Chapter 6
The two barefoot Mexican youths came trudging up the beach from the South shortly after breakfast. Both were relatively clean, except for the dust of their journey, and were dressed in coastal Baja California "Sunday best," which is to say that they wore black gabardine pants and white, embroidered, muslin shirts.
They had, the older one told George Henry who intercepted them at the camps perimeter, walked all day yesterday from sunup and from first light this morning to reach San Felipe. There was no work in their village some fifty kilometers to the South. The younger boy had smiled a mouthful of white teeth and twisted his sombrero in his hands, shrugging, "There has been no work, senor, for these ten months past."
George searched their faces carefully. They looked honest but, of course, one could never tell in this nomadic-Indian society that scrounged out a bare survival living in and around the area. They would have no second thoughts of stealing everything - even murdering if necessary. They had laws and morals of their own - quite different from the University scotch and soda, television, swimming pool, and automobile community - laws that were designed to allow the natives to exist in harmony with their environment. If these two had walked for a day and a half searching for work, then that was a definite plus point in their favor.
"Wait," he said, then turned and started toward the headquarters tent where John Dunn was giving dictation to Jean Pepper. Neither George nor Jean acted as if anything other than polite conversation had ever passed between them; actually, they both had been so nonchalant at breakfast that Carolyn almost believed for a moment she had dreamed the entire episode on the beach the night before.
George said, "John, I have a couple of boys outside. They say they walked all the way from Puerto Calizona. Said they heard we were setting up camp and were hiring helpers."
John hesitated for a moment. They could use help and they would be hiring Mexican assistants within a few days anyway. "Do you think they're telling the truth?" he asked.
George shrugged and grinned, then added quickly, "It's hard to tell. We could watch them, though, for the first couple of days. And Paul and I really could use some help off-loading supplies when the Cr47 lands at El Silla this afternoon."
John deliberated, weighing the possibilities. If the boys were honest, they definitely would be an asset to the camp. That would mean the turtle hunter banditos would be facing eight people instead of four; it just might shift the odds in the camp's favor. Abruptly, he decided to rely on George's judgment of the. Mexican youths. There was no denying that Paul and George would need help when the University's transport plane unloaded at the seldom used 2500 foot military emergency landing field fifteen kilometers to the south. Finally he nodded and said, "Okay. Use your own judgment. It's all right with me." Then as an afterthought, he added, "Sweeten the pot a bit, pay them a little more than we had planned to at first. Make sure they understand, though, that this is more than we'll be able to pay later on."
"Right." George turned, ducked his head down to avoid the low entrance way and went back to the beach where the boys were lying with sombreros over their faces. He sat down cross-legged in the sand and bargained for another five minutes before agreeing to hire them on a trial basis. "Are you too weary from your long journey to begin working in, let us say, two hours?" he asked in Spanish.
Manuel, the older boy, smiled broadly. "Senor, we are ready to start now, if you will but give the command," he answered.
Two hours later Margaret, sitting in front of her tent, saw the three-quarter ton Land Rover Special and trailer pull out of the camp with Paul and George in the front and the two Mexican youths in the back. It was Paul, though, who drew most of Margaret's attention. There had been something - some "aura" of unease - between the stocky young scientist and Carolyn at breakfast this morning. It was almost as if something had happened between the two . . . an argument, a disagreement. That had been her first evaluation of the situation, but then she had a good look at Carolyn's determined expression. It was almost as if her blonde daughter was daring or taunting him, and the "aura" was more of sexual electricity than anger. Margaret was reluctant to put her feelings into words, but the phrase "lover's quarrel" kept surfacing in her mind. "Lord, I hope not," Margaret said to herself. "That's all I need right now, to have Carolyn go off the deep end for Paul." Since that afternoon a month ago when she had caught the two kids together in the bedroom, she'd had no doubt that her daughter was a healthy young woman with a healthy woman's physical needs . . . and that the morality of these needs did not enter into it. They grow up so rapidly these days, she thought wearily, knowing it was only a matter of time before Carolyn took the bit in her teeth and became intimate with some boy or man. She supposed she - like so many other mothers of girls Carolyn's age - should have volunteered to get birth control pills for her daughter. Yet, wasn't that the equivalent of a parental seal of approval, of condoning in advance anything the girl wanted to do?
