Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [112]
"Har you throw your cigarette?"
"Throw it away." The Consul woke up. "Forest fires."
"So--, they have prohibidated it."
Hugh stamped his cigarette out and was about to bend over the man once more when the passenger again plucked his sleeve:
"No, no," he said, tapping his nose, "they har prohibidated that, también."
"You can't touch him--it's the law," said the Consul sharply, who looked now as though he would like to get as far from this scene as possible, if necessary even by means of the Indian's horse. "For his protection. Actually it's a sensible law. Otherwise you might become an accessory after the fact."
The Indian's breathing sounded like the sea dragging itself down a stone beach.
A single bird flew, high.
"But the man may be dy--" Hugh muttered to Geoffrey.
"God, I feel terrible," the Consul replied, though it was a fact he was about to take some action, when the pelado anticipated him: he went down on one knee and, quick as lightning, whipped off the Indian's hat.
They all peered over, seeing the cruel wound on the side of his head, where the blood had almost coagulated, the flushed moustachioed face turned aside, and before they stood back Hugh caught a glimpse of a sum of money, four or five silver pesos and a handful of centavos, that had been placed neatly under the loose collar to the man's blouse, which partly concealed it. The pelado replaced the hat and, straightening himself, made a hopeless gesture with hands now blotched with half-dried blood.
How long had he been here, lying in the road?
Hugh gazed after the pelado on his way back to the camión, and then, once more, at the Indian, whose life, as they talked, seemed gasping away from them all. "Diantre! ¿Donde buscamos un medico?" he asked stupidly.
This time from the camión, the pelado made again that gesture of hopelessness, which was also like a gesture of sympathy: what could they do, he appeared trying to convey to them through the window, how could they have known, when they got out, that they could do nothing?
"Move his hat farther down though so that he can get some air," the Consul said, in a voice that betrayed a trembling tongue; Hugh did this and, so swiftly he did not have time to see the money again, also placed the Consul's handkerchief over the wound, leaving it held in place by the balanced sombrero.
The driver now came for a look, tall, in his white shirt sleeves, and soiled whipcord breeches like bellows,, inside high-laced, dirty boots. With his bare tousled head, laughing dissipated intelligent face, shambling yet athletic gait, there was something lonely and likeable about this man whom Hugh had seen twice before walking by himself in the town.
Instinctively you trusted him. Yet here, his indifference seemed remarkable; still, he had the responsibility of the bus, and what could he do, with his pigeons?
From somewhere above the clouds a lone plane let down a single sheaf of sound.
--"Pobrecito."
--"Chingar!"
Hugh was aware that gradually these remarks had been taken up as a kind of refrain around him--for their presence, together with the camión having stopped at all, had ratified approach at least to the extent that another male passenger, and two peasants hitherto unnoticed, and who knew nothing, had joined the group about the stricken man whom nobody touched again--a quiet rustling of futility, a rustling of whispers, in which the dust, the heat, the bus itself with its load of immobile old women and doomed poultry, might have been conspiring, while only these two words, the one of compassion, the other of obscene contempt, were audible above the Indian's breathing.
The driver, having returned to his camión, evidently satisfied all was as it should be save he had stopped on the wrong side of the road, now began to blow his horn, yet far from this producing the desired effect, the rustling punctuated by a heckling accompaniment of indifferent blasts, turned into a general argument.
Was it robbery, attempted murder, or both? The Indian had probably ridden from market, where he'd sold his wares, with much more than that four or five pesos hidden by the hat, with mucho dinero, so that a good way to avoid suspicion of theft was to leave a little of the money, as had been done. Perhaps it wasn't robbery at all, he had only been thrown from his horse? Posseebly. Imposseebly.