Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by G. C. Edmondson

  Some time later he heard a noise—as if someone were trying to get up and open a ventilator. Whoever it was apparently changed his mind or lost interest.

  There was no noise at all when Burgess pulled up at the sentry box where soldiers guard Rodriguez Dam from an imaginary danger. They waved the truck through and he drove out on the narrow, fenced-in highway which crosses the top. Halfway across, the dam takes a sharp left turn. When Burgess had crossed and driven far enough down the road to be hidden from the soldiers, he pulled up and turned off the lights. He waited a moment, expecting blows or bullets—but nothing happened. Very quietly, he opened the door and slipped out. Then stars wheeled crazily across the sky and in the instant before hard-packed soil ground into his face, Burgess remembered how dizzy he used to get on his mother’s piano stool.

  There was dried blood on his nose and lip when he woke. Lifting his head, Burgess saw his truck silhouetted in starlight. As he crawled from the ditch he realized that the motor was still idling. He didn’t know how weak he was until he tried to stand. Finally he opened the door and, half falling, turned off the idling engine. When the interior had aired, Burgess turned on the inside light and looked for rope. He couldn’t find it. He stepped outside and took several deep breaths.

  Deep breathing made his head ache even worse and then he vomited. As his mind cleared he saw that the fat man and his companions would not need tying up. He sat on the running board, head between his knees, and waited for his head to stop spinning. A car came across the dam. Burgess knew he’d be invisible from where he sat. Before he could get up the car sped by. He sat a while longer, alternately gagging and wheezing, until the chill drove him inside the camper in search of a jacket.

  When he turned the inside light on again, the first thing that caught his eye was the satchel. He fumbled at the catches and opened it. Burgess thought he was immune to excitement. Fingering the neat bundles of currency, he understood that one never is. Crisp newness mingled with wrinkled decrepitude. Burgess breathed deeper than ever as he realized there was one chance in a million of ever tracing these bills.

  He thought long and hard of the times he’d been suckered. Partner, wife, friends, even the fat man and his pals. Total strangers went out of their way to pour it on to good old Burgess. In San Diego he could return to a hero’s welcome. Maybe he’d get an even bigger writeup than the time he’d won the yellowtail derby. And then he could go back to a lonely room behind the garage and try to earn enough money to replace what had been stolen from the partnership. Burgess fingered the bills in the glow of the six-volt bulb and decided it was time to stop being a sucker.

  Fred was the lightest. Breathing raggedly, Burgess horsed the chain twirler around into the driver’s seat and sat on Fred’s lap to drive back to the dam. When he reached it, Burgess stopped and removed the satchel and a blanket. He put the truck in gear and pulled the hand throttle out all the way. As he jumped off the running board Fred opened his eyes and looked blearily at him. Burgess realized with a start that he’d been taking it for granted that he’d already killed four men.

  The truck would go right through the concrete railing when it reached the right angle turn in the center. There wasn’t much water in the dam this time of year but there was a two-hundred-foot drop and enough water to do the job . . . The truck made a crunching noise and he saw hood and pieces of engine fly overboard in the instant before the lights went out. But the concrete held.

  As Burgess turned and walked in the opposite direction, he saw flashlights bobbing down the highway and soldiers running. In a few minutes the place would be swarming with federates and the Cruz Roja ambulance would be scaring cows and chickens with its siren.

  He walked nearly a mile before coming to a shack where some optimist was trying to get a crop without water. On the clothesline hung a pair of ragged bib overalls of the wide Mexican cut that helps Immigration men spot a wetback a mile away. Burgess helped himself to the overalls and a few feet of clothesline, holding his breath and waiting for a dog to start barking.

  A half mile down the road he rolled his American style pants and the blanket around the satchel. He knotted the clothesline around the bundle, leaving an extra loop to go over his forehead. This transmuted the pack into a mecapal and Burgess into one of the Mexican hobos to whom he occasionally gave rides as he sought better fishing and they tramped in the endless search for a better job.

