The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Chapter 21

A night of horror began for Curtin. Not so for Dobbs. Dobbs had discovered Curtin’s weak spot. Now he felt absolutely safe. He could play hide-and-seek with Curtin.

Curtin had lain down where he could watch Dobbs, and yet far enough away to have sufficient room and time should Dobbs try one of his tricks.

It was difficult for Curtin to stay awake. The march during the day, all on foot, climbing up the steep trails, wading in mud, driving the burros, reloading packs that came loose, and helping the animals over the barrancas, would make the strongest man weary.

When sleep almost overcame him he got up and walked around. He found that this made him still more sleepy. So he tried sitting up. Then he thought it might be better to roll himself in his blanket and keep still, and so give his body a rest. He might make Dobbs believe that he was still watchful while he got a few winks of sleep.

An hour later, when Curtin had not moved for a long time, Dobbs rose and started to crawl over to him. Curtin, however, had seen Dobbs’s move and at once drew his gun and yelled across the flickering fire: “Not another foot toward me or I pull the trigger.”

Dobbs laughed. “Excellent night-watchman. I have to hand it to you. You should try a bank for a job.”

Shortly after midnight Dobbs was wakened by the braying of one of the burros that seemed to smell a tiger around the camp. Dobbs again began to crawl, but again Curtin had the gun up and shouted his warning.

Dobbs knew now that he could not win this night, and so he enjoyed a good sleep. These two little tricks he had played on Curtin were not meant to overpower him. He had used them only to keep Curtin awake, so that the next night he would be asleep the moment he lay down.

The following day Curtin ordered Dobbs to lead the train so that he could have him in sight most of the time.

Late in the afternoon camp. Evening. And then night once more.

Shortly after ten Dobbs rose, went over to where Curtin slept like a bear in winter, and relieved him of his gun.

After he got the gun, he kicked Curtin hard in the ribs. “Up with you, you lousy rat. Cards are dealt once more in another way. This time for the last time. No more shuffling.”

“What cards do you mean? Oh hell, I am so tired!” Curtin tried to rise.

“Keep seated,” Dobbs said, and sat near him. “Let’s have a last talk before I ship you to hell. Your funeral has come. Because I can’t stand living in constant fear of you. It gets on my nerves, and on my stomach too. So it must be finished up now between you and me. No other way. I won’t be your watchman as you were mine for the last twenty-four hours. No more orders from you such as I had to swallow today. Get me?”

“In other words: murder. Is that what it means?” Curtin asked drowsily. He was far too sleepy to comprehend the full meaning of what was going on about him. All he wanted was sleep.

Dobbs kicked him again to arouse him. “No, brother, no murder. Your mistake. I don’t mean murder. I only want to free myself from you and from your intention to kill me whenever I may not be looking.”

Curtin tried to shake off his drowsiness. “Oh yes, I know you mean to bump me off right here and now. But don’t think it will be that easy. The old man will look after this. Just wait and see.”

“Yeah? Will he? And who else? I’ve had the answer for that ready for a long time. You want to know what I’ll tell him? You tied me to a tree and made your get-away with all the goods, yours, mine, and the old man’s. Then he’ll be looking for you, never for me. You are the criminal, not me.” Dobbs laughed as if at the best joke he had heard.

Curtin fought hard to keep awake and get a clear understanding of what Dobbs said. He moved his shoulders jerkily to shake his sleepiness out of his system. In this he failed.

Dobbs pushed him violently in the chest and yelled: “Up now, and march where I tell you. Today I had to march to your music, now you have to march to mine. Go on!”

“Where to?” Curtin asked, his eyes now wide open. “Where to?”

“To your funeral. Or did you think I’d take you to a wild party with booze and hussies undressing to please ye? Want to say your prayers? I might let you. It won’t help you much anyhow. You are going to hell.” Dobbs paused, watching his victim’s movements.

In his mind Curtin had the sensation that he was dreaming. And it came to him that once somebody had said to him, or that he had read somewhere, that in a dream one might see revealed the true character of a person more clearly than when awake. And he decided, in what he thought to be a dream, to be more careful against Dobbs in the future and to warn Howard against Dobbs also.

While he was trying harder and harder to get out of this haze and drowsiness, Dobbs lost patience, grabbed him brutally by the collar, and yelled: “Now stand on your feet, goddamn it, and have it over!”

