A Sweet Scent of Death

by Guillermo Arriaga

  He dropped from the corrugated roof, tied the mule to a post, and hurried to Jacinto Cruz’ corral.

  He found him, along with Macedonio, cutting out the steer they had slaughtered the day before.

  ‘He’s here,’ he shouted.

  ‘Who?’

  Exasperated, Torcuato answered, ‘The Gypsy…who the hell do you think!’

  Jacinto stood up and wiped the blood off his hands with a piece of newspaper. ‘Is he here already?’ he asked naturally.

  ‘No, but he won’t be long,’ responded Torcuato impatiently.

  Jacinto thought a moment.

  ‘Go tell Ramón, tell him to get ready; that the Gypsy’s here and that I’ll take him to the store.’

  Torcuato got his instructions, jumped the corral fence, and ran with the news.

  ‘And you,’ said Jacinto to Macedonio, ‘gather up as many as you can and hang out near the store in case things get ugly.’

  Macedonio headed for the fields to gather the others. Jacinto wrapped the meat and put it into a burlap bag. He stuck his cutting-out knife into its sheath, and slipped it inside his shirt. He figured the best way to intercept the Gypsy was to wait for him outside Rutilio Buenaventura’s house, where the Gypsy would surely go first of all, and then invite him to Ramón’s store for a beer.

  He went through the gate to the lot and saw Pascual running into the village, yelling, ‘Here he comes, here he comes…’

  3

  Justino Téllez put the glass of milk back on the table and pushed himself back in his chair. He had heard Pascual’s warning cries and the murmuring that followed them. Now he could hear the rumble of the Gypsy’s approaching pick-up.

  He closed his eyes. He had heard that peculiar sound that precedes a violent death many times before. It was the same sound he had heard the morning the three Jiménez brothers murdered Nazario Duarte; the same sound he had heard the night Rogaciano Duarte torched Hipólito Jiménez’ hut in revenge, reducing it to ashes along with its owner, his wife and two daughters; the same sound the afternoon eight undercover cops had ambushed Adalberto Garibay and riddled him with lead, mistaking him for a drug-dealer. The same sound: running steps in the dust, voices, men back and forth, and then a ragged silence. In short, a sound you can only hear in your head.

  He picked up the glass and gently swirled its contents. He contemplated the milk sticking to the walls of the glass and then sliding viscously down. He could, at that very moment, go out onto the highway and warn the Gypsy of the imminent attack. He could go to Ramón’s store and make it clear to Ramón that the Gypsy had nothing whatever to do with the crime against his girlfriend, if Adela was indeed his steady girl, and that the same man who had had sex with her minutes before her death was the one who had stuck the knife in her, and that it wasn’t worth avenging her by spilling innocent blood. He could, in front of all of them, reveal the secret game of the real murderer, who quite probably was instigating the circumstances their would bring about the mortal encounter between Ramón and the Gypsy. He could, once and for all, silence the sounds of impending violent death that were boring into his ears. But he did none of those. He just sat and watched the milk slide down the sides of the glass.

  4

  She undressed and poured several glasses of water over her hair, letting the water run over her torso to refresh it. She would have to overcome yet another morning of heat and dust.

  She switched on the portable radio and turned up the volume. Sitting on the bed to brush her hair, she hummed along with the cumbia on the radio, until she finished brushing. Looking into the mirror, she could see tiny, almost imperceptible wrinkles around her eyes, which made her frown with disappointment. Long ago, her grandmother had told her that women who began to show wrinkles were like fruit that was beginning to rot. That was a lie: she had begun to rot long before.

  She left the mirror and went to the kitchen cupboard; she was hungry. As she passed the window, she saw Pascual Ortega through the gauze curtains, running in the distance past the school windows. He was yelling something, but she could not make out what it was, over the noise of the radio. She turned it down, but could no longer hear him, and stood thoughtfully for a moment. Suddenly the sound of an automobile motor reached her. She pricked up her ears: it was unmistakable. She pulled back the curtain, not caring that she might be seen naked from the street, and stuck her head out, trying to hear where the sound was coming from. When she turned to the right, her heart pounded: his black pick-up was turning the corner.

  Delighted, Gabriela jumped to the bed and pulled out her box of clothes. She began to dress hurriedly and suddenly stopped.

  ‘They’re going to kill him,’ she exclaimed out loud.

  She wrapped a sheet around herself and ran to the door. She had to head him off, warn him that they were going to kill him, tell him they ought to run away together. She heard him lean on the horn three times: the signal that he would meet her at the usual place in half an hour. Anguished, she pulled the bolt and yanked open the door.

