Only Curtin was sent out for provisions, for he knew best how to handle the burros and make them work; for the same reason he was in charge of carrying the water up to the mine. Going down to the village for buying or trading was far from being a vacation trip. It was more tiresome than working at the mine. Trading was carried on with the general storekeeper in the village merely for camouflaging the real doings at the mine. Curtin usually took down for exchange a few hides, for which he received close to nothing because the storekeeper claimed that he had no buyers for them. Most of what Curtin bought was paid for in cash.
One might have expected that whenever Curtin returned from the village he would bring back with him news from the outside world, but he did not. Nobody in this little village of very small Indian farmers ever read a newspaper. There would hardly have been found four persons in the village, including the storekeeper, who could read at all. If by any strange accident a newspaper came to the village, usually in the form of wrapping for goods received at the store, it was seldom less than ten months old. The storekeeper did not wrap up anything bought from him, because he had no paper for such a purpose. His patrons had to find for themselves a way to carry home their merchandise. This was of no concern to the storekeeper, as there was no competition, and besides, being the mayor, he was king, law, judge, and executioner all in one.
Since the papers were printed in Spanish, the three partners, not being on very easy terms with the Spanish language, would have got little out of them anyway. Of course, Curtin would speak to the storekeeper and to other men hanging around in the store, but they knew nothing beyond the affairs of their little community_an occasional murder, a wife-beating, the mysterious disappearance of a cow or a goat, the strange dryness of the present season. The burning of don Paulino’s hut, a tiger breaking into the corral of the widow of don Modesto, the death of don Gonzalo’s two youngest children, who had been stung by scorpions, and the paralysis of don Antonio on account of the bite of a venomous snake were the topics they discussed.
This sort of village talk was of no interest to the partners, and if Curtin mentioned it at all, it was just to tell something of what he had learned. Howard and Dobbs hardly listened. They would have been little stirred by hearing who had been nominated for president by the conventions of the Democrats and the G.O.P. Any interest in world affairs would have had a bad influence upon their work. Right now they could not afford to think of anything but how to finish up this job satisfactorily. The fact was they had no interest in anything beyond their vision, and this vision did not go farther than how to make money and, having made it, how to spend it.
2
Howard hollered for Dobbs.
Curtin opened the packs and handed out the goods he had brought. Evening was not far off, and so they decided to knock off work for the day, cook the meal, and have a long lazy chat afterwards, with pipes filled with fresh tobacco.
“What seems to be the trouble with you, Curty?” Howard asked, noticing that Curtin had not said a word for half an hour.
“I had to go a hell of a roundabout way to get back here, I tell you guys.”
“How come?”
“It’s like this, see. Down there in that damn Indian lay-out a guy was hanging around and he sort of blocked me. He said he was from Arizona, that mug did.”
“He would be,” Howard said.
Dobbs had become suspicious. “What is he after?”
“Ask me another. That’s what I wanted to find out. But, hell, he kept his trap shut as to that. The natives told me that he had taken up quarters in a dirty little joint down there, a kind of a mule-drivers’ lodging and boarding joint, or what they call here a fonda. He has been staying there practically a week. Doing nobody any harm. Talking quite swell Spanish. Seems to go along fine with those villagers. Doesn’t drink, either. And besides he sure doesn’t look like a tough gunner or as if he was chased for something he left to be settled with the D.A. No, looks rather decent, he does.”
“Hell, come to the point.” Dobbs was nervous.
“I wish I could. That’s just the trouble, I can’t see through; it’s all thick. Well, fact is, he asked the natives if there might be gold or silver mines around here.”
“The hell! He would ask that.” Howard dropped his pipe, so startled was he by that remark.
“To this the Indians said no, there could be no gold or silver around here or they would know it, living here since the world began, and if there were any, they sure would like it, because they can hardly make their living, and if they didn’t put in a heap of extra work by braiding mats and baskets and making pottery to sell in far-off towns, they would have to live like savages, with nothing to cover the nakedness of their bodies.”
