The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (13 page)

There was still another danger, which might be most serious of all. A great mining company in good standing with the government or certain officials might receive word of the filing of the claim. How long would these three miserable proletarians last after the great company started to bring before the courts claims of prior rights to this field, with some native puppet ready to Swear away the blue sky for a hundred pesos?

“Here you see for yourselves, provided you have brains to think with, that, much as we want to, we can’t afford to be honest with the government.” Howard finished up his explanation. “I certainly don’t like to cheat anybody out of a just share in my profits, not even a government. If we were on British territory I wouldn’t hesitate a minute to do what is right by the law. In this case we have no alternative. Not alone our earnings but our life and health depend upon forgetting about the license. Are you guys agreed upon that?”

“We are and no mistake.”

“Right. Of course, you understand that if we are found out it will mean confiscation of all we have made, of all we have here, and, very likely, a year in jail.”

“I think we can take this chance, don’t you?” Curtin asked Dobbs.

“Sure we take it. Not for a minute did I expect that any one of us would be silly enough even to propose any other course.”

So the question of the license was settled. If you have a license, you are not protected at all against bandits or racketeers. If nobody knows what you have, you have a better chance of safety. The bush is so wide and the Sierra is so great and lonely that you disappear and nobody knows where you are or what has bef alien you.

4

The discussion about the registration of their claim brought comprehension of their changed standing in life. With every ounce more of gold possessed by them they left the proletarian class and neared that of the property-holders, the well-to-do middle class. So far they had never had anything of value to protect against thieves. Since they now owned certain riches, their worries about how to protect them had started. The world no longer looked to them as it had a few weeks ago. They had become members of the minority of mankind.

Those who up to this time had been considered by them as their proletarian brethren were now enemies against whom they had to protect themselves. As long as they had owned nothing of value, they had been slaves of their hungry bellies, slaves to those who had the means to fill their bellies. All this was changed now.

They had reached the first step by which man becomes the slave of his property.

The three men, gathered together solely to gain riches, had never been real friends. They had in common only business relations. That they had combined their forces and brains and resources for no other reason than to make high profits was the factor which had prevented them from becoming true friends.

As it was, this proved to be to the advantage of their work. Friends, really good friends, kept together by business and forced upon each other without any contact with other people, more often than not part the bitterest of enemies.

They were not even real pals. Each was only looking for his proper share, and if a grain more seemed to be going to another partner, battle was on at once, and without quarter.

The common worries, labor, disappointments, the common hopes, made them comrades in a sort of war. More than once one had saved the life of another. Several times Dobbs had endangered his own safety to fetch either the old man or Curtin when one fell into a ravine or into a chasm or was caught in thorny underbrush on a steep rock. Help in dangerous situations had been rendered to Dobbs by the others. Still none of them ever believed that such assistance was given, or that sacrifices were made, out of pure kindness. Each of them felt that this service was rendered because, had one of them lost his life, the other two could not have worked the field alone. Just as soldiers, personally unknown to each other but belonging to the same nationality or to that of allied armies, will help their fellowsoldiers not alone for patriotic reasons but for many other reasons, which may, often, be very difficult to explain in detail.

Under such circumstances mutual service usually leads to lasting friendship, but it did not work that way among these three.

One day Dobbs was inside a tunnel where earth was being extracted. While he was there, the tunnel broke down, burying him. Howard, digging on the opposite side, did not know what had happened.

Just then Curtin returned from hauling water from the brook below with the help of the burros. Looking at the tunnel, he found it strange that he did not hear any movement nor see a flicker of light from the lantern Dobbs was using. He knew then instantly that Dobbs was buried. He did not even take time to notify Howard, as he thought it might be too late then to bring Dobbs out alive. He went in, although the ceiling was hanging so that it might come down any second and bury the rescuer as well. He got Dobbs out and then called for the old man, for Dobbs was unconscious and had to be brought to and Howard knew what to do in such accidents.

After Dobbs had regained his senses he realized what Curtin had done for him and what risk he had taken to get him out.

