Brian Garfield by Tripwire Read Free Book Online Page B

banks, tearing bits of it away.
    The woman crouched by the old man. “He is dead.”
    They buried him in the riverbank. The old woman mumbled words and Boag filled in the grave and tamped it with a stone.
    â€œThat was kind,” the woman said.
    Boag grunted.
    â€œBut there are still the three of us,” she said.
    â€œNo, there are the two of you and there is the one of me.”
    â€œAnd we are not three? You have no sums?”
    â€œI have no ties,” Boag said. “I’m a fool. I ought to let you get across the river by yourselves, the old man did.”
    â€œAnd now you are a philosopher? Besides, we no longer go across, we go down the river, yes?”
    â€œYuma is as far as I go with you.”
    â€œThat is understood.”
    The little girl waited until the woman went away to kill the fire; the little girl said, “She will sit in the sun in Yuma and die.”
    â€œShe doesn’t care about you, niña. Why think about her?”
    â€œShe does. She is only gruff.”
    â€œI thought you hated her.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œMake up your mind.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do after we come to Yuma?” “Leave me alone,” he growled, and set his good leg in the mud to shoulder the ferry-raft into the river.

7
    By the next night he was tired of them both, tired of the little girl’s chatter and the woman’s sour body smell.
    In the dusk he poled the ferry-raft through the crosscurrents of the Gila fork. The Gila rose somewhere in the mountains over in New Mexico or far-eastern Arizona and came down the White Mountains, fed by the Salt River and some others, and went past Phoenix and a few no-account towns and finally flowed into the Colorado here a few miles north of Yuma. Buffalo-soldiering, Boag had followed the pilgrim highway along the south bank of the Gila a good many times across the desert. It was nobody’s favorite river.
    He got the raft through the turmoil and they floated on down. Boag said, “You said you would tell me about the revolution in Sonora.”
    The little girl watched them both with her big angry eyes. The woman sighed. “They are a people who must be slaves or tyrants. Revolution only means exchanging one group of tyrants for another.”
    â€œWho are they this time?”
    â€œPesquiera is the governor. There are bandits and rebels trying to overthrow him.”
    â€œWho leads these bandits and rebels?”
    â€œWhy do you ask?”
    â€œJust tell me, vieja. ”
    â€œI think it is a man called Ruiz from Caborca. I am not sure. There are many bandit chieftains who pretend they are revolutionary leaders.”
    â€œWhat does Mexico City do about all this?”
    â€œNo one in Mexico City cares what happens in the provinces. We beseeched the government to help but they ignored us, which is why we are without our properties. The peones burned us out and ran to the hills to join the bandits who promised them freedom.”
    It sounded familiar enough to Boag. The woman said, “But there is no freedom for them except for the few who become tyrants.”
    â€œWho’s going to win?”
    â€œWho can say? The Governor Pesquiera has many troops, he will probably win.”
    It was dangerous making too many guesses. But a man like Mr. Pickett would find some way to make profit out of rebellions. Yet right now that didn’t necessarily follow: Mr. Pickett had three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold bullion and he didn’t need to mix in anybody’s trouble for money right now.
    A ton and a half of gold. It had to leave deep tracks. Boag kept dwelling on that.
    And here’s Boag without a cent in his kick. Well there was still the twenty dollars in his boots, he hadn’t lost that.
    The raft swept around a wide bend and just beyond the tall bluff sprouted the lights of Yuma town. There was a big prison on the bluff, of which Boag had heard tell; he