Читать книгу Tigre - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The tigre and its victim melted into the night as a clump of mud might dissolve in the little stream that watered the gardens of Muzo. Brother Goat voiced one final snort of defiance. The nannies and kids murmured to each other, still frightened.

The torch was flickering out beside the corral, and as he went slowly forward to pick it up, an overpowering shame rose to share Pepe's grief and anger. Four years ago, the family goats had been attacked by a tigre. From the shriveled right front paw, Pepe knew that this was the same beast. But a man, a man who knew how closely his life and the lives of his loved ones were interwoven with the flock he guarded, had defended them then. Now—

Pepe stooped to pick up the torch. He held it aloft and a little breeze chasing up the valley caused it to burn brightly. Pepe's shame mounted.

After the great battle of four years ago, the two pieces of his father's knife, with the blade snapped off at the hilt, had been picked up at the scene of the fight. The pieces, carefully wrapped in cloth, were now the dearest treasure of Pepe's mother—but useless as a weapon. However, there was the machete that every family of Muzo must have for cutting firewood.

Pepe hung his head. He might have seized the machete, but he had snatched a firebrand. Rather than come to grips with the tigre while armed with a weapon that would have been of some use, he had unerringly grasped the one thing that was sure to frighten it away. All alone, he must bear the crushing burden of being alive while Maria lay limp and dead in the tigre's jaws.

Brother Goat snorted again, although more softly this time. He was still angry, but he knew the tigre was gone, and all the threats he could utter would make no difference now. The big billy came to stand very near his master.

Pepe's hand dropped to Brother Goat's neck, and at once he felt a little better. Brother Goat was massive. A full third bigger than any billy Pepe had ever seen, his neck was like that of a fighting bull. His heavy chest and slim haunches were in proportion, while his horns, which went up and back in a graceful curve, were so thick at the base that they formed a solid plating of armor across the top of his skull. Only a very big and strong goat could have carried such horns. Pepe's gloom continued to lift.

For a moment after realizing that the tigre had killed Maria, he had felt as though he must wander forever in a world that no one else could share. Now he knew that he was not, and never would be, alone. In Brother Goat he had not only a friend, but a great and powerful friend who was completely on his side. All was not lost. Should the tigre come again, Pepe and Brother Goat would meet him. They might even defeat him if they were prepared.

"Pepe."

The boy turned to see his mother and Benito entering the corral. His eyes found the club Benito had snatched up, and when he reached for it, Benito yielded the weapon immediately. It was Pepe's right to fight the tigre in the corral, just as it would have been Benito's privilege to battle whatever invaded his garden.

Pepe's mother said gently, "It was not your fault."

Unable for a moment to reply, Pepe became aware of the yells of the village men. It seemed strange that they were arousing only now, for hours must have elapsed since the tigre's raid. Really, it was less than thirty seconds, which the boy's imagination had turned into hours because it did not seem to him that so much could possibly happen in such a short time.

Louder than any of the rest, Pablo Sanchez bellowed, "Give me your sword, Fernando! It may be a tigre, and no man knows more than I of the way tigres fight, for I watched one fight Pepe's father!"

Fernando Hidalgo replied sharply, "I wield my own sword!"

"Must I fight a tigre with a club?" Pablo demanded.

"You may fight one with melon seeds and never ruffle my feelings," Fernando retorted. "I wield my own sword."

Pablo said crossly, "Very well then. Keep it!"

Mentally, Pepe tallied the weapons in the village. Save for Lazario Rujan's muzzle-loading rifle—and Lazario and his rifle had disappeared into the jungle a week ago and hadn't been seen since—there were Fernando's sword, two hatchets, an ax, nineteen machetes and assorted knives. No one of them—and, actually, not all together, were weapons that a man in his right mind would choose for fighting a tigre.

Pepe said, suddenly and fiercely, "There is that which I must do!"

"What is that?" his mother asked.

"I must acquire a gun, a great gun that may kill the biggest tigre, for I intend to be present the next time this one attacks, and I have no mind to lose either my own life or another goat!"

"Ramon Benavides, who has taken the products of his potter's wheel to the traders, will return with tomorrow's eve. We shall talk with him and he shall talk with the trader. Perhaps we will be able to get you a gun like Lazario Rujan's."

"No, mother," Pepe declared. "Lazario's gun kills very dead when it kills, but at best it is a clumsy thing and half the time it misses fire. I must have a gun that does not miss, one such, or so as the norteamericanos use—or so I have heard."

