“Then we are in a goddamn hole, I can tell you,” Howard said. “With soldiers or police or a posse we would at least have a chance to explain and defend ourselves and see somebody who looks like a judge and who means to judge rightly. But with bandits we’ve not even a Chinaman’s chance in the hands of Chinese highwaymen.”
Hearing this, Dobbs jerked his body around to Lacaud, saying: “Still the same crook—I think that’s what you are.”
Howard butted in. “Aw, leave him alone, for hell’s sake. We got to work fast now.”
Dobbs did not mind the old man. “Still a spy, as I thought from the first. Only not a spy for the government, but a spy for the bandits, to do the inside job. Too bad for you that we found that out before you got them here.”
“Wrong again, brother. I have nothing to do with bandits either. And if you men don’t stop being suspicious and accusing me of things I never thought or even imagined, you may be short one full-grown man. Within an hour or so you will need not only every man around here, but every hand and every gun, or you won’t see the sun rise tomorrow morning or thereafter. Just let me have another look. Maybe I can even tell you what sort of bandits they are, because in the village I heard tales that were certainly not rumors.”
Once more he climbed to the look-out, followed by Curtin and Dobbs.
“As I thought,” he said after a long glance down.
“What do you think?” Curtin asked.
“Do you see among the riders a man wearing a wide-brimmed golden hat on his head that glitters in the sun?” he asked Curtin.
“No, I can’t see him,” Curtin answered. But after a closer look he added: “Yes, I think—well, let’s see, yes, there he is. A hat like those usually worn by the Indian farmers, wide-brimmed and high. Seems to be a palm hat.”
“It is a palm hat, but painted with shining gold paint, as unskilled Mexican workers paint their hats for fun whenever they are employed at a shop where there is gold or aluminum paint for painting oil-tanks and such things.”
“Seems to be a sort of captain to the horde,” Curtin said, still looking.
“He is the captain all right, the chief of the outfit. Now I know well who they are and why they are coming this way. Last week I was at the hacienda of don Genaro Montereal, ten miles from the village, where I stayed overnight. Senor Montereal had the papers and he read them to me, or, better, he told what was in the papers from the capital. This golden hat was mentioned in the description of the bandits. That man sure has courage not to change his hat. No doubt he is unable to read and so doesn’t know that his band has been described, man by man, and horse by horse. What I couldn’t gather from the papers don Genaro was reading I heard in the village from the people who had returned from town bringing the latest news with them. I will tell you the story, and then you’ll understand why I said: May the Lord be with us if they come up and find us. After I’ve told you the story, you will no longer believe me a spy of these killers, whatever else you may think of me. I would rather help the devil fire the boilers in hell than have anything in common with these bandits.”
While all four men were sitting on the peak watching every move the bandits made below in the valley, Lacaud told the story of the bandits.
Chapter 12
At a little, unimportant station of the railroad which links the western states of the republic with the eastern, the passenger train stopped only long enough to take on the mail and express, if any, and to hand out mail_bags, a few chunks of ice, and a few goods ordered by the merchants. The town, a very small one, was located three miles away from the depot, and connected with it by a poor dirt road on which a rattling flivver would occasionally be seen asthmatically making its way.
Passengers boarding the train or leaving it at this station were seldom many. Half a week would pass by at times without any arrivals or departures.
The east-bound train stopped about eight in the evening, which in a tropical country is pitch-dark summer and winter alike.
Anyway, neither the station-master nor the conductor of the train was very much surprised when, one Friday night, more than twenty passengers, all mestizos, boarded the train at the depot. From their simple clothing they were sure that they were peasants and small farmers going to the Saturday market in one of the bigger towns or working-men on their way to a mine or to road work. The station-master, nevertheless, thought it a bit strange that these men did not buy tickets from him. Still, this happened frequently, particularly if there were many and if they were late. They might arrange the fare with the conductor on the train. He was glad in a way that they did not ask him for their tickets, because he was busy enough checking the express and seeing to his many duties as the only depot official.
