Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [111]
¡Desviación! ¡Hombres Trabajando!
With a yelping of tyres and brakes they made the detour leftward too quickly. But Hugh had seen a man, whom they'd narrowly missed, apparently lying fast asleep under the hedge on the right side of the road.
Neither Geoffrey nor Yvonne, staring sleepily out of the opposite window, had seen him. Nor did anyone else, were they aware of it, seem to think it peculiar a man should choose to sleep, however perilous his position, in the sun on the main road.
Hugh leaned forward to call out, hesitated, then tapped the driver on the shoulder; almost at the same moment the bus leaped to a standstill.
Guiding the whining vehicle swiftly, steering an erratic course with one hand, the driver, craning out of his seat to watch the corners behind and before, reversed out of the detour back into the narrow highway.
The friendly harsh smell of exhaust gases was tempered with the hot tar smell from the repairs, ahead of them now, where the road was broader with a wide grass margin between it and the hedge, though nobody was working there, everyone knocked off for the day possibly hours before, and there was nothing to be seen, just the soft, indigo carpet sparkling and sweating away to itself.
There appeared now, standing alone in a sort of rubbish heap where this grass margin stopped, opposite the detour, a stone wayside cross. Beneath it lay a milk bottle, a funnel, a sock, and part of an old suitcase.
And now, farther back still, in the road, Hugh saw the man again. His face covered by a wide hat, he was lying peacefully on his back with his arms stretched out towards this wayside cross, in whose shadow, twenty feet away, he might have found a grassy bed. Nearby stood a horse meekly cropping the hedge.
As the bus jerked to another stop the pelado, who was still lying down, almost slid from the seat to the floor. Managing to recover himself though, he not only reached his feet and an equilibrium he contrived remarkably to maintain but had, with one strong counter-movement, arrived half-way to the exit, crucifix fallen safely in place around his neck, hats in one hand, what remained of the melon in the other. With a look that might have withered at its inception any thought of stealing them, he placed the hats carefully on a vacant seat near the door, then, with exaggerated care, let himself down to the road. His eyes were still only half open, and they preserved a dead glaze. Yet there could be no doubt he had already taken in the whole situation. Throwing away the melon he started over towards the man, stepping tentatively, as over imaginary obstacles. But his course was straight, he held himself erect.
Hugh, Yvonne, the Consul, and two of the male passengers got out and followed him. None of the old women moved.
It was stiflingly hot in the sunken deserted road. Yvonne gave a nervous cry and turned on her heel; Hugh caught her arm.
"Don't mind me. It's just that I can't stand the sight of blood, damn it."
She was climbing back into the camión as Hugh came up with the Consul and the two passengers.
The pelado was swaying gently over the recumbent man who was dressed in the usual loose white garments of the Indian.
There was not, however, much blood in sight, save on one side of his hat.
But the man was certainly not sleeping peacefully. His chest heaved like a spent swimmer's, his stomach contracted and dilated rapidly, one fist clenched and unclenched in the dust...
Hugh and the Consul stood helplessly, each, he thought, waiting for the other to remove the Indian's hat, to expose the wound each felt must be there, checked from such action by a common reluctance, perhaps an obscure courtesy. For each knew the other was also thinking it would be better still should one of the passengers, even the pelado, examine the man.
As nobody made any move at all Hugh grew impatient. He shifted from foot to foot. He looked at the Consul expectantly: he'd been in this country long enough to know what should be done, moreover he was the one among them most nearly representing authority. Yet the Consul seemed lost in reflection. Suddenly Hugh stepped forward impulsively and bent over the Indian--one of the passengers plucked his sleeve.