"Norteamericanos are all very rich," his mother chided him. "A gun that would satisfy them would cost more pesos that we may hope to earn if we live to have upon us more years than Uncle Ruiz."

"Nevertheless, I must have such a gun."

"Do not tear your heart yearning after what you may not have," his mother advised. "Lazario was absent from Muzo for all of one spring and all of one summer. Every day he worked very hard on the road. When he was done, he had saved just enough pesos to buy the gun he has. Such a gun, always supposing we may get one, must serve you, too."

"Never!" Pepe declared. "I must have a good gun—but, until I get one, I must be prepared. Mother, will you bring me the broken blade of the knife with which my father fought the tigre?"

"Advance!" the voice of Pablo Sanchez rang out. A club in his right hand, a machete in his belt and waving a torch like a fiery banner, he led the defending force. A step behind, carrying no torch but gripping his sword with both hands, came Fernando Hidalgo. Except for Uncle Ruiz, who hobbled twenty paces in the rear, the rest of the village men kept reasonably close to Pablo and Fernando—and very close to each other.

As they neared the corral, Brother Goat turned to face them and shuffled his feet in eager anticipation. Knowing the big billy was probably in the corral, Pablo halted at the gate, holding his torch high. In the flickering light from it, Pepe, Benito and their mother could be distinguished.

He said sternly, "Señora Estrada, do you not know that a demon might linger near?"

"A tigre lingers near!" Pepe flared. "And don't speak to my mother like that!"

"Hush!" his mother scolded. "That is not the way to address your elders. A tigre did indeed visit us, Pablo."

"I have found it!" Pablo bellowed. "A tigre visited us!" In a lower tone he inquired, "What did the tigre do?"

"It stole a goat," Pepe's mother answered.

"It stole a goat!" Pablo yelled, then lowered his voice again, "Which goat?"

"Maria."

Pablo roared, "It stole Maria, the very flower of our Pepe's flock! Ah! Four years ago, when I witnessed the life and death struggle between Pepe Estrada the elder and the tigre that would have stolen Maria—"

Bewitched by the night, the flaming torches and the dead nearness of a killer, the men listened once more to Pablo's hundred-times-told tale of the mighty battle between Pepe's father and the tigre.

Uncle Ruiz beckoned to Pepe, Benito and their mother and the three walked over to where he leaned on his stick, apart from the rest.

"I told you, Pepe," Uncle Ruiz said, "When a quetzal cries, there is always evil. My heart bleeds for you, even as it bleeds for Maria! It is a sad thing."

"What is this?" Pepe's mother asked sharply.

Uncle Ruiz said, "The quetzal Pepe saw summoned a spell of evil to entwine Pepe when it cried."

Señora Estrada turned to her son. "You told of seeing a quetzal. You said nothing of hearing it cry."

"I—I felt—" Pepe started lamely.

His mother came to his rescue. "I know you wished to spare me anxiety." She turned to Uncle Ruiz. "So that is what brought it about?"

"That indeed," Uncle Ruiz affirmed.

"Does the evil spell continue to prevail?"

"I have seen no indication that it is broken."

"A gun would break it!" Pepe said fiercely. "A gun to blast the life from a tigre—or any other wicked animal that would hurt goats."

Uncle Ruiz murmured, "The young have thoughts of fire, but thoughts avail nothing against an evil spirit."

"Is there nothing we can do?" Pepe's mother asked.

"Take every care and pray for the good spirit that will overwhelm the evil."

"How may we know this good spirit?"

"You will know it when it appears," Uncle Ruiz told her. "Until then, neglect no precaution. If you are careless, there shall soon be no goats. If there are no goats—" He shrugged significantly.

The men at the corral were deep in a lively discussion when the Estradas and Uncle Ruiz joined them. Would it not be wise, Fernando Hidalgo wanted to know, to beat the grass in a body, find the tigre and do it to death with the weapons at their command? There was great merit in this idea, said Luis Ortega, but all the men present had just heard Pablo Sanchez relate how the tigre had done the elder Pepe Estrada to death. It would be far more sensible to imbed their machetes in the earth, with all the blades upright. Then they should truss a kid and place it behind the raised blades. The kid's bleating would attract the tigre and cause it to leap. When it leaped, it would impale itself upon the machetes.

"You use none of my kids for tigre bait," Pepe growled.

