The Mouse in the Mountain | Page 7

surprise, for the space of two heartbeats, and then Garcia whipped up his revolver and fired.
The report was a flat, ragged crash, and the bullet hit the soldier just under his chin. He clapped both hands to his throat and flopped backwards out of sight. Garcia opened the side door and looked at the butcher who owned the shop next to the cafe .
The butcher had been interrupted in the process of carving up a skinny cow with the aid of three cats and one million flies. He opened his mouth to yell, but he didn't, because Garcia hit him on top of the head with the revolver and knocked him flat. The cats went in three directions, and the flies droned up in an angry swarm and then settled back on the beef and the butcher indiscriminately.
Garcia didn't hurry. He went cautiously along the alley in the direction of the marketplace, sliding along one wall with the revolver thrust out ahead of him. He reached the alley-mouth and peered out. The people in the marketplace were beginning to stir and wonder uneasily.
Sergeant Obrian stood up on the roof of a building two doors away and leaned over the parapet, peering down to see what was happening. Garcia raised his revolver and aimed carefully at him. He was shooting up at an angle and against the sun. He missed by six inches. The bullet slapped a silvery blob of lead against the adobe. Instantly Sergeant Obrian dropped back out of sight behind the parapet.
In the same split second, Private Serez managed to spear the rattlesnake with his bayonet. He didn't know exactly what to do with it now that he had it, so he pitched it out the window into the marketplace. The snake, still writhing, fell across the nose of a burro below. The burro kicked out backward with both heels and hit its master squarely in the stomach. He fell down and screamed and flailed the ground with his arms.
The burro stamped on the snake and then ran away, and the butcher woke up and yelled, and the whole marketplace went off like a time bomb. All the people decided they would go somewhere else right away and, if possible, take their various dependents, human and animal, along with them. The confusion was something terrific, and Garcia stepped right into the middle of it and disappeared.
Chapter 3
THE ROLLED GRAVEL ROAD WAS LIKE A CLEAN white ribbon laid in graceful loops along the side of the mountain that towered red and enormous up into the thin, clear blue of the sky. Heat waves shimmered and wiggled above bare rock, and the dust from the bus's passage drifted back in a lazy plume. The engine burbled and muttered to itself in quiet protest over the steepness of the grade.
"This is a pretty sizeable rock pile," Henshaw volunteered, trying to look out the window and up toward the summit.
"Kindly do not waste the astonishment," Bartolome ordered. "This is not yet the magnificence. This is called 'La Cabeza,' the head, because that is its name. The scenery here is only ordinarily wonderful." Janet Martin's eyes were shining. "It's the beginning of the middle range," she said in a low voice to Doan. "One of Cortez's lieutenants discovered it. He thought the whole length of the range looked like a sleeping woman. He saw it first from the other side of Azela Valley--a hundred and ten miles from here"
"What was the guy's name?" Doan asked.
"Lieutenant Emile Perona. He was a soldier of fortune--an adventurer. He was the younger son of a very noble Spanish family, and he was one of the first men to come to America. He loved this country--its beauty and its ruggedness. It just suited his own nature."
"Was he handsome?" Doan asked, watching her.
"Oh, yes," said Janet softly. "Very. He was tall and hawk-faced and dark, with piercing eyes and a smile that seemed like a light in a darkened room. He was ruthless and cruel, too, as all brave men could be cruel in those old days, but he had integrity and honesty--" Her voice trailed away dreamily.
"You seem to know him pretty well," Doan observed, "seeing he's been dead for four hundred years or so."
"I read about him," Janet said.
"I can read, too," said Doan, "and often do. But I never ran across Lieutenant Perona. Where'd you find him?"
"He was mentioned in Cortez's reports."
"Did Cortez say he was handsome?"
"No," Janet said stiffly.
"Tell me some more," Doan invited.
Janet shook her head. "No. You're laughing at me."
"I'm not," Doan denied. "Neither is Carstairs. We like you."
"Do you--do you think I look sexy?"
"What?" Doan said, startled.
Janet was blushing furiously. "You don't! You weren't thinking of anything like that!"
"I was, too," Doan contradicted. "I was just working up to it in a