The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

did say, a moment later.

“Never! He’ll leave tonight. And his brother with him.”

In the dim light Chalia could see the large purple bruise on Roberto’s forehead. He kept his head lowered and did not look up, even when she and Lucha rose and left the room at a sign from their brother. They went upstairs together and sat down on the veranda.

“What barbarous people they are!” said Lucha indignantly. “Poor Rico may learn some day how to treat them. But I’m afraid one of them will kill him first.”

Chalia rocked back and forth, fanning herself lazily. “With a few more lessons like this he may change,” she said. “What heat!”

They heard Don Federico’s voice below by the gate. Firmly it said, “Adios.” There were muffled replies and the gate was closed. Don Federico joined his sisters on the veranda. He sat down sadly.

“I didn’t like to send them away on foot at night,” he said, shaking his head. “But that Roberto is a bad one. It was better to have him go once and for all, quickly. Juan is good, but I had to get rid of him too, of course.”

“Claro, claro,” said Lucha absently. Suddenly she turned to her brother full of concern. “I hope you remembered to take away the money you said he still had in his pocket.”

“Yes, yes,” he assured her, but from the tone of his voice she knew he had let the boy keep it.

Don Federico and Lucha said good night and went to bed. Chalia sat up a while, looking vaguely at the wall with the spiders in it. Then she yawned and took the lamp into her room. Again the bed had been pushed back against the wall by the maid. Chalia shrugged her shoulders, got into the bed where it was, blew out the lamp, listened for a few minutes to the night sounds, and went peacefully to sleep, thinking of how surprisingly little time it had taken her to get used to life at Paso Rojo, and even, she had to admit now, to begin to enjoy it.

Pastor Dowe at Tacate

Pastor Dowe delivered his first sermon in Tacate on a bright Sunday morning shortly after the beginning of the rainy season. Almost a hundred Indians attended, and some of them had come all the way from Balache in the valley. They sat quietly on the ground while he spoke to them for an hour or so in their own tongue. Not even the children became restive; there was the most complete silence as long as he kept speaking. But he could see that their attention was born of respect rather than of interest. Being a conscientious man he was troubled to discover this.

When he had finished the sermon, the notes for which were headed “Meaning of Jesus,” they slowly got to their feet and began wandering away, quite obviously thinking of other things. Pastor Dowe was puzzled. He had been assured by Dr. Ramos of the University that his mastery of the dialect was sufficient to enable his prospective parishioners to follow his sermons, and he had had no difficulty conversing with the Indians who had accompanied him up from San Gero?nimo. He stood sadly on the small thatch-covered platform in the clearing before his house and watched the men and women walking slowly away in different directions. He had the sensation of having communicated absolutely nothing to them.

All at once he felt he must keep the people here a little longer, and he called out to them to stop. Politely they turned their faces toward the pavilion where he stood, and remained looking at him, without moving. Several of the smaller children were already playing a game, and were darting about silently in the background. The pastor glanced at his wrist watch and spoke to Nicolas, who had been pointed out to him as one of the most intelligent and influential men in the village, asking him to come up and stand beside him.

Once Nicolas was next to him, he decided to test him with a few questions. “Nicolas,” he said in his dry, small voice, “what did I tell you today?”

Nicolas coughed and looked over the heads of the assembly to where an enormous sow was rooting in the mud under a mango tree. Then he said: “Don Jesucristo.”

“Yes,” agreed Pastor Dowe encouragingly. “Bai, and Don Jesucristo what?”

“A good man,” answered Nicolas with indifference.

“Yes, yes, but what more?” Pastor Dowe was impatient; his voice rose in pitch.

Nicolas was silent. Finally he said, “Now I go,” and stepped carefully down from the platform. The others again began to gather up their belongings and move off. For a moment Pastor Dowe was furious. Then he took his notebook and his Bible and went into the house.

At lunch Mateo, who waited on table, and whom he had brought with him from Ocosingo, stood leaning against the wall smiling.

“Senor,” he said, “Nicolas says they will not come again to hear you without music.”

“Music!” cried Pastor Dowe, setting his fork on the table. “Ridiculous! What music? We have no music.”

“He says the father at Yalactin used to sing.”

“Ridiculous!” said the pastor again. “In the first place I can’t sing, and in any case it’s unheard of! Inaudito!”

“Si, verdad?” agreed Mateo.

The pastor’s tiny bedroom was breathlessly hot, even at night. However, it was the only room in the little house with a window on the outside; he could shut the door onto the noisy patio where by day the servants invariably gathered for their work and their conversations. He lay under the closed canopy of his mosquito net, listening to the barking of the dogs in the village below. He was thinking about Nicolas. Apparently Nicolas had chosen for himself the role of envoy from the village to the mission. The pastor’s thin lips moved. “A troublemaker,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow.”

Early the next morning he stood outside Nicolas’s hut. Each house in Tacate had its own small temple: a few tree trunks holding up some thatch to shelter the offerings of fruit and cooked food. The pastor took care not to go near the one that stood near by; he already felt enough like a pariah, and Dr. Ramos had warned him against meddling of that sort. He called out.

A little girl about seven years old appeared in the doorway of the house. She looked at him wildly a moment with huge round eyes before she squealed and disappeared back into the darkness. The pastor waited and called again. Presently a man came around the hut from the back and told him that Nicolas would return. The pastor sat down on a stump. Soon the little girl stood again in the doorway; this time she smiled coyly. The pastor looked at her severely. It seemed to him she was too old to run about naked. He turned his head away and examined the thick red petals of a banana blossom hanging nearby. When he looked back she had come out and was standing near him, still smiling. He got up and walked toward the road, his head down, as if deep in thought. Nicolas entered through the gate at that moment, and the pastor, colliding with him, apologized.

“Good,” grunted Nicolas. “What?”

His visitor was not sure how he ought to begin. He decided to be pleasant.

“I am a good man,” he smiled.

“Yes,” said Nicolas. “Don Jesucristo is a good man.”

“No, no, no!” cried Pastor Dowe.

Nicolas looked politely confused, but said nothing.

Feeling that his command of the dialect was not equal to this sort of situation, the pastor wisely decided to begin again. “Hachakyum made the world. Is that true?”

Nicolas nodded in agreement, and squatted down at the pastor’s feet, looking up at him, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

“Hachakyum made the sky,” the pastor began to point, “the mountains, the trees, those people there. Is that true?”

Again Nicolas assented.

“Hachakyum is good. Hachakyum made you. True?” Pastor Dowe sat down again on the stump.

Nicolas spoke finally, “All that you say is true.”

The pastor permitted himself a pleased smile and went on. “Hachakyum made everything and everyone because He is mighty and good.”

Nicolas frowned. “No!” he cried. “That is not true! Hachakyum did not make everyone. He did not make you.