The Cotton-Pickers (6 page)

“Well, he sold me some hens — good layers, he swore — that he’d bought from some peasants, I found out later, for one peso apiece. Sold them to me for two and a half pesos each. The hens were well fed, heavy, good to look at, so I paid the price. But that black devil, he got me on the part about layers. They’re not laying one egg among them. Oh, well — I s’pose they’re worth the price for meat.”

“And what about the Chink and the two Mexicans?”

“They walked by here — early — on Monday. I saw them from the window. As far as I know, they went to the Pozos station. By the way, why do you want to live in that shelter? You could stay in the house.”

I laughed. “No, Mr. Shine, I had enough of that house. I wouldn’t stick the tip of my boot inside it. It’s a real mosquito hell.”

“Well, suit yourself. I lived in it with my family for ten years and we weren’t troubled by mosquitoes. But you may be right. If a house like that hasn’t been used for some time, and isn’t properly aired, all sorts of vermin gather. Now and again I have the horses and mules driven up that way because of the good grass and the water hole. But I haven’t been up there for months and I’ve no idea what the place is like now. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter to me where you set up house. You’re no worry to me.”

So once again I rigged myself up in my shelter. This time I made my fire right in front of it. There was no point in making it near the little house where we’d had our campfire discussions; no one was there to talk with now.

7

I lived in wonderful solitude, my sole companions the lizards. After I’d been there about three days, two lizards got so used to me they forgot their innate timidity and went after the flies that hovered around my feet in search of crumbs.

I spent my days puttering around in the near bush, observing animals and their behavior; and the animals of the bush came and went through my open shelter, as was their right. I had brought back some old magazines from the oil camp and now had time for reading.

I could wallow in water. There had been several good downpours and the water tank was a third full, for we’d mended the rain troughs, of course. I could wash; I could even afford the luxury of washing twice a day.

Now I was able to buy what I wanted in the store; I had plenty of money and I treated myself well. I was neither thirsty nor hungry. I hadn’t a care in the world. I was a free man in the free bush, taking my nap when I pleased, roaming about when and where and as long as I liked. It was a good life and I enjoyed it to the full.

I drew the water I needed from the tank that lay by the old house. It had been lively there while my companions lived in the house; there were arguments around the campfire, words over a pinch of salt that one had taken without asking the owner, endless wrangles about whose turn it was to bring firewood, and the like. As I thought back on those vivid scenes, the house seemed eerily lonely and still. Every time I went over there to get water I had the urge to look inside to see if anyone had left anything behind. But then again, I liked the spooky silence that brooded over the place, and I hesitated to disturb it. It fitted in with the solitariness of the surrounding bush, as well as with the seclusion of my own life. So I suppressed the desire to go up the ladder and peep in. Of course I knew that the house would be empty, absolutely empty. No one would have left anything behind, not even the rags of an old shirt; for, to fellows like us, everything has its value. I even began to grow used to the air of mystery that hung over the place. I liked to think that perhaps the ghost of an old Aztec priest, unable to rest, had now fled from the bush into the house to find some repose from his restless wanderings.

One day when I went to get water, I noticed a blue-black spider with a shiny green head hunting her prey along a wall of the house. She’d run like lightning for a few inches, stop, lie in wait awhile, and then run again a short distance and wait again. Zigzagging in this way, she completely covered three feet on one plank of the wall. Not a single spot had been left uncrossed. Here and there she left a fine thread behind her, not to trap and ensnare any insects that might climb up the plank, but to slow their progress so that after searching and returning from neighboring planks she could spring at her prey and take it in one leap. This spider takes her prey in leaps. She springs at the insect from behind and seizes it by the neck so that whatever weapons of self-defense it may have, whether they are spikes, claws, or jaws, it has no chance to use them.

I’d been observing this type of spider for days and weeks on end during my frequent spells out of work, and this one immediately attracted my attention. I wanted to test her field of vision and discover what she’d do if she herself were attacked and pursued. I put my can of water on the ground and forgot that I’d been intending to cook myself some rice.

I moved my hand to and fro a fair distance above the spider. She reacted immediately. She became uneasy and her zigzag runs began to get irregular as she tried to escape from the great Something that might have been a bird. But the smooth plank offered no hiding place. She waited a while, ducked slowly and carefully, and then suddenly and quite unexpectedly leaped half an arm’s length to another board on the wall. The leap was as sure as if it had been executed on the level. The other board had a crack in it, so that it offered some refuge.

However, I allowed the spider no time to find the best spot. I took a thin twig and touched her lightly, forcing her to choose another route. She rushed away at frantic speed, but wherever she fled she always ran into the offensive twig which touched her head or her back. So she ran in all directions, always pursued by the twig which gave her no chance to get set for a leap. Suddenly, however, just as I was twigging her on the back, she turned around and, in a frantic rage and with impressive courage, attacked the twig. To a creature of her size — she was about an inch and a half long — the twig must have seemed an object of massive proportions and supernatural powers. Every time I withdrew the twig, which evidently made her think she had beaten back or at any rate intimidated her enemy, she tried to reach the protecting crack. Finally she did defeat me and found refuge there, but it wasn’t enough to hide her completely; half of her was still exposed.

I now slapped my hand flat against the wall. The spider promptly reappeared and hurried off, higher up, where she found a more favorable cavity in which she was now almost completely concealed.

To chase her out of there too, and see what she’d do in the last extremity, I slapped the wall with such force that the whole house shook.

The spider didn’t re-emerge. I waited a few seconds. When I was just about to hit the wall another time, something inside the house fell over with a thump.

Whatever could it be? I knew the inside of the house. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in there that could fall with such a strange sound. It could only have been a board or a chunk of wood; and yet, to judge from the noise, it was neither of these. It sounded more like a sackful of maize. But when I recalled the noise, I realized there had been something strangely hard about it too. So it couldn’t have been a sackful of maize.