Margaret watched as Carolyn walked from the kitchen tent to the beach. Yes, there was no doubt about the girl's ripe lovely young femaleness; she was wearing that too revealing bikini again today, showing off her trim young buttocks and long lithe legs. Margaret sighed deeply and supposed she had better start getting used to it. Jean Pepper came out of the headquarters tent and moved through the sunlight to her own tent, the shadow of her own lush figure dancing alongside her. Now there was another one who wore her clothes too tight, the female judge thought, only in Jean's case she knew the secretary wore them that way for one reason only: to attract males, to advertise her wares.
Listlessly she wondered if John and Jean had ever been intimate. She decided they undoubtedly had been and was surprised that she felt a twinge of jealousy. Once again she wished, as she had so many times in the past, that things were different between John and her. It was obvious that both her daughter and husband thought she was completely frigid, yet there had been a time once when she was as restlessly excited about sex as Carolyn was today. Her mind drifting back to Carolyn's particular situation again, Margaret decided that if her daughter simply must get intimately involved with someone, then she would rather it be Paul Ford than Charlie Webb or some other casual teen-age acquaintance. Paul, at least, had sense enough to see that the right precautions were taken and would make sure the girl wasn't hurt emotionally by the ordeal. And if it must happen, then she, Margaret, would just as soon not know anything about it. "Just keep me in ignorance, dear Lord," she mused aloud as she started toward the kitchen tent to prepare lunch, "just keep me in ignorance."
Carolyn, too, had seen the Rover truck and trailer pull out of the camp as it headed for the airstrip fifteen kilometers away. She had asked George for permission to go along, but had been turned down because of lack of room. Now, lying on the sand, she was bored. There wasn't anything for her to do. She couldn't go swimming by herself, or hiking. Jean would be tied up with her father for the best part of the morning; it would be lunch time before she was free. No work was ever done between one and four - siesta time - and Jean had K.P. cooking duties tonight, so it would be tomorrow before they could even start work on the darkroom. Carolyn sighed miserably, staring out across the empty lagoon, then lay belly down in the warm white sand, yawned, and closed her eyes. After a moment, she loosened the bra strap so her back would tan evenly. She began thinking about Paul Ford. He had refused to look at her this morning, in spite of everything she did to attract his attention. That was okay, she still hadn't figured out the exact approach she planned to use with him. The two Mexican boys who had been hired just a couple of hours ago had been unable to disguise their admiration for her blonde loveliness. Actually, the way the older one - what was his name? Oh yes, Manuel - was looking at her had sent a little shiver of fright down her spine. It wasn't a mean or vicious look, just one so rapaciously sexual that she knew she must never, never, under any circumstances, go anyplace alone with him or permit him to find her alone. Maybe, she thought sleepily as the burning rays of the sun acted as a soporific, I can use him to make Paul Ford jealous.
Back in her tent, Jean lay down on the bunk for a minute, trying unsuccessfully to fight the lethargy she felt. It had been after one o'clock before she and George got back to the camp, and they hadn't wasted a minute of the three and a half hours spent on the beach. Both were bushed! It had been pure torture to get up this morning, and John had worked hell out of her ... as though the lovable son of a bitch had all the energy in the world. He couldn't fool her, though, Jean thought; it must have been an act! After all, he had been so hot the night before that he was about to rape her . . . and now there was that sexy wife of his to keep him company. Margaret had the kind of body that took a lot of loving to keep happy, Jean decided, and so John must have been really fucked out this morning but didn't want anyone to know it. "Men," she said with a yawn, then closed her eyes.
John worked steadily all morning, needing something to keep his mind off Jean Pepper's body so enticingly close to him. She looked tired and seemed dragged out. He thought about it and decided she must be having her period. At eleven, after Jean had - for the fifth time - missed part of his rapid fire dictation because she was yawning so prodigiously, he told her to go take a nap. She went, happily, and without argument.
It was almost noon when he heard Carolyn's faint scream from the beach area. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and grabbing the rifle that stood beside his desk. Running toward the doorway, he ducked his head to clear the entrance and had just started to stand upright again when he saw the three figures outside. "What are you . . ." he began, but that was as far as he went, for at that moment a rifle butt thudded down on the back of his head. The world exploded in a sudden red flash and John felt himself falling, falling, falling into a bottomless dark tunnel whose black walls opened up to receive him.
Jean Pepper sat bolt upright in bed from a deep sleep as she heard Margaret's shrill scream of terror. She ran toward the door and saw Margaret struggling with two men and John's seemingly lifeless figure lying in a gathering puddle of blood outside the headquarters tent. "John," she yelled, and had started toward him when a vile-smelling burlap sack was yanked over her head. Helplessly she struggled, screaming all the time, while they tied the bag around her waist - imprisoning her hands. Then she felt herself picked up, tossed over a shoulder, and being carried away.