The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories

She relaxed, let herself be led along. “Nothing,” she answered after a moment. Nicho walked with her down the path to the river. When they got to the shade, the heavy lines in her forehead disappeared. “The sun hurts your eyes?” he asked her, and she said that it did. Under a giant breadfruit tree there were clean gray rocks; they sat down and he began a series of questions. She answered placidly; her name was Luz; she had come with her sister only two days ago from San Lucas; she would stay on with her grandfather here because her parents were having quarrels at home. All her replies were given while she gazed out across the landscape, yet Nicho was sure she could not see the feathery trees across the river or the mountains beyond. He asked her: “Why don’t you look at me when you talk to me?”

She put her hand in front of her face. “My eyes are ugly.”

“It’s not true!” he declared with indignation. Then, “They’re beautiful,” he added, after looking at them carefully for a moment.

She saw that he was not making fun of her, and straightway decided that she liked him more than any boy she had ever known.

That night he told his aunt about Luz, and as he described the colors in her face and hair he saw her look pleased. “Una hija del soil” she exclaimed. “They bring good luck. You must invite her here tomorrow. I shall prepare her a good refresco de tamarindo.” Nicho said he would, but he had no intention of subjecting his friend to his aunt’s interested scrutiny. And while he was not at all astonished to hear that albinos had special powers, he thought it selfish of his aunt to want to profit immediately by those which Luz might possess.

The next day when he went to the bridge and found Luz standing there, he was careful to lead her through a hidden lane down to the water, so that she might remain unseen as they passed near the house. The bed of the river lay largely in the shadows cast by the great trees that grew along its sides. Slowly the two children wandered downstream, jumping from rock to rock. Now and then they startled a vulture, which rose at their approach like a huge cinder, swaying clumsily in the air while they walked by, to realight in the same spot a moment later. There was a particular place that he wanted to show her, where the river widened and had sandy shores, but it lay a good way downstream, so that it took them a long time to get there. When they arrived, the sun’s light was golden and the insects had begun to call. On the hill, invisible behind the thick wall of trees, the soldiers were having machine-gun practice: the blunt little berries of sound came in clusters at irregular intervals. Nicho rolled his trouser legs up high above his knees and waded well out into the shallow stream. “Wait!” he called to her. Bending, he scooped up a handful of sand from the river bed. His attitude as he brought it back for her to see was so triumphant that she caught her breath, craned her neck to see it before he had arrived. “What is it?” she asked.

“Look! Silver!” he said, dropping the wet sand reverently into her outstretched palm. The tiny grains of mica glistened in the late sunlight.

“Qué precioso!” she cried in delight. They sat on some roots by the water. When the sand was drier, she poured it carefully into the pocket of her dress.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked her.

“Give it to my grandfather.”

“No, no!” he exclaimed. “You don’t give away silver. You hide it. Don’t you have a place where you hide things?”

Luz was silent; she never had thought of hiding anything. “No,” she said presently, and she looked at him with admiration.

He took her hand. “I’ll give you a special place in my garden where you can hide everything you want. But you must never tell anyone.”

“Of course not.” She was annoyed that he should think her so stupid. For a while she had been content just to sit there with Nicho beside her; now she was impatient to get back and deposit the treasure. He tried to persuade her to stay a little longer, saying that there would be time enough if they returned later, but she had stood up and would not sit down again. They climbed upstream across the boulders, coming suddenly upon a pool where two young women stood thigh-deep washing clothes, naked save for the skirts wrapped round their waists, long full skirts that floated gently in the current. The women laughed and called out a greeting. Luz was scandalized.

“They should be ashamed!” she cried. “In San Lucas if a woman did that, everyone would throw stones at her until she was buried under them!”

“Why?” said Nicho, thinking that San Lucas must be a very wicked town.

“Because they would,” she answered, still savoring the shock and shame she had felt at the sight of the golden breasts in the sunlight.