“Leave me here,” Fernando said. “It hurts much and there is much hemorrhage inside. I feel it in the inside when I move.”
“Let us get thee up the slope,” Primitivo said. “Put thy arms around our shoulders and we will take thy legs.”
“It is inutile,” Fernando said. “Put me here behind a stone. I am as useful here as above.”
“But when we go,” Primitivo said.
“Leave me here,” Fernando said. “There is no question of my travelling with this. Thus it gives one horse more. I am very well here. Certainly they will come soon.”
“We can take thee up the hill,” the gypsy said. “Easily.”
He was, naturally, in a deadly hurry to be gone, as was Primitivo. But they had brought him this far.
“Nay,” Fernando said. “I am very well here. What passes with Eladio?”
The gypsy put his finger on his head to show where the wound had been.
“Here,” he said. “After thee. When we made the rush.”
“Leave me,” Fernando said. Anselmo could see he was suffering much. He held both hands against his groin now and put his head back against the bank, his legs straight out before him. His face was gray and sweating.
“Leave me now please, for a favor,” he said. His eyes were shut with pain, the edges of the lips twitching. “I find myself very well here.”
“Here is a rifle and cartridges,” Primitivo said.
“Is it mine?” Fernando asked, his eyes shut.
“Nay, the Pilar has thine,” Primitivo said. “This is mine.”
“I would prefer my own,” Fernando said. “I am more accustomed to it.”
“I will bring it to thee,” the gypsy lied to him. “Keep this until it comes.”
“I am in a very good position here,” Fernando said. “Both for up the road and for the bridge.” He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked across the bridge, then shut them as the pain came.
The gypsy tapped his head and motioned with his thumb to Primitivo for them to be off.
“Then we will be down for thee,” Primitivo said and started up the slope after the gypsy, who was climbing fast.
Fernando lay back against the bank. In front of him was one of the whitewashed stones that marked the edge of the road. His head was in the shadow but the sun shone on his plugged and bandaged wound and on his hands that were cupped over it. His legs and his feet also were in the sun. The rifle lay beside him and there were three clips of cartridges shining in the sun beside the rifle. A fly crawled on his hands but the small tickling did not come through the pain.
“Fernando!” Anselmo called to him from where he crouched, holding the wire. He had made a loop in the end of the wire and twisted it close so he could hold it in his fist.
“Fernando!” he called again.
Fernando opened his eyes and looked at him.
“How does it go?” Fernando asked.
“Very good,” Anselmo said. “Now in a minute we will be blowing it.”
“I am pleased. Anything you need me for advise me,” Fernando said and shut his eyes again and the pain lurched in him.
Anselmo looked away from him and out onto the bridge.
He was watching for the first sight of the coil of wire being handed up onto the bridge and for the Inglés’s sunburnt head and face to follow it as he would pull himself up the side. At the same time he was watching beyond the bridge for anything to come around the far corner of the road. He did not feel afraid now at all and he had not been afraid all the day. It goes so fast and it is so normal, he thought. I hated the shooting of the guard and it made me an emotion but that is passed now. How could the Inglés say that the shooting of a man is like the shooting of an animal? In all hunting I have had an elation and no feeling of wrong. But to shoot a man gives a feeling as though one had struck one’s own brother when you are grown men. And to shoot him various times to kill him. Nay, do not think of that. That gave thee too much emotion and thee ran blubbering down the bridge like a woman.