The Pearl--Chapter 6--Costello

The wind blew fierce and strong, and it pelted them with bits of sticks, sand, and little rocks.

At last, to their right, the waning moon arose, and when it came up the wind died down, and the land was still.

And Kino thrust the pearl back into his clothing, and the music of the pearl had become sinister in his ears, and it was interwoven with the music of evil.

Kino stirred in a dream, and he cried out in a guttural voice, and his hand moved in symbolic fighting.

Kino stirred in a dream, and he cried out in a guttural voice, and his hand moved in symbolic fighting.

Kino did not try to conceal his passage he trotted, kicking the stones, knocking the telltale leaves from the little trees.

But ahead were the naked granite mountains, rising out of erosion rubble and standing monolithic against the sky.

Kino could see them in his mind, slipping along the track, whining a little with eagerness, and behind them, dark and half disinterested, the horseman with the rifle.

The sun moved downward toward the bare stone teeth of the mountains, and Kino set his direction for a dark and shadowy cleft in the range.

And the baby was weary and petulant, and he cried softly until Juana gave him her breast, and then he gurgled and clucked against her.

And then she saw how he hooked his amulet neck-string about the horn handle of his great knife, so that it hung down in front of him and left both hands free.

Any sound that was not germane to the night would make them alert.

He saw his enemy tumble backward into the pool, and Kino strode to the water.

And then Kino's brain cleared from its red concentration and he knew the sound- the keening, moaning, rising hysterical cry from the little cave in the side of the stone mountain, the cry of death.

Their legs moved a little jerkily, like well-made wooden dolls, and they carried pillars of black fear about them.