  The moon rose over a peak of the eastern sierra. Burgess squinted at his wrist watch from various angles and decided it must be midnight. He wished he hadn’t given up smoking. It was a fine time not to be carrying matches. The dizziness came and went. He forced himself to breathe deeply, knowing only deep breathing and time could induce the monoxide to release its stranglehold on his hemoglobin. In spite of the open window and careful breathing he had got a bad dose. Not as bad as the fat man and his pals, though, he thought grimly. He looked over his shoulder and the newly risen moon outlined the shack behind him.

  As he stumped along, methodically panting in time to his march, Burgess realized that his conscience was bothering him. The money would be replaced by anonymous stockholders in some insurance company and Burgess could not force himself to sympathize with their loss. The fat man and his pals richly deserved all they got and more. But as he looked back where he’d stolen the only pair of overalls and part of the clothes-line, Burgess felt an actual physical sickness. He wanted to leave some money but that would only leave a trail that might bring him all sorts of unpleasantness.

  He walked another mile or two before the monotony was broken by a cornfield. A diesel-engined pump was pushing water through an irrigation canal. He decided to chance a drink. When the water hit his stomach he felt sick again. He lay down between the rows of corn and pillowed his head on the bundle. He was still thinking about the overalls as he fell asleep.

  A cold, gray dawn had replaced the moon when he woke again, trembling, wondering why he hadn’t thought to wrap up in the blanket. He stood and this time was not so dizzy. He decided the worst of the poison had ventilated itself from his bloodstream. He stripped an ear of corn from one of the stalks. Even raw it tasted good. He was stuffing three more ears into his shirt when a voice yelled “¡Alto!”

  A stocky, mahogany-colored man of about forty-five, with a cottontail rabbit dangling from his belt, was pointing a shotgun at him. Just my luck, Burgess thought, to run into a farmer who likes to hunt at daybreak. The ranchero walked toward him with the shotgun at port arms. Burgess stood motionless, no longer caring. He hadn’t shaved for two days, hadn’t eaten for one.

  He didn’t fully appreciate what the ragged overalls could contribute to his appearance. The ranchero looked him up and down and fingered his handlebar mustache with his free hand, trying to look ferocious. It was a losing battle. “Hungry?” he asked in gruff Spanish.

  Burgess could almost feel the light bulb glowing above his head like an old-time cartoon as he understood that opportunity was knocking. With his lank dark hair and thin face he could be Mexican as easily as gringo except for one thing: accent. Could he fool a native? He pressed his tongue down hard against the back of his teeth and pretended it grew that way. “Sí, señor. Mucho,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Come,” the ranchero said.

  The ranch house was set back from the road, half hidden in a grove of pepper trees. A foot-wide creek flowed through the back yard. Children of all ages swarmed over a wide veranda, almost as thickly as the flies. “Wait here,” the ranchero said. Burgess waited on the veranda. Boys regarded him with mild curiosity. Girls suddenly had things to do inside the house. In a moment the smaller children were all over him, touching his white skin cautiously, picking at his bundle. The knots seemed fairly tight. He tossed it in a corner and the children promptly lost interest.

  A fat, cheerful woman came out on the veranda with a plate. “Cowboys on horseback,” she said. She nodded approvingly as Burgess devoured fried eggs drowned in chili sauce, over crisp fried tor
tillas. “Elena!” she yelled.

  A tall girl came out with a plate of fried beans and more tortillas. She wore faded levis and an off-the-shoulder Mayan blouse. As she strode back inside the house Burgess studied the braids coiled high on her head. His glance switched to the levis and he decided it was, in a way of speaking, nice to see her go.

  In a moment she returned with a mug of asphalt-black Mexican coffee. As she handed him the cup their eyes met on the same level. Burgess experienced emotions he thought had been atrophied at seventeen. It required an effort to remember that he was a tongue-tied halfwit. As he drank the coffee he could see her inside the screen door, still studying him.

  After breakfast he went with the other men to the cornfield and they shoveled from irrigation ditches, nursing the water on its way through the fields. At two they ate—a real dinner—then went back to the cornfield until dark. After a light supper of rolls and hot milk the ranchero took Burgess out behind the barn to a haystack. “Drop a cigarette in it and I’ll blow your head off,” he said by way of good night.

