“That’s what I hope!” The young policeman seemed glad to have a neutral topic of conversation. “When I started out this morning, I’d gone only a couple of yards when my old rope broke and the bottle fell off. But luck was with me. I looked around a bit in the weeds and found this one.”
Efraín leaned back on the bench. He wished Sulema were here. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her this morning. He should have told her about the cow. She might even have known what was wrong with it. She liked that cow so much she’d given her a name.
He still hadn’t asked Lencho’s advice. Well, there was plenty of time. He was stuck on this side of the cliffs till high tide passed.
Efraín missed his neighbor Catalino, too. Where had he gone? Probably to visit his people, who lived scattered deep in the rain forest.
Efraín watched Belicia slowly drag a rag along the scarred wooden bar. How much had Mr. Ramos hurt her when he married his neighbor’s daughter? Belicia was strong, and tough from years of dealing with difficult customers. Had she killed for revenge and planted the money in the salesman’s valise to draw attention away from herself? But the salesman didn’t deny the money was his.
Belicia certainly could have followed Mr. Ramos when he left and called to him to stop once they were out of hearing of the cantina. She could have stepped up beside the horse and taken Mr. Ramos’ hand. Then a quick tug and a blow with a heavy bottle or rock.
Efraín turned his gaze to Soto, who along with his family had appeared out of nowhere a few months before. No one knew Soto’s past. His cows hadn’t produced their first crop of calves yet. How had Soto come up with enough money to buy a bull and have enough left to consider buying a fine horse? Had he decided to take back the money he’d paid for the bull?
But there were dozens of other possible suspects. The whole community had known Mr. Ramos was selling the bull to Soto. The people who lived along the road would have seen Mr. Ramos ride by leading the bull, and come back without it. Everyone in the cantina had heard him boasting about how much money he’d made. Plain greed was always a motive. Or it could have been an old grudge, forgotten by everyone except the grudge-holder.
Efraín looked down at his hands. There were several short black and white hairs, from a horse or a cow, stuck to the palms. That reminded him of his cow.
“Something’s wrong with my cow,” he said to everyone in the cantina, and described the symptoms.
No one had any helpful advice.
Efraín wanted a close look at the road between the cantina and the body. He returned on foot to where Lencho continued to sit under his wilting palm frond, keeping Mr. Ramos company. Lencho couldn’t help with the cow problem either.
The stout stick still lay by the side of the road where the band of leaves ended. Efraín scuffed the toe of his rubber boot through the leaves. Where they ended at the edge of the road, he found a hole the same diameter as the stick and half its length. A low grinding noise rumbled in the distance.
“That’ll be the judge’s Landcruiser,” Lencho said, sounding relieved. “I expect he went to get the Ramos family from their ranch and that’s what took so long.”
Efraín walked toward the cantina. He didn’t notice anything else out of the ordinary along the road. He went inside and whispered to Belicia for a moment. She gave him a deadly look. Then Efraín came back out and knelt by the motorcycle to examine the rope holding the water bottle.
He motioned to the policeman, who joined him.
“What do you see on this rope?” Efraín asked.
The policeman squinted at it. “Black and white hairs from a cow or horse. It’s a farm rope, that’s what you’d expect to see on it.”
“If you go to where the body lies, you’ll see a short, strong stick lying there and a band of leaves spread across the road.”
“I remember seeing the leaves.”
“There aren’t any trees around that place. Where did the leaves come from?”
The policeman took in the scenery, bare pastures with low grass. His eyes came to rest on the carpet of dry leaves under the mango tree.
“Yes, they’re mango leaves. Someone carried them from here,” Efraín said. “Why? To cover something that lay across the road — something that would scare a horse, something like a snake.” Efraín looked at the policeman.
The policeman blinked. “A rope,” he said at last.
“The person didn’t want the horse shying and running away with Mr. Ramos and his money... there’s a hole at the side of the road, across from that boulder, that the stick would fit into.”
The policeman gazed along the road. “On a dark night, that boulder would hide a person who was crouched down low.”
“You found the rope outside the police station. Who would throw down such a good rope? Either someone very rich, or—”
“A person who was upset and not thinking clearly—”
“And who didn’t plan on ever needing the rope again.”
The people in the cantina were keeping absolute silence, trying to catch every word.
Efraín cleared his throat. “Did you happen to notice the hands of the young man who reported the crime?”
“Yes, I did because they were shaking so badly. The skin was scraped raw across one palm,” the policeman said. Efraín stared at the ground. “Wilfredo needed, or just wanted, money. Like everyone else, he knew Mr. Ramos was selling Soto a bull,” he said. “I suppose he happened to approach the cantina last night and observed the drunk Mr. Ramos bragging about his money. He probably listened in the shadows for a while. No one would have seen him; it was the dark of the moon. He worked out a plan — at first it might have been just idle thought. Unfortunately, he put it into motion. He scooped up an armful of mango leaves and carried them down the road to that boulder.” Efraín pointed.
“Mr. Ramos stayed at the cantina for hours, so Wilfredo had plenty of time to collect a strong stick, a rope, and a rock,” he went on. “He pounded the stick into the ground with the rock and tied one end of the rope to it. I expect he laid the rope across the road in coils to better entangle the horse’s legs. He covered the rope with leaves and crouched behind the boulder, waiting. In his hand he held the loose end of the rope.”
“How could he be sure he had the right horse and rider?” the policeman asked, then answered himself. “Oh, the white stockings.”
“Yes, that was probably all he saw — four white legs coming down the road. At exactly the right moment he leaped up and yanked with all his strength on the rope. The horse tried to bolt, but its legs were caught. In that situation it would naturally buck. The rope cut into Wilfredo’s palm. The horse, being of course stronger than a human, got out of the rope in seconds. But by then Mr. Ramos, not at his most alert, had fallen off. That was what Wilfredo wanted.
“He might then have given Mr. Ramos a tap on the head with the rock, or he might not have hit him at all if the man was already unconscious. I’m sure he never intended to kill Mr. Ramos. There would have been no need to. In almost total darkness, and full of guaro, even if the cattleman were conscious he would have no idea who assaulted him.
“The young man felt for the money and couldn’t find it. I don’t think he would have used a flashlight; someone could have spotted it from the cantina. He finally gave up and left.
“At dawn he came back to search the leaves for the money, thinking it might have fallen out of Mr. Ramos’ pocket. He also had to collect the rope, which he must have forgotten the night before. He expected Mr. Ramos would have come to his senses in the night and staggered back to the cantina to sleep, maybe thinking his horse had just had a bucking fit and not even realizing he’d been attacked.
“Imagine the young man’s shock when he found Mr. Ramos dead in the road. When they take the body to town and the doctor examines it, I expect he’ll find a broken neck or fatal head injury which occurred in the fall — not from an attack.”