“Oh, why can’t you let me sit here for a while and have just another hour of sleep? I’m all in. I can’t march now. Let the poor beasts have an hour more rest too. They are all overworked, and their backs are sore.”

“Get up, damn it! You’ll have time enough to sleep in a minute. Come, come, and I don’t mean maybe!”

Curtin felt Dobbs’s harsh commands in his brain like piercing stabs, and he thought he would go mad if he could not stop his yelling. It hurt him all over. He stood up heavily and staggered off in the direction Dobbs indicated as if acting in a dream. He obeyed merely in the hope that Dobbs’s yelling would cease if he did as ordered.

Dobbs kept close behind him, pushing and kicking him forward. He drove him some hundred and fifty feet into the bush, then shot him down without saying another word.

Curtin dropped like a felled tree. Once on the ground, he made no other move.

Dobbs bent down and listened for a few seconds. When he heard no breath, no moan, no sigh, he rose with a satisfied gesture, put the gun back into its holster, and returned to the glowing fire.

There he sat for half an hour, thinking what to do next. But no thoughts would form in his mind and take definite shape. He stared into the flames, shoved more sticks in, and watched them catch fire. He thought for a moment that he saw a huge red face in the fire that ate and swallowed the flames. Then he filled his pipe and lighted it with a burning twig.

He puffed for a few moments.

“Maybe,” he was thinking, “I didn’t bump him off at all. Perhaps he only staggered and dropped to the ground without being hit. Let’s figure that out. How was it?”

He turned his face around toward the woods where Curtin lay. For a good while he stared into the darkness as though he expected Curtin to appear at any moment.

He felt that he sat uncomfortably, so he rose, walked several times around the fire, and looked again toward the dense bush which hid Curtin. He stood for a while staring into the fire, pushed with his feet more sticks into the flames, and then squatted down.

After a quarter of an hour he knocked out his pipe, rolled himself in his blanket, and stretched himself full length near the fire. He hoped to fall asleep instantly by taking a long, deep breath. But in the middle of this long breath he stopped. He was sure that he had not hit Curtin, and that Curtin would appear before him the next minute, gun in hand. This idea kept him from falling asleep.

He now became restless. Throwing off his blanket, he crawled close to the fire and scratched his arms, his legs, his back, his chest. He felt chilly. Again he turned his face toward the bush.

With a nervous gesture he pulled a thick piece of burning wood out of the fire to use as a torch. He blew it into bright flames and hurried into the bush.

Curtin was lying motionless in the same spot where Dobbs had left him. Dobbs wanted to kneel down and press his hand against the breast of his victim. But, feeling uneasy, he jerked up, and then bent down, carefully listening for any sign of breath.

There was no sigh, no moan, not even the slightest movement of the fingers. Dobbs held the burning stick close to Curtin’s face, almost scorching his nose, and moved the stick back and forth close to the eyes. There was not even a flicker of the eyelashes. The shirt on Curtin’s breast was wet with blood.

Satisfied with his investigation, Dobbs straightened up and started to return to the fire. Before he had gone ten feet he pulled out the gun, turned around, and let Curtin have another shot, to make absolutely sure. He dropped the torch, which by now had died down. For a moment he hesitated. Then he pulled out the gun once more and threw it toward where Curtin lay. “It’s his, anyhow,” Dobbs muttered, “and it looks better this way.”

He came back to the fire. Once more he rolled himself in his blanket. Yet, as he felt more chilly than ever, he sat upright, staring into the fire.

“Damn it,” he said in a full voice, “damn it all! Who the hell would have thought that conscience might trouble me? Me? Well, it seemed about to, but now I’m quiet.” He laughed. But his laughter sounded like barking.

The word “conscience,” spoken by him in a full voice, got hold of him somehow. It seemed to penetrate his mind in a curious way. From this moment on, the word “conscience” sprang to the fore and dominated his thoughts, without any clear and definite meaning of what the word really stands for. Had he been asked what conscience was, he would not have been able to define it correctly or even to make it clear by comparison.