  Realizing the Gypsy was accelerating, in despair she ran out half-naked to try to catch him, and shouted, ‘Gypsy!’ but nothing more, because Ranulfo Quirarte, leaning against a lamppost, asked her what she wanted.

  5

  He stopped in front of Rutilio Buenaventura’s house, turned off the motor, and sat with his hands on the wheel. Everything seemed quiet to him, but he had better be cautious. Carmelo Lozano was not the kind to issue idle warnings. He cranked down the windows so that air could circulate and cool the cab, and got out. He walked to the entrance to Rutilio’s lot, and gave him his usual warning whistle. There was no answer from the old man.

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  The Gypsy spun around towards the voice behind him and met Jacinto Cruz’ friendly smile.

  ‘I came looking for him too,’ added Jacinto, ‘but he doesn’t answer…he hasn’t even put the chickens out yet.’

  That was the first thing Rutilio did when he woke up—let the chickens loose—and they could still be heard squawking inside the house.

  Jacinto Cruz took off his hat to wipe away the sweat dripping onto his forehead.

  ‘The sun’s already scorching,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go have a beer till the old man gets up? On me.’

  The Gypsy turned down the offer: ‘I’d sooner wait here.’

  But Jacinto persisted, patting him on the back: ‘Why sweat it? Sometimes Rutilio doesn’t get up till nine or ten. Ah, c’mon, we won’t be long.’

  The Gypsy had no reason to be suspicious of Jacinto. On earlier visits to Loma Grande, they had even got drunk together.

  ‘Just let me take a look inside to see if he’s awake yet,’ he said and, pushing the gate open, stepped into the lot.

  Nervously, Jacinto watched him go to the house. Rutilio could warn him and spoil the whole plan.

  The Gypsy peered through the window and came back.

  ‘He’s asleep in the rocker.’

  ‘So whadaya say?’

  ‘All right, let’s go.’

  6

  Four times he picked up the ice-pick and four times put it down. It was an entirely different ice-pick from the one he had grasped the previous afternoon. It was shaped differently, had another texture, other proportions. This one was ungraspable, didn’t fit in the hand.

  In desperation Torcuato watched Ramón’s futile efforts to hide the ice-pick inside the left cuff of his shirt.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he barked.

  Ramón picked it up again, trying to steady his fingers, but couldn’t. He put it down on the counter again.

  ‘You’re backing out,’ roared Torcuato.

  He wasn’t; he just couldn’t find a way to hide the weapon in the folds of his sleeve. Nor could he find a way to stop the pounding pulse in his temples, or loosen up the cramped muscles in his forearm. Torcuato had brought the news too soon. He couldn’t prepare himself to kill, or be killed, so suddenly. No, not like that.

  Torcuato tried to
settle the ice-pick inside Ramón’s shirt, but so roughly that it fell to the floor. Suddenly Macedonio appeared in the doorway and whispered, ‘Here they come.’

  Ramón scooped up the ice-pick in his right hand and grasped it with all his might. He would not let go of it again.

  Peeping through a hole in the wall, Torcuato saw Jacinto and the Gypsy approaching.

  ‘Have you let the air out of his tires?’ he asked.

  Macedonio nodded, and Torcuato turned back to watch.

  ‘They’re passing Marcelino’s house,’ he said. Ramón clamped his jaws and took a deep breath.

  ‘Don’t let him get away,’ said Torcuato as he and Macedonio slipped out to hide.

  Ramón stepped behind the counter, covered the ice-pick with a cloth and held it as low as possible.

  7

  The clues that alerted the Gypsy’s intuition to a surprise attack were minimal, barely perceptible: curious glances from women peeping out of windows as he passed, men surreptitiously slipping from one corner to another, and a ragged silence that was unusual for the village at that hour of the morning.

  Without becoming too alarmed, the Gypsy prepared to face any assault, tensing his muscles and carefully studying every corner.

  When they reached the store, he immediately stood with his back to the counter. He wanted the entrance before him so that he could spot any strange movement. He cared nothing for Ramón behind him, the storekeeper was no danger to him at all.

  Jacinto said a clipped ‘Good day’, which Ramón, breathless, was unable to answer. He was trying to control the trembling that shook him from head to toe.

  Jacinto took two beers from the cooler and opened them.

  ‘We’re going to have a couple of beers,’ he said to Ramón with a conspiratorial smile, and turned to hand the Gypsy one of them. The Gypsy took it with his left, keeping his right free for whatever was going to happen.

