The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (34 page)

With a nervous gesture he pulled a thick piece of burning wood out of the fire to use as a torch. He blew it into bright flames and hurried into the bush.

Curtin was lying motionless in the same spot where Dobbs had left him. Dobbs wanted to kneel down and press his hand against the breast of his victim. But, feeling uneasy, he jerked up, and then bent down, carefully listening for any sign of breath.

There was no sigh, no moan, not even the slightest movement of the fingers. Dobbs held the burning stick close to Curtin’s face, almost scorching his nose, and moved the stick back and forth close to the eyes. There was not even a flicker of the eyelashes. The shirt on Curtin’s breast was wet with blood.

Satisfied with his investigation, Dobbs straightened up and started to return to the fire. Before he had gone ten feet he pulled out the gun, turned around, and let Curtin have another shot, to make absolutely sure. He dropped the torch, which by now had died down. For a moment he hesitated. Then he pulled out the gun once more and threw it toward where Curtin lay. “It’s his, anyhow,” Dobbs muttered, “and it looks better this way.”

He came back to the fire. Once more he rolled himself in his blanket. Yet, as he felt more chilly than ever, he sat upright, staring into the fire.

“Damn it,” he said in a full voice, “damn it all! Who the hell would have thought that conscience might trouble me? Me? Well, it seemed about to, but now I’m quiet.” He laughed. But his laughter sounded like barking.

The word “conscience,” spoken by him in a full voice, got hold of him somehow. It seemed to penetrate his mind in a curious way. From this moment on, the word “conscience” sprang to the fore and dominated his thoughts, without any clear and definite meaning of what the word really stands for. Had he been asked what conscience was, he would not have been able to define it correctly or even to make it clear by comparison.

He debated with himself: “I want to see if conscience can play tricks on me. Murder is the worst man can do. According to books and sermons from the pulpit, conscience ought to show up now. But it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, I’ve never heard of a hangman bothered by his conscience. He moves a lever, and bang! a trap springs and the poor devil is hanging by his neck in mid air. Or the warden presses a button or puts forward a switch, and the mug sitting tight in the chair gets the shock and meets the devil at the gate with a brass band waiting for him. Not me, brother.

“Didn’t I kill quite a number of Heinies in the big parade? Did I? Hell, how they jumped! There was no conscience giving me nightmares or taking away my appetite. Not me.

“So why should I whine now and feel sour in the stomach for that rat kicked off the platform. I only hope he is really finished. Otherwise conscience might—it might—pop up and scratch my spine.

“Yep, of course, there is conscience, and lots of it. And you sure feel it all right if they catch you, and you sure may get twenty years up the river. Not so good. And, of course, conscience will make it rather uneasy for you waiting for a certain week when the Lord may have the mercy on your soul which was asked for in court by the judge in his sentence.

“Haven’t I heard that the guy kicked off may appear before you at midnight and make you shiver all down your spine? What time is it? Uh! Only half past eleven. Still half an hour to go. Somewhere in the world it is midnight already. All the time it is midnight somewhere, so the ghosts have to travel fast to be on time where they want to be. Come to think of it, I might pack up and leave. But, hell, I couldn’t make out the trail at night, dark as it is. I might go to jail for it. And if I get out, let’s say after a couple of years, the ghost won’t bother me any more, because I will have paid for him by having done my stretch.

“I wonder if I could make out the trail at night. I might try. If only I could get away from here! I think the climate must change farther down the trail. It’s rather chilly here. Well, I’d better stay by the fire and not lose myself in that goddamned Sierra. Damn the fire, it doesn’t give any real light. Why the hell didn’t I bring in more sticks before dark? No, I won’t go now and get them in the bush.

“Wonder how much it will make all together, mine, his, and the old man’s lift. It may bring in the neighborhood of fifty grand. I’m sure they won’t find him, but I’d better dig him in first thing in the morning, and leave no trace. Funny that now I’ve got the whole load for myself. Won’t the old man get mad if he comes to the port and steps into the bank with a bright face and then finds himself without any funds! Wouldn’t I like to see his sour face and hear him calling them sons of I don’t know what!” He barked out a suppressed laugh.

