Death in the Andes Read Online Free PDF Page A

have a cent. I don’t know what to do. I’m not stealing.”
    He broke into a run, heading for the highway, but slowed to a walk after a few meters. Where would he go? He was still holding the revolver. He put it back in the holster, which was attached to his belt and concealed by his shirt. There were no cars in sight, and the lights of Tingo María seemed very far away.
    â€œBelieve it or not, Corporal, I felt calm, relieved,” said the boy. “Like when you wake up and realize the nightmare was only a nightmare.”
    â€œBut why are you keeping the best part to yourself, Tomasito?” Lituma laughed again.
    Along with the sounds of the insects and the woods, the boy heard the woman’s hurried steps trying to catch up with him. He felt her beside him.
    â€œBut I’m not hiding anything, Corporal. That’s the whole truth. That’s exactly how it happened.”
    â€œHe didn’t let me take a cent,” she complained. “That fat shit. I wasn’t stealing, just borrowing enough to get to Lima. I don’t have a cent. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
    â€œI don’t know what I’m going to do either,” said Tomás.
    They stumbled on the winding little path covered with dead leaves, slipped in the ruts made by the rain, felt the brush of leaves and spiderwebs on their faces and arms.
    â€œWho told you to butt in?” The woman immediately lowered her voice, as if regretting her remark. But a moment later she went on berating him, although in a more restrained way. “Who made you my bodyguard, who asked you to protect me? Did I? You fucked up and you fucked me up too, and I didn’t even do anything.”
    â€œFrom what you’re telling me, you were already hot for her that night,” Lituma declared. “You didn’t pull out your revolver and shoot him because the stuff he was doing made you sick. Admit that you were jealous. You didn’t tell me the most important part, Tomasito.”

2
    â€œAll those deaths just slide right off the mountain people,” Lituma thought. The night before, in Dionisio’s cantina, he had heard the news of the attack on the Andahuaylas bus, and not one of the laborers who were eating and drinking there had a single thing to say. “I’ll never figure out what the fuck’s going on here,” he thought. Those three missing men hadn’t run away from their families, and they hadn’t stolen any machinery from camp. They had gone to join the terruco militia. Or the terrucos had murdered them and buried the bodies in some hollow in the hills. But if the Senderistas were already here and had accomplices among the laborers, why hadn’t they attacked the post yet? Why hadn’t they put him and Tomasito on trial? Maybe they were just sadists who wanted to break their nerve before they blew them to bits with dynamite. They wouldn’t even have time to pull their revolvers from under their pillows, let alone get the rifles out of the wardrobe. They would sneak up and surround the shack while they slept the nightmare-ridden sleep they had every night, or while Tomás was recalling his love affair and using Lituma’s shoulder to cry on. A deafening noise, the flash of powder, night turned into day: they’d blow off their hands and legs and heads all at the same time. Drawn and quartered like Tupac Amarú, compadre. It could happen any time, maybe tonight. And in Dionisio and the witch’s cantina, the serruchos would put on the same innocent faces they put on last night when they heard about the Andahuaylas bus.
    He sighed and loosened his kepi. This was the time of day when the mute used to wash their clothes, there, a few meters away, just like the Indian women: beating each article against a rock and wringing it out carefully in the washtub. He worked very conscientiously, soaping shirts and underwear over and over again. Then he would