He stepped to the nearest tree, rubbed the machete clean against the bark, then, wetting his fingers with his tongue, tested the edge and, satisfied with his inspection, pushed the machete back into its scabbard.
Chapter 24
Dogs often show a real interest in what men do, even when the men in question are not their masters. Dogs even like to meddle in the affairs of men. Burros are less interested in men’s personal doings; they mind their own business. That’s the reason why donkeys are thought to have a definite leaning toward philosophy.
So it came about that the burros, paying no heed to what was happening, marched off, taking the way to town.
In their excitement the thieves forgot the burros while they were busily stripping the body of Dobbs and eagerly searching the pockets for money. Without any hesitation, while the clothing was still warm and wet from the dead man’s sweat, they put it on after they had thrown away their own rags. Dobbs’s boots and his other clothes had been in daily use for the last ten months and were badly worn. To these tramps they were still luxuries.
Only the shirt found no claimant, although the shirts they wore were in tatters.
“Why don’t you want to put on the shirt, Nacho?” Miguel asked. “You would look like a dude, like a fine caballero, with such a shirt on your stinking carcass.” He kicked at the body on the ground, naked except for the well-worn khaki shirt. Everything else had found a new owner.
“It isn’t worth very much,” Nacho answered, shrugging his shoulders.
“You’ve got a swell reason to say so, you filthy dog.” Miguel looked at him, drawing one corner of his mouth down almost to the chin. “Compared with yours, it’s a gent’s silk shirt. No decency and no feeling for good things in you, that’s the trouble with a pig like you.”
Nacho turned away. “I’m not hot for it, that’s all. Besides, it’s too close to the neck. Why don’t you take it yourself? Your own isn’t so grand, either.”
“Me?” Miguel frowned as if he had heard an insult. “Me wear a shirt still warm from such a dirty son of a gringo dog! Not me. I still have some pride left.”
The truth was that for Miguel, also, the shirt was too close to the neck of the dead man. It had only a few red spots near the collar, because Dobbs had worn it open, to get all the air he could. While it looked better than any of the shirts the thieves had on, all refused to have it. It was not superstition, it was only an uneasy feeling that made them anxious not to have it on their own body.
“I am sure that cabron has more shirts in the packs,” Pablo remarked.
“You wait until I’ve examined these packs, and then we’ll see,” Miguel replied.
“You mean to tell us that you are the boss here?” Nacho’s eyes narrowed and he stepped nearer to Miguel. He was still furious that he had got only Dobbs’s pants, while Miguel had the boots, which he himself wanted.
“Boss? Who’s asking me? A fly like you?” Miguel roared. “Boss or no boss, I’ll tell what’s what here. What have you done so far, hey?”
“Wasn’t it me that stoned him? Without me stoning him first, you would never have dared to go near him, you yellow skunk. That’s what you are, yellow, and a filthy son of a stinking cabron.”
“Huh! Don’t make me laugh right out. You with your little stone. It was just like a toothpick. A stone? Who ever heard of using a stone for bumping off a guy? Only cowards do that, unicamente cobardes y cabrones. Which of you rats would have come out and given him the final works? You are just low-down thieves and swindlers and liars. And don’t you forget for one minute I can use this machete a second time. And a third time as well. I won’t come and ask your permission if I no longer need you. I can do all the work alone and be better off, get me?” Miguel turned to examine the packs.
“Be cursed and damned in hell! Where the devil are these malditos burros, los chingados bestias? Gone to hell!” He was so surprised that he forgot to roar.
2
The burros were well on their way to town.
“Now, hustle up, you bandits,” Miguel commanded. “We must get these burros back here, all of them. If even one of them reaches town without a driver, the cops will get busy and smell a dead rat in the parlor. Then they come out here and we’ll be in a hell of a mess. Hurry and get them. Rustle your bones.”
He himself started after the burros, followed by the other two. The animals were half-way to town already. As there was no roadside grass for them to nibble, they had traveled rather livelily to get to town, where experience told them they would get water, food, and a much needed rest. What was more, in the vicinity of the town lay the ranch where they had been brought up.
It took the men over an hour to get the animals all back under the trees once more.
“We’d better get busy and bury this carcass before the buzzards find it. Someone coming this way may investigate to see what the vultures are after, and then somebody else will be after us.” Miguel tied the burros to the trees to prevent them from walking off again.
It was hard work to break the ground and bury the body. And work was not what these men wanted.
Nacho came up with his idea. “Why bury that heathen? He isn’t even a Christian, only a godless and goddamned Protestant. If he is found, what then? He can’t tell who plugged him.”
“Wise guys!” Miguel sneered at the two. “If this carcass is found here and the burros and the packs are found with us, then there won’t be any court proceedings, you know that. We’ll be shot the very hour they get us.”
“Aw, hell, shut up! We don’t need your bedtime stories,” Pablo said, with lips twisted into an ugly grin.
Miguel was the real boss. No doubt about that. The little brain he could afford he used. “You’re a smart guy, too smart to be a dirty rat. That’s what you think. But let me tell you something. Por Jesucristo y la Madre SantIsima, can’t the hell you mugs see that if they find the burros with us, but not the body, they can do nothing? They have to prove first that the gringo has been killed. As long as they haven’t found his carcass, they can’t even prove that he’s dead. We bought the burros from him, and we are not his guardians, to watch out for his safety. Well, I won’t listen to any more argument from you two guys. Get to work, and be quick about it. Someone might come this way any time now and take a look at this outfit. Get at it and get it done.”