He debated with himself: “I want to see if conscience can play tricks on me. Murder is the worst man can do. According to books and sermons from the pulpit, conscience ought to show up now. But it doesn’t. As a matter of fact, I’ve never heard of a hangman bothered by his conscience. He moves a lever, and bang! a trap springs and the poor devil is hanging by his neck in mid air. Or the warden presses a button or puts forward a switch, and the mug sitting tight in the chair gets the shock and meets the devil at the gate with a brass band waiting for him. Not me, brother.

“Didn’t I kill quite a number of Heinies in the big parade? Did I? Hell, how they jumped! There was no conscience giving me nightmares or taking away my appetite. Not me.

“So why should I whine now and feel sour in the stomach for that rat kicked off the platform. I only hope he is really finished. Otherwise conscience might—it might—pop up and scratch my spine.

“Yep, of course, there is conscience, and lots of it. And you sure feel it all right if they catch you, and you sure may get twenty years up the river. Not so good. And, of course, conscience will make it rather uneasy for you waiting for a certain week when the Lord may have the mercy on your soul which was asked for in court by the judge in his sentence.

“Haven’t I heard that the guy kicked off may appear before you at midnight and make you shiver all down your spine? What time is it? Uh! Only half past eleven. Still half an hour to go. Somewhere in the world it is midnight already. All the time it is midnight somewhere, so the ghosts have to travel fast to be on time where they want to be. Come to think of it, I might pack up and leave. But, hell, I couldn’t make out the trail at night, dark as it is. I might go to jail for it. And if I get out, let’s say after a couple of years, the ghost won’t bother me any more, because I will have paid for him by having done my stretch.

“I wonder if I could make out the trail at night. I might try. If only I could get away from here! I think the climate must change farther down the trail. It’s rather chilly here. Well, I’d better stay by the fire and not lose myself in that goddamned Sierra. Damn the fire, it doesn’t give any real light. Why the hell didn’t I bring in more sticks before dark? No, I won’t go now and get them in the bush.

“Wonder how much it will make all together, mine, his, and the old man’s lift. It may bring in the neighborhood of fifty grand. I’m sure they won’t find him, but I’d better dig him in first thing in the morning, and leave no trace. Funny that now I’ve got the whole load for myself. Won’t the old man get mad if he comes to the port and steps into the bank with a bright face and then finds himself without any funds! Wouldn’t I like to see his sour face and hear him calling them sons of I don’t know what!” He barked out a suppressed laugh.

Suddenly he stopped. He was sure he heard laughter behind him in the deep darkness of the bush. He turned round as if expecting somebody to stride out of the darkness. He crawled round the fire so that without turning his head he could watch the bush where he thought he had heard the laughter. He blew into the fire and made it blaze up, lighting up the whole surroundings. While the fire was at its brightest he tried to penetrate with his eyes into the deep shadows of the dense foliage around him. He imagined he saw human forms, and then he was sure he saw faces. Then he realized that the shadows from the fire had befuddled him.

“Conscience,” he began again reflecting on this word and speaking to himself, “conscience! What a thing! If you believe that there is such a thing as conscience, it will pester you and blast hell out of you, but, on the other hand, if you don’t believe in the existence of conscience, what can it do to you? And I don’t believe in it any more than I believe in hell. Makes me sick, so much thinking and fussing about nonsense. Let’s hit the hay.”

He stretched himself by the fire, rolled in his blanket, and slept undisturbed until the sun began to rise.

It was late. Usually they were on their way long before sunrise. Hurriedly he drank the coffee left over from last night’s supper and ate the cold rice.

He was in such a hurry that he did not give corn to the burros as they usually did since they had hit this hard road.

Not until he began to load the burros did he remember Curtin, whose absence he considered now as something as inevitable as fate. Not for a moment did he feel a grain of pity or repentance. Curtin was no more, and that gave him great satisfaction and quietness of mind. He no longer had to worry about being attacked from behind.

But suppose Howard should trace him? What was he to answer about Curtin and the goods? The story he had in mind to tell might not go over well with the old man. Perhaps it might be better to change the whole story altogether. Easy that. Bandits got them on the way and killed Curtin and robbed them, while he himself, Dobbs, had a chance to get away with two of his burros and his own goods. It would be only natural that he would look first after his own. The smartest guy under heaven couldn’t find anything wrong with that story. The country was full of bandits and highwaymen, wasn’t it? Everybody knows that.