Havek, his breath whistling in his excitement.
A million dollars and a parade! thought South Boy as he disappeared into the black on a minor avalanche of gravel.
His hand was inside his shirt, gripping the butt of his shortgun. He had a feeling he’d be better satisfied if he had a weapon of heavier caliber—one that he’d tried out on something more than tin cans at very short range. Still, this would be close-range work. He’d let Nebethee come twice arm-length and he’d put six bullets into his belly. After all, an ape was just a big, tough, hairy man. All the experts agreed—and there was hardly a man in the Valley but was at least a theoretical expert on homicide—that a bullet in the belly was the sure way of stopping a real tough man. The Foreman said (and it was well known he was more than a theoretical expert), “A bullet in the belly button beats two through the head.”
The gravel stopped rolling under the seat of South Boy’s pants and his feet hit soft dirt and hit running. He ran only as far as the first mesquite and there he crouched, his back protected by the thorny tree. He found he could see surprisingly well. There was nothing but low soap-weeds for yards around him. No hiding place for anything bigger than a rabbit. His heart beat hard, his imagination sent false, fleeting images to his eyes, but as a veteran of many a night hunt he knew he saw nothing real.
His heart eased and sank in slow, leaden disappointment.
He might have been there two minutes when he heard Havek’s yell. The yell of a warrior who goes to look into the face of death. Havek was coming down the gravel slide, invisible, but audible.
Havek came running across the flat, a swiftly moving blackness in a world less black. Nothing else moved. South Boy, hope fading, got up and trotted after him, still crouching low, his hand on his belly-gun. Havek was out in the moonlight, and he stopped in a small white playa.
“South Boy!” he called anxiously. “South Boy!”
South Boy came walking out of the shadows, slowly. Somehow he’d been so sure of a million dollars and glory a minute ago. Now he had a sickening feeling.
That Mormonhater was crazy! Everyone said so. South Boy didn’t want to believe it. The Mormonhater was his friend. But if Nebethee were an ape, there would have to be more than one. Apes have to breed and die like other creatures. Why hadn’t he thought of that before working his hopes up so high?
He came up to where Havek stood, and walked by him in glum silence.
Havek was staring at him, his mouth open, the whites of his eyes showing. “Truly,” he muttered. “Truly. A hawk-dreamer. His hands empty. He went down into Death’s face. He walked slowly away. Truly—truly—truly—a Great Thing.”
South Boy heard him and felt low and cheap. Havek thought he had done a brave thing. Instead he’d just made a fool of himself, believing a crazy man’s story. He could not explain because he had promised the Mormonhater. And how could he explain a thing like that to an Indian, anyway?
So he walked in silence, which was exactly what a Mojave would have done after an act of great courage. Havek followed him, murmuring delightedly; and South Boy felt all the more like a cheat, and his heart was lower than a snake’s belly.
The trouble is, he was thinking, I act Indian one time and white another time and I get all mixed. He tried to think that idea out to make it more coherent, but he couldn’t.
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