Raimundo chuckled—a dull, cluttered sound—and Onofrio grunted with amusement. “Impossible,” he said. “Encarnación has spent the money on a house in Barrio Clarín. You must kill the jaguar.”
“I cannot,” said Esteban. “I will repay you somehow.”
“The Indian has lost his nerve, Father.” Raimundo spat in the sand. “Let me and my friends hunt the jaguar.”
The idea of Raimundo and his loutish friends thrashing through the jungle was so ludicrous that Esteban could not restrain a laugh.
“Be careful, Indian!” Raimundo banged the flat of his hand on the roof of the car.
“It is you who should be careful,” said Esteban. “Most likely the jaguar will be hunting you.” Esteban picked up his machete. “And whoever hunts this jaguar will answer to me as well.”
Raimundo reached for something in the driver’s seat and walked around in front of the hood. In his hand was a silvered automatic. “I await your answer,” he said.
“Put that away!” Onofrio’s tone was that of a man addressing a child whose menace was inconsequential, but the intent surfacing in Raimundo’s face was not childish. A tic marred the plump curve of his cheek, the ligature of his neck was cabled, and his lips were drawn back in a joyless grin. It was, thought Esteban—strangely fascinated by the transformation—like watching a demon dissolve its false shape: the true lean features melting up from the illusion of the soft.
“This son of a whore insulted me in front of Julia!” Raimundo’s gun hand was shaking.
“Your personal differences can wait,” said Onofrio. “This is a business matter.” He held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”
“If he is not going to kill the jaguar, what use is he?” said Raimundo.
“Perhaps we can convince him to change his mind.” Onofrio beamed at Esteban. “What do you say? Shall I let my son collect his debt of honor, or will you fulfill our contract?”
“Father!” complained Raimundo; his eyes flicked sideways. “He…”
Esteban broke for the jungle. The gun roared, a white-hot claw swiped at his side, and he went flying. For an instant he did not know where he was; but then, one by one, his impressions began to sort themselves. He was lying on his injured side, and it was throbbing fiercely. Sand crusted his mouth and eyelids. He was curled up around his machete, which was still clutched in his hand. Voices above him, sand fleas hopping on his face. He resisted the urge to brush them off and lay without moving. The throb of his wound and his hatred had the same red force behind them.
“…carry him to the river,” Raimundo was saying, his voice atremble with excitement. “Everyone will think the jaguar killed him!”
“Fool!” said Onofrio. “He might have killed the jaguar, and you could have had a sweeter revenge. His wife…”
“This was sweet enough,” said Raimundo.
A shadow fell over Esteban, and he held his breath. He needed no herbs to deceive this pale, flabby jaguar who was bending to him, turning him onto his back.
“Watch out!” cried Onofrio.
Esteban let himself be turned and lashed out with the machete. His contempt for Onofrio and Encarnación, as well as his hatred of Raimundo, was involved in the blow, and the blade lodged deep in Raimundo’s side, grating on bone. Raimundo shrieked and would have fallen, but the blade helped to keep him upright; his hands fluttered around the machete as if he wanted to adjust it to a more comfortable position, and his eyes were wide with disbelief. A shudder vibrated the hilt of the machete—it seemed sensual, the spasm of a spent passion—and Raimundo sank to his knees. Blood spilled from his mouth, adding tragic lines to the corners of his lips. He pitched forward, not falling flat but remaining kneeling, his face pressed into the sand: the attitude of an Arab at prayer.
Esteban wrenched the machete free, fearful of an attack by Onofrio, but the appliance dealer was squirming into the Land Rover. The engine caught, the wheels spun, and the car lurched off, turning through the edge of the surf and heading for Puerto Morada. An orange dazzle flared on the rear window, as if the spirit who had lured it to the barrio was now harrying it away.
Unsteadily, Esteban got to his feet. He peeled his shirt back from the bullet wound. There was a lot of blood, but it was only a crease. He avoided looking at Raimundo and walked down to the water and stood gazing out at the waves; his thoughts rolled in with them, less thoughts than tidal sweeps of emotion.
It was twilight by the time Miranda returned, her arms full of bananas and wild figs. She had not heard the shot. He told her what had happened as she dressed his wounds with a poultice of herbs and banana leaves. “It will mend,” she said of the wound. “But this”—she gestured at Raimundo—“this will not. You must come with me, Esteban. The soldiers will kill you.”
“No,” he said. “They will come, but they are Patuca… except for the captain, who is a drunkard, a shell of a man. I doubt he will even be notified. They will listen to my story, and we will reach an accommodation. No matter what lies Onofrio tells, his word will not stand against theirs.”
“And then?”
“I may have to go to jail for a while, or I may have to leave the province. But I will not be killed.”
She sat for a minute without speaking, the whites of her eyes glowing in the half-light. Finally she stood and walked off along the beach.
“Where are you going?” he called.
She turned back. “You speak so casually of losing me…” she began.
“It is not casual!”
“No!” She laughed bitterly. “I suppose not. You are so afraid of life, you call it death and would prefer jail or exile to living it. That is hardly casual.” She stared at him, her expression a cipher at that distance. “I will not lose you, Esteban,” she said. She walked away again, and this time when he called she did not turn.
Twilight deepened to dusk, a slow fill of shadow graying the world into negative, and Esteban felt himself graying along with it, his thoughts reduced to echoing the dull wash of the receding tide. The dusk lingered, and he had the idea that night would never fall, that the act of violence had driven a nail through the substance of his irresolute life, pinned him forever to this ashen moment and deserted shore. As a child he had been terrified by the possibility of such magical isolations, but now the prospect seemed a consolation for Miranda’s absence, a remembrance of her magic. Despite her parting words, he did not think she would be back—there had been sadness and finality in her voice—and this roused in him feelings of both relief and desolation, feelings that set him to pacing up and down the tidal margin of the shore.
The full moon rose, the sands of the barrio burned silver, and shortly thereafter four soldiers came in a jeep from Puerto Morada. They were gnomish copper-skinned men, and their uniforms were the dark blue of the night sky, bearing no device or decoration. Though they were not close friends, he knew them each by name: Sebastian, Amador, Carlito, and Ramón. In their headlights Raimundo’s corpse—startlingly pale, the blood on his face dried into intricate whorls—looked like an exotic creature cast up by the sea, and their inspection of it smacked more of curiosity than of a search for evidence. Amador unearthed Raimundo’s gun, sighted along it toward the jungle, and asked Ramón how much he thought it was worth.
“Perhaps Onofrio will give you a good price,” said Ramón, and the others laughed.
They built a fire of driftwood and coconut shells, and sat around it while Esteban told his story; he did not mention either Miranda or her relation to the jaguar, because these men—estranged from the tribe by their government service—had grown conservative in their judgments, and he did not want them to consider him irrational. They listened without comment; the firelight burnished their skins to reddish gold and glinted on their rifle barrels.