Read Online Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett - Free Book Online

dug the body out, and taken it to El Carmen to hand over to the authorities. However, the rastreadores did not have a spare mount, so someone would have been forced to walk, and over the long, hot trek the corpse would have become disgusting. He and Stackpole were already sickened by the ghastly pecked skull, which had suddenly become detached, and had rolled around grinning at them while they searched the dead man’s pockets to make certain they were empty. The decision to leave the corpse in the trench had been easy, and it had been a huge relief to pile the salt back, though not without making very sure that the skull was packed down with the body.
    Stackpole had gone to some trouble to make Adams’s last resting place look like a proper grave. By firelight, he had whittled away at a broad piece of scapula, etching the words: “Caleb Adams, American trader, murdered by person or persons unknown, discovered 25 January 1839,” and this morning he had made a cross, with the scapula as the traverse and another horse bone for the upright, and had shoved it into the head of the grave.
    Wiki turned to Manuel Bernantio, who was smoking as he, too, contemplated the grave. “You still cannot tell what happened here?”
    Again, Bernantio shook his head. The light of day had made no difference. Any traces Adams and his killer or killers might have left of their struggle—if there had been a struggle here—had been destroyed by the vultures’ flapping and copious defecations.
    Wiki deliberated, and then asked, “Do you think he might have been knifed somewhere else, and strapped to his horse for the journey?”
    The rastreador pursed his mouth. “Perhaps,” he allowed. Then he gestured with his cigar at the horse skeletons, and said, “The victim’s steed may yet be here.”
    That was a point, Wiki thought. The vultures would have made such short work of the exposed body of the dead horse that its bones would be indistinguishable from the rest. Then he wondered again what had happened to the packhorses after they had been unloaded of the provisions, down by the salt dunes at the side of the river. When he asked Bernantio about it, the rastreador paused, but finally shook his head. With a decisive movement, he spurred his mount, gesturing at his comrades to commence the journey back to the Río Negro.
    The party took the much shorter direct route, bypassing the salinas by several miles, to find the salt dunes as deserted as before. When they reached the water the horses drank thirstily, the gauchos built a fire and made maté, and Wiki scouted around the hills of salt, but without finding anything to indicate a struggle.
    Captain Stackpole was standing apart from the rest, staring out over the water. Wiki said to him, “We have to get back to the pueblo.”
    â€œBut what about my schooner?” the whaling master protested. “The gauchos promised to find her.”
    â€œNo, they did not,” Wiki contradicted. “And they’ve found Adams, which is more than you expected. Now, you have to pay them.”
    Stackpole grimaced. “In money?”
    â€œChilean dollars would be best.”
    Unfortunately, Wiki’s earlier suspicions about Stackpole’s financial state proved to be correct, and he had to help him out with a handful of the silver coins. Stackpole didn’t bother to thank him, fixing him with a cynical eye, instead. “Men who’ve whaled in the Pacific have assured me that kernackers are incurable thieves,” he observed. “I guess you’re the exception what proves the rule.”
    â€œYou might be surprised,” said Wiki wryly. In his home village it was very hard for anyone to hang on to personal possessions. Not only was hospitality lavish, and generosity a much admired virtue, but shared ownership was the rule, along with muru, a kind of ritual plundering that was an intrinsic part of most