Paul Bowles: The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

Perhaps an hour later she lit the lamp by her bed, rose, and in her nightgown went to sit on the veranda. She put the lamp where it had been before, by the wall, and turned her chair to face it. She sat watching the wall until very late.

At dawn the air was cool, full of the sound of continuous lowing of cattle, nearby and far. Breakfast was served as soon as the sky was completely light. In the kitchen there was a hubbub of women’s voices. The dining room smelled of kerosene and oranges. A great platter heaped with thick slices of pale pineapple was in the center of the table. Don Federico sat at the end, his back to the wall. Behind him was a small niche, bright with candles, and the Virgin stood there in a blue and silver gown.

“Did you sleep well?” said Don Federico to Lucha.

“Ah, wonderfully well!”

“And you?” to Chalía.

“I never sleep well,” she said.

A hen ran distractedly into the room from the veranda and was chased out by the serving girl. Outside the door a group of Indian children stood guard around a square of clothesline along which was draped a red assortment of meat: strips of flesh and loops of internal organs. When a vulture swooped low, the children jumped up and down, screaming in chorus, and drove it into the air again. Chalía frowned at their noise. Don Federico smiled.

“This is all in your honor,” he said. “We killed a cow yesterday. Tomorrow all that will be gone.”

“Not the vultures!” exclaimed Lucha.

“Certainly not. All the cowboys and servants take some home to their families. And they manage to get rid of quite a bit of it themselves.”

“You’re too generous,” said Chalía. “It’s bad for them. It makes them dissatisfied and unhappy. But I suppose if you didn’t give it to them, they’d steal it anyway.”

Don Federico pushed back his chair.

“No one here has ever stolen anything from me.” He rose and went out.

After breakfast while it was still early, before the sun got too high in the sky, he regularly made a two-hour tour of the ranch. Since he preferred to pay unexpected visits to the vaqueros in charge of the various districts, he did not always cover the same regions. He was explaining this to Lucha as he untethered his horse outside the high barbed-wire fence that enclosed the house. “Not because I hope to find something wrong. But this is the best way always to find everything right.”

Like Chalía, Lucha was skeptical of the Indian’s ability to do anything properly. “A very good idea,” she said. “I’m sure you are much too lenient with those boys. They need a strong hand and no pity.”

Above the high trees that grew behind the house the red and blue macaws screamed, endlessly repeating their elliptical path in the sky. Lucha looked up in their direction and saw Chalía on the upper porch, tucking a khaki shirt into her breeches.

“Rico, wait! I want to go with you,” she called, and rushed into her room.

Lucha turned back to her brother. “You won’t take her? She couldn’t! With Mamá . . .”

Don Federico cut her short, so as not to hear what would have been painful to him. “You both need fresh air and exercise. Come, both of you.”

Lucha was silent a moment, looking aghast into his face. Finally she said, “I couldn’t,” and moved away to open the gate. Several cowboys were riding their horses slowly up from the paddock toward the front of the house. Chalía appeared on the lower porch and hurried to the gate, where Lucha stood looking at her.

“So you’re going horseback riding,” said Lucha. Her voice had no expression.

“Yes. Are you coming? I suppose not. We should be back soon; no, Rico?”

Don Federico disregarded her, saying to Lucha: “It would be good if you came.”

When she did not reply, but went through the gate and shut it, he had one of the cowboys dismount and help Chalía onto his horse. She sat astride the animal beaming down at the youth.

“Now, you can’t come. You have no horse!” she cried, pulling the reins taut violently so that the horse stood absolutely still.

’Yes, Señora. I shall go with the señores.” His speech was archaic and respectful, the speech of the rustic Indian. Their soft, polite words always annoyed her, because she believed, quite erroneously, that she could detect mockery underneath. “Like parrots who’ve been taught two lines of Gongoral” she would laugh, when the subject was being discussed. Now she was further nettled by hearing herself addressed as Señora. “The idiot!” she thought. “He should know that I’m not married.” But when she looked down at the cowboy again she noticed his white teeth and his very young face. She smiled, saying, “How hot it is already,” and undid the top button of her shirt.

The boy ran to the paddock and returned immediately, riding a larger and more nervous horse. This was a joke to the other cowboys, who started ahead, laughing. Don Federico and Chalía rode side by side, and the boy went along behind them, by turns whistling a tune and uttering soothing words to his skittish horse.

The party went across the mile or so of open space that lay between the house and the jungle. Then the high grass swept the riders’ legs as the horses went downward to the river, which was dry save for a narrow stream of water in the middle. They followed the bed downstream, the vegetation increasing the height along the banks as they progressed. Chalía had enameled her fingernails afresh before starting out and was in a good humor. She was discussing the administration of the ranch with Don Federico. The expenses and earning capacity interested her particularly, although she had no clear idea of the price of anything. She had worn an enormous soft straw sombrero whose brim dropped to her shoulders as she rode. Every few minutes she turned around and waved to the cowboy who still remained behind, shouting to him: “Muchacho! You’re not lost yet?”

Presently the river was divided into two separate beds by a large island which loomed ahead of them, its upper reaches a solid wall of branches and vines. At the foot of the giant trees among some gray boulders was a score or so of cows, looking very small indeed as they lay hunched up in the mud or ambled about seeking the thickest shade. Don Federico galloped ahead suddenly and conferred loudly with the other vaqueros. Almost simultaneously Chalía drew in her reins and brought her horse to a halt. The boy was quickly abreast of her. As he came up she called to him: “It’s hot, isn’t it?”

The men rode on ahead. He circled around her. “Yes, señora. But that is because we are in the sun. There”—he indicated the island—“it is shady. Now they are almost there.”

She said nothing, but took off her hat and fanned herself with the brim. As she moved her hand back and forth she watched her red nails. “What an ugly color,” she murmured.

“What, señora?”

“Nothing.” She paused. “Ah, what heat!”

“Come, señora. Shall we go on?”

Angrily she crumpled the crown of the sombrero in her fist. “I am not señora,” she said distinctly, looking at the men ahead as they rode up to the cows and roused them from their lethargy. The boy smiled. She went on. “I am señorita. That is not the same thing. Or perhaps you think it is?”

The boy was puzzled; he was conscious of her sudden emotion, but he had no idea of its cause. “Yes, señorita,” he said politely, without conviction. And he added, with more assurance, “I am Roberto Paz, at your orders.”

The sun shone down upon them from above and was reflected by the mica in the stones at their feet. Chalía undid another button of her shirt.

“It’s hot. Will they came back soon?”

“No, señorita. They return by the road. Shall we go?” He turned his horse toward the island ahead.