Death in the Andes Read Online Free Page A

cursed. In the semidarkness Tomás saw the naked man turn around, swearing. A small lantern hung from a nail in the wall, making crazed shadows. The man was enveloped in mosquito netting, pawing at it, trying to get free, and Tomás looked into the woman’s frightened eyes.
    â€œDon’t hit her anymore, señor,” he implored. “I won’t permit it.”
    â€œYou said a dumb thing like that to him?” Lituma mocked. “And to top it off, you called him señor?”
    â€œI don’t think he heard me,” said the boy. “Maybe nothing came out of my mouth, maybe I was talking to myself.”
    The man found what he was looking for, and in a half-sitting position, still wrapped in mosquito netting and held back by the woman, he took aim, growling curses as if to encourage himself. It seemed to Tomás that shots were fired before he squeezed the trigger, but no, it was his gun that fired first. He heard the man howl at the same time that he saw him fall backward, dropping the pistol, cringing. The boy took two steps toward the bed. Half of Hog’s body had slipped off the far side. His legs were still crossed on top of the sheet. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t the one who was screaming, it was the woman.
    â€œDon’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” she shrieked in terror, covering her face, twisting around, shielding her body with her arms and legs.
    â€œWhat are you saying, Tomasito?” Lituma was stunned. “Do you mean you shot him?”
    â€œShut up!” the boy commanded. Now he could breathe. The tumult in his chest had quieted. The man’s legs slid to the floor, dragging down part of the mosquito netting. He heard him groan very quietly.
    â€œYou mean you killed him?” Lituma insisted. He leaned on one elbow, still trying to see his adjutant’s face in the darkness.
    â€œBut aren’t you one of the bodyguards?” The woman stared at him, blinking, uncomprehending. Now there was utter confusion in her eyes as well as animal fear. “Why’d you do it?”
    She was trying to cover herself, crouching over, raising a bloodstained blanket. She showed it to him, accusing him.
    â€œI couldn’t take it anymore,” Tomasito said. “I couldn’t stand him hitting you and enjoying it like that. He almost killed you.”
    â€œI’ll be damned,” Lituma exclaimed, bursting into laughter.
    â€œWhat? What did you say?” The woman was recovering from the shock, and her voice was firmer. Tomás saw her scramble off the bed, saw her stumble, saw her silhouette redden for a moment as she passed beneath the light, saw her, in control of herself now and full of energy, begin to pull on clothes she picked up from the floor, talking all the while: “That’s why you shot him? Because he was hitting me? Since when is that any of your business? Just tell me that. Who do you think you are? Who asked you to take care of me? Just tell me that.”
    Before he could answer, Tomás heard Iscariote running and calling in a bewildered voice: “Carreño? Carreñito?” The stairs shook as he pounded up them, and the door opened wide. There he was, shaped like a barrel, filling up the doorway. He looked at him, looked at the woman, at the rumpled bed, at the blanket, at the fallen mosquito netting. He was holding a revolver in his hand, shifting heavily from one foot to the other.
    â€œI don’t know,” murmured the boy, struggling against the mineral substance his tongue had become. The partially obscured body was moving on the wooden floor. But not groaning anymore.
    â€œYou whore, what’s going on?” Fats Iscariote was panting, his eyes bulging like a grasshopper’s. “What happened, Carreñito?”
    The woman had finished dressing and was slipping on her shoes, moving first one leg, then the other. As if it were a dream, Tomás recognized the flowered white