“How do you know this?”
Felipe grinned. “It is known, Miguel.”
Miguel’s lips tightened into a narrow line. “How is it known?”
“I must go to town, Miguel,” Felipe said hastily. “I see you soon.”
“Just a moment, Felipe. How is it...?”
“Good-bye, amigo.”
Felipe turned his back and Miguel stared at him as he walked toward the road. The dust rose about him, and he waved back at Miguel. Miguel did not return the wave. He stood there with the strong sun on his head, and the many rocks and stones at his feet.
How did this animal with the slobbering lips know of Maria’s passion? Surely he had never spoken a word about it to any of the men. Then how did Felipe know?
The possibilities annoyed Miguel. He turned back to the rocks, and this time they seemed heavier, and the sun seemed stronger, and his back seemed to ache more.
How did Felipe know?
He was pondering this in an ill temper when Juan came to stand beside him. Juan was darkly handsome, his white trousers and shirt bright in the powerful sunlight. Miguel looked up at him sourly and said, “So? Do you wish to pass the time with idle chatter also?”
Juan smiled, his teeth even and white against the ruddy brown of his face. “Did I offend you, Miguel?”
“No!” Miguel snapped.
“Then why do you leap at me like a tiger?”
“Do not mention this animal to me,” Miguel said.
“No?”
“No! I have rocks to clear, and I want to clear them before lunch because Maria will be calling me then.”
“Ahhhhh,” Juan said, grinning.
Miguel stared at him for a moment. The grin was the same one Felipe had worn, except that Felipe was ugly and with slobbering lips and Juan was perhaps the handsomest man in the village.
Miguel stared at him and wondered if it had been he who told Felipe of Maria’s great passion. And if so, how had Juan known?
“Why do you ‘ahhhhh’?” he asked.
“Did I ‘ahhhhh’?”
“You did. You did indeed. You made this very sound. Why?”
“I was not aware, amigo.” Juan said, and smiled again.
“Was it mention of lunch that evoked this sigh?”
“No. No, I do not think so.”
“Then there remains only Maria.”
Juan grinned and said nothing.
“I said...”
“I heard you, Miguel.”
“What about Maria?”
Juan shrugged. “Who said anything about Maria?”
“You are saying it with your eyes,” Miguel said heatedly. “What about her?”
“She is your wife, Miguel.”
“I know she is my wife. I sleep with her, I...”
Juan was grinning again.
“What’s funny about that, Juan? Why do you grin now?”
“I have nothing to say, amigo. Maria is your wife. God bless her.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means... well, God bless her. She is a good woman.”
“How would you know?” Miguel shouted.
“That she is a good woman? Why, Miguel...”
“You know what I mean! Why is my wife the sudden topic of conversation for the whole village? What’s going on? Why do you all discuss her so intimately?”
“Intimately?”
“Yes! By God, Juan, if there is something that someone knows...”
Juan smiled again. “But there is nothing, Miguel. Nothing.”
“You are sure?”
“I must go to town now, my friend. Is there anything I can do there for you?”
“No!” Miguel snapped.
“Then, adios, amigo.”
He turned and walked off, shaking his head, and Miguel could have sworn he heard him mutter the word “tigress.”
He went to work on the rocks with a fury. What was all this? Why Felipe? And now Juan?
What was going on with his wife?
He thought of her passion, her gleaming black hair, the way it trailed down the curve of her back, reaching her waist. He thought of the fluid muscles on that back, beneath the soft, firm skin. He thought of the long graceful curve of her legs, the way the firelight played on her lifted breasts, the deep hollow of her navel.
Too passionate, he thought. Far too passionate.
Far too passionate for one man. Far too passionate for simple Miguel who worked the fields picking stones and hoeing beans. Yes, she was a woman who needed many men, many, many men.
Was that why Felipe had laughed with dripping lips? Was that why Juan had smiled that superior handsome smile? Miguel picked up his hoe and swung it at a large rock. The rock chipped, but it did not budge from the earth.
Was that it? Was Maria then making a cuckold of her simple Miguel? Was that why all the men in the village were snickering, smiling, laughing behind their hands? Or was it only the men from this village? Was it the adjoining village, too? Or did it go beyond that?
Did they pass her from hand to hand like a used wine jug? Did they all drink of her, and was that why they laughed at Miguel now? Was that why they laughed behind their hands, laughed aloud with their mouths and their eyes?
The sun was hot, and the bowels of the earth stank, and the rocks and stones were plentiful, and Miguel chopped at them with the hoe, using the sharp blade like an ax.
I shall show them, he thought. I shall teach them to laugh. I shall teach them to make the fool of Miguel de la Piaz!
It was then that Pablo strolled by. He had passed Miguel’s house and Maria had asked him to call her husband home for lunch. He was not a bright lad, Pablo. He walked up close to Miguel, who furiously pounded the earth with his hoe, using it like an ax, the sharp blade striking sparks from the rocks. He tapped Miguel on the shoulder, smiled, and started to say, “Maria...”
Miguel whirled like an animal, the hoe raised high.
So you see, it was the next poor bastard who got it.
Loose Cannons
Chalk
Nobody in police work likes to deal with lunatics. There’s no predictability to the crimes committed by madmen. Moreover, in most mystery novels, there’s a murder to be solved, a puzzle to be unraveled. Loose cannons present no such challenge, so I try to avoid them in the police novels I write today. But back in the fifties, I wrote several stories that...
Well, let me take that back.
Yes, the stories that follow were all published in the fifties. “Chalk” by Evan Hunter in 1953, in a Manhunt imitator called Pursuit; then “Association Test” and “Bedbug,” both in Manhunt itself, both in 1954, the first under the Hunt Collins byline, the next under my already-legal name, Evan Hunter; and finally, in 1957 and again in Manhunt, another Evan Hunter story titled “The Merry Merry Christmas.” So... er... what is there to take back?
“Chalk.”
Although this was finally published in 1953 (under the title “I Killed Jeannie,” can you believe it!), I wrote this story in 1945, aboard a destroyer in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When it circulated among my shipmates, it caused no small degree of apprehension. That’s because loose cannons are unpredictable.
Here it is now, followed by the others in uninterrupted chronological order.
Her face was a piece of ugly pink chalk, and her eyes were two little brown mud puddles. Her eyes were mud puddles and they did not fit with the pink chalk. The chalk was ugly, and her eyes were mud puddles, and they made the chalk look uglier.