Nevertheless, the suggestion was greeted with considerably more enthusiasm than Fernando had evoked—until Uncle Ruiz called out, "You cannot prevail against this tigre, for it is possessed of an evil spirit."

The men gathered around Uncle Ruiz, whose predictions were known to all, and listened attentively while he told of the quetzal that had cried and summoned the evil spirit. Then they looked at each other solemnly—and finally at Pepe. A tigre was flesh and blood and might be resisted, but who could resist an evil spirit? Bidding the boy be of good cheer and hope for the best, the men wandered back to their huts and left the three Estradas with Uncle Ruiz.

"Return to your petate and rest until morning," Uncle Ruiz advised Pepe.

"I have goats to guard," Pepe said.

"Even an evil spirit cannot eat more than one goat," Uncle Ruiz pointed out, "and having eaten tonight, it will not be back for more until it again knows hunger. You may rest."

Pepe insisted stubbornly, "I stay with my goats. Mother, the blade from my father's knife and a torch to light when this one burns out, please."

"It shall be as you wish," his mother said quietly.

"I'll stay with you," Benito offered.

"That is not necessary, but it will save our mother a trip if you bring what I need."

The others left, and Pepe held his torch high while he went outside the corral to a pile of young and green poles from which he had intended to fashion a new gate. He chose the best, a seven-foot pole as straight as a stretched string, and tested it for resiliency by thrusting one end into the ground and bending it. He nodded, satisfied, when the pole bent without breaking, for dead wood was useless for what he had in mind. The bent pole straightened itself. A few minutes later Benito was back.

"Here." He handed Pepe the knife blade, two fresh torches and, finally, the machete from the hut. "Just in case it does come again," he explained.

"Thank you, Benito."

"I will sleep very lightly," Benito said. "Should there be trouble, you have only to call and I'll hear you."

"I do not expect a second visit tonight, but I'll surely call if there is one—and thank you again."

Benito left. Pepe lighted a fresh torch, thrust it upright on top of the corral and stared into the great gap of darkness beyond the small circle of light. The villagers sorrowed for him, but the villagers did not own the goats. They had not loved Maria as he had.

Fifteen years ago, shortly before Pepe's birth, his father had started the flock with two young nannies and a young billy and it had been no easier to start than it had been for Lazario Rujan to acquire his rifle. But Pepe Estrada the elder had wanted more for his family than the average villager of Muzo ever got, and he had seen his shining dream of a wealthy future in a flock of goats. Pepe had inherited that dream along with the flock.

One by one, the goats settled down. Brother Goat detached himself from the others, came to Pepe and lay down very near him. Pepe sat on the ground, his back and shoulders pillowed comfortably against the big billy, and held his knife blade up to catch the light from the torch. An inch wide where it had broken from the hilt and six inches long, both sides of the double-edged knife sloped to a pointed tip.

"It shall be a spear," he informed Brother Goat. "Though it is not nearly as good as a gun, this way, it will be much better for battling the tigre than any plain knife. And should our enemy come, a battle there will be."

Pepe matched the base of the broken blade against the small end of his pole, found that there was a half inch to spare on either side and reversed the pole. Very carefully, he used the blade's pointed tip to carve out a thin bit of wood. This was work that must be done exactly right, but it was work his fingers could do while his mind was free to wander.

Uncle Ruiz was very old and undoubtedly age had brought him wisdom. But it had also brought him a certain measure of childishness, for many times he sat in the sun, mumbling meaninglessly to himself, and afterward he had not the slightest memory of what he had been mumbling about. In this instance, he was only partly correct.

The tigre was certainly part spirit in a certain sense, for every living thing, not excepting every blade of grass, every tree, every leaf on every tree and every insect on the leaves, had a spirit of individuality of its own. But whoever heard of a spirit that had need of goat's flesh—or any other mortal food? On November second, The Day of the Dead, food was placed where the spirits of departed villagers of Muzo might find it. But it was never eaten, although Pepe had no doubt that it was properly appreciated, for it proved that the villagers remembered their dead.

While his thoughts wandered far afield, the boy continued to chip away at the slot he was making in the small end of the pole. He paused frequently to match the base of the knife blade against it, for the fit must be perfect. Meanwhile, he continued to draw his own conclusions.

