Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998
- Автор: Alexander Gary, Crawford Dan
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN: 0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998». Краткое содержание книги:
Sulema was so happy that another woman lived in the area now. “Just knowing she’s there makes all the difference,” Sulema had told Efrain. The two women didn’t see much of each other. Olmedo made Sulema feel unwelcome the day she went over to visit Nydia. Sulema had then invited Nydia to come and visit her, but Olmedo had said, “If she goes visiting all day, what about my lunch? The girl will have to stay to cook for me.” Efrain didn’t even know the name of their daughter; she must be eleven or twelve, but he’d never heard her speak a word. Nydia had come over a few times when Olmedo sent her to borrow a spade from Efrain, but she’d always been in a hurry and could chat only a few minutes with Sulema.
The bellow of a cow brought Efrain back to the present. Her desperate voice told him that she was in trouble. He quickened his step.
It would have to be Olmedo’s cow. She was due to calve any time now, Efrain recalled. He hoped nothing had gone wrong with the delivery. Losing the calf would be a harsh blow to Olmedo in the first year of his homestead.
Olmedo was a hard worker, Efrain had to admit that. In the short time since he had begun the homestead, besides making the pasture he had planted a field with beans and com that would soon be ready for harvest. They’d bring a good price at the store. Recently Olmedo’s brother had arrived from the city, ostensibly to help Olmedo, but whenever Efrain passed the farm, Olmedo was out working while the brother lay in the hammock whittling and watching Nydia cook or sweep the dirt yard.
The cow lowed again. From the sound she was a little ahead and a few hundred yards off the trail. Why was she here in the forest and not in the pasture that Olmedo had cleared by his house? Every night Efrain brought their cow into the lean-to he’d built at one side of the house. During the day Sulema kept an eye on her to see that she didn’t stray while Efrain was out in the field.
Efrain turned to the right, following the sound. He jumped across a small brook and halted abruptly. In the damp clay was the mark of the creature he feared more than any other.
The print of a jaguar.
Efrain began to run up the hill toward the cow, then slowed as he read more of the story written on the ground and realized he was too late to save the calf.
Here were a man’s bootprints. They ran up the hill and walked back. That would be Olmedo, speeding to the cow’s rescue, then trudging home when he found he was too late. The cow must have come into the forest last night to calve, and the jaguar had taken her calf as soon as it was born. The drag marks were plain in the fallen leaves: the cat hauling its prey deeper into the forest.
Efrain continued up the hill. Here were a woman’s broad, barefoot prints — Nydia, coming with Olmedo to try to save the calf. Why hadn’t they taken the cow back to her pasture?
Now Efrain saw the cow. She was frantic, head high, breath whooshing, pacing back and forth through the trees.
Her calf lay bloody and dead on the ground.
Efrain stopped. The drag marks had been clear. Perhaps the cow had had twins and the jaguar had killed both but dragged only one away.
He walked closer.
The mangled pile wasn’t a calf.
It was Olmedo.
Efrain crossed himself.
Olmedo’s axe lay beside him. He had foolishly tried to chase away the jaguar, and it had killed him. Efrain had better check on Nydia.
He hurried down the hill to get back on the trail. This time as he jumped the brook he saw a glint of metal in its bed. A machete. Yes, that made sense. When the cow awoke them with her bellows, Olmedo would have snatched up the axe, Nydia the machete, and run to the sound. Then Nydia, panicked after seeing her husband slaughtered, fled toward the house and dropped the machete as she jumped the stream.
Efrain rounded the last bend in the trail before Olmedo’s little house made of palm fronds and saplings. Nydia was just walking out the door. She clutched a sack half full of dry beans. Her cooking pot protruded from the top. The silent girl was behind her.
Nydia stopped when she saw him.
“I found Olmedo,” he said. “What happened?”
“The jaguar killed him. We heard the cow in the night. He went to check and didn’t come back. After sunrise I looked for him and found him dead.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Going to my mother’s, in town.”
“We should bury him.”
“No shovel.”
Efrain didn’t want to go back to his house for the spade. That would delay him so that he wouldn’t be able to reach the store and still get home before dark, and he didn’t want Sulema to be alone at night. “We’ll put him in the house and burn it,” he told Nydia. “You’re not coming back?”
“No.”
“Throw some brush inside so it’ll burn well. I’ll bring him.”
Efrain returned to where Olmedo’s body lay. As he dragged it down the slope, he looked at the tangled tracks. Bare feet running uphill, bare feet walking down. Boots going up, boots coming down.
How could that be? Olmedo hadn’t walked down the hill.
Maybe he had run up, seen the jaguar, walked down to the stream, then gathered his courage and charged uphill at the cat?
Efrain couldn’t stop now to read the story better. He wanted to get Olmedo’s body out of his arms. It was heavy and slick with blood from the deep slashes the jaguar’s claws had made. He tried not to look.
Nydia stood by the shack, matches ready in her hand. She and the girl had collected dry brush and wood and piled it inside. Efrain laid the body in the center and backed out. Nydia touched a match to the kindling. It caught at once.
“Do you want to wait a while?” he asked her.
“No.”
They walked in silence down the trail that led to the store.
Efrain thought about the tracks and the machete washed clean in the stream.
When they reached the store, Nydia was in luck. A party of Indians was just leaving for town. They had found a gold nugget in the river and offered it to the storekeeper but hadn’t liked the price he set. They were going to walk to town in hopes of getting a higher price there. Nydia could go with them.
“Give Sulema the cow,” Nydia said before they started out.
Efrain had forgotten about the cow. His mind was filled with a picture that blotted out everything else: Olmedo running to save the calf, Nydia behind him with the machete, both arriving after the jaguar had dragged it away. The two of them walking back toward their house. Olmedo in front, naturally. Perhaps he slipped and fell. Nydia, in a split second, realized that no one was likely to notice the difference between jaguar claws and machete cuts. A few quick blows, then she’d dragged him uphill to the already bloody spot where the jaguar had killed the calf.
Nydia was staring at him. Efrain found his voice. “Sulema will miss you.” He thought of something. “What happened to Olmedo’s brother?”
“He left yesterday. Said he was tired of country life.”
Nydia, the girl, and the Indians set off for town. Efrain finished his trading, collected coconuts, shucking them with his machete, and hurried toward home.
Embers still smoldered as he passed Olmedo’s house at dusk. Efrain started when he realized a person was standing by the ruins.
“Efrain! What happened here?” It was Olmedo’s brother. He looked upset.
“A jaguar killed Olmedo. We put him in the house and burned it because we didn’t have a shovel here to bury him.”
“Where’s the woman?”
“She left.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you went away.”
“Well, I got halfway to town, and then I started thinking it wasn’t right to leave Olmedo with so much work. I should come back and give him a hand. Now it’s too late to help him, but my duty is to take care of his farm. That’s what he would want.”