Suddenly he stopped. He was sure he heard laughter behind him in the deep darkness of the bush. He turned round as if expecting somebody to stride out of the darkness. He crawled round the fire so that without turning his head he could watch the bush where he thought he had heard the laughter. He blew into the fire and made it blaze up, lighting up the whole surroundings. While the fire was at its brightest he tried to penetrate with his eyes into the deep shadows of the dense foliage around him. He imagined he saw human forms, and then he was sure he saw faces. Then he realized that the shadows from the fire had befuddled him.

“Conscience,” he began again reflecting on this word and speaking to himself, “conscience! What a thing! If you believe that there is such a thing as conscience, it will pester you and blast hell out of you, but, on the other hand, if you don’t believe in the existence of conscience, what can it do to you? And I don’t believe in it any more than I believe in hell. Makes me sick, so much thinking and fussing about nonsense. Let’s hit the hay.”

He stretched himself by the fire, rolled in his blanket, and slept undisturbed until the sun began to rise.

4

It was late. Usually they were on their way long before sunrise. Hurriedly he drank the coffee left over from last night’s supper and ate the cold rice.

He was in such a hurry that he did not give corn to the burros as they usually did since they had hit this hard road.

Not until he began to load the burros did he remember Curtin, whose absence he considered now as something as inevitable as fate. Not for a moment did he feel a grain of pity or repentance. Curtin was no more, and that gave him great satisfaction and quietness of mind. He no longer had to worry about being attacked from behind.

But suppose Howard should trace him? What was he to answer about Curtin and the goods? The story he had in mind to tell might not go over well with the old man. Perhaps it might be better to change the whole story altogether. Easy that. Bandits got them on the way and killed Curtin and robbed them, while he himself, Dobbs, had a chance to get away with two of his burros and his own goods. It would be only natural that he would look first after his own. The smartest guy under heaven couldn’t find anything wrong with that story. The country was full of bandits and highwaymen, wasn’t it? Everybody knows that.

The burros, with their loads on their backs, waited patiently for Dobbs to kick them as a signal that it was time to shuffle off. Now and then they turned their heads toward Dobbs, hoping to get the few handfuls of corn they had become used to since leaving the mine. Surely they were wondering why Dobbs didn’t shout to them to be on their way, for they were accustomed to march the moment they felt that the packs were well tied to the saddle.

Dobbs had had more trouble loading them than he had expected. It was not easy to pack burros properly without the help of another man. One man alone cannot pack two sides at the same time, at least not easily. With many oaths and kicks Dobbs finally succeeded in his task, but much time had been lost and it was now near noon.

At the very moment he was just ready to march, he thought of Curtin. He had, of course, thought of Curtin scores of times during the morning, though not as a person dead and gone for good. They had been together for such a long time that he thought of him as gone hunting or to the village to buy provisions. But now for the first time during the morning he realized fully that Curtin was dead. It came to him suddenly, as a shock. Had he not been alone with his thoughts, he might have completely forgotten Curtin in a few hours. Being alone in such a wilderness, however, he continually thought he heard Curtin’s voice and a sneering laugh.

He hesitated, then decided it might be better to leave the body where it was. Even should Indians come up this trail, the body was hidden so deep in the dense bush that it seemed most unlikely it would be discovered.

Another thought sneaked into his troubled mind. Suppose he buried the body and it should be found by dogs or by coalburners. Should this happen, it would be taken for evidence that the story he intended to tell could not be true.

So he concluded to leave the body unburied, as that would look more as if Curtin had been killed by bandits or had shot himself. Besides, if he left the body exposed, lions, tigers, wild pigs, buzzards, worms, and ants would do away with it so quickly that in a month it would be impossible to tell whose bones were bleaching in the bush. But then the rags of clothing and things Curtin carried in his pockets might tell more than the body would.

