Read Online Gringos by Charles Portis - Free Book Online

off.”
    â€œWell, maybe tomorrow. I’m certainly no good to anybody like this. What do you think, Gene?”
    Skinner shrugged. “Whatever you say. What’s your fee on a deal like that, Burns? Double rate on a hospital run?”
    â€œFor you it would be double.”
    Dr. Ritchie jiggled his soup spoon. “Boys, boys.”
    Lund picked up on the theme of Indian superiority. He talked about their natural ways, how they were attuned to the natural rhythms of life, their natural acceptance of things, natural religion, natural food, natural childbirth, natural sense of place in the world, natural this, and natural that. All true enough, perhaps, but there was something a little bogus and second-hand about his enthusiasm. It was like some poet or intellectual going on and on about the beauties of baseball.
    I lit a cigar and tuned out. We had the Indians to thank for tobacco too. They had given us these long green puros for solace. I watched the flashes of bugs being electrocuted. You couldn’t hear the crackling sounds, or even the chugging of the generator, for the rushing noise of the river.
    Skinner was soon at it again. “. . . an old and honored tradition, I know, this robbing of travelers in out of the way places of the world, but I broke your pal Bautista from sucking eggs and I’m going to break you too.”
    â€œYou’ve already broken me, Skinner. I’m cured. I won’t be back.”
    â€œNo, you don’t get off that easy. You can’t just turn this away. You’ll be back. Guys like you are always hanging around where there’s a quick buck to be made. You’ll be back, but on my terms. No more grand larceny. Next time there’ll be a clear understanding.”
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    I noticed that Dr. Ritchie’s jaw had dropped. Flies were walking around on his lips and teeth. The flies know right away. The man was dead. He had just quietly stopped living. As a child I thought you had to go through something called a death agony, certain pangs and throes. They were not incidental but a positive visitation. Death came as a force in itself. We laid him on the ground, and Gail gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation. Burt pounded on his chest. I turned him over and pitched in with my method, long out of date, of pumping up and down on his back. Lund said, “All right. That’s enough.”
    We carried the body to his tent and zipped it up in his sleeping bag. Skinner was shaken. “I thought he just had the flu.” He said we would sit up with the body through the night, turn and turn about. He took the first watch. I slept in my truck, after moving it beyond the glow of the electric bug killer. My suspicion was that those things attracted more bugs than they killed. The trick was to lie low. Later it rained a little and that shut up the monkeys. No one called me for my watch. Skinner sat up alone with the body all night.
    At breakfast he announced that he and Lund—the Mexicans might want a second witness—would take it out in the Toyota. I was to follow behind in my big truck to see that they made it across the ford. The river was up a bit. They would take the body to Villahermosa, the nearest town of any size, there to make the necessary calls home and to see to the legal formalities and the shipping arrangements. They would return in a day or two. The rest of the crew would carry on here under Burt’s direction. He had his trail bike, if any emergency came up. Dr. Ritchie’s achievements were well known, his brilliant work on the Tajín horizon, his reconstruction of the Olmec merchant routes. The Bonar expedition could best serve his memory by finishing the job here.
    Gail said, “Denise and I are going out, too.”
    â€œNo need for that.”
    â€œI mean we’re leaving the dig. We’re going home.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWe have our reasons. One reason is that we agreed to work