Gringos by Charles Portis Page A

mule.”
    â€œI can’t imagine her putting up with that.”
    â€œWell, she did. She wasn’t hard then. Just a little pale Southern lily with a love for those travel books of John Stephens.”
    Lorena came back and yes, it was the pistola he had asked for. Gun, holster, belt, the whole business coiled up on a wooden tray. She held it forward, not wanting to touch it. Doc said, “ Por mi amigo Jaime, ” and so she served it up to me, a .45 automatic on a platter.
    Until very recently he had worn this big-bore pistol openly around town, and he always carried it in the bush. At our campsite, just before turning in at night, he would fire it twice into the air. This was an announcement to anyone who might be in the woods nearby. Here we are. We’re armed and we’re not taking any crap . Or sometimes I fired my shotgun, or Refugio his army rifle, an old Argentine Mauser with a bolt handle that stuck straight out.
    I slipped the pistol out of the holster. Most of the blueing was gone, and there was a lot of play in the slide. It still looked good. The 1911 aeroplanes and the 1911 typewriters were now comic exhibits in museums, but this 1911 Colt still looked just right. It hadn’t aged a day. The clip was crammed from top to bottom with short fat cartridges. I shucked a couple of them out.
    â€œYou’ll weaken the spring,” I said. “Leaving it fully loaded like that.”
    â€œDamn the spring. Put them back. I like it full.”
    So, he was disposing of his things.
    â€œThis is for me?”
    â€œNo, no, not the gun. That’s for Refugio. I want you to see that he gets it. My binoculars too, if I can ever find them, and all my field gear. I’m putting some stuff together in boxes for him, but the pistol is the main thing. You know how he admires it.”
    Not the gun . So. I was to get something else. He was clearing the small bequests out of the way first. I saw where this was leading, I was staggered. Flandin is going to leave me this big white house. There was no one else. Nan was gone, as was his first wife, and the blind sister in Los Angeles. Mrs. Blaney, an old friend of Nan’s, was here on sufferance. I didn’t see Doc as much of a public benefactor. It was unlikely that he would endow an orphanage or set up a trust to provide free band concerts for the people of Mérida. All his old cronies were gone except for Professor Camacho Puut, who, properly, would get the library and the relic collection. That left me. I had served him well. My reward was to be Izamál.
    Mrs. Blaney poked her head into the room. Always looming and hovering, this woman. “Oh. I thought you had gone, Mr. Burns. Don Ricardo usually has his nap at this time.”
    â€œNo, I’m still here.”
    Doc said, “It’s all right, Lucille. We’re talking business.”
    â€œOh. Well, then. I’ll just—leave you two.”
    She left and I asked him if she knew about the cancer.
    â€œNot yet but she suspects something.”
    That meant she probably did know. Nothing was said about the house. We got down to my instructions. Dr. Solís was to send for me the moment that he, Flandin, died. There would be no lingering decline in a hospital. He would die in this room. I would come at once and stand guard by his bed, allowing no one to move his body for thirty-six hours.
    â€œAre you willing to do that? Without asking a lot of questions? Don’t humor me along now. I want an honest answer.”
    â€œYes, I can do that. Do you mean exactly thirty-six hours?”
    â€œNo less than that. I want your solemn word.”
    â€œYou have it. What else? What about the funeral?”
    â€œI’ve already gone over that with Huerta. You just do your job. You just make sure I’m dead.”
    He was afraid of being buried alive. A childhood nightmare of screaming and clawing and tossing about in a dark box. It wasn’t an unreasonable