The Damned by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

good sense to take them on and hope you could keep them. If you were a “white man” in the valley, it was O.K. to sleep with Mex gals, if your taste ran that way, but you surer than hell didn’t marry them.
    And so it had taken Dad about two years to get over the loss of his wife, fall in love with Rosa, and marry her. Now Dad could be amused in a quiet way about the way the valley had treated him after that little social error. But he had told Bill in recent years that, at the time, he was pretty bitter about it. And he didn’t want any mark left on Bill, or on Rosa’s kids. So he had sold out and moved down into Mexico with Bill and the pregnant Rosa. He had bought the spread near Mante, and made application to become an immigrante, and after a few years the papers came through, and Dad was a Mexican citizen. It had taken quite a bit of trouble to get Bill established on a residente basis, with special permission to work, while still retaining his United States citizenship.
    Dad had prospered in Mexico. Rosa gave birth to five children. The big house had always been full of the warmth that comes only from love. Music and much laughter and hard work. Dad had always spoken to Bill in English, and so, when Bill had been sent up to a private school in Houston, and later had gone to Texas A. and M. for the agriculture courses, he had but slight trouble with languages.
    And now, at twenty-five, he was perfectly content with his life, perfectly adjusted. His eldest half-sister had recently married and they were building a house on the Danton land. Rosa, at forty-two, was slim as a girl. Dad, burly, white-haired, was head of the local association in Mante, and was looked up to throughout the area.
    Bill imagined that one day he would marry. The girl would undoubtedly be Mexican. But he was in no hurry.
    Bill had two personalities. As he sat on his heels in the little group, his mobility of face, the quick gestures of his hands were completely Mexican. When he spoke English it was with a lazy slow drawl, with a certain impassivity of face, with slow infrequent gestures of his big hands. He made the switch from one personality to the other without effort, without conscious thought. When he listened to the tourists complain about the reluctant ferry, he was aware that in his American frame of mind, he would be almost equally irritated. But, as a Mexican, he knew that since one obviously couldn’t carry the pickup truck across the river on one’s back, and since the men of the ferry were doing as well as they could, it was wise to relax, to make small jokes. It could take another hour, or another day. Quién sabe? The cultivator and the largest tractor would remain idle for a longer period. So? When one must wait, it is well to accept the fact.
    Tree shadows were lengthening, and he squinted his eyes against a swirl of dust picked up by a breeze that had scudded across the river, ruffling the water.
    Pepe came back and squatted beside him. He sighed elaborately. “One could grow a long beard while waiting.”
    Bill grinned. “I think Carmelita will still be in Mante by the time we get back, amigo.”
    “Ai! I concern myself with this delay because I am a loyal employee, and become accused of the silliness of love.” He changed the subject. “That shouting some minutes ago was because one tourist lady has been taken ill, and has been carried into the store.”
    “Too much sun?”
    “Something else, I think. Something bad, with a grinding of the teeth. She is the mother of the young man we saw, the one with the glasses who walked with the beautiful girl with the light hair. After the mother was carried in, they spoke together and the man with the glasses struck the girl in front of everyone. It was very ugly and very curious. I did not understand it. If she is his wife, he has a privilege to beat her, but it is better done when alone, I believe. And the boy who swam, he was swimming for a doctor, and came back, you will