«They are all good,» said Pablo. «You know horses?»
«Yes.»
«Less bad,» said Pablo. «Do you see a defect in one of these?»
Robert Jordan knew that now his papers were being examined by the man who could not read.
The horses all still had their heads up looking at the man. Robert Jordan slipped through between the double rope of the corral and slapped the buckskin on the haunch. He leaned back against the ropes of the enclosure and watched the horses circle the corral, stood watching them a minute more, as they stood still, then leaned down and came out through the ropes.
«The sorrel is lame in the off hind foot,» he said to Pablo, not looking at him. «The hoof is split and although it might not get worse soon if shod properly, she could break down if she travels over much hard ground.»
«The hoof was like that when we took her,» Pablo said.
«The best horse that you have, the white-faced bay stallion, has a swelling on the upper part of the cannon bone that I do not like.»
«It is nothing,» said Pablo. «He knocked it three days ago. If it were to be anything it would have become so already.»
He pulled back the tarpaulin and showed the saddles. There were two ordinary vaquero’s or herdsman’s saddles, like American stock saddles, one very ornate vaquero’s saddle, with hand-tooled leather and heavy, hooded stirrups, and two military saddles in black leather.
«We killed a pair of ‘guardia civil’,» he said, explaining the military saddles.
«That is big game.»
«They had dismounted on the road between Segovia and Santa Maria del Real. They had dismounted to ask papers of the driver of a cart. We were able to kill them without injuring the horses.»
«Have you killed many civil guards?» Robert Jordan asked.
«Several,» Pablo said. «But only these two without injury to the horses.»
«It was Pablo who blew up the train at Arevalo,» Anselmo said. «That was Pablo.»
«There was a foreigner with us who made the explosion,» Pablo said. «Do you know him?»
«What is he called?»
«I do not remember. It was a very rare name.»
«What did he look like?»
«He was fair, as you are, but not as tall and with large hands and a broken nose.»
«Kashkin,» Robert Jordan said. «That would be Kashkin.»
«Yes,» said Pablo. «It was a very rare name. Something like that. What has become of him?»
«He is dead since April.»
«That is what happens to everybody,» Pablo said, gloomily. «That is the way we will all finish.»
«That is the way all men end,» Anselmo said. «That is the way men have always ended. What is the matter with you, man? What hast thou in the stomach?»
«They are very strong,» Pablo said. It was as though he were talking to himself. He looked at the horses gloomily. «You do not realize how strong they are. I see them always stronget always better armed. Always with more material. Here am I with horses like these. And what can I look forward to? To be hunted and to die. Nothing more.»
«You hunt as much as you are hunted,» Anselmo said.
«No,» said Pablo. «Not any more. And if we leave these mountains now, where can we go? Answer me that? Where now?»
«In Spain there are many mountains. There are the Sierra de Gredos if one leaves here.»
«Not for me,» Pablo said. «I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?» He turned to Robert Jordan. «What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?»
«I have not told you anything you must do,» Robert Jordan said to him.
«You will though,» Pablo said. «There. There is the badness.»
He pointed at the two heavy packs that they had lowered to the ground while they had watched the horses. Seeing the horses had seemed to bring this all to a head in him and seeing that Robert Jordan knew horses had seemed to loosen his tongue. The three of them stood now by the rope corral and the patchy sunlight shone on the coat of the bay stallion. Pablo looked at him and then pushed with his foot against the heavy pack. «There is the badness.»
«I come only for my duty,» Robert Jordan told him. «I come under orders from those who are conducting the war. If I ask you to help me, you can refuse and I will find others who will help me. I have not even asked you for help yet. I have to do what I am ordered to do and I can promise you of its importance. That I am a foreigner is not my fault. I would rather have been born here.»
«To me, now, the most important is that we be not disturbed here,» Pablo said. «To me, now, my duty is to those who are with me and to myself.»
«Thyself. Yes,» Anselmo said. «Thyself now since a long time. Thyself and thy horses. Until thou hadst horses thou wert with us. Now thou art another capitalist more.»
«That is unjust,» said Pablo. «I expose the horses all the time for the cause.»
«Very little,» said Anselmo scornfully. «Very little in my judgment. To steal, yes. To eat well, yes. To murder, yes. To fight, no.»
«You are an old man who will make himself trouble with his mouth.»
«I am an old man who is afraid of no one,» Anselmo told him. «Also I am an old man without horses.»
«You are an old man who may not live long.»
«I am an old man who will live until I die,» Anselmo said. «And I am not afraid of foxes.»
Pablo said nothing but picked up the pack.
«Nor of wolves either,» Anselmo said, picking up the other pack. «If thou art a wolf.»
«Shut thy mouth,» Pablo said to him. «Thou art an old man who always talks too much.»
«And would do whatever he said he would do,» Anselmo said, bent under the pack. «And who now is hungry. And thirsty. Go on, guerilla leader with the sad face. Lead us to something to eat.»
It is starting badly enough, Robert Jordan thought. But Anselmo’s a man. They are wonderful when they are good, he thought. There is no people like them when they are good and when they go bad there is no people that is worse. Anselmo must have known what he was doing when he brought us here. But I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it.
The only good sign was that Pablo was carrying the pack and that he had given him the carbine. Perhaps he is always like that, Robert Jordan thought. Maybe he is just one of the gloomy ones.
No, he said to himself, don’t fool yourself. You do not know how he was before; but you do know that he is going bad fast and without hiding it. When he starts to hide it he will have made a decision. Remember that, he told himself. The first friendly thing he does, he will have made a decision. They are awfully good horses, though, he thought, beautiful horses. I wonder what could make me feel the way those horses make Pablo feel. The old man was right. The horses made him rich and as soon as he was rich he wanted to enjoy life. Pretty soon he’ll feel bad because he can’t join the Jockey Club, I guess, he thought. Pauvre Pablo. Il a manqué son Jockey.
That idea made him feel better. He grinned, looking at the two bent backs and the big packs ahead of him moving through the trees. He had not made any jokes with himself all day and now that he had made one he felt much better. You’re getting to be as all the rest of them, he told himself. You’re getting gloomy, too. He’d certainly been solemn and gloomy with Golz. The job had overwhelmed him a little. Slightly overwhelmed, he thought. Plenty overwhelmed. Golz was gay and he had wanted him to be gay too before he left, but he hadn’t been.
All the best ones, when you thought it over, were gay. It was much better to be gay and it was a sign of something too. It was like having immortality while you were still alive. That was a complicated one. There were not many of them left though. No, there were not many of the gay ones left. There were very damned few of them left. And if you keep on thinking like that, my boy, you won’t be left either. Turn off the thinking now, old timer, old comrade. You’re a bridge-blower now. Not a thinker. Man, I’m hungry, he thought. I hope Pablo eats well.
2
They had come through the heavy timber to the cup-shaped upper end of the little valley and he saw where the camp must be under the rim-rock that rose ahead of them through the trees.
That was the camp all right and it was a good camp. You did not see it at all until you were up to it and Robert Jordan knew it could not be spotted from the air. Nothing would show from above. It was as well hidden as a bear’s den. But it seemed to be little better guarded. He looked at it carefully as they came up.
There was a large