  Burgess intended to be on his way as soon as things quieted down and the dogs went to sleep. He lay down for a few minutes. Immediately, it seemed, a boy was shaking him, saying it was time for breakfast. After the boy left he burrowed into the hay, silently thankful that it was a new stack, and buried the satchel.

  After breakfast a truck bore them a kilometer down the road. Burgess and the other men spent the morning tying up grapevines in newly strung wire. That afternoon the ranchero got to looking at his muddy shoes. The baseball cap Burgess wore on fishing trips wasn’t Mexican either. He’d been wearing it as much as he could. The crew cut was too conspicuous in a longhair country.

  The ranchero noticed the way he tried to keep his hat on and drew an original conclusion. “The gringos caught you,” he said with a grin.

  He had it down pat. American shoes plus American hat plus American crewcut equals wetback. Caught, clipped, deloused, deported. Burgess stuck his tongue down, grinned sheepishly, and mumbled, “Sí, señor?”

  That afternoon his shoes fell apart and the ranchero gave him a pair of bullhide guaraches.

  Burgess hadn’t seen Elena since that first morning, but he’d felt her presence behind the screen door at every meal. Once he’d caught a glimpse of a bareback amazon, pistol in each hand, riding down a rabbit.

  In the evening he begged a sliver of soap and went downstream from the house. As he was washing his shirt in the miniature creek he felt a presence behind him. The tall girl in levis was leaning against a pepper tree, watching him. She had on the lacy, off-the-shoulder blouse again. Ribbon-twined braids hung over what held up the blouse. He stood silent, twisting the baseball cap in his hands.

  “How do you call yourself?” Elena asked.

  “Juan,” he answered, saying the first name that came to mind.

  “And from where do you come?”

  Burgess thought a moment. Some place far away and easy to pronounce. “I am of Campeche,” he finally said. “Took you long enough to make up your mind,” the girl said in unaccented English.

  Burgess stood silent, hoping he looked as stupid as he felt. “Since you don’t understand English it doesn’t matter,” she said. “But a couple of very hard-looking characters and an interpreter stopped by the house this afternoon. They’re looking for an American.”

  Burgess kept his head down. “Perdon, señorita. No comprendo,” he said.

  “No, of course you don’t understand,” she continued in English. She spun and walked up the creek bank, high-heeled boots leaving neat prints in the mud. “You know,” she said as she reached the top, “if you’d get a shave and get rid of those awful overalls you’d be kind of cute.”

  Burgess shrugged and went back to rinsing his shirt.

  But that night after the last dog had gone to sleep he extracted his bundle from the haystack. Walking carefully heel and toe, he eased by the big house and down the tree-lined path to the highway. Just as he was stepping onto the asphalt he heard a noise behind the trees.

  “Aren’t you even going to say goodbye?” Elena asked.

  He stood still, wondering what answer would be appropriate. She stepped from the shadow and he saw she was leading a horse. A bag of water draped from the saddle horn. She handed him a straw hat. “I know I have a hole in my head,” she said calmly, “but you looked so unhappy. One of these days I’ll have to get into town and buy a paper. You did kill someone, didn’t you?” she asked in that same calm voice.

  He nodded dumbly.

  “I’m sure she deserved it,” the tall girl said. “Most of us do.”

  “But I—”

  “Not now,” she said. “Send me a long letter from South America. Here, better take this.” She handed him a pearl-handled revolver. “Ammo’s in the saddlebag.”

  Burgess took the reins in his hand and climbed aboard gingerly. He looked down at her, wondering if he should sweep her up, Lochinvar-like, but she was as tall as he and did not seem susceptible to such tactics. “I’ll remember this,” he said lamely.

  “I was counting on that,” she said. She turned and disappeared.

  By daybreak Burgess had ridden south, bypassing Tecate, and was on the dirt road to Ojos Negros, The natural routes of escape from Tijuana are two: the highways which lead inland to Mexicali and south to the sea at Ensenada. They would be looking inland where his trail had last pointed. If he was lucky the horse trail to Ojos Negros would not be patrolled. Through it he could reach Ensenada and a boat.