“Thanks, you guys,” he said, grinning. “If you had waited only to spit on your hands, it would have been all over with me. Tell ye, I heard the harps playing sure enough.”

Then they went to work again.

That same night, sitting by the fire cooking their meals, Dobbs began to think. After they had eaten he looked at his partners Suspiciously.

“What you staring at, you mug?” Curtin asked.

“I was just thinking why the hell you fellers dragged me out of that hole? Your shares would have grown rather big if you’d left me where I was for five minutes longer.” Dobbs narrowed his eyes as he spoke.

“Guess you’re still hearing harps and seeing white robes.” Howard tried to ridicule him.

“You can’t catch me sleeping,” Dobbs answered. “Don’t you ever believe that. I’m not so dumb as you two guys think me. I’ve got ideas of my own and I stick to them. That’s what. Now shake your cock with that mixture handed you, dirty-minded crooks that you are and always will be.”

“Another crack like that from you and I’ll sponge your face, you devil.” Curtin spoke angrily.

“Who’ll sponge whose face?” Dobbs jumped to his feet.

“Now, peace here, babies. No use breaking your knuckles and shins; we need them, and badly, at that.” Howard’s fatherly tone quieted them. He had touched the right spot. Nothing was worth more to them than their working ability. To remind them of the fact was always the best balm the old man had in store for their quarrels.

“Of course, you great-grandfather, you’re too yellow to fight; you’re even afraid to see a fight. You might faint if you saw a bleeding nose.” Dobbs, still standing, forgot about Curtin and turned on the old man. “Playing godfather here to us. I wonder for what reason. Some day I’ll find out. It sure will be a costly day for both of you.”

Curtin had not moved when Dobbs had jumped to his feet. He had just looked about defensively. “Don’t mind him,” he now said to Howard, “don’t mind him at all, that’s what I say. Can’t you see he’s screwy?”

“Mebbe,” Dobbs growled. “Mebbe screwy. All right, but believe me I know why I’m screwy and who made me so. And I’m turning in, leaving you to discuss how to give me cold feet. But I warn you, it may turn out the other way round.”

When he had gone to the tent, Howard said to Curtin: “Nothing new ever happens under the stars, it seems. I’ve seen this kind of thing occur so often and so needlessly that now I ask myself why it hasn’t happened sooner in this outfit. You aren’t so free from this disease either, Curty, as you may think. There are few who are long immune from this infection. Well, I think I’ll turn in too.”

2

Each night the proceeds of the day’s work were carefully estimated in the presence of the three partners. This done, the shares were cut and each partner received his. This way of paying dividends was not very intelligent. Often the earnings of the day were so small that it would have taken an expert mathematician to tell exactly how to divide it justly.

It had come to be arranged this way quite accidentally almost the first day when there had been any earnings.

Curtin was the man who had suggested it one day during the second week after the gains had begun to accumulate.

“Okay with me,” Howard agreed without arguing. “Better for me. Then I won’t have to be the dragon to guard your pennies any longer. I haven’t liked it too much, acting as your safety box.”

Both his partners rose. “Who made you our banker? We never asked you yet to hold our well-earned money.”

“Which means, in other words, that you wouldn’t trust me?”

“That’s exactly what it means in plain English.” Dobbs left no doubt of how he judged his partner.

Howard smiled at them. “It’s right, you never asked me. Only I thought I might be the most trustworthy among us three.”

“You? How come?” Dobbs could at times be nasty.

Howard kept on smiling. He had had too many similar experiences in his life to feel offended. “Perhaps you’re just waiting to ask me in what pen I grew up. Well, I’ve never been in any pen yet. I hope I never shall be. I can’t expect you to believe this. Besides, never having been in jail doesn’t mean that a feller plays straight and honest. Out here there’s no sense in lying to each other. After a few weeks we’ll know one another better than we ever could from a police record or a jail-warden’s report. Where We are now you can’t save yourself by tricks, no matter how Smart you may think yourself in town. Here you may tell the truth or you may lie as much as you wish; everything will come out sooner or later. So, whatever you may think of me, of us three I’m the most trustworthy. As for being the most honest, no one can say.”

