For Whom The Bell Tolls

Well, today will be very interesting or very dull. Thank God we've got that cavalry mount out and away from here. I don't think even if they ride right up here they will go in the way those tracks are now. They'll think he stopped and circled and they'll pick up Pablo's tracks. I wonder where the old swine will go. He'll probably leave tracks like an old bull elk spooking out of the country and work way up and then when the snow melts circle back below. That horse certainly did things for him. Of course he may have just mucked off with him too. Well, he should be able to take care of himself. He's been doing this a long time. I wouldn't trust him farther than you can throw Mount Everest, though.

I suppose it's smarter to use these rocks and build a good blind for this gun than to make a proper emplacement for it. You'd be digging and get caught with your pants down if they come or if the planes come. She will hold this, the way she is, as long as it is any use to hold it, and anyway I can't stay to fight. I have to get out of here with that stuff and I'm going to take Anselmo with me. Who would stay to cover us while we got away if we have to fight here?

Just then, while he was watching all of the country that was visible, he saw the gypsy coming through the rocks to the left. He was walking with a loose, high-hipped, sloppy swing, his carbine was slung on his back, his brown face was grinning and he carried two big hares, one in each hand. He carried them by the legs, heads swinging.

"Hola, Roberto," he called cheerfully.

Robert Jordan put his hand to his mouth, and the gypsy looked startled. He slid over behind the rocks to where Robert Jordan was crouched beside the brush-shielded automatic rifle. He crouched down and laid the hares in the snow. Robert Jordan looked up at him.

"You hijo de la gran puta!" he said softly. "Where the obscenity have you been?"

"I tracked them," the gypsy said. "I got them both. They had made love in the snow."

"And thy post?"

"It was not for long," the gypsy whispered. "What passes? Is there an alarm?"

"There is cavalry out."

"Redios!" the gypsy said. "Hast thou seen them?"

"There is one at the camp now," Robert Jordan said. "He came for breakfast."

"I thought I heard a shot or something like one," the gypsy said. "I obscenity in the milk! Did he come through here?"

"Here. Thy post."

"Ay, mi madre!" the gypsy said. "I am a poor, unlucky man."

"If thou wert not a gypsy, I would shoot thee."

"No, Roberto. Don't say that. I am sorry. It was the hares. Before daylight I heard the male thumping in the snow. You cannot imagine what a debauch they were engaged in. I went toward the noise but they were gone. I followed the tracks in the snow and high up I found them together and slew them both. Feel the fatness of the two for this time of year. Think what the Pilar will do with those two. I am sorry, Roberto, as sorry as thee. Was the cavalryman killed?"

"Yes."

"By thee?"

"Yes."

"Que tio!" the gypsy said in open flattery. "Thou art a veritable phenomenon."

"Thy mother!" Robert Jordan said. He could not help grinning at the gypsy. "Take thy hares to camp and bring us up some breakfast."

He put a hand out and felt of the hares that lay limp, long, heavy, thick-furred, big-footed and long-eared in the snow, their round dark eyes open.

"They are fat," he said.

"Fat!" the gypsy said. "There's a tub of lard on the ribs of each one. In my life have I never dreamed of such hares."

"Go then," Robert Jordan said, "and come quickly with the breakfast and bring to me the documentation of that requete. Ask Pilar for it."

"You are not angry with me, Roberto?"

"Not angry. Disgusted that you should leave your post. Suppose it had been a troop of cavalry?"

"Redios," the gypsy said. "How reasonable you are."

"Listen to me. You cannot leave a post again like that. Never. I do not speak of shooting lightly."

"Of course not. And another thing. Never would such an opportunity as the two hares present itself again. Not in the life of one man."

"Anda!" Robert Jordan said. "And hurry back."

The gypsy picked up the two hares and slipped back through the rocks and Robert Jordan looked out across the flat opening and the slopes of the hill below. Two crows circled overhead and then lit in a pine tree below. Another crow joined them and Robert Jordan, watching them, thought: those are my sentinels. As long as those are quiet there is no one coming through the trees.