Her “Si” sounded like a hiss.
Rickard told his errand. Maldonado sputtered and swore. By the mother of Mary the Virgin, that thing would be stopped. It would be looked into, the rascal would be caught. He pulled back his cotton coat, mussed with sleep as was his face. He showed to the señors, with pride, his badge. He was a rurale; he was there to uphold the law. If the señors would but follow him, they would see that he did not sleep at his post. He had caught some of those drunken Indians on the road. He had brought them here.
They followed him around the house, through the wrecked garden. Maldonado shrugged at the stumps as they passed, ruins that had once been roses. MacLean felt his mouth pucker with repulsion as he watched the figure in striped cotton, the eyes lost in their sleepy folds of flesh, the cruel evil mouth. He was drawing from the pocket of his cotton pantaloons a bunch of iron keys, tied with a dirty string. They were approaching a shed, a cattle shed, it appeared to the guests. Maldonado unlocked a gate of bars.
“Would the señors look in there?”
On a bed of old straw, three inert figures sprawled; theirs complete oblivion.
Maldonado, kicked one of the figures with his feet. “Drunken swine.” He locked the door with majesty. He had proved his services, his ruraleship.
“But where do they get it?” demanded Rickard, turning back into the sunshine.
“Certainly,” the man evaded, “there is an ‘oasis’ somewhere. Perhaps, the señor remembers, I told him before, back in the sand-hills, ‘somewhere.’”
“Why don’t you find it?”
Maldonado was going to find it, surely! The señor must have patience. His hands were so full. He remembered the bunch of iron keys that he dropped in his pocket. Every action of the man was surreptitious, Rickard was noting. Maldonado would stand watching! “I’m doing my duty, señor.”