Dobbs and Curtin only grinned at him for an answer.

Howard seemed not to mind. “You may laugh at what I say. It’s true none the less. Why? Because here only plain facts count. We might charge you, Dobby, with taking care of the goods. Suppose I’m somewhere deep in the bush to get timber, and suppose, at the same time, Curtin is on his way to the village for provisions; wouldn’t that be your big chance to pack up and leave us in the cold?”

“Only a crook like you would think me likely to do that.” Dobbs felt hurt.

“It may be crooked to say what I said, but it’s surely more crooked to have such thoughts and not admit them. You’d be the first guy I can imagine who wouldn’t occasionally nourish the idea of robbing when given a chance. To make off with all the goods, dirty trick as it would be against your partners, would seem, out here and under these conditions, rather the natural thing to do. You think and you have thought many times of doing it; but you’re too yellow to admit frankly that you’ve had such thoughts and that you wouldn’t mind carrying them out. Right now it wouldn’t pay. That’s the reason why you think of it only vaguely. Some day, though, when the goods will amount to, let’s say, three hundred ounces, you may get such ideas more dearly fixed in your heads. I know my fellow-men and you don’t. That’s the difference. If some pretty day you caught me, tied me to a tree, took all I have, and walked out on me, leaving me here in the wilderness to my fate, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, because I know what gold can do to men.”

“And what about yourself, you wiseacre?” asked Curtin.

“It’s different with me. I’m no longer quick enough on my feet. I couldn’t do it, hard as I might try. You’d get me by the collar in no time and string me up and even forget to bark the tree. I can’t escape you. I have to depend on you in more ways than one. I can’t run as easily as either of you can. And so you have the plain reason why I think I’m the most trustworthy in this outfit.”

“Looking at it your way, I feel sure you’re right,” Curtin said. “Anyway, and perhaps for your own good, Howy, it would be better to cut the proceeds every night and each partner be responsible for his own goods. That would give each of us the greatest freedom, as each could go whenever he wished to.”

“Right by me,” the old man agreed. “Only then everybody has to be careful that the hiding-place of his fortune is not found out by one of the others.”

“Hell, what a dirty mind you must have, you old scoundrel!” Dobbs cursed at him.

“Not dirty, baby. No, not dirty. Only I know whom I am sitting here with by the fire and what sort of ideas even supposedly decent people can get into their heads when gold is at stake. Most people are only afraid of getting caught, and that makes them, not better, but only more careful and more hypocritical; makes them work their brains so that it would be difficult to catch them once they’ve run off. Here it’s no use to be a hypocrite, no use to lie. In cities it’s different. There you can afford to use all the tricks known under heaven, and your own mother won’t recognize them as tricks. Here there is only one obstacle—the life of your partner. And easy as it may seem to remove this obstacle, it may, in the end, prove very costly.”

“Police would find him out sooner or later—isn’t that what you mean?” asked Dobbs.

“I wasn’t thinking of police. Police and judges may never butt in, and most likely never would. Yet while dirty acts may never burden the conscience of a man, his mind and soul may not allow him to forget his deeds. The crime he committed may not burden him, but the memory of happenings before the crime may make his life a hell on earth and rob him of all the happiness he tried to gain by his foul act. But—well, what’s the use talking about it? All right, have it your way. Every night the profits are cut and each of us hides it as best as he can. It would be hard anyway, as soon as we have made two hundred ounces, to carry it in a little bag hanging day and night from your neck.”

Through ingenious labor the fellows had succeeded in hiding their mine. Nature had already made this place difficult to approach and to find. A wanderer passing by would never suspect that this rock, lying in a little cuplilce valley on the top of a high rocky mountain, was anything but a peak. Two passes led into this small valley, and it took all the strength of man to reach those passes by climbing. The rock was bare of any plants save low bushes. An Indian hunter from the village far below would never go up to this rock to look for any sort of game, for there is enough in the great valley at the base of the mountains to make it silly for a hunter to climb this mountain. The villagers have sufficient tillable land to work on near the village, so there is no need to look for new or better land on the slope of the mountains.