It would have been simple enough to climb the few rungs of the ladder, push open the door, and look inside. But some inexplicable feeling held me back. It was as if I were afraid I’d discover something unspeakably horrible.

I picked up my can of water and went back to my shelter. I persuaded myself that it wasn’t a fear of seeing something horrible that was stopping me from going into the house. I said to myself: “You have no business in the house; you have no right to go in there, and in any case whatever is in there is no concern of yours.” That’s how I excused myself.

But when I was sitting by my fire, wondering what thing it could have been, a strange idea came to me: Someone had hanged himself in the house, some time ago; the rope had rotted or the neck had putrefied, and my striking at the wall had shaken the body, so that the corpse had fallen. It had sounded as if a human body had toppled over and the head had struck the floor.

But of course this idea was ridiculous. It only showed where

your imagination could lead you if you shied away from looking at the facts. When you’re in this state of mind, a tree trunk in the field could be a bandit waiting in ambush. Besides, in the tropics nobody would hang himself. In this part of the world suicide is rare; no day is gray enough for it. And if someone really did want to do it, why, he’d go into the bush where within three days the only part of him that would still be recognizable would be the buckle of his belt.

Whenever I went to get water I made a point of not looking into the house; I even avoided looking for any chink through which I could peep. The vague, the mysterious meant more to me than a possibly prosaic explanation. But when I sat by the fire in the evening or lay awake at night, my thoughts would turn to what might be inside the house.

On Saturday I went to Mr. Shine and asked if there’d been any message from the oil camp. But Mr. Shine hadn’t gone to the store all week, and wouldn’t be going the following week either. As Monday was the first of the month and the driller whose place I was to take could be starting his vacation then, I decided to go down to the store myself on Sunday morning. I would take my bundle with me and be ready to start off at once if word had come through. That way I could be in the camp on Sunday afternoon. If there was no message I’d know that the driller was either not going on vacation or that he’d made some other arrangement. In that case I’d continue on to the station and simply carry out my plan of going to Guatemala.

Early Sunday morning I went to get water for my coffee. I’d got the water and was already past the house when I decided that, after all, I’d go inside and see what there was to see. If I didn’t, the thought of it would probably plague me for months to come.

I climbed the few rungs of the ladder and pushed open the door. Something was lying by the wall to my right — a large bundle. I couldn’t see what it was right away, in the dawn light.

I stepped over to it. It was a man. Dead!

It was Gonzalo.

Gonzalo, dead.

Murdered!

His ragged shirt was black with dried blood. A ball of cotton, crumpled in his right hand, was likewise caked with blood. He had a stab in the back, and further stabs in the chest, the right shoulder, and the left arm.

Obviously the body had been propped up against the wall; when I had struck, it had fallen sideways and the head had hit the floor.

I searched his pockets ― five pesos and eighty-five centavos. He should have had at least twenty-five to thirty pesos.

So it had been for the money.

A little canvas tobacco pouch lay open beside him. There were a few corn husks on the floor. He had been attacked while rolling himself a cigarette right there where he now lay.

The Chink and Antonio had been the last to leave the house. The Chink wasn’t the murderer. He wouldn’t so much as touch anyone for the sake of twenty pesos; he was far too clever for that. Those twenty pesos would have cost too dear for the Chink.

Antonio then.

I’d never have thought it of him.

I put the money back into Gonzalo’s pocket and left him where he lay.

Then I wedged the door into position as I’d found it and left the house.

 I gave up the idea of making coffee and set off at once. I went to Mr. Shine and told him that I was going to the store,  and that if there was nothing doing at the oil camp I’d continue on my way.

“Didn’t you feel lonely in your airy apartment, Gales?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “There was so much to see and so many things to watch that the time passed very quickly.”

“I thought you might have moved into the house. After all, it is a house.”

“I told you when I came back from the oil field that it was swarming with mosquitoes.”

“My two nephews are coming on a visit at New Year’s. It’ll be a holiday for them. I’ll put them in there, and they can do as they like. They can make a start by smoking out the mosquitoes. Well, Gales, good luck to you!”

We shook hands and off I went.

Why should I have said anything? No one would think that I was the murderer, for hadn’t I left before all the other fellows and been working at the oil camp all the time? If I had said something about it, there would have been endless questions and comings and goings and who knows what else, and I should never have been able to get to the oil field in time.

8

I was paid off when the driller returned from his vacation. One of the trucks took me to the station and from there I traveled on to a small town on the coast. I didn’t stop long but went straight on to the next sizable town so that, provided I didn’t change my plans again, I could get to Guatemala within a few days.

While I was in town I wanted to keep my ear to the ground and find out how things were in the south, whether there was anything behind the rumors of new oil fields, what the chances of employment were or whether I wouldn’t do better to make tracks for the Argentine. But I heard too much about the mass unemployment down there. Ghastly stories I heard. Eighty thousand in the gutter in Buenos Aires alone, just looking for a chance to get out of there. Anyhow, it couldn’t be worse than it was in Mexico.

I went over to the park and sat around on a bench. I had a shoe shine, drank a glass of ice water, and, feeling at peace with myself and all the world, was just about to take a siesta when I noticed that an acquaintance was sitting on a bench opposite me.

I went over to him. “Hello, Antonio,” I said. “How are you? What are you doing here?”

We shook hands. He was very pleased to see me. I sat down beside him and told him that I was looking for a job.

“That’s fine. I’ve been working in a bakery here for two weeks, baking bread and cakes. You could start in right away; they’re looking for an assistant. You ever worked as a baker?”

“No. I’ve had a hundred different jobs, I’ve even been a camel drover ― and what a goddamned job that is ― but I’ve never been a baker.”