Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly by James M. Cain Read Free Book Online

Spanish. I think it was pure Aztec. But you could get the drift. I was stealing the car, the viveres , everything they had. Up to then I was nothing but a guy going nuts, and trying to get started in time to get there if we ever were going to get there. But the way they acted gave me an idea. I put her in first, hauled out of there, and kept on going.
    Juana was right after me, screaming at the top of her voice, and jumped on the running board. “You estop! You steal auto! You steal viveres . You estop! You estop now!”
    I did like hell stop. I stayed in first, so she wouldn’t get shaken off, but I kept on over the hill, sounding like a load of tin cans with all that stuff back there, until Mamma and Papa were todo out of sight. Then I threw out and pulled up the brake.
    “Listen, Juana. I’m not stealing your car. I’m not stealing anything—though why the hell you couldn’t have bought allthis stuff in Acapulco where you could get it cheap, instead of loading up here with it, that’s something I don’t quite understand. But get this: Mamma, and Papa and the burro, and that dog—they’re not coming.”
    “Mamma, she cook, she—”
    “Not tonight she doesn’t. Tomorrow maybe we’ll come back and get her, though I doubt it. Tonight I’m off, right now. I’m on my way. Now if you want to come—”
    “So, you steal my car, yes.”
    “Let’s say borrow it. Now make up your mind.”
    I opened the door. She got in. I switched on the lights and we started.
    By that time I would say it was about seven o’clock. It was dark from the clouds, but it still wasn’t night. There was a place down the line called Tierra Colorado that we might make before the storm broke, if I could ever get back to the main road. I had never been there, but it looked like there would be some kind of a hotel, or anyway cover for the car, with all that stuff in it. I began to force. I had to go up the hills in first, but coming down I’d let her go, with just the motor holding her. It was rough, but the clock said 20, which was pretty good. Well, you take a chance on a road like that, you’re headed for a fall. All of a sudden there was a crash and a jerk, and we stopped. I pedaled the throttle. The motor was dead. I pulled the starter, and she went. We had just hit a rock, and stalled. But after that I had to go slower.
    Up to then I was still sweating from the air and the work. So was she. Then we topped a rise and it was like we had driven into an icebox. She shivered and buttoned her dress. I had just about decided I would have to stop and put on my coat when we drove into it. No sheet of water, nothing like that. It just started to rain, but it was driving in on her side, and I pulled up. I put on my coat, then made her get out and lifted up the seat to get the side curtains. I felt around in there with my hand. There wasn’t a wrench, a jack, or tool of any kind, and not a piece of a side curtain.
    “Nice garage you picked.”
    In Mexico you even have to have a lock on your gasoline tank. It was a wonder they hadn’t even stripped her of the lights.
    We got in and started off. By now it was raining hard, and most of it coming in on her. While I was hunting for curtains she had dug out a couple of rebozos and wrapped them around her, but even that woven stuff stuck to her like she had just come out of a swimming pool. “Here. You better take my coat.”
    “No, gracias.”
    It seemed funny, in the middle of all that, to hear that soft voice, those Indian manners.
    The dust had turned to grease, and off to the right, down near the sea, you could hear the rumble of thunder, how far off you couldn’t tell, with the car making all that noise. I wrestled her along. Every tilt down was a skid, every tilt up was a battle, and every level piece was a wrench, where you were lifting her out of holes she went in, up to her axles. We were sliding around a knob with the hill hanging over us on one side, and dropping under us on the