The Bridge in the Jungle by B. Traven Read Free Book Online Page B

the more ghostly they appeared. Their deep bronze-brown faces blended with the surrounding darkness so perfectly that their faces vanished and only their hats and white clothes remained. One often got the impression that only clothes were walking about, over which hats were mysteriously hanging in mid-air.
    Here and there I saw the Garcia woman walking among the groups. It seemed to me that she was now moving about slightly nervously and that she jerked her head this way and that, pushing her face forward.
    Garcia had taken up his fiddle again. Others had also tried to play during the last half-hour, but it was clear that Garcia was the best fiddler in the place.
    Out from somewhere in the deep night the wailing tunes of a mouth-organ could be heard. Again girls aroused enough courage to try to dance, and again they realized, to their chagrin, that it was useless.
    The pump-master woman, who had been sitting on a crude chair near the portico chatting with two other women, stood up, took down one of the lanterns, and went inside her hut.
    With half the illumination gone, the square became darker and ghostlier than ever.
    The campfire of the mule-drivers was nearly extinguished, and the three men and their boy came to the square to mix with the party. Right away they met several acquaintances and soon they were partaking in the general conversation.
    The Garcia woman, coming from the direction of the bridge, stepped up to us at this moment. She walked fast now, as though she were in a real hurry. She said to us: 'The kid isn't here and he isn't there. He isn't anywhere. I can't find him. Where do you think he might have gone?'
    Her face, which only a quarter of an hour ago was so full of smiles and happiness, and ten minutes ago looked rather businesslike, had by now taken on an expression of worry and uneasiness. Yet it was not fear. She raised her eyebrows, opened her eyes wide, and with those staring eyes she gazed at us, searching the face of every one of us. And for the first time since I saw her, there appeared in her eyes a suspicion that we might know something or imagine something, and that we might be witholding our knowledge from her for some reason or other, perhaps out of sheery pity for her.
    Helplessly, like a wounded animal that is down and can't get on its feet, she looked at us again, almost piercing our faces with her burning eyes. Finding nothing, she shook her head and folded her hands against her breast.
    Another change came over her eyes. The slight foreboding she had felt only a few seconds earlier had now become half a certainty. With all her power she tried to fight off that feeling, but she couldn't.
    Well! The Great Music-Master had arrived. Here at last! He was ready to play. The dancing that all had been waiting for would begin. It would be a wild and whirling dance, to be sure. It would be a dance at which the trumpets and fanfares of Judgement Day would blare.
    Slowly the dancers began to take their positions.
    'Don't you worry, Carmelita,' the pump-master said in a fatherly way. 'That kid got tired out, so he has laid himself down somewhere as kids will do. There's nothing strange about that.'
    'He isn't at home. I've looked everywhere. I've searched every nook and corner.'
    'He'll be in another choza with other kids; sure, that's where he is.'
    'No. I've asked everywhere in all the jacales.'
    'Don't get hot, Carmelita. Perhaps he has crawled beneath a blanket or a petate or hidden in a heap of old sacks. He may have climbed up on the roof, where it is cool, and fallen asleep there.'
    The Garcia admits she has not thought of the roof. Frequently he climbs the roof of their hut or that of another, alone or in company with other boys. Why, only last night he slept on the roof. It is not comfortable to sleep on an inclined roof, but then, boys have their own ideas about comfort.
    Hope entered the woman's mind. She hurried back across the bridge to the other bank.
    The pump-master woman returned with