They passed on and halted in the flat and they left the youngest among them to tend the animals and then they came back down the track rolling cigarettes and passing among them an esclarajo made from a So caliber shellcasing in which burned a bit of tow. They were gypsies from Durango and the first thing that they asked him was what was the matter with the horse.
He told them that the horse was wounded and that he thought its condition was serious. One of them asked him when this had occurred and he said that it was the day before. He sent one of the younger men back to the float and in a few minutes he returned with an old canvas musette bag. Then they all walked up through the trees to‑look at the horse.
The gypsy knelt in the leaves and looked first into the animal’s eyes. Then he pinched away the cracked mud from its chest and looked at the wound. He looked up at Billy.
Herida de cuchillo, said Billy.
The gypsy’s expression did not change and he did not take his eyes from Billy. Billy looked at the other men. They were squatting on their haunches about the horse. He thought that if the horse died they might eat it. He said that the horse had been attacked by a lunatic one of four among a band of robbers. The man nodded. He passed his hand across the underside of his chin. He did not look at the horse again. He asked Billy if he wanted to sell the horse and Billy knew for the first time that the horse would live.
They squatted there, all watching him. He looked at the drover. He said that the horse had belonged to his father and that he could not part with him and the man nodded and opened the bag.
Porfirio, he said. Tráigame agua.
He looked down through the trees toward Billy’s camp where a thin wisp of smoke stood in the morning air motionless as rope. He called after the man to put the water to boil and then looked at Billy again. Con su permiso, he said.
Por supuesto.
Ladrónes.
Sí. Ladrónes.
The drover looked down at the horse. He gestured with his chin out toward the tree where Boyd’s bones were lodged in their trussings.
Qué tiene allá? he said.
Los huesos de mi hermano.
Huesos, said the gypsy. He turned and looked toward the river where his man had gone with the bucket. The other three men crouched waiting. Rafael, he said. Leña. He turned to Billy and smiled. He looked about at the little grove of trees and he put the flat of his hand to his cheek in a curious gesture such as a man might make who remembers he has forgotten something. He wore on one forefinger an ornate ring of gold and jewels and he wore a golden rope about his throat. He smiled again and gestured toward the fire that they proceed there.
They collected wood and built back the fire and they fetched rocks to make a trivet and there they set the bucket to boil. Soaking in the pail were several handfuls of small green leaves and the waterbearer had covered the bucket with what looked to be an old brass cymbal and all sat about the fire and watched the bucket and after a while it began to steam among the flames.
The one called Rafael lifted the cover with a stick and laid the cover by and stirred the green froth within and then put the cover back again. A pale green tea ran down the sides of the bucket and hissed in the fire. The chief of the drovers sat rolling a cigarette. He passed the cloth pouch on to the man beside him and he leaned and took a burning branch from the fire and with his head cocked to one side lit the cigarette and then put the branch back in the fire. Billy asked him if he himself was not afraid of robbers in that country but the man only said that the robbers were loath to molest the gitanos for they also were men of the road.
Y adónde van con el aeroplano? said Billy.
The gypsy gestured with his chin. Al none, he said.
They smoked. The bucket steamed. The gypsy smiled.
Con respecto al aeroplano, he said, hay tres historias. Cuál quiere oír?
Billy smiled. He said that he wished to hear the true history. The gypsy pursed his lips. He seemed to be considering the plausibility of this. Finally he said that it was necessary to state that there were two such airplanes, both of them flown by young Americans, both lost in the mountains in the calamitous summer of nineteen fifteen.
He drew deeply upon the cigarette and blew the smoke toward the fire. Certain facts were known, he said. There was common ground and there one could begin. This airplane had sat in the high desert mountains of Sonora and the wind and the blowing sand had flayed it of its fabric and passing Indians had pried away and carried off the brass inspection plate from the instrument panel for amulet and there it had languished on in that wild upcountry lost and unclaimed and indeed unclaimable for nearly thirty years. Thus far all was a single history. Whether there be two planes or one. Whichever plane was spoken of it was the same.