  Burgess had been over the road once before, five years ago, following a bum steer someone had given him about the fishing in rock-filled Laguna Hanson. There would be no water until he arrived at the lake. He crossed one leg over the saddle horn and tried for the thousandth time to find a comfortable position. He studied the animal’s cream-colored mane and bobbing ears, wondering how many hours it could lope along without water. He wished annoyedly that it had an engine so he could understand it. Should he rest during the day and ride only at night? Or would it be best to push on nonstop until he reached water?

  When the sun reached what Burgess estimated as ten o’clock they passed a minuscule box canon. Burgess turned in. There were a few tufts of grass but no water. He decided the straight-sided canon would afford shade and the horse could graze, if not drink. He loosened die cinch and removed the waterbag. After a moment’s debate he uncorked the bag and offered it to the horse. To his surprise, the horse tilted its head and waited for him to pour a drink into its moudi.

  The saddlebags contained a small sack of sandy gray-yellow powder, several cans of tomatoes, and a piece of black, stringy material which Burgess recognized as dried meat. After hacking at a can of tomatoes with the inadequate can opener on his boy scout knife, it occurred to Burgess to look in the other saddlebag where, wrapped in a large bandanna, he found a handful of ammunition and a can opener. He sampled the yellow powder with his finger and stirred some of it into the tomato liquor. He admired the tall girl’s practicality in providing rations which would not spoil. Pinole—corn meal parched before grinding—was “K” ration to the army which nearly licked Cortez. He spread out the blanket and slept.

  It was late afternoon before the sun wheeled around to the open end of the box canon and woke Burgess from a dream of blast furnaces and falling lava. He hadn’t thought to tie or hobble the horse, so, of course, it was gone. Pains darted through Burgess as he stood. He still had the waterbag. He decided he could walk more comfortably and not drink as much water.

  The moon stayed with him until midnight and the trail was not too difficult. He had been climbing steadily and as the trail began winding he encountered an occasional stunted pine. After the moon set it wasn’t so easy. He kept stumbling over rocks as he wandered from the trail and after he had worked his way very cautiously around two buzzing rattlers, Burgess decided to quit while he was ahead. He spent the rest of the night shivering in the blanket. With the first light of dawn he was up agai
n, plodding toward the lake.

  At daylight he stopped on the summit of a hill. He cut off a chunk of dried meat and began chewing it. He could see several miles of trail in both directions.

  He decided it was time for an inventory. Leisurely, Burgess unwrapped the satchel and began laying out piles of fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and an occasional bundle of hundreds. The piece of jerked beef was getting so big he could hardly chew it.

  A small black spot at the head of a cloud of dust appeared on the lower stretch of trail as Burgess’s count reached three hundred thirty-six thousand. He hastily rewound his blanket around the satchel. Fifteen minutes after he had erased his tally marks from the dust and started walking, an incredibly dilapidated panel delivery, with California plates wired on above the battered Mexican license, whined to a stop beside him. The driver motioned him inside but he had to stand, hat in hand, while the driver’s wife got out so that the seat could be tilted forward. The back doors were padlocked.

  The rear windows of the truck were obscured by a row of dresses and men’s work clothes hanging from pipes which ran down each side. After the glare on the road Burgess was blind. A smell and a cackling warned him of a crate of chickens the falluquero had picked up during his bartering expedition. He sat on the coop, wondering where the peddler would turn them into cash for more dresses. Then he made the mistake of putting his hand down.

  Most people have a natural horror of reptiles. Burgess did. When he put his hand down in the darkness and felt a smooth head and heard a grating hiss, he forgot all about holding his tongue down. He never remembered exactly what he said, but it was loud and it was in English. The falluquero and his wife turned to look at him. As Burgess’s eyes adjusted, he saw the turtle which lay bottom side up, awaiting some ranchero with a taste for soup.

  “Are you American?” the woman asked in passable English.

  “¿Mande listed?”

  She repeated the question in Spanish.

  “No, señora, I come from Jalisco,” Burgess said, holding his tongue down. “I learned those words from the American mayordomo when we did not dig celery fast enough.” The woman looked at him thoughtfully, but she said nothing more. An hour later, when Burgess was looking for rocks to block wheels and fix the first flat of the day, he noticed her still looking at him with that thoughtful expression. He pulled the straw hat down over his ears and wondered just how much further he could go with the feeble-minded act.