  Jacinto took a pull at his bottle and leaned against the wall next to the doorway. The Gypsy kept an attentive eye on him.

  They began to chat. Ramón, still behind the counter, was unable to control his nerves. Outlined against the light from the door, the Gypsy looked taller and stronger than he remembered. He thought he could never kill him.

  Jacinto, anxious about the boy’s nervousness, finished his beer and asked for another. Ramón guessed that was the signal to act. He came around the counter towards the cooler to pass in front of the Gypsy, and shivered. The man straightened up to let him pass.

  Ramón stopped next to the cooler, just to the left of the Gypsy. The ice-pick vibrated between his fingers. He raised his eyes and glimpsed the spot where he would thrust it. Slowly, he let the cloth fall away, leaving the ice-pick visible.

  His attention on the doorway, the Gypsy did not realize that Ramón was armed. He raised the bottle in his left hand to take a drink. Ramón saw the sweat stain under his armpit and aimed for it, sinking the ice-pick into it up to the handle and pulling it out again in one motion.

  At the blow, the Gypsy staggered two steps and grasped a shelf to steady himself. He felt a sharp hot pain in his side and lifted his hand to the hole in his armpit. It came away wet and he raised it, surprised to see it dripping red, as if doubting that the blood was flowing from himself. He felt the would again, looking at Ramón.

  ‘You son of a whore,’ he murmured.

  Brandishing the beer bottle, he smashed it furiously against the counter. Frightened, Ramón backed off, grasping the ice-pick, ready to attack. The Gypsy shook his head, sucked a lungful of air and, as his chest swelled, the bloodstain spread in a circle on his shirt. Giddy with death, he walked the three meters to the doorway and, swaying, held on to the frame. He looked out at a couple of women staring at him in consternation.

  ‘No more,’ he gasped, and gasped again for air. Then he clenched his fists, his face distorted with pain, and collapsed slowly forward as if he were bending over to pick up a coin from the floor, until he fell heavily onto the dry dust of the street.

  Ramón slid along the counter and watched the Gypsy’s last gasp from inside the store.

  8

  The body lay face down, sweaty cheek squashed into the dust, eyes open, looking sideways. Jacinto approached it and put the palm of his hand under the nose to see if there was still any breath.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ asked Torcuato, arriving along with Macedonio and Pascual to surround the corpse.

  ‘No,’ answered Jacinto laconically. He stood up and entered the store, to find Ramón pale and trembling.

  ‘You’ve got to get away from here,’ he ordered.

  Ramón looked at him apprehensively.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Anywhere, but beat it now.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jacinto did not answer. From his silence, Ramón understood that his departure was inevitable. He opened a box under the counter and, taking all the money there was in it, went out into the street.

  He studied his enemy’s body for a moment and then began to run.

  Having watched the murder through her crack in the wall, the widow Castaños emerged nervously from the house to see her son disappear into the distance.

  9

  He ran and ran along path after path, finally stopping when his legs gave out, to sit on a rock and rest. He was far from Loma Grande, far beyond the Pastores Ejido. He examined the bloody ice-pick still in his hand, and cleaned it with saliva until no sign of blood remained. Then he shoved it into his belt.

  The morning seemed to him empty of all its usual features. The heat was no longer the same as every day, nor the breeze, nor the chirping of the cicadas. Something had changed everything and made it different.

  He was thirsty and hungry. It seemed a mistake not to have fled along the path bordering the Guayalejo river. There at least he would have had access to water and could have stolen crayfish from the traps. Now the river was several kilometers away.

  He walked through a rock-strewn field, looking for something to eat. Finally, in a stand of sorghum he stripped a handful of seeds from a plant, first testing them with the tip of his tongue for insecticide. It was the season for private growers to hire crop-dusters. The seeds weren’t bitter, indicating that they were free of insecticide, and he devoured them by the handful.

  Leaving the sorghum, he checked the position of the sun and headed north, thinking it best to go to his brother in Kansas.

  He walked along a dirt road for several minutes and suddenly stopped, searching vainly in his pockets for Adela’s photograph. It was not there. He wanted to go back to Loma Grande and risk everything for her once more. Then it seemed crazy. After all, who was Adela? He headed north again, but after a few paces stopped again: Adela was everything and he could not forget her, simply couldn’t. He turned around to see Bernal Hill in the distance, and began to walk south, moving faster and faster. Soon he would have Adela again, be it only in the shape of a wrinkled, three-quarter-profile, black-

  and-white photograph.