The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (37 page)

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.

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.”

The men pulled a spade from a saddle and began to dig a hole. It was the same spade which Dobbs, only a few days ago, had taken from the same saddle one morning and thrown across his shoulder when he went into the thicket to bury Curtin.

The body was buried in no time. The thieves did not bother to make a good job of it. The undertakers of nature would come and do the rest. Why worry?

Right after this they started the train back toward the Sierra. Believing that Dobbs might have told the truth and that two partners of his were coming this way, they turned off the trail Dobbs had followed and went back into the mountains by another trail.

3

When they reached the bush at the base of the Sierra, their curiosity could no longer be restrained. They were eager to know how big the booty was and how much each of them could expect for his share.

It was dark, and the woods made the night still darker, but they did not light a fire. If soldiers or the Rurales were after them, it would be wise to have no fire to guide their pursuers.

They got busy. The burros were unloaded and then the packs were opened. A pickpocket could not have been more excited to learn the contents of a pocketbook or a lady’s handbag than these men were while untying the bundles.

There were more pants, but they were none too good. The few shirts they found were practically rags_-hardly better than the ones they had on. There were two pairs of light shoes, which belonged to Howard and Curtin. There were pans and dishes, and two aluminum pots for coffee and tea. Nothing was good enough to sell, even to the poor, as everything was battered and covered with a thick crust of greasy, hardened soot.

“Looks like that scoundrel really spoke the truth,” Nacho said disappointedly. “Not a cent, save the few pennies he carried in his pants. Seventy-four centavos! All the money we get out of it.”

Pablo was inspecting other things. “The hides are not of the best sort. Very poor. All shot to pieces. A lot of holes make them of hardly any value. Funny sort of a hunter he must have been. Careless in shooting, and he had no idea what to shoot or how to get good hides. Worst of all, they are badly dried up. They are stinking and full of maggots. All the hair is coming off already. We’re lucky if we get twenty pesos for the whole lot. And we won’t get the twenty with a smile either. Maybe no one will take them even as a present.”

Miguel was working about a pack he had opened. He held in his hands a few little bags made of rags and old sackcloth. “I can’t figure what in hell that guy had these funny little bags for.”

He poured the contents into his open hand. “Sand. Nothing but plain sand. Now, what did he carry this sand for?”

The darkness in the bush, lighted slightly by the new moon, made it difficult for the men to examine the sand more closely and recognize what it really was. Even had they known something about gold dust they would not have thought this particular sand of real value, not at this moment, when all their thoughts were occupied in other directions. They were looking for money and for things they could sell easily. As they examined the packs in darkness, trusting to the feel of their fingers and so missing even the faint glitter this dust sometimes shows, it is not strange that they failed to discern its value.

Miguel, the most experienced of the three, had worked in the mines for a few years. He brought forth an explanation: “I see through it all now. He was a sort of mining engineer, that rascal was. He was working for some mining company. Claro, he went exploring for that company and was bringing back with him these samples of dust, sand, ground rocks, and all that, to be examined later by the chemists of his company. If they find something in these samples, then they buy the land and open a mine. Such sand has no value for us. If we took it to a company, we’d have to tell where it was found. What is still worse, it would make them suspicious and they might investigate how we got it. See?”

“Then it’s no good?” Nacho asked.

“Can’t you understand plain Spanish, you mug?” Pablo shouted at him. “Miguel knows. He has worked in mines. He knows more than all these gringo engineers. And you heard what he said. It might easily give us away. Throw it away as quick as you can. It’s hot, too hot for us. My bags are already cleared of that dirt. What’s more, the packs will be less heavy, and so we can get away easier. Get rid of it.”

Nacho offered another explanation. “Miguel, I thought you were so smart, but you aren’t. And I can prove it. You may have worked in mines, but this mug here was the real American fraud and bluffer, a real American cheater, if you ask me. You wonder why these little bags of sand were so well hidden inside the wrapped hides. It’s all clear to me. No riddle any longer. He knew that the hides are sold by their weight, and he was such a dirty cheat that he put these little bags between the hides to make them weigh more. He wanted to sell the hides in bundles, perhaps late at night, somewhere on the plaza. And in the morning when the buyer opened his hides and found out the fraud, my good gringo would be a long way off with the train, saying: ‘Now, come and catch me.’ Well, I think we’ve spoiled his dirty business and saved a poor tanner’s hard-earned money.”

Pablo crouched about his packs, digging into them for better finds. “Who ever thought that these gringos would be such dirty skunks, cheating even a poor Mexican tanner?” he asked himself with a loud voice. “I don’t feel a bit sorry we finished him up and sent him straight to hell.”

Miguel admitted that he might have made a mistake in thinking that the bags contained samples for geological examinations. He found Nacho’s idea more to his liking and accepted it as the best explanation.

Then came the night breeze which carried all the sand, strewn about the ground, far and wide in all directions.

4

It was still dark when the three thieves packed up and went on their way farther back into the mountains. They wished to be as far away from civilization as possible and to stay away for the next ten weeks if they could.

Next day they reached a little Indian village high up in the Sierra Madre. Seeing a man in the street, Pablo went up to him and asked if he knew anyone who might want to buy a few burros which were no longer needed.

The Indian nodded and said: “Might be that I talce them.” He walked around the burros, inspected the brands, looked at the packs, and then, as if casually, looked at the high boots Miguel wore, which were quite a bit too large for his feet. With the same curious look the Indian stared at the pants Nacho had donned. He looked at everything as if he meant to buy the whole outfit, including the clothes the drivers were wearing.

When he was through with his inspection he said: “I can’t buy any burros now for myself, because I haven’t the cash. But my uncle may buy a few, perhaps all of them, if you mean to sell them all and the price is reasonable. He has got the money, my uncle has, to buy as many bestias as he wants.”