Suddenly Dobbs noted that everything about him was silent. He had never taken any notice of the fact that nature in the tropics, as noon approaches, becomes drowsy and falls asleep. Birds cease to sing and no longer fly about, insects become quiet and hide away under leaves and in other shady places, squirrels are no longer seen, and greater animals seem to vanish as if chased away. Even the wind goes to sleep; the leaves no longer whisper.

Dobbs felt this growing silence like something strange happening in the whole world. It seemed to him as though trees and leaves became petrified. Their color turned from green to a dull dustlike gray. The air felt strangely heavy, and the atmosphere appeared to have turned into gaseous lava.

Dobbs could see little of the sky because of the dense foliage above him, and the air seemed so thick that he could scarcely breathe. The mass of underbrush and the trunks of the trees seemed to close in on him and swallow up the last bit of air. Wherever he looked, all around him had turned gloomy, as though in a dream.

Thick sweat broke out all over his body. He had the sensation that if he did not move that very second, he also might become petrified, like everything else around him. Fright came upon him.

The burros were standing as though turned to stone. Trained to follow commands, they were waiting for their orders. With their large dark eyes they stared at Dobbs without blinking.

Dobbs, realizing that the eyes of the burros were resting unceasingly upon his face, became afraid of the animals. For a second the idea struck him that these burros might be charmed human beings, knowing and understanding fully what he had done and ready to accuse him, spring at him, and kill him. He shook off this idea and tried to grin at it, but he could not.

He stepped over to the burros and worked about their packs, tying a rope here, fixing a twisted strap there, and pulled at the packs and saddles to see that they were tight for the trip. He pushed the animals around and pressed his fists into their flesh to assure himself that they were alive. After that he felt easier.

But this feeling of relief did not last long. When he caught one burro staring at him again with its large eyes, he thought that perhaps Curtin might glare at him with eyes exactly like those of the animals.

“Anyway, I think it’s safer by all means to bury him. But I can’t look at his eyes. I might never forget him. Yet I never bothered about the staring eyes of the dead Heinies. How was that? Well, no other way out; I have to dig him in. It’s better to do that.”

He pulled a spade out of one of the packs. When he had it in his hands, he again became undecided. Should he dig that carcass in or would it be a waste of time? Hadn’t he better hurry and get the burros going and try to reach the railroad station as soon as possible?

He pushed the spade back into the pack, and as he did so, he became suddenly curious to see if the buzzards had already started to feast upon the body. To know this before he left the place would give him a welcome feeling of security. So he pulled out the spade once more, threw it over his shoulder, and went resolutely into the bush.

2

He walked straight to the spot where Curtin’s body lay. He could have found the spot with both eyes closed. He was sure he would be able to find it as easily fifty years hence.

But when he got there, the place was empty.

He knew then that he had erred in the direction. The darkness of the night and the uncertain flicker of the camp-fire and of the burning torch in his hand had confused him.

Nervously he began to look for the body. He crawled through the underbrush, pushing hastily through the branches of shrubs, spreading open the foliage, glancing left and right, and becoming more nervous every second. He feared that he might come upon the body unexpectedly and that it would give him a shock which would break him.

So he decided not to search any longer, but to hurry back to the burros and march off as quickly as possible.

Half-way back he realized that he would never find peace if he left without seeing the corpse and making sure that the job had been done well.

Again he began to search. He ran about this way and that in the bush. The more he ran, the more confused he became. He hurried back a dozen times to where the camp had been last night, to take up the direction afresh. But now he could not recall precisely the direction into which he had driven Curtin. It was all in vain. He could not find the body. For a minute he rested to get his head clear and to concentrate on the direction.

His nervousness made him tremble. The sun was now straight above him in the sky, and its heat penetrated the crowns of the trees. He felt the sun scorching his brain. He panted and cursed himself. He was bathed in sweat. Down he went on his knees by the little brook near the camp and lapped up the water like a thirsty dog. Then, kneeling there for a few seconds, he felt that his thoughts were going to run amuck.