The Bridge in the Jungle Read Free

which, although built Indian fashion, was higher and larger than the rest. It was located at the end of the settlement, and behind it there was a crudely built corral. No other hut as far as I could see had a similar corral.
    So I rode up to that hut which boasted a corral and, obeying the customs of the land, halted my horse respectfully about twenty yards away to wait until one of the inhabitants would notice my presence.
    Like all the other jacales, it had no door — only an opening against which, at night, a sort of network of twigs and sticks was set from the inside and tied to the posts. The walls were made of sticks tied together with strips of bast and Manas. Therefore if a visitor didn't wait some distance from the house until he was invited in he might find the inhabitants in very embarrassing situations.
    I had waited only a minute before an Indian woman appeared. She looked me over, said: 'Buenas tardes, senor!' and then: 'Pase, senor, this humble house is yours.'
    I dismounted, tied horse and mule to a tree, and entered the hut. I found the Indian woman who had greeted me to be the wife of my old acquaintance Sleigh. After recognizing me she repeated her greeting more cordially. I had to sit down in a creaking old wicker chair which was obviously the pride of the house. She told me that her husband would be here any minute now. He was out on the prairie trying to catch a young steer which had to be doctored because it had been gored by an older bull and now had festering wounds.
    It was not long before I heard Sleigh ordering a boy to open the gate of the corral and drive the steer in.
    He came in. Without showing even the slightest surprise he shook hands with me and then dropped into a very low, crude chair.
    'Haven't you got a paper with you? Damn if I've read or seen any paper for eight months, and believe me, man, I'd like to know what's going on outside.'
    'I've got the San Antonio Express with me. Sweat-soaked and crumpled. It's five weeks old.'
    'Five weeks? Hombre, then I call it still hot from the press. Hand it over!'
    He asked his wife for his spectacles, which she pulled out of the palm leaves of the roof. He put them on in a slow, almost ceremonious manner. While he was fixing them carefully upon his ears he said: 'Aurelia, get the caballero something to eat, he is hungry.'
    Of each page he read two lines. He then nodded as if he wished to approve what had been said in the paper. Now he folded it contemplatively as if he were still digesting the lines he had read, took off his specs, stood up, put the glasses again somewhere between the palm leaves under the roof, and finally pushed the folded paper behind a stick pressed against the wall, without saying thanks. He returned to his seat, folded his hands, and said: 'Damn it, it's a real treat to read a paper again and to know what is going on in the world.'
    His desire for a newspaper had been fully satisfied just by looking at one, so that he could rest assured that the people back home were still printing them. Suppose he had read that half of the United States and all of Canada had disappeared from the surface of the earth, I am sure he would have said: 'Gosh, now what do you make of that? I didn't feel anything here. Anyway, things like that do happen sometimes, don't they?' Most likely he would not have shown any sign of surprise. He was that kind of an individual.
    'I'm here to get alligators.'
    'After alligators, you said? Great. There are thousands here. I wish you'd get them all. I can't get them away from my calves and my young steers. They make so damn much trouble. What's worse, the old man blames me. He tells the whole world that I'm selling his young cows and pocketing all the money, while in fact the alligators get them and the tigers and the lions, of which the jungle is packed full. I can tell you, the old man that owns this property, he is a mean one. How can I sell a cow, even a very young one, or anything else, without everybody