“And what about the Chink and the two Mexicans?”
“They walked by here — early — on Monday. I saw them from the window. As far as I know, they went to the Pozos station. By the way, why do you want to live in that shelter? You could stay in the house.”
I laughed. “No, Mr. Shine, I had enough of that house. I wouldn’t stick the tip of my boot inside it. It’s a real mosquito hell.”
“Well, suit yourself. I lived in it with my family for ten years and we weren’t troubled by mosquitoes. But you may be right. If a house like that hasn’t been used for some time, and isn’t properly aired, all sorts of vermin gather. Now and again I have the horses and mules driven up that way because of the good grass and the water hole. But I haven’t been up there for months and I’ve no idea what the place is like now. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter to me where you set up house. You’re no worry to me.”
So once again I rigged myself up in my shelter. This time I made my fire right in front of it. There was no point in making it near the little house where we’d had our campfire discussions; no one was there to talk with now.
7
I lived in wonderful solitude, my sole companions the lizards. After I’d been there about three days, two lizards got so used to me they forgot their innate timidity and went after the flies that hovered around my feet in search of crumbs.
I spent my days puttering around in the near bush, observing animals and their behavior; and the animals of the bush came and went through my open shelter, as was their right. I had brought back some old magazines from the oil camp and now had time for reading.
I could wallow in water. There had been several good downpours and the water tank was a third full, for we’d mended the rain troughs, of course. I could wash; I could even afford the luxury of washing twice a day.
Now I was able to buy what I wanted in the store; I had plenty of money and I treated myself well. I was neither thirsty nor hungry. I hadn’t a care in the world. I was a free man in the free bush, taking my nap when I pleased, roaming about when and where and as long as I liked. It was a good life and I enjoyed it to the full.
I drew the water I needed from the tank that lay by the old house. It had been lively there while my companions lived in the house; there were arguments around the campfire, words over a pinch of salt that one had taken without asking the owner, endless wrangles about whose turn it was to bring firewood, and the like. As I thought back on those vivid scenes, the house seemed eerily lonely and still. Every time I went over there to get water I had the urge to look inside to see if anyone had left anything behind. But then again, I liked the spooky silence that brooded over the place, and I hesitated to disturb it. It fitted in with the solitariness of the surrounding bush, as well as with the seclusion of my own life. So I suppressed the desire to go up the ladder and peep in. Of course I knew that the house would be empty, absolutely empty. No one would have left anything behind, not even the rags of an old shirt; for, to fellows like us, everything has its value. I even began to grow used to the air of mystery that hung over the place. I liked to think that perhaps the ghost of an old Aztec priest, unable to rest, had now fled from the bush into the house to find some repose from his restless wanderings.
One day when I went to get water, I noticed a blue-black spider with a shiny green head hunting her prey along a wall of the house. She’d run like lightning for a few inches, stop, lie in wait awhile, and then run again a short distance and wait again. Zigzagging in this way, she completely covered three feet on one plank of the wall. Not a single spot had been left uncrossed. Here and there she left a fine thread behind her, not to trap and ensnare any insects that might climb up the plank, but to slow their progress so that after searching and returning from neighboring planks she could spring at her prey and take it in one leap. This spider takes her prey in leaps. She springs at the insect from behind and seizes it by the neck so that whatever weapons of self-defense it may have, whether they are spikes, claws, or jaws, it has no chance to use them.
I’d been observing this type of spider for days and weeks on end during my frequent spells out of work, and this one immediately attracted my attention. I wanted to test her field of vision and discover what she’d do if she herself were attacked and pursued. I put my can of water on the ground and forgot that I’d been intending to cook myself some rice.
I moved my hand to and fro a fair distance above the spider. She reacted immediately. She became uneasy and her zigzag runs began to get irregular as she tried to escape from the great Something that might have been a bird. But the smooth plank offered no hiding place. She waited a while, ducked slowly and carefully, and then suddenly and quite unexpectedly leaped half an arm’s length to another board on the wall. The leap was as sure as if it had been executed on the level. The other board had a crack in it, so that it offered some refuge.
However, I allowed the spider no time to find the best spot. I took a thin twig and touched her lightly, forcing her to choose another route. She rushed away at frantic speed, but wherever she fled she always ran into the offensive twig which touched her head or her back. So she ran in all directions, always pursued by the twig which gave her no chance to get set for a leap. Suddenly, however, just as I was twigging her on the back, she turned around and, in a frantic rage and with impressive courage, attacked the twig. To a creature of her size — she was about an inch and a half long — the twig must have seemed an object of massive proportions and supernatural powers. Every time I withdrew the twig, which evidently made her think she had beaten back or at any rate intimidated her enemy, she tried to reach the protecting crack. Finally she did defeat me and found refuge there, but it wasn’t enough to hide her completely; half of her was still exposed.
I now slapped my hand flat against the wall. The spider promptly reappeared and hurried off, higher up, where she found a more favorable cavity in which she was now almost completely concealed.
To chase her out of there too, and see what she’d do in the last extremity, I slapped the wall with such force that the whole house shook.
The spider didn’t re-emerge. I waited a few seconds. When I was just about to hit the wall another time, something inside the house fell over with a thump.
Whatever could it be? I knew the inside of the house. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in there that could fall with such a strange sound. It could only have been a board or a chunk of wood; and yet, to judge from the noise, it was neither of these. It sounded more like a sackful of maize. But when I recalled the noise, I realized there had been something strangely hard about it too. So it couldn’t have been a sackful of maize.
It would have been simple enough to climb the few rungs of the ladder, push open the door, and look inside. But some inexplicable feeling held me back. It was as if I were afraid I’d discover something unspeakably horrible.
I picked up my can of water and went back to my shelter. I persuaded myself that it wasn’t a fear of seeing something horrible that was stopping me from going into the house. I said to myself: “You have no business in the house; you have no right to go in there, and in any case whatever is in there is no concern of yours.” That’s how I excused myself.
But when I was sitting by my fire, wondering what thing it could have been, a strange idea came to me: Someone had hanged himself in the house, some time ago; the rope had rotted or the neck had putrefied, and my striking at the wall had shaken the body, so that the corpse had fallen. It had sounded as if a human body had toppled over and the head had struck the floor.