A full-grown tigre, in the prime of life, could crush the neck of a big ox with one blow of a front paw. Tigres were almost as much at home in the trees as the twittering monkeys that scolded whatever passed and frequently pelted both human and four-footed jungle travelers with anything that came to hand. Prey that took to water, time-honored refuge of harassed beasts, found no escape from the tigre, for the big cats swam well. They feared nothing—with the possible exception of fire and the herds of wild cattle that roamed jungle pastures and charged any enemy as soon as they sighted it.

But, like all other living things, tigres aged. When they did, they found no easy hunting in the jungle and must seek prey they could catch easily. This one had done well enough, even with only three good legs, but four years was a long time in any wild creature's life. Age had added another handicap to a useless forepaw. Hunger, doubtless desperate hunger, had driven the jaguar to attack the corralled goats. And having come once, it would come again.

The night lifted slowly, and Pepe fitted his knife blade into the slot he had made. It was a smooth fit, but the slot was not quite deep enough, not quite wide enough and not quite good enough. Pepe's thoughts reverted to a gun and the hundred and twenty pesos, approximately ten dollars, that lay buried in a covered pot beneath the dirt floor of his mother's house. This was all the money his mother had been able to save in her thirty-four years of life. It had always seemed an immense sum to Pepe. But Lazario Rujan had paid four times as much for his ancient rifle.

Although the spear must serve until he could acquire a gun, a gun he must and would have, the boy determined. But how could he accumulate the fabulous fortune necessary to buy one?

Leaning the partly finished spear against the corral, Pepe milked his nannies, gathered the containers of milk by the ropes strung through their handles and carried them to his mother's house. Rosalita and Ana still slept. Benito was sitting cross-legged on his petate, eating breakfast. He grinned at his brother.

"I heard no call during the night."

"I did not call." Pepe, his heart still sore at the loss of Maria, managed a fleeting grin in return. "The tigre paid us no second visit."

"Did you sleep?" his mother queried anxiously.

"I rested," Pepe told her, "and Brother Goat, who was lying beside me, makes a very comfortable couch indeed. I gave most of the night to fashioning a spear."

"Do you really think you may fight a tigre with such a weapon?" His mother looked worried.

Pepe answered grimly, "I can try, or rather we can try, for I have a strong comrade in Brother Goat. Together, we may give the tigre a battle."

"No!" his mother cried impulsively. "You cannot fight this tigre! It—It is not a tigre at all!"

Pepe said gently, "Now mother, don't believe everything Uncle Ruiz says."

"Uncle Ruiz should know."

"He should, but he doesn't. All too often he twitters as meaninglessly as the monkeys in the trees, or carries on like the chattering parrots."

"Even if that were true," his mother said in a low voice, "I have already given a husband to the tigre. I would rather give him every goat in the flock than a son, too. Don't fight him, Pepe! Run! Let him have the goats!"

"Mother!" Pepe was shocked.

"I say no more."

She turned away to hide the tears in her eyes. Pepe stole up behind her and put an arm about her waist.

"Poor mother!" he soothed. "It must be a great strain indeed, but you need have no worries today. I must finish my spear, and the flock will graze within sight of the village. The tigre will never dare venture near to Muzo in full daylight."

She managed a tremulous smile. "That is good to hear, Pepe, for by tomorrow we may see the good spirit that will overwhelm the evil one."

"I'm sure of it," Pepe reassured her. "Aren't you, Benito?"

"Why—why—" From his brother's very hesitation, Pepe knew that he, too, believed in Uncle Ruiz's evil spirit. "Why, of course ... Well, I have my own private fight with such weeds as have stolen into my garden during the night. Ha! If corn, squash and beans only grew as well as weeds, how very well the Estradas would eat!" Benito left for his garden.

Pepe breakfasted, caught up a thirty-foot coil of stout rope and a hank of buckskin, reassured his mother with, "Now don't you worry. I'll be in sight all day long," and turned to his goats.

Just as he left, two burros that had been dozing at the lower end of the village came awake and stared fixedly down the beaten path that led to the distant highway. A second later, Brother Goat and the flock he ruled looked steadily in the same direction. Two minutes afterward, driving his six burros faster than any man of Muzo had ever seen him drive them before, Ramon Benavides, who was not due until sundown, came up the path. Knowing that only something very extraordinary could make Ramon move so swiftly, Pepe and such other men of Muzo as had not already set about the labors of the day, went to meet him.

"I have hurried," Ramon panted, "for indeed I have much to say!"

"There is a norteamericano at the trading post! His name is Sam Jackson and he is such a big man, with such a shock of red hair, and so insane!" Ramon waved a sheaf of peso notes. "He fancied a vase for which that cheating trader of a Juan Gonzalez allows me forty centavos in trade. 'Will forty pesos be sufficient?' he asked, and, before I could get my breath, he gave me forty pesos!"

"Astounding!" Fernando Hidalgo gasped.

Ramon announced triumphantly, "He is coming to Muzo!"

"What does a norteamericano want in Muzo?" Luis Ortega asked.

"He wishes to find a tigre."

The men gasped incredulously and looked at each other. Then they swung back to Ramon.

"Who but a loco hombre would wish to find a tigre?" Pablo Sanchez demanded.

"I have already said that he is loco, but why should Muzo forego such an opportunity? The norteamericano said that he will reward handsomely anyone who may lead him to a tigre, and if he pays forty pesos for a vase worth forty centavos, what is his idea of a handsome reward? I told him that our own Lazario Rujan might very well find a tigre for him. 'Ah,' he said, 'tell Laz that I'll be there with bells on.' I know not what he meant, unless it is additional evidence that he is indeed loco, for he had no bells on when I talked with him."

Louis Ortega said, "Lazario has been in the jungle for a week and who knows when he may come out? Who knows even if he will come out? All those hunters get themselves killed sooner or later. Already Elena Rujan is very worried about her husband."

Pepe slipped away to his goat corral. A norteamericano, a crazy man who paid forty pesos for a vase worth forty centavos in trade, was coming to Muzo. He wished to find a tigre, which, within itself, meant that he would have no time for a goatherd.

Brother Goat pranced to meet him and Pepe opened the gate just enough to admit his own slender body. He tickled the big billy behind his right ear, then behind his left one, and Brother Goat closed his eyes and sighed blissfully. Pepe slipped the rope around his horns and tied it.

"I do not like to do this to you, Brother Goat," he apologized, "but the flock is to graze near Muzo today and the gardeners may chase the nannies and kids from their growing corn. But I fear you, in turn, would chase the gardeners from it."

He led the big billy through the gate and toward the little stream for, since there were no trees close by Muzo, Brother Goat must necessarily be tethered to one of the boulders near the stream bed. However, the grazing there was very rich and Brother Goat would know no hunger. Reaching the stream at a point well below the gardens, Pepe looked about for a suitable boulder and saw one about twenty feet downstream. He led the billy toward it.

They were still fifteen feet away when Brother Goat snorted angrily. He stiffened, and the hair on the back of his neck bristled. Three feet from the boulder, he bent his muzzle to the earth and began to paw it. An angry grunt, more like the challenge of a fighting bull than the bleat of a goat, escaped him.

Holding tightly to the rope, Pepe paid out enough to let him walk very close to the stream. He kept his eyes cast downward, and soon, in a patch of damp sand, he found what he had expected to find. It was the single paw mark of an immense tigre.

Pepe looked at Brother Goat with new respect and understanding. Maria's murderer had run this way with his booty and, hours afterward, Brother Goat had still smelled his tracks.

The sun was down. The goats were back in their corral. Pepe sat in front of his mother's house, inspecting the spear he had made. All day long, he had worked on it, cutting the slot exactly as it should be, shaping the haft so that it slanted to conform with the knife and, finally, wrapping the whole with wet buckskin that, on drying, tightened itself and made a binding fully as effective as iron or steel. It was not the gun he should have—and would have—but it was far better than any knife. Should he be forced to fight the tigre, Pepe could stand seven feet away with his spear, rather than come at once to close grips.

The various burros lazing about Muzo, and then the goats, raised their heads to stare down the path. Pepe looked in the same direction. Presently, a tall, red-haired man who carried a pack on his own shoulders and dragged three laden but rebellious burros by their halter ropes, came out of the jungle and up the path.

Exactly at that moment, a quetzal left the jungle, winged over the village and uttered a hoarse cry as it flew. Unaccountably, Pepe's eyes turned to Uncle Ruiz. The old man was kneeling, muttering to himself and tracing designs with a stick.

Pepe's throat went dry and his heart beat faster. He'd been the first and loudest to denounce Uncle Ruiz and his visions—and even while so doing he had hoped with all his heart that he might really believe what he was saying. Now one thing was obvious, the good spirit had not appeared.

But